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Thursday, August 1, 2013
News::Instances of Pantheon Legend from Gamebox unveiled!
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News::PCGamer- Total War: Rome 2 Preview
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News::Rise of the Triad review - This is what shooters these days need to be like | Madnight GamesTech
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News::Dropchord Review | STP
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News::Wii U should expect 20-30 new indie games by the holidays
Early this year, Nintendo hopped aboard the train to Indiesville, coaxing all sorts of positive assessments of the company's and the Wii U's future. Those investments, of course, are long term. Now that Nintendo has dropped various barriers to indie publishing, save for in Japan, oddly enough, it has to wait for the content to drop while Wii U sales hit dramatic lows.
Fun fact: Bioshock Infinite has sold more copies than Wii U has shipped consoles. Not a barometer for anything, just fun with numbers.
Games might just start flowing in, however, according to Nintendo's Business Development Manager and general indie guy Dan Adelman. Speaking to Joystiq, Adelman said of the indie space, "We underestimated how much demand was out there, so we're trying to catch up a little bit." 'Catch up a bit' it seems the Wii U's indie eShop presence is doing. Apparently 20-30 new indie games are expected to hit the Wii U eShop by the holidays.
Good news for the console, though it perhaps could've used some of those games earlier on, as now its bigger name retail releases are dropping, like Pikmin 3 and everything else in the fall lineup, like Wonderful 101 and Rayman Legends .Will a deluge of indie games sell you on the platform? Are you even going to pick any of them up amidst another saturated fall and holiday release window?
Nintendo's indie guy on opening the gates for developers [Joystiq]
via destructoid http://www.destructoid.com/wii-u-should-expect-20-30-new-indie-games-by-the-holidays-259148.phtml
News::Platinum is chronicling Wonderful 101 through their blog
Platinum Games is one of my favorite developers in the industry. Not only do they have an amazing eye for striking visual designs, but they also craft some of the deepest, technical action games of this generation -- in fact, they're one of the only technical action developers left.
So if you're anything like me, you're insanely excited for the upcoming release of Wonderful 101 on the Wii U, and Platinum is helping to ease the wait with some insightful blogs on the game on their official site. You can view the first entry here, and you'll find the Wonderful 101 tag here, for all possible future entries.
Wonderful 101 Blog [Platinum Blog]
via destructoid http://www.destructoid.com/platinum-is-chronicling-wonderful-101-through-their-blog-259154.phtml
News::Total War: Rome II - Setting the Stage for World Domination
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News::Paul McCartneys videogame Destiny Bungies Martin ODonnell on working with a music legend
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News::Kotaku - It's Thugs vs. Thugs vs. Batman In Arkham Origins 3-Team Multiplayer
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News::Angels Everywhere: Scarlet Blade Enchanting Screenshots
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News::Experiencing the first few hours of Total War: Rome II - TheSixthAxis
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News::Diehard GameFAN: Shadowrun Returns Review
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News::There's Already BioShock Infinite DLC Cosplay
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News::Guacamelee! El Diablos Domain DLC | Daily Joypad
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News::Fear and loyalty play a 'massive role' in Total War: Rome 2 | Polygon
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News::Review: If My Heart Had Wings | Japanator
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News::Edge- Total War: Rome 2 Preview
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News::Total War: Rome II Preview | IncGamers
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News::DARK Review | CalmDownTom
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News::VG247- Preview:Rage against the machine: Total War Rome 2s brutal AI
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News::Hit-Reset Review: Deadpool
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News::Killzone Vitas multiplayer is poisonous and I love it
I initially scoffed towards every bit of this explanation of Killzone: Mercenary's multiplayer systems. I don't much care for multiplayer, so why should I care that offline singleplayer progress yields weapons and stats that can go towards multiplayer? Well, while I may not care, it's sort of a neat idea and could keep people playing Killzone offline, out and about, to abet their online performance.More important, however, is valor cards.
Mercenary does away with stagnant character rank systems, relying on daily "valor cards" which can be used to make fat stacks (of money). What's more, in multiplayer you compete for valor cards. I immediately viewed this system in suspicion and disdain. Wouldn't it just breed a cutthroat climate centered on a vacuous, false economy, perpetuating a Skinner box mentality of collection and constant score upkeep?
Then I saw a valor card spring forth from the corpse of a dead enemy combatant and something innate and animalistic inside of me screamed, "I want that." I am going to skin you all alive and fashion your valor cards into ornate jewelry hung about my neck until I grow hunched under the weight of my trophies.
