Archived News:
The Dragon Age: Origins Website announces Witch Hunt, new DLC for BioWare's role-playing game that's due in under two weeks on September 7 for PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3 for $7.00/560 BioWare Points/560 MS Points/$6.99 PSN. Word is: "The dreaded Archdemon has been slain and the advance of the darkspawn halted by a lone, heroic Grey Warden. The kingdom rejoices, but at least one question remains: what happened to Morrigan? The sorceress joined the Wardens cause, but it is said her true purpose was not revealed until the eve of the last battle. She vanished into the shadows, and while rumors claimed she crossed over the mountains into Orlais no trace of her path could be found. She was never heard from again... until now. Nearly a year has passed since the Archdemon's death, and word has reached the Wardens that Morrigan has returned to Ferelden. She has been sighted in the southern wilderness where she was first encountered. Is it truly her? If it is, then why has is she here and what secret does she carry with her? The Warden heads into the forest to find out and tie up this last loose end once and for all." Update: According to Victor Wachter on the BioWare Social Network (thanks StingingVelvet), this is the final DLC for the game: "One last thread hangs in the saga of the Grey Warden, Hero of Ferelden. Uncover the secret carried by Morrigan and the plans she hides in Witch Hunt, the final DLC for Dragon Age: Origins!"
The promised open beta testing of HEAT Online is now underway. This North American Level R MMORPG is now offering crew tournaments, saying: "The winners of these crew tournaments will be rewarded with rare cars." They are also recruiting Game Sages to help newbs: "In the first round three applicants will be selected. Game Sages will get a monthly reward in the form of in-game points. Furthermore, every one of them will get a unique car, which no other player can have."
Unearthing the Necromancer on the Guild Wars 2 Website introduces the Necromancer class from Guild Wars 2, ArenaNet's upcoming MMORPG. Word is: "Just in time for gamescom, we've dug up the necromancer, a master of dark arts who wields the power of death... and life! This sinister Guild Wars 2 profession can summon undead minions, suck the life force from enemies, and cheat death with the eerie Death Shroud ability! Unearth the uncanny necromancer and his strange abilities here!" Thanks Big Download.
The Making History Website announces the availability of a new automatic patch for Making History II to update this World War II grand-strategy game to version 1.017. Their downloads page offers an updated playable demo, described like so: "Lead any nation in 1939 as the world is about to erupt into war. Demo includes one single-player scenario with all game features." The extensive patch notes follow. Continue here to read the full story.
The Dins Curse Patches Page now offers new non-beta patches for Din's Curse, updating the PC and Mac editions of Soldak Entertainment's action RPG to version 1.006. Their Changes Page has the patch notes, which are also reproduced below. Continue here to read the full story.
A new James Bond 007: Blood Stone "Istanbul" Trailer shows off the upcoming James Bond game, highlighting its Istanbul setting. The clip features the voice of Judi Dench and a virtual Daniel Craig, who goes old school in taking a vintage Aston Martin through the streets of Turkey. We also have some new Blood Stone screenshots, and the embedded version of the trailer follows. Continue here to read the full story.
The Star Wars: The Old Republic interview on Ten Ton Hammer chats with BioWare's Daniel Erickson, lead writer on BioWare's upcoming MMORPG. Daniel describes the game's current stage of small-scale testing, offers outlook on when the beta will open to more users, a bit on the comics, a discussion of the game's space combat, responding to community requests, and more.
A new version 1.6.2 patch is now automatically available for Fallen Earth, the post-apocalyptic MMORPG from Icarus Studios and Fallen Earth LLC, announces Steam News. The patch notes follow. Continue here to read the full story.
Steam News has word on a new automatic patch for Puzzle Dimension with fixes and additions, including Mac support. This news is accompanied by word on a sale that offers a 33% discount for the rest of this month. The change list for the new patch follows. Continue here to read the full story.
There's a set of new ArcaniA: Gothic 4 screenshots on WorthPlaying showing off more of the upcoming role-playing sequel. For a look at the game in action, we can turn to the YouTube, where they have one, two, three trailers that add up to 25 minutes of gameplay footage. This set of clips obviously includes some spoilers, though this is mitigated somewhat by the dialog all being in German. Thanks LittleMe.
GAME.AMD.COM's Drivers & Support Page now offers new version 10.8 Catalyst reference drivers for ATI graphics cards. These patch notes ( Adobe Acrobat-format) outline what's new and different including support for OpenGL ES 2.0, performance enhancements for Eyefinity Quad ATI CrossFireX configurations, and the addition of non-beta anti-aliasing support for StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty.
Two new Portal 2 trailers from Valve offer more of their showing of the puzzle/platformer sequel at Gamescom. The Faith Plate trailer offers a look at the leaps of faith that can be accomplished with the game's Faith Plates, while the Repulsion Gel trailer shows the usefulness of this Flubber-like substance. Both clips are embedded below. Continue here to read the full story.
