|
|
 |
Archived News:
Valve announces the rumored update for Team Fortress 2 will indeed be the Mann vs. Machine expansion, and as surmised, will add a co-op mode to the free-to-play game when it goes live on Wednesday: Valve, creators of bestselling game franchises (such as Half-Life, Portal, Left 4 Dead, and Counter-Strike) and leading technologies (such as Steam and Source), announced today a new co-operative game for its free-to-play online action title Team Fortress 2 (TF2).
Available August 15th, 2012, Mann vs. Machine (MvM) lets you and five friends fight a lethal horde of robots on all-new maps, with the opportunity to upgrade abilities and weapons along the way. Band together to survive all of the robot waves in a variety of missions to earn incredible loot and unlock new achievements.
Leading up to its August 15th release, Valve will be making daily updates to its TF2 website, unveiling MvM content and key features. To find out more about MvM, go to http://www.teamfortress.com/mvm.
TF2 is Free to Play for PC & Mac players via Steam. For more information on TF2, please visit http://www.teamfortress.com/.
Steam News announces the release of a Windows edition of Iron Brigade, confirming last month's speculation that a Steam release of Double Fine's tower defense/shooter was in the works. The game is on sale for the next week for 20% off single copies and four-packs, and here's word: Join The Mobile Trench Brigade and protect humanity from the evil Monovision menace in this Tower Defense Shooter from Tim Schafer's Double Fine Productions! Use a combination of mobile firepower and stationary defenses to turn the tide of war in our favor. Customize your trench with thousands of possible loadouts. March side-by-side with allies from around the world as you fight your way through Europe, Africa, and the Pacific.
Square Enix London announces Sleeping Dogs will be released in North America tomorrow and the crime game will show up in Europe and other PAL territories on Friday. They also announce they will not let Sleeping Dogs lie, as they have plans for six months worth of DLC for the game: Square Enix London Studios, a part of Square Enix Europe, today announced its highly anticipated undercover cop drama SLEEPING DOGS will be in stores from August 14th in North America and from August 17th in Europe and other PAL territories. An incredible open world experience, SLEEPING DOGS aims to keep players returning to Hong Kong with plans for an extensive six months of additional content.
“SLEEPING DOGS is a game we know fans will want to keep on playing, so over the next six months we’ll be creating a series of new content packs giving players everything they need to keep enjoying the game,” said Lee Singleton, General Manager, Square Enix London Studios. “We want to create something to suit everyone’s play style from cool cars and high-speed missions to outlandish outfits and game-extending mission packs. The game launch is just the beginning.”
There will be a range of new downloads available at launch to help players get ahead of the game, including the 80s-inspired Retro Triad Pack, a killer old school outfit with its own player buffs and funky kung-fu van. New content packs are planned from September, beginning with a high-speed Racing Pack and an explosive SWAT Pack - further announcements to follow soon.
The first SLEEPING DOGS packs will be available from launch on the Xbox LIVE® online entertainment network, PlayStation®Network and Steam.
The Kickstarter Campaign for Shadowrun Online concludes in under 24 hours, and Cliffhanger Productions' cross-platform action game needs to raise about 80 grand in that time to reach its funding goals. There's also a new trailer showing off the game's character creation system. Here's the last minute pitch for support: Says Jan Wagner, co-founder of Cliffhanger Productions: ‘The project has been the subject of some controversy amongst players, but we have tried to address the questions and concerns of the fans. There were some misconceptions based on our initial presentation, but we have made a point of engaging people directly and explaining to them the ambitious concept behind our game. In these last days on Kickstarter we have seen an overwhelmingly positive feedback for our new video and gameplay concepts. We are really unbelievably grateful for the enthusiastic community, which has grown around the campaign. I want to invite everyone who is skeptical to risk a second look at our Kickstarter page and see the rich potential the game has to offer. It is just a click away and it could mean the difference between seeing this project created or not. We call on all Shadowrun fans to help us make this game happen!’
The ShootMania Storm Website now offers a trailer showing off the finale of the E3 tournament for NADEO's upcoming first-person shooter. Moving on to the next trade show, the site also features this blurb (thanks Frans) explaining plans to show off the game this weekend at gamescom in Cologne, Germany. This includes more tournaments, as they have two top teams lined up for a match as well as a finals to determine "ShootMania Storm's first European Championship team." All of these will be shoutcast live from the show.
Matrix Games now offers a new patch for Time of Fury to update Wastelands Interactive's turn-based strategy game to version 1.02. Here's the deal: "The AI gets a slight boost in making itself more challenging, with the AI considering reinforcements to units sooner and USA AI trying to land in Africa as long as it is not at war with USSR to follow closer to historical timelines. A number of changes that are in the update affect the air and sea war, such as if a fleet is supporting a convoy only if it follows certain rules and the ability to see air superiority and range." This post offers the detailed change log.
A new "Come and Get Me" trailer from Borderlands 2 features narration from Handsome Jack as the game's antagonist uses in-game footage to introduce the four playable characters in Gearbox's upcoming shooter sequel. Continue here to read the full story.
Valve announces what they are calling a "major update" to the Steam Community, saying this will enter beta testing soon, and that in the meantime they will be making daily announcements of new features that will be part of this. Today's update announces the addition of "Game Hubs," and here's word: This update focuses on highlighting and enabling the best user-created screenshots, videos, and Workshop items for games across Steam while making it easier for the community to discuss their favorite games.