One of the first PSP games that spoke to me was Infected and its promise of virality, of being able to defeat someone in multiplayer fisticuffs and then have your player avatar infect and haunt their single-player experience. It was a cool concept executed poorly, but I love the maliciousness to it, the insult to injury. I don't just want to kill someone in a multiplayer game. I want to take from them. Something precious. Man, I'm awful.
Killzone: Mercenary looks really good. The multiplayer is currently in closed beta. An open beta will begin at the end of August. I won't seek help, but I will keep from slithering under your beds.
via destructoid http://www.destructoid.com/killzone-vita-s-multiplayer-is-poisonous-and-i-love-it-259145.phtml
News::ZTGD | Bit.Trip Fate (PC) Review
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News::Creative Assembly on next-gen Total War: "Never say never"
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News::Exclusive Battlefield 4 multiplayer gameplay shows how the game looks in Ultra settings
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News::Rome II: Total War’s upgrades, tweaks and familiar rhythms
Part of the fun of Total War is the freedom of heading back to a well-realised period in history and rewriting the hell out of it: having the Gauls control the entirety of Italy, for instance, or turning Britain into the northern tip of the far-reaching Carthaginian Empire. It’s a slight shame, then, that we have to stick to the historical script while playing Rome II’s prologue campaign. This involved tutorial chronicles the rise of a domestic power in Italy: Rome has to quash the rival city state of Samnium before starting its campaigns throughout the rest of the globe. While the narrative shackles slightly chafe – especially when we’re introduced to the sprawling, but boundary-encircled campaign map – the prologue campaign tries to atone for this with the injection of more character drama than you can find in the game, courtesy of a Mark Strong-voiced protagonist. It also functions as a fine (though, we expect, probably not entirely reliable) history lesson while efficiently introducing some of Rome II’s more significant upgrades.
Chief among these is a much more naturalistic treatment of sightlines. You’ve always had a godlike view of the battlefield, of course – this a realtime strategy game, after all – but now you’ll find yourself less omniscient, only able to see enemy units if one of your own clusters of soldiers has a direct view of them. Anything can break a sightline – a hill, a forest, a city street – and this means that scouting and environmental awareness have become a much more crucial part of the game. In one battle, we have to move a unit to the top of a hill before we can see the gigantic Samnite army coming. In another, we use a forested ridge to hide our soldiers in a village before descending upon an undefended piece of Samnite siege equipment. This subtle, but potentially far-reaching tweak can be felt most keenly when attacking cities – battles throughout the streets are more claustrophobic and more tactical now, as you can be ambushed by the city’s defenders while also using their own buildings and walls to sneak auxilliary forces past them.
Elsewhere, however, the game plays according to the familiar rhythms of Total War. The prologue campaign ignores the delicate political intricacies of statecraft. There’s no diplomacy nor any of the internal power battles that will define the Roman factions in the main game, focusing instead on the practicalities of waging war. We learn how to train new units, for instance, a streamlined process in comparison to previous games. The unit types available for recruitment within a region hinge on the buildings and structures you’ve established in that region’s city. Once you’ve built the requisite building (stables, say, for cavalry) you can generate the new unit within the legion itself, rather than recruiting it and then marching it over to the bulk of your forces. This is part of a focus on legions as singular powerhouses, rather than smaller groups of soldiers, that will see you adding traits to armies as they gain experience, potentially allowing specfic legions to specialise in certain forms of warfare.
It’s hard to get a firm grasp of the nuances of combat during the prologue missions, stuck as we are following the tutorial’s relatively strict instruction, but the overall impression is of, well, Total War. Since the first Rome, Creative Assembly has been iterating upon such a solid foundation in its combat mechanics that tweaks and new additions (which in Rome II’s case include improved simulation of weight and impact as well as combined naval and land battles) can’t help but feel iterative. And since we’re engaging in semi-scripted warfare – placing cavalry where we’re told, achieving specific objectives – it’s also impossible to judge the extent to which Creative Assembly has improved its traditional limiting factor: underperforming AI.
Beyond the teasing boundaries of the prologue campaign lies a world map rich in variety – the perfect contrast to Shogun 2′s relative cultural uniformity. There’s something ideal about this period of history for Total War – the cultures of the time were distinct enough in tactics and technology the period feels prebuilt (with a few balancing tweaks) for a strategy game. Rome II’s factions can be subdivided into three groups: the Greco-Roman factions, the Eastern ones, and the Barbarians. As well as very different unit types, the three types will play a very different campaign game. Barbarians can form confederacies with other tribes – joining forces to become a kind of giant meta-faction – whereas Greco-Roman and Eastern forces will be limited to the more traditional ally-or-subjugate options when dealing with other states.
