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Archived News:
An
article on The Escapist talks anonymously with some purported current and
former employees of Cloud Imperium Games about Star Citizen, the
crowdfunded space combat and exploration game. Their sources express
doubts about the viability of the project, and guilt over the sale of virtual
ships to eager customers. The story was updated after it was posted to add some
responses from CIG's Chris Roberts, who suspects "these are the words of a few
bitter ex-employees trying to stir trouble," and the included quotes also
touch on a toxic work environment and issues with Roberts, his wife, and
other management, lending support to his contention. There is also a
Chairman's Response to The Escapist post on the Roberts Space Industries
website (thanks 88fingers). The article concludes with a quote from one of their sources, and Roberts'
contrasting statement of faith in his project and his 261 employees: "Chris Roberts thinks he's
George Lucas. He thinks he's a genius," CS2 asserted. "He's a fraud, pure and
simple. If he was just a salesman, or he worked in marketing, or he was
answering to a producer, he would do well. But the emperor wears no clothes.
Anybody who has worked with him will tell you the same thing. The difference is
that lots of people have a dream, but only some can communicate it. I don't
think he's sinister, or a bad person. He's Donald Trump. He thinks that if he
wants to do something, he can. Because he's Chris Roberts."
"I'll put my 261, their passion and energy against the complaints of a few
disgruntled ex-employees any day," Roberts said. "We have backers visit the
offices all the time, they all come away with the same impression - that the
entire team is dedicated to making the best game possible."
Steam News announces a
free weekend and sale are underway for SpeedRunners: Play
SpeedRunners for FREE
starting now through Sunday at 1PM Pacific Time. You can also pickup
SpeedRunners at 67% off
the regular price!*
If you already have Steam installed, click here
to install or play SpeedRunners. If you don't have Steam, you can download it
here.
*Offer ends Monday at 10AM Pacific Time
As
promised, The Beginner's Guide is now available
on Steam, offering the
new game from The Stanley Parable creator Davey Wreden. Here's word on the game,
which carries a 20% launch discount: The Beginner's Guide is a narrative
video game from Davey Wreden, the creator of The Stanley Parable. It lasts about
an hour and a half and has no traditional mechanics, no goals or objectives.
Instead, it tells the story of a person struggling to deal with something they
do not understand.
A
Steam Community Group Announcement has word that America's Army: Proving
Grounds is now out of beta, and is officially available
on Steam. This entered
beta testing over two
years ago, and they say over 920,000 player accounts racked up over 7.7
million hours of play since then. Here's word on the game, which is free thanks
to this being crowdsourced with contributions from every single taxpayer in the
U.S.A.: “We received great feedback from our fans during the beta and
with the help of our community we greatly improved the AA:PG game and
experience,” said Daniel Kolenich, Executive Producer for America’s Army. “We've
also been blown away by some of the great creations by our fans who used our AA
Mission Editor to recreate some of their favorite maps from the franchise and
develop new styles of game play that AA players are already loving.”
Bringing the best features of the previous versions to a new America’s Army
environment, AA: PG stresses small unit tactical maneuvers and training that
resembles the current day Army. America’s Army: Proving Grounds (AA: PG)
showcases the Army by emphasizing Army Values, teamwork, training and completing
the objectives through gameplay that reflects the Soldier’s Creed.
UbiBlog
has word that Nadeo has tapped the brakes on Trackmania Turbo,
announcing the next installment in the racing series is being delayed until
early next year (thanks Frans). The game was
announced in June with a specific
December 1st release date, but the update describes a setback: The
Trackmania series has a strong community that’s at the heart of everything that
we do. It’s through their comments and various playtests that we have received
valuable feedback for Trackmania Turbo. We take that feedback very seriously and
we’re committed to ensuring that our fans – both old and new – will always have
the best experience possible. With that in mind, we have decided to move the
release date of Trackmania Turbo to early 2016.
