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Archived News:
Making up for the time lost as Mass Effect 3 multiplayer rumors swirled before they were confirmed, reconfirmed, and detailed, BioWare now offers a press release about multiplayer support in the action/RPG sequel, confirming its dependence on an "online pass" for the console versions to devalue used copies. There's also now a multiplayer section on the Mass Effect 3 Website featuring a Special Edition of BioWare Pulse which features a video interview with Casey Hudson about the game's co-op support.
"No no," was the response from BioWare Mythic VP Eugene Evans when PC Gamer asked if the studio's involvement in Star Wars: The Old Republic put the future of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, their Warhammer MMORPG in doubt. "All of these games appeal to different people for different reasons. I’m very proud to be able to say that I’m running the studio that’s run Ultima Online for as long as it has – 14 years. Dark Age of Camelot just celebrated 10 years. We hope we can run these games for as long as there is player interest." He also says there are no current plans to take the game down the free-to-play route so many of its competitors have chosen: "Right now, we’re focused on Wrath of Heroes as our free-to-play offering in the Warhammer universe," Evans tells them. "We believe in the community of players who are playing Age of Reckoning. Yes, we could have attracted a lot of players to it [with free-to-play], but it’s unclear how long you’ll keep them. We wanted to support our game as it currently exists."
This trailer is from Act of Valor, an upcoming film about Navy SEAL operations starring actual SEALs and demonstrating real military tactics. The trailer concludes with mentioning the opportunity to play Battlefield 3 on a movie theater screen as part of a promotion for a prerelease screening of the film. This page has details on the event, which will be "awarded" to the U.S. city with the most respondents willing to "demand" the privilege.
Massively reports that March 31, 2013 is the release date for Warhammer 40,000: Dark Millennium Online, the upcoming MMOG based on the Warhammer 40K series. They say they picked this date up from THQ's product section for the game, but we can't find it there, so it seems to have been removed. Whether this is because it was not accurate or because it was accurate but not intended for public release, we cannot say.
New gaming portal Beamdog now offers MDK2 HD, the promised remake of the MDK sequel. The game features much of what was in the original, enhanced with HD graphics, enhanced audio, revised difficulty settings, and more. Here's a bit on the game: "All three characters - Kurt, Doctor Hawkins and Max are playable, each has his own levels, powers and items and a completely different gameplay focus. Kurt is about stealth and sniping, the Doctor has a few direct attacks but also has the ability to create items and effects out of simple household objects, while Max is a cigar smoking, quad gun toting demolition squad of a dog." And remember, MDK stands for... damn, I had something for this!
Relic producer Andy Lang answers questions about Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine for Eurogamer, offering a postmortem on the Warhammer 40K action/RPG, which he does not say was their best work, but he does call their "best console work," though we can't tell if there was any irony intended with that, as Space Marine is the first Relic game to appear on consoles. He admits they were concerned they were "crazy trying to bring this game to consoles this late in the cycle," noting that this is: "Because it's so competitive." He seems to have taken the game's review scores ( Metacritic: PS3: 71, PC: 75, 360: 78) in stride: "I'm pretty humble; I don't look at [criticism] and get all upset. I thought most of the reviews were fairly on the mark with what they had to say; the character design does get a bit repetitive and certain parts of it, just how the game plays - we didn't have time to really polish that stuff to where we wanted to get to. There wasn't anything that was oh-my-god shocking in the game.
"We're not super surprised by [the scores]," he added. "Of course we'd always like to have higher scores, but with our feature-set and coming out late in the console cycle - it's really hard to have that feature-rich game. We did our best to deliver that blockbuster experience. And the scores landed where they landed."
Wadjet Eye Games now offers online sales of Blackwell Deception, the latest installment in the Blackwell series of retro-styled, supernatural adventure games. In addition to standalone downloads of the new game, they also offer sales of a special DVD with all four Blackwell games. The recently released playable demo offers a sample of the new game, and here's word: Blackwell Deception is a modern adventure game with a retro feel, thanks to its 2D pixel art graphics, classic point-and-click gameplay, and engrossing mystery storyline featuring two playable characters. The setting is present day New York, where street psychics have set up shop on every corner to prey on the gullible and milk them dry. Rosa Blackwell -- a true psychic -- sees right through the pricey scams these so-called "healers" are running. And when she and her ghost-partner Joey Mallone start bumping into confused spirits who consulted street psychics during their final days, the duo realizes that more than money is at stake. Now Rosa and Joey must help the restless ghosts find peace and expose the truth before more innocent people are killed.
"Blackwell Deception has been a long time in coming, and I'm excited to finally deliver. I truly think it's the best Blackwell game so far," says Dave Gilbert, Wadjet Eye Games' CEO and creator of the series. "During its two years in production, a lot of care has been put into the story and puzzles to ensure that Blackwell Deception can stand alone. So new players will be able to jump right in -- but old fans should feel like no time has passed at all."
- Battlefield 3 - Limited Edition on Amazon.com. Save 30% on preorders. Thanks Neutronbeam.
- Chessmaster Challenge on Steam. Save 66%.
- Gothic 3 Game of the Year Edition on GameStop Impulse.
- Red Faction on Steam. Save 75%.
- Red Faction: Armageddon on Steam. Save 75%.
- Red Faction: Armageddon Path to War DLC on Steam. Save 75%.
- Red Faction Guerrilla on Steam. Save 75%.
- Red Faction II on Steam. Save 75%.
Link of the Day: David "The Hoff" Hasselhoff wants his own video game. I'm thinking something along the lines of Burgertime?
