Latest Gaming and MMORPG Updates |
- King Arthur 2 Review
- Is Sleeping Dogs a More Relevant Sandbox Crime Game Than GTAV?
- David Cage on Why No Heavy Rain 2, Indigo Prophecy’s Stupid Name
- Forsaken World : Nightfall
- Three Reasons Zenimax Would Cancel Prey 2 GDC Talks
- Microsoft Outlines Future Plans in Japan
| Posted: 17 Feb 2012 08:20 AM PST King Arthur 2 is deceptive. Despite its moniker as "The Roleplaying Wargame", it is actually a However, King Arthur 2′s real meat is in the tale it tells – despite some ebbs and flows in all areas of the gameplay, this intriguing tale covers everything from the Roman army in Britain, to dark creatures and magic of high fantasy – all of which generally romps along while holding your interest. The major gameplay here is definitely the RTS combat, and lining up your army on the battlefield you'd be forgiven for thinking you were playing Total War – the interface is similar, with all units clearly selectable from a menu, or a simple drag interface for making groups on the playing field. Your generic units have a few layout and tactic choices, but it all comes down to a simple bit of rock-paper-scissors; veteran com Most battles revolve around thinking a few steps ahead – for example, archers are good at range but weak up close, so it's generally a good idea to pair them up with footsoldiers as bodyguards, then work on splitting your entire army into groups for your main assault. Flanking tactics tend to work well, although strict attention to the terrain is useful too – arrows don't fly so well into or out of trees, for example, and high ground becomes a tactical commodity. There's also a nice magic layer to gameplay too, letting the hero cast spells for offensive and defensive purposes, although this can become overpowered at lower difficulty levels, turning tactics into simply running away and recharging power. Magic can be enhanced by capturing and holding key locations on the map (often buildings) – serious consideration needs to be given to whether you lose a squad or two from the main fight to buff your magic defence, for example. The moments when it clicks are what make it all worthwhile – watching a carefully planned charge Between battles offers a seasonal turn-based affair, with some management and diplomacy bringing brief respite from the sword swinging. Again, it's simplified, but the non-combat text missions are surprisingly good – camp fantasy tales give you choices that have a real knock-on effect into other areas of gameplay, giving you extra resources or taking away an edge in a battle. As a whole, however, your enjoyment comes down to your expectations – if you find titles such as Shogun 2 or Civilisation daunting, KA2 offers a nice alternative that gives a lighter feel to proceedings, but if you prefer the meaty aspect of these titles, King Arthur 2 may leave you wanting more. Despite this, however, there is some fun to be had here for everybody – in small doses, and by those who just don't ask too much of it. 7/10 Posted by: admin in Gaming News Thank you for Visiting Gameforumer.com, Hope you enjoyed the stay with us. |
| Is Sleeping Dogs a More Relevant Sandbox Crime Game Than GTAV? Posted: 17 Feb 2012 02:19 AM PST When I was in junior high school (centuries ago), I always found the metalhead clique at my school intimidating. Rangy boys with long, oily hair and a collective uniform consisting of boots, black-washed jeans, and black T-shirts imprinted with art from album covers by bands whose names bore gratuitous double consonants and lent themselves to harsh, angular logo designs, the metalheads always hung out together at the side of gym class, discussing their heroes’ latest wailing guitar concoctions and glowering at the rest of the world. They sported the shifty desperation unique to 14-year-olds jonesing for a drag on a stolen cigarette. It was all kind of alarming for us clean-cut students whose main ambition for gym class was to avoid notice by the jocks and dropouts while hanging out on the sidelines discussing the latest Zelda strategies with each other (dude, if you just keep going up when you get to that one spot in the mountains, there’s a dungeon there!). In hindsight, though, I realize that the metalhead kids were harmless. They never picked on anyone; they never caused trouble outside of skipping class to hang out and listen to noisy music. They were as geeky as the video-game-fixated A-students; the only difference between us was that their obsessions were wrapped up in an affected antisocial style. Their music may have been about volume and screaming and satanic posturing, but it was just that: Posturing. Underneath it all, those guys just wanted to do their own thing, and they wore their ragged Dokken shirts with pride because they sincerely thought that airbrushed zombie warriors chained to naked, guitar-wielding sex slaves was, like, so awesome.
