Scammers will exploit any weakness. Games with a tie to your bank account always get their fair share of scams. “Your World of Warcraft account has been closed due to illegal activity. Please click here to give some guy in Singapore all your credit card information!” According to Respawn Entertainment, these digital con-artists will even use gamers’ anticipation of Titanfall to grab data.
To help keep our fans safe from scammers, please note that all sites advertising Beta access are 100% scams.
A quick Google search does bring up a few obvious Titanfall scam sites, which we won’t link to for obvious reasons. In related news, if Tom Chick sends me his credit card information, I will totally get him into the secret beta for Diablo IV.
Sniper Elite: Nazi Zombie Army 2 is coming. Rebellion announced the sequel to their WWII-themed horde-mode zombie shooter through Eurogamer. Rebellion’s Jason Kingsley described the creative process behind making the first zombie sniping shooting gallery.
“Nazi Zombie Army was a gamble, really. We didn’t know whether it would work. We hoped people would like it. We hoped people would take it in the slightly tongue in cheek way it was meant with the title. And we obviously didn’t have much money to market it.
“So we just put it out there and it’s been very very good business and we’ve created a lot of fans who just like a straightforward gory shooter against zombies. It pretty much made its money back on the day of release. That was awesome.”
Zombies. Nazis. Slo-mo bullet camera. If you haven’t had your fill of zombies yet, you can look forward to Sniper Elite: Nazi Zombie Army 2 on PC later this year. Rebellion hopes to get the game on next-gen consoles as well, but must wait for publishing details from Sony and Microsoft.
DICE plans to add a “test range” to Battlefield 4 to allow aspiring flight-jockeys to practice flying without endangering the team during an online match. The often-requested feature was revealed by Lars Gustavsson, the Creative Director of DICE, during an interview with IGN.
“We’ve definitely heard that people are afraid of getting in there [and using vehicles like helicopters] and that’s not our intent, so what we’ve done is, we’ve added a test range, which allows you to try out all the hardware ahead of time so that if you want to learn to fly a helicopter you can get in there and you can find the settings that work best for you. And then start doing some stunt flights just to feel safe before you go out and get the responsibility of a bunch of other people sitting in your helicopter, so I truly hope that this will help people feel more safe about trying out the whole battlefield.
Smashing your plane into the side of a building won’t have the same quality in Battlefield 4 as it does in Battlefield 3 if no one is around to laugh at your incompetence.
The latest update for Marvel Heroes has just gone live. This is arguably the greatest shift in basic gameplay since Marvel Heroes’ release and it’s yet another sign that Gazillion is admirably committed to figuring out how to make this thing the best it can be. And to think I’d written it off as a free-to-play boondoggle that I wouldn’t give a second glance while I played Diablo III or Guild Wars 2! Here’s the overview for the update:
This patch represents a major step forward in the combat and item system for Marvel Heroes. With a complete retuning of survivability and defense across the board.
As our design philosophy suggests, we concentrated on identifying the most effective powers and buffing the rest of the powers and heroes to that top-damage range.
Heroes and powers have received significant upgrades as well as items. You now have more incentive and payoff for using loot close to your level and will receive greatly increased survivability from items with defense.
The update has a few hitches, but so far it hasn’t blown up or melted down, which is a first for developer Gazillion, who still owes me for eating my Punisher in a rollback. The update is technically called version 1.2, but it’s been informally known as the “August patch”. Checking the calendar, I see that Gazillion meant the adjective and we just assumed they meant the month.
Bioshock Infinite’s floating city of Columbia will be coming to Disney Infinity. Five pieces of user-generated content picked by developer Avalanche Software will be released as free DLC for the game’s toy box mode. The add-ons include the floating islands of Columbia, a Tron trench run, and a level based on Disneyland’s jungle cruise.
The crossover makes perfect sense despite the wholesome all-ages nature of Disney Infinity and the violent conflict in Columbia. Disneyland and Bioshock Infinite were both influenced by the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, otherwise known as The World’s Columbian Exposition.
Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn is having issues. The game’s re-launch on August 27th, meant to be a second chance for the troubled MMO, has instead been nothing short of a disaster. Square Enix did not adequately prepare for the server traffic which has resulted in errors and downtimes. The team has implemented login and character creation restrictions, which has proven to be an extremely unpopular hotfix while more servers are brought online. Players have expressed their displeasure in the official forums. Noaki Yoshida, the game’s producer, reached out directly to players.