The Elemental Forums have a response from Stardock's Brad Wardell to this morning's post on PC Gamer recommending gamers avoid buying Elemental: War of Magic and other news-bits about the new turn-based strategy game. He apologizes for his comment in the Quarter to Three forum thread, saying this was directed at someone with whom he shares a personal friendship, but admits that he "responded inappropriately." He also refutes reports that they have pulled the Gamer's Bill of Rights from their site over the game's problems, pointing out they maintain the Gamers' Bill Of Rights Website. Here's what he has to say about the issues identified by PC Gamer: The site, www.gamersbillofrights.org was set up and is run by Stardock. We stand by it. It is, with some irony, our commitment to no DRM on our DVD release that ultimately caused the rough pre-release experience of Elemental. Several retailers broke the street date and we felt we needed to release our gold version to our customers who had pre-ordered from us as well as to our beta community that helped make the game the outstanding strategy game that it is.
However, it also became clear that the pre-day 0 version of the game was problematic as outlined in the PC Gamer UK article. The official day 0 version of the game, what is available right now, should address most, if not all the issues that have been described. That said, as is our long-standing policy, we will continue to release updates and improvements Elemental just as we do for the other titles we develop.
I anticipate us putting out regular updates for Elemental for months or years to come based on player feedback, suggestions, and yes, bug reports.
I hope this offers some explanation as to the events that have come up. I sincerely apologize and feel terrible for the effect my forum posting on Qt3 may have had not just on our fans but also my team that has worked incredibly hard over the past 3 years to produce what we hope, is a game that you will enjoy for years to come.
Steam News announces the release of the promised single-player demo for R.U.S.E., Ubisoft's World War II real-time strategy game. Word is: "Play through a full single-player mission designed exclusively for the R.U.S.E. demo. Command Allied forces from the Head Quarters and lead your army to a nuclear conflict and combine deceptive strategies to conquer the battleground." It probably bears repeating that Ubisoft recently announced that this game will not use their widely despised DRM.
A new update to the Team Fortress 2 Blog announces the first-ever TF2 Hat Describing Contest; the name of the contest itself serving as an explanation of why they need help coming up with names for the teamplay shooter's copious collection of chapeaus. This FAQ explains the contest further, and for inspiration we suggest grabbing a lid and checking out some Lidsville. The update also includes news of a pre-purchase bonus for Worms Reloaded that will provide a visual upgrade for the Team Fortress 2 soldier class. Word is: "While we removed grenades from the game during early development, we left two of them dangling on the front of the Soldier as a teasing reminder of what once was. So, to celebrate the release, we're going to give a nifty Soldier visual update to anyone who buys Worms Reloaded before Thursday, September 2nd, allowing him to sport two Holy Hand Grenades and a new Soldier helmet." They offer a screenshot showing what this looks like.
Reverb Publishing and Trendy Entertainment announce Dungeon Defenders, a blend of an action/RPG and a Tower Defense game planned for release this fall for PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360. This is a commercial version of Dungeon Defense, a freeware UDK game released earlier this year (thanks Big Download). Here's word on the game and its co-op support: "Dungeon Defenders features a lovingly-rendered [sic] watercolor art style and allows up to 4 players, online or locally, to take one of four distinct classes into fierce battle against ever-increasing waves of baddies and bosses across 15 arenas and multiple modes." The game can be preordered from GamersGate, Impulse. and Steam (and "coming soon" to Direct2Drive), and each e-tailer is offering a 10% discount and exclusive DLC with preorders. The Dungeon Defenders Website is live, here are some Dungeon Defenders screenshots, and here's the game's announcement trailer, which is embedded below. Continue here to read the full story.
Steam News has word on the release of a new automatic patch for Swarm Arena, the indie action game. The brief change list follows. Continue here to read the full story.
This Elemental Forum Post announces the release of the promised Day 0 patch for Elemental: War of Magic, updating Stardock's just-released 4X turn-based PC game to version 1.05. There's also a post on PC Gamer that tears into it, saying while it is "one of the most exciting game ideas for a long time," it is "a mess," saying "it’s been shoved out months too soon." They report persistent bugs and crashes on two different computers, and don't mince words, saying: "The game you actually get in the box, or in the initial download if you bought it digitally before today, is riddled with bugs. You should not buy it." They also point to a thread on the Quarter to Three Forums where Stardock's Brad Wardell responds to a complaint saying: "Also, to anyone, like you Ben, saying the game is like an 'early beta' then well, please stay away from our games in the future. I consider it ready for release and if others disagree, don't buy our games." The PC Gamer article concludes with an update that followed the game being patched: "The problem where tactical battles just show a white screen and are unplayable is now back, even though the interim patch had fixed it. Before last night’s patch, the game was working other than the every half-hour crashes. It hasn’t crashed since the patch, but not being able to fight is worse. Others are already finding the same." The notes from the day 0 patch and word on what they are doing next follow. Continue here to read the full story.