During the additional months, we plan to enhance the campaign and the game’s
interface. Since multiplayer is such a strong component of the Trackmania
experience, we also plan to continue improving Trackmania Turbo’s multiplayer
modes. With updated multiplayer modes comes more multiplayer testing. The extra
time will give us an opportunity to make sure that the online infrastructure is
stable and that the online experience is a smooth one.
We are also working on adding an extra feature that offers a new way to
challenge your friends on your favorite user-made tracks. This is a special mode
that we think will extend Trackmania Turbo’s longevity because of how it spurs
competition between players.
Finally, we will be able to fine-tune the random generator feature and make the
Trackbuilder even more accessible and complete. These improvements will allow
the community to create more tracks that are faster and crazier than ever
before.
The Nadeo team can’t wait to get the game into your hands, but it’s important
for us to also deliver the best possible Trackmania game.
GOG.com announces their DRM-free marketplace now offers online sales of
QUAKE II, QUAKE III Gold, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, and
Wolfenstein 3D and Spear of Destiny. The bad news is these are still being
held back in Germany due to content issues, as word is: "The four titles
released today are not available for purchase in Germany. These are legal
restrictions that are beyond our control, and we're very sorry for the
inconvenience." The games are available in two bundles, which will provide a 33%
discount.
The Humble Bundle website has
a countdown timer ticking off the seconds until the launch of Humble Monthly, a
subscription service to buy games blind. They call this: "A highly curated
bundle of our favorite games at one fixed price. Includes everything from recent
hits to hidden gems to timeless classics - every month." They say this will
include games that haven't been featured in other bundles, and as is their way,
this will support charity, as 5% of each month's proceeds will be donated. They
also offer a free copy of Legend of Grimrock 2 to pass the time between now
and when the first bundle unlocks on November 6th.
Preorders of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided began
about a month ago, with one
aspect of their augment your
preorder program being the promise of access to the action/RPG sequel four
days before its official release. This created a conflict, as it would force
customers to choose between early access and other rewards.
MCV has the following statement on how this will change: “We’ve been
listening to everything you’ve had to say about the Augment Your Pre-Order
program. When it was first conceived, we wanted the program to give you more
choice about what you received in terms of pre-order incentives – because we’ve
seen in the past that when we choose those packages ourselves, and split them
across regions, it causes frustration.
We quickly noted that this approach created even more frustration than before,
resulting in a resounding amount of negative feedback.
We’ve spent a lot of time reading through all of your comments, working to
understand how we can try to make things right for you. After much thought and
reflection, we decided to close down the program and make all of the incentive
content available to anyone who pre-orders [the game] or purchases a Day 1
Edition.
This story has details on a new law that's now in effect in the U.K. that
protects consumers against faulty digital purchases, including video games.
The Consumer Rights Act 2015 website has all the details, and offers the
following rundown on what this means to you: In October, when the Consumer
Rights Act comes into force, it will cover:
- what should happen when goods are faulty;
- what should happen when digital content is faulty;
- how services should match up to what has been
agreed, and what should happen when they do not, or when they are not
provided with reasonable care and skill;
- unfair terms in a contract;
- what happens when a business is acting in a way
which isn’t competitive;
- written notice for routine inspections by public
enforcers, such as Trading Standards; and
- greater flexibility for public enforcers, such as
Trading Standards, to respond to breaches of consumer law, such as seeking
redress for consumers who have suffered harm.
Most of these changes are important updates to existing laws. But there are
two new areas of law.
- This will be the first time that rights on digital
content will have been set out in legislation. The Act gives consumers a
clear right to repair or replacement of faulty digital content such as
online film and games, music downloads and e-books. The law here has been
unclear up until now and this change brings us up to date with how digital
products have evolved.
- For the first time, there are clear rules for what
should happen if a service is not provided with reasonable care and skill or
as agreed. For example, the business that provided the service must bring it
into line with what was agreed with the customer or, if this is not
practical, must give some money back.
The Consumer Rights Act 2015 stands alongside Regulations to create a greatly
simplified body of consumer law. Taken together, they set out the basic rules
which govern how consumers buy and businesses sell to them in the UK.
