General gaming

General gaming

Weekend Deals: Civilization V and Dawn of Discovery

Posted: 22 Jul 2011 06:58 PM PDT

Civilization V

Civilization V, the most recent game in the Civilization series (unless we count the new Facebook game), can be yours on Steam for just $17. Even at $50, the amount of time you could spend playing it makes it way more than worth the price of admission. For less than half of that, strategy fans would be crazy not to pick it up.

If you're looking for something cheaper or less combat-centric, Dawn of Discovery Gold (known as Anno 1404 outside North America) is $6.79 from Impulse, which is also selling Dead Space 2 for $17.99.

Steam has the very fun Altitude for only $4.99. You can play the full game for free this weekend to first get a taste to see if it's up your alley.

This Week in the 1UP Community 7/18/11

Posted: 22 Jul 2011 05:23 PM PDT

This week we bid farewell to Megaman Legends 3 but said "hello" to Freddy Krueger as a playable character in Mortal Kombat. These tidbits of news were both a sad and happy time for gamers and 1UP Members were quick to put their unique spin on it. Also, on the boards, the 1UP Community shared the disappointment of failed sequels with each other as well as the different levels of excitement when playing a highly anticipated game on day one.

ON THE BOARDS:

Bulletstorm Wasn't a Moneymaker for Epic

Posted: 22 Jul 2011 04:51 PM PDT

Bulletstorm

Although there was no shortage of advertisements for it, Bulletstorm wasn't a huge sales success. After releasing on February 22, it made it to number seven on the NPD charts for the month, falling right behind Dead Space 2 and Zumba Fitness. It failed to make the top ten the following month, and as Epic Games President Mike Capps has revealed, the game didn't turn out to be a moneymaker.

Speaking with Kotaku, Capps put it quite simply by saying it "didn't make money for us." Even with the promise of Gears of War 3 beta access for those who bought the Epic Edition, the game apparently didn't turn out to be the sales success Epic was hoping for. It's possible that could be blamed on the game's lack of a competitive multiplayer mode, something that is fairly unusual for a first-person shooter. The Call of Duty games are massively successful thanks in large part to their online multiplayer.

Bulletstorm got more attention than what traditional marketing alone delivered. Besides ads, a brief parody game mocking Call of Duty called Duty Calls was released to promote Bulletstorm. Following that, Fox News posed a question asking if Bulletstorm was "the worst video game in the world." It included quotes from a psychologist who stated, "If a younger kid experiences Bulletstorm's explicit language and violence, the damage could be significant." Another psychologist claimed, "The increase in rapes can be attributed in large part to the playing out of [sexual] scenes in videogames."

Freddy Krueger Wasn't the Only Horror Movie Character Considered for Mortal Kombat

Posted: 22 Jul 2011 03:29 PM PDT

Mortal Kombat Freddy Krueger

While some Mortal Kombat fans are upset for one reason or another that Freddy Krueger is the fourth DLC character for the latest game in the series, he's an ideal choice as a character that's not averse to violence. NetherRealm's goal all along was to have a guest character be one of the four released as DLC, and in the process of deciding upon him, Krueger wasn't the only horror film character considered.

"It's kind of hard to choose a character who would fit well into the Mortal Kombat universe, with the blood and violence that's so associated with it," Ed Boon told the PlayStation Blog. "Kratos from God of War is a brutal, bloody character, so he makes sense.

"When we had the discussions about the DLC characters, we knew that we wanted to add a returning character, a new character, but also a guest character. That was one of the goals right from the beginning. A number of names were run by us: Jason, Michael Meyers and all those guys. Freddy Krueger, we felt, was the most instantly recognizable and he fits in with Mortal Kombat with his claws. It just seemed like the best fit."

PixelJunk Monsters Soon to be in Your Browser for Free

Posted: 22 Jul 2011 02:57 PM PDT

PixelJunk Monsters

The PixelJunk Monsters series has been quiet as of late. With next to no warning, a new, free-to-play version of the tower defense game was announced yesterday at the Casual Connect event in Seattle.

Q-Games founder Dylan Cuthbert said on Twitter yesterday that the "latest PixelJunk Monsters will be shown" during a talk by designer Jesse Venbrux. He confirmed a press release would be coming later with the official announcement. Unfortunately that's come and offered up very little in the way of additional details. PixelJunk Monsters will be a free-to-play browser game for social networks and sports a new world map. Judging by the screenshots, the art style and game will see more changes than just those to the map, although the core tower defense gameplay appears to be mostly intact.

Street Fighter and Hello Kitty Team Up for New Merchandise

Posted: 22 Jul 2011 01:48 PM PDT


Were I to pose the question, "With whom will Street Fighter release a line of co-branded merchandise?" I'm not inclined to believe Hello Kitty would receive many votes. And, yet, here we are. Not content with cross-branding with rival fighting games, Capcom has announced a partnership with Hello Kitty creator Sanrio.