“The fact that we had to implement these restrictions is a direct result of my inaccurate sales and login estimates, and as producer, I must accept complete responsibility for this misstep. Each and every player who has been affected has my deepest apologies.”
Yoshida said an extension to customers’ free play period will be offered, but players have thus far been unimpressed. Sony confirmed that it is offering full refunds to customers.
Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain is being designed with cosplayer’s needs in mind. Hideo Kojima, outspoken game director and videogame industry personality, took to Twitter to explain his character design strategy for the upcoming game.
“I’ve been ordering to Yoji to make the character more erotic, and he did it well.”
“Recently I’ve been making characters this way. I create the setting thoroughly, how he/she spent early life, name, style, favorite phrase, fashion, action, to stand the character out.”
“The initial target is to make want to do cosplay or its figurine to sell well.”
Kojima was referring to Yoji Shinkawa, MGS5’s art director, in the first tweet. He also expressed concern that Quiet, the bikini-wearing sniper in the E3 trailer, might be too difficult to cosplay in her new “more erotic” outfit. He supplied this possibly not-safe-for-work image as a sample.
We finally have an official release date for the Xbox One! Analysts had predicted dates ranging from the beginning of October to the end of November and it looks like the people that bet on the traditionally standard pre-Thanksgiving date are the winners. The Xbox One will be available for purchase in the 13 launch territories on November 22nd. This is the same date used for the Xbox 360 launch in 2005.
Yusef Mehdi, Microsoft’s VP of Marketing, Strategy and Business, and Xbox, announced the release date and relayed some good news regarding the chip speed increase.
Finally, in the spirit of continuing to bring value to and excitement to Xbox, I am also pleased to confirm that the development team has increased the CPU from 1.6GHz to 1.75GHz, roughly a 10 percent increase in GPU performance. This is on top of the 6% increase we previously announced for the GPU. What does this mean to you the gamer? It means that the Xbox One will have that much more power for developers to make their games and entertainment really shine. We’re going to keep bringing more value to the Xbox One as we head towards launch building on some of the advancements we have already shared such as the 40 plus improvements to the Xbox One controller, advancements to help you find the perfect opponent and make the most of our online community, to the power of the cloud.
The PlayStation 4 launches on November 15th in the US, and November 29th in most other markets.
When Sunless Sea was announced a month ago, we listed ten things you should know about the latest game from Fallen London developer Failbetter Games. Here’s one more:
The Xbox One console will be able to support wirelessly connecting up to 8 controllers at once. According to new data added to the Xbox One Wireless Controller page, Microsoft’s next-gen console will support double the number that the Xbox 360 could connect. Your household cephalopod will be so happy!
In related news, Sony’s Shuhei Yoshida has confirmed that the PlayStation 4 will only support four controllers at a time. Did you know that you can connect up to seven controllers to the PS3? It’s true. Very few games use more than four controllers, but you can do it. Perhaps your octopus lost one of its tentacles?
At E3, both Sony and Microsoft touted their next-gen consoles’ ability to expand their hard drive storage with external options. As it turns out, there are some clarifications for both machines. Updates from company representatives over the weekend resulted in new information for gamers that may have them considering how many games they can install at the same time.
The Xbox One comes with a 500GB hard drive. At E3, we learned that all games will require installation to the hard drive, and that the drive will not be something that gamers will be able to replace. Microsoft did say that people could expand the console’s storage via the USB 3.0 port using an external drive for game installs and other files. During a PAX Prime podacst Microsoft’s Major Nelson said that the ability to use external storage with the Xbox One will not be available at launch.
“The future plan is for definitely to support external storage much like we do on the Xbox 360. My understanding is that feature will not be there at launch because the team is working on some other things, but it definitely is on the list. I don’t know when it will come in though.”
Sony’s PlayStation 4 also comes with a 500GB internal drive and games will require installation. The storage capability of the PS4 can be expanded via an external drive, but new information from Sony Worldwide Studios boss Shuhei Yoshida clarifies that there are caveats. An external drive cannot be used to install games, making the addition of a USB thumbdrive a limited solution for gamers keen on a cheap storage option. Fortunately, gamers can change out the internal drive with any standard laptop hard drive, so there is a way to natively get more room for games.
Microsoft and Mojang mix some Mass Effect into your Minecraft.
