Archived News:

Tuesday, Jun 24, 2008

Fallen Empire: Legions Beta

Grab your jetpack, as the InstantAction Website is now allowing access to open beta testing of Fallen Empire: Legions, the online action shooter described as a spiritual successor to Starsiege TRIBES. Anyone with a free member ship can access the beta (thanks Voodoo Extreme). Word is: "Legions is bringing speed back to First Person Shooters. Jet through wide open maps as you battle it out with up to 16 players - all in your web browser. Weapons like the Chaingun and Laser Rifle help you on your path of destruction."

Music Wars Rebirth Announced

Wolverine Studios announces Music Wars Rebirth, a departure from their chosen field of sports simulations:
Michigan, June 24, 2008. Wolverine Studios, a developer of simulation games, is proud to announce our first foray outside the sporting world. Wolverine Studios is excited to announce our newest title: Music Wars Rebirth.

Music Wars Rebirth is the creation of Antuan Johnson who is happy to be bringing his music industry simulator to Wolverine Studios. Music Wars Rebirth allows players to create and manage their own record label by giving them the opportunity to both manage the financial state of their company as well as managing aspects of the artists signed to their label. The in-depth game play allows the user to track all aspects of the career of an artist as they take them from unknown talent to global superstar while catapulting their label to the top of the music industry.

Antuan began working on the Music Wars series in 2004 with a series of freeware releases. His most recent version, Music Wars 3, registered tens of thousands of downloads among various freeware and shareware sites. Fans of the series have called the games “addictive” and “brilliant” and Wolverine Studios President Gary Gorski says “I’m very excited about this new opportunity for both Antuan and our company. We’ve looked for opportunities to expand outside of our traditional sports-orientated games and I think this game will be a huge success for our company.”

More details and discussion about the game will be available from our web forums

Frontlines Roadmap

This Frontlines Status Page offers a roadmap for the PC edition Frontlines: Fuel of War, Kaos Studios' military shooter. There are tentative details on both a version 1.1.1 patch and a version 1.2.0 patch to follow that, as well as an outline of planned free downloadable content consisting of several maps, new air vehicles, and a new anti-aircraft rocket launcher weapon. There is also a corresponding Xbox 360 Roadmap detailing plans for the console edition. Thanks The Patches Scrolls.

On Linux Game Piracy

A statement from Linux Game Publishing (thanks Ant and LinuxGames) explains that "exceptionally high levels of piracy of Linux games" is the reason they are implementing copy protection going forward. Here's a bit:
Over the last 6 years, we have resisted adding any kind of protection system to our games. We believe that users are happier without them.

Unfortunately, many users have decided to ignore our polite requests to respect our copyright and have simply placed our games for download. They seem to feel that they are allowed to do so, or they just don't care. Either way, this kind of action, and the downloading by many people, lead to a significant loss of revenue, which in turn directly affects our ability to produce new games (we arent about growing profits, we are talking about lower revenue directly affecting which games can be licensed). It is estimated that many more pirated copies of LGP games exist, than do original copies. We obtained this estimate by seeding the download sites with a number of broken copies of our games, and monitored the number of requests for technical support that referenced the known bug we had inserted.

Adding copy protection will give us benefits as a company. Firstly, it will allow us to recover some of the lost revenue, by means of additional license sales, either via online vendors or direct through the copy protection system. Secondly, it will allow LGP to show a solid revenue protection system that will increase our credibility as a porting company in the eyes of licensors, allowing us to attempt to obtain higher profile games.

Evening Consolidation

Evening Previews

Evening Screenshots

Ships Ahoy - Alone in the Dark

Atari announces that Alone in the Dark has shipped to stores in North America for Windows, Xbox 360, Wii, and PlayStation2, and all those editions of the action/survival game should also now be available in Europe as well, while the PS3 edition is due in the fall:
NEW YORK, June 24, 2008 – Atari, Inc. (OTC Pink Sheets: ATAR), today announced that the eagerly awaited action survival game Alone in the Dark for Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, Games for Windows®, Wii™ and PlayStation®2 computer entertainment system has launched and is available at retailers across North America. The PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment system version is currently scheduled for release in autumn 2008.

