General Gaming Article

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• Halo: Spartan Assault Review
• Win Two Tickets to BlizzCon From SteelSeries
• Origin PC Launches EON13-S Laptop with Haswell, GeForce GTX 765M GPU
• Microsoft Steps Up Its Game by Offering Unlimited Cloud Storage for Xbox One Console
• Asus Launches RAIDR Express, First PCI-E SSD Compatible with Legacy and UEFI BIOSes
• Newegg Daily Deals: Intel Core i5 4570 (Haswell), OCZ 750W PSU, and More!

Halo: Spartan Assault Review Posted: 29 Jul 2013 04:01 PM PDT Is there room for a AAA title that uses touch controls? Windows 8 is the latest in a long history of products launched with the full weight of the Microsoft corporate gorilla behind it, but like several of its predecessors it has failed to gain popularity the way the company would like to see. Complaints against Windows 8 and its "Metro" interface are many and though the Windows 8.1 update is on the horizon, Microsoft has done little to entice users into the modern UI or even Windows 8 in general. One of Microsoft's key plays with Windows 8 is to integrate many of its first-party platforms and services, such as Xbox and SkyDrive, either natively or through modern Windows 8 apps. Now Microsoft has brought one of its most popular gaming franchises exclusively to Windows 8 in the form of Halo: Spartan Assault. If you're hoping for a good story with Spartan Assault, you'll be disappointed. We hate to say it, but you won't be missing much from a story standpoint if you skip this one. The game is played from the viewpoint of two Spartans and you switch between the two depending on the level. Throughout your journey, you'll play as Sarah Palmer, who first appeared in Halo 4, and new Spartan soldier Davis. In regards to the timeline, Spartan Assault occurs between Halo 3 and Halo 4. While the story may not dazzle you, the premise is unique and has you going through a Spartan training system where you learn tactics by reenacting some historical battles.  Gameplay-wise, Spartan Assault isn't a first-person shooter, nor is it an RTS like Halo Wars. Rather it's a top-down third person shooter. This point of view works better on touchscreen devices in our opinion as it reduces the need to constantly turn around, a move which can be difficult using the control systems common to FPS games on touch hardware. The game is broken into five operations, each of which has five individual levels. The scenarios involve everything from holding your ground against an oncoming attack to escorting a caravan of slow-moving vehicles to fighting your way through entrenched adversaries. Many of the classic weapons and vehicles make appearances throughout the game, and each level provides different armor abilities for your Spartan to use. At the beginning of each level you have the ability to upgrade your weapons or abilities at the cost of XP or Credits, which will set you back real-world money. As an Xbox Live game, Halo: Spartan Assault earns Xbox achievements (even on PC) and medals as you would in a game built for the console. You can also participate in leaderboards and weekly challenges which will earn you additional XP. Unfortunately there is currently no support for multiplayer, though Microsoft has promised periodic updates. In terms of performance, we tested Spartan Assault on both a Windows RT tablet and a respectable Core i7-based machine with exactly zero performance issues. Where many of the mobile games we've played take some time to load, Halo: Spartan Assault loads each level within seconds. While this isn't Crysis-level graphics or anything crazy, it is nice to have a level load up when you're ready to play without an extended wait time. Gamers can play Spartan Assault through a touchscreen device on a tablet surface, or hook up a standard keyboard and mouse. Tablet devices use a virtual dual-stick control system, where the left stick controls movement and the right allows you to aim and shoot your weapons. Most of the on-screen buttons on the bottom/right edges of the screen are used to switch weapons, choose grenades, or activate your armor capability. Activating a melee attack requires you to quickly double-tap on the screen, but we didn't like how this can throw off your movement, even if it is just for a split second. Keyboard controls use the WASD keys for movement while the left and right mouse buttons are used for primary weapon fire and tossing grenades. Other keys such as Q, E, Shift, Control, and Space are used for the remaining actions like armor ability, use object, switch weapons, switch grenades, and melee attack. A major downfall in the keyboard control setup is the inability to customize the keys. There aren't even any different preset configurations to choose from.  We're excited about Halo: Spartan Assault as it shows what is possible for a game using a hybrid touch/traditional keyboard and mouse play style with Windows 8. There are quite a few rough edges that we'd like to see cleaned up and more content would be a welcome addition, but at $7 it's hard to complain too much. In comparison to other tablet or touchscreen-based games on competing platforms, we'd have to say that Halo: Spartan Assault stacks up favorably as far as being able to explore the environment and determine the best way to accomplish your objectives, but it needs more content and customization in able to fully compete against games like Infinity Blade or some of the best first-person shooters on iOS. As far as being a reason for people to make the jump to Windows 8, color us skeptical. If you're a die-hard Halo fan that was already on the fence then maybe, but other than that we have a hard time believing people are going to make the jump solely for Halo: Spartan Assault.

