State of Decay is available now on Steam Early Access for $20. The open-world zombie apocalypse game tasks players with scavenging supplies and building up a base while balancing the needs and relationships of other survivors. It’s just like The Walking Dead TV show, but without mid-season breaks. State of Decay launches on Early Access without keyboard and mouse support, so folks without a controller hooked up to their PCs should probably not jump into the work in progress. In a blog post, community manager Sanya Weathers warned that the Early Access version of the game is going to have issues until Undead Labs can bring up to full release state.
This process is not for everyone. Casual players, the easily frustrated, and the short of time should NOT get the Early Access version. Hey, I am all three of those things, y’all. Those are not criticisms. It’s just that we want everyone to have the experience that best suits their needs. You all deserve the best, so if you’re not into giving feedback, just wait a few months and play the final version after we make it great.
Tom liked State of Decay’s risk/reward challenge. He didn’t much care for the way in-game time passes when you aren’t playing the game.
Microsoft’s Albert Penello admitted that the E3 vision for the Xbox One will not be a reality at launch for many customers. Speaking to IGN during the Tokyo Game Show, Penello said that he understands some of the criticism that gamers have regarding the Xbox One’s TV and media functionality.
“TV, if you want to continue, would be another criticism. We talk a lot about TV and that’s only going to work basically in Japan and the U.S. at launch where you have HDMI-in scenarios, so you’ll say ‘hey, what if I have a terrestrial over the air?’ We won’t have a solution for that right away, but we still sell it as part of the vision. So it’s honest criticism and you’d love to have the new launch be everything that you had before and more, but unfortunately it’s an untenable [proposition].”
Albert Penello explained that realizing the Xbox One’s promise of being an all-inclusive entertainment hub is dependent on a number of factors, including the different global standards for television delivery.
I never thought I would type the following words: Maybe I’ve been playing too much Saints Row IV. Because when I read that the latest DLC for Metro Last Light includes a bicycle shotgun, it didn’t occur to me it was a shotgun made from bicycle parts. But that’s exactly the design by Alexandre Bannwarth from New Zealand, whose “design your own weapon” contest submission was chosen by Metro developer 4A to be part of the latest DLC.
The Developer’s Pack DLC also includes a shooting range with challenges for each weapon, a spider’s nest level with a new flamethrower, and an AI arena where you can set up battles. It’s available for $4 on its own, or as the third of four sets of DLC included in the season’s pass.
Dead Rising 3 will have multiplayer cooperative zombie killing with new features. Capcom announced the co-op elements of their open-world Xbox One zombie smasher and introduced Dick, the new co-op truck driver character that can accompany Nick as he battles through the undead hordes of Los Peridos. Unlike previous Dead Rising co-op experiences, both players can run off in different directions because they will no longer be limited by an invisible tether. Gamers should also be pleased to hear that they won’t have to repeat missions if they alternate between modes.
Awesomely, the game will save whatever progress you achieve in coop, even when you revert back to single-player. This adds a unique nonlinear element to the game’s story progression. If you’re still in the middle of Chapter 1 but you join your friend’s game online and clear Chapter 3 together, Chapter 3 will become cleared on your own save file, meaning that once you clear Chapters 1 and 2, you’ll have the option of skipping 3.
Dead Rising 3 launches on November 22nd. And no, I couldn’t resist a Dick joke in the title.
Indie developer Matt Round has made a text adventure game in which you play the infamous man-eating shark. Jaws: The Text Adventure takes gamers into the mind of the ocean predator as he hunts for victims and gets into various scenarios. John Williams music not included.
For the following press release, imagine Sam Kinison’s voice and his intermittent screaming:
Let’s Sing and Dance combines singing and dancing at the same time. Featuring songs such as Like A G6 by Far East Movement, LMFAO’s Party Rock Anthem or Moves Like Jagger by Maroon 5 (feat. Christina Aguilera), up to two players can dance to professional choreographies to their favorite super hits, while an unlimited number of singers can support them in the background. Using Kinect for Xbox 360, Let’s Sing and Dance scores the players’ dance moves as well as their singing performances.
