Jul 28, 2014 | Game ON news

Monday, July 28, 2014

News::Portal 2 Easter Egg Asks the Question We All Want to Know

Junkie Monkeys: While playing Portal 2, one eagle eyed gamer discovered an Easter Egg that asks the question many gamers have been asking for almost a decade.

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News::Battleplan: American Civil War Review | 3rd-strike

Elexus from 3rd-strike writes: "Although theres not much content available after completing the campaign, I really liked the simplicity of Battleplan: American Civil War. Both music and graphic wise, the game couldve used some more fleshing out. Overall, for its price, this proves to be some fun entertainment. If youre looking for a light strategy game or want to get familiar with the genre, Id say give Battleplan a try."

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News::Apparently only 40% of GameStop customers know they can trade in games

You know when you call GameStop and they open the call with "the place where you can buy and sell used games," then prompt you with trade-in offers before and after you buy something? Well according to GameStop itself, only 40 percent of its customer-base knows that you can actually trade stuff in. People must really not be paying attention.

GameStop president Tony Bartel spoke to GamesBeat, and noted, "The biggest opportunity with trades is awareness. Believe it or not, only 40 percent of the people who walk into a GameStop store today know that we accept trades of games." I mean, that's a tough number to really nail down, and GameStop itself is the figure's charge, but they apparently have a long way to go in terms of customer education if that number is accurate.

Despite what people say about GameStop always ripping you off, with the right deal I can often swing the same amount of money (if not more) on trades as eBay averages -- and I usually just use the store credit to buy Xbox, PSN, or eShop point cards on the spot. It's just one tool in the shed.

GameStop: ‘Only 40%’ of customers know ‘we accept trades’ for in-store credit [VentureBeat]

Apparently only 40% of GameStop customers know they can trade in games screenshot

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News::The New Hobbit Trailer Is One Hell Of A Nostalgia Trip

Here is the trailer for The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, complete with a throwback to one of the best moments in Lord of the Rings: Return of the King—Pippin's song. CHILLS.

via Kotaku http://ift.tt/X5BYGG

News::Oddworld: New n Tasty Review | Codec Moments

Matt at Codec Moments writes: "For the last couple of years the people at Just Add Water have been crafting New n Tasty, more than just an HD makeover of the original Abes Oddysee, and its finally landed on the great-grandson of the platform that brought it fame."

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News::Kickstarter Watch: The Regret of Vitrerran

Some of the best JRPGs of recent years have taken classic turn-based conventions and brought them into the world of real-time. The Regret of Vitrerran hopes to do something similar with card games.

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News::Gods Will Be Watching is Beautiful, But Flawed. - Cliqist

Nathaniel Liles writes: "Pretty damning review, right? I bet you're going to explode when I tell you that I would actually highly recommend this game to absolutely anyone! It's a phenomenal story that will really put your mind to the test, and even though that second level is the most tedious, annoying thing in the world... It's a torture scene in an artsy game."

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News::Ninja Theory Teases Something, But it Isnt DMC2: Cannot Wait to Show Off Some New Ninja Work.

If you love Ninja Theory games look like the hype machine is warming its engine, as the developer is teasing something.

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News::McDonald's Happy Meal Customer Gives Bowser A New Paint Job

News::There's a Pacific Rim virtual-reality experience for Oculus Rift

Legendary Pictures and Reel FX brought a Pacific Rim virtual-reality experience to San Diego Comic-Con last weekend and gee, doesn't that seems like a worthwhile idea for a full game?

Pacific Rim: Jaeger Pilot puts players inside of the Gipsy Danger during a battle with the kaiju Knifehead. The Oculus Rift experience was created in Unreal Engine 4 using film assets from Industrial Light & Magic. Even if we don't one day get a proper virtual-reality Pacific Rim game, it'd be nice if Legendary made the tech demo-y Jaeger Pilot available for Rift owners.

At any rate, looking forward to the movie sequel in 2017.

There's a Pacific Rim virtual-reality experience for Oculus Rift screenshot

via destructoid http://ift.tt/1qbJPL8

News::Elder Scrolls Online Outlines European Megaserver Move

A date has finally been set for the European Megaserver move from North America to Europe. European players have been waiting since the launch in April for this to happen.

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News::August's Games With Gold Selection: Dishonored and More

August's Games With Gold Selection: Dishonored and More

The next four free games for LIVE subscribers to look forward to are Dishonored, Crimson Dragon, Motocross Madness, and Strike Suit Zero. Here's the timing:

via Kotaku http://ift.tt/X5sSd4

News::State of Decay Review I Good and Bad, No Middle Ground - The Game Fanatics

William Harmon writes: I picked up State of Decay on the Steam Summer Sale this year, and it was the first game I installed and booted up from that haul. Developed by Undead Labs, this is a game that promised an involved zombie surviving experience. Did it deliver?

