Klei Entertainment and Capybara Games have published a content roadmap for Don’t Starve: Shipwrecked. The expansion, currently in early access on the PC, now has a path to launch that will include the ability for a player to take a character all the way through the base game, the Reign of Giants expansion, and Shipwrecked with save migration. Imagine it! A full three games’ worth of content looking to end your life in cruel ways. Exposure? Poisoning? Eaten by a shark? Stampeded by pig-men? While a marathon of survival that long seems dubious, the developers say that balance will come via user feedback.
This game takes a long time to play, and you will encounter different scenarios each time you play. Players constantly encounter situations that we never even imagined. Because of this, when we add new content to Don’t Starve the initial tuning is, for the most part, our best guess on what will play well.
We discuss a movie on each of our lists for top ten movies of 2015. Then, at the 1:27 mark, we belly up to the juice bar to discuss our favorite beverages in movies, not to be confused with a previous 3×3 about alcoholic beverages.
Lumos Labs, the creators and owners of the “brain training” games on Lumosity.com have been ordered to pay a $2 million fine. The Federal Trade Commission announced that Lumos Labs will pay the settlement as a result of their deceptive business practices. Jessica Rich, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection cited the company’s dodgy scientific claims, and marketing based on fear-mongering.
“Lumosity preyed on consumers’ fears about age-related cognitive decline, suggesting their games could stave off memory loss, dementia, and even Alzheimer’s disease, but Lumosity simply did not have the science to back up its ads.”
Lumos Labs charged members monthly for a subscription to their games. As part of the FTC agreement, the company must offer those players a free way to cancel their subscription regardless of their early cancellation penalty.
Tom Chick and Jason McMaster get Victorian on your ass. Join us for a discussion of Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate, with a chaser of Starcraft II: Legacy of the Void.
Far Cry Primal has no cooperative or versus multiplayer. Ubisoft confirmed that the Far Cry offshoot game will be single player only. While Far Cry 3’s versus multiplayer never caught on with gamers, Far Cry 4’s co-op gameplay added some delicious opportunities for chaos in the sandbox shooter. Community manager Jason Paradise explained the decision to cut multiplayer.
We are focusing entirely on creating the best possible Far Cry experience for our fans. Bringing the Stone Age to life and providing players with a strong gameplay experience based off of the Far Cry legacy meant we had to reinvent our core gameplay loop.
Instead of real life companions, you get to make friends with saber-tooth tigers, wolves, eagle-owls, (is that a thing?) and mammoths in the game. That’s a fair trade. When has a real friend attacked a caveman for you? Far Cry Primal launches on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on February 23rd, and on Windows PC in March.
“$599 US dollars!” The infamous exclamation of Sony’s Kaz Hirai during the price announcement for the PlayStation 3. Gamers and techies can now bask in the glory of those words again thanks to Oculus. The Oculus Rift consumer model is now available for pre-order and far from most analysts’ prediction of being in the $300 range, the unit costs $599. Lucky buyers get an Xbox One controller, EVE: Valkyrie, and Lucky’s Tale to go with their flashy VR headset and positional sensor. The first units will roll out on March 28th.
Keep in mind that you’ll need a bit of extra kit for your Oculus Rift to work. The company recommends a beefy computer that can handle the demanding needs of VR software. (Nvidia GTX 970 or AMD R9 290 minimum graphics processor.) “Oculus Ready PCs” will be offered in February to take all the guesswork out of that end of the setup.
Major League Gaming, the popular esports broadcasting and promotions company, has been purchased by Activision Blizzard. Over the weekend reports surfaced that MLG’s board of directors approved an agreement granting Activision Blizzard the majority of MLG’s assets in exchange for $46 million, but official confirmation wasn’t given until later. According to Activision CEO Bobby Kotick, the company will continue to operate the MLG.tv, MLG Pro Circuit, and GameBattles platforms with an eye towards creating “the ESPN of esports.”
Mike Sepso, the Senior Vice President of Activision Blizzard Media Networks, was a co-founder of Major League Gaming and came to Activision when the company hired Steve Bornstein, the former CEO of ESPN and the NFL Network in October of last year. Both executives were given the goal of growing the esports business for the publisher.
My sister is holding up a little square box, about the size of a cocktail napkin, the thickness of a paperback dictionary. The motif is black and blue, with cutely crude hand-drawn artwork. The silhouette of a cat-eared demon peers over a title in block letters: ONIRIM. Is that a real word? I think it’s Hebrew.
Terry Garrett is blind, but that didn’t stop him from playing through The Nintendo 64 classic, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. It took him almost five years, but the accomplishment is amazing without the aid of sight. In the last video of his epic series, Garrett defeats the final boss of the game and basks in his glory.
Garrett, an engineering student at the University of Colorado, started his quest back in May of 2011 by setting up directional speakers so he could navigate the game’s levels via sound. With some help from fellow gamers, Garrett even got through the infamous Water Temple, a feat that many gamers gave up on back in the day. Bravo Terry!