Let’s Sing and Dance is out October 9th for Xboxs with Kinect. It’s ten dollars. And just to clarify, they don’t pay you the ten dollars.
Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning is closing down. Mythic Entertainment’s embattled MMO based on the Games Workshop fantasy license will be turned off on December 18th. Producer Carrie Gouskos broke the news in a reflective letter to the community.
Games Workshop has cultivated a world class IP. We were lucky enough to play in their universe for nearly a decade, with five great long years live. However, like all things – our contract has come to an end. Both Games Workshop and Mythic agreed to part ways, despite how hard it is emotionally on us to let the game go. It has been a tremendous honor to work with Games Workshop and even though we may be parting ways, our relationship with them remains strong.
According to a notice emailed to subscribers, players will no longer have the opportunity to purchase three month access codes or auto-renew for three month blocks starting today. Warhammer Online launched in September 2008.
Earlier in the month, actor Vin Diesel teased the announcement of a new Riddick game made by some ex-Starbreeze developers and his company Tigon Studios. Fans of the 2004 game, Escape from Butcher Bay, were excited to hear about another entry in the series, especially if it was going to be made with some of the folks that did the original.
Get your sad trombones ready because the new game is Riddick: The Merc Files for Apple iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch coming this Friday! It’s just a tie-in app for his latest movie.
In the original Screencrush interview, Vin Diesel did acknowledge that gamers want a new full-blown Riddick game, but provided no details other than the fact that some of the original team members were being gathered. As it turns out, Gaming Corps, the Swedish studio that worked on the iOS tie-in game, was founded by former Starbreeze personnel.
The Red Cross is setting up in SimCity. EA announced that the upcoming Red Cross set DLC will allow the humanitarian aid organization to spring into action in disaster-torn cities mitigating health issues for the tiny citizens.
The downloadable content includes a Red Cross Relief Center, tents and two vehicles that will travel around a player’s city in response to a natural disaster. When a meteor strikes, an earthquake occurs or a tornado touches down, Red Cross tents will appear in various locations throughout a player’s city. Sims that would otherwise have been critically injured are instead offered aid at the Red Cross relief tents.
EA will donate at least 80% of the proceeds to the real-life Red Cross. The DLC will be available for one year.
In other SimCity news, there have been leaks of a Cities of Tomorrow expansion pack scheduled to be released in November. The pack includes multi-zone “MegaTowers” which seem to replicate the function of arcologies in SimCity 2000.
Ding dong! The witch is dead! Blizzard is removing the auction house from the PC version of Diablo III. The latest blog update says that Blizzard will be shutting down the in-game gold and real money auction houses on March 18th, 2014.
“When we initially designed and implemented the auction houses, the driving goal was to provide a convenient and secure system for trades. But as we’ve mentioned on different occasions, it became increasingly clear that despite the benefits of the AH system and the fact that many players around the world use it, it ultimately undermines Diablo’s core game play: kill monsters to get cool loot. With that in mind, we want to let everyone know that we’ve decided to remove the gold and real-money auction house system from Diablo III.”
“We feel that this move along with the Loot 2.0 system being developed concurrently with Reaper of Souls will result in a much more rewarding game experience for our players.”
The Diablo III expansion, Reaper of Souls, will launch sometime in 2014.
Activision has announced their plan that will allow gamers to upgrade a current-gen console version of Call of Duty: Ghosts to the next-gen version at a discount.
All physical copies of the PlayStation 3 version of Call of Duty: Ghosts will come with a unique code that will allow owners to download a PlayStation 4 copy of the game from the PlayStation Store for $10. Alternately, gamers can purchase the PS3 version of Ghosts directly from the PlayStation Store, which will automatically make them eligible for the $10 PS4 upgrade version. The PlayStation upgrade offer ends on March 31st, 2014.
