Latest Gaming and MMORPG Updates |
- OP-ED: Why Ignoring Achievements Was the Smartest Thing I Ever Did
- Weekend Deals: Fable III, Max Payne, and Deus Ex
- Spirit Tales
- OP-ED: Staying Shepard: Character Consistency Within Mass Effect
- The Overworld is Actually a Dungeon in Skyward Sword
- Eve Online to launch in Japan on the 28th March
- The 1UP Community on Mass Effect 2
- 5 Korean MMOs which announced closure in February
- VVVVVV 3DS Port Set for Release Later This Year
- OP-ED: Zynga Wise to Expand to Its Own Platform
| OP-ED: Why Ignoring Achievements Was the Smartest Thing I Ever Did Posted: 03 Mar 2012 03:49 AM PST Like many others, I have both loved and hated Achievements and Trophies at different points in time. I now sit at a point where I care about them far less than I have in the past, and I could not be more thankful for that. The PlayStation Blog today published a list of the most Platinum’d games on PlayStation 3. Platinum Trophies, contained within many but not all games, are handed out for earning every Trophy a game has to offer. The difficulty and amount of time required to earn a Platinum varies from game to game; generally speaking it’s a fairly significant accomplishment to earn one. I’ve never managed to pick one up myself, though that is due in part to playing most multiplatform games on Xbox 360 and PC. Trophies were introduced to the PlayStation Network in mid-2008, more than a year and a half after the PS3 was launched. Although some of the games released prior to then were patched to include support for Trophies, not all of them were, and those which were did not retroactively award Trophies for what you had already completed. If you wanted to pick up Trophies in Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, you had to start over from scratch even if you had already met every Trophy requirement. The lack of Trophies right out of the gate is part of why I was never as invested in them as I was Achievements, and it also means an asterisk needs to be placed on the PlayStation Blog’s list — I suspect if Trophies were available at launch, Drake’s Fortune would have placed more highly in the top ten. Instead Assassin’s Creed II was the game with the most frequently-achieved Platinum. Keep in mind this doesn’t mean it has the highest ratio of Platinum owners to players — other games might be easier to Platinum but were played less than those on the list. As astutely noted on the blog, the top ten consists of a fairly strong selection of older games, many of which are single-player-focused both in terms of the games themselves and their Trophies. That isn’t surprising as people are more likely to want to spend an extended amount of time with a good game, and being single-player in nature will generally make it easier to grind your way to 100 percent completion. There was a time where I’d be taking notes and setting out to Platinum these games myself, assuming I hadn’t already done so. When the Xbox 360 was launched Achievements were neat but insignificant; part of that was a lack of people to compare Achievements with, and the other part was the lame Achievements in the launch window games I played. I still remember the (lack of) excitement when I picked up a first down in Madden NFL 06, defeated each of the Blacklist members in Need for Speed: Most Wanted, and scored 50 points in NBA 2K6 en route to 100-percenting all three games. Over time developers became more creative with their implementation of Achievements (with exceptions, as Earth Defense Force 2017‘s could not have been more dull) and I became more and more addicted. Having that little notification pop up and my Gamerscore increase was immensely gratifying. I was constantly looking forward to the next milestone, even going out of my way to ensure I’d cross barriers like 10,000 Gamerscore by earning a more meaningful Achievement (more than once involving Kobe Bryant and the latest NBA 2K game). This was fine for a time; particularly when it came to sports games, it gave me something to aim for beyond ending up with the higher score at the end of the game. The extra challenge of having to ensure I scored a certain number of points with a certain player, for example, encouraged me to try out teams I never would have touched if it were left up to me. But over time this grew to become an obsession. It goes without saying that, in the big picture, it cannot in any way compare with the detrimental effects of becoming addicted to gambling, alcohol, or drugs. It was, however, messing with the way I played games. I already had a propensity for trying to collect every worthless in-game item I could; combine that with my hyper-competitiveness — no ****ing way am I going to let a friend have a higher Gamerscore than me — and it led to what I can now see was a colossal waste of time. One thing I wasted time on was playing games I would not have otherwise. Looking over my Xbox Live activity from years ago I can see numerous games I was playing purely for the Achievements: MLB 2K7 (I could have been playing the Trophy-less, but far superior MLB 07), Halo 2 on PC (it played much better on consoles but, as an Xbox 1 game, lacked Achievements), and TNA Impact (a game worthy of a wrestling company that would go on to put its championship on a guy with pending drug charges) stand out. Thankfully I had the good sense to not bother trying to get anything out of Yaris. Even when I was spending time with the games I’d play regardless of Achievements, I was not playing them as I normally would. It’s