Marvel Super Hero Squad Online Celebrates 4 Million Players
Marvel Super Hero Squad Online has now surpassed 4 million registered players worldwide since its launch in 2011.
RaiderZ Now in Open Beta
RaiderZ, the monster-battling MMO is now in open beta. To get in on the beta, simply register for an account.
RaiderZ is free to play, with premium content accessible via the ZEN virtual currency used throughout all of Perfect World Entertainment’s games.
Gamescom 2012 Round-Up!
Gamescom 2012 started off with Sony’s press conference, with a selection of games for the PlayStation Vita.. Little Big Planet Vita, Killzone: Mercenary, and other games previously mentioned at E3: Call of Duty: Black Ops: Declassified; PlayStation All-Stars; Assassin’s Creed III Liberation, featuring a new female lead, Aveline; and Need for Speed Most Wanted, a Vita game with all the same features as the PS3 version, with a huge open world to explore.
Media Molecule’s new game Tearaway was demonstrated for the first time, with a lot of use being made of the Vita’s touch features.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK6_QvdxyXQ] (more…)
Star Wars: The Old Republic – Expanded Free to Play Version
EA have announced that Star Wars: The Old Republic will get an expanded F2P version later this year, allowing players to take on any of the eight character classes up to level 50, from the current limit of 15.
Subscriptions will still be available for players who want unrestricted access to the entire game; Free to Play players will have some restrictions on access to new content and advanced player features. (more…)
Aion Goes Free to Play
NCSoft‘s Aion is now free to play: all classes, areas, quests, equipment, professions and PvP will be freely available to all players!
European players will be requested to transfer their accounts to Gameforge, the new publisher of Aion.
Sins of a Dark Age
Ironclad, creator of Sins of a Solar Empire, have recently announced their second game: Sins of a Dark Age!
Sins of a Dark Age is a team-based RTS hybrid, with teams consisting of one Commander and a group of Heroes, who face enemy teams or co-operate against AI in a variety of scenarios. Players can choose to take on the role of either Commander or one of the Heroes, with the Commander overseeing the battle while the Heroes take on the enemy on the front line.
Firefall Beta Starts Now
Firefall is a team-based shooter / MMO hybrid under development for the PC by Red 5 Studios; a studio founded by Mark Kern, former team lead for World of Warcraft. The game will be free-to-play once launched. To take part in the beta, sign up for an account: beta invites will be issued in waves.
The latest Dev Diary details how player actions will affect the roll out of new content in the game:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQrQWRiXFss]
The game is set in a future Earth, where the promise of a new clean energy source leads to the arrival of a hostile energy storm called the Melding, that engulfs most of the world. A bloodthirsty race known as The Chosen has also emerged and threatens humanity’s survival..
Players can choose from three battleframes: assault, medic and recon, each of which can be customised with different weapons and loadouts. These are equipped by the player’s character, so you can switch between battleframes too.
Firefall has both PvP objectives and cooperative PvE missions. PvP consists of Team Deathmatch, and a Sabotage game mode, which has teams take turns being on offense or defense, with three different points to capture and hold. Confirmed PvE missions so far include a Thumper mission, where players defend a mining machine against waves of enemy creatures while it gathers resources, and Rescue missions, for which no information has yet been released.
Firefall has no set release date; as players join the beta and play, the team collect feedback and continue development of the game, with plans for the game to be rolled out ‘organically’, rather like Google’s Gmail service.
Star Trek Online goes F2P For All
Cryptic Studios‘ MMO RPG Star Trek Online goes free-to-play for all today, following two weeks of free play for previous customers of the game.
Star Trek Online was originally released in February 2010, with updates being added at regular intervals throughout 2010 and 2011. The game originally launched with two payment options: the usual monthly subscription, and a Lifetime subscription, which waived the monthly fee. Additional content was also made available through microtransactions using Cryptic Points or the C-Store.
Existing subscribers become Gold Players, with the same access to the game as they have had up until now, while free, or Silver players will be able to explore the Star Trek universe as the captain of their own ship, but with a few restrictions compared to Gold members. They will also have access to additional content via the C-Store or through Cryptic Points, the in-game and web-based virtual goods store.
APB Reloaded and Free To Play
I first tried APB during their beta back in early 2010. Before I invoke any rage in regards to using a beta as a demo, I’ll point out that I do report bugs if they come up, fill out surveys, and so on.. but I also get an idea of whether I’ll want to buy the game at launch too.
