Archived News:
A trailer tucked away on
Steam reveals plans for King of Fighters XIII: Steam Edition, a
heretofore unannounced Windows installment in SNK Playmore's fighting series.
There's no further word on this for now. Thanks Joao.
Deep Silver announces Dead Island: Epidemic, a new MOBA based on Techland's
zombie series they jokingly call a ZOMBA (Zombie Online Multiplayer Battle
Arena). The Dead Island Epidemic
website is accepting newsletter signups, and they promise additional details
at Gamescom. In the meantime, here's what they say: Larkspur, Calif. –
August 7, 2013 - Deep Silver today announced Dead Island: Epidemic, a new ZOMBA
(Zombie Online Multiplayer Battle Arena) game set in the ever-expanding Dead
Island universe. Dead Island: Epidemic will pit three teams of players against
each other in a desperate fight for survival. Dead Island: Epidemic is a
Free-to-Play PC title that will feature all the trademark elements that are part
of a Dead Island experience.
ISOTX has launched March of War -
Shoot 'em Up, a shooter mini-game spin-off for March of War,
their episodic multiplayer online turn-based strategy game. Here's word:
Last week saw the release of March of War’s first monthly episode “Soviet
Storm” on Steam Early Access
and the official website. To
celebrate this milestone event, ISOTX has just launched the spin-off mini-game
March of War – Shoot ‘em up, which lets players besiege the Soviet Union troops
and units from an entirely different perspective. It even gives them a chance at
in-game prizes, such as avatar items and unit skins, to use in their battles in
the main March of War game through a leaderboard competition.
ISOTX is currently considering monthly content updates for the March of War -
Shoot ‘em up mini-game, paralleling the episodic structure of March of War. The
second monthly themed episode of the series, “Tropical Thunder”, is scheduled
for release on September 5th 2013.
ARCEN Games
now offers preorders of the Nihon no Mura expansion for Skyward
Collapse for 10% off in advance of its release. Here's what it adds to the
strategy game: "The expansion's content introduces the Japanese as the title's
third playable faction, joining the fray with the base game's Norse and Greek
contingents. Luminith's newest addition boasts both a very strong military as
well as a very strange pantheon of active and aggressive gods. Hamlets are the
expansion's other major addition -- these are non-combative, non-factional
villages that can be built in the remains of the fallen towns of either faction
and actually provide an entirely new method to win the game."
- AudioSurf on
Steam. Save 75%.
- Horror Fest Bundle on
Bundle
Stars. Three Steam games for $1.02.
- Two Worlds 2- Epic Edition on
GOG.com.
Save 60%.
Oculus
VR announces John Carmack has joined them as Chief Technical Officer as they
continue the quest towards viable consumer-level VR headsets. According to
GamesIndustry International Oculus VR initially referred to him as "formerly
at id Software," but they have a statement from Bethesda clarifying this is not
the case, and this press release says no such thing. Bethesda tells them: "John
has long been interested in the work at Oculus VR and wishes to spend time on
that project. The technical leadership he provides for games in development at
id Software is unaffected." This has a certain vagueness to it, and Oculus VR's
announcement states "John will be working from the new Oculus Dallas office that
we’re opening soon." When pressed, Bethesda told GamesIndustry International
that he "will spend time working out of Oculus as part of his role with them,
but he will also continue to work at id."
Kotaku notes a
John
Carmack tweet clarifying his priorities: "My time division is now Oculus
over Id over Armadillo. Busy busy busy!" The announcement includes John's
thoughts on the occasion: "I have fond memories of the development work
that led to a lot of great things in modern gaming – the intensity of the first
person experience, LAN and internet play, game mods, and so on. Duct taping a
strap and hot gluing sensors onto Palmer’s early prototype Rift and writing the
code to drive it ranks right up there. Now is a special time. I believe that VR
will have a huge impact in the coming years, but everyone working today is a
pioneer. The paradigms that everyone will take for granted in the future are
being figured out today; probably by people reading this message. It’s certainly
not there yet. There is a lot more work to do, and there are problems we don’t
even know about that will need to be solved, but I am eager to work on them.
It’s going to be awesome!”
The
Kickstarter campaign for 7 Days to Die shows this zombie survival
game proposed by The Fun Pimps Entertainment has reached its funding goals with
time to spare, as there's more than a week to go in the fundraiser. They say the
game is also currently number one on
Steam Greenlight, but we
can't find any listing of such rankings. This "open world, voxel-based, sandbox
game" is nearing its first stretch goal of $250K, and they have potential
rewards scaling all the way up to twice that sum.
The
Obsidian Forums feature a new screenshot from Project Eternity and
offer a look at the concept art that served as its inspiration. The result
brings on a good deal of déjà vu, as the outcome is remarkably similar (thanks
Eurogamer). Normally they'd be posted here with a link to view them, but
here they are without one. Feedback on whether this is better or worse is
welcome.
The SimCity website now has a splash
banner saying "Coming to a Mac near you August 29," leading to an
order page that initially shows
the old June release date
before the graphics pop up with the proper release info for the OS X version,
which was already delayed
to this month. This leads to preorders of the Windows edition, and the OS X
version is coming as a download on the 29th. Thanks
Shacknews.
Daedalic Entertainment announces the release of the Mac OS X edition of Chaos
on Deponia on the
Mac App
Store, saying the release of this comedic point & click adventure "completes
the series of Daedalic’s latest Mac store releases." Here's a reminder for Mac
users of what this is all about: Chaos on Deponia turns out to be even
wackier than its predecessor, and instantly puts the player under its spell.
After the events on Deponia, it seems that Rufus came to his senses. He's grown
prudent, amicable, kind and caring, without any intention to cause major mayhem
just to further his own selfish ends. It seems he is far from chaining himself
to flaming saw blades, training torpedo-dolphins or foraging through platypus
nests. Or is he?
We had the most shocking experience with Barnes & Noble, where MrsBlue has
maintained a loyalty to the bookstore to the extent that she orders books online
from them rather than Amazon. The dust jacket on a book she ordered arrived with
a large tear, so we went to the bookstore to exchange it. When she found the one
copy in the store, the pages were filthy, but the cover was intact, so I
suggested we might just be able to exchange just that. That's where the "fun"
started. In an effort to maximize bureaucracy and minimize customer service, the
process was to actually return the book in the system, rather than just switch
the covers. This meant the system wanted another 13-or-so dollars, which was the
price difference between the online book and the store-bought book. As crazy as
it sounds, they were unable to reconcile this (they didn't seem that concerned
with trying), and were only able to accept her return for a refund so she can go
buy it online again. Well guess what? Now she's ordering it from Amazon, so
whatever spiteful rivalry there is between B&N online and their stores is
spiting themselves. The silliest thing is this failure to take the easy path to
satisfy a once-loyal customer is how the copy of the book in the store was
already damaged, so they needed to return it anyway. Pitiful.
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