Though there's no announcement on the
Mana Bomb
Games Studio Website, the
web-store for this
independent developer now offers online sales of
Colony Defense, the
tower defense game that tests your circular logic by wrapping the game map
around a sphere.
Ubi DRM: Their side of the story on PC Gamer Magazine explains Ubisoft's
perspective on their planned online DRM scheme, arguably the only perspective
Ubi themselves have taken into account in creating a scheme that requires a
constant internet connection to play any of their upcoming PC games (thanks
KilrathiAce). Along the way Ubisoft explains their plan stems from frustration
with the PC market, though their new DRM is not likely to lessen that for users:
"No, we're not trying to kill the PC market. Are we frustrated by the PC market?
I think everyone is. In the end it all comes back to one single truth: piracy is
a big, huge, hairy problem. It's a market that suffered a lot because of piracy,
and we're all just trying to figure out what we think is the best way to deal
with it."
There will be no LAN or dedicated server support for
Command & Conquer 4,
reports
Destructoid, as the presence or absence of these two features has become a
hot topic for PC gaming. Now dedicated server support in RTS games is not the
same issue as in other genres (for instance
Command & Conquer 3 had no
dedicated servers either), but the lack of LAN support continues a troubling
trend. Lack of LAN support goes unexplained, but here's word on the dedicated
servers from lead designer Sam Bass: "across single-player, multiplayer and
skirmish and all the information is stored in a server. So if you go to another
machine -- friend’s house, Internet café -- whatever, you can login with your
profile and all the stuff you’ve unlocked is accessible to you there. It all
lives on a server so you can’t really do dedicated servers with that."
US residents who preorder
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 from the
EA Store between now and February 25 will get a free copy of
Battlefield
2142 as a bonus (this is not listed on the site, but it will show up in your
shopping cart). This makes three different perks now available for US preorders
besides a copy of the military shooter sequel: a free Limited Edition upgrade,
access to the game's ongoing beta test, and the free copy of Battlefield 2142
Deluxe.
The
Prison Break - The
Conspiracy Website offers the first gameplay trailer from the upcoming
video game tie-in with the escapist television series. Thanks Pynx.
Mike Turner removes Interzone Futebol content from Interzone Perth studio
attempts to relate an amazing tale of intrigue surrounding game developer
Interzone (thanks
Ant). Here's the way this is summarized in a story on
Slashdot:
"A US owned gaming company has fled Australia, leaving unpaid employees and a
massive tax bill. Apparently many staff have been working unpaid for months to
allow their game to ship and hopefully the company to recover. Interzone's Perth
(Western Australia) office was created with the assistance of a state government
grant. Last week Interzone's (American) CEO
entered the building at night and removed all the servers and IP so that
Interzone could continue production at a new company they have opened in
Ireland.
The staff caught
him on camera.
More background here."
StarCraft II beta keys are fetching as much as $300.00 USD on eBay,
reports
Kotaku. Apparently most of the keys on sale were distributed at BlizzCon
2008.
Okay, today's the last day of my disrupted weekend. Here's looking forward to
getting back on track.
R.I.P.:
Jamie Gillis.
Twitter 
