No level grind. No iron sights. No weapon unlocks. No classes. No hat collecting. Toxikk by Reakktor Studios is an old-school arena shooter that hearkens back to a simpler time of rocket-jumping and map control. The newly released gameplay trailer shown above features all the dodging and circle-strafing action that hardcore tournament fans love to see. The game will launch with classic maps for team deathmatch, free-for-all, and one-vs-one modes. It will also have “massive” maps for vehicle use. Unlike the upcoming Unreal Tournament by Epic, Toxikk won’t be free-to-play. Reakktor is going with an early access model to fund development.
Has the sun set on arena shooters? They certainly don’t get the kinds of player numbers that Call of Duty style games get, but the recent release of Quake Live on Steam shows there is an audience that appreciates the high skill levels arena that shooters demand.
Wasteland 2 has launched. Brian Fargo’s inXile Entertainment has made good on the 2012 Kickstarter by releasing the better-late-than-never Wasteland 2. For those of you that that played the original game, Wasteland 2 adds a shiny new coat of Unity graphics and a few lessons learned since 1988. For those of you that missed the first game, think of this as what Fallout 3 could have been if Bethesda had stuck to the old-school isometric turn-based way of doing things. Get out there and repair some toasters Ranger!
Fantasy turn-based strategy game Endless Legend has officially launched. Amplitude Studios, developers of 2012’s Endless Space, announced the release version of Endless Legend is now live. The distinctive looking game features city-building, capturing resources, quests, and tactical battles on the hex-based terrain maps. Basically, everything a fantasy TBS fan could want. Where Endless Legend adds a new wrinkle to the formula is a timer of sorts. The seasonal changes in the land of Auriga necessitate a certain amount of urgency because Winter is coming and it’s no joke. Winter – in this case the cataclysmic, all-consuming, near apocalyptic Winter – will slow production, unit movement, and basically wreak havoc with your empire’s plans. Think of it as a gentle nudge towards the end-game.
The good news is that Spacebase DF-9 is nearing final release. The bad news is that Spacebase DF-9 is nearing final release. In somewhat of a surprising announcement, Double Fine Productions informed fans that the 1.0 launch version of their indie space base management sim is scheduled for next month. Prior to launch, the developer plans to add a tutorial, a more refined goal system, and backer names will be embedded into the game for those that purchased early access at a higher tier. The studio also announced that the game’s source code will be released sometime after launch for fans to tinker with.
We’ll of course be sticking around a bit for bug fixing and support, but any new content for the game will now be in your hands. We’re eager to see what people do with this game!
The customer comments to the news reflect a less positive outlook. Although the current development plan page lists the modest goals noted in the launch announcement, an archive of the same page from October shows a much more ambitious set of features. Many of these have not been implemented, and it seems likely they will not be part of the release. While the archived page does state that “nothing on this list is carved in stone” it’s disheartening to see what may have been had things gone differently for this game.
In the early 2000’s there were a bunch of mid-tier real-time strategy titles that crowded each other out of the market. Kohan: Immortal Sovereigns, Dark Reign, Empire Earth, and Battle Realms to name a few. These were good games that developed a following, but never got out from under the shadows cast by games with better production values like Age of Empires and StarCraft. Some had just enough sales to get a sequel, but Battle Realms was one of the games that never did. Ed Del Castillo, the president of Liquid Entertainment, has talked about making a Battle Realms 2: Lair of the Lotus, but the funding just didn’t happen.
In this age of crowd-funding, there’s no need to wait for a publishing deal. Liquid Entertainment is still around and now they finally want to make a follow-up to Battle Realms. Sort of. The proposed Battle Realms Legends is a free-to-play, collectible card game, real-time strategy fusion. The game is set shortly after the events of the single player campaign in the original game, but players will be doing all the normal F2P stuff like collecting, crafting, gathering resources, and purchasing items with real money. If Liquid gets to the $100,000 Kickstarter goal, they’ll make this F2P game, but there’s no word on the fate of the Lair of the Lotus.
TIME’s conflict photographer, Ashley Gilbertson, used The Last of Us Remastered’s photo mode to capture still images from the game. The resulting experiment is interesting because it allows us to see how a person surrounded by real-life violence handles the situations in a world terrorized by zombie fungus.
