Archived News:
Battle.net announces more account suspensions and bans in StarCraft II: Wigs of Liberty, Blizzard's RTS sequel: We recently issued a new round of account suspensions and bans to StarCraft II players who were in violation of the Battle.net Terms of Use for cheating and/or using hack programs while playing. In addition to undermining the spirit of fair competition that’s essential to play on Battle.net, cheating and hacking can lead to stability and performance issues with the service.
As always, maintaining a stable, safe, and secure online-gaming experience for legitimate players is a top priority for us, and we'll be continuing to keep watch on Battle.net and take action as needed.
Pandora Studio announces Gas Guzzlers, a "fast-paced addictive combat racing game for the PC" due for release in the third quarter of this year. Gamepires Twitter feed points the way to this gallery with some screenshots, which are also posted on the game's Facebook page. Here's a bit on the game: The game is played from the “behind the car“ camera perspective and features many different vehicles, weapons, upgrades, on-track bonuses as well as distinctive and astonishing environments. Player starts with low performance vehicle and gradually works his way up by earning money in a series of challenging races. Along with developing his driving and fighting skills, player has to invest his hard earned money wisely to grab the chance for driving on the road to glory. The game is expected to be released in Q3/2011.
It catapults players into a stunning recreation of various challenging environments where fierce competition ravages their will to survive and win. Players will use the powers of the gas, tyre and engine to be faster, be stronger and be quicker than their competitors, in an attempt to move up with their car and weapons. Gas Guzzlers is the first game built on Pandora Studio's new state-of-the-art game engine „PranaEngine“
Kalypso USA and bitComposer Games announce a North American publishing deal for Air Conflicts: Secret Wars, saying the aerial combat game unveiled late last year should touch down stateside in August for Windows and consoles. The announcement is accompanied by some new screenshots, and this synopsis: Air Conflicts: Secret Wars is an arcade flight game with battles spanning both World Wars, featuring seven campaigns and forty-nine missions that engage players in a white knuckle air battles across Europe. The game features an exciting mix of mission types, including patrolling, stealth, hit and run, escort and bombing objectives. Air Conflicts extends its replay value with several multiplayer modes for up to eight players on all platforms.
Steam News announces the release of the promised new patch for Fallout: New Vegas, updating Obsidian's action/RPG to version 1.3 with optimizations, stability improvements, and balance changes, which are detailed in the following patch notes. Continue here to read the full story.
There's a brief interview with Valve's Erik Wolpaw talking with the lead writer on Portal 2 about the puzzle/platformer sequel. When asked about any features they cut from the game, he explains that they removed some nauseous wall walking gel: "At one point we had a new Gel that allowed players to walk up the side of walls. While this added a new twist to the game, the effect was so disorientating that it made people nauseas [sic]. While working on a first-person game you always have to be aware of that issue so we removed that Gel. We also made changes to frame rate and movement that will help anyone play Portal 2 even if they do experience a feeling of nauseas [sic] while playing other first-person games." Thanks Joystiq. Also, this trailer shows a level that was cut from the game because it would be too difficult, featuring more delicate timing than most levels in the game. Thanks Reddit.
- Amnesia: The Dark Descent on Direct2Drive and IGN PC Store. Save 75%.
- Borderlands Game of the Year Edition (Mac) on Direct2Drive. Save 30%.
- World of Warcraft on Amazon.com. Save 50%.
- World of Warcraft Battle Chest on Amazon.com. Save 25%.
- World Of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade on Amazon.com. Save 50%.
- World of Warcraft: Cataclysm on Amazon.com.
- World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King Expansion Pack on Amazon.com. Save 25%.
Still on sale (previously reported). Continue here to read the full story.
Link of the Day: Wheelie With Friends FAIL. At least they're all wearing protective gear. Thanks Ant.
The PC edition of Yars' Revenge is now available via digital distribution on the Atari Online Store, offering an updated version of what they say is the best-selling Atari 2600 title of all time. Here's word on the remake: "Yars' Revenge brings the legendary title to new artistic heights with an anime inspired art style and captivating narrative that expands upon the original story. The game also features local co-op gameplay, intense battles, and visually striking landscapes designed to appeal to both casual and hardcore gamers." There's also an online version of the original that can be played for free on Facebook. Here's more on the game: In Yar’s Revenge, players take on the role of a nameless Yar, who has been brainwashed by the evil Qotile empire to do their bidding. After being shot down and rescued by the ancient and mysterious Bar Yargler, she sets off on a ferociously focused mission, to seek revenge on her former master and his deadly squad of assassins. The bio-technological nightmare of the Qotile home world provides stunning backdrops for players to fly through in aerial combat with their enemy.