The merchandise is described in the announcement as "a broad range of merchandise featuring Hello Kitty dressed in the distinct costumes" from Street Fighter. A picture of a pink Hello Kitty dressed as Chun-Li was shown at the Street Fighter X Tekken panel at Comic-Con yesterday, according to Destructoid. Some sort of collaboration was hinted at, and what was seen is precisely what you can expect to find on store shelves starting in fall 2012.

"Capcom has long admired Sanrio and their ability to create memorable and cherished lifestyle brands so it is a distinct pleasure to partner with them for this new cross-over line of merchandise," said Capcom Director of Licensing Joshua Izzo. "The combination of Street Fighter and Hello Kitty will offer fans a whole new way to experience our characters."

Keiji Inafune, Gone From Capcom, Reveals His First New Game

Posted: 22 Jul 2011 01:07 PM PDT

The Island of Dr. Momo

The first game to come from Keiji Inafune in his life after Capcom will be a free-to-play mobile game called The Island of Dr. Momo.

The new game was announced at a press conference held by Inafune's company, Comcept, as well as Atlus parent company Index Holdings and GREE, according to 4Gamer (as translated by Andriasang).

The latter's involvement tells much of the story -- GREE is a social network service that mainly deals with games. Momo will be available through GREE as a free-to-play, microtransaction-based game where players assume the role of lover-of-cute-things Dr. Momo, who tires to create the cutest thing in the world. We know little more than that, but that should change soon -- it's headed to both iOS and Android devices this fall in Japan.

Half of Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3's Content Was Planned for MvC3

Posted: 22 Jul 2011 11:40 AM PDT


One of the recurring questions about Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 -- along with "Where is Mega Man?" -- has been about Capcom's decision to release the game on disc, as opposed to downloadable content for the first game.

It's a fair question; Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds came out just this past February, and already it will be outdated by the time November rolls around. Ultimate might be a reduced-price disc, but fans aren't especially pleased. According to producer Ryota Niitsuma, the earthquake in Japan earlier this year prompted the decision to hold off on MvC3 DLC in favor of releasing all that and more in disc form.

Speaking with Destructoid, Niitsuma said, "After the release of Marvel vs. Capcom 3 there were plans to release DLC. But, as you know, less than a month after the game was released we had the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. That had an impact on everything, and it threw off our whole development schedule. We decided that instead of doing the DLC we could put it all together in one package, add some additional stuff to make it robust and deliver it as a disc."

3DS Now Downloads 3D Videos While in Sleep Mode

Posted: 22 Jul 2011 10:45 AM PDT

Nintendo Video CollegeHumor

Not long after delivering Netflix streaming to 3DS, Nintendo has released the promised 3D video service, simply titled Nintendo Video. The app is now available on the eStore and, provided you allow it, downloads 3D video content via SpotPass whenever the 3DS is connected to the Internet, whether it's in sleep mode or not.

There is currently a selection of four videos available to watch, including a Captain America: The First Avenger trailer, CollegeHumor video (Dinosaur Office, as pictured above), and a brief explanation of what Nintendo Video is all about. Content is played on the top screen while the bottom screen allows you to pause, seek through the video, go back to the menu, or, in some cases, offer a Facebook Like. The bottom screen may prove to have more use than any of that in the future -- the explanation video, for example, advertises that Xevious is now available as a 3D Classic on the eShop.

Some of what you'll see in the coming weeks includes 3D movie trailers, an exclusive music video from OK Go (coming July 27), animations from unspecified "independent studios," extreme sports and action videos, and other content from CollegeHumor, the Blue Man Group, Jason DeRulo, and Foster the People.

Dream Casting: Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater

Posted: 22 Jul 2011 08:56 AM PDT

Feature

Dream Casting: Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
 We scour Hollywood for stars who would feel right at home in Hideo Kojima's take on James Bond.

By Bob Mackey

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater didn't receive the kindest reception upon entering the world back in 2004; gamers annoyed by Kojima's infamous Metal Gear Solid 2 bait-and-switch just a few years earlier seemed to abandon the series altogether, leaving this worthy sequel largely unplayed and underappreciated. It's their loss, since Metal Gear fans usually regard Snake Eater as the best entry in the series -- mostly because it's the one where director Hideo Kojima showed the most self-control. And now that MGS3 will see two separate re-releases this fall, those who experienced the 2001 Raiden-reveal-burn in Sons of Liberty can finally play this masterpiece with the chips safely removed from their respective shoulders. So what better time than now to speculate about the casting possibilities for the movie adaptation of a video game partially based on Agent 007's greatest hits?




Naked Snake - Chris Hemsworth
Posted by Shri Krishna

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