one thing to play as a team I wouldn’t touch otherwise in an NBA game, but I was playing games in a systematic way that stripped out much of the fun. Many times I would consult a guide on how to unlock Achievements and work my way from one to the next, largely ignoring anything that would not contribute to my Gamerscore. And that included things I would find fun, like driving aimlessly in Grand Theft Auto IV — they suddenly felt incredibly pointless, as if Gamerscore were the only and only purpose of playing games. It even made me less interested in playing games on other platforms, a scenario I’m sure Microsoft was perfectly happy with. I do think Achievements and Trophies offer some benefit to gamers, especially those who might not purchase many games throughout the year. They provide additional things for players to do that can help to extend the life and replayability of a game. It’s also just fun to have an accomplishment be recognized with a pleasant noise and a pop-up notification. After an extended period of being Achievement-obsessed, I reached a point where my urge to unlock them was outweighed by the sheer ridiculousness of what I was doing. I do still enjoy picking up Achievements as I play, but the pursuit of them is no longer a priority, let alone my top one. From time to time I may sneak a peek at a game’s Achievement list to see if there is anything fun to do. Aside from those occasions, though, I’m happy to pretend all Achievements are hidden until I unlock them through random luck. This has been one of the few benefits of having less time to play games; Achievement-hunting would have to come at the expense of playing many of the games I’d like to spend my time with, and I wasn’t going to let that happen. It was an experience, to be sure, but I’m happy that I’m now in a position where I can look at a list like the one the PlayStation Blog released for what it is: an interesting set of data, not a challenge. [Trophies image courtesy of PlayStation Blog.] Posted by: admin in Gaming News Thank you for Visiting Gameforumer.com, Hope you enjoyed the stay with us. |
| Weekend Deals: Fable III, Max Payne, and Deus Ex Posted: 03 Mar 2012 01:28 AM PST Both Amazon’s download service and GamersGate have several King’s Bounty games on sale. All things aside, Amazon looks like the way to go as its prices are lower — the Platinum Edition is just $4.99. Amazon also has its usual discounts on newer PC downloads; NBA 2K12 was added this week and is only $23.99. With all of the press about Max Payne 3 this week, the first two Max Payne games have been put on sale at both Impulse and Direct2Drive. The bundle of the two games looks like the way to go — at less than $4 there’s a good deal of entertainment to be had from both games, even if the story is a bit crazy. Read on for a look at this week’s deals. Feel free to point out any that were missed in the comments below. Amazon
Direct2Drive
GamersGate
GameStop
Good Old Games
Impulse
Steam
Posted by: admin in Gaming News Thank you for Visiting Gameforumer.com, Hope you enjoyed the stay with us. |
| Posted: 02 Mar 2012 09:46 PM PST
Both unfortunately and fortunately, there is still the standard template of grinding and quest grinding. But looking past these, Spirit Tales’ graphics and design made me feel… soothed, perhaps due to the really cute characters and colorful landscapes. Leveling is not really hard, with quests giving generous amount of experience points and mobs not amazingly hard to slay. I will usually moan about how most online games’ atmosphere is depressing with the color schemes (think post-apocalyptic style), which eventually led me to think twice before logging in for a 2nd time. With the media account provided, I managed to get to level 30 within 3 days, playing only after my office hours. This is with the aid of a couple of cash shop items of course. Seeing that Closed Beta 1′s level cap is at 40, players should have no problem hitting the 30s within a week or so. Players should take note that while traveling, stay on a lookout for the boss monsters roaming. The mini-bosses usually will be moving around, while the much rarer and harder world bosses stay stagnant at a spot. Below is an example of a world boss (Morphing Lizard), which I wouldn’t dare touch without a group.
Crafting is similarly easy as well, as new items will open up once a certain level is reached, while gathering the rare material is the real chore starting at level 30 weapons… The good thing is, different classes will need different materials, hence trading will make this process much faster.
The pet system is simple, but effectively designed. Players can capture certain mobs as pets and equip them with pet items. 2 can be activated at any time, with 1 merged with the players for bonus stats, which differs from pet to pet. The merged pet will gain experience and level up normally as the attacking one during combat. Fancy visiting a NPC to complete or to start a quest but finding the location empty? It means mobs have taken over the town or area! At specific locations across the maps, there will be this Totem Pole in which a group of mobs on certain times attack. This group can be easily spotted as they will walk from somewhere in the map to the Totem Poles. If a pole is destroyed (message will be sent out to players in same map), the important NPCs will disappear until the pole is destroyed again to its original state. And you will need to slay the group of mobs of course, which is rather easy and reward players with items via mail.