Posted by: admin in Gaming News Thank you for Visiting Gameforumer.com, Hope you enjoyed the stay with us. |
| David Cage on Why No Heavy Rain 2, Indigo Prophecy’s Stupid Name Posted: 17 Feb 2012 01:26 AM PST In an extensive interview with Develop, Cage explained that he isn’t motivated by money, and that’s a big part of the reason why he hasn’t jumped at the opportunity of doing Heavy Rain 2. “Let me be stupid for one second; I’m not in this business to make money,” he explained. “I wrote Heavy Rain because I was excited about it, because there was something to say. Yeah I could make Heavy Rain 2, but I’ve said what I’ve had to say about it. That’s the strength of Quantic Dream, to have the capacity to create new ideas, to make something that breaks ground.” He said he sees himself as an author and as someone who trusts his instincts, which is what he believes his fans “want me to do.” Although he’s 42 years old this year, he hasn’t reached the point in his life where he suddenly feels the need to make as much money as possible for him and his family. “I still think I’m doing something important. That may sound naïve in this industry, but I still think I’m here to be creative. I just have a company because I need that structure to develop my ideas.” Heavy Rain was a surprise success — it sold far better than expected, and work on a movie was underway as of earlier this year. Cage is a proponent of more developers creating mature games, although he acknowledged the issues that can arise in trying to work with some marketing departments on such games. When the subject of Indigo Prophecy’s name change came up (it was called Fahrenheit outside of North America), he referred to it as a “f***ing stupid name.” Asked why name changes like that are needed in the first place, he explained, “The games I make don’t include a gun. Very often, American marketing departments have a problem with this. They have this image of their market being gun-loving red-necks. It’s completely wrong.” He detailed the arguments that he and others had with Atari over Fahrenheit and how the publisher was encouraged to put marketing dollars behind the game. Quantic Dream ended up making money “but it was a slice of the potential, because of this lack of trust.” “The problem is that we are in a very conservative industry,” he continued. “Each time you come to marketing departments with very simple concepts, like ‘the hero has ten weapons and goes through twenty levels, and there’s a snow level and a jungle level and a sand level and a whatever level and it’s gonna be so great because I can display more explosions on screen than any other game and…’ then they have it. The marketing departments go, ‘oh that’s really interesting.’ “When you come to them about a game based on a story. Or, a game based on child abduction, they think ‘my god. It’s very difficult for them to commit to anything that’s remotely different. The only way to solve this is to keep at it; game after game, get more trust. Show them how successful you are, and hope that eventually they, and the whole industry, will turn around.” Posted by: admin in Gaming News Thank you for Visiting Gameforumer.com, Hope you enjoyed the stay with us. |
| Posted: 16 Feb 2012 08:18 PM PST
Be the first to experience the exciting new quests and monsters that roam the land. The Immortal Rift is being revamped into an all-out land conquering system. Attack and defend against other guilds to claim a territory within Eyrda. These are just some of the new features that are coming with Nightfall! Stay tuned for more information! Posted by: admin in Gaming News Thank you for Visiting Gameforumer.com, Hope you enjoyed the stay with us. |
| Three Reasons Zenimax Would Cancel Prey 2 GDC Talks Posted: 16 Feb 2012 02:17 PM PST Responding via Twitter to a question from another developer, Prey 2 lead graphics programmer revealed that publisher Zenimax forced developer Human Head to cancel all talks relating to the game at this year’s Game Developers Conference. “Yes, Zenimax forced us to pull all Prey2 related talks from GDC. I’m pretty devastated by the news. This was to be my first conf talk.” He explained over a series of tweets. “We are trying our hardest to get the decision reversed but for now all 3 are canceled.” The tweets caught the eye of fans who pressed for more information, “Thanks all for the kind words. Needless to say this not a good day for me.” explained Karis before stating that he couldn’t answer many of questions coming from inquisitive followers. Anyone who has ever invested themselves in a project can empathize with Karis. GDC presents a unique opportunity to really show off everything a developer or team accomplished over the year. As rewarding as giving a demo to fans or press can be, only the audience at GDC can truly grasp many of the complex technical accomplishments found in games and the effort that went into them. Why would Zenimax force the issue? As often as publishers take flak from fans and developers alike for engaging in short-sighted, anti-consumer, anti-developer behavior, not every publisher action — even those with which we disagree — constitutes a crime against the gaming populace of the world. Zenimax evaluated the situation and decided that discussing Prey 2 at GDC was not in their interest. No one outside of the publisher and Human Head knows exactly why, but given the business realties of the industry, three possibilities present themselves. Zenimax Fears Copycats To make successful title publishers need to maximize every advantage at their disposal, and any new or novel feature in a game — particularly in a genre as crowded as FPSs — becomes a selling point. Given the long production time of most AAA titles revealing a feature too early gives the competition a chance to integrate it into their game. By holding off on revealing Prey 2′s unique selling points Zenimax helps ward off competitors who might be able to integrate similar features into their title in