SimCity Social
During E3, I saw mention of a new, reinvented Sim City.. with city specialisation, intelligent Sims who will react to the city you’ve planned and built, and the option to work with friends and interact with their cities or create large projects together. It’s due in 2013.. but I already know I want this game!
In the meantime, EA have released SimCity Social on Facebook.
SimCity Social places you in charge of your own city, which evolves as you interact with it.. placing buildings and roads and interacting with them either as a good or bad Mayor. If friends are playing, you can visit their cities and interact with them too, building up a friendly relationship or rivalry.
E3 2012
It’s E3 time again.. the first day starting off with conferences from Microsoft and Sony. I’ve been waiting for more info on a few games, but E3 is usually good for info on new games too..
Microsoft showed footage from 360-exclusive Halo 4 and Call of Duty: Black Ops II, due for release in November, Resident Evil 6, due in October, and Tomb Raider, Spring 2013.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bc1GaGFEJrc] (more…)
The EA Indie Bundle
EA have decided to get in on the indie bundle scene.. with the EA Indie Bundle, launched on Steam.
This bundle has been causing a bit of a stir amongst some indie developers, with accusations that the huge company is just cashing in on the popularity of “indie” bundles, and more arguments about what the term “indie” means. The games in the bundle are apparently EA Partners games.. the label which publishes third party games from independent developers.
So.. the games..
HotHead Games‘ DeathSpank, and DeathSpank: Thongs of Virtue, Vanguard Games‘ action adventure Gatling Gears; Klei Entertainment‘s action games Shank and Shank 2; and Trapdoor Inc.‘s stealthy puzzler Warp, available for £14.38 until 9th May.. 70% off against £47.94 if buying all the games at full price: a far cry from the usual indie bundles which start off in single figures 😉
I did notice that Gatling Gears comes with a dirty word.. DRM. This game also has a five machine activation limit. Would this be in place if not for EA?
Amazon Refunds on Mass Effect 3
Mass Effect 3’s ending has apparently disappointed so many people that Amazon have apparently decided to offer full refunds on the game.. gamers have been reporting that they’ve had refunds on their games, at least. I think this is the start of a slippery slope.
Now.. I’ve not seen this ending yet. I understand that it isn’t quite what people expected, and that people are disappointed. Mass Effect 3 is, however, not broken, and people should not be expecting a refund because they didn’t like how the story turned out. It’s pathetic.
If you played the game through to the end, you’ve had what you paid for. What’s next? Demanding refunds because you didn’t like the ending of a film? A book? Can I order a three-course meal at a restaurant, but then complain that I didn’t like the sauce on my dessert, and so refuse to pay for any of the meal?
Our right to a refund is supposed to be there to protect us from shoddy goods and services, not to allow ridiculously self-entitled people to use products and then end up not paying for them by claiming they were dissatisfied. It isn’t there to allow people to cheat their way out of paying for things.
If Amazon are offering a full refund on ME3 now, they are just encouraging people to buy the game, play it through, and then claim they didn’t like it and ask for their money back. If you claim a refund for a game you have played all the way through to the end, you are worse than a pirate, because not only are you a “lost sale”, you are costing people money in handling the order in the first place; shipping, dealing with your emails and refunding you. You would be less of a burden on the gaming industry if you just downloaded it, played it and deleted it.
And what does this mean for writers? Write the ending that fans want, or risk the potential that they can cheat you out of your pay?
If writers suddenly have to start making the ending the fans want, then we all lose. There’ll be no more creativity; only the same tired storylines that have ‘proven’ themselves satisfactory in the past. Or maybe no story at all. Or we’ll have fan-fiction.. and well.. that doesn’t have a great reputation for quality, does it?
Grim Times
It’s really not looking good for GAME. Yesterday’s news showed that they were looking for a buyer.. a few options such as a partial GameStop buyout were being outed in the press, with the latest possible buyers being Hilco and OpCapita.
Share prices, which started the week at 3.5p, fell to below 1p yesterday morning, and only just made it back over the penny mark. This may put buyers off. It may be that buyers are waiting until GAME goes into administration, as they can then negotiate around store liabilities.
GAME has also failed to secure stocks of Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City, which is due on March 23rd, and a press release from Tecmo Koei states that neither Ninja Gaiden 3 or Warriors Orochi 3 will be available through GAME or GameStation in the UK and Ireland, with alternative stores listed as HMV, ASDA, Blockbuster, or online.
Other bad news, or bad press at least, came for EA and BioWare.. there was a large backlash against Mass Effect 3’s ending, which apparently doesn’t take into account players’ choices in the game.