While I thought the concept, missions, and free-roam activities were fun, the lag during driving and combat was often painful.. when it hit, I had single figure FPS, and buildings only appearing while passing them. Some weapons seemed to be overpowered: the Enforcers’ stun gun appeared to only need line of sight to completely incapacitate a Criminal, which meant inevitable arrest if you were playing without a group. Whether this was due to a combination of lag, player skill or the current settings for the weapon.. it felt overpowered and made me want to avoid the combat without the backup of friends.. though once I did get a friend to play with in the game, we often ended up driving or ram-raiding 🙂
APB didn’t last long once finally launched.. Realtime Worlds went into administration and the game servers were shut down. However, the game was picked up by GamersFirst, dusted off and given a bit of love, and APB: Reloaded arrived.. and it’s now free to play on Steam!
Like last time, the Criminals appealed more than the Enforcers, and fortunately my friends thought the same. A life of crime.. robberies, ram-raids and muggings.. and fighting the Enforcers 🙂
Starting off in San Paro requires you to complete a short tutorial, which is a set of five missions within the Tutorial District.. no opposition is sent against you here, so you can concentrate on the job at hand without being crushed by good players! The clothes you start off in were described to me as ridiculous and a crime against fashion.. so I quickly changed out of those into some very short shorts which I customised so they didn’t quite look so much like underpants 😉
I want to get the rather smart outfit I had back when we played in the beta.. but for now, this will do.
We ran through some missions.. shooting seems a lot better now there isn’t that horrendous lag, though driving is still very hit and miss.. more hit, really.. turning is controlled by your movement keys, with the assistance of a handbrake. While in any Mission District, you’re open to attack, so we watched each other’s backs during missions, keeping an eye out for any alert that an Enforcer was being dispatched against us.
As before, fights with the Enforcers lead to arrest or death, and subsequent respawn. As missions have a few minutes to complete them in, there’s often enough time to get back to the objectives at hand, and sometimes still win it.. so it’s not over too quickly!
Later in the evening we were joined by another friend, so there were three of us completing missions. This meant the nice little two-seater car was no good, and we had to upgrade to a van.. and while driving, it meant two of us able to lean out and shoot.
One of the things we loved last time around was ram-raiding, so we had to finish the evening up with a couple of vans and a tour of the shops! Smaller items disappeared into our inventory, while larger ones have to be put into the back of the van.
We ended up with three vans at one point, but too much damage resulted in one blowing up in the road.. and my van caught fire as I ‘parked’ it near our contact. Oops 😀
Stolen goods from ram-raiding or muggings can be taken to your contact or to a fence. You do receive a payment there and then, but it doesn’t appear in your balance until you’ve also visited the Money Launderer. I’m saving up for a nice outfit now, but later this money will be spent on nice looking cars with decent performance 😉
Changing clothes, your appearance and any logo design has to be done in the Social district, away from the missions and activity. I’m not sure how I feel about this split. It makes sense as you don’t want to be randomly selected as the target for an Enforcer’s mission while concentrating on designing a new outfit or applying decals to your car, but I think it’s rather a bind to load in to a whole new area just to put a new jacket on.
For now, this is how we look! 😀
Age of Empires Online
I used to play a lot of Age of Empires with Tim, years and years ago, mostly co-op against the AI as neither of us wanted to kill each other. My dad also played, though lacking the internet, we weren’t able to play together.
I tried multiplayer when I first got the internet, via some Microsoft service.. and was almost immediately yelled at by randoms who determined any new player to be unworthy of joining a game. Eventually I found a game, only to realise there was some cheating going on when my opponents appeared with cars. Yeah.. right. Back to the AI, then 😉
Age of Empires Online is free to play, although there is “premium content” available, adding new civilizations as well as less useful decorative items.
Each player starts off with their own Capital City, to which buildings can be added to gain new technologies and units. You can also pick up new quests here, the first of which are all about teaching the basics of killing enemies, gathering food and building units.. this all works the same as the original Age of Empires gameplay.
The “online” part of the game consists of co-operative questing and PvP.. you can team up with other players to complete quests, though it isn’t required.
I think that it’ll be fairly difficult for people to cheat, though I don’t know what advantages the premium content will give people.. I guess we’ll have to see whether multiplayer with randoms will be worth playing.