Presentationally, Rome II provides precisely the kind of minute detail you want to find when zooming in on a campaign or battlefield map. Total War’s campaign map, which has evolved from its rudimentary origins to richly complex 4X game of its own, looks more dynamic this time around. Much of this is entirely cosmetic – birds flying over Vesuvius make only for pretty screenshot material – but some changes have more strategic impact. You can literally see cities expand, their walls encroaching upon the surrounding countryside, as you invest in them, a subtle tweak that should make it more immediately readable which cities are a faction’s most valuable holdings.
As the prologue campaign draws to a close it finally opens out, letting us formulate our own plan for wiping out the remaining Samnite cities before eventually destroying Samnium. It’s a small taste of the tactical freedom that the main game looks set to offer, though when the full game’s released we’ll probably skip a second playthrough and head straight to Total War.
The post Rome II: Total War’s upgrades, tweaks and familiar rhythms appeared first on Edge Online.
via Edge Online http://www.edge-online.com/features/rome-ii-total-wars-upgrades-tweaks-and-familiar-rhythms/
News::Project: Contingency Is A Fan-Made Halo Game, Powered By CryEngine 3 - Tech Demo Revealed
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News::Razer Ouroboros Gaming Mouse: Hardware Review (Gamer's Thumb)
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News::Dark Souls II Interview -"We want to bring across a sense of satisfaction"
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News::Mercenary Kings Early Access Impressions: Monster Metal Slugger | Dealspwn
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News::Capcom Online Games' 13 new announcements revealed
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News::Volition on why Saints Row 4 isn't next-gen
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News::Total War: Rome II Preview | Gamereactor UK
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News::eGamer Podcast 42: The Real Answer
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News::This Monster Hunter Frontier G PS3/Wii U trailer is great
Monster Hunter Frontier Online is already available in Japan for the PC and Xbox 360, but to celebrate the upcoming Wii U and PlayStation 3 releases, Capcom has given us a new trailer for the update titled Monster Hunter Frontier G. To be clear, the original game was released in 2007 (as an upgrade to Monster Hunter 2), and it's online-only with a monthly fee -- so don't get too excited.
The new versions will run on their own servers, but offer the "exact same content," said Director Tatsumi Kimoto. Kimoto also confirms that they're working on something special for the Wii U GamePad (or even 3DS functionality), but he can't "guarantee" anything yet.
While I'm sure this will excite some of the more hardcore Monster Hunter re-release fans, I'm just waiting for the brand new Monster Hunter 4 .
via destructoid http://www.destructoid.com/this-monster-hunter-frontier-g-ps3-wii-u-trailer-is-great-259152.phtml
News::Softpedia- Rise of the Triad Review
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News::Paul McCartney’s videogame Destiny – Bungie’s Martin O’Donnell on working with a music legend
“I never in a million years thought I’d be able to just call him ‘Paul’” begins Martin O’Donnell, explaining his collaboration with the legendary Paul McCartney on Bungie’s Destiny. But O’Donnell himself should be no stranger to the concept of celebrity by now, having scored each of Bungie’s Halo titles to universal acclaim.
O’Donnell’s rise to industry prominence started at Mac World in 1999, when Bungie unveiled Halo for the first time. The three-minute scripted demo took people by surprise and the series, of course, went on to take the game industry by storm. Part of the bold impression made by Halo at that first showing, and a crucial element of its continued iconic status, was O’Donnell’s first audio composition. So when Bungie showed Destiny to the world at E3 this year I was slightly disappointed not to be obsessively humming a new O’Donnell theme for the rest of the month. What happened?
“I’m certainly working on it,” O’Donnell says. “It’s hard for me – and some of the guys get impatient about it, like ‘hey Marty, quick just write an iconic theme and show it to us’. But that’s not what I did with Halo. I like to write music. And now getting to work with Paul McCartney it’s just great to work on a whole bunch of music with a lot of themes. So we have this really great start on many, many pieces of music that all seem to work together well. Most of it hasn’t been heard yet. Exactly which element will rise to the top and become the iconic thing? I think that happens over time, organically. I feel like we have really iconic stuff that at some point will rise to the top and become the iconic theme. It probably hasn’t happened yet.”
O’Donnell was able to get McCartney’s interest thanks to this unique approach to scoring Destiny. “I came up with this idea of music of the spheres. I came up with eight pieces, a suite, it turned out to be 50 minutes long, we’re going to be releasing it before the game. And that’s the thing that I got Paul interested in working with us on.”
