Latest Gaming and MMORPG Updates

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• Microsoft Flight Needs Beta Testers
• Seven Mascots That Won’t Make the PlayStation All-Stars Cut
• Dishonored: An Assassination Sandbox That Doesn’t Penalize Sociopaths
• Import Play Test: Rocket Slime Brings Happiness to the Third Dimension
• Phantasy Star Online 2 Impressions: Towards The Future
• Madden 13 Improvements Call Into Question the Franchise’s Current Model
• War of the Immortals
• Torchlight II – Pre
• 5th Cell Heads into Unconventional Territory with Hybrid

Microsoft Flight Needs Beta Testers Posted: 27 Apr 2012 07:10 AM PDT Unless you were specifically looking for information on it, you may have thought Microsoft Flight had been killed given how quiet things had been. Instead, the development team has continued to give occasional updates on its status through its official website and now it’s turning to gamers to beta test the game beginning next month. Those who are interested will need a Windows Live ID and an Xbox Live/Games for Windows Live Gamertag to sign up. Not everyone who applies will get in, and the information you’re asked to provide isn’t especially specific, so it doesn’t sound as if it matters how fast your computer is or what beta testing experience you have. The beta will begin sometime in January; testers will be bound to an NDA and therefore disallowed from sharing any impressions, screenshots, or anything else. Microsoft Flight was one of three games, along with Fable III and Age of Empires Online, announced last year as an indication that Microsoft still supports PC gaming. Many would say those three games don’t prove anything, and the way Games for Windows has been downplayed since its Marketplace was integrated with Xbox.com would only back that up. Regardless, development on Flight is clearly progressing. And while the game still doesn’t have any sort of a release date, at least some gamers will have the opportunity to play it before long. Find similar article at: http://www.1up.com/news/microsoft-flight-needs-beta-testers

Seven Mascots That Won’t Make the PlayStation All-Stars Cut Posted: 27 Apr 2012 04:34 AM PDT This was Posted: 04/27/2012 by  VeryMadMage the first thing I though of too. So wrong, yet so funny. Find similar article at: http://www.1up.com/features/mascots-won-playstation-all-stars-cut

Dishonored: An Assassination Sandbox That Doesn’t Penalize Sociopaths Posted: 26 Apr 2012 10:32 PM PDT Remember the Halo Reach sniper rifle shot heard (and bounced) around the world? The one that ricocheted in such a crazy way that it actually went through the head of the very fellow who fired it in the first place? Bizarre as that situation may sound, it can serve as one of many crazy ways to assassinate someone in Dishonored. During the tail end of a recent hands-off demonstration, co-creative directors Harvey Smith and Raf Colantonio briefly went quiet as a Bethesda staffer playing showed off a particularly slick method of taking out multiple targets: Having the player character, Corvo, slow down time before laying down a spring razor trap and using his Blink ability to teleport a short distance away just in time to see the trap detonate when time resumes flowing at a normal rate. To get back to Reach’s unintentional suicide, Smith explained, “Sometimes, when you activate Bend Time, you can actually see the bullet in the air; you can actually then Possess the guy who shot it and walk him around to the front. When time resumes, the bullet kills him and he has this very shocked expression on his face.” Smith has previously described Dishonored as an action-stealth title in terms of its overall genre, but he cites titles like Far Cry 2, Ultima Underworld, System Shock, Thief, and Deus Ex as examples of what he, Colantonio, and the rest of the developers at Arkane are going for with their new creation: An open-ended game driven more by systemic interaction than by scripted spectacle. In other words, they want to simply provide a suite of tools, and objective, and then let players go at it. Corvo has a number of tools — including gear such guns, daggers, traps, grenades and weird steampunk treasure detecting devices as well as more supernatural abilities such as Bend Time, Possession, and Windblast — and his task is simply to find his targets and neutralize them. This can be as simple as stabbing someone in the face; as odd as possessing fish and mice to navigate through the sewers below until you find said target before possessing him to make him jump out a window; or as elaborate and non-lethal as arranging to have his identity stolen in order to condemn him to work in the very same salt mine that he owns. Find similar article at: http://www.1up.com/previews?cId=3187040

