MMORPG.com and Infinite Game Publishing have partnered up to give out 3,000 keys to the MechWarrior Online beta. If you love the idea of giant machine-on-machine combat, you'll want grab yourself a key!
Piranha Games and Infinite Game Publishing set us up with a grand total of 3,000 beta keys to give away for their upcoming title in the MechWarrior franchise, MechWarrior Online. To make things even more interesting, it's going to be Free to Play, so grab your key at FPSGuru.com!
Aeria Games is committed to giving DK Online players a 'dazzling' world to explore when the game goes live in the near future. The development team is promising a lush landscape, robust cities with crafting as an integral part of the player experience. In addition, the world will be populated with fearsome monsters for even more PvE excitement.
The Dino Storm developer blog has been updated with new information about the next update. New quests and dailies will be added as well as improved group quests and all experience points earned being added to the UI XP bar. The patch is expected to go live today.
Hi-Rez Studios has announced a collaborative effort with heavy metal band, MANOWAR, for SMITE. The band is known for its mythology-based music. To celebrate the announcement, Hi-Rez and MANOWAR have released a gameplay video set to the band's "The Sons of Odin". Check it out!
Webzen has announced that ArchLord will be expanding soon. Called "The Dark Revelation", the expansion will bring a major new feature on board in the form of the Shrine system. Shrine battles require cooperative teamwork to defeat other groups of players. Winners will earn Shrine Coins for successful wins.
NCSoft and Paragon Studios have posted a new 'Sunset' FAQ surrounding the November closure of City of Heroes. In it, player questions are answered on topics including the exact end date, refunds of Paragon Points and much more.
The original release of The Last Express stands as one of the worst cases of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. By the late 90s, classic PC adventure games had lost the traction they'd built up over nearly two decades, causing the genre to sputter and die as gamers sought out experiences that offered the same amount of story without skimping on the action. Too bad for them -- as adventure games go, The Last Express may be the most ambitious one in existence. Though Mechner's masterpiece limits your environment to a single six-car train, the game features a (semi) real-time clock and a hefty cast of characters, each with their own schedules, agendas, and secrets. The Last Express saw nothing but praise from press at the time due to its advanced mechanics and fully realized world, but the market's growing disinterest in the genre combined with some particularly terrible publisher problems caused the game to quickly fade from retail shelves.
15 years later, and Mechner's lost classic has reemerged on the iOS marketplace, giving those who missed The Last Express the first time around to see what they missed -- and in a very friendly format, at that. On this momentous occasion -- for adventure game fans, anyway -- I had the chance to catch up with Mechner himself for some behind-the-scenes information about his very unique game.
1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF SEPTEMBER 24 | 35 YEARS OF ATARI 2600
Solaris: The Last (Atari 2600) Starfighter
Cover Story: Though it had the misfortune of being born on the ailing Atari 2600, Solaris was a remarkably deep game for its time.
W
hen Nintendo pulled the North American video game market out of its mud puddle in 1985, early adopters immediately noticed two massive differences between the old market and the new one. First, Nintendo's sober grey box did away with the faux wood paneling that defined game consoles in the '70s. Second, and more importantly (unless you're really fussy about interior decorating), the NES's definitive game, Super Mario Bros., was a well-structured adventure with a story and a clear goal. Compared to Atari 2600 games that merely challenged players to grab a high score, being instructed to travel across eight worlds to rescue a princess felt like playing through a storybook.
Crash or no crash, Did the 2600's primitive two-color sprites ever have a chance against the NES's sophisticated, multi-screened games? Technically, yes -- but it would have required more 2600 games to be at the technical level of Solaris, a 1986 third-person space shooter put together by game designer Douglas Neubauer. Solaris utilized the 2600's hardware in clever ways to deliver a surprisingly deep adventure that challenged players to explore hostile planets, navigate dangerous territory, and change up their fighting strategy according to the nature of the enemy that was trying to murder them. Maybe most importantly, Solaris gave players an end goal -- a definite conclusion they could work towards, one of the traits that made NES and PC games so special at the time.
1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF SEPTEMBER 24 | 35 YEARS OF ATARI 2600
Defending the Worst of 2600
Cover Story: We go to the mats to explain why three infamous Atari games aren't as bad as you think.
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n 1980, I was 6 years old and I wanted two things for Christmas: A Tyco electric race car track and an Atari 2600. I received both, and although the race track has since been scrapped, my Atari 2600 sits in my man-cave in decent working condition.
No console system in my life has had the same impact that my Atari did. I spent many days and nights playing Combat, Adventure, Kaboom! and other great titles... but as much as I'd like to go on about the greats, this article isn't about those; it's about the not-so-great ones. The ones that make gamers cringe, roll their eyes, and lash out in anger. The ones that suck.
1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF SEPTEMBER 24 | 35 YEARS OF ATARI 2600
Guest Column: My Father the Gamer
Cover Story: The Escapist's Susan Arendt looks back at lessons learned gaming with family on Atari 2600.
T
he fact that both of our names was on the box informed me that this Christmas gift was a Really Big Deal. My mom was very careful about making sure that my brother and I came out pretty much equal at Christmastime, so if a gift was meant for both of us, it was probably really expensive ... which meant it was also something really, really amazing. We waited while she poised the Kodak, flashbulb at the ready, then greedily ripped through the paper to discover the pinnacle of high-tech coolness (at least as far as the late '70s were concerned), an Atari 2600.
What I didn't realize until much, much later was that my brother and I were just a handy excuse my dad could use to get an Atari into the house. It was far too expensive a toy for him to pick up just because he thought it was neat, but if he couched the purchase as a way for him to spend more time with us, she could hardly turn him down. As an adult, I can now appreciate his blatant manipulation of the situation, but as a kid, all I knew was that were video games in the house.
