News::The Castle Doctrine Preview (PC) | CriticalIndieGamer

(CriticalIndieGamer) The front door slams open, darkness obscures all but the corridor in front of me. Meticulously I scrutinise the walls for other rooms, knowing that behind any of the doors lays certain death. I tentatively enter a room to find a cowering family before me. Mother, daughter and son scramble out , making a break for the front door. A close call; had they owned a gun, I would be dead. I continued further down the hall, peeking through another door; to my dismay, I was face to face with a bloodthirsty pit bull. Hot on my heels, the ravenous beast chased me back through the hallway and out of the house. I returned home, a little worse for wear, but empty-handed. Crossing the threshold, a pool of blood encircled my shoes. While I was out, my wife had been murdered, and my savings stolen. This is brutal. This is The Castle Doctrine.



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News::New Don't Starve: Reign of the Giants Expansion Teaser Revealed

Klei Entertainment releases the winter trailer for their new Don't Starve expansion, Reign of the Giants.



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News::Three Unannounced Nitrous Engine-powered Games Under Development, Star Swarm Releases This Month

DSOGaming writes: "Although Oxide did not reveal the platforms for which these three games will be coming, we do know that Nitrous will work on next-gen consoles and that the three games are developed by Oxide, Stardock and Mohawk Games."



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News::War of the Vikings Custom Loadout Update Needs Huge 13Gb Download

Segmentnext writes: "Still in Early Access on Steam, multiplayer title War of the Vikings has added a major update to its game that grants customization. In phase 4 of its development, the PC brawler will allow players to enhance their experience both cosmetically as actively."



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News::Wii U Virtual Console will be getting DS games soon

Nintendo President Satoru Iwata gave a presentation detailing what they're doing to turnaround the company's poor performance. On top of the stuff we detailed here, it was also revealed that the Wii U will be seeing Nintendo DS games appearing on the Virtual Console.

A slide on this page gives one example of what DS a game like Brain Age will look like on the Wii U GamePad. About time. We'll share more on what to expect from this as soon as we hear anything.

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News::Nintendo details plan to turn around Wii U sales

Nintendo released their third quarter financial results which revealed an operating loss of over $15 million due to poor Wii U sales. While it wasn't totally bleak in sales in some regards, the company overall failed to meet revised sales projections thus causing Nintendo president Satoru Iwata to cut his salary in half.

So now what? Iwata just held a press conference in Japan tonight and detailed what his plan of attack is to turn the company around. For starters, Iwata stated that they won't be abandoning its hardware business, and game consoles will continue being the center of their strategy. That said, he admitted that adapting to change is necessary.

A revamp to their marketing is coming, with a big focus on the GamePad and it's capabilities, such as pushing the NFC function (tech similar to what Skylanders/Disney Infinity does). He admitted that the Wii U's weakness is the GamePad in that the recognition is low, and that people think it's an accessory for the Wii. Turning this around is the company's highest priority, such as how they'll be revealing new NFC titles at E3. They won't be cutting the price, however. We can also expect high-speed startups, so for instance you can instantly dive into games through the GamePad as your TV is powering up.

Read more...



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News::Rockstar Games needs to address the 'Grand Theft Auto V' PC rumors

The PC version of 'Grand Theft Auto V' has been one of the most highly anticipated games of 2014 to the point that a little hearsay is more then enough to generate buzz within the gaming community. However Rockstar Games has failed to confirm or deny these rumors.



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News::Nintendo Knows The Wii U Is Struggling, Promises Improvements

News::A familiar look at Dark Souls II while we count the days

PlayStation Access has about 12 minutes of Dark Souls II footage as played by some lucky soul at Namco Bandai and, thing is, it doesn't really cover new ground.

It's the same shadowy underground areas lit up by torches, the same Mirror Knight encounter, the same "YOU DIED" -- but I personally can't get enough of this stuff, "new" or otherwise.

That huge sword just wasn't working out, was it? I've always been a halberd man, myself.

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News::The Gamers Lounge Podcast Episode 1:"Déjà vu all Over Again"

Join John and Nathanael as they talk WiiU, Battlefield 4, LOTR and more!



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News::Candy Crush Saga developer defends itself in open letter

In the letter, King CEO Riccardo Zacconi answers accusations of IP theft (the company was accused of cloning an indie game based on Pac-Man called Pac-Avoid), trademarking of the popular word candy, and blocking indie game The Banner Sagas bid to trademark its name due to the shared word Saga in the games title.



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News::Tomb Raider: PC versus PS4

What's the difference between the PC version of Tomb Raider and the Definitive Edition running on PS4 in terms of graphics? A new video tries to find some answers.



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News::Plants vs Zombies Garden Warfare PS4 Release Possible?

