General gaming |
- Update: Circle Pad Attachment Coming to 3DS
- Review: Dead Island is Like a Bunch of Games You've Already Played
- Steam Trading Now Available to All, Adds Portal 2
- Review: BloodRayne Betrayal is Bizarro Devil May Cry
- Review: Resistance 3 is Almost Insomniac's Best Game
- Sony Hires Former DHS Official as New Chief Security Officer
- Resistance 3 is Out, So Here are Some DLC Plans
- The Wrong Version of Dead Island Was Released on Steam
- Driver: San Francisco Online Pass Goes Free After Printing Gaffe
- Halo 4 Loses Narrative Designer Ryan Payton
| Update: Circle Pad Attachment Coming to 3DS Posted: 06 Sep 2011 07:48 PM PDT According to online reports, Nintendo is releasing a new circle-pad accessory for the 3DS that'll give the system dual-analog control capabilities. The peripheral is said to attach to the 3DS in such a way that the pad will sit directly to the right of the A/B/X/Y buttons. It'll also boast an R2 button on the top, which would give the 3DS a set of R1, R2 and L1 shoulder buttons (no L2). The device is shaped such that it doesn't cover the headphone jack or volume switch; early reports indicate that it seems to cover up the wireless switch on the left side of the system entirely, although that may not be much of a problem in practice. This attachment seems to be the same thing as was rumored about last month. The Famitsu coverage talks only about this circle-pad attachment; it makes no mention of a new 3DS system that would incorporate this stuff internally, though such an announcement seems all but certain by this point. |
| Review: Dead Island is Like a Bunch of Games You've Already Played Posted: 06 Sep 2011 06:03 PM PDT Great games don't have to be completely original -- take Beyond Good and Evil, for instance. Michel Ancel's 2003 cult classic blended the best bits of Ocarina of Time and Metal Gear Solid to produce a fantastically playable experience that still has us clamoring for a sequel some eight years later. That said, there's not much new going on in Dead Island, even for a zombie game; instead of doing something fresh with a tired premise, Polish developer Techland decided to borrow from the best parts of Borderlands, Dead Rising 2, and, surprisingly, Far Cry 2. The resulting casserole of mismatched mechanics doesn't always go down easy, but Dead Island still makes for an enjoyable and slightly addictive adventure in killing the same enemies ad nauseam. In what feels like an act of mercy, the game doesn't offer much of a story to suffer through; you play as one of four characters (each with varying stats and weapon preferences) stranded on the zombie-infested tropical resort island of Banoi. Expectedly, your goal is to escape, help out imperiled folks along the way, and possibly discover some alarming plot twist that will leave your jaw a safe distance from the floor. But Dead Island doesn't concern itself with matters of plot; the cut scenes are brief and rare, and the protagonists (along with the supporting players) aren't even fleshed out enough to be caricatures. Really, if Dead Island has anything to offer, it's the ability to kill zombies with a variety of homemade weapons -- and, aside from a few minor issues, it excels at this simple task. |
| Steam Trading Now Available to All, Adds Portal 2 Posted: 06 Sep 2011 04:56 PM PDT Valve launched the beta early last month, allowing Steam members who opted into the beta to be able to swap Team Fortress 2 items with each other from outside of the game. Also tradable are giftable games on Steam that you've yet to send to someone else or add to your own account. The beta came to an end today after almost a full month of testing. A new Steam client update is now available which enables trading support for everyone, also adding an inventory of TF2 items to community profiles and various other unrelated changes. |
| Review: BloodRayne Betrayal is Bizarro Devil May Cry Posted: 06 Sep 2011 04:20 PM PDT BloodRayne: Betrayal is a game from a parallel universe -- one where 3D games never took off and 2D action games continued to reign supreme. It's not surprising that such a game would come from WayForward, a developer that's proved their 2D chops again and again -- even their licensed titles, like Thor for the DS have solid 2D mechanics that feel like they've actually evolved and changed since the 16-bit era. BloodRayne owes much to the pre-Symphony of the Night and Dracula X Castlevanias in structure. The game is strictly linear, and requires the player to master both platforming and combat mechanics. The latter, however, is far more advanced and complex than any 2D Castlevania title. Enemies can be taken down through multiple methods, and chaining these properly is key to success. All enemies are vulnerable to BloodRayne's basic attacks, which can be comboed together. She can also suck the blood from most humanoid enemies. The player can utilize her vampirc talents in two ways: They can suck the enemy dry for maximum health (leaving the enemy to rot away like he just looked at the Ark of the Covenant), or they can leave the enemy alive but infected. With a simple press of the Triangle or Y button, BloodRayne will cause all infected enemies on screen to explode, dealing collateral damage to nearby non-infected bad guys. If you get overwhelmed you can resort to a pistol, which will shoot through all enemies on screen, but has limited ammo. The combat is satisfying, and feels more like Devil May Cry or Ninja Gaiden than Castlevania or a traditional brawler. |