Developed by Eden Games, Alone in the Dark for Xbox 360 and Games for Windows marks a blistering return for the legendary franchise with startling innovations and wide screen cinematic presentation. The game follows paranormal investigator Edward Carnby over the course of one apocalyptic night in which he must fight to survive and uncover the earth-shattering secret behind New York’s Central Park. With an exhilarating mix of challenging gameplay, intense storytelling in the style of a blockbuster TV series, unprecedented environmental interaction, realistic fire physics as a core gameplay element, and a DVD chapter select feature which lets everyone reach the game’s climax, Alone in the Dark is set to change what players expect from video games.

“We set out to deliver an innovative, high quality game to the hands of players everywhere,” said David Nadal, Studio Head and Game Director, Eden Games. “Driven by our studio's passion and the desire to create something genuinely original, Alone in the Dark is a game that will change how you play, and reward you with an entertainment experience you won’t forget.”

The Wii and PlayStation 2 system versions of Alone in the Dark were developed by Hydravision Entertainment in parallel with versions created by Eden Games for Xbox 360 and Games for Windows. The PlayStation 2 system game pushes the hardware to maximize the gameplay experience, while the Wii game has been specially adapted to make use of the unique controllers which perfectly suit the immersive gameplay that ranges from driving to real-time manipulation of objects.

Featuring a gripping story, design inspired by contemporary TV action dramas, and original gameplay based on real world rules physics, the action survival opus Alone in the Dark is in stores now across North America for Xbox 360, Games for Windows, Wii and PlayStation 2 system, with the PLAYSTATION 3 system version following later in 2008. For more information on Alone in the Dark visit www.CentralDark.com/us.

Spore Galactic Edition

GameStop has a new listing for a Spore Galactic Edition, a version of the Spore package designed to appeal to all residents of the Milky Way (thanks xXBatmanXx). This special edition of the evolution simulation includes a "Making of" DVD, a National Geographic "'The Human Toolkit" DVD, The Art of Spore (a hardcover "mini-book") a Spore poster, and a "premium" 100-page Galactic Handbook. The listing projects a September 7, 2008 release, which coincides with the latest official Spore release date (story).

Stronghold Crusader Extreme Demos

New demos are now available to allow the sampling of Stronghold Crusader Extreme, the new extreme-ified edition of the medieval strategy game. The demo comes in several languages, the English edition is found on AtomicGamer, ComputerGames.ro, FileFront, FileShack, Gamer's Hell, PixelRage, and Strategy Informer. There are also German, French, Spanish, and Italian editions of the demo, these are located on FileShack and Gamer's Hell.

Blizzard: Another Day, Another Tease

The image on the Blizzard Entertainment Splash Page is updated, continuing to raise expectations that an announcement is forthcoming from this weekend's Worldwide Invitational event. The image has been enhanced, revealing another rune, and in-depth speculation about what this all means can be found on DiabloII.Net.

id: User Content "Not a Huge Consideration"

There's a Q&A with Matt Hooper on Next Generation (thanks Computer and Video Games) talking about Rage, Tech5, and other areas of interest about id Software. One point seems particularly interesting given one of the cornerstones of id's past successes has been support of user-generated content. While acknowledging this has an appeal, Matt indicates that support for such content is not a high priority for them in Rage:
What are your thoughts on user-created content?
As a game player, I love it. But that doesn’t mean at the same time I can’t love a BioShock or a Call of Duty 4. You can have a focused game, and do that really well. I think that’s the important thing – doing something really well. What the other games mentioned do as far as user created content, and just on that side of things, it’s like a different focus. I think there can be a separation, almost like movie genres. It’s okay to make a comedy, or a really hardcore, serious documentary. I think there are different fits.

