Latest Gaming and MMORPG Updates |
- Grand Theft Auto III to Cost $5 on iOS and Android Next Week
- Mortal Kombat Review: A Near-Flawless Victory
- Otherland
- Fable Heroes Review: Not the Hero We Need or Deserve
- Awesomenauts Exhibits Publishers’ Effect on Digital Distribution
- Dragon Nest goes to Russia
- Portal 2 DLC Gives Fans the Gift That Keeps Giving With New Level Editor
- Phantasy Star Online 2: A Deeper Look at the Beta
- Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed Embraces the Genre’s Past
- Kritika (KR)
| Grand Theft Auto III to Cost $5 on iOS and Android Next Week Posted: 01 May 2012 07:10 AM PDT In just over a week’s time, one of the most influential games of the last generation of consoles will be playable in its entirety on your phone. As previously announced, the 10-year anniversary of Grand Theft Auto III‘s release (it came out on PS2 on October 22, 2001) is being celebrated with the release of it on iOS and Android devices. Only more recent hardware will be capable of running it, at least at launch — additional support for other devices could come later. For the time being, you’ll need one of the following to play it:
Grand Theft Auto III: 10 Year Anniversary Edition will go on sale on both the App Store and Android Marketplace on December 15. It’ll be avilable for $4.99, half the price of what you can expect to pay for it on Steam on any given day. Visually the game appears to look just as it did in 2001. The obvious catch is playing the game on an all-touchscreen interface doesn’t sound like the most ideal way to play, particularly when there were complaints about the shooting aspects of the game when it was played on a controller. We’ve gone hands-on with it and Rockstar seems to be doing what it can to deal with the issues (one solution: only displaying buttons when they are needed), but your miles may vary when it comes to dealing with the controls yourself. As of yet GTAIII is the only old GTA game confirmed for iOS and Android. While there would be a “technical challenge” in porting Vice City and San Andreas, ports of the two have been deemed “very possible” by Rockstar. I wouldn’t mind seeing GTA2 as well — Chinatown Wars showed an overhead GTA game can (mostly) work with touchscreen controls, and the Zaibatsu aren’t about to help themselves. Screen 1 from iOS version; 2 and 3 from Android version Find similar article at: http://www.1up.com/news/grand-theft-auto-iii-cost-5-ios-android |
| Mortal Kombat Review: A Near-Flawless Victory Posted: 01 May 2012 04:42 AM PDT At one point in time, the concept of a zombie apocalypse stood as a genuinely terrifying idea. But, over the years, zombies have begun to serve a different role altogether; for the most part, they’ve become meat pinatas, assisting us in acting out our creative ultraviolent fantasies. Dead Rising and Dead Island may give us the chance to take out thousands of zombies with patently ridiculous weapons, but the badass protagonists of these particular games barely bat an eye at the moldering hordes trying to get a taste of their sweet innards. When compared to these exaggerated experiences, Telltale’s The Walking Dead feels much more like a documentary than Dead Alive; each and every undead encounter is meaningful (and horrible), and taking down a single zombie amounts to much more effort than tearing your way through wet tissue paper. This grounded approach meshes well with the typical slower pace of the traditional adventure formula, and also makes for one of the more atypical and interesting zombie games seen in quite some time. After Telltale’s dreadful Jurassic Park, the company looked to be headed in a dangerous direction; JP’s QTE-based gameplay might have been highly approachable, but it removed most of what we’ve come to expect (and love) from their brand. The Walking Dead doesn’t return completely to the mechanics seen in the later Sam and Max seasons and Tales of Monkey Island, but it gives the player back some much-needed agency, rather than forcing them to undergo neverending series of button prompts. Make no mistake: the interface can’t get any simpler. The ways you can interact with objects and people have been reduced to their absolute basics, and old-school adventure game fans may be disappointed to find that the main character doesn’t have a pithy comment for every piece of background scenery. You can definitely feel Telltale’s hand guiding you throughout, though the developer has provided just the right amount of wiggle room to allow their story to be told effectively. Horror relies entirely on tension, which can easily be broken if players are allowed to meander for minutes, poking at puzzles and exhausting their character’s knowledge of everything in his pockets. Find similar article at: http://www.1up.com/reviews?cId=3187054 |
| Posted: 01 May 2012 04:42 AM PDT