Import Play Test: Rocket Slime Brings Happiness to the Third Dimension Posted: 26 Apr 2012 07:10 PM PDT EverQuest II kind of reminds me of a town I lived in for a few months and then never expected to come back to. Returning after this much time it’s disorienting to see both how much and how little has changed. Most notably, EQII recently joined the ever-growing club of semi-free MMOs, and now relies on sales of expansion content and non-essential perks to make rent. It’s even got one of those nifty streaming clients that allow you to start playing before the full download is finished, so if you’ve ever harbored even the slightest hint of curiosity about the game, there’s really no excuse not to at least pop your head in there for a few minutes. Next week, December 6 specifically, EQII will be getting its 11th expansion: Age of Discovery. Among other things, this one adds a Beastlord class from the first EverQuest that players have been begging for pretty much since EQ2′s release. As one might expect from a “Beast Master” type class, they can tame cats, wolves, birds, and other critters found all over the world. One animal (or “warder”) at a time joins its master in combat, where in addition to making standard attacks they can notice enemy weaknesses and open up opportunities for more debilitating strikes. It’s a class that offers more complexity than most along with providing an imaginary friend for solo players to talk to. Speaking of, NPC mercenaries are being added in this update. For a regular salary, hirelings can fill a tank, healer, support, melee DPS, or caster DPS role just like a regular member of a party. They take up a group spot and even insist on a share of the loot. On the plus side, they’re less annoying to play with than the average pick up group, and can be given silly names if you don’t like the one they have by default. Find similar article at: http://www.1up.com/previews?cId=3186320

Phantasy Star Online 2 Impressions: Towards The Future Posted: 26 Apr 2012 04:32 PM PDT Besides looking beautiful, the original Crysis stood out for including an absolutely lovely and bizarre gameplay feature involving the local fauna at the fictional Lingshan Islands: You could use them as weapons. As part of the sandbox-driven design of the early parts of Crysis’ campaign, the player could pick up and throw practically anything – crates, corpses, and even wildlife — and chuck them with lethal force. A thrifty player could, theoretically, sneak around and sling crabs instead of bullets. As visually impressive as Crysis 3 looks so far, with its swampy streets of Chinatown and verdant takeovers of skyscrapers, it’s the presence of ambient wildlife that brings this little feature to mind. During a hands-off demo, director of creative development Rasmus Hojengaard points out that frogs now hop about in New York’s newest plumbing development, but the player doesn’t do anything besides look at them. When I had a brief chance to ask about whether Prophet (a recurring character throughout the franchise, and now the protagonist due to events in both the ending of Crysis 2 and whatever has happened in the 20-plus years between Crysis 2′s 2023 time frame and Crysis 3′s setting of 2047 New York) can use frogs with lethal force, Hojengaard became a bit more evasive. He answered, “We want to give the sensation of a living and breathing environment, but we don’t want to arbitrarily have you pick up a turtle and throw it at someone as a gameplay mechanic, unless we can execute it more elegantly.” Later on, he added, “We don’t want stuff like being able to throw frogs just for the heck of it, as that’s too much development time,” and that causes me some concern. I’m hoping he changes his mind. Find similar article at: http://www.1up.com/previews?cId=3187038