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News::Sleepy Hollow VR Experience Gets Trailer

VRFocus - Last week's San Diego Comic-Con (SDCC) 2014 played host to the reveal of a range of new virtual reality (VR) experiences, primarily based off of movies and TV shows. 20th Century Fox made a big push with the technology, showcasing an X-Men VR experience as well as one based off of its Sleepy Hollow TV show. Now a trailer for the latter has been posted online, which can be seen below.

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News::Oculus Rift DK2 eBay Prices Reach Absurd Heights

How much would you pay to have an Oculus Rift DK2 by tomorrow? Probably not as much as these people.

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News::WARMACHINE: Tactics - Digital Deluxe Edition Preview | NoobFeed

From the preview - Although Warmachine: Tactics is still in its earlier stages of beta, the game itself is going down a path to greatness. As of now the game is still lacking a great story-line for its single player campaign (or any story-line at all for that matter), as well as more graphics options, fluid game mechanics, and a generally more appealing user-interface.

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News::The Hum Dev: Real VR isnt just Add Oculus Support

VRFocus - Upcoming virtual reality (VR) horror title The Hum is serious about its support for both the Oculus Rift VR head-mounted display (HMD) and Project Morpheus HMD. Developer Thotwise Games confirmed that the title would support the former along with the titles announcement earlier in the year, and is targeting the latter with a possible PlayStation 4 support. Speaking to VRFocus, the team revealed that The Hums VR support wont be a simple add on.

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News::[Continue Play] Oddworld: New 'n' Tasty Review

Continue Play's Wes Copeland looks at Just Add Water's remake of PS1 classic Abe's Oddysee and finds a game that's superb when it works, but suffers from technical problems that come close to souring the experience. "New n Tasty! is utterly superb when it works. But when it doesnt, New n Tasty! becomes Old n Bitter!"

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News::The Walking Dead Season 2: Episode 4 - Amid the Ruins Review | IncGamers

Telltale's penultimate episode in The Walking Dead Season Two finds Clementine and her ever-changing crew Amid the Ruins. IncGamers reviews episode 4.

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News::Capcom wants to lower development cycles to 1.5 years for major sequels

Nobody likes waiting for the follow-ups to their favorite games. However, if you're a Capcom fan, that wait will be more tolerable than most others, as the Japanese publisher aims for significantly quick turn-around between installments in the company's biggest franchises.

In its most recent report to investors, Capcom outlined that it's striving for a 1.5 year development cycle for sequels in major franchises. It plans to do this by outfitting teams with a stable of 30 key developers, which can be supplemented by additional staff as the development crunch intensifies. As Capcom put it "This allows us to develop content with a small number of people while operating a number of lines at once."

While one and a half years seems rather fast, Capcom also mentioned that its eventual goal is to make the process even quicker. When you think of the franchises that are almost defined by the fact that they have annual releases, it might not be long before some of Capcom's biggest names come to mind.

Summary of Q&A at the Briefing of Financial Results [Capcom via NeoGAF]

Capcom wants to lower development cycles to 1.5 years for major sequels screenshot

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News::What I Learned Turning The Israel-Palestine Conflict Into A Video Game

What I Learned Turning The Israel-Palestine Conflict Into A Video Game

In February 2007, one of Israel's renowned major generals had been invited to play a new simulation game of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on prime time Israeli TV. It seemed like a good idea at the time, as he was running for prime minister on behalf of the Labor Party.

via Kotaku http://ift.tt/1l7MKBJ

News::This Live-Action Dragon Ball Z Trailer Is Totally Real. Really.

Sick of boring ol' 2D animation, Dragon Ball Z studio Funimation decided to hire the funny folks at Mega64 to make a live-action movie based on the popular cartoon by Akira Toriyama. The results are amazing, as expected. And totally real. Really totally real.

via Kotaku http://ift.tt/1pxcMzG

News::Something To Watch While You Wait For Half-Life 3

Ever the beacon of hope, resilience, and the most useful coping mechanism of all—denial—I continue to believe we'll see legendary shooter sequel Half-Life 3. Someday. Until then, we can always torture ourselves with great videos that make us desperately want to see more of this world. Good idea, no?

via Kotaku http://ift.tt/1pxcOrd

News::Heads up: Payday will be free on Steam in October

It feels silly to tell you about a game that's going to be free months from now, but maybe, just this once, it'll prevent someone from buying said game right before the promotion begins. With that in mind, Payday: The Heist will be free for 24 hours on October 18, 2014.