According to IGN (link), dtp entertainment has just filed for insolvency just a few hours ago. While the future of Otherland is not mentioned, it seems funding will be limited as insolvency means dtp entertainment is currently unable to repay business debts. Will Gamigo fund the project instead? For me, Otherland is looking really cool, and it will be a total waste if it is canned. Find similar article at: http://www.mmoculture.com/2012/05/otherland-game-future-in-jeopardy.html |
| Fable Heroes Review: Not the Hero We Need or Deserve Posted: 30 Apr 2012 10:42 PM PDT See the child. Hear her beckon forth, surrounded by the carcasses of men harboring murderous intent. Men you ended. Their last breath whispering about the sweetness of a child, or the satisfaction of killing the interloper that you are. Save the child, who you thought was yourn, but she reveals herself to be Mei lost in the world of dust, not the daughter you left behind twelve months ago. The voice in your pocket sputters forth. The man named Henry asks, take her, take the lost child Mei, take her to the mall. Give her medicine left behind by those who never set foot in Haventown, those who drop foodstuffs and medicines from above and never look back. Not since The Event. The Event that scraped the loam off the earth and turned it into the dust that hugs and holds and kills all who wander within. The dust that chips and gnaws at your very stamina. The Event that dominates I Am Alive. So you go, ever pressing on to find wife and child. Gone a year, but now you return, to climb and cobble and carry on. You cannot ignore Mei’s bleat for aid, but other survivors of the Event not so much as settle but subsist their meager existences in the dust covered Haventown. A man yearns cigarettes to pass on. Another man in an amusement park needs medicine to heal the leg that’s been crushed by another uncivilized man. Haventown also starves for supplies. Bottles of water, cans of fruit cocktail, a single inhaler, a handful of painkillers, these all turn into precious manna from heaven through scarcity. Give the emergency kit to the woman with the ankle sprain? What these bemoaning folk have to give, besides gratitude and perhaps a precious shotgun, is the Retry. Haventown harbors death by trial, not saves. It does not yield to the checkpoint that others call for. It takes away a Retry from your knapsack for every fall, stab, or shot you suffer. Deplete your store of Retries, and your journey resumes at the beginning of your current episode. A practice that leeches away minutes of your life. A practice that mocks you by depleting Retries and then flings you back to 45 minutes ago. What is worth more, the rat meat that can heal you, or the Retry that you get for giving rat meat to the gurgling man below? Every survivor, like the woman bound by handcuff to a bench, pleads for help while you mind debates. Find similar article at: http://www.1up.com/reviews?cId=3187051 |
| Awesomenauts Exhibits Publishers’ Effect on Digital Distribution Posted: 30 Apr 2012 10:42 PM PDT Update: We’ve received word from Ronimo that both the XBLA and PSN releases of the game will go ahead as scheduled. There’s no word on how this may impact the plans for post-launch updates or if dtp holds the rights to a sequel if and when the time comes for that, but at least for now there won’t be any interruption in us getting our hands on the game this week. Original Story: Awesomenauts‘ name has been mentioned a great deal as of late with its release scheduled for this week. In addition to the new trailers you’d expect to see shortly before a game comes out, it was less than a week ago that developer Ronimo Games announced Awesomenauts would be made available to PlayStation Plus subscribers for free in May. Unfortunately, as the developer is now learning firsthand, what a difference a week can make. IGN reported the bad news yesterday: Awesomenauts publisher dtp entertainment has filed for insolvency. In other words, the German-based company has found itself unable to pay its debts and, as a result, Awesomenauts’ release has been called into question. Dtp has founded in 1995 and has published a number of titles, many of which were for the German market, including Drakensang: The Dark Eye and sequel The River of Time, Crazy Machines: Elements, and King’s Bounty: Armored Princess. “At the moment we’re unsure what this means for [Awesomenauts],” said Ronimo’s Jasper Koning, who also noted the developer is “working hard to try and resolve the situation.” The fate of dtp may need to be determined first; having filed for insolvency, it will now need to reorganize its business or liquidate assets in order to pay off its debts. All we know for sure at the moment is it looks like Awesomenauts will not make it out as planned. The MOBA-style game was first announced last May, Ronimo Games having come off its first major release — another good-looking side-scrolling game, Swords Soldiers. Awesomenauts is a side-scrolling, class-based shooter where two teams are pitted against each other in the same basic