Posted by: admin in Gaming News Thank you for Visiting Gameforumer.com, Hope you enjoyed the stay with us. |
| OP-ED: Staying Shepard: Character Consistency Within Mass Effect Posted: 02 Mar 2012 03:42 PM PST Though it’s not advertised as such, Mass Effect may be the most successful episodic series ever made. Since we saw the last Half-Life episode, BioWare’s entire space trilogy has played out over three successful installments, each one refining the flaws of the past. Of course, Mass Effect is a bit different than Half-Life in that you play a character wholly defined by your own choices; Shepard’s status as a no-nonsense renegade or a peaceful paragon hinges on countless player decisions both critical and trivial throughout the games. From the very first Mass Effect onwards, many of these decisions have taken root in its two sequels. When you factor in the sheer amount of lore, back story, and character arcs contained within the series, the typical two-year break between games leaves players with a lot of information to store within their brains. But most importantly, how are we supposed to remember who this Shepard guy/gal is supposed to be? Thanks to the binary good/evil option that’s been a core mechanic since the first game, most players of Mass Effect craft the morality of their personal Shepard with one of these options in mind, since the middle ground often proves unremarkable. But Mass Effect 2 didn’t necessarily carry over each player’s respective Shepard personality from the first game; even when importing a save containing a renegade or paragon distinction, the sequel’s morality meter only wavers a bit from its initial neutral state. Ignoring Shepard’s history of benevolence or cruelty may give players a fresh start on changing their ways, but the world won’t reflect Shepard’s new outlook. A former full-on paragon in ME1 may decide to go total renegade after Shepard’s resurrection in part 2, but with no reaction from the greater world around him. BioWare’s take on morality is reductive out of necessity, but the clean slate approach at the beginning of each game gives us a protagonist who’s granted the right to be inconsistent from chapter to chapter for the convenience of the player (especially those who haven’t been carrying their original character through the sequels). Functionally, the morality meter acts as a way to measure Shepard’s acts, many of which change the fate of certain characters drastically throughout the trilogy. This feature goes from interesting to troublesome, though, when you consider the amount of knowledge each Mass Effect hands the player. In the case of a book or movie series, catching up with previous installments in anticipation of the newest one can be a timesink, but at least it’s an achievable timesink. Preparing yourself for the final installment in the Mass Effect trilogy, however, amounts to a much taller order. Yes, each game features a text-based recap and a glossary full of more information than you ever wanted to know about the Mass Effect universe, but it’s much more difficult to absorb this vital information (and the nuance behind it) by reading out-of-context Cliff’s Notes. The alternative involves plowing through dozens upon of hours of content, and not with the same enthusiasm as the first time around. BioWare should be commended for building a series of games with such a tight continuity reining in their massive world, but such an ambitious project comes with strings attached. Even a series with a budget and fan base as large as mass Effect’s doesn’t have the resources to craft a universe that responds dynamically to a changing personality. And in the case of keeping the player informed of their past actions, the series as a whole could do a much better job; Shen Mue 2, for example, gave players a 90-minute movie recapping the events of the first one, all for a game locked down onto a completely linear path. BioWare might not have to go that far — and the amount of story permutations makes a single recap movie impossible — but their admirable adherence to consistency is often undercut by the limited capacity of the human mind. Posted by: admin in Gaming News Thank you for Visiting Gameforumer.com, Hope you enjoyed the stay with us. |
| The Overworld is Actually a Dungeon in Skyward Sword Posted: 02 Mar 2012 01:26 PM PST Once upon a time, getting about in a Zelda game was such a clear-cut process. You had your dungeons (anywhere from four to 12, depending) and you had the overworld that linked them all together. Aside from the occasional spin-off (Four Swords Adventures was broken into levels, and Majora’s Mask centered around the hub of Clock Town), that’s how it always worked. You’d wander around, maybe poke into a cave for a Heart Piece, clear away some scrub, fight some bad guys, and eventually work your way to the next subterranean puzzle labyrinth. The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword is mixing things up, and — for the first eight hours of the game, at least — the results are pretty great. Skyward Sword’s design makes the distinction between overworld and underworld much muddier than in past games. Perhaps that’s appropriate, since this adventure divides its world into three layers rather than the usual two. Above the dungeons, you have the overworld; meanwhile, above it all is the realm of Skyloft, best described as an aerial take on Wind Waker’s sea. At the heart of Skyloft is a large city held aloft by (one assumes) ancient magic or technology or something, but the skies are littered with floating islands, and Link travels between them on the back of a huge red bird. Posted by: admin in Gaming News Thank you for Visiting Gameforumer.com, Hope you enjoyed the stay with us. |
