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Archived News:
Open beta testing of Battlestar Galactica Online is now underway, offering player access to BigPoint's free-to-play MMORPG based on the TV series reboot. The browser-based game requires the Unity Web Player to play, and here's word on what to expect: "Which side will you choose - Human or Cylon? The choice is yours with Battlestar Galactica Online: the free-to-play, browser-based MMO by BigPoint. Immerse yourself within the exciting universe of the hit re-imagined series from Syfy. Interact with your favorite key characters, complete challenging missions from your commanding officers, and fly a Colonial Viper or Cylon Raider - or command ships never seen before now. But first, you must decide: will you stand with humanity, or against it?"
VideoGamer.com spoke with Josh Olin, asking the Treyarch community manager about complaints about bugginess in the PC and PS3 editions of Call of Duty: Black Ops. He offers an interesting defense: "The PS3 and the PC issues are not exclusive to the PS3 and PC - the Xbox 360 has had its own fair share of issues. Every platform has issues." He goes on to point out that a bug-free gaming experience is probably impossible: "It is unfortunate that those [bugs] have to exist at all. In an ideal would we would love to ship a completely bug-proof game. I can't think of a single developer in the world, though, that could achieve that." He concludes pointing out that they've had six or seven patches (depending on platform) over a span of two to three months, and they do not plan on ending support for the game anytime soon: "Even if the bug is only hurting a hundred fans, if we can find the cause we'll patch it."
Hudson Entertainment is closing down, announces brand manager Morgan Haro in this blog post, clarifying: "let me be clear, Hudson ENTERTAINMENT. Not Hudson Soft. Hudson Soft is still a company with offices in Tokyo, Japan that will still be employing a good handful of people. Hudson Entertainment is part of Hudson Soft and we handled bringing Hudson’s games to North American territories." The closure is the result of Hudson Soft having been acquired by Konami. Thanks Joystiq.
Atomic Games announces the release of a new patch for the PC edition of Breach, saying this significantly reduces lag in the recently released first-person shooter. They also add the promised standalone dedicated server is included, which does not require Steam to be running to operate. The new version is presumably live on Steam, the Breach Forums have more details on the new server, and the Steam Users' Forums have indications that folks have been able to get multiple dedicated servers running on a single CPU core. The change notes follow. Continue here to read the full story.
Take-Two Interactive Software announces fiscal third-quarter 2011 financial results and raises their financial guidance for the full year. Along the way they announce their XCOM shooter is due in Fiscal Year 2012 (April 1, 2011-March 31, 2012), as is Spec Ops: The Line, which was announced with an October 31, 2011 release date. Here is what they report for the quarter and for year-to-date: For the third quarter ended December 31, 2010, net revenue was $334.3 million, as compared to $360.4 million for the year-ago period. GAAP income from continuing operations was $40.8 million, or $0.45 per diluted share, as compared to $39.4 million, or $0.44 per diluted share, for the year-ago period. Non-GAAP income from continuing operations was $49.5 million, or $0.52 per diluted share, as compared to $49.2 million, or $0.53 per diluted share, for the year-ago period. Non-GAAP income from continuing operations excludes certain non-cash and non-operational gains and losses identified on the attached reconciliation of GAAP and Non-GAAP measures.
For the nine-months ended December 31, 2010, net revenue increased 80% year-over-year to $954.6 million. GAAP income from continuing operations increased to $76.2 million, or $0.88 per diluted share, as compared to a loss of ($98.4) million, or ($1.27) per share, for the year-ago period. Non-GAAP income from continuing operations increased to $108.8 million, or $1.15 per diluted share, as compared to a loss of ($67.5) million, or ($0.87) per share, for the year-ago period.
A lot of gamers would say they'd kill for a new installment in the FreeSpace series, and apparently developer Volition would kill to make that dream come true, according to NowGamer. Volition producer Jim Boone tells them: "There is a group of people that would commit murder to do that game. The biggest problem that we have is… oh man, that game is so beloved. I did a bunch of missions for both games and it’s so dear to my heart I can’t even tell you. The problem we had was Freescape [sic] 2 didn’t sell as well…" He shares his theory that in the days following QUAKE, more players turned to mouse controls, and fewer owned joysticks, and says he "feels like there's an opportunity" to make a space sim for console controllers, but he has "no data to support that." Thanks nin via Big Download.
The Entertainment Consumer Association announces a half-million gamers have joined this non-profit North American video game advocacy organization. Word is: "In just over four years since the organization was formed, the ECA has steadily increased their population by ramping up their advocacy efforts, introducing new affinity benefits for members, and adding a wide variety of features for the gaming community. The ECA has many exciting new announcements in store this year and looks forward to serving even more video game consumers in 2011 and beyond."