structure as in a MOBA game like Dota or League of Legends. It had been scheduled for release tomorrow on the PlayStation Network and Wednesday on Xbox Live Arcade. It might seem strange for a game being released digitally to find itself in such an unfortunate position. Ronimo did absolutely nothing wrong here; instead it would appear that dtp was mismanaged or it somehow miscalculated its finances. Now dtp is in a spot where layoffs could be necessary (it employed over 150 people as of last year) and it may not be able to publish a highly-anticipated game that has the potential to do very well. Ronimo has mentioned having plans to add new characters after release; dtp’s situation could have some impact on those assuming it isn’t forced to sell the publishing rights to the game. Depending upon just how bad the spot it’s currently in is, that may turn out to be a necessary step, although one would think it would prefer to release the game and reap the benefits of a hot XBLA/PSN game. Digital distribution was supposed to make it easier for smaller budget games to be released. It removes the risk inherent in manufacturing and distributing physical copies of a game which might sell out if not enough are produced or sit on store shelves if the expected demand is not there. Yet here we see a game specifically designed for digital platforms that has been thrown into a position with an unknown outcome all because of a publisher’s failings. Although manufacturing and distribution (in the traditional sense) are not an issue in this case, this demonstrates the effect a publisher can have even on a digital game on the verge of release. Find similar article at: http://www.1up.com/news/awesomenauts-publishers-effect-digital-distribution |
| Posted: 30 Apr 2012 07:11 PM PDT
Find similar article at: http://www.mmoculture.com/2011/11/dragon-nest-goes-to-russia.html |
| Portal 2 DLC Gives Fans the Gift That Keeps Giving With New Level Editor Posted: 30 Apr 2012 04:42 PM PDT Few developers treat their fans better than Valve Software. With the recent unveiling of their new Portal 2 DLC, the company is giving even more power to players with the introduction of the “Perpetual Testing Initiative,” a level editor for last year’s critically acclaimed title. Narrated by Aperture Science’s own Cave Johnson, the new add-on to the excellent puzzle-solving physics romp will give players an expansive set of tools to design their own test chambers and mind bending puzzles with. Valve, in essence, has given fans the keys to the castle — something perfectly in keeping with the developer’s mission. Valve demonstrates an incredible track record of nourishing and promoting user-created content, or as PC call it, “mods.” Counter-Strike, Day of Defeat, and Team Fortress all began as projects fans built on Half-Life‘s original GoldSource engine (which in turn was build around id’s Doom engine). With Valve’s intervention, these “garage” productions went on to become global phenomena in the PC space (well, except perhaps for Day of Defeat) and are still enjoyed by thousands of people today. With Valve’s track record of discovering talent, the most exciting thing about this new DLC isn’t that it’s just around the corner. No, instead the question that comes to mind is who next among Valve’s fans may be plucked to join the developer after creating something even the developer couldn’t have fathomed — it certainly wouldn’t be the first time. Find similar article at: http://www.1up.com/news/portal-2-dlc-fans-gift |
| Phantasy Star Online 2: A Deeper Look at the Beta Posted: 30 Apr 2012 04:42 PM PDT Remember the Halo Reach sniper rifle shot heard (and bounced) around Smith has previously described Dishonored as an action-stealth title in Find similar article at: http://www.1up.com/previews?cId=3187055 |
| Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed Embraces the Genre’s Past Posted: 30 Apr 2012 04:42 PM PDT Remember the Halo Reach sniper rifle shot heard (and bounced) around Smith has previously described Dishonored as an action-stealth title in Find similar article at: http://www.1up.com/previews?cId=3187056 |
| Posted: 30 Apr 2012 04:42 PM PDT
Kritika will be a MMO very focused on fast, stylish combo combat, which seems to be a trend of the newer games coming out from Korea currently. Not a bad thing I must say, since most gamers now are really attracted to online games sort of similar to console hits such as Devil May Cry, which is one of the most used examples during interviews. The China server was announced at the end of last year as well, with Tencent Games publishing the title in the world’s largest nation (link). The current marketing campaign there is how Kritika will be a “playable comic”. Not a bad pitch, seeing how they intend to start a comic series based on the game. Find similar article at: http://www.mmoculture.com/2012/05/kritika-kr-closed-beta-1-announced.html |
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