Fans discovered that the Day 1 DLC character can be unlocked from the disc; EA stepped forward to say that From Ashes is not on the disc, but is a 600MB+ download; but that some “framework elements and character models needed to be put on disc”.
The latest news is that a multiplayer DLC for the game has been spotted, by somebody using a development kit. No pricing or release date has been mentioned as yet, but this news doesn’t seem to be getting a good reception from fans. At this rate, we’ll be waiting for the GOTY edition.
Metacritic Drama with Mass Effect 3
Mass Effect 3 launched today in the US with UK gamers forced to wait until Friday. The game has scored high ratings from the press, as expected, and has a Metacritic score of 93, but the user score is currently down at 2.5, based on 562 votes.
Sounds familiar.. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 also took an initial battering on their user score: one of the devs asked for help on Twitter, noting that the score was “suspiciously low”. Indeed, there were a large number of 0 ratings across the three platforms.
While I’m sure there are plenty of honest ratings being submitted for the game, and here for Mass Effect 3, the political voters have certainly been out in force. Are people downvoting the game out of spite at the Day 1 DLC? Or is it rage at the latest revelation that the multiplayer will have an effect on the ending of your singleplayer game? (more…)
Mass Effect 3 – Demo Availability
The demo for BioWare‘s highly-anticipated action RPG Mass Effect 3 is planned for launch on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC on February 14th.
Single-player will be available to all, and features two sections from the game: the opening level featuring the Reaper attack on Earth, and a level from later on in the game, where Shepard travels to an alien home world to request assistance in the war effort.
The co-op multiplayer demo is only available to those who have a an activated Battlefield 3 Online pass: this part of the demo opens up to everyone else on February 17th. This demo features two maps: Slum and Noveria.
Xbox 360 players can win codes to get early access to the demo via a Facebook app, or via Twitter giveaways such as this one.
Our impressions of the single-player demo can be found here.
Mass Effect 3 Demo Impressions
We got hold of an early access demo key to BioWare‘s Mass Effect 3, so instead of getting on with one of the many games I’m part-way through, I fired up the 360 to play.
I’ve not played the previous games in the series, although friends have; so I’ve heard plenty about the various companions in the games.. either for their fighting abilities or lack of, or for the romance options which I think are optional. In fact, that was almost all I knew about the series, along with knowing about the dialogue choices that affect the storyline, and the ability to carry your character over from one game to the next.
I was surprised to see that players are given the option to choose the mode of the game: Action, Roleplaying or Story mode.
Action Mode means adjustable combat difficulty, and replaces dialogue options with cutscenes, whilst Story Mode enables character customisation and dialogue options during conversation. Roleplaying mode allows you to customise your character, choose dialogue options and still adjust combat difficulty: this is how the previous games worked, and sounded like a good balance to me.
The next choice was what class to be.. which came down to the mix of combat, tech or biotics I wanted to use. They all sounded interesting.. stealth, powerful close combat attacks, the ability to deploy combat drones.. but I picked Adept as the ability to fire micro singularities at my enemies sounded pretty awesome 🙂
After that, there were a few other choices for background, reputation and potential psychological issues.. whether you’re an orphan who manages to survive disasters while all around you die, or whether you’re an army kid prepared to risk yourself for your team mates and so on.. I suspect these choices come into play during the story, or influence your available dialogue options.
The first part of the demo sees Shepard being brought to the Defense Committee, who are worried as they have been receiving distress signals, and lost touch with colonies and so on. Shepard says it’s the Reapers, but the Committee are still unsure, until the Reapers actually arrive on the scene..
The Reapers destroy the building we’re in, killing the Committee, and when we get outside it’s obvious they’re destroying the rest of the city too.
Impressive, massive machines.. 🙂
I followed the Admiral out of the ruined buildings and across rooftops, heading for a landing zone and pickup from the Normandy.
I’m not convinced by the constant aiming.. Shepard only lowered the gun when sprinting, so there was a point where I was running along aiming my empty gun at nothing in particular! The controls felt great with just one odd bit: running with the A button, then melee with B.. I think that would make running and hitting a bit awkward.. but maybe melee combat only really comes up in closer quarters. Playing as an Adept, I would probably be using the Singularity and then shooting the enemies trapped in it, and avoiding melee.
The dialogue options were fairly simple: at different points in the conversation, a few options appeared on a little circle at the bottom. You just pick the one you want, and Shepard says something with the same general meaning.. I think this has little effect on events in the demo, but it’s nice to feel involved.. and in the full game this should mean different reactions and endings depending on what you picked.
