Latest Gaming and MMORPG Updates

Nintendo Dubstep Experience 3D Looks to Reinvent the Rhythm Genre
Jersey Shore’s Snooki Has Games, Apps Coming to Facebook and iOS
World of Warcraft (KR)
1UP Community Feature: Gaming Problems of the ’90s
Vessel Review
Champions Online MMORPG Review
The Worst Things About the ’90s

Nintendo Dubstep Experience 3D Looks to Reinvent the Rhythm Genre

Posted: 01 Apr 2012 09:48 AM PDT

Max Payne and I go way back. Throughout the series’ first two installments, I was
wholly immersed in its stark shadows, smoky atmosphere, and hard-boiled
dialogue. I brandished my pistols and dove sideways more times than I
could count.
I cherished the horror and violence of his revenge as if it were
written by Raymond Chandler himself, and yet, a place that I’d never
experience Max Payne’s world was online. That void was quickly remedied
when I got my hands on a small slice of the multiplayer portion of
Rockstar’s next effort, Max
Payne 3.

MP3 is attempting to destroy
the barriers between single and multiplayer in a wide variety of ways. We’ve
written about the solo portion before,
but this time we got to spend some time in the online Gang Wars.
The story in Gang Wars, the most fleshed out mode of multiplayer, runs
alongside that of the solo campaign. The skirmishes you take part in
online will oftentimes be set moments before Max’s arrival to a
location during the story, or sometimes in the charred remains of where
his whirlwind tour of revenge previously swept through. While third-person works fine offline, the perspective can oftentimes lead to
ineligent combat that feels more like a frantic crapshoot than a
strategic faceoff; even phenomenal titles like Red
Dead Redemption suffer in
moments of intense action. While I was a bit worried that MP3′s
multiplayer would stall under the same stress, I’m happy to report that
the impeccable energy from the series’ singleplayer campaigns transfers
over quite well into the online arena. Yes, there were still a handful
of moments where it seemed like my opponent and I both cracked under
pressure, especially once combat became an up close affair, but the
game remained a controlled experience for the most part.

Rockstar showed off a slew of
game matches, most of which were slight variations on genre classics
like team deathmatch and king of the hill. One unique mode is called
Payne Killer, which starts off as a free-for-all until someone scores
the first kill. After this occurs, the killer becomes Max Payne, while
the victim transforms into his singleplayer sidekick Passos. These two
characters come equipped with special weapons, higher health, and
unique abilities. It then becomes the task of the remaining players to
work together in taking down these two protagonists. Whoever scores the
kill against Max or Passos earns the right to play as the powerful
hero. This mode encouraged players to work together in short spurts to
take down the two powerhouses, but those alliances you make will
quickly be severed once one member gets the kill and joins the other
side.

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Jersey Shore’s Snooki Has Games, Apps Coming to Facebook and iOS

Posted: 01 Apr 2012 08:23 AM PDT

Jersey Shores Snooki Has Games, Apps Coming to Facebook and iOS

Nicole Polizzi, better known as Snooki on Jersey Shore, has agreed to a deal with a developer to release a number of apps and games starting next month.

The deal is with Apps Genius Corp, a company whose lone game on iOS is Slap a Friend, an app where you can plaster someone’s face onto a character and proceed to beat them around with a bat, drop bowling balls on them, and so on. It’s an appropriate partnership as I can imagine Snooki’s face has been used in this game a number of times.

The other iOS release from Apps Genius is Bed Bug Alert, an app that allows you to keep track and report bed bug infestations. (No, it’s not a game.) Its website lists some of its Facebook projects, which include Bruisers (a “turn based strategy war game” with pirates and ninjas), Drama Llama (“Now you can track who causes the most drama among your friends and family”), and My Mad Millions (a game where you must spend $300 million and have nothing left over at the end).

The deal allows Apps Genius to develop and distribute as many as eight social games and mobile apps featuring Snooki. These are planned for release on iOS, Android, Facebook, and Google+. Four apps or games will be released within the next year, with the first coming up at the end of November.