I initially played the game at home. But after a short time playing it, I noticed I was having very strong reactions in regards to my role as the protagonist: I hated it. When I covered real war, I did so with a camera, not a gun. At home, I’d play for 30 minutes before noticing I had knots in my stomach, that my vision blurred, and then eventually, that I had simply crashed out. I felt like this could well be my last assignment for TIME.
Gilbertson was awarded the prestigious Robert Capa Gold Medal in 2005, and the ASME National Magazine Award in 2011.
The bear! The bear! The bear and the burglar so fair! Nope. That’s not how it goes. The Bear and the Burglar is the new free add-on for Divinity: Original Sin. The DLC adds two companions to the game to round out players’ four-person adventuring party. Bairdotr is a powerful ranger, and Wolgraff is the silent but deadly rogue. Rock, paper, scissors will be truly exciting now!
The Bear and the Burglar DLC is part of patch 1.0.169 that the developers claim adds a “big layer of polish” to various spell and environmental effects. With all the swoosh-boom that the game already had, the new effects must turn it into a Michael Bay movie.
Microsoft has purchased Mojang AB, and all of its game properties. Scrolls is now a Microsoft product, as is a little indie project known as Minecraft. According to the studio statement, co-founders Markus Persson, Carl Manneh, and Jakob Porser will be leaving to pursue other interests. Persson said in his notice to fans that his primary reason for selling Mojang to Microsoft was to get away from what his life had become and to go back to what he loved doing – namely coding and making small hobby games. Although Mojang states that they don’t have any plans for Scrolls, they do say they will continue planned development of their other property, so your Mojang account won’t be a total waste. Until it becomes an Xbox Live account.
Minimum has come out of early access and has launched. Human Head Studios announced that the game has been updated to 4.0 status and is now considered a “full game” by the developers which may seem premature to players as many parts of the game are still forthcoming. With the latest update Human Head has added a co-op horde mode, cosmetic skins that can be purchased for real money, and a new tutorial to ease players into the third person shooter’s MOBA-like titan vs titan mode.
Minimum started as a free-to-play game in development at TimeGate Studios. It was sold to Human Head as part of TimeGate’s liquidation and closure in 2013. Minimum is available on Steam for $4.99 to celebrate its launch.
The Xbox One has a had a relatively trouble-free record when it comes to the quality of the hardware. Certainly, there haven’t been accounts of widespread problems that plagued the early Xbox 360 consoles. It seems however, that something is afoot with some of the Xbox One units sold without the Kinect sensor. CNET reports that some Xbox One owners are hearing a “terrible noise” coming from their consoles. Most of the complaints on the official Xbox support forum describe the loud noise coming from the faulty units as being “grindy” or “like loud static”. Unlike the Xbox 360 Red Ring fiasco, Microsoft is responding quickly and definitively.
“We have heard that a small number of Xbox One owners in some situations may hear a noise from the console that is too loud. While this does not affect the safety or functionality of the system, we’re asking customers who believe they are experiencing this issue to contact Xbox Support. At the request of our customers, we are exchanging those consoles for new systems.”
Microsoft has not explained why the Kinect-less Xbox Ones would have this issue, and not the other, but it’s good to see them taking the issue seriously. No end date has been announced for the exchange program.
Will Ferrell, star of the Anchorman movies, 2005’s Bewitched, and former cast member of Saturday Night Live, wants to play games to raise money for charity. In the video, Ferrell, speaking as “Will Pharrell” brags about his gamer credentials and claims to have played Asteroids for more than 30 hours without even taking a bathroom break. Beyond the typical gamer cliches of having pizza boxes and Chinese food takeout containers strewn about, the video is for a good cause. The link to www.willferrellhatescancer.org leads to a real Indiegogo site. Ferrell wants to raise $375,000.00 for cancer charities. One lucky person will be picked to play with Ferrell in San Francisco during a Twitch stream. The minimum $10 pledge gives each donor an entry, and various pledge tiers give physical rewards and varying amounts of entries in the drawing.
I’ll admit – I’m recently educated about the close ties between video games and charity/cancer. I’m awestruck by it all, and you inspired me. So that’s one of the reasons why I’m hosting this challenge….I want more people need to know how video games can help and how benevolent the gaming community is.
