General gaming

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• Saints Row: The Third Brings More Off the Wall Options to Open World Games
• Activision Boss Bemoans Mudslinging, Wants Everyone to Succeed
• EA Limiting Copies of The Old Republic at Launch, Both Digitally and at Retail
• Portal 2's Free Challenge Mode DLC Coming Next Month
• Xbox 360 isn't Done in Japan Yet, as Far as Microsoft is Concerned
• Always On DRM Dropped for Driver, Replaced by On-At-Launch DRM
• The 1UP Staff Reacts to the 1UP Community's Top 100 Games You Should Play Results
• Assassin's Creed: Revelations Takes a Cue From Inception
• It Continues to Look Like Diablo III is Coming to Consoles
• Nintendo Still Thinks People Want Urban Champion

Saints Row: The Third Brings More Off the Wall Options to Open World Games Posted: 18 Aug 2011 06:30 PM PDT One thing seems true after spending the first five minutes in a playable demo of Saints Row the Third (herein referred to as SR3): The Saints Row franchise has cemented its place as the punch-in-the-balls the open world genre needed. Sure, it's a bold statement. But a majority of big budget open world productions seem to cling to the concept of "realism" like a warm blanket on a chilly night. Volition, the developers of the Saints Row franchise, seem set on taking the covers off and doing something completely absurd -- resulting in something that feels fun and accessible even if things you do in the game can also look detestable at times. I start my time basking in the moonlit pastures of Steelport before immediately hijacking a Street Sweeper and taking it to Rim Jobs -- the one stop shop for car parts, paint jobs, and crazy customizations. I outfit my new machine to look a little meaner by adding customized parts. After some fiddling around with the interface, I add spiked out body parts, a chainsaw and cage on the back of the cab, and some Noz -- because every vehicle should have it, especially street sweepers.

Activision Boss Bemoans Mudslinging, Wants Everyone to Succeed Posted: 18 Aug 2011 05:08 PM PDT Those within the games industry need to stop attacking each other and stop treating things like politics where there can only be one winner. That's the thinking that Activision Publishing COO Eric Hirshberg tried to express to the crowd at Gamescom yesterday. He spoke about, among other things, the war of words that's gone on between Battlefield and Call of Duty as of late, explaining that he wants everyone to succeed, not just those working for or with Activision. "There's one other thing that this intensely competitive landscape has brought into our industry. And that, unfortunately, is an awful lot of mudslinging. Competition is of course a good thing. It keeps us all on our toes and ultimately, it makes the games better," he said, according to a transcript (PDF) of his speech, courtesy of One of Swords. "Competition is healthy for this, or any other industry. But it's one thing to want your game to be successful. It's another to actively want the games of others to fail." Earlier this year, DICE GM Karl-Magnus Troedsson suggested Call of Duty's developers were "getting lazy." He said, "They're using the same engine, the same recipe for building a game. At some point you need to take that leap. I haven't seen them take that leap since a long time ago."

EA Limiting Copies of The Old Republic at Launch, Both Digitally and at Retail Posted: 18 Aug 2011 04:23 PM PDT It feels like every so often an MMORPG comes along that everyone claims will be the one that truly challenges World of Warcraft. They've all come and gone, and WoW is still reigning supreme, even if it's in a bit of subscription lull between expansion packs right now. Star Wars: The Old Republic has the strongest license of any WoW competitor yet, and although it's not going to come along and kill WoW by any stretch, it seems to have the best chance at being a big success alongside it. And while big-name games don't typically sell out at launch these days, that might just happen with TOR, and it's reportedly an intentional move by EA. No, EA isn't limiting the supply of The Old Republic copies in order to give the illusion of it being more popular than it really is. (Nintendo was accused of this with the Wii, once upon a time.) Instead, Game Informer reports that a rep showing the game at Gamescom revealed plans to limit the game's supply at launch. The purpose is to avoid server instability, a problem that invariably plagues MMOs following launch when there is a massive influx of players and not enough servers to handle the load. It plans to do this both at retail and digitally. There is apparently an exact number of copies it believes it can handle; should that number be exceeded, digital sales will be cut off and EA will try to increase its server capacity. The rep didn't provide a specific timetable for how long the process would take. Odds are, it wouldn't be an especially long time.

Portal 2's Free Challenge Mode DLC Coming Next Month Posted: 18 Aug 2011 03:09 PM PDT In typical Valve fashion, the first downloadable content pack for Portal 2 -- you know, the game with those offensive adoption jokes -- hasn't come as soon as many expected. Shortly after the game's launch in April, Valve said to expect it this summer. With the season winding down, it's hard not to wonder if that release window still holds up. According to Valve's marketing VP, Doug Lombardi, it does -- it'll be out in mid-September. Speaking with Kotaku at Gamescom, he pointed out that mid-September is "still technically summer," which is true, as fall doesn't begin until September 21. But still. The exact contents of the DLC remain unknown. When it was first announced, new test chambers (with accompanying leaderboards) and a challenge mode playable either alone or with another player were mentioned.