The second part of the demo is a mission to collect a female Krogan from a Solarian base.. there’s a bit of drama to start with because the Solarians don’t like Rex, the male Krogan on your team. Going to get the female, though, requires fighting through Cerberus forces on the way up through the building.
This action was good fun, moving from one area to the next, flanking enemies, hitting them with singularities and using cover. Cover has been improved from the previous games: you are able to move around the side of some objects while using them for cover, though the game has been designed so that you can’t just pop your head out and kill all the enemies without moving.
Just before we finally got to the female Krogan, a huge mech was dropped into the building..
He had shields and armour to get through, and though I used cover, it didn’t protect me complete from the rockets fired by him, or the grenades thrown by the Agents who appeared to back him up. One tough, but very satisfying fight.. I ended up moving around the whole map to get some distance and avoid the rockets, as well as dealing with the Agents.
I’m now looking forward to this game.. we’re probably going to get it on the 360 to share, rather than buying a copy each on Origin (yes, it does require Origin on PC).
Mass Effect 3 is due to be published by EA on the 6th March in the US, and the 9th March in the UK and Europe.
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning Demo
The demo for Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning came out on Steam last week.. an action RPG in a colourful fantasy setting, with four playable races and a fully customisable set of skills and abilities.
The game has been developed by 38 Studios and Big Huge Games, but is published by EA, so on launching the game I had to log in to my EA account. Doing so unlocked a few items for use in the full game, if I go ahead and purchase later, as well as some themed armour for Mass Effect 3.
Players start as a blank slate, risen from the dead thanks to the powers of the Well of Souls. After dragging myself out of a pile of dead bodies, I went in search of the exit.. finding starter gear, some gnomes, attacking Tuatha Soldiers, and eventually, the gnome researcher working with the Well of Souls.
The Tower was eventually overrun by the attacking forces, and on the way out I had a final battle with a Rock Troll.. a chance to string a few moves together after being shown the basics of weapons and magic.
At this point, my character’s abilities with each weapon was the same, but I liked the dual-wield daggers best. During the exploration part of the demo, I found some better-quality daggers with bonus acid damage.. and after levelling up and spending some ability points, I was able to make a rather nice dashing combo too.
Levelling up provided me with a skill point, which I used to improve Detect Hidden, allowing enemies and treasure to appear on the mini map, and ability points which I used to increase damage with daggers, as well as unlocking the Shadow Strike ability. This was all personal choice: I could have chosen any combination of abilities from Sorcery, Might or Finesse to suit my gameplay.
Reckoning Mode was interesting.. accessible after filling up the purple Fate meter, this gave me extra power and allowed me to finish off weakened enemies with special, and rather showy, moves..
I got different moves each time, too 🙂
The demo was reported to contain a few bugs and glitches: the first of these for me was the worst, as I had no graphics! A friend told me this was down to having a Radeon, and to turn off post-processing, which fixed it. Elsewhere, I had the odd short freeze, as well as text which appeared and then disappeared too quickly for me to read it. The developers were aware of this, and replied to a thread on NeoGAF. Apparently the demo was created by a third party, from older code, and so the full game should be free of these.
Bugs aside, I think this demo was very well done. It allowed me to see the basics of the game, get an idea of the forces at play, and then explore the world as I pleased for up to 45 minutes. For me, this was long enough to see that I’d enjoy playing it.. though I will probably wait till I’ve cleared some of my backlog before picking it up.
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is a single-player action RPG developed by 38 Studios and Big Huge Games, and published by 38 Studios and Electronic Arts.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7vzRaMAx90]
The game takes place in the fantasy kingdom of Amalur, where players can choose from four playable races and define their own class through the destiny system. Players begin the game having arisen from the dead, and are free to choose and customise their character as they wish, while exploring a vast game world.
The game universe is also planned to be the setting of an upcoming MMO by 38 Studios, codenamed Project Copernicus.
A demo of Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning was made available on the 17th January, on Steam, Origin, Xbox Live and PSN, although critics complained of a number of bugs in the demo.
38 Studios and EA have also come under fire for the revelation that the game has an online pass.
Kingdoms of Amalur’s online pass is to be included with all new copies of the game, and unlocks a “House of Valor” content pack containing seven additional quests. This is unusual, as it effectively locks out single-player content for anyone not buying new: the usual stated reason for using an online pass is to recuperate server costs and ongoing maintenance for online content.
Gamers annoyed by the inclusion of the online pass posted on the game’s forum to ask if the studio fought the restriction or not; studio head Curt Shilling also posted in the thread in defense of the online pass. The debate is ongoing, with the thread now up to 137 pages.