…the first Mash-up Pack will feature the popular Mass Effect franchise, allowing fans to play in the stunning recreation of the Mars Facility from Mass Effect 3 or create their own worlds with special Mass Effect textures and craft-able items. The Mash-up also includes themed menus and user interface, 36 pixel-perfect Mass Effect character skins and 22 music tracks from the Mass Effect 3 soundtrack.
The $4 add-on will be available on Wednesday. The ending will be changed sometime this fall.
Independent games Elementary, My Dear Holmes and Gridiron Thunder have come under fire for having questionable Kickstarter results. Both games are early successes of Ouya’s Free the Games project which promises to match crowd-sourced funding as long as the developers agree to give the Ouya console a six-month period of exclusivity. Polygon reports that because of odd Kickstarter results, the games’ campaigns are being called into question.
In the case of Elementary, My Dear Holmes, some backers noticed that a large number of pledges were coming from first-time Kickstarter accounts with suspiciously similar celebrity names and celebrity user images. (Many of these accounts’ profile pictures and names have been subsequently changed.) Developer Victory Square Games acknowledged that it looked odd and subsequently posted the response they received from Kickstarter when they asked about the suspicious accounts.
“If you’d like to know more about backers who have found your project, you can always take a look at their profile to get a better feel for them. It’s very possible that these first-time backers have found your project through your outreach, or just by browsing Kickstarter – I wouldn’t be surprised if Sherlock Holmes fans had a way of sleuthing these things out! And of course, if needed, you’re also welcome to message any backers who you’d like to know better, if you really have hesitations about their pledge.”
In Gridiron Thunder‘s case, while the Kickstarter accounts don’t seem obviously suspicious, the amounts donated do. As Kicktraq shows, the project only has 141 backers with an average of $556 pledged per backer with nine days to go before closing the campaign which is extraordinary. The daily results also have some suspicious spikes in donations. MogoTXT CEO Andy Won says the accusation that they may have gamed the system to have a successful Kickstarter is false.
“We have done nothing wrong,” said Won. “And we are about to roll out an awesome title for the Ouya. We are just a hardworking game development firm.”
Microsoft’s Xbox One console will only support full voice commands in five launch countries. A large part of the Xbox One’s value proposition is that you’ll be able to use the new and improved Kinect to tell your console what to do. Don’t fumble with the controller like a caveman! Speak to your console and tell it what to do! “Xbox on!” Unfortunately, according to new information posted on the Get the Facts page for Xbox One, not all gamers can expect to do that at launch.
Xbox voice commands will not be available in all markets on the product release date. Voice commands will be available at launch in US, UK, CA, FR, and DE.
Albert Penello, Microsoft’s Director of Product Planning, tried to clarify the notice with a post on NeoGAF. Apparently, the notice only applies to full voice functionality. Out of the 13 launch territories, some voice commands will work in 10 of them, while only the five listed will be able to use all planned Kinect functionality.
“Turns out the answer to this question is…complicated. It’s been an education for me as I’ve been looking into it.”
“There is no way that I could do justice to it in a post, so the marketing team is working on a chart that gives clarity on what locales, languages, and voice features are available in each country. Trying to write it down would be confusing. Stay tuned for a more detailed explanation.”
The 13 launch territories are Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, Spain, United Kingdom, United States and New Zealand.
Natural Selection 2 just got updated with the free Reinforced Expansion and developer Unknown Worlds would like the community to help recoup the cost of producing it. The free DLC adds female Marines, new weapons, Linux support, a much-needed single player tutorial, a Commander tutorial, practice bots, and a lot more. In all, Unknown Worlds says the cost of making that content was about $500K. To keep the update free, they’ve turned to the community for support.
“We are also immensely proud that Reinforced is free. Six months of game development is not cheap, and we have often discussed how we might continue to pay for keeping the studio focused on Natural Selection 2 full time. Various options were discussed – Including making Reinforced a separate Steam DLC, or introducing in-game micro-tran$actions. But these monetisation methods do not fit with our culture. Knowing we must pay the bills to keep the lights on, we decided to introduce the Reinforcement Program.”
The voluntary Reinforcement Program allows players to donate money to Unknown Worlds. Like a Kickstarter, there are tiers of membership that offer various goodies, up to a “Game Director” level that includes flying out to San Francisco to hang out with the developers.
Natural Selection 2 is 75% off this weekend on Steam and is also free to try for the duration of the sale.