Xbox 360 isn't Done in Japan Yet, as Far as Microsoft is Concerned Posted: 18 Aug 2011 02:25 PM PDT Despite reports of Japanese retailers killing their support for the Xbox 360, Microsoft itself has no plans to suddenly close up shop in the region. It's no surprise that the Xbox 360 hasn't done well in Japan. It first showed up in Japan in December 2005, just a month after it did in North America, and yet it reportedly wasn't until June that it surpassed the 1.5 million units sold mark. That's despite Microsoft attempting to bring in Japanese gamers with exclusives like The Idolmaster 2 and Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi's Lost Odyssey and Blue Dragon. (Idolmaster 2, as it happens, is headed to PS3 later this year.) According to an Edge report from earlier this week, Japanese retailers are looking into dropping support for the Xbox 360. Geo in particular was said to be "drastically scaling back its Xbox 360 business." Tokyo's Yamada Denki is getting rid of both hardware and software from the "majority of its stores" throughout Japan and selling its remaining stock at a discount.

Always On DRM Dropped for Driver, Replaced by On-At-Launch DRM Posted: 18 Aug 2011 01:29 PM PDT Ubisoft has heard the complaints about its decision to force Driver: San Francisco players on PC to be online at all times, and it's opted to ditch that particular requirement. That's the good news. The bad news is another form of DRM is replacing it, albeit one that is slightly less intrusive. In order to play Driver, you'll need to be connected to the Internet when you first launch the game, according to a Rock, Paper, Shotgun report confirmed with Ubisoft by 1UP. Once a connection is made, you're free to disconnect from the web and play for as long as you wish. Until the next time you wish to play, that is, when you'll have to be connected once again.

The 1UP Staff Reacts to the 1UP Community's Top 100 Games You Should Play Results Posted: 18 Aug 2011 11:45 AM PDT Feature Share it: Tweet The 1UP Staff Reacts to the Community's Top 100 Games You Should Play Results You chose your top 100 games; find out what we thought of your selections. By 1UP Staff 1UP Member crispy4001 polled the 1UP Community asking what games were essential to a video game fan's gaming experience. Check out what the 1UP Staff had to say about the results of this compilation and the games that made the cut. Jeremy Parish - 1UP, Editor-In-Chief I hope it doesn't seem too harsh to say I'm a little disappointed with this list. No criticism intended to crispy, of course; it's awesome that he put this document together. I just think the natural state of lists like this is to stray from the creator's good intentions ("games you should play," "most influential games ever," "greatest games of all time," etc.) and default into a synopsis of the respondents' personal favorites, even if that's not what was being asked for. The taste of 1UP's members clearly skews toward console games of 16-bit vintage and later, frequently from Japan and specifically designed by Nintendo, and I can respect that -- that's not too far from my own preferences. I mean, hell, Final Fantasy XII is on here, and I feel like some sort of heretic for loving that game as much as I do. I guess I was hoping a list of games I need to experience before I die or whatever would range a little further afield from the U.S. console gaming mainstream into stuff that's genuinely unfamiliar to folks like me. Landmark ZX Spectrum games or dazzling arcade masterpieces or even some '80s vintage PC games -- things along those lines. For example, I don't even like graphical adventures, but the lack of LucasArts SCUMM games on this countdown is a gaping hole through which an ocean of tears flows. I'm not gonna demand a recount or anything, but I would definitely be interested in seeing slots 101-200... maybe that's where all the kooky obscurities are hiding. Mike Nelson - MyCheats Senior Editor

Assassin's Creed: Revelations Takes a Cue From Inception Posted: 18 Aug 2011 11:45 AM PDT This third and last chapter of Ezio Auditore da Firenze's trilogy, and fourth in the main series, Assassin's Creed Revelations -- as the title suggests -- is meant to wrap up the story so far by revealing several truths about its three main leads. This means that, while exploring Constantinople and other nearby villages as Ezio, we'll also get a chance to experience key events in Altair's (from Assassin's Creed) life, and at the same time several questions about Desmond's fate and role will finally find an answer. Falko Poiker, mission design director for Revelations, plays the game for us at Gamescom 2011, commenting on some of its new gameplay features and slipping in some details of the story. The part of the game Poiker shows us starts with a wounded Ezio chasing his next target. The main objective of the Assassins this time around is to retrieve five mysterious keys needed to open a vault located in Masyaf -- a familiar location to those who played the original Assassin's Creed. Retrieving these keys, once apparently possessed by Altair, is one of the core quests in the game.

It Continues to Look Like Diablo III is Coming to Consoles Posted: 18 Aug 2011 11:42 AM PDT Diablo III is, officially speaking, only planned for release on PC and Mac. More than likely, it'll also make its way to consoles at some point. At Gamescom this week, a Blizzard staffer dropped yet another hint that such an outcome is almost certainly going to happen. Over in Germany, lead designer Josh Mosqueira stated that Blizzard "is very, very serious about bringing the Diablo III experience to the console," reports Eurogamer. He explained that they're hiring programmers, designers, and artists to work on consoles, although this still isn't an official announcement that a console port is really happening. "All I can say is it's going to be awesome," he teased. "Stay tuned."

Nintendo Still Thinks People Want Urban Champion Posted: 18 Aug 2011 10:36 AM PDT This week's update for the various Nintendo download services brings with it several new games, the most noteworthy of which is... worthy of being noted because of how awful it is. Urban Champion ($4.99) is the latest game in the 3D Classics line of classic game revivals on the 3DS eShop. It's the third such remake, joining Xevious and Excitebike. It's a very simplistic fighting game (based on a Game & Watch title) that came to North America in 1986 on NES. It isn't the strongest selection for a remake; it was also released on the Virtual Console in 2006 and was among the worst games available at the time. Nintendo has made it clear that 3D Classics likely won't ever be released in great abundance, so why a game that is generally regarded to be so miserable was chosen as one of the six planned 3D Classics is beyond me.

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