For us personally, our biggest goal is – you can see it right now – we’re pushing on the fidelity, visually. We’re also pushing on the gameplay fidelity. Those two things are huge. For us, we’re doing things that we’ve never done before. That’s already a lot of eggs in the basket. As far as user-generated content, it’s not a huge consideration for us right now.

id games have always had mods, but what Spore and LittleBigPlanet have done is make it automatic, and networked. You can get other people’s creatures, without doing anything at all. Have you ever thought about automatically connected maps and a user ranking system for maps in Rage?
Yeah, we thought about all of that, but I can’t say we’ve specifically implemented it right now. Again, we’re concentrating more on just making a great game with this new tech. But those conversations happen all the time.

Battlefield Scorecard

EA Turns War Into Casual Fun on Next Generation is a Q&A with DICE designer Ben Cousins, who confirms that there are no fewer than five Battlefield games in the works:
"We've got five [Battlefield] titles in development, which is more than you'd expect," Cousins revealed, noting that the Battlefield Heroes project began after DICE visited Seoul, South Korea-based Neowiz in the summer of 2006, a firm in which EA purchased a 19 percent stake.

"We're actually developing a battlefield game with Neowiz for the Korean market and separate from Heroes," he said.

New York State of Game

The Video Game Voters Network has info for gamers here in New York on how to attempt to influence the State Senate away from establishing a state commission to study the effects of "violent" video games on children and establishing legal guidelines for rating labels, saying such regulation is "entirely unnecessary and unconstitutional." Update: Thanks to Will for the warning that you should not do this if you do not want to be automatically become a VGVN member.

How Much Do You Spend on Games?

This press release has the startling results of a survey on gaming habits conducted by market research outfit GameStrata. They surveyed North American gamers, learning that the average expenditure on games and hardware is $765 per year, which adds up to whopping $30,500 from ages 18-48, which they describe as the group's "peak gaming years." They also provide a little analysis of preferences, saying:
A strong correlation between the frequency of digital purchases and Xbox 360 ownership suggests that the Xbox 360 is the preferred console for the consumption of digital content. Additionally, online multiplayer capabilities are more important than ever, with the vast majority of respondents claiming they prefer to spend most of their time gaming with others on Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network (PSN).

Alone in the Dark Q&A

There's an Alone in the Dark Q&A on Gaming Nexus where Charles Husemann discusses the just-released revival of the seminal survival/horror franchise. Whether by timing or design the article does not address the controversy surrounding early reviews of the game (story), the topics they do cover include the Central Park setting, the confusion over whether this would be an episodic game, non-linear progression, and more.

Help Wanted

The 3D Realms Website has put out the call for job applicants. They are seeking level designers and also mention they are looking for a programmer interested in game play programming, or with 360 experience." 3D Realms is located in Garland, TX. Also, Kylotonn Entertainment has a help wanted, saying "We are recruiting R&D senior programmers for 'Play All' Project (Architecture, Engine, 3d, Gameplay...)." Kylotonn's location is the city of lights, Paris France. Thanks Gamer's Hell.

Game Reviews

Hardware Reviews

Out of the Blue

When we moved here nearly eight years ago, we got on the waiting list for sidewalk replacement, as our village has a program to pay half the cost of a new walk, which we require. Long after we thought this was all forgotten we finally got the notice that they are gearing up to do this, so I'm guessing within another eight years or so we'll have a new sidewalk.

Leisurely Links: Thanks Ant and Mike Martinez.
Play: Close Quarters Combat.
Story: Imus strikes again with 'Pacman' Jones remark.
Science: Odysseus' return from Trojan War dated. Thanks Slashdot.
Auction: Signed Rock Band to fight AIDS.
Images: Dig Dug pillows are pixel-perfect. But will they burrow into your mattress?
Media: Girl spins on escalator.
Stealing a goal from the goalie.
Follow-up: Justices Take Case on Navy Use of Sonar.
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