There's another interesting quote posted on Kotaku from Geoff Keighley's recently released iPad app, The Final Hours of Portal 2: "Portal 2 will probably be Valve's last game with an isolated single-player experience," Keighley wrote, saying he heard this from both Gabe Newell and the company's project manager Erik Johnson. If you are trying to work out what this means, don't worry, as so is Valve, as Geoff adds: "What this all means is something Newell is still trying to figure out." They quote Keighley saying he considered this "curious," as do we, as Portal 2 joins Portal and the Half-Life series at the pinnacle of single-player gaming. It also casts another shadow on the forsaken Half-Life 2: Episode Three. Thanks nin.
A Missive From The End Of Genre: How Brink Works on Gamasutra is an extensive article that hears from Splash Damage creative director Richard Ham about Brink, their upcoming shooter, also hearing from Irrational's Ken Levine and Kaos' Rex Dickson on the topic of single-player versus multiplayer design in the FPS genre. On that topic, they have a separate article about how Brink will attempt to exert a single-player level of control over multiplayer gaming by providing an automated squad commander function: "The Commander is primarily a tool to help coordinate strangers who may not be able to work together effectively. But once you've reached that level of socialness with others in Brink, you can get everything you need from them directly, and in some cases, the HUD."
There's an Interview on Eurogamer.net titled "Let's make Caddyshack," talking with Valve's Erik Wolpaw about Portal 2, the recently released first-person puzzle/platformer sequel. The focus of the conversation is the game's characters and script, and admittedly "contains spoilers right through to the game's ending," so readers are strongly urged to hold off on reading it until after they've completed the game.
Gearbox's Pitchford On Gaming's Grown-Up World on Gamasutra converses with Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford about Duke Nukem Forever, and why he feels there isn't "a line" games shouldn't cross. "Is there a line [to cross]? If our medium is art, how could there be a line?" he posits. "How could we allow there to be a line, and who gets to decide what the line is? That's a very slippery slope -- there should not be a line."
Tore Blystad's twitter feed features links to a bunch of photos and art from this IO Interactive Game Director/Art Director, including a shot of level design on a whiteboard, character work-in-progress, inspiring speculation this may be related to the still-unannounced Hitman 5. The shots are background materials, rather than essential game elements as he says: "sorry, can't comment on that.. I can only provide more or less obscure artifacts from the game until announcement.." He adds: "the official announcement is still being planned, i can't say other than 'soon'.. I'm so looking forward to being able to talk!" Presumably this announcement will come soon, as he also notes "Today the new level work will come back from our outsourcing studio in shanghai! Looking forward to it!" Thanks GamersMint via Digg.
Matt Chat 99: Duke Nukem with Scott Miller continues Matt's conversation with Scott Miller about the good old days. This episode covers hooking up with id Software, the shareware days, Duke Nukem 3D, and the upcoming Duke Nukem Forever. For a wild then-and-now contrast, this Apogee/id Software TV Interview from 1992 features Miller as well as John Romero taking about id's cutting-edge game of that time, Wolfenstein 3D, discussing this three dimensional (ish) breakthrough, and its use of texture mapping, described as "a technique for giving surfaces realistic texture." This also covers the shareware model, and how this projected to grossing $5 million, compared with $6,000 two years prior. Thanks Ant.
The Prey 2 Interview on Skewed 'n Reviewed asks some pretty standard questions of Matt Bisenius of Human Head Studios about their upcoming first-person shooter sequel. They cover things like how Prey 2 follows on the first game, why it took so long to announce a sequel, weapons, enhancements over the original, enemies, the lack of drivable vehicles, the inclusion of fewer puzzles, locales, the absence of multiplayer, and more.
This interview on Examiner.com talks with Brendon "Bebe" Neuwerth about Pirates of Black Cove, Paradox Interactive's' upcoming open-world strategic action/adventure/RPG. Topics include the game's RTS elements, role-playing, character abilities, enemies, ship customization, and more.
The Knicks season is done. I didn't have any illusions of winning a championship this year, but I did hope they could at least win one playoff game, but it was not meant to be. A winning record and qualifying for the postseason still make this the best the team has done in a loooong time, though, so I'm not complaining; I am very happy that there's finally reason for optimism about the team's future.
R.I.P.: Norio Ohga, former Sony president, dies. Thanks Acleacius.
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