“These games and applications are my new favorite accessories, and I love them to death,” Snooki said in today’s press release. “Having worked on these from the beginning, I know Jersey Shore viewers and my other fans will love them. I can’t wait to release the first one that we have been working on with Apps Genius.”

Snooki made it big on Jersey Shore, an MTV reality show that debuted in 2009 and is just wrapping up its fourth season this week. She released a book, A Shore Thing, earlier this year, which today’s press release reminds us of by referring to her as a New York Times bestselling author. The book initially sold quite poorly but did make the the Times’ extended bestseller list in January.

While the idea of a Snooki game of some sort sounds disastrous, it’s not as if the iOS App Store doesn’t already have its fair share of junk on it.

Find similar article at: http://www.1up.com/news/jersey-shore-snooki-games-coming-facebook-ios

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World of Warcraft (KR)

Posted: 01 Apr 2012 03:48 AM PDT

I am sure you guys have read about the recent Scroll of Resurrection Blizzard was giving out, with current players able to send one to a former-active player, granting him some unique items and a permanent level 80 fully-equipped character. While many see this as a big opportunity for the MMO giant to recoup some of it players, the folks in Korea are not so forgiving about the game’s stale content.

With not many biting the bait, World of Warcraft Korea will be shutting down 10 servers come 15th April, transferring the players to the more populous ones. Since July last year, there were already a few reports claiming the number of players in the game is in a steady decline. Some events and raids apparently can’t be carried out due to the lack of players.

Similar to TERA, World of Wacraft in Korea currently ranks at No.9/ 10 in the Internet PC cafe chart, about 1/5 the popularity of current and long-running champion, Aion.

Find similar article at: http://www.mmoculture.com/2012/04/world-of-warcraft-kr-gamers-not-biting.html

1UP Community Feature: Gaming Problems of the ’90s

Posted: 31 Mar 2012 09:48 PM PDT

The year was 1998 and I had finally saved up enough money to get a used PlayStation and a copy of Final Fantasy VII.
I got a ride to the local game store and went home with a huge smile on my face. Soon after returning home, two issues surfaced.
The red, yellow, and white cords didn’t plug in anywhere on the old TV in my room, and the game was prompting me for a memory card
that I did not have. This meant that I couldn’t save my progress and I had to take turns using the TV in the family room. It took
two weeks to finally get an RF adapter, and another two weeks to finally get that first memory card. Finally, I could progress
past the Train Graveyard.

Here at 1UP we’ve spent some time recently talking about the ’90s. Saving your game progress on a cartridge or external card isn’t
exclusive to that decade, but now it seems almost archaic — something few gamers will miss. Nowadays our consoles have
built-in storage and cloud saves, and you don’t normally worry about those things called “memory cards.” Let?s take a look at some
of the 1UP Community’s ’90s Video Game Problems.

2b144 913 1UP Community Feature: Gaming Problems of the 90s

3rd Party Memory Cards

…when I first got my PlayStation, I let the dude talk me into getting a Mad Catz memory card, ’cause you know, five bucks cheaper.
Penny-wise and pound foolish is more like it. I got Valkyrie Profile and Final Fantasy IX at about the same time, made it halfway through
both games… and my memory card simply quit working. The PlayStation wouldn’t recognize that there even was a memory card inserted. After that,
I stuck with Sony memory cards. — San Andreas

No Data

During the PS2 days, i got a demo disc in the mail from Sony that had a bug in it. If you played to the end of the Viewtiful Joe 2 demo,
it would reset and erase EVERYTHING on any memory card that was inserted in the system. Unfortunately, I did not know this at the time, so I lost a
lot of stuff. I did complain about it, and they sent me a free game (I think it was Sly 2), but somehow that didn’t seem to make up for it.
To this day I’m a little more leery about Sony products. — Cary Woodham