Win Two Tickets to BlizzCon From SteelSeries Posted: 29 Jul 2013 02:54 PM PDT Travel to BlizzCon in style BlizzCon is returning to Anaheim, California this year, and with it likely hundreds of Blizzard fanatics. It's difficult as it is to get into the popular show, but we know SteelSeries, JINX, and The League of S.T.E.A.M have joined forces to send one lucky winner (and a buddy) to Blizzcon on their dime. Grand prize winners will receive (along with bragging rights) two passes to BlizzCon, airfare, and accommodations for them and a friend. The League of S.T.E.A.M will also provide one custom costume so you don't have to don a simple WoW or StarCraft T-shirt. Fancy! Additionally, $2500 in prizes will be given out, ranging from JINX gift cards to World of Warcraft-branded gaming mice. Check out the SteelSeries official contest page for more details, and let us know what costume you'd settle on if you happened to win. The sweepstakes is open from July 29th through August 11th and is open to all North American residents.

Origin PC Launches EON13-S Laptop with Haswell, GeForce GTX 765M GPU Posted: 29 Jul 2013 06:16 AM PDT A 13-inch laptop packed with high-end parts We hate to be the bearer of bad news, but if you're a student, summer is quickly coming to an end. Hey, that's just the reality of the situation. But if you have to go back-to-school, you might as well use it as an excuse to invest in a new laptop -- for homework, of course. Origin PC's new EON13-S has plenty of power to help you during those longs nights of research (or gaming sessions). It's a 13-inch laptop with a Full HD 1080p (1920x1080) IPS display. The upgradeable laptop also features Intel's 4th generation mobile processors, Nvidia GeForce GTX 765M graphics, and up to three storage drives, including dual mSATA with RAID support. Pricing starts at $1,474 and from now through August 5th, you can receive free U.S. ground shipping, GPU overclocking, a Corsair M95 mouse, and Corsair MM200 mouse pad by typing promo code "BACKTOSCHOOL" in the comments section of Origin PC's website when ordering the system. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook

Microsoft Steps Up Its Game by Offering Unlimited Cloud Storage for Xbox One Console Posted: 29 Jul 2013 05:00 AM PDT More positive PR for the Xbox One Microsoft kind of stumbled out of the gate when it announced its upcoming Xbox One console. Early excitement over a next generation console was marred by a higher price tag (compared to the PlayStation 4, though the Xbox One ships with a second generation Kinect motion control sensor), uncertainty over its used games policy, and the need to dial home every 24 hours. It took a few policy changes to get its console back on track with John Q. Public, and the latest announcement that it will come with unlimited cloud storage is sure to be a boon, as well. It gets even better. Not only is Microsoft offering an infinity-capacity hard drive in the sky (compared to the 512MB cap for Xbox 360 users), but you don't need an Xbox Live Gold account to use it. "Xbox Live offers Xbox One unlimited storage space in the cloud for all Xbox Live members to store numerous types of Xbox Live content, including your profile, games, Achievements and entertainment. This content is stored and saved in the cloud so you can automatically access it anywhere, anytime, no matter where you are," a Microsoft rep said, according to the Examiner. Reverse negative launch juju Achievement unlocked. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook

Asus Launches RAIDR Express, First PCI-E SSD Compatible with Legacy and UEFI BIOSes Posted: 29 Jul 2013 04:30 AM PDT First BIOS agnostic PCI-E based solid state drive It doesn't matter if you own a motherboard with a legacy BIOS or one sporting a newfangled UEFI BIOS, the RAIDR Express from Asus ROG will play nice either way. It's a PCI-E based solid state drive (SSD), and supposedly the first of its kind with a DuoMode feature that allows it to work with either type of BIOS. Just flip the hardware switch to the appropriate setting and you'll be off an running with a spectacularly fast SSD. How fast? According to Asus, the RAIDR Express can perform sequential reads at up to 830MB/s and sequential writes at up to 810MB/s, along with 100,000 4K read/write IOPS. The drive uses the latest generation dual LSI SandForce controller and Toshiba-made 19nm 16k-page size multi-level cell (MLC) sync-NAND flash memory chips. You can run the RAIDR Express as a standalone drive or configure it to act as a solid state cache for high-capacity hard drives up to 4TB via ROG HybriDisk technology. It's a 240GB capacity drive with a double-sided metal shielding. Asus rates the MTBF (mean time before failure) at 620,000 hours, which is more than 70 years! No word yet on price or availability. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook

Newegg Daily Deals: Intel Core i5 4570 (Haswell), OCZ 750W PSU, and More! Posted: 29 Jul 2013 04:00 AM PDT Top Deal: Haswell is here, Haswell is here! Now that the dust has settled on Intel's Haswell launch, are you ready to take the plunge? Let us help! Today's top deal is for an Intel Core i5 4570 CPU for $190 with free shipping (normall $200 - use coupon code EMCXNVP46). It's a quad-core chip clocked at 3.2GHz with 6MB of L3 cache. Other Deals: OCZ ZT Series 750W Fully-Modular 80 Plus Bronze High Performance Power Supply SLI/Crossfire Ready for $80 with free shipping (normally $100 - use coupon code: [EMCXNVP37]) Logitech G600 MMO Black Gaming Mouse 20 Buttons Tilt Wheel 8200 dpi for $60 with free shipping (normally $70 - use coupon code: [EMCXNVP85]) Samsung DVD Burner 24X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW SATA Model SH-224DB/RSBS for $16 with free shipping (normally $22 - use coupon code: [EMCXNVR37]) Antec Nine Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case with USB 3.0 for $100 with free shipping (normally $110 - use coupon code: [EMCXNVR45])

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MMO Updates

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• Black Gold Online secures $97M in funding from Chinese banks
• EVE Online 4000-person battle largest yet
• Massively Exclusive: Episode 5 of Mabinogi the Saga: Iria
• The Nexus Telegraph: What WildStar isn't revealing
• The Stream Team: SOE Live edition, July 29 - August 4, 2013
• The Daily Grind: How long do you wait before kicking an AFK group mate?
• MMO Week in Review: MMO hipsters are annoying
• EVE Evolved: Colonising deep space
• Guild Wars 2: Living story to get more serious, more permanent, and more personal
• Stick and Rudder: The myth of the PC master race

Black Gold Online secures $97M in funding from Chinese banks Posted: 29 Jul 2013 10:00 AM PDT Filed under: Betas, Sci-Fi, Economy, MMO Industry, New Titles, Steampunk After the successful launch of Age of Wushu, Snail Games is looking ahead to its latest MMO title, Black Gold Online. And thanks to a recent $97 million loan from four Chinese banks, the future of BGO is looking brighter. Snail Games and publisher Shanda Games will also be chipping in a cool $32.6 million for marketing the steampunk MMO title. Black Gold Online is currently in closed beta in China with a North American launch to come next year. If you'd like to read more about the game, check out our impressions from E3 this year. Black Gold Online secures $97M in funding from Chinese banks originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 29 Jul 2013 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments Source: GamesIndustry.biz