| Eve Online to launch in Japan on the 28th March Posted: 02 Mar 2012 09:42 AM PST CCP, the world-beating independent Internet spaceships developer, has today confirmed the release date of the Japanese release of Eve Online as 28th March. The localized client will open up the Eve universe to Japanese players in their native language, allowing them to play alongside the many thousands of fellow Excel MMO fans on CCP's 'single shard' Tranquility server. The news follows CCP's recent announcement to distribute EVE Online in mainland China. While the Icelandic developer will continue to offer 'gameplay related customer support' to their Japanese players, Japanese gaming firm Nexon will take care of billing and local marketing. "With Eve Online, CCP has created a gaming experience like no other," said Seung-Woo Choi, CEO of Nexon. "We're confident that the Japanese version will attract legions of new players ready to take their part in the endlessly unfolding drama of the Eve universe." In other space-related spreadsheet news, CCP has announced their next Eve expansion, Inferno. While little is currently known about the forthcoming update, it is thought CCP will be addressing Low Security space and Faction Warfare – two key aspects of Eve's otherwise impressive repertoire still in need of development. Posted by: admin in Gaming News Thank you for Visiting Gameforumer.com, Hope you enjoyed the stay with us. |
| The 1UP Community on Mass Effect 2 Posted: 02 Mar 2012 03:35 AM PST We’ve had plenty to say this week about Mass Effect 2 as we’ve dissected the game through blog posts, retrospectives, and critical analysis. But we’re not the only ones who love the game and want to see how Commander Shepard’s tale comes to an end — you do, too. Today, we’re highlighting your thoughts on BioWare’s RPG smash. DackDavros DrKunkenstein xWhackoJacko E_baybee Crazycanadian Montreal Mack’s Long-Form Review MisterFrodo17′s Impressions Wes Fenlon Takes Both Sides DrKunkenstein on the Completionist Perspective Jason Slavin’s Contrarian Perspective Posted by: admin in Gaming News Thank you for Visiting Gameforumer.com, Hope you enjoyed the stay with us. |
| 5 Korean MMOs which announced closure in February Posted: 02 Mar 2012 03:35 AM PST
Requiem Online, also known as Requiem: Alive or Requiem: Memento Mori, will be closing the Korean server on 7th March. The Korean players’ database have been shifted to the North American server since the announcement in early February (link). The good? Both the Korean and North American servers are under Gravity Games. The bad? How many Korean gamers who slog hours a day in a game will actually read English?
Posted by: admin in Gaming News Thank you for Visiting Gameforumer.com, Hope you enjoyed the stay with us. |
| VVVVVV 3DS Port Set for Release Later This Year Posted: 02 Mar 2012 01:33 AM PST Excellent 2D indie platformer VVVVVV is headed to the 3DS eShop. Publisher Nicalis announced today it had reached a deal with designer Terry Cavanagh to bring the unusually-titled game to Nintendo’s latest handheld. It was originally released on computers in 2010, making a name for itself with its old-school gameplay and soundtrack, composed by Magnus Pålsson. It’s a fairly straightforward platformer where you’re able to reverse gravity in order to navigate the environment. The 3DS version, which is coming to the eShop later this year, will feature the obligatory 3D support you’d expect, new levels, a real-time map on the bottom screen, and “future content updates.” A price wasn’t announced; it currently costs $4.99 on Steam and at one point could be had for as little as one penny as a part of the Humble Indie Bundle earlier this year. Indiecade attendees will get to try a preview version described as “near-complete” this weekend. Posted by: admin in Gaming News Thank you for Visiting Gameforumer.com, Hope you enjoyed the stay with us. |
| OP-ED: Zynga Wise to Expand to Its Own Platform Posted: 01 Mar 2012 03:33 PM PST Zynga today revealed plans for the Zynga Platform and Zynga.com, details of which we first learned about this past October. Put simply, Zynga’s new website will grant players access to a number of games available on Facebook while providing additional features that could make playing much more pleasant. Playing games on Zynga.com — when it launches later this month CastleVille, Words With Friends, Zynga Poker, CityVille, and Hidden Chronicles will be playable — will require a Facebook account and purchases will be made using Facebook Credits thanks to a deal Zynga has with Facebook running through 2015. That means Facebook isn’t being abandoned as a home for Zynga games; this is merely an alternative (and a potentially more attractive one at that) for playing the company’s games. Any progress you’ve made in CastleVille or any other game will be present when playing on the Zynga Platform as it is not a