2b144 914 1UP Community Feature: Gaming Problems of the 90s

The A-Team

My little brother was possibly the most dedicated Final Fantasy Tactics player ever. He grinded through every job for every character. His
characters were so powerful that he could only play for 10-15 minutes at a time before the game would crash. He gave a copy of his “B-Team”
data (only halfway through capping every job) to our friend who was a Square Enix QA Manager. He said my brother had hit levels that nobody
in the company had. Which made it easy for his team of testers to fly through the game. My little brother laughed, “You should see my
A-Team data.” — BigMex

That One Friend…

My very first experience of losing my game progress came from Breath of Fire II for the SNES, one of my favorite games of all time (if you
haven’t figured that out yet). I was seven years old and quite proud of the four or five hours I put into the game after I got it for my birthday.
My memory?s a little hazy, but I recall letting a friend borrow the game while I borrowed his copy of Donkey Kong Country 2. I distinctly remember
telling him not to copy or erase my save, to just use his own slot and stick to it. Fast forward a few days later: He comes to my doorstep with
his mother, who tells me that my save game got accidentally deleted when he tried to copy a save. He brought his mom over because he was afraid
to tell me the truth himself. — Nuka_Cola via his
feature

Find similar article at: http://www.1up.com/features/1up-community-feature-90s-gaming

Vessel Review

Posted: 31 Mar 2012 09:48 PM PDT

Fluid dynamics is one of the toughest, most mentally taxing facets of physics. When Creative Assembly was making Empire: Total War for example, it took the studio an entire year just to accurately model the sea and the dynamic way it would react to multiple ships passing through it.

So give a hand to inventor M. Arkwright, the genius inventor who hasn't merely predicted the way water moves, but created the Fluro: an automaton made entirely out of any liquid (making them entirely replacable) and who's predictable and malleable nature means they can be put to work on almost any task.

Only these watery new beings, born of Arkwright's new turbine device, aren't as mindless as they were initially thought. Some are actually quite wilful and have locked Arkwright out of his workshop, so he sets out to wrest control back from the Fluros and get his workshop back.

Seminal indie Braid has inspired a generation of similarly conceptual platform-puzzlers and Vessel is most definitely among them. It has a broody art style, much of the story including the introduction is implied and it's punctuated by occasional journal entries.

The way Vessel gets around being explicit about anything, including the control system, is by using precedent and a gently paced difficulty gradient.

We instinctively know to use the arrow keys and space bar to move and jump, for example, and having been shown that 'E' grabs and manipulates objects, a world of levers and switches opens up to us. Thus, the basis of Vessels puzzle mechanics are formed. The linchpin of Vessel is the Fluros of course.

These are created by hitting switches for Arkwrights magic turbine devices found all over the factory: fill them up, hit the switch and a few seconds of whirring and glowing later, the fluid will pour out and pull together into an amorphous blob with eyes.

Arkwright can't control it directly, but most of the time they will help him out by getting to places he can't reach and performing tasks (like hitting switches) he's unable to do himself.

Later levels of Vessel introduces new types of Fluro that can explode or glow for a total of five different types, which lend themselves to increasingly sophisticated puzzles in a difficulty curve that's very well-paced.

Vessel isa d51f3 322187 200x150 Vessel Review linear puzzler so unlike Braid, if you do get stuck then there's no popping out to a hub to try something else and coming back to the puzzle later. Although, with these inevitable comparisons to the Jonathan Blow classic, Vessel's puzzles are nowhere near as fiendishly clever or creative.

The Fluros themselves are quite charming though, they're never entirely predictable: some will help, some will hinder – either by directly attacking Arkwright with lava or explosive properties, or by countering our efforts – and they'll rarely go about the task we hope they'll perform in the way we expect them too.

It's a well executed and polished puzzler, even if it doesn't quite live up to the promise of its initial presentation. 7/10

Find similar article at: http://www.totalpcgaming.com/reviews/vessel-review/

Champions Online MMORPG Review

Posted: 31 Mar 2012 08:23 PM PDT

Champions Online is a 3D, superhero-themed MMORPG. Create a unique hero using the game's amazing character creation system and play through the game's well-crafted story arcs. Champions Online boasts a powerful graphics engine that makes use of cel-shading and other interesting features to present a unique visual style.