1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF SEPTEMBER 24 | 35 YEARS OF ATARI 2600
Guest Column: How The Atari 2600 Shaped Pop Culture
Cover Story: Atari's classic home console has affected our lives in ways we never anticipated all those years ago.
T
he Atari 2600 certainly exerted its influence on the games industry. Released in October of 1977, the console was also called the VCS, or "Video Computer System," as seen on its original packaging. It was the first home video game system from the young Atari company, who to that point had only produced a few arcade titles. While the 2600 was not the first device to bring video games into the home, it would soon become the first to break through to mainstream success and begin permeating pop culture at large.
Just as the VCR had done for movies, and television would ultimately do for sporting events, the Atari 2600 finally presented the public with a device that could pose the same entertainment value as the arcades in the comfort of one's own home. Dazzling colors, signature sound, iconic gameplay, and even an arcade-style joystick were available for players. The possibilities seemed limitless, and the Atari 2600 caught on as millions upon millions of game cartridges flew off the shelves.
1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF SEPTEMBER 24 | 35 YEARS OF ATARI 2600
Guest Column: Memories of an Atari Baby
Cover Story: How the 2600 shaped the life of one gamer before he could even pick up a controller.
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may not have entirely understood what was going on when I first held an Atari controller in my hand back in 1983. I imagined I put it in my mouth first or shortly thereafter. While I quickly learned it wasn't for consumption, it would be much later that I realized the impact the console would have on me and how I interacted with my family.
I was too young to notice the couch was falling apart or I was half naked. The connection with the Atari 2600 was deep and real. The electronic beeps and boops were alive, reacting to whomever was controlling them. Though looking back, maybe it was those hypnotic effects that brought my family together.
I was thrilled to watch and learn about the games my six siblings liked, which in turn, taught me a bit about my siblings, too.
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A new type of dynamic event, Hunt Rifts, is coming in Storm Legion and allows players to go on the offensive instead of merely reacting to planar invasions.
Red 5 Studio has figured out a new way to improve the PvE experience in Firefall, so that they introduced the implementation of dynamic world events to keep Firefall's world alive and active. In the latest developer blog, the desiginer Bryan Malloroy talks about how they go about designing dynamic world events, as well as some of the things that we have coming up in the not-too-distant future.
As the core feature for Lord of the Rings Online's upcoming Riders of Rohan expansion, mounted combat is understandably the focus of many player concerns and questions.
There's never a shortage of wonders to behold in the world of Litos! Aeria Games today highlighted the PvE features in its eagerly-awaited medieval MMORPG DK Online.At the core of a great PvE experience lies the excitement of exploring new and wondrous environments.
Welcome back to my series which takes a look into the Guild Wars 2 Guardian profession as a support/sustain. I had originally planned to wrap this up within 3 articles but the trait lines are pretty extensive to cover so I'll be doing each on in it's own article.
Hi-Rez Studios, independent developer of AAA free-to-play online games and MANOWAR, the band known worldwide for mythology-themed lyrics and an epic heavy metal sound, today confirmed their collaboration around the game SMITE.
What's the best thing to do to celebrate Dragon Nest SEA's first anniversary? Take a photo for keepsake of course! To commemorate this special 3-month long event, snag an exclusive Take Jump Photo Gesture (Permanent, Untradable) so you can snap a cool jump shot with your buddies!
CCP Games partnered with Amazon to offer the newest expansion, all 17 expansions of content and 30-days of game time with several helpful perks of EVE Online: Inferno for just $4.99.
DayZ has already attracted a fan following despite being a mod for an existing game, and the alpha build of DayZ standalone will be released before the end of the year, probably in December.
In the latest Neverwinter developer blog, events take center stage as the devs explain their plans to help keep the experience fresh and alleviate the repetitive feeling of doing the same thing constantly.
Since the shutdown date for City of Heroes announced by NCSoft, the players with sadness and anger have been doing their effort to protest the decision. The movement to save the game has maintained its intensity. The online petition to save the game has collected over 20, 000 signatures.
eFusion MMOG GmbH has confirmed today its firm intention to keep its initial milestone for the launch of Dragon Nest Europe at the end of this year.All works related to the localization - 4 different language versions will be available at the launch of Dragon Nest in Europe - are being finalized. The official web site for the first closed beta is under construction for opening, as expected, in late October.
Trickster Online Releases Tapasco Theme Spa SG Interactive has released the Tapasco Theme Spa update for Trickster Online, a four level dungeon for high level players. In addition to fierce monsters, players will have to contend with challenging puzzles to figure out what lies beneath this spa on top of a volcano. Players level 230 and up will be able to enter the dungeon, whose levels become increasingly difficult as you progress through each floor. 10 new monster types are introduced with the update, and several powerful mini-bosses await players as they fight towards the powerful Spice Dragon. Expect this boss to drop the best items the game has seen yet.
Mighty Thor, as famous as he is bold, is God of the thundering sky. Yet his hammer, Mjolnir, is nearly as famous as he is, and Thor will not be parted from it. Thor is a physical melee character with a range of support abilities, including a massively-ranged stun and path-denying capabilities. Thor is often best built tanky, especially due to his early weakness.
Whats up gamers im your host Zach Sharpes and today im going to spotlight a mod that in my opinion can increase your experience in Guild Wars 2 by at least double. Why is that? Well ever imagine having True Action Combat in Guild Wars 2?
I was thrilled to watch and learn about the games my six siblings liked, which in turn, taught me a bit about my siblings, too. 