Madden 13 Improvements Call Into Question the Franchise’s Current Model Posted: 26 Apr 2012 04:32 PM PDT EA Tiburon yesterday began to reveal some of what will be different about Madden NFL 13‘s gameplay. The big focus of this year’s title is the passing game, which makes sense both because the NFL is becoming more pass-centric and because my team (the Jets) is increasingly reliant on the rushing game. The changes sound good in theory, though as someone who still plays last year’s game a few times every week, I can’t help but take issue with the post-release support Madden 12 received. A new Madden is released each and every year like clockwork. Call of Duty may be the target of gamers wanting to lash out at annual releases these days, but Madden was doing it more than a decade before Call of Duty 1 ever hit store shelves. Years ago it made more sense; while there have always been criticisms about too little changing from one game to the next, with no better way to get new rosters into the hands of players, a full retail release was the way to go. Nowadays that feels like an archaic method of delivering content to players, yet it continues to happen — and the game suffers for it. Those concerned enough isn’t changed from year to year aren’t encouraged by EA owning the exclusive rights to the NFL license, meaning any competition has to come in the form of something like All-Pro Football 2K8. (Considering that is the most recent such title, the ’2K8′ should clue you in on how well that worked out.) It’s an unfortunate situation; ESPN NFL 2K5 was superior to Madden, and it was made available at launch for only $20. Following this, EA gobbled up the league’s exclusive rights — a move you can’t blame the company for, as it only made good business sense to do so considering it could have lost the ability to continue producing Madden — and the following year’s game, Madden 06, turned out to be a joke. Part of that can be blamed on the developer’s attention being focused on the generational leap to Xbox 360, although the past half dozen Madden games haven’t exactly reinvented the wheel. Many football game fans continue to cite NFL 2K5 as the best football sim of all time. The direction of Madden 13 is being attributed in part to Tiburon’s new general manager, Cam Weber. Weber is said to have “brought with him a new philosophy stressing the importance of gameplay,” something you would think should have already been a top priority. Regardless, Weber’s hiring has led to the studio’s Core Gameplay Team, which contributes to both Madden and NCAA Football, doubling in size. The result of this is the team being “able to incorporate the most changes to gameplay thus far in the current console generation.” Of course, every year brings with it some promise about how the latest game will be the deepest/most realistic/most accessible/etc. entry to date, so a promise of more changes than the past seven or eight games means nothing on its own. Luckily many of the changes being shared at this stage do sound good. An enhanced system for leading receivers with the left stick should provide you with a chance to complete a pass that would be batted down in the current game. New pass trajectories mean no more ridiculous, time-consuming lobs when trying to toss the ball to a wide open player in the flat. Additional control over the type of passes you throw will make it easier to loft a ball over the heads of linebackers who, in Madden 12, intercept passes at an alarmingly high rate. Shovel passes, revamped defensive alignments, improved pump fakes, receivers not always looking for passes to be coming their way, and easier user catches all sound like positives, too. Some of the changes address my and many other players’ biggest problems with Madden 12. For instance, defensive backs no longer will swat away balls or make plays if they can’t see the ball. (As it stands, balls coming in their direction are routinely knocked down even when they should have no idea the ball is coming their way.) Play-action fakes will now play out more quickly. More importantly, players will have the ability to abort the sequence in case a blitzing defender gets free and is barreling towards the quarterback. (In Madden 12, opting to use play-action is almost a guaranteed sentence to be sacked, thanks in part to an inability to break out of the excessively long animation that plays out before you assume control of the QB.) And Madden’s control scheme will no longer be at odds with NCAA’s — the pump fake and throw away buttons will no longer be assigned to opposite buttons in the two games. Many of the improvements Tiburon is talking about — 430-plus new catch animations, for example — are the sort of things you’d expect to find in a sequel. Other issues Madden 12 players will be excited to see fixed are things that should have been resolved in a patch for the current game. I play in an ongoing league where we’re forced to have rules in place so the game can’t be abused. Quarterback sneaks, which are an all-but-guaranteed way of picking up a first down in short yardage situations, can’t be used excessively. Banned outright are nano blitzes, a defensive tactic many consider to be an exploit that ensures the defense gets an unblocked player running at the QB. Keep in mind these aren’t measures put in place in the weeks after the game’s release until an official fix can be delivered. The game came out in August and these are problems which remain as we approach May. A fix isn’t coming for nano blitzes, psychic defensive backs, linebackers being far too capable of crazy interceptions, or even the illogical control scheme disparity with NCAA Football 12. It’s an accepted fact that many of the problems Madden suffers from each year will go unresolved, and at best all you can hope is for a fix to be included next year. And that’s wrong — players should not see something terribly wrong with a game and think, “Oh, I guess I’ll have to pick up next year’s game so I don’t have to deal with that anymore.” This is not some niche game made by a few people who can’t afford the costs of updating a game. Obligatory roster updates aside, only two title updates were released for Madden 12. That lack of long-term post-launch support makes it difficult to feel good about dropping $60 on the game every year. It’s a point that has been made in the past, but it bears mentioning again: in this digital age, is it really necessary for a boxed version of Madden to be released every year? Guitar Hero and Rock Band eventually learned their lesson about annual releases, and the latter is living on through the release of downloadable content. It would make a lot of sense for Madden to come out less often and be supported through downloadable content and title updates in between releases, at least from a consumer perspective. Rosters could still be kept up-to-date and each new release would be far more substantial. The reason EA doesn’t go this route is obvious: it’s far more profitable to have a $60 product out each year. The built-in excuse of coinciding each release with the start of the new real-life sports season only makes it less likely EA, or any other sports game maker, will stray away from this schedule. However, if Madden ever does move to a sort of subscription model where players pay to play a constantly evolving game, I could see that helping to make the game much better. Rather than buying a new game each year that receives fixes and improvements for only a few months after launch, we could instead have a Madden that is being iterated upon year-round — not one which is forgotten by the time the Super Bowl is over, if not sooner. Find similar article at: http://www.1up.com/news/madden-13-improvements