EVE Online 4000-person battle largest yet Posted: 29 Jul 2013 09:00 AM PDT Filed under: Sci-Fi, EVE Online, Events (In-Game), Sandbox Last night, EVE Online players did what they do best: organize record-breaking battles with internet spaceships. The 4000-player battle between TEST Alliance and the Goonswarm-led CFC lasted more than five hours at the cost of almost 3,000 ships, according to reports from Eurogamer. CFC emerged victorious after a two-month invasion of TEST's homeland, Fountain. This battle is said to be the largest of its kind, dwarfing January's 3000-person battle in the lowsec system of Asakai. EVE Online 4000-person battle largest yet originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 29 Jul 2013 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments Source: Eurogamer

Massively Exclusive: Episode 5 of Mabinogi the Saga: Iria Posted: 29 Jul 2013 08:30 AM PDT Filed under: Fantasy, Trailers, Video, Lore, Free-to-Play, Mabinogi Are you on the edge of your seat wondering what comes next in Mabinogi? Then wait no more: The fifth episode of the Iria Saga, dubbed Proud Heritage: The Battle, is here. And the battle is really heating up. After acquiring the help of the Giants and Elves in previous episodes, players reciprocate by agreeing to help those races retake Hillwen and Skyllien, and the counterattack goes very well. Or maybe too well. This week's episode offers some twists and turns, where alliances break down and danger rears up from new directions. Watch how it all plays out in the video after the break. Then join in as it is played live Tuesday, July 30th, @ 5:00 p.m. EDT on Massively TV. You can also get a a recap of all the action in the first three episodes in Rise and Shiny. Continue reading Massively Exclusive: Episode 5 of Mabinogi the Saga: Iria Massively Exclusive: Episode 5 of Mabinogi the Saga: Iria originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 29 Jul 2013 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments

The Nexus Telegraph: What WildStar isn't revealing Posted: 29 Jul 2013 08:00 AM PDT Filed under: Betas, Sci-Fi, Opinion, WildStar, The Nexus Telegraph We now know about the last two races coming to WildStar. We don't yet know about the last two classes, but that's pretty much assured for release in the near future. (I'm betting on PAX Prime, based on nothing more than speculation.) In fact, we're getting plenty of interesting and deep reveals... as well as a few things that the developers aren't talking about, things that are mentioned in passing and then allowed to just go unaddressed. Some of this doesn't really matter one way or the other, but there are some places where these unreveals are pretty worrisome. I'm not sure how much of this comes down to limited time for reveals and how much is actually shady, but in lieu of more information, I think some questions should be asked about why we've heard nothing regarding some stuff that, logically, should have gotten its own day in the revelation sunlight. Continue reading The Nexus Telegraph: What WildStar isn't revealing The Nexus Telegraph: What WildStar isn't revealing originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 29 Jul 2013 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments

The Stream Team: SOE Live edition, July 29 - August 4, 2013 Posted: 29 Jul 2013 07:00 AM PDT Filed under: Polls, Massively Meta, Livestream, Miscellaneous, The Stream Team It's almost here! And by the end of this week, it will be over for another year. Yes, I am talking about SOE Live, that renamed iteration of the Fan Faire that celebrates all things SOE for one full weekend in Las Vegas. Some folks are literally shaking with anticipation for this event, while others are looking on in interest and others still aren't even glancing. But regardless of your stance on the particular games of this studio, there is no denying the fact that this year's con could have repercussions on the MMO industry as a whole. Will the big unveiling be as monumental as hinted? You'll just have to wait and see. Luckily, we have something to help you pass the time while waiting: brand-new live episodes on Massively TV! Join your favorite Stream Team members as they adventure in a variety of worlds spanning the MMOverse. During the lulls in live shows, you can catch up on the ones you missed before. But before you get caught up in all that, let us know if we'll be seeing you in the city that never sleeps in our poll after the break. Continue reading The Stream Team: SOE Live edition, July 29 - August 4, 2013 The Stream Team: SOE Live edition, July 29 - August 4, 2013 originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 29 Jul 2013 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments

The Daily Grind: How long do you wait before kicking an AFK group mate? Posted: 29 Jul 2013 06:00 AM PDT Filed under: Sci-Fi, PvE, Opinion, Free-to-Play, The Daily Grind, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Dungeons Yesterday whilst playing Star Wars: The Old Republic, I queued for a pickup group flashpoint to try and nudge my Sniper past level 40. Being a DPS class, it literally took an hour to get a group to pop, and then one of my three teammates decided to go AFK shortly after we entered the instance. After about six minutes -- yes, I timed it -- the group leader initiated a vote kick, which passed and sent our AFK mate packing. Right before the system removed him from the group, though, we saw his 'hi guys, I'm finally back' text in the group chat. The moral of today's story is that there is no moral. There is a Daily Grind question, though, and it is this: How long do you wait before kicking an AFK group mate? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind! The Daily Grind: How long do you wait before kicking an AFK group mate? originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 29 Jul 2013 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments

MMO Week in Review: MMO hipsters are annoying Posted: 28 Jul 2013 06:00 PM PDT Filed under: World of Warcraft, Massively Meta, Week in Review, Miscellaneous At the end of every week, we round up the best and most popular news stories, exclusive features, and insightful columns published on Massively and then present them all in one convenient place. If you missed a big MMO or WoW Insider story last week, you've come to the right post. Every few months when it's time for Blizzard's quarterly reports, MMO hipsters come out of the woodwork to tell us all how World of Warcraft is the worst thing ever and that they are just way too cool to play it -- that the loss of six hundred thousand more players just proves that it really is a terrible game and just you wait because soon vindication will be theirs! Except for the part about how Activision-Blizzard just bought itself from Vivendi and its stocks rocketed up. And the part about how World of Warcraft lost more players in three months than whatever game everyone else is playing has total and mostly shrugged it off because piles of money. That doesn't fit the narrative, see. Join us past the break for a look at the rest of this week's top MMO stories. Continue reading MMO Week in Review: MMO hipsters are annoying MMO Week in Review: MMO hipsters are annoying originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 28 Jul 2013 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments

EVE Evolved: Colonising deep space Posted: 28 Jul 2013 04:00 PM PDT Filed under: Sci-Fi, EVE Online, Culture, Expansions, Game Mechanics, PvP, PvE, Opinion, EVE Evolved, Sandbox, Dungeons, Player-Generated Content, Subscription If you were watching the news coming out of this year's EVE Online Fanfest, you no doubt heard Senior Producer Andie Nordgren's incredibly ambitious five year vision. The past few expansions have been mostly filled with bug fixes and improvements to existing gameplay, but the goal is now to begin delivering an epic vision of deep space exploration, colonisation, and PvP raids on enemy infrastructure. The five year roadmap toward this goal includes the addition of player-built stargates and completely uncharted solar systems to locate, explore and build an empire in. If the very idea of that doesn't make shivers go down your spine, something may be wrong with your central nervous system. CCP has opened new space before with the addition of the drone regions in nullsec and some new lowsec systems for faction warfare, but it wasn't until 2009's Apocrypha expansion that we saw a true exploration and long-term colonisation effort get underway. I think the intoxicating draw of wormhole exploration was primarily due to the fact that the new systems were hidden and the information on them wasn't public. Just adding new solar systems to the existing stargate network wouldn't have had the same effect. Nordgren's vision may take up to 10 expansions to fully realise, but what kinds of features will we need in those expansions to recreate true exploration and deep space colonisation? In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at some of the challenges CCP will have to overcome to make deep space colonisation a reality and what small steps could be taken in each expansion to get us there. Continue reading EVE Evolved: Colonising deep space EVE Evolved: Colonising deep space originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 28 Jul 2013 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments

Guild Wars 2: Living story to get more serious, more permanent, and more personal Posted: 28 Jul 2013 02:00 PM PDT Filed under: Fantasy, Interviews, Guild Wars 2, Dungeons, Buy-to-Play An interview on US Gamer with ArenaNet Game Director Colin Johanson serves as an interesting follow-up to his Guild Wars 2 planning post from earlier this month. In it he addresses the direction that the living story is taking as well as his intention to overhaul many of the game's dungeons. Johanson said that the team is responding to feedback by working to make GW2's living story matter more to the player with more serious stories that will "blend" with the player's own personal story. He reiterated that ArenaNet has great plans to use the living story to shape the game's future: "There is now, and certainly will be a lot larger focus on ensuring that the content we're building is creating experiences that people can permanently have when they come back two years later. Instead of saying, 'I see something that happened two years ago but I can't experience it,', we want players to say, 'I'm playing this and I'm playing it as a result of something that happened two years ago.'" The game's dungeons are also fair game for shaping. Johanson confirmed that the team will be revisiting most of its dungeons to make them "more exciting, more fun, more compelling, and also more rewarding." He even mentioned the possibility of "blowing up" dull dungeons to replace with something better. Guild Wars 2: Living story to get more serious, more permanent, and more personal originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 28 Jul 2013 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments Source: Colin Johanson interview

Stick and Rudder: The myth of the PC master race Posted: 28 Jul 2013 12:00 PM PDT Filed under: Sci-Fi, Game Mechanics, MMO Industry, Opinion, Consoles, Sandbox, Stick and Rudder, Star Citizen One of the finest games I've ever played in my life is a console-only title. Last night I finished devouring Naughty Dog's PS3-exclusive The Last of Us, and I've logged more hours in Turn 10's sublime Forza Motorsport series than I care to admit. That said, the PC is and likely always will be my preferred gaming device, and those games I just mentioned would have better served my personal funtime goals if they'd been available on the PC. More importantly for the purposes of this particular column, the PC is the only platform that can do justice to a giant juicy steak of a game like Star Citizen. Continue reading Stick and Rudder: The myth of the PC master race Stick and Rudder: The myth of the PC master race originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 28 Jul 2013 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments

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MMORPG News

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• General: This Week's Live Stream Schedule
• City of Heroes: The Phoenix Project - Spiritual Successor to City of Heroes
• Guild Wars 2: Team Paradigm Wins PAX Tournament EU Qualifier
• EVE Online: History in the Making

General: This Week's Live Stream Schedule Posted: 29 Jul 2013 06:41 AM PDT Join our live stream team this week for fun and chat surrounding some of today's hottest MMOs. Check the schedule below and join up at the appointed time.

City of Heroes: The Phoenix Project - Spiritual Successor to City of Heroes Posted: 29 Jul 2013 05:47 AM PDT Polygon has a great new article about The Phoenix Project by Missing World Media. MWM is a group of former City of Heroes staff also announced that it will begin a KickStarter project on September 8th. The team has said that The Phoenix Project will become the 'spiritual successor' to the shuttered "City of Heroes".

Guild Wars 2: Team Paradigm Wins PAX Tournament EU Qualifier Posted: 27 Jul 2013 07:36 PM PDT The Guild Wars 2 Facebook page has been updated with the news that Team Paradigm has won the European qualifier for the upcoming tournament to be held at this year's PAX Prime in August.

EVE Online: History in the Making Posted: 27 Jul 2013 07:12 PM PDT Two corporations in EVE Online are taking the fight to one another at this current time, making it the largest-ever space battle in the game's ten year history. CFC/Goon and TEST Alliance are duking it out right now, live on Twitch.tv. Watch history in the making!

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