Saturday, April 6, 2013

New Torment RPG most funded game in Kickstarter history

 Torment: Tides of Numenera is the most funded game in Kickstarter history. The isometric role-playing game's crowd-funding campaign closed last night, drawing a total of $4,188,927 from 74,405 backers. That mark is 455 percent better than its $900,000 original target.

Torment: Tides of Numenera passed Obsidian Entertainment's Project Eternity, which was the former top earner at $3.99 million. The project is the second-most funded gaming endeavor overall, behind the Android-powered Ouya console, which amassed $8.6 million.

How the language barrier made Star Fox a good game

Before Dylan Cuthbert made a name for himself with his PixelJunk games, he helped create a Nintendo franchise: Star Fox. But, the SNES shooter had quite the