GamerFitNation: The Plants vs Zombies franchise has now come to your living room with Plants vs. Zombies Garden War. Now youre able to play the game like never before, but will we see a Plants Vs Zombies Garden Warfare PS4 release? GamerFitnation got the chance to visit EA to get insight on a new Split Screen mode from our previous visit on Garden Warfare.



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News::10 games to perfect your teamwork before Destiny

Your Fireteam will need you to be in peak condition so warm up with some of these team-building co-op experiences.



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News::Leaky Valves: Half Life 3, Steam OS exclusive?

Over the last few days the gaming internet has been abuzz with rumours and leaks supposedly that have come out of Valve. Whether or not the leaked images are legitimate it begs a question that needs an answer. What if Half Life 3 is under development, but exclusive to Steam OS? And could this be why Valve have been so tight lipped about it's development?



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News::How To: Using the Skyrim Steam Workshop to Install Mods

SteamFirst: One of the more popular games on Steam, Skyrim has arguably some of the coolest, oddest, and best looking mods you can install. You may not know this but installing and using mods can be done right from the Steam Store. We show you how in our latest how to: installing mods for Skyrim from the Steam Store.Our guide will be simple and easy. We will show you where you can find mods, read about them, check out the latest updates and which ones are the most popular and easily install whichever ones you would like to try. The workshop is full of user created content such as graphic enhancements, new creatures, map addons and more. Just an FYI, all mods are technically beta whether fully tested and working or not, so try them at your own risk.



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News::Is Player-Created Content the Future of MMOs?

Many new mmos are now embracing player-created content for their games. It is a feature we are seeing more and more everyday. MMO-Play ask the question: Is player-created content the future of mmos?



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News::The Elder Scrolls Online on Xbox One: Are Subscription Fees Getting out of Hand?

The Elder Scrolls Online MMO for the PS4, will not require a PS Plus subscription to play. The user just needs to pay the $14.99 a month fee to Bethesda. However, Xbox One users have to have an active Xbox Live Gold Membership to play the game, in addition to paying the monthly fees for the MMO.



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News::The story of Rust

How Garry Newman's team went from mod success to early-access phenomenon.



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News::Strike Vector - Unreal Engine 3-powered Aerial Combat Game - Is Now Available

Regequit Corporation has released its first indie title, Strike Vector, that is developed with the Unreal Engine 3 and is described as a 3rd/1st person brutal aerial FPS.



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News::Top 5 Anticipated Games for 2014

A run down of five of the games, released in 2014, we're most excited for.



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News::Gawker Petition to Deport Justin Bieber Hits 100,000, White House Must Reply | io9 What Kind of Meat

News::Nosgoth Closed Alpha Impressions | GB

"Ten years. Thats how long its been since the release of the last game in the Legacy of Kain series. Despite its critical and commercial success and enduring popularity, the series just never went anywhere after 2003s Legacy of Kain: Defiance."



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News::Missing Battlefield 4 Veteran Battlepacks Reportedly Available Early March

MP1st - "Still missing your Battlefield 4 Veteran Battlepack? Chances are, yes. Since launch, Veteran Battlepacks that were to be made available for all Battlefield 4 players with one or more previous Battlefield games in their library still sit greyed-out and inaccessible for a number of users."



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News::Funcoms Offices Raided Over Alleged Lapses In Financial Reporting

Funcom, the developer behind the 2012 survival horror MMO The Secret World, could be in some serious legal trouble according to the latest news out of Norway. Norwegian authorities from the economic crime unit Okokrim raided their offices and seized documents based on a currently ongoing investigation into alleged lapses in the Scandinavian companys financial reporting, as well as infringing the Securities Trading Act with regards to the financial information given to the market regarding The Secret World from August 2011 until the games debut in July 2012 as well as the two month period following the MMOs launch.



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News::Pokémon X/Y Beta Competition set for next month

The first Pokémon Global Link tournament to allow Pokémon from the Kalos region happens next month, on Thursday, February 20 at 4:00pm Pacific. Registration details for this Beta Competition will be available at the Pokémon Global Link beginning January 31 but in the mean time, you'll want to register your copy of Pokémon X or Y with the PGL.

According to the announcement, some players are already qualified for the the tournament based on their performance in the Global Showdown. I've always been into Pokémon for the catch-'em-all aspect and never the competitive scene, but that's not to say I'm disinterested in seeing how players make use of the new generation. Quite the opposite.

The Pokémon X and Pokémon Y beta competition begins soon [Pokémon]

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News::GameCenter CX - Episode 159 - Tom Sawyer

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News::What drives you to go buying crazy during Steam sales?