| Review: Resistance 3 is Almost Insomniac's Best Game Posted: 06 Sep 2011 04:03 PM PDT At one point in Resistance 3's nigh-relentlessly bleak campaign, a disheveled man slips me (well, protagonist Joe Capelli to be exact) the most unassuming of weapons. It plainly reveals its origin as the cobbled remains of a gas station pump, a shotgun, an oven timer, and a jar full of goop that's been harvested from the remains of an alien Chimera soldier or creature. After hearing a warning about "ill effects," I hold down the trigger and squeeze off a glob of greenish goop at my first opportunity. What happens next is something I expect more in a Ratchet & Clank game than a Resistance one: my victim starts puking. "A gun that makes aliens puke" could be considered one-and-done in Ratchet, but in Resistance 3 it also covers him in cysts which burst to then spray more infectious goop onto other foes -- resulting in a chain of puking aliens. This lighthearted (to me) moment illustrates that among the improvements and changes that developer Insomniac Games has brought for this third installment, that weapons remain the studio's strong point. |
| Sony Hires Former DHS Official as New Chief Security Officer Posted: 06 Sep 2011 03:14 PM PDT Shortly after going public with news that hackers had successfully attacked the PlayStation Network and Qriocity services, compromising tens of millions of users' personal data in the process, Sony pledged to create a new position of Chief Information Security Officer. The purpose was "to add a new position of expertise in and accountability for customer data protection and supplement existing information security personnel." This came in addition to the implementation of a variety of new security measures like additional firewalls, improved encryption, and better detection of network intrusions. Sony has now formally announced who will be assuming the role as of today: Philip Reitinger, who has previously worked for Microsoft (where he was the "chief trustworthy infrastructure strategist"), the United States Department of Defense (executive director of the computer forensics lab), and the U.S. Department of Justice (deputy chief of the computer crimes and IP section). Most recently, he was the director of the U.S. National Cyber Security Center, a division of the Department of Homeland Security established in 2008. |
| Resistance 3 is Out, So Here are Some DLC Plans Posted: 06 Sep 2011 01:51 PM PDT Over on the PlayStation Blog today, Insomniac gave Resistance 3 a final plug and talked about the Survival Pack, the main component of which is a new mode called Invasion. The goal in it is to hold multiple control points across the map, earning points as you keep them. The Survival Pack also includes a static XMB theme and four multiplayer skins of the different survivors from the game's single-player mode. It can all be yours on October 4 for $4. |
| The Wrong Version of Dead Island Was Released on Steam Posted: 06 Sep 2011 12:57 PM PDT As for the day-one console patch, that will unfortunately result in compatibility issues with existing saves. Updating your game may cause you to lose access to any save games you have, although this is mitigated to some extent by being able to go to New Game, picking your old character, and then using the Chapter Select option to skip ahead. It's obviously not an ideal situation and people are going to be angry, but it's better that the patch come now on launch day as opposed to a few days from now. The full list of patch notes have been appended to the end of this story, so scroll down to see what to expect. Also of note is that the developers are aware of a bug involving The Ripper activation that comes from updating the game. This will be solved in a future update "coming soon." We'll have more details on that soon as well as about when the Bloodbath DLC (free for those who pre-ordered) is coming out. |
| Driver: San Francisco Online Pass Goes Free After Printing Gaffe Posted: 06 Sep 2011 12:01 PM PDT Ubisoft has been involved in a great deal of DRM-related news over the past two months, starting with its announcement that it was adopting the online pass model -- calling it Uplay Passport -- and including it with Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of Driver. The PC version was originally going to have DRM that required gamers to maintain a constant Internet connection, a method it deemed a success in past uses, but outrage led to it dropping it in favor of DRM that only requires an Internet connection at launch. Meanwhile, the company also decided to remove that same style of DRM from the PC version of From Dust -- DRM that shouldn't have been in there in the first place, as it had previously stated the only online requirement would be a single-time activation when installing the game. The Uplay Passport probably garnered the least amount of criticism of the three incidents -- perhaps because it's becoming an increasingly common practice in the console space as a means for fighting off used game sales -- and yet it's created quite the headache. When the game was released today, it should have come with a Uplay Passport code that can be redeemed on the Xbox Live Marketplace or PlayStation Store, granting access to 11 multiplayer modes and the Film Director feature. If you buy the game used or borrow it from a friend, the Passport could be purchased separately for $10. |
| Halo 4 Loses Narrative Designer Ryan Payton Posted: 06 Sep 2011 10:48 AM PDT Original Story: Ryan Payton is one of the creative directors on the Halo franchise at 343 Industries. Having realized the Halo 4 being developed wasn't exactly what he hoped to make, he's decided to leave 343 to begin working on a dream project. |
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