On Microsoft’s ecosystem, the program works a little differently. According to the Xbox Upgrade web page, they will be offering two options with different pricing schemes. With the first offer, gamers can purchase a digital copy of the game from selected retailers that will come with codes for the Xbox One and the Xbox 360 versions of Ghosts for an up-front cost of $69.99. The other upgrade path is to purchase the Xbox 360 version of Ghosts directly from the Xbox Live Marketplace for $59.99. This will allow players to purchase the Xbox One version through the Marketplace later for $10 more. Both Xbox options are valid until March 31st, 2014.
The Call of Duty: Ghosts Season Pass will upgrade for free with either Microsoft or Sony’s systems provided gamers upgrade the game before the March 31st deadline.
Deep Silver and Volition have made the Saints Row IV GAT 5 DLC free on Steam. It’s free for today only. The simple joy of dressing up like the Third Street Saints’ favorite son and using the included combat knife launcher or .50 cal rifle can be yours today! You just have to neglect that other open-world crime saga. You’re totally willing to do that, right?
Red 5 Studios is suspending the player-vs-player portion of Firefall. In a post on the official forums, CEO Mark Kern stated that the shooter MMO’s PvP mode will be shut down so the team can rework PvP into a more popular offering. Kern revealed that less than 3% of Firefall players use the PvP feature on a regular basis due to the mode’s concentration on high skill eSports-compatible gameplay.
People want more content, fewer bugs, and more polish on these world systems. For these reasons, we have made the tough decision to suspend PvP and take the system offline so that we can rethink it and relaunch it. PvP is an important part of our game, and we want to get it right.
Firefall launched their open beta in July. They released one of the greatest live-action commercials ever made to celebrate the launch.
Rockstar has reached out to their modest audience for Grand Theft Auto 5 and warned them via Twitter that on the Xbox 360, installing data from both discs to the console hard drive is not recommended. The Xbox 360 version of the game comes with an install disc as well as a play disc. Rockstar advises that only the install disc should actually be copied to the console drive to speed up streaming of data. Eurogamer’s Digital Foundry explained the technical reason for the warning.
Well, optimal streaming is achieved by making use of all the available bandwidth in the system. Why stream just from the hard drive when you can run in data simultaneously from both the disc and the HDD? Based on what we’re seeing on the Xbox 360 version, perhaps running both DVD and HDD assets from just the one source slows down access times, impacting streaming performance.
That PlayStation 3 version of GTA 5 doesn’t require the warning since it ships on only one disc that will require an 8GB install before playing.
Developers say the PS4 is about 50% more powerful than the Xbox One. EDGE gathered the opinions of a multiple developer sources that said the gap between Sony’s PlayStation 4 and Microsoft’s Xbox One could be wider than analysts initially thought. The sources told EDGE that the power difference is significant.
One basic example we were given suggested that without optimisation for either console, a platform-agnostic development build can run at around 30FPS in 1920×1080 on PS4, but it’ll run at “20-something” FPS in 1600×900 on Xbox One. “Xbox One is weaker and it’s a pain to use its ESRAM,” concluded one developer.
One source also claimed that cross-platform games could suffer due to political pressure from publishers or hardware manufacturers to keep parity between consoles. Games could be hobbled on the PS4 to not outperform the Xbox One version.
Earlier in the week, Ars Technica analyzed comments from Microsoft’s Albert Penello downplaying the power gap between consoles. Their conclusion was that much of Penello’s statements were meaningless or needed more explanation.
Update: Microsoft’s response follows:
“Ten years ago, you could argue that a console’s power was summed up in terms of a few of its specs, but Xbox One is designed as a powerful machine to deliver the best blockbuster games today and for the next decade.
Xbox One architecture is much more complex than what any single figure can convey. It was designed with balanced performance in mind, and we think the games we continue to show running on near-final hardware demonstrate that performance. In the end, we’ll let the consoles and their games speak for themselves.”