War of the Immortals Posted: 26 Apr 2012 04:31 PM PDT [Press release] Perfect World Entertainment Inc. today announced Lost Omen, the first expansion to the widely popular free-to-play MMORPG, War of the Immortals , available to download for free on May 10, 2012. Lost Omen takes the Atlantean war between gods to a new level. What does fate hold? Will humanity triumph or will mortal kind be doomed to endless suffering? “We’re pulling out all the stops for the first ever expansion to War of the Immortals. Lost Omen expands the game’s universe, creating a deeper and more immersive experience,” said Thang Phan, Product Manager, Perfect World Entertainment. “We’re catering to the wishes of our community by beefing up our already robust PvP system. With the addition of the new King of Combat battle arena, players are now faced with new challenging game modes as the war against humanity rages on.” New features include: • Harbinger Class – The Scythe wielding Harbinger is a master of psychic and soul powers. Bring pure devastation to any path, and mount the Abyss Crawler, a fierce cousin to the dragon with a short temperament. • Areas – Cross the Rainbow Bridge of Valhalla Temple and stand with the gods in the realm of divinity. Enter the Defiled Paradise, a surreal and perilous home to the toughest monsters and a new World Boss. Travel to Asgard and partake in new quests and events, now open to level 100 and above. • New PvP Modes – Enter the new King of Combat battle arena and lay waste to the opposing team. Saddle a new combat mount and fight through the four Great Wars: Osiris’ Revenge, Siege of Rites, Territory Wars and the Royal City. • Enhanced Systems – Breed more powerful pets with the new Pet Ascension System and unlock the Bloodline Systems to unleash new incredible skills. For more information about the War of the Immortals: Lost Omen expansion and to play War of the Immortals right now for free, visit: http://woi.perfectworld.com/ Find similar article at: http://www.mmoculture.com/2012/04/war-of-immortals-lost-omen-update.html

Torchlight II – Pre Posted: 26 Apr 2012 04:30 PM PDT [Pre-order here] A major investor in Runic Games and the owner of Cryptic Studios, Perfect World Entertainment is now cross-promoting Neverwinter and Torchlight II. By pre-ordering Torchlight II, gamers will have guaranteed access to Neverwinter’s Closed Beta phase. However, note that access might not necessarily be CBT 1, but perhaps during CBT 2 or 3. I am sure you have read about Neverwinter, the MMORPG currently in development by Cryptic Studios of Champions Online and Star Trek fame. Bought over by Perfect World Entertainment last year, Neverwinter was sent back to the drawing board for a re-development due to the Free to Play direction. Last I heard, the game will sport action combat. What about Torchlight II? Developed by Runic Games, Torchlight II is essentially a Diablo-style game, yet with quite a number of differences. The list is kind of long to post here, but you get the drift. Though a single-player setting in the original game, there is now co-op features in the sequel including LAN )local area network) and online. Unlike Diablo III, Torchlight II can be accessed offline during single-player sessions. Note that this deal is for pre-orders via the official site only. If you pre-order through Steam, you will only get a free copy of Torchlight (the prequel). Below is quote from the official press release: We’re excited to announce that pre-orders for Torchlight 2 are available today! As an added bonus to the purchase, anybody who pre-orders Torchlight 2 will receive access to Dungeon and Dragons Neverwinter when it enters closed beta later this year. Torchlight players will be among the first to receive a closed beta key to enter the realm of one of the year’s most anticipated MMOs. Players can expect to receive an email containing their beta code around the time Neverwinter closed beta kicks off. (*Beta key holders are not guaranteed immediate first access to Neverwinter closed beta but will be granted entrance dependent on testing needs*) Find similar article at: http://www.mmoculture.com/2012/04/torchlight-ii-pre-order-and-access.html

5th Cell Heads into Unconventional Territory with Hybrid Posted: 26 Apr 2012 10:30 AM PDT Besides looking beautiful, the original Crysis stood out for including an absolutely lovely and bizarre gameplay feature involving the local fauna at the fictional Lingshan Islands: You could use them as weapons. As part of the sandbox-driven design of the early parts of Crysis’ campaign, the player could pick up and throw practically anything – crates, corpses, and even wildlife — and chuck them with lethal force. A thrifty player could, theoretically, sneak around and sling crabs instead of bullets. As visually impressive as Crysis 3 looks so far, with its swampy streets of Chinatown and verdant takeovers of skyscrapers, it’s the presence of ambient wildlife that brings this little feature to mind. During a hands-off demo, director of creative development Rasmus Hojengaard points out that frogs now hop about in New York’s newest plumbing development, but the player doesn’t do anything besides look at them. When I had a brief chance to ask about whether Prophet (a recurring character throughout the franchise, and now the protagonist due to events in both the ending of Crysis 2 and whatever has happened in the 20-plus years between Crysis 2′s 2023 time frame and Crysis 3′s setting of 2047 New York) can use frogs with lethal force, Hojengaard became a bit more evasive. He answered, “We want to give the sensation of a living and breathing environment, but we don’t want to arbitrarily have you pick up a turtle and throw it at someone as a gameplay mechanic, unless we can execute it more elegantly.” Later on, he added, “We don’t want stuff like being able to throw frogs just for the heck of it, as that’s too much development time,” and that causes me some concern. I’m hoping he changes his mind. Find similar article at: http://www.1up.com/previews?cId=3187036

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