Publisher: Cryptic Studios
Playerbase: High
Graphics: High Quality
Type: MMORPG
EXP Rate: Medium
PvP: Strong scenarios / PvP regions
Filesize: 2500 MB

Website: http://www.champions-online.com

Pros: +In-depth character creation. +Unique colorful artstyle. +Fast-paced, action-oriented gameplay. +Tons of variety between characters.

Cons: -Odd use of instancing & save points. -Balance issues. -Few missions to complete, lots of grind.

Champions Online is a 3D superhero themed fantasy MMORPG set in Millennium City. The game used to be pay to play with a free trial, but officially went fully free to play with a cash shop and subscriber option on January 25, 2011. For gamers with a love for deep character customization and fast, smooth gameplay, the Champions Online is definitely a solid choice.

There are no classes in Champions Online; players are free to choose any power from any powerset to realize whatever vision they have in mind for their characters. These powers are organized into theme frameworks, which are listed below:

Might: Your standard super-strength powerset. For characters looking to imitate the biggest and the burliest heavy hitters, though your character need not appear large!

Munitions: A framework containing just about every conventional firearm imaginable, from rocket launchers, to gatling guns, to shotguns, to grenades, and to a number of very cool looking "gun kata" style dual pistol attacks.

Martial Arts: Choose from unarmed, claws, single blade, or dual blade within the martial arts frameworks, each with unique advantages.

Sorcery: From black magic to white magic, from primal sorcery to arcane sorcery, this set contains a great deal of unique attacks and area-centric buffs. Plus, the arcane bolts just look cool!

Supernatural: Whether you choose to be a chain-swinging demon with toxic breath, or a creepy creature with supernatural, shredding claws, this set is a grab-bag for every imaginable kind of weirdness.

Telepathy: Powerful crowd-control, the best heals in the game, and arguably the best AoE attack in the game. Telepathy has a number of solid powers to choose from!

Telekinesis: A thematic favorite, TK is a set for people who want to have psychic blades, a la Psylocke from X-men, or even a Protoss zealot from Starcraft. Some of the best melee damage in the game is in these powers!

Gadgeteering: Orbital cannons, laser guns, robot minions, photon mines, shrink rays, resurrection serums… gauntlet chainsaws? Yep. It's all here.

Power Armor: You are Iron Man. Just don't name yourself that. Make a suit of awesome powered armor and go nuts. Or make a lizard person that shoots missles out of their chest for some reason. The choice is yours!

Archery: A number of surprisingly high-tech looking bow attacks, from arrows with explosives tied to them, to arrows that explode in a pretty sphere of energy. All archery attacks can be used and charged while moving!

Energy Projection: From flinging flames, to ice bolts, to lightining bolts, or force bolts. It's all in these four powersets. Set stuff on fire, encase enemies in icy prisons, place forcefields on your allies, or just annihilate whole armies with columns of electricity.

Darkness: Summon clouds of fear, attack enemies with blasts of pure shadow, lick at your foes with dark tendrils, drain life, and create nether voids. This set pretty much speaks for itself.

Celestial: The consummate "healer" set, many of the attacks in Celestial are pretty balls and beams of light, which can either damage enemies or heal friends.

Champions Online System Requirements

Minimum Requirements:
OS: Windows XP SP2/ Windows Vista/Windows 7
CPU: 2.5GHz Single Core or 1.8GHz Dual Core
RAM: 1 GB
HDD: 5.0 GB Free
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce 7600 / ATI Radeon X700 / Intel GMA 4

Recommended Specifications:
OS: Windows XP SP2/ Windows Vista/Windows 7 (32 or 64-bit)
CPU: Intel E8400 Core2Duo or Better
RAM: 2GB or more
HDD: 5.0 GB Free
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 or Better / ATI Radeon HD 3850 or Better

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The Worst Things About the ’90s

Posted: 31 Mar 2012 09:47 AM PDT

While it’s easy to look back at the ’90s with rose-tinted nostalgia, the decade still had its fair share of rough spots. Yes, the ’90s gave us great Japanese role-playing games like Chrono Trigger, edgier video games for a maturing audience on Sony’s PlayStation, and a slew of landmark titles in the year 1998, but these four things stood out as some of the worst events of the decade.

