Archived News:
King of Kings 3 is now out of beta testing, and Gamigo's free-to-play MMORPG is now live. Here's word: "Thousands of players used the chance to participate actively in the development of King of Kings 3. For three months suggestions for improvement were collected and then implemented. Among other things, the fighting style and balancing were adapted. The game's localization was also continually improved upon during closed beta testing. With the end of beta testing, players now have access to 15 new regions and characters can be leveled up to level 90. As a result, PvP combat has become even more dynamic." Here's a feature list:
- Brilliantly-designed fantasy world full of variety
- Comprehensive PvE content with loads of quests and minigames
- Epic RvR warfare and intense PvP combat
- Multi-leveled guild system with guilds, legions, and kingdoms
- Unique housing and town building system
- Dozens of mounts that can also level up
- A total of 27 different character classes
Steam News has details on a new patch that's automatically available for Sid Meier's Civilization V. Here are the change notes. Continue here to read the full story.
Double Fine's Tim Schafer is quoted on Eurogamer responding to Bobby Kotick's revival of their war of words, which had been dormant for a couple of months. Schafer calls the Activision CEO's criticism of Brütal Legend "sad," saying: "It's sad is that instead of just insulting me personally, he goes after the product of my hard-working team - a group of people he almost put out of work a while back," Schafer tells them. "But what's even sadder is that it took him two months to think of a comeback."
Following the publication of quotes critical of EA by Activision CEO Bobby Kotick comes a return volley from Electronic Arts on Gamasutra in which they seem equally disinclined to hold any bars. One comment addresses studio relations: "Kotick’s relationship with studio talent is well-documented in litigation," EA corporate communications VP Jeff Brown tells them, invoking Activision's legal entanglements with Double Fine Studios and Infinity Ward. They go on to assess Activision's success: "His company is based on three game franchises – one is a fantastic persistent world he had nothing to do with; one is in steep decline; and the third is in the process of being destroyed by Kotick’s own hubris." Presumably those three franchises are World of Warcraft, Guitar Hero, and Call of Duty, respectively. Thanks joao.
A playable demo is now available for the PC edition of WRC FIA World Rally Championship, Milestone's rally racing simulation. A new WRC Website is online, though no details on the demo are offered. The 942 MB download is available on AtomicGamer, ComputerGames.ro, Gamer's Hell, and WorthPlaying.
Valve announces release details for The Sacrifice, saying the DLC is due for release on October 5 as separate dowloads for Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2. The PC editions will be free, while the Xbox 360 editions will be 560 MS points for each game. Here's word on the two different versions: In The Sacrifice for Left 4 Dead 1 gamers receive the complete Sacrifice campaign with maps playable in Campaign, Versus, and Survival.
In The Sacrifice for Left 4 Dead 2 owners receive "The Sacrifice" campaign playable with the Left 4 Dead Survivors. In addition, those with Left 4 Dead 2 receive L4D's "No Mercy" campaign. Both campaigns are playable in Campaign, Versus, Survival, and Scavenge modes and both will feature the Left 4 Dead 2 Special Infected, items, and weapons. Yes, Zoey with a chainsaw!
Ron Gilbert started working last week for Double Fine Productions, reuniting Gilbert with Tim Schafer, with whom he collaborated on the first two Monkey Island games at LucasArts back in the day. Kotaku interviews the pair, who give them the runaround in proper Abbot and Costello fashion, describing Gilbert's position as "the official Ron Gilbert," which is a promotion from vice Ron Gilbert, but a stepping stone to his aspirations to someday be executive vice Ron Gilbert, and perhaps even director of Ron Gilbert. They also discuss how Double Fine has room for another project, since they are preparing to ship Costume Quest, but they play it quite coy about what Gilbert's next project will actually be. "It's an idea that I've been batting around for many, many years," Gilbert tells them. "I've been talking to Tim over the last couple of months about it and it sort of percolated back up. It's very different than DeathSpank, it's a bit of a departure from that. It's going in a very interesting direction. Fans of those old adventure games will like it." That said, he adds: "That's not saying I'm making an adventure game." Thanks Joker961.
Gamasutra has a bit about beta testing of LEGO Universe, the upcoming LEGO-based MMOG. NetDevil tells them the game has undergone "thousands of hours" of testing, and that testers include a group of children who were brought in to discuss the game before a single line of code was written, which was so long ago that what was a group of 8 to 12 year-olds is now a group of 12 to 16 year olds. NetDevil creative director Ryan Seaberry tells them they've gotten reactions from an extraordinary number of children at this point, saying there are "tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of kids who have played this game to give us feedback."
Edge Magazine quotes Activision's Bobby Kotick on the topic of publisher-owned studios, comparing his company's approach to that of Electronic Arts, saying EA is taking the opposite of their approach. "The core principle of how we run the company is the exact opposite of EA," he says. "EA will buy a developer and then it will become ‘EA Florida’, ‘EA Vancouver’, ‘EA New Jersey’, whatever. We always looked and said, 'You know what? What we like about a developer is that they have a culture, they have an independent vision and that’s what makes them so successful.' We don’t have an Activision anything - it’s Treyarch, Infinity Ward, Sledgehammer." Develop also quotes Kotick on the rift with former employees Jason West and Vince Zampella, saying he feels betrayed by the pair, whom he had considered friends, adding: "We’re a public company, we’ve got ethic obligations, and the things they did were... I would go to jail if I did them."
Kotick slams Tim Schafer on Computer and Video Games has a response from the Activision CEO to harsh comments Double Fine Productions CEO Tim Schafer made about him a couple of months ago when Tim called him both a "dick" and a "prick." A previous (more timely) rebuttal from an Activision rep took issue with the implication that Kotick doesn't like games (as now does Kotick), and now Kotick himself takes a shot at Schafer's game: "I never had any involvement in the Vivendi project that they were doing, Brütal Legend, other than I was in one meeting where the guys looked at it and said, 'He's late, he's missed every milestone, he's overspent the budget and it doesn't seem like a good game. We're going to cancel it," he told Edge Magazine. ""And do you know what? That seemed like a sensible thing to do. And it turns out, he was late, he missed every milestone, the game was not a particularly good game..." Thanks joao. Unless, of course, this is just taken out of context, which Kotick says is usually the case (though that might be taken out of context).
The Gearbox Forums have screenshots of an Unreal-engine modification that's a planned remake of Duke Nukem 3D. This is all preliminary, as the author hasn't actually secured official permission for such a project, and has already abandoned a Daikatana remake due to lack of popularity and a SiN remake after it was shut down by rights holder Mumbo Jumbo. Thanks Morris.
Llamasoft's Jeff Minter via Twitter: "haha, having too much fun making huge gobbets of pink jizz shoot out of my eyes :D." A follow-up tweet offers an illustration. Thanks Morris.
I'm not hitting the panic button just yet, but it's hard not to be terribly concerned with the direction the New York football Giants have taken. Of course the last time they had a one-and-two record and I started to lose faith in the coaching staff, they ended up winning the Super Bowl, but it's difficult to avoid pessimism when seeing the team play without a shred of the discipline that's one of the primary tenets of the Coughlin regime.
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