Archived News:
Some ShakyCam footage from Mass Effect 2 has leaked out of the Game Developer's
Conference, showing several minutes from BioWare's upcoming RPG sequel. The clip
can be found on Shacknews.
Timeline 1 The Treaty
of Coruscant on the Star Wars: The Old Republic Website offers a write-up on
some of the lore in the upcoming Star Wars MMORPG, and offering a link to
a movie about the treaty
narrated by Bishop himself, Lance Henriksen.
A new movie from Batman: Arkham Asylum shows off some gameplay from the upcoming
game starring the dark knight. The clip is posted on
Destructoid, Shacknews,
and
MyGameTrailers. There are also previews of the game on
Eurogamer (thanks Cutter) and
Destructoid (thanks Mike Martinez).
A new Project Offset Website is
live, as home to Offset Software's upcoming first-person shooter. The site
reflects on their first anniversary of being acqured by Intel, and offers up a
couple of new movies from the project. There's a promise of more updates to
come. Thanks Mike Martinez and
Kotaku.
Criterion Games now
offers downloads of a new patch for the PC edition of Burnout Paradise to
update this car culture game to version 1.100, offering the PC edition of the
vehicles update. Word is: "This update introduces the Legendary Cars, Toy
Vehicles and the Boost Specials for PC players. Go get it now via the EA
Download Manager, the EA Store or via the PC tab on
www.criteriongames.com. You will
need to upgrade to this latest version in order to connect and play online. Once
installed you can check out the new vehicles in the Burnout Store or via any
Junkyard. We think you're going to have a lot of fun!" The patch is mirrored on
The Patches Scrolls.
Hazardous Software has unveiled Achron at GDC, a real-time strategy game
not to be confused with
Archon. The
official Achron Website is online,
offering a couple of movies to demonstrate the game's most fascinating promised
feature of time travel, though they have not yet taken advantage of this
capability to tell us when the game might be released. There are impressions of
this on
Rock, Paper, Shotgun, and here's a bit from the announcement:
Designed to reinvent the real-time strategy genre by allowing all players
to travel through time, Achron is a futuristic science fiction game. Players and
units have the ability to jump to and play at different times simultaneously and
independently. Time travel is free and unlimited but it costs energy to change
the time line. Players will be challenged to invent new strategies in a world
where it is possible for them and their opponents to undo mistakes, change a
strategy after committing to it, and alter the outcome of past battles.
Time travel transforms the strategy game landscape, stated Christopher Hazard,
president and cofounder of Hazardous Software. It opens up new dimensions of
strategies and gameplay. For example, imagine being able to see when and where
your opponents are going to attack before they do.
Achron features both a captivating single player campaign and an online
multiplayer mode. In addition to being able to build, expand, and attack as in
typical RTS games, new mechanisms such as command hierarchy and smart-idling
ease the management of a complex time travel environment. An intuitive user
interface depicts events in the past and future allowing the player to navigate
the time line.
Positech Games now offers a patch for
Democracy 2 that adds a feature ripped from today's headlines to the
politics simulation; controversy over bonuses during tough economic times. Word
is: "Do you give in to the populist demands for a curb on 'rewards for failure'?
A move sure to boost your support with the socialists and trade unionists in
your country. Or do you hold firm and leave the law unchanged, fearing a brain
drain of top executives if they see their bonuses curbed?"
A new Divinity 2: Ego Draconis Website
is online as the musical home to Larian Studios' upcoming RPG sequel, offering
information and media, and regular updates are promised leading up
to the release of the game near the middle of this year. Also, the
official Trine Website is live for
Frozenbyte's upcoming platformer, offering a previously released teaser movie
and a batch of new screenshots.
Diii.net follows up on indications that Blizzard is at work on a fifth
project based on recent job
listings (thanks
Eurogamer). Word is this is a brand-new game, it will use the WoW engine for
testing, but will use an entirely new engine built from the ground up for the
finished game. What is not clear is whether this will be based on a new or an
existing IP. The other four projects Blizzard is currently working on are the
next World of Warcraft expansion, StarCraft II, Diablo III,
and a new MMOG for which no details have been released.
Codemasters announces
Leisure Suit
Larry: Box Office Bust is busting into stores, offering Team17's new
adventures in the lecherous series. The
game's website offers a launch
trailer, and here's a bit from the announcement: Friday 27th March/...The
lovable and always lecherous Larry is back in his latest, innuendo-filled
adventure as Leisure Suit Larry®: Box Office Bust™ launches into stores today*
for the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft® and PC
with a S.R.P. of £19.99 on the Funsta label.
