In the News – 6th March
Mass Effect 3 launched today for the Americans, with the UK release due on Friday. The game currently has a Metacritic score of 93, while the user score is currently at 2.5. Political voting? I think so.
The latest that the multiplayer will have an effect on the ending of your singleplayer game. As you complete missions and earn the support of different people, you gain them as War Assets: the game takes the number of collected War Assets into consideration when calculating your ending.. and it seems that you need a fairly high number of them. During multiplayer, you can improve your Readiness rating. This rating is used as a multiplier against your War Assets, so has a positive effect. (more…)
News of the Leaked Variety
Almost all the news that has caught my eye today has been leaked in some way or other.. maybe this is the new thing for bored PR? 😉
Ubisoft have released a CGI launch trailer for the American Revolution-themed Assassin’s Creed III:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVUMPrv8oRw] (more…)
A Weekend’s Gaming
Most of the weekend was spent playing games (Mass Effect 3 multiplayer and Orcs Must Die!), with a little spent outside in the sun, and some TV time thrown in as well. I’d call that a good weekend 🙂
We had decided to get together and try out the multiplayer demo for Mass Effect 3.
Valve Developing “Steam Box”?
A rumour is circulating that Valve may be developing their own console!
This console would play PC games, use Steam and perhaps even competing services.. and would use The Big Picture, which offers easy-to-read and simple navigation designed for the TV, controlled by either a gamepad or mouse and keyboard. Game developers wouldn’t have to pay for a license to develop for the platform, unlike for other consoles.
In an interview with Penny Arcade earlier this month, Gabe Newell made mention of Valve building their own hardware to make use of their own innovations.. which may include biometric measurements and augmented reality games.
Is there room for another box under the telly? We have a PS3, Xbox 360, Wii and a media PC already. I think I could make room for something that brought interesting augmented reality games along.. games that react to how you are feeling, or allow players to see the state of other players in multiplayer, like in the special build of Left 4 Dead. Though.. I think I’ll stop short of the skull implants 😉
In the News – 2nd March
Assassin’s Creed 3 will be set in North America during the second half of the 18th Century and the events of the American Revolution. These details and others appeared in the latest issue of Game Informer magazine, and subsequently were posted to NeoGAF.
In the News – 1st March
The release date for Irrational Games’ BioShock Infinite has been revealed: October 16th in the US, and on October 19th internationally, for PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. The game will also support the PlayStation Move motion controller, with more details to follow later.. though Eurogamer spotted a “special” BioShock Infinite peripheral on Sony’s website back in November.
Mojang have released Minecraft 1.2 today, adding a slew of new features including new blocks and items, a new jungle biome and a map height limit of 256. On the creature front, ocelots become cats when tamed, and tamed wolves can now have puppies! (more…)
Are we being exploited by DLC?
Spurred on by the debate around the Mass Effect 3 DLC, I started writing some thoughts down.. but it quickly turned into a definite TL;DR with DLC, online passes, pre-order bonuses, retailer exclusives and the fight against used games.. as well as the all-too-common cry that customers are being exploited.
So.. I’ve split it all up, with this part mainly being about DLC, in-game purchases and other bonuses, and another part to come about the fight against used games. I’ve mentioned a few games or companies in my examples here.. either because they were the first or best example to come to mind, or because I know that product better. I’m sure I’ve missed some great examples, and although I’ve checked my facts, I may have something wrong or out of date in here.. so feel free to let me know in the comments 🙂
The first Mass Effect 3 DLC pack appeared briefly on the Xbox Live Marketplace last week, and stirred up quite a debate about exploitation.
One complaint against DLC is that it provides an incentive for developers to withhold part of the game to charge more for it later.. or even on the same day, in the case of Day 1 or unlocks of content from the game disk itself. You can’t return DLC if you don’t enjoy it, nor can you sell it on as it’s usually tied to your game account. Other complaints are about price (Modern Warfare 2’s ‘Stimulus Package’: £10 for 5 maps, two of which were re-releases), or the worth of the DLC (Oblivion’s Horse Armour), and then there’s the idea that it’s only being produced to milk consumers for every last penny. (more…)
The Bukkit Team Join Mojang!
The four main developers of Bukkit and CraftBukkit, the server-side mod for Minecraft, are now joining Mojang!
This means that we can expect improved mod support in future, not only for Minecraft, but also for those of us running servers! The plan is to build a new server API, and then extend this to support client-side modding.
In the meantime, the team are working to make Bukkit compatible with Minecraft 1.2, to avoid a long gap while the official Minecraft server catches up.
You can read the Bukkit story over on their forum.
Nioki Adventure
Nioki Adventure is a co-operative 2D sandbox game planned for released on PC and Xbox 360, and the first game for French indie studio, Bidogames.
The website for the game has launched today: check it out here.
Indie Royale’s The Alpha Collection Impressions
Indie Royale’s latest bundle, The Alpha Collection is now available, featuring three currently-in-development games: Towns by SMP, 3079 by Phr00t and Wyv and Keep: The Temple of the Lost Idol by a jolly corpse.
Towns is a city building and management game where you organise your villagers to gather resources, build a town, craft weapons.. and then try to withstand the forces that come up from the depths, because your town is built on top of a dungeon!