The Worst Things About the 90s

Sega’s Decline

Sega ended the ’80s on a high note by launching a successful 16-bit console that made the 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System look old and busted by comparison. This big win helped them finally penetrate Nintendo’s market dominance and, for Sega, the boisterous chest-beating wouldn’t stop there. “Genesis does what Nintendon’t” ads and the debut of their speedy blue mascot, Sonic, in 1991 helped the Japanese company continue to gain mindshare leading up the launch of the rival Super Nintendo Entertainment System. The head start helped Sega start the ’90s as hip and cool, fast and flexible, or so everyone initially thought.

By 1995, Sega flooded the market with add-ons that quickly undermined their vision for the next level of video games. These ill-fitting platforms appeared to be quick reactions meant to keep the company competitive against rival console makers. But the Sega CD and 32X both suffered from lack of software support. Developers abandoned working on the 32X in favor of developing software for Sega’s next big thing, the Sega Saturn. Yet, even the Saturn eventually lost huge ground to the Sony’s PlayStation for its quadrilateral-based rendering method, a contributing factor to the consoles’ early demise. These failed platforms lead to a lot of money problems down the road for Sega. Despite the Dreamcast being an amazing little system that helped carry the company into the next decade, Sega’s pockets weren’t deep enough to recoup their previous losses and the company later dropped out of the console manufacturing altogether.

The Worst Things About the 90s

Failed Consoles and Ideas

It’s painful to think of the number of consoles that failed in the ’90s — although friends tell me that the ’70s and ’80s were just as bad — but the costs of these new systems hurt early adopters even more. The first 3DO console cost $699; the Neo Geo AES cost about $50 less; and the Sega Saturn debuted at $399 — a price point that would later become standard for consoles nearly a decade later.

Unsurprisingly, most of the failed platforms had flaws. The Turbografx-16 required a multi-tap accessory just to plug in a second controller. Early CD-based consoles like the 3DO embraced Full Motion Video — video sequences filmed with real actors that were set to button prompts that simulated the act of playing a game — as the future of games, and despite FMV’s increased visual fidelity, their limited interactivity made them obsolete. Although the Atari Jaguar was advertised at the first 64-bit system, the 12-button phone keyboard grafted to the bottom of the controller made it overly complex. The Panasonic CDi had a few video games along with educational and self-help software, but infamously lives on as the platform that brought us the terrible Zelda games Wand of Gamelon, The Faces of Evil, and Link’s Adventures.

The Worst Things About the 90s

Falling Out Between Square and Nintendo

Nintendo and Square represented the video game industry’s first loving couple, and this Sonny and Cher-caliber relationship delivered dozens of memorable software titles exclusively to Nintendo consoles. Games like Secret of Mana, Final Fantasy III (a.k.a. Final Fantasy VI), and Chrono Trigger are fondly remembered as some of the best software of the decade, and if you wanted the next great Square RPG, you had to have a Nintendo platform in order to experience it.

In 1996 all that changed and for reasons still debated to this day, Square broke ties with their longtime business partner and began publishing games on Sony’s PlayStation. This move put Final Fantasy VII — the biggest RPG of the decade — on a non-Nintendo system, and this falling out between the two companies wouldn’t be repaired until 2003.

The Worst Things About the 90s

Image Credit: pjparlapiano.blogspot.com

Death of the Arcade

Arcades served as home to some of the best competitive video game experiences in the early part of the ’90s, and arcade culture grew as thousands of players across America duked it out in Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat. Anyone who lived in the ’90s remembers the serenade of dissimilar electronic sounds mashing together the moment you stepped in the arcade and act of quartering up — where a player would place a quarter against a bottom portion of the screen — and wait in line to be the next challenger.

Sadly, arcades fell out of popularity thanks to the increased power of home consoles. This leap in technology brought ports of the most popular arcade games to your living room and slowly contributed to the eventual decline and death of arcades later in the decade.

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