Various Gaming News
Indie Royale’s The Spring Bundle has been released, featuring six indie games: Futuremark‘s tower defence variant Unstoppable Gorg, Soldak Entertainment‘s action RPG Depths of Peril, Secret Base‘s platformer Tobe’s Vertical Adventure, all available on Steam, and three downloadable games from Radiangames: twin-stick RPG Inferno+, puzzler Slydris, and a twin-stick arcade shooter, Ballistic. The bundle is available on a pay what you want scheme with a minimum price currently just under £3, but those who pay at least $5 or £3.15 will also receive Danimal Cannon’s chiptune music album Roots!
THQ have announced that Darksiders 2 is to be delayed, apparently at the request of Vigil, and will now not launch on July 29th in the UK. This is good news, as it means the developers will be able to properly polish the game. THQ have had a boost from the sales of Saints Row: The Third, which has sold over 4 million copies and brought in more revenue for the company than expected. (more…)
Weekend of Betas
A friend got his invite to the Mists of Pandaria beta this weekend, so while I was trying out TERA, he was busy checking out the Pandaren starting area!
A Weekend of TERA
I’ve spent most of the weekend playing TERA, in the last stages of the mmo’s closed beta stage.
TERA has been touted as a new breed of MMO, with enhanced combat and tactics, relying on timing and position, as well as aiming. The game world is massive, with gorgeous graphics, and there are seven character races and eight classes to choose from.
TERA has been in the news for their races and clothing designs, though.. with the European version of the game having censored versions of some models. I’ll come back to that..
Rediscovering Old Games: Diablo II
We were talking about old games during our lan week, and ended up heading for the spare room and the piles of older games stored in boxes up there. There was excitement as we found copies of Rollercoaster Tycoon, Theme Hospital, Homeworld 2 and others.. and more mockery from the guys as it turned out I had a copy of Supreme Commander, after saying no, I didn’t know the game. In my defense, it was in a multipack which I had picked up for Titan Quest and its Immortal Throne expansion, and the Company of Heroes Anthology.. 😉
I also found my copy of Diablo II, plus the Lord of Destruction expansion, which I had thought lost when we moved house! After a bit of messing around.. updates, copying files to allow the game to run without the CD, registration to Battlenet.. I rolled a Sorceress and went out into the world..
Serious Completion
We’ve had a friend round for a holiday this last week, so there was more gaming time than usual.. time to complete some games!
We completed the first in the series again a few weeks back, so went on to Serious Sam HD: The Second Encounter.. with new weapons to mess around with: a chainsaw, flamethrower and a sniper rifle. Killing enemies with the flamethrower netted me the Burn, Baby, Burn achievement, and I came close, but didn’t quite make the numbers for Bird Hunter or Space Marine. Next time!
I loved the Medieval episode, with the huge cathedral.. for style as much as the huge open space. While playing, we were noting just how big some of the maps are in this game.. something which has been lost a little as games are developed with more detail.. for performance and production time, I guess.
Crazy games like these are better with friends.. especially when there are so many relentless waves of enemies to be destroyed!
Archaeology Pets
Archaeology was added to WoW as a secondary profession with the Cataclysm expansion, and one of the first things I heard about it was that I could get a pet through it. However, I was also told that the pet depended on lots of grinding and some luck..
I’ve made a few runs for Archaeology, usually combining it with herb collecting or visiting a digsite if it was on my route, and I’ve collected a couple of toys: Ancient Amber, which traps your character in a chunk of amber for a while; the Druid and Priest Statue, which produces a beam of green light, and the Haunted War Drum, which sets a ghostly drum on the ground and plays a little drum sound too. 🙂
Only a few days back, I completed a Fossil artifact and found that my next one would be the Fossilized Hatchling! Today, I completed it!
Noblegarden Sugar High
After going out for dinner with a friend to celebrate his birthday, it was time to get started on the Noblegarden event in WoW! The event’s main objective is to collect eggs from around certain locations; inside the eggs is chocolate, a buff that turns you into a rabbit, or a variety of other, more rare items including the Spring Rabbit which I got last year.
I managed to collect a lot of eggs.. something to do with the amount of wine drunk earlier in the evening, meaning that I was fairly content to run circuits of Bloodhoof Village grabbing eggs as I saw them. I found the pet very quickly.. this went to Tim as I already had it.. but I also found the mount: the Swift Springstrider!
Free Fallout from GOG.com!
The post-apocalyptic RPG Fallout, by Interplay, is currently available for free on GOG.com!
GOG.com have recently relaunched themselves, changing their name from Good Old Games to simply GOG, but continuing to offer games with no DRM.
Fallout will be available for 48 hours, until 23.50 GMT on 8th April.
Indie Royale – The April Fools Bundle
The latest bundle from the Indie Royale is The April Fools Bundle, containing five games on the usual pay what you want scheme.
The games are: Hidden Path Entertainment’s tower defense, Defense Grid: The Awakening, Hack, Slash, Loot, a turn based dungeon crawler by OddballDave, insane platform shoot-em-up Alien Zombie Megadeath, by PomPom Games, Explodemon, by CurveStudios, and bonus game Astro Tripper, a shoot-em-up by PomPom Games.
The music is Sexy Synthesizer’s Rock: Delux Edition, available free to those who pay more than the minimum price for the bundle!
Orcs Must Die! 2
Robot Entertainment have revealed Orcs Must Die! 2, which brings players together with their friends to continue the slaughter of the mindless orc mobs left over from Orcs Must Die!
The War Mage returns, and is largely unchanged, but now he’s joined by the Sorceress, who uses mind-control and magic..
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-s9wkicuXog]
The game is due for release in summer 2012!