SteamFirst: As fans of Steam we are just like the millions of you folks out there that get addicted to buying games during their big sales. There are four major ones to speak of; winter, spring, summer and autumn. For me one of the biggest reasons I go buying crazy is due to the low prices. Its tough to not buy a game that is only a few bucks, especially when there are no expectations involved with how good the game actually is or can be (and yes I know you can just read reviews). But still, even when a game gets meh reviews for a few bucks, you can not go wrong. What we want to know is, what drives you to buy Steam games during their big sales? Is it the price? Do you see that 80% or 90% off and say to yourself I have to have that now!?



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News::About Kings Candy And Saga Trademarks

Jeff talks about the 'Candy Saga' fiasco that happened and gives his opinion the entire 'sketchy' affair.



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News::Treasure has plans for more ports to Steam and a new game

Ikaruga coming to Steam by way of Steam Greenlight was an unusual sight to behold but if that's weirdly what it takes to get Treasure games on the platform, I'm all for it. In an interview with Famitsu, Treasure president Masato Maegawa said there's indeed plans to port more titles to PC.

"Ikaruga is the first one, and we don't intend on stopping there," he told the publication. "There are some players who say 'How about Radiant Silvergun?' but we also don't intend to only do ports. We're thinking of making a new original title for the platform, Steam."

Chief director Atsutomo Nakagawa commented that "A side-scroller action game might be pretty good..." to which Maegawa responded "Hey! We haven't decided on anything, yet!"

『斑鳩』がSteamで近日配信　なぜいまSteamなのかをトレジャーに直撃 [Famitsu via Siliconera]

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News::New Gears of War is just a week into development

Microsoft has acquired the rights to Gears of War from Epic Games and tasked Black Tusk Studios with development of the next installment. The time frame of this deal hasn't been made clear, leaving lots of room for speculation about when the next game might conceivably release.

Responding to a question on Twitter, Microsoft Studios corporate vice president Phil Spencer said "[The Black Tusk] leadership team has been involved for a month but [the] studio has only been on Gears for a week." Which means we're still years off. I guess I should have expected that, but I didn't for whatever reason. Not like I have an Xbox One yet, anyway.

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News::Get caught up on Lightning's story with this 16-bit recap

With Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII releasing next month, players may need to get (re)acquainted with the (perhaps convoluted) story thus far. Square Enix took up this task, and produced a brilliant video to recapitulate the events from the last two games of the FFXIII trilogy.

Hours upon hours of talking about Cocoon have been condensed into the eight-minute video, but the real draw is that the entire game has been retro-fitted to look and sound like a Final Fantasy title from the 16-bit era. Even those former Final Fantasy fans who have no interest in what the series is today can find a little bit of joy seeing Lightning and friends as 2D sprites, saving the world from the flashes, buzzes, and pops that the old hardware produced.

[Thanks, Albert!]

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News::Hardline Live: What should Nintendo's next move be?

Okay, so there is some news worth talking about this week for Hardline. But I think I speak for Steven and Conrad when I say we'd love to take questions from you as much as possible for this episode and see where that takes us. We're going live on Twitch.tv starting at 11:15am Pacific should you want to participate in what will inevitably be a weird conversation.

If you're strictly in it for the news talk, however, here's what I've got. Microsoft acquired the Gears of War property, the baby-making RPG Conception 2 is fun to talk about (but maybe less fun to play?), Nintendo says it won't make minigames for smartphones, Steam is getting a bit better about offering refunds, another EVE Online war broke out, and it sounds as if PS1/PS2 games will be playable on PS4 via PlayStation Network download.

Read more...



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News::EVE's Giant Space Battle Is Getting A Memorial: "Titanomachy"

News::Someone Made Minecraft In Project Spark (Complete With Cow!)

News::​Nintendo's Recent Drama, Summed Up In One Cheeky Image

News::​The Next Tomb Raider Story Starts Here

News::Play It Again Sam

As someone who has previously extolled the virtues of playing story-driven games through several times so that you experience alternative consequences, GamingLives' writer Chris is starting to question whether doing this means he's missing out on the joy of playing other games. "I have to question the logic in replaying the same games over and over. I know that if I enjoy it, then theres no problem, but the whole time Im replaying the same game, reliving similar experiences to those Ive already gathered, Im missing out on new ones; new games, new adventures that the industry is churning out, day after day. The longer I focus on squeezing the last drops of joy out of the same games that Ive been playing for the last fifteen years, the plethora of newer titles Im missing out on grows and grows."



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News::Payday 2 Gage Weapon Pack #02 announced

If you happened to stop by the Payday 2 official Steam Community you might have noticed a teaser for Gage Weapon Pack #02. According to the Gage Weapon Pack #02 teaser site the DLC will be available on Steam this Thursday January 30th. The items in the pack will be unveiled starting tomorrow, so be sure to check back on the official teaser site to have your first glimpse of what will be available in Payday 2 the following day.



