Lime Odyssey devs and Aeria Games have announced that the alpha test for the game will be extended and that the player pool will be increased to 10,000+. Potential testers are encouraged to head to the Lime Odyssey site to sign up today in order to be chosen to participate.
In The Free Zone this week, we take a look at the recent purchase of casual games maker Ntreev Soft by powerhouse MMO publisher NCSoft. What are the implications for its current stable of games? Read on to find out!
Gamigo and the Otherland team has released a brand new game play trailer from the upcoming MMO based on the best selling book series by Tad Williams. The video shows off a lot of the game's environments and character models. Check it out and enjoy!
After spending a good number of hours playing the last Guild Wars 2 beta, our editors have some thoughts about each of the game's professions. In today's preview, we take a look at the Engineer. Check it out!
The World of Warplanes team has released a new trailer featuring the Soviet aircraft that will be included in the upcoming game. The initial Soviet tech tree will include the legendary La-5 light fighter and Il-2 ground-attack plane, along with more than 20 other warbirds. Additional planes will be added to the Soviet line as the game nears launch. Be sure to check the World of Warplanes image gallery for some screens of the planes as well.
The first big Guild Wars 2 beta preview weekend has come and gone. We, however, have been thinking about it almost non-stop. We've got some thoughts to share about what we experienced. Keep reading!
The good folks at FPSGuru.com had the opportunity for an on-site visit with Global Agenda developer Hi-Rez Studios. The first write up of that adventure has been posted at FPSGuru.com so be sure to swing by and check it out!
Gazillion Entertainment has announced that both Punisher and Ghost Rider have been added to Marvel Super Hero Squad Online as playable characters. To celebrate, the team has released a pair of new trailers for your viewing pleasure!
While not exactly confirming an MMO based on the Bioware Mass Effect trilogy, Drs. Greg Zeschuk and Ray Muzyka admit to giving the idea some thought in a new interview at Penny Arcade.
Vindictus players can now take one another on with the arrival of the latest game update. PvP is included in the Crimson Blades patch which includes three forms of PvP action.
The editors at RTSGuru.com have a new and exclusive interview with Nival developers about their latest title, Prime World. Learn more about the ambitious multiplatform action strategy game that blends MOBAs, builders, and more in the RTSGuru.com exclusive interview.
During last weekend's limited closed beta preview, our team checked out most of the available races and classes in Guild Wars 2. Today we have a preview of the Ranger, a very versatile class that a lot of players will enjoy. Check it out and then leave us your thoughts in the comments.
EA may announce a new SimCity game at the Game Developers Conference next month according to rumors spurred by the publisher's announcement of a live-streamed event on March 6, where they promise a new Maxis game will be revealed. A related post on Facebook posed the question, "How can we change the world together? Find out when EA hosts the Game Changers event at GDC. What would you do if you had the power to change the world?"
When paired with descriptions of the game lifted from Maxis job ads looking for, "a highly talented and experienced team on an upcoming triple-A simulation style game," the evidence seems to point to a SimCity announcement of some kind coming from the event next week. That same job ad also states that the developer is looking for someone with, "knowledge of the Xbox 360 and PS3 rendering architectures and APIs," suggesting that the title will appear on consoles. No American developer has ever produced a console or otherwise "simplified" SimCity game that was actually playable or enjoyable.
Mass Effect 3 is easily the most hotly anticipated game so far this year. When it arrives next week, it will bring to a close a story that began two games and nearly five years ago. These days, it seems like every film and game franchise is conceived as a trilogy, but never with such ambition of continuity as demonstrated here. What makes Mass Effect 3 so intriguing is not that it promises to bring closure to the tale of Commander Shepard's battle against the extragalactic threat of the Reapers, but rather that is promises to being closure to the tale of your Commander Shepard.
The Shepard you created back in 2007 is the one who will be finishing the fight (as it were). He (or she) looks different than anyone else's Shepard and has his or her own distinct back story. Maybe he's a ruthless Earth-born warrior; perhaps she's a space colonist traumatized by an alien attack that destroyed everyone she ever loved. Likewise, the choices you've made throughout your Shepard's career as an elite Spectre agent -- who to sacrifice, who to trust, how to relate to hostile alien species, and more -- will shape both the character you play in ME3 and the ultimate outcome of her (or his) story.
Amongst the many elements that Mass Effect borrows from Star Trek is a penchant for exploring moral choices. Much of the games' fun comes from sharing those choices with friends, and explaining your reasoning. With all this amateur philosophizing going on, it begs the question: what would a professional choose? If we took history's great thinkers and placed a controller in their hands, would they reverse the Krogan Genophage or embrace the Illusive Man's agenda? Luckily, those same great thinkers left a record of their thoughts in their writings, and we can study those to help determine just how much of a Renegade someone like Socrates would have been.
We took three important philosophers and thinkers spread across 2,500 years -- Socrates, Immanuel Kant, and Ayn Rand -- and matched them with six moral choices from Mass Effect 1 and 2:
1. Save or Kill the Rachni? Shepard must choose whether or not to kill the last remaining Queen of the Rachni, a race that nearly destroyed galactic civilization in the past.
Sequels are tricky business, especially in fantasy and science fiction. How do you follow up on something people loved without your work coming off as a trite rehash? How do you keep things fresh? How do you challenges heroes who have already overcome impossibly deadly odds? How do you expand a tale that's already found resolution? It's not easy. Few sequels are good, let alone great.
When I agreed to review Dillion's Rolling Western, I didn't know I was signing up for a tower defense game -- and had I been better informed, you probably wouldn't be reading this. Since its breakout success as an in-browser diversion, developers have tried to innovate within the narrow confines of tower defense, but, outside of the content-rich Plants vs. Zombies, I haven't been able to muster up the motivation to stick with any of these games for more than a handful of minutes.
After reaching this point of my Rolling Western playthrough, a feeling of dread sank in as I pondered a prolonged future of repetitive and shallow mechanics. But soon, something amazing happened: as the game slowly revealed its many layers, I found myself actually enjoying tower defense -- and willingly. Dillon's might not completely change the rules, but it offers enough variety to give tower defense detractors something fun to do at every possible moment, and constant opportunities to make decisions that actually matter.
Video games have a history of turning off women worldwide, and for good reason: like television and movies, gaming tends to embrace certain regressive ideals -- though on a level unmatched by other forms of entertainment. Join Bob Mackey and Matt Leone as they discuss the three latest examples of this sad trend.
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