Tomorrow Trion Worlds will kick off a free weekend for RIFT, their fantasy-themed MMORPG, which includes access to the newly launched Ashes of History content. Here's word: Beginning tomorrow, new and returning players of Trion Worlds’ MMORPG Rift™ can experience five major updates worth of content, including the massive new Ashes of History patch, for free this entire weekend. Over the past six months, the Rift development team has maintained an unprecedented post-launch content schedule, introducing three epic raids, a PvP warfront, duo dungeon content, countless updates and improvements, and much more. The free gameplay lasts from 9:30am PDT on Thursday, October 13th through 9:00am PDT on Monday, October 17th.
Players can get reacquainted with Rift in style with the new Ashes of History Upgrade and Collector’s Edition, available for $10 and $39.99 USD respectively. After applying the upgrade, subscribers will be able to summon Moneybags, a personal banker, ride Spindrel, a terrifying spider mount (because eight legs are better than four), and show off faction pride with a new tabard. The Ashes of History Collector’s Edition includes the new items, plus the Rift client and one month of game time.
A single-player demo for Airline Tycoon 2 is now available, offering the chance to sample three campaign missions from the tycoon sequel that's now available in North America and landing soon in other territories. Word is: "The new demo offers players a taste of the game in the form of three campaign missions. In the role of the playable character Tuppolevsky, gamers will be able to plan routes through a huge variety of airports around the world while customizing four different models of aircraft and maintaining the finances of their airlines. Airline Tycoon 2 will be available on Windows PC in the UK and European territories from 14th October." The demo can be downloaded from AtomicGamer, ComputerGames.ro, FilePlanet, Game Front, Gamer's Hell, and Worthplaying.
Tim Cain's Facebook and LinkedIn pages indicate the former Interplay, Troika, and Carbine Studios designer and programmer is now a senior programmer at Obsidian Studios. Cain worked on the original Fallout and Obsidian's most recent project was Fallout: New Vegas, so this is a reunion of sorts. Thanks No Mutants Allowed.
The Rocksmith Facebook Page has word that the European release of the upcoming music game is delayed until next year "due to music licensing and other external factors." They offer an outline of the region locking issues that should factor into the decision to import the console versions. Thanks MCV.
Hi-Rez Studios officially announces the Tribes: Ascend closed beta testing they first revealed last week. As previously revealed, this will commence on November 4th, and those interested in participating can sign up on the Tribes: Ascend Website. They also reveal that you can take the chance out of this equation by preordering the game, saying: "This initial phase of Closed Beta will include Hi-Rez-managed servers in North America, Europe, and Australia, and will include a subset of content and features planned for the launch release. Additional information regarding the features included in the initial Closed Beta can be found in the online FAQ." That FAQ also reveals system specs for the beta: Continue here to read the full story.
Sony reveals it has locked out over 100,000 accounts from the PlayStation Network and other online services following a spike in unauthorized login attempts, reports the New York Times. Word is: "In a statement Wednesday, Sony said it suspected that hackers had obtained login data from other Web sites or sources and used those to try to gain access to Sony accounts. Access was thought to have been gained to only a handful of accounts, and no credit card or other sensitive data were stolen, Sony said."
The PSN suffered a data breach in April that resulted in significant downtime followed by several further incidents which only seemed to end when Anonymous decided to cease the attacks. Sony has since taken further measures to protect against such breaches: Last month they amended their terms of service to disallow users from initiating class action lawsuits against them.
The World of Mass Development Website is online, a crowdfunding site for C.A.R.S., an upcoming racing game (thanks DocZ). C.A.R.S. stands for Community Assisted Racing Sim, and the site outlines how you can invest in the game's development and get your hands on an early version for a test drive. They also offer a trailer showing the game in action. Continue here to read the full story.
Happy NDA expiration day.
- Amazon Kindle (2011) on TechReviewSource.
- AMD FX 8150 AM3+ Bulldozer CPU on AnandTech, Benchmark Reviews, Bjorn3D, eTeknix, Guru3D, HARDOCP (Desktop and Gameplay), Hardware Canucks, Hardware Heaven, HotHardware, Legion Hardware, Lost Circuits, Mad Shrimps, Neoseeker, OCWORKBENCH, Overclockers Club, Overclock3D, PC Perspective, PureOC, Rage3D, The Tech Report, TechSpot, TechwareLabs, TweakTown, VORTEZ, and VR-Zone.
- Antec Basiq VP350P 350W PSU on techPowerUp.
- Antec High Current Gamer 520W PSU on Hardware Secrets.
- ASUS Maximus IV GENE-Z Motherboard on HARDOCP.
- CoolerMaster CM Storm Trooper Premium Gaming Case on Futurelooks.
- Cooler Master Hyper 612 PWM CPU Cooler on Hardware Secrets.
- Cooler Master Storm Xornet Mouse on The SSD Review.
- Enermax Platimax EMP750AWT PSU on Technic3D.
- Fanatec Racing Peripheral on GameSpy.
- Foxconn nT-A3500 Nettop on XSReviews.
- Hitachi Travelstar 7K750-750 750GB SATA II HDD on Real World Labs.
- ICY DOCK MB981U3-1SA USB 3.0 SATA Docking Station on Vortez.
- Kingston HyperX 120GB SSD on CDRLabs.
- Mad Catz Cyborg R.A.T. 7 Albino Edition Gaming Mouse on Examiner.com.
- Mad Catz Cyborg Glide 7 Mouse Mat on Examiner.com.
- Razer Hydra Controller on TecCentral. In German.
- Storage Options miScroll Tablet on eTeknix.
- Synology DiskStation DS411 4-Bay NAS Server on Bigbruin.com.
I'm near the point of no return my winter beard, which I started on the first day of fall. It's currently in the middle of that super-itchy phase of its development, which I expect will last about a week or so more. After that it's downhill all the way, and by midwinter I expect to be ready for my ZZ Top audition.
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