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Archived News:
Warhammer Battle Marches to Xbox 360, PC on GameSpot reveals plans for
Warhammer: Battle March, an expansion for Warhammer: Mark of Chaos, Namco
Bandai's Warhammer RTS game. Here's word on the add-on, due for PC and Xbox 360
next year: Returning to the series it resurrected, Namco Bandai today
announced the first expansion for Warhammer: Mark of Chaos. Titled Warhammer:
Battle March, the next installment in the tactical strategy game updates Mark of
Chaos with a new single-player campaign that features two new factions: Dark
Elves and Orcs & Goblins. All of the existing factions will also receive new
units, and new online modes will also be added to the mix.
Whereas the first Mark of Chaos was available exclusively for the PC, Warhammer:
Battle March will also be joining the Xbox 360's growing lineup of real-time
strategy games. But an expansion without the original game isn't much good, so
Battle March on the Xbox 360 will include the original Mark of Chaos in its
entirety, as well as all of the new content being added in the PC expansion.
Players will be able to play through single-player campaigns featuring each of
the six different factions, and as is a hallmark of the Warhammer universe,
Battle March will include extensive unit-customization options. The Xbox 360
game also includes online multiplayer battling for up to four players over Xbox
Live in head-to-head and team-based modes.
Gaming Remains the Most Popular Online Entertainment Activity (thanks
FiringSquad) has the results of a study indicating that gaming remains the
most popular online activity, though this is fueled by the bejeweled world of
casual games: “Despite the growing popularity of YouTube, MySpace, and
Facebook, gaming remains the king of online entertainment, driven largely by
casual gaming activities,” said James Kuai, a research analyst at Parks
Associates. “Gaming also has business advantages. Unlike sites for social
networking and video streaming, which rely solely on advertising revenue, casual
gaming has more mature and heterogeneous revenue models, including web-based and
in-game advertising, try-before-you-buy, subscriptions, and micro-transactions.”
The year-over-year growth rate for frequent online gamers was 79%, significantly
higher than the growth rate for users of social networking (46%). However, the
growth rate for frequent users of video streaming sites was 123%, which could
pose a significant challenge to the gaming industry in capturing the online
leisure time of Internet users.
“The casual gaming industry cannot rest on its laurels,” Kuai said. “In order to
counter the growing competition from other online activities, the industry needs
to continue to grow its fan base and find ways to better monetize its existing
audience.”
Casual Gaming Market Update provides in-depth analysis of the current dynamics
and future direction of the rapidly growing casual gaming industry, including
quantitative forecasts, competitive analysis, consumer perspectives, and
profiles of leading companies in the casual gaming value chain.
This forum thread
offers the patch notes for Book 10, "The City of the Kings" free content update
set to go live on Monday for The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar.
The notes are quite extensive, so they are divided into several indexed
sections. This thread
offers locations to get a patch to update their own game manually during
Monday's downtime (for the North American/Oceania client only). Finally, on a
further related note, the latest
Ask Turbine with Jeffrey
Steefel on Lord of the Rings Online WarCry asks some questions about the
Book 10 update.
The
Patches Scrolls now offers the latest unofficial patch for Vampire: The
Masquerade - Bloodlines, bringing the action/RPG to version 4.0. The
accompanying patch notes describe the changes and fixes in the update for the
game, which no longer has official support since the demise of developer Troika.
The download is mirrored on
Gamer's Hell.
A new trailer from Clive Barker's Jericho is now available, showing off
cutscenes and gameplay from the upcoming horror-themed action game. The movie is
available on
3D
Downloads,
ActionTrip,
FileFront, and Gamer's
Hell. On a related note, there's
a Q&A with
Cris Velasco on Music 4 Games discussing his soundtrack for Jericho.
id's Tim Willits and
Todd Hollenshead on Rage on Shacknews is a Q&A with the id guys about Rage,
their upcoming vehicular shooter. They discuss the game's influences, how they
keep the development process fun, the game's setting, the balance between game
elements, and the ever-popular more.
Tiscali Games has
uncovered word that a Mafia 2 announcement is in the offing, having discovered a
ratings listing for a trailer that will show off the game at the Games
Convention in Leipzig, Germany. A subsequent post on
IGN says to
expect an announcement next week, while a post on
Computer and Video Games suggests that the sequel to Illusion Softworks'
life-of-crime game may be officially announced as early as today. Illusion
actually revealed they were at work on a Mafia sequel back in late 2003
( story), but nothing has been mentioned of this project since
then.
EA responds to
Wikipedia revision controversy follows up on yesterday's story about EA's
edits to Wikipedia ( story) with a statement from EA, while also
clarifying credit for this scoop actually belongs to
DarkZero. EA's defense of what looks like blatant spin-doctoring seems like,
well, blatant spin-doctoring: EA sometimes updates websites with info
about the company, games and employees. For example, EA has sent a correction to
Yahoo Finance when they had misspelled the name of an EA executive. Many
companies routinely post updates on websites like Wikipedia to ensure accuracy
of their own corporate information.
- Unreal Tournament 3
The
Unreal Tournament 3 Q&A on Voodoo Extreme chats with Jeff Morris of Epic
Games about their upcoming first-person shooter sequel. A lot of ground is
covered, including how the game's visuals will compare with those of Gears
of War, whether the single-player campaign will have a storyline, AI
improvements, returning maps, game types, and more.
- Heat
What
Happened to Gearbox’s Heat? on Next Generation is an
article-format conversation with Randy Pitchford of Gearbox Software about
the status of their plans for a game based on Heat, Michael Mann's highly
regarded crime movie. The discussion covers how talk of such a game got
started, why the project has failed to gain traction to this point, and his
hopes of still someday realizing his vision for the game.
- Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare on
Gamehelper.
- Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer on
MPOGD.
So the news came down earlier this week that HBO has axed John from Cincinnati.
Someone commented in the forums they thought this was a favorite show of mine,
but that's a twist on my actually having been unable to bring myself to watch it
because I'm still wallowing in unhappiness that it was given life through the
death of Deadwood (which is, in fact, probably my favorite show of all time). In
reading stories about JfC's demise, however, I am startled by how generally
reviled by critics it was, as it came from the same source as critically
acclaimed shows like Deadwood and NYPD Blue. This has left me kind of intrigued
about the project, and since I think we still have the whole thing TiVoed, I may
yet check it out. Of course this opens the door for the possibility that I'll
love it, and will now be embittered about a second David Milch series getting
axed by HBO, though with the reviews I've seen, I guess that's not the most
likely scenario. Anyway, hopefully this will lead to the production of the
Deadwood follow-up movies that have been discussed.
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