time for the holidays. The complexity of modern games ensures that revealing the game too early won’t result in a sea of Prey 2 clones, but competitors would face no difficulty integrating smaller, discreet gameplay systems into their games. GDC Talks Would Violate the PR Plan Even if a publisher doesn’t fear plagiarism, E3 still offers a strong incentive to hold back on revealing Prey 2 information. Why reveal the truly amazing features of a game in a low-key GDC talk, when you can build entire events or presentations around them to wow fans and the press a few months later. Presenters at GDC generally avoid revealing such information, but maybe the important features are so integral to the game that any discussion risks revealing them. Prey 2 is in Trouble Prey 2 made a big impression on fans with a presentation that Zenimax and Human Head demoed at E3, the Eurogamer Expo, and to the press in private meetings. Judging from discussion of the game online, a small but influential group is eagerly anticipating the game and any news of it, but neither the publisher nor the developer have revealed any new information since August. Games sometimes go quiet for months or years with little or no explanation. Sometimes it indicates the dev team is facing serious difficulties, and sometimes it’s just part of the publicity plan. Suppose that beyond last year’s demo — which must have required months of effort to build by itself — Human Head had little else to show and has since been unable to make significant progress on the project. We have no reason to believe that this is the case, but the press sees games follow this path all the time. If Prey 2′s very hypothetical development difficulties might reveal themselves, even unintentionally, Zenimax wouldn’t want to risk the generally positive image that most fans now have of the game. None of the options listed above are mutually exclusive. The real reason for Zenimax’s decision likely took into account issues related to all three, as well as a few factors we very likely know nothing about. |
| Microsoft Outlines Future Plans in Japan Posted: 16 Feb 2012 01:26 PM PST Microsoft’s presence at E3 is huge. They’ve got a massive press conference stage (pictured above), an equally enormous booth, and enough free swag on offer to fill up a Camry. The company’s presence at the Tokyo Game Show, on the other hand? Not quite as much. MS’s booth at TGS was maybe half the size it usually is, getting dwarfed by the presentations put on by Sony, Capcom, and even Japanese social-game giant Gree. “We would like to have as large a space as possible in order to have lots of people play our products,” said Takashi Sensui, head of Xbox operations in Asia, in an interview with Famitsu magazine published this week. “To be honest, though, given the scope of our Japan business, it’s just difficult to produce such a huge booth. Our intention here was to use the space we had as best we could to get the most gamers trying out the best titles we had. We didn’t have as many titles as usual, but I believe we had an extremely nice lineup, something I think anyone who was there could see. We’ll be trying to have a bigger presence than ever next year — I feel it’s our mission, something we have to do.” Sensui was quick to point out to Famitsu that MS’s reduced presence at TGS shouldn’t be a signal that the company is slowly receding from the Japanese market. “From now to the end of the year, there will be a variety of great titles for the 360, both Kinect-compatible and not,” he said. “It’s a really full, well-balanced lineup. Kinect titles take a certain amount of space to show off, so it was perhaps easy to get the impression that they took up most of the booth, but we also tried to get as many other game stations into the booth as we could.” Microsoft’s sales strategy for the 360 in Japan has been focused squarely on the Kinect for the past year, perhaps even more so than it has been in the US and Europe. Some gamers in Japan saw that as a sign that MS is trying to shed its reputation in the country as the go-to system for hardcore gamers. “Oh, no, not at all!” Sensui responded when asked if that was true. “Certainly it was our tendency last year to emphasize casual gaming alongside the release of Kinect, but if you looked at our TGS booth this year, there was a whole range of titles built to appear to the core market. We would like to receive support from the casual market, no doubt about that, but the passionate group of 360 users who have supported us up to this point will continue to be the core of our fanbase.” Fielding the casual market at this point in the 360′s lifespan may be a tough road to hoe for Sensui — Microsoft has sold over one and a half million consoles in Japan, but sales have slowed to the point where the 360 competes with the PlayStation 2 in terms of number of new systems sold. Sensui, however, remains upbeat. “One thing that is really plain is that, in the marketplace outside of Japan, the Xbox 360 has truly global support,” he said. “There may be differences in taste and preferences between countries, but if the 360 was that boring, it wouldn’t have spread around the world as much as it has. So our direction is obvious — we need content that match Japanese gamers’ needs and services to keep them happy. How we communicate this to fans in Japan is really vital.” Posted by: admin in Gaming News Thank you for Visiting Gameforumer.com, Hope you enjoyed the stay with us. |
blend of RTS-style combat and classic adventure – no, not point-and-click but real adventuring, with text and a few choices to be made as to what to do next.
manders will find it lacking the options of the bigger titles, but it's certainly accessible to the rest of us.
of horsemen smash into an enemy flank never gets old. The occasional boss battle is great fun too, although they usually descend into simply charging with all your troops and spamming the magic.
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