Konami
announces the first roster update for PES 2016 comes today, the first of
weekly such updates for the sports simulation to align the in-game performance
of the virtual players with their real-life counterparts. They also say a more
complete roster update will follow later this month: Konami Digital
Entertainment, Inc. has announced that its weekly roster updates for PES 2016
will begin tomorrow, October 1st, with the full roster update to follow later
that month.
KONAMI’s weekly updates are designed to ensure players within PES 2016 match the
performances of their real-life counterparts. Thus, players on good streaks will
have their various abilities raised, while others will be tweaked to reflect
their current performances.
The publisher has also confirmed that its first major free Download Pack for PES
2016 will be issued in October, and will refresh all summer transfers and team
rosters across all modes with the inclusion of new teams and player
faces.
Slitherine announces today is D-Day for Heroes of Normandie, a World War II
strategy game which centers on the invasion of the region also known as
Normandy. You can pick this up through the
Slitherine website, where
they offer a 33% launch discount along with
this launch trailer
showing off the game. They also plan a live stream on
their Twitch channel starting
at 2:00 pm EDT (20:00 CEST) today. Here's more on the game, and yes, that's a
Kelly's Heroes
reference: Like Sgt Oddball who saw the last river bridge blown up by
Allied fighter-bombers in his binoculars, Heroes of Normandie fans saw the
release date of the PC version pushed back a couple of times. But today is the
day and finally PC players can get their hands on this adaptation of one of the
most engaging and light-hearted board games released recently!
Developer Cat Rabbit has been focused on faithfully reproducing the core
mechanics of the original version, which had the feel of a video game :
fast-paced turns, a clear set of rules and a wide range of units with specific
weapons and abilities. On top of that they introduced crazy characters in a new
way from the 3 different armies (USA, Germany and the Commonwealth), and built
brand new game modes to make the best use of the gameplay. 6 campaigns, a
skirmish mode, 2 very challenging Rogue campaigns and a multiplayer mode where
players can select pre-set forces or assemble their own army, come together for
a furious and funny tactical experience.
Continue here to read the full story.
Indie German developer GameArt Studio announces that A.I. Invasion is now
in full release on Steam
following an early access period that began over the summer.
This post has word, including a bit on what's changed for the launch:
Take on the role of a soldier fighting against the merciless A.I.
machines controlling the universe. Traveling the Rimae planetary system you
command a team that has to overcome various missions to defeat those pesky metal
roaches. Utilize a wide range of weapons and even special items that aid you in
battle! Can you reclaim the system from the A.I.?
Full list of features:
- full story campaign telling the story of the
reclamation of the Rimae planetary system
- 20 varied missions with a wide range of objectives
- 9 different environments on several planets and
even in space
- 6 unlockable main weapons with different shooting
behaviors and projectile types
- 5 unlockable special items, that serve as
equippable special abilities
- control up to 5 special units to approach combat
strategically
- full gamepad support
- Steam Achievements
Additionally many minor improvements, bugfixes and smaller feature additions
mark the transition of A.I. Invasion from Early Access to full release. So, see
you on the intergalactic battlefield!
-
Reaction -- Steam Greenlight. "Reaction is a free and open source first
person shooter that combines action and realism; with a specific emphasis on
action over realism in the spirit of the legendary "Action Quake 2" (AQ2)
mod created by the A-Team." Thanks
PCGamesN.
Wow, it's October already! It feels it too, as it's been getting cooler on a
daily basis around here, and we've gotten to the jacket phase. This also means
it's hurricane season, and we may also see the effects of Tropical Storm
Joaquin, though I've also seen projections that it will miss this area entirely.
It sounds like this storm is no joke where it is right now, so here's hoping all
of you in its path have their hatches properly battened down. Speaking of
autumn, here's a reminder to get your football picks in before tonight's game,
as it looks like some forgot last week.
This post has all the handy details on how to submit your choices.
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