A playable demo for Metro 2033 is now available, offering a sample of THQ's post-apocalyptic first-person shooter. The demo is revealed through the MSI Website, where they point to FilePlanet for downloads. Here's word: "It allows hardcore gamers to experience heart-stopping visuals with 4 chapters of free play. To survive the dangerous subways beneath Moscow and fight off the army of horrors that await, all you need is top-notch gaming components like the MSI Big Bang series of gaming motherboards, featuring powerful graphics performance and audio-realistic THX® and Creative EAX® audio technologies. With support for multiple, scalable graphics cards, you will enjoy unbeatable gaming performance." Thanks [H]ard-OCP. Demo downloads are mirrored on AtomicGamer, ComputerGames.ro, FanGaming, and Gamer's Hell.
Computer and Video Games has an article based on comments from former Realtime Worlds staff being critical of the way the game's development was handled as the developer simultaneously headed into the launch of APB: All Points Bulletin and insolvency. Most of the article is based on a previously reported forum post allegedly by an ex-RTW employee, but they also quote the personal blog of Luke Halliwell who worked there for six years: "There had been mounting discontent internally about the competence of our top management - and what better proof could you need than this. How they could keep operating the company when they couldn't even pay this month's wages, I don't know. Presumably they continued to think we had a chance somehow; the behaviour of a deluded, greedy, addicted gambler." They also have a follow-up quote from Halliwell's wife, who adds: "Dave Jones and Ian Hetherington have pissed away millions, they are getting away with not paying over 200 employees for the work that they have done and have fiddled their way to being able to buy back Project: MyWorld for cheap. Moreover these very people have enough personal wealth to pay the money owed to the individuals and families whose lives they have left shattered, heck Dave could probably pay them all just by selling one of his beloved cars." Thanks joao.
Matrix Games offers a new patch for Close Combat – Cross of Iron to update the World War II tactics game to version 3.50.01. They say: "The update comes with a handful of bug fixes, over a dozen recoded maps that handle walls and obstructions with improved coding conventions, improved and updated support for multiplayer features, and more." The patch is available on this page.
Open beta testing of the 2010-11 English Premier League season is now underway in Fantasy Football Manager, the fantasy soccer/association football simulator. Word is: "WeMade Entertainment today announced that its free-to-play online fantasy soccer experience Fantasy Football Manager is now in open beta for the 2010-11 English Premier League season. Players are being invited to participate and provide feedback in exchange for WeCash, WeMade’s virtual currency, to help create an entertaining and interactive fantasy sports experience. WeCash can be used in any WeMade game including Fantasy Football Manager, Digimon Battle and others to purchase virtual goods, upgrades, bonus items and other benefits."
Project Simerge is an upcoming open source space sim/first-person shooter featuring "seamless planetary flight, that allows walking inside stations and ships." They announce the successful porting of a prototype of the game to Linux, which will be a supported platform on release. They have some trailers of the game, though these are using placeholder models and textures.
Thanks Mike Martinez.
Games On Net - The Debatable Taste of Digital Warfare.
This week, UK defence secretary Liam Fox’s call for the upcoming Medal of Honor to be banned in Britain on grounds that it is ‘tasteless’ and ‘un-British’ were dismissed by the British Board of Film Classification – but if he’s accomplished anything, it has been to re-fire up a highly moralistic debate that’s been running since even before the Saving Private Ryan-esque opening sequence of Medal of Honor: Allied Assault: are we diluting the very real cultural impact of war with our funny little first-person shooting games? Worse still, are we exploiting it?
Gamasutra - Games With The Power To Offend: Surviving And Stoking Controversy.
The recorded controversies in the video game world have, to now, been relatively mild. Mortal Kombat was drawn out before a congressional hearing in the mid-Nineties; Jack Thompson systematically dismantled his career in the effort to protect children from Grand Theft Auto; and, most recently, some have objected to games that use real-life tragedies as source material, such as Super Columbine Massacre and the unreleased Six Days in Fallujah.
Ars Technica - More in the bottle- the dubious value of game length.
There are no absolutes in this conversation, as gamers have different budgets and differing amounts of time to spend playing games. Putting a value-judgment on time is dangerous for reviewers, as more does not always equal better. Presenting the information about a game's length to the readers so they can make up their own mind is the way to go, especially since there's not always a clear case that a game's length is a plus or a minus.
Just when I think that I've seen the silliest of the safety warnings that fill our everyday lives, I found one that takes the cake. This morning I noticed a small sticker on the power cord on an electric shaver, which I assumed would warn against dunking it in water. I took a look, and it was actually a silhouette of a scissors cutting the cord covered by the red "no-no" bar... That's right, it is warning not to cut the power cord.
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