There are new beta patches for Din's Curse on the patches page for the Windows and Mac editions of Soldak Entertainment's action/RPG. The change notes for beta version 1.020 are on this page.
Impulse announces the launch of some Interplay classics on their digital distribution service today. They now offer Fallout, Fallout 2, and Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel, as well as a Fallout Classic Collection bundle that offers all three for the price of two.
- BioShock 2 on Direct2Drive. Save 50%.
- The Dawn of War Complete Collect with Steam Exclusive Retribution Ork Pack on Steam. Save 50%.
Still (permanently?) on sale (previously reported). Continue here to read the full story.
Kalypso USA announces the release of Dungeons in North America at retail and through digital distribution. A playable demo was released earlier today, and here's word on the game: "Dungeons lets players don the boots of a fallen-from-grace Dungeon Lord, who must entice foolish heroes into his deceptively beautiful and equally deadly custom-crafted dungeons. Once an adventurer enters the player’s creation, the fun really begins as players must first entertain, then capture those heroes, stealing the adventurers’ precious soul energy in order to build even more elaborate and sinister dungeons. For more information about Dungeons, please visit http://home.dungeons-game.com."
Warhammer Herald has word on free server transfers in Warhammer Online that will commence tomorrow in Mythic Entertainment's MMORPG. The bad news is this is because the Iron Rock and Volkmar servers in North America are being shut down, so they are offering players from those servers the chance to migrate to any server as long as it's Gorfang, while players on the German Carroburg server are being allowed a free transfer to Drakenwald. In each case the old servers will remain open for three weeks to accommodate transfers, and players also have the option of using a paid transfer to go to choose a different destination. Both of these destination servers will have multi-realm ability enabled, which they explain "allows accounts to have both Order and Destruction characters on the server and increases the character limit to 20. There will be an 8 hour lockout when switching realms on the server." They also offer instructions on guild transfers. Here is the reasoning: "As part of our ongoing efforts to maintain an active, competitive, and engaging experience in WAR we have decided to open free transfers for players to specific servers. WAR, more than many games, only gets better with more people. These transfers will enable players to experience more action during all hours whether fighting in scenarios or Open RvR." Thanks Massively.
This Dungeon Siege III 'Loyalty' trailer offers cinematics and a bit of gameplay from Obsidian's upcoming action/RPG sequel. This was actually linked in a story yesterday but we didn't realize it was the same clip until it was uploaded, so what the heck. The clip is accompanied by these new screenshots, and embedded below. Continue here to read the full story.
Atari announces that Test Drive Unlimited 2 has raced into North American stores, offering Eden Games' open-world racing sequel for Windows, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3. Word is: "With incredible customization, an all-star line-up of vehicles, all-new race types, intense environmental challenges, exotic locations, sick soundtrack and much more, TDU2 pushes this epic franchise -- and online racing -- to new levels of performance." Here are some new screenshots and here is the launch trailer, which is also embedded below. Continue here to read the full story.
2K Games announces The Darkness II, a horror-themed first-person shooter planned for release this fall. This is a sequel to The Darkness, which was developed by Starbreeze Studios and released for consoles in 2007, with the new game being developed by Digital Extremes coming to Windows as well. The series is based on a comic series from Top Cow Productions, and will feature a story penned by award-winning British comic book writer Paul Jenkins. A preliminary The Darkness II Website is online and a screenshot and game logo accompany the announcement, which offers this description of the game: The Darkness II takes players down a brutal and personal path as Jackie Estacado, wielder of The Darkness – an ancient and ruthless force of chaos and destruction.
The Darkness II breaks out of the sea of conventional first-person shooters with its fervid Quad-Wielding gameplay, which will allow players to slash, grab, and throw objects and enemies with their Demon Arms while simultaneously firing two weapons. The game is layered with the use of dark versus light, steeped in deep and twisted storytelling, and engulfed in stylistic violence that is visualized through a hand-painted graphic noir technique that stays true to its comic book origins.
Publisher Headup Games and developer Silent Dreams announce Grotesque Tactics 2: Dungeons & Donuts, a prequel to their strategy role-playing game Grotesque Tactics, planned for release exclusively on PCs in the third quarter of this year. Here's a bit on the game: While focusing on improving the few weak spots of the first game, Grotesque Tactics 2: Dungeons & Donuts will also be introducing tons of new content to the saga such as a completely reworked and brand new direction of optical style, a new character creation and leveling system with talent trees, quest logs and of course a brand new story line involving the great cast of the prequel. More information to come at a later stage.
Kalypso announces the release of a playable demo for Dungeons, the Dungeon Keeper/ Evil Genius-inspired evil overlord simulation. Word on the demo is it "gives players a taste of what it will be like to be the Dungeon Lord, as they play through three single-player levels, and a survival mode map." The download is available on Big Download, FilePlanet, FileShack, Gamer's Hell, Strategy Informer, and WorthPlaying.