As the curtain lowers on a fine fine year of moviemaking, we shuffle out into the lobby and hang out to chat for a couple hours. Join us. We promise not to spoil anything!
Tom Chick
10. ’71
9. Sicario
8. Cop Car
7. It Follows
6. Spotlight
5. The Revenant
4. Z for Zachariah
3. Bone Tomahawk
2. Victoria
1. Mad Max: Fury Road
Christien Murawski
10. Bone Tomahawk
9. The Tribe
8. It Follows
7. Two Step
6. Mad Max: Fury Road
5. Sicario
4. Spotlight
3. Ex Machina
2. Star Wars: The Force Awakens
1. The Revenant
Kelly Wand
10. some Spongebob Squarepants movie
9. Hateful Eight
8. ’71
7. Larry Gaye: Renegade Male Flight Attendant
6. The Overnight
5. The Revenant
4. It Follows
3. Bone Tomahawk
2. Creed
1. Mad Max: Fury Road
The year of gaming 2015 gave us is undoubtedly good. We got epic, million-hour games like Fallout 4, Pillars of Eternity, and The Witcher 3 to quick multiplayer engagements like Rocket League, Battlefront, and Heroes of the Storm. You wanted a better Assassin’s Creed? You got it. You asked for more Call of Duty? There it is. Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls II not punishing enough? Get some Bloodborne and get slapped silly. More Batman! More StarCraft II! Looking for an ultra thoughtful indie game? Take your pick of Her Story, Undertale, or Everybody’s Gone to Rapture. Maybe a less navel-gazing indie is more your style? Look up Massive Chalice, Vietnam ’65, or Invisible Inc. Heck, one of the best horror movies of the year was in Until Dawn. Even Nintendo dropped some love on gamers with Splatoon and Mario Maker.
The mind-blower is that there’s more gaming goodness right around the corner in 2016. Beloved franchises will return. New properties will launch. Huge games will get even more content in the form of expansions. Will the gaming in 2016 equal the buffet of awesome that was 2015? Based on what we know already, there’s a good chance we could see a tidal wave of gaming coming our way.
After the jump, let’s check out the games you should be looking forward to playing in 2016!Continue reading →
It’s a harsh two-to-one split on Quentin Tarantino’s latest. At the one hour mark, we bring to light our favorite candle scenes in movies for this week’s 3×3.
Next week: the best of 2015
The week after that: The Revenant
The world loves Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The movie shattered box office records over the holiday weekend and people young and old can’t seem to get enough of the return to classic Star Wars sensibility. Unfortunately for fans of the movie looking forward to recreating some of those epic moments in Electronic Arts’ Star Wars Battlefront, the publisher confirmed that there are no plans to include the latest movie’s content into any future DLC beyond the free Battle of Jakku map that was released in early December. According to EA, they are “focusing on the original trilogy for this release of Star Wars Battlefront” in response to inquiries regarding the newest movie’s content.
The publisher previously announced that Star Wars Battlefront will get four more packs of DLC content in 2016 as part of the season pass. These DLC installments will include new maps, heroes, and equipment, but apparently none of it will be from the seventh movie. It’s not surprising that the future content of the game would continue to adhere to the original trilogy designs rather than incorporating the new movie’s assets since that would require more resources to produce. Sorry, Finn. This is not the game you’re looking for.
One of the cool little facts about The Great War is that in December 1914, the troops along the infamous No Man’s Land of trenches and muddy snow put down their arms and celebrated the holiday in an unofficial cease fire that became known as The Christmas Truce. Gifts and food were exchanged. Handshakes and songs were shared. For a little while, at least, the soldiers were able to set aside the battle and come together as young men away from their homes and families.
Verdun, from Blackmill Games and M2H, is one of those multiplayer shooters that falls a bit harder on the side of historical accuracy. Like Red Orchestra, here’s a lot of rivet-counting goodness in its simple team-based shooter setup. From December 22nd to January 4th, Verdun will be commemorating The Christmas Truce. A dedicated truce map will be available that features no gunfire. Players will be able to toss around a football, throw snowballs at each other, and write postcards “home” through an in-game mailman. Pause for a little Yuletide cheer, then get back to the slaughter after the New Year’s party.
I don’t actually know what games you played in 2015, but I’m going to go out on a limb and guess you didn’t play more than two or three of these 12 games. Five, tops. I’ve only played 11 of them, and some of those for only an hour or so. So far, I’ve actually reviewed just one of them. And I’m the guy writing the list!
Now I’m sure you have your reasons: The Witcher 3, Metal Gear Solid 5, Fallout 4. But as those reasons wind down, as your backlog threatens to shrink, as you wait for the release of highly anticipated games like XCOM 2, No Man’s Sky, and Rise of the Tomb Raider, consider pulling some of these gems out from under the avalanche of 2015 releases.