separate instance of the game being run on Zynga’s website. Offering a new website to play the games on is in and of itself insignificant. While the listing for CastleVille on Zynga’s website directs you to Facebook itself, FarmVille can be played at farmville.com by logging into your Facebook account. Make no mistake: if you hate Zynga’s games, the new platform will not change your mind. But what makes playing on Zynga.com interesting is the way rules can be bent, particularly those involving how you interact with other players. Rather than only having your friends to answer your requests — whether you’re asking for a cow, some extra energy, or whatever else — other players you have not directly connected with can now respond to them, and vice versa. As pictured above, located on the right side of the screen is a news feed that reacts immediately to your inputs. In other words, you don’t have to leave the game to accept, for example, a gift of energy someone has sent you; you can see it on the side of the screen, click it, and have it immediately added to your energy stockpile. (You can also immediately chat with other users from here.) Alongside a tab for your Zynga.com “zFriends” is one for “Everybody,” enabling you to see a stream of requests from everyone else playing the same game as you on Zynga.com. Other players you don’t know may decide to help you out, and you’ll be free to do so yourself with all of these favors being tracked on your profile. That may sound insignificant, but anyone who has tried to play a social game only to become frustrated they don’t have enough friends playing to meet all of their in-game needs will immediately see the benefit of this. No longer do you need to rely on pestering friends to send you what you require. This alone could help not only player retention, but also encourage players to spend real-world money in the game. By ensuring players aren’t prevented from playing simply because they are not friends with a sufficient number of fellow Zynga game players, they could end up more deeply invested and therefore more likely to make a purchase. I’m not sure I’d be inclined to do so myself, but having a much larger pool of players to help me and play alongside certainly won’t hurt the chances of me dabbling in some microtransactions. Unfortunately there is no way to avoid sending requests to your Facebook feed in addition to zFriends. Although your Facebook friends won’t need to act as your lone supplier any longer, they will still be pestered with your requests. The reasoning for that is simple — if you only bothered zFriends who already play games on Zynga.com, that would eliminate a major source of luring in new players. After all, social game makers don’t build requests into their games just to bug your non-game-playing friends; they want to attract those people into giving their game a try. With the site’s launch, Zynga should enjoy a new way of bringing in additional players, and that is through the hosting of third-party games. The launch lineup may consist solely of some of the company’s top games, but there are plans to add games from external developers, including Mob Science, Row Sham Bow and Sava Transmedia, to the site. These developers will be able to enjoy the exposure of being featured alongside Zynga’s massively successful titles, and should Zynga work out deals to bring other big-name social games to the platform, its own games could benefit from the extra eyeballs third parties bring with them. The launch of the Zynga Platform is an incredibly smart move on Zynga’s part. It isn’t breaking off its ties with Facebook (which, as a result of the Facebook Credits contract mentioned above, it legally can’t do anyway) but is testing the waters of operating on its own. If it turns out players are uninterested in having their games kept separate from Facebook, it hasn’t burned that bridge and people can continue playing games on Facebook. On the other hand, in a few years if Zynga.com proves to be the more popular destination for playing games, the company can feel more comfortable that it is not entirely reliant on Facebook, as it currently is. Remember, in filing for an IPO last year the company revealed “a substantial majority” of its revenue in 2008, 2009, and 2010 “was generated from players who accessed our games through Facebook.” It was also noted, “To date, we have derived substantially all of our revenue and acquired substantially all of our players through Facebook. We expect to continue to derive a substantial portion of our revenue and to acquire a substantial portion of our players from the Facebook platform for the foreseeable future.” Anything Zynga can do to make it less dependent on Facebook would be a good thing in the eyes of investors, as evidenced by its stock price jumping up nearly 10 percent today. Whether the launch of Zynga.com actually turns out to be a success is hard to predict — I know I’ll give CastleVille and CityVille another try to see if zFriends prevent me from losing interest after a few weeks — but for a company inextricably linked to Facebook for the time being, it’s a move in the right direction. Posted by: admin in Gaming News Thank you for Visiting Gameforumer.com, Hope you enjoyed the stay with us. |
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