This offer is connected to Overkill Software's Crimefest, a celebration of the Payday franchise's third anniversary happening in October. The studio has a goal of 1.5 million community member sign-ups on the Payday 2 Steam group, and there are milestones with rewards. The group now has over 1,050,000 members, hence the free Payday offer.

Even if you're done with the original game, I'd encourage Payday 2 players to take a look at that link -- the other rewards will be relevant to your interests. Looks like we'll get them all, too.

Heads up: Payday will be free on Steam in October screenshot

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News::New Assets Emerge From Fan-Made Mortal Kombat HD Remake, Look Phenomenal

DSOGaming writes: "Back in 2013, we informed you about Mortal Kombat HD: Kommunity Edition. Mortal Kombat HD: Kommunity Edition was a fan-made of the first MK game that looked amazing and was to be distributed for free. Unfortunately, Warner Bros sent a C&D letter to the team and as a result of that, the project was cancelled. Still, there is another project that is being developed that aims to bring a modern look at this classic fighting game."

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News::Gods Will Be Watching Review: Nihils Hymn | RGZCA

As Ray sits there and enters the same commands over and over again, he feels a certain autonomy take over. His mind has numbed to the plight of those whom he holds at the end of his gun. Empathy has long since ejected from the escape pods and crash landed onto a dead, sandy planet nearby. Common sense jettisoned eons ago. he shoots them in non-vital locations, he punches them repeatedly til their faces look like the meat Rocky used to practice with. They beg him not to do anything crazy and he just doesnt care. Oceans gush forth from blood stained eyes, the salty water providing no comfort or nourishment to parched souls. His finger is quivering above the trigger, its cold steel the only thing he knows anymore. Lost to the hypnotic whir of densely packed computerized science equipment, he drifts off in a daze in the midst of the situation. Why does he feel so disconnected from these horrific events? Has he always been this broken or has something made him this way? Why is it that,...

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News::Battlefield 4 Premium Now Available For A Reduced Price On Origin

The Battlefield 4 Premium subscription is now available for a reduced price on Origin

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News::Shovel Knight Video Review - The Ranting Robots

Shovel Knight review by The Ranting Robots.

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News::The top 10 games from the first half of 2014

Chalgyr's Game Room writes: The first half of 2014 blew by very quickly in the gaming industry (so fast that we were almost through the first seven months before I finished putting my thoughts together on the year's first six months!). While there are no doubt quite a few quality games coming out in the second half of 2014, I wanted to take a look back and talk about the top 10 releases so far (plus 5 that just missed and the biggest disappointment of 2014 so far). Some of these names are pretty familiar, but others? Perhaps not

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News::Should You Get The Last of Us Again On PS4?

News::New map, AI bots headed to Awesomenauts

In detailing some of what's in store for Awesomenauts' upcoming patch 2.6, Ronimo Games announced that it's finally preparing another map: AI Station 205. That's not to be confused with the existing AI Station 404, which is similar "but also contains some fundamental changes."

The patch will also add "some of the best and most fun" community-made bots to Awesomenauts, as well as a more in-depth profile screen, better replays, and a cool-sounding AI Editor update which "will make it possible for modders to create, for example, a defense mode where three players need to defend against waves of enemies."

I've stopped playing the game in recent months (it's one of the few that causes me to get overly competitive) but this -- this sounds like reason enough to return.

New map, AI bots headed to Awesomenauts screenshot

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News::Is It An Early Death for Early Access?

Early Access seems to be the almost go-to for a good amount of devs now. Its like the map to success starts at Game idea ends at Launch, but somewhere in between everyone found this less beaten path towards a half-way house titled Early Access. It seems like the done thing and I dont like that, but it does have its benefits which are incredibly useful.

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News::Pyrodactyl Interview: No Absolutes in Unrest

From the interview, "If youve been following GamerTell, which [Jenni Lada] hope you have, Im sure youve noticed the recent focus on Pyrodactyl Games Unrest. A Kickstarter success story, this narrative-driven adventure just released and grabbed me. I connected with the game and fell in love, then finished it with a broken heart. Frankly, Unrests ending left me wanting to riot. Shocked, appalled, incensed, and upset, I immediately emailed Pyrodactyl Games Arvind Yadav for answers. I had to know why Unrest ended like it did. There was so much unsaid, and I was craving closure. Yadav graciously granted me an interview, unfortunately it brought me no resolution or peace."

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News::Project CARS Vs Real Life Comparison Shows How Close To The Real Deal - Visually - This Racer Is

YouTube's 'DigiProst' has posted a comparison video between a real life and Project CARS, showing how amazing Slightly Mad Studios' racer actually is. While the head movements and overall physics are not close to the real thing, Project CARS' visuals look almost photorealistic.

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