It’s a collaboration that stretches back nearly three years, when McCartney was working with the Rock Band franchise. A friend of O’Donnell’s offered to reach out to McCartney on his behalf and O’Donnell’s initial reaction was understandable: “I said ‘that’s insane, but sure, do what you want…’”
Fast-forward six months and McCartney had reached out to O’Donnell, offering to spend time with him and trying to understand game music. “Paul’s one of these guys who just never seems to want to stop developing and moving, so we had a great meeting and started collaborating. And for two years we traded music back-and-forth, met at several studios. We did this session at Abbey Road. I’m really looking forward to getting that out for people to hear because it has… it’s the 50-minute suite that tells its own story that’s within the story of the Destiny universe. It’s written by Mike Salvatori, me and Paul McCartney.”
It’s this very suite that comes up repeatedly in our conversation which O’Donnell clearly sees as holding the secret to Destiny’s soundscape. “I’m hoping there’s enough substance there that as Destiny develops into the future we can keep adapting that score,” he says, “arranging and growing new themes that are the germs of ideas right now in the suite. That’s the general plan right now. It allowed us to do a purely musical approach that can be adapted over the next number of years.”
That “purely musical” approach is down, in no small part, to McCartney’s involvement, which was initially a concern for O’Donnell: “That was one of the things we were quite worried about: would Paul even be interested in a sci-fi shooting game? But he seemed excited about it. He’s played Halo with his grandkids and was… I can’t speak for Paul, but I think he’s pretty excited that he’s stretching into an area he hasn’t stretched before.”
McCartney didn’t just bring a new paradigm to O’Donnell’s methodology; he brought some new (and old) technology: “He brought out his old tape-loop machine – he said the last time he used it was on Sgt. Pepper. So he sent me an entire session where he was playing around with all these tape-loops. We were just thrilled. That [was] the same machine that was on Revolver.”
O’Donnell evangelised the medium to McCartney, and the composer is set to continue his work when he revisits London in September for Game Music Connect, a event that aims to lift the lid on working in the game music industry.
McCartney’s influence and legacy in the music industry is unrivalled, and in O’Donnell he not only seems have a game industry collaborator but an equivalent; few composers working in games have the level of control O’Donnell has. Bungie has entrusted him with all of Destiny’s audio direction, from sound effects and those monastic chants to a game’s dialogue and final mix. Or, as O’Donnell puts it: “Whatever’s coming out of the speakers, I’m the one saying ‘yes, I like it that way’”.
The post Paul McCartney’s videogame Destiny – Bungie’s Martin O’Donnell on working with a music legend appeared first on Edge Online.
via Edge Online http://www.edge-online.com/features/paul-mccartneys-videogame-destiny/
News::New Tech Demos Revealed For Capcom's Panta Rhei Engine
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News::Dragon Quest Monsters 2 coming to 3DS in Japan
Foolishly, one of the bigger reasons I wanted to pick up a 3DS was for the remake of a Gameboy Color favorite, Dragon Warrior Monsters (Dragon Quest Monsters: Terry's Wonderland in Japan). Unfortunately, Dragon Quest Monsters: Terry's Wonderland 3D came out in Japan almost a year ago now and a Western release doesn't seem to be in the slime.
Meanwhile, Dragon Quest Monsters 2: Iru and Luca’s Wonderful Mysterious Keys, a remake of what we will, for simplicity, refer to by the stateside name of Dragon Warrior Monsters 2, has been announced for 3DS. In Japan, obviously. There is a website and everything.
First Japan hoards one of the cooler 3DS models (one which would have seen me purchasing a 3DS two and a half years ago), now it continues to hoard Dragon Warrior Monster goodness. Fine. It's not like I need another lengthy time sink in my life anyway.
According to Gematsu, it "will have over 800 monsters, including new ones from Dragon Quest X, “Super G Size” monsters, and four-on-four monster battles. It will support local and internet correspondence, StreetPass, one save slot, and eight person multiplayer." Sounds fun. Uhm, I mean, it's not like I wanted you, or anything. Did you?
via destructoid http://www.destructoid.com/dragon-quest-monsters-2-coming-to-3ds-in-japan-259146.phtml
News::Assassin's Creed 4 Meets Parkour in Real Life
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News::Breath of Fire 6 announced for PC, tablet and smartphones
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News::Free-To-Play Ridge Racer Driftopia Enters Closed Beta Today
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News::Psychonauts, Brutal Legend soundtracks now on Bandcamp
Double Fine has uploaded six game soundtracks to their Bandcamp page. They're all available for purchase, and you can stream them too.
Middle Manager of Justice soundtrack is $2.99 , Psychonauts: Original Cinematic Score is $7.99, Psychonauts: Original Soundtrack is $7.99, The Cave: Original Soundtrack is $7.99, Brutal Legend Original Soundtrack is $9.99, and the Dropchord soundtrack is $9.99.
via destructoid http://www.destructoid.com/psychonauts-brutal-legend-soundtracks-now-on-bandcamp-259132.phtml