A post on VG247 shares some of the revelations about Battlefield 3 in the Game Informer cover story on DICE's military shooter sequel. Word is PC is the game's lead platform, that the mod tools will not be released alongside the game so they can be "dumbed down," and that locations will include Tehran; Paris; New York; Sulaymaniyah; and Iraqi Kurdistan. They also say: "One probe in Battlefield 3 on lighting will contain more info than an entire Bad Company 2 level," everything will be destructible (but believable), there will be no "gliding" animations, the dev team is nearly twice the size of that for Bad Company 2, the game will feature "M" rated language, and that the single-player game will have a "significant narrative" (thanks Krisz). There's another article based on the GI preview on Computer and Video Games, noting that DICE says it has "learnt its lesson" about DLC from Battlefield: Bad Company 2 as producer Patrick Bach says that failing to release a map pack for BC2 for six months after the game's release caused the multiplayer community to drop off drastically.
Joystiq has a follow up on yesterday's news about the Video Game Custom Button Remapping Petition and the disabled Dead Space 2 player who needs to remap the move forward command to the mouse. They offer word on plans to patch the horror shooter sequel: The Dead Space 2 team is aware of the issue that disabled players are having with Dead Space 2 PC. In fact a number of folks on our team are so passionate about getting this fix done that they are currently working hard to allow players to re-map key bindings to the mouse which should help disabled players enjoy the game.
I'd like to say I'm very proud of the people on the Dead Space 2 team for coming in today and jumping on the fix first thing. Working with such a talented and compassionate group of people is incredible and makes me proud to be a part of the Dead Space 2 team, Visceral Games, and Electronic Arts.
In addition to the key binding fix the patch will include other fixes for PC players. Thank you for taking up the cause for our disabled players and letting us know about this problem. Once the patch is fully tested we will announce a release date.
The Portal 2 interview on Video Games Daily talks with Valve's Chet Faliszek to discuss the return of GLaDOS in Portal 2, their upcoming first-person puzzler sequel. Topics include the differences between the various platforms, following up a game as tightly crafted as Portal, co-op puzzles, the relationship between the Portal series and the Half-Life series, mod tools, and more. At one point Chet explains that they are adding complexity, but not necessarily increasing difficulty: "And then it also comes with expanding the puzzles out. We didn’t want to just take the same puzzles and make them more difficult – we expand that out by giving you more to do, more complexity but not necessarily difficulty. So that you have all these different elements you have to pull in – you have hard light bridges now, you have tractor beams, you have all these different elements that you’re using in the game, and you add them all up and run with it."
A new patch is now automatically available for Call of Duty: Black Ops with multiplayer fixes for the military shooter sequel. The list of major changes follows. Continue here to read the full story.
XSReviews.co.uk - Ooh Shiny - Why DLC is treating gamers like idiots.
I have a problem with Downloadable Content. I've got to get it out there, it's one of my biggest bug bears. What once was a developer wanting to increase the life of it's hard worked on product, has now become a pursuit of another revenue stream, a way to milk more cash from already strapped gamers. Titbits and additives, another map, another hat, a prettier weapon, all things that are now charged for in what has become abbreviated and boiled down to one thing: DLC.
Bitmob - Don't be a dickwolf at PAX East next month.
My concern is that PAX East 2011 will be populated by Penny Arcade fans proudly flying the dickwolves' colors. I would not be surprised if we saw large congregations of Dickwolves Standard Bearers marching through the halls to defend their “right” to be insensitive unless someone tries to defuse this mess. And I have little doubt that the people who are against what they perceive those shirts to mean are going to have something to say about that.
World of Darkness News - Where have all the GM's gone?
Now the last few modern MMO's I played were Age of Conan & Star Trek Online. If this sampling is like all the other newish MMO's out there it's a sad state. Not only are live events (side note: If the setting of AoC does not warrant any live events then that indeed is not only short sighted but a sad state of affairs) non-existent on these games but clearly the hands off approach is not working. Seems developers think they can substitute a GM with repetitive scripted quests. So.. hows those sub numbers proving your theory Mr. Developer?
A new version of FRAPS was released last week, updating this video capture and benchmarking program to version 3.2.8. The new version addresses a few bugs and greatly reduces CPU usage while recording on most configurations. Thanks Ant.
- Homefront on G4tv.com. Video multiplayer preview.
I was up until all hours of last night because after applying an upgrade to Microsoft Security Essentials on my laptop and rebooting, Windows decided it was no longer authenticated. No matter how I worked the problem I could not come to a solution, but the guy I reached in India for Microsoft tech support gave me a number to call, but I need to try that today during business hours to straighten this out.
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