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News::Titanfall Runs on an Original Modded Source Engine, Not Source 2.0

Kenneth Shepard writes: "In a Twitter exchange Respawn Community Manager, Abbie Heppe confirmed that Titanfall will run on a modified version of the original Source Engine, and not the recently revealed Source 2.0."



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News::Couch Co-Op Ep 1 Rust, PlayStation Now, and More

Gamemoir launches its very first episode with Couch Co-Op where Jack and Sean offer their thoughts on a myriad of topics in the video game industry.



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News::Bound by Flame preview the Spiders know how to work with feedback

PCGMedia first got a look at Bound by Flame at GamesCom 2013, but last week they got a hands on. Here are their views.



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News::Titanfall PC Version will "NOT " support Xbox One controller, Respawn Confirms

BehindGames Writes: Titanfall on PC will not support Xbox One controller, a few hours ago Respawn answered a question by mistake and told its fans that Titanfall PC version will support Xbox One controller.



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News::Massive EVE Battles Read Like Science Fiction

Orion discuses the great battles that can be had in EVE and how stories are built from Games. A look at how Gaming is as much Art as any book.



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News::DualShockers ShockCast Ep. 159 - "The Resolutionary War"

David Rodriguez writes, "Graphics. Resolution. Frame-rate. Anti-aliasing. Dynamic shadows. Pixels. How important are they to your gaming experience? This week on the ShockCast we talked about just that. Not from a fanboy perspective, but from the perspective of gamers judging any and all experiences. How much do graphics and all of its attributes figure in to the overall experience of gaming? We also talked about gaming experiences that have stuck with us throughout the years. Since we spend so much time talking about the future, it doesnt hurt to look back every now and then. Finally, we ended with a rundown of some of the recent stories in the news."



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News::Mirror's Edge 2 Has Been Listed For Pre-Order, Now Removed (Screenshot Enclosed)

iGR: "The last we saw of Mirror's Edge 2 was at E3 2013. A short teaser video was shown, and it was enough to satiate those that had kept the Faith all this time. As of today, Mirror's Edge 2 is available for pre-order "



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News::WoW boasts 100 million lifetime players in new infographic

Blizzard has released a new infographic for World of Warcraft, which claims 100 million lifetime players and many other staggering statistics.



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News::Titanfall's exclusivity based on EA's Xbox and PlayStation sales forecast, not Xbox One's cloud

GameZone writes, "There's no doubt that Titanfall will be a major success when it ships in just a few months; but, you also can't deny that publisher Electronic Arts is missing out on a huge market of PlayStation gamers by keeping it exclusive to PC and Xbox platforms. Microsoft and Xbox may have made the most sense for EA and Respawn, but it doesn't look like it was a decision based on console power, community, or cloud servers."



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News::Iwata to halve salary after Nintendo's poor performance

While Nintendo struggles financially, its higher-ups aren't content to sit back and keep collecting a paycheck. Nintendo's president Satoru Iwata told reporters today that he would cut his salary in half for five months as an atonement of sorts for the company's recent 8.1 percent dip in revenue, 30 percent decline in profits, and an operating loss of more than $15 million.

Iwata isn't the only Nintendo executive taking it on the chin. Other board members are reportedly taking a 20 to 30 percent reduction in their paychecks. When asked if it were possible that the paycut would last beyond June, Iwata responded "I will make a decision after looking at the management situation at that time."

Although Nintendo's management recognizes that something needs to change, no one should expect it to happen overnight. Nintendo predicts that it will operate at a loss for the third consecutive year. Even though software sales have increased 19 percent, the Wii U continues to struggle as its sales have dropped 36 percent compared to the same time last year, and the company adjusted its projected units shipped from 9 million to 2.8 million.

Nintendo boss to halve pay after profits dive [Agence France-Presse]

Consolidated Financial Highlights [Nintendo]

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News::Pay extra to play as an Imperial in TES Online

Bethesda has announced The Elder Scrolls Online Imperial Edition, available in a physical form ($99.99) or digitally ($79.99). It contains the typical bonuses one would expect of an Elder Scrolls collector's edition, but then you get to the line about its "exclusive collection of digital content," which so happens to include the Imperial race. That's disappointing.

The other digital bonuses are a white Imperial horse, a Mudcrab vanity pet (obviously the other big draw here), and the experience-boosting Rings of Mara. The physical edition is more expensive because it comes with a 12" Molag Bal statue, a 224-page illustrated guide to Tamriel, a map, and that Steelbook packaging videogames seem to adore.

Don't tell Hamza, but I didn't even watch that cinematic.

Read more...



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