Every game on Steam will have a new Game Hub. The Hubs highlight the most popular user-created screenshots, videos, and Steam Workshop items as rated by the community and combine it with related news, discussions, and comments for the game all in one central location.
"The New Steam Community is all about showing off the best content that gamers have created," says Emily Kent at Valve. "With over 89 million screenshots, videos, Steam Workshop maps, levels, mods, and items, plus news articles and product updates, the community has created an unbelievable wealth of content around their favorite games."
Polygon has word that Epic has bought up the remaining portion of People Can Fly, the Polish developer ( Bulletstorm Gears of War: Judgment) that they've owned a majority of since 2007. This follows news of departures from the developer, including founder Adrian Chmielarz, which this report says are related, though this door is apparently still open: "We will be helping (Chmielarz) with some future announcements," says Epic's Mark Rein. "Our paths will be crossing again." As for the purchase: "We doubled down on People Can Fly," Rein said. "It was something we always hoped to do."
Publisher bitComposer Games announces Chaos Chronicles, a fantasy-themed turn-based role-playing game in the works at German developer Coreplay ( Jagged Alliance: Back in Action) for release on Windows PCs next year. There is already a Chaos Chronicles Website, though this is empty at the moment, so here are some screenshots and here's word from the announcement: "Chaos Chronicles leads PC gamers into a lost empire full of legends, thrilling adventures, and dangerous opponents. Players can explore numerous ancient ruins, mystical places, and mysterious dungeons alone or in a group of up to five players. Chaos Chronicles unites the typical characteristics of classic turn-based role-playing games with modern graphics and a gripping atmosphere. The sophisticated gameplay will captivate veterans of the genre as well as newcomers." Here's more: Over 200 years ago the flourishing kingdoms of elves, dwarves and mankind were consumed by chaos. Undead hordes lead by archwizards of the dark arts overran the land. Only few were able to escape. The survivors build their new homes on small, secluded islands off shore. A few years ago the Order of the Holy Flame sent its knights to lead an expedition to the mainland.
Even though the old cities lie in ruins and orcs, goblins and other creatures of evil roam the land there seems to be hope for a return to the land of their ancestors. The big harbor town Rethgard has been purged of the undead and the inner city has been fortified to stand ground against any kind of attack. Driven by their love for adventure the player’s party enters a boat in order to take part in rebuilding the kingdom.
Wargaming.net announces World of Tanks Generals, a free-to-play browser-based strategy spin-off of World of Tanks, their free-to-play online shooter, saying this will also be released as a card-based strategy board game. The World of Tanks Generals Website has images and details, and here's word: Wargaming today has unveiled details of World of Tanks Generals, a free-to-play, browser-based MMO game combining elements of real-time strategy and collectible card gameplay.
World of Tanks Generals will feature gameplay focused on World War II and will allow players to engage in strategic and intense combat using various military units, including tanks, artillery and infantry. Players will also be able to research new technology, as well as buy new tanks and units for more varied gameplay options.
Continue here to read the full story.
German software developer GDC Game and Download Company announces they are ready to roll out FDSL (Fast Download Technology with Streaming Logic) to digital distributors as a way of facilitating the trade in used games, saying this will enable them to comply with a recent legal ruling in Europe about used digital games: The games industry can breathe a sigh of relief. As communicated by the GDC Game and Download Company AG today, the GDC owned technology FDSL enables secondary trading of digitally acquired games. This is already a legally long required fact and has to be generally facilitated according to the verdict passed by the European Cord of Justice on the 3rd of July 2012 (file number C128/11). However, most of the existing download technologies and portals are incapable of doing so. At this point, the FDSL Technology creates legal certainty.
"We are proud to announce that we can offer the full range of exploitation options to gamers and games publishers by means of our unique FDSL technology. Games download portals will benefit from our technology as well. The fact that up to today no other company announced its capability in fulfilling this EU norm reveals that the FDSL technology is trend-setting and pioneering. To that end, we will hold talks with our business partners during the upcoming trade show gamescom in Cologne. Naturally, we will also welcome potential business partners with open arms and be available for further discussions and requests.” comments Nils Herrnberger CEO of the GDC Game and Download Company AG.
Eurogamer.net has details on the Mechromancer DLC that will follow the release of Borderlands 2, Gearbox's upcoming shooter sequel. This is to include a skill tree that will allow accomplished players to carry along a less-skilled companion in co-op play, and while the skill tree is officially called "Best Friends Forever," lead designer John Hemingway apparently referred to this as "girlfriend mode" as he showed them the DLC. This has inspired Randy Pitchford to tweet about this a few times, as the Gearbox honcho who is usually pretty blasé about political correctness wants to head off any perception that this is sexist, saying any attention paid to this "personal anecdote" is "sensationalism."
GfK Chart-Track has the list of the 20 bestselling full-price PC games in the U.K. for the week ending August 11. The Sims 3 continues at number one in a chart with an unchanged top six. The all-platform chart is similarly stable, with London 2012 remaining atop an unchanged top four.
Well, the Olympics are over. As usual, I ended up watching more than I would have expected and enjoying a lot more than my grumpy comments at the outset of the games indicated. And thanks to how far apart the games are spread, I fully expect to have mostly forgotten that by the next Olympics and just repeat my comments about how I don't appreciate them. So there.
|
Twitter 