Marking a return of the trademark humour that has brought joy (and sniggers) to
millions of teenagers for over two decades, Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust
brings the series to current gen consoles and PC. Gamers looking for a bit of
titillation can keep abreast of Larry’s latest exploits by watching the gameplay
and CG launch trailers at
www.leisuresuitlarrygame.com.
Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust sees players take control of the misguided
Larry Lovage as he spends his vacation working at his uncle’s film studio.
Excited at the hope of picking out his perfect lady from Tinsletown’s most
endowed, Larry soon uncovers a plot from a rival studio that threatens his
uncle’s latest movie success; now it’s up to Larry to save the day (as long as
he can concentrate on the right assets for long enough).
There is a new Bikes & Quads Video on
SimRacingWorld for FUEL, Asobo Studios' upcoming motorsports game, and
another clip showing off the game's cars and buggies. Each clip shows off
various vehicles in action.
The Colin McRae: DiRT 2 Website offers a
new teaser clip for the upcoming off-road racing follow-up. The game teases a
semi-nude woman at least as much as the game, which may be why it is being made
available for all territories except the puritanical US. There is no possible
way for US gamers to get around this restriction, unless they want to go to the
drastic lengths of clicking a link for a different location when entering the
site. Colin McRae: DiRT 2 is expected for release in September.
Matrix
Games now offers a patch for Guns of August to update this World War
I turn-based strategy wargame to version 1.32. Word is: "The update includes
many bug fixes and over 30 enhancements or new features including AI fixes and
improvements and a major change to the rules for transferring supplies and
materials between countries. Under the new transfer system, moving supplies over
land and sea have different requirements. Seaborne transfer requires a port or
allied port and sea transports in order to complete. Consequently, countries can
no longer transfer supplies to Britain without abiding by these rules."
Shacknews reports that
Valve says that over 2.5 million copies of Left 4 Dead have sold at
retail since its release last November. Those figures are enough to constitute a
roaring success as it is, but do not count copies sold via Steam, as Valve
does not give out sales figures for its digital distribution service.
Square takeover of Eidos given green light has news that Square Enix's
attempt to acquire Eidos is moving forward as Eidos shareholders voted to accept
the bid for the company. Word is Square will take control of Eidos after the
publisher's shares are delisted from the stock exchange, which is expected to
happen next month.
The
Sims 3 Website has word the controversial online features of the SecuROM
digital rights management system will not be used for the upcoming release of
The Sims 3, saying the lifestyle simulation sequel will instead use a serial
key-based system with no online authentication. According to EA's humble Rod
Humble: "We feel like this is a good, time-proven solution that makes it easy
for you to play the game without DRM methods that feel overly invasive or leave
you concerned about authorization server access in the distant future."
Eurogamer asked if this was a trend for other future games and were told by
an EA spokesperson: "We are just looking at this solution for The Sims 3 at the
moment."
Eurogamer - Why OnLive Can't Possibly Work.
"So, let's say that Grand Theft Auto V is released via OnLive, and
(conservatively) one million people want to play it at the same time. We can
talk about Tesla GPUs, server clusters, the whole nine yards, but the bottom
line is that the computing and rendering power we're talking about is
mammoth to a degree never seen before in the games business, perhaps
anywhere. There may be a way how this can be handled (more on that later),
but even having capacity for 'just' 5,000 clients running at the same time
is a monumental effort and expense. It would be the equivalent of us running
a single Eurogamer server for every reader who connects to the site at the
same time. The expense involved is staggering (not to mention the heat all
this hardware would generate - think of the children!)."
Wired - In Praise of the 3-Hour Game. Thanks Mike Martinez and
Techdirt.
"Forty hours might sound like a reasonable amount of play. But the truth is
that very few games offer an experience that truly requires — and rewards —
40 hours of play. After all, one of the chief joys of gameplay (which
nongamers tend to misunderstand) isn't in having mastered it. It's in the
process of mastering it. You start off stumbling around, not really knowing
what your goals are, how your enemies and obstacles behave, or the
complexities of your weapons and abilities."
GameZone - Tough
Cookies: Are video games too easy now?
"From the development side of things, the desire to create a game that can
be easily completed by the player makes a lot of sense. These developers and
publishers are pilling millions of dollars into the creation of these games,
from the production of the story elements and cutscenes, to its continuation
and franchise potential. If you haven’t completed the first game in a
trilogy, are you usually ready to jump into the sequels? After all, if you’d
only made it halfway through Star Wars, would you really give a crap about
The Empire Strikes Back?"
I have a little adventure planned for later that will once again put my road
warrior setup to the test. Presuming all goes according to plan, updates this
afternoon will take place from the road, while tomorrow will be from what is
basically the middle of nowhere, which will be a significant test for my
wireless internet connection.
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