The campaign ends on October 12th, and the live event will be streamed on October 26th on Twitch.
By now, you’ve probably heard the rumor. Microsoft may be trying to buy Mojang, the studio behind Minecraft. The Wall Street Journal broke the news late yesterday, naming an anonymous source near the negotiations. The most jaw-dropping bit of the news was the rumored price tag. $2 billion! It sounded crazy. Markus Persson, outspoken creator of Minecraft, was going to sell his company to Microsoft? The guy that flamed Oculus when Facebook bought them for $2 billion? The man that responded to shilling in 2012 with this sarcastic tweet?
Anyway, my price is two billion dollars. Give me two billion dollars, and I’ll endorse your crap.
A couple of hours later, Bloomberg reported the same story, but they had three sources and some intriguing details. According to their people, Persson reached out to Microsoft with the proposal! Mind-blowing, if true. Earlier today, The New York Times backed the rumors adding to the mill. The news reports agree that an official announcement could come as early as next week, if the deal gets finalized.
What would Microsoft hope to get out of the deal besides Minecraft? Probably nothing. They wouldn’t be interested in Scrolls, or any of Mojang’s other licenses. But Microsoft sure would be jazzed about an exclusive for Minecraft 2. Minecraft is available on everything from Android to the PlayStation 4, but a sequel could be locked down to in-house Microsoft systems, and that could really move some consoles. As for Persson, well it’s $2 billion. You can be as snarky as you want to be about selling out, but when you actually have that much money in your face, the math changes.
We’ve reached out to Mojang and Microsoft for more information, but both companies have declined to comment.
Electronic Arts and DICE have revealed a bit of the Final Stand DLC for Battlefield 4. Appropriately named because it will be the last map pack DLC for the shooter, Final Stand takes players to snowy Russia on four new maps that will feature technology that may be familiar to longtime fans of the series. There will be mechanized walkers, hover tanks, and man-portable railguns! If you have Battlefield Premium, DICE is offering a way to jump in on the testing of Final Stand before its general release. Get in on the future now! Pew-pew!
Final Stand will launch for Battlefield 4 later this year.
You may have heard that Destiny launched last night. You’ve likely seen advertising that would imply it was nothing short of the best thing ever on PlayStation. It’s on Microsoft’s console as well, but aside from a midnight launch event at some Microsoft stores, and a clever web page for a fake fragrance, there hasn’t been much made of the fact that you can play Bungie’s latest on Xbox.
Sony’s gotten all the good stuff, including a lot of exclusive bits and bobs in the PlayStation version of Destiny. That’s because of co-marketing. Sony helps to advertise the game, saving Activision some money. In return, Sony gets the chance to brand the game as theirs in most gamers’ minds. Sony UK head Fergal Gara told Eurogamer that the game is so important to the company that they are handling it as they would an in-house developed title.
“We’re treating it, for all intents and purposes internally, as if it’s a first-party release. We’re wrapping our arms around it on all levels of the organisation. It’s a special project and an important project and it has the power to launch Christmas. It’s hugely important.”
Will the co-marketing effort pay off for Sony? Probably. These kinds of co-marketing efforts usually do exactly what they’re intended to do. Sony’s console is already in first place as far as sales, so it makes sense for Activision to push that version anyway. (You can see that the majority of Destiny players on Quarter to Three have opted for the PlayStation so far.) Last generation, Microsoft and Activision partnered on Call of Duty installments and both parties benefitted. With Bungie’s ten year strategic plan, it remains to be seen if this generation will be defined by Destiny and Sony.
In the debate over whether or not eSports are actually sports, ESPN president John Skipper lands firmly on the “not a sport” side. Speaking at the Code/Media conference in New York, Skipper gave his opinion on the nearly $1 billion Amazon purchase of Twitch.
It’s not a sport. It’s a competition. Chess is a competition. Checkers is a competition. Mostly, I’m interested in doing real sports.
Although ESPN has shown eSports events like the Dota 2 The International tournament on their web streaming channels, representatives of ESPN denied that they intended on broadening gaming coverage as part of their regular sports broadcasts. John Skipper’s most recent remark would seem to reinforce this stance. Perhaps they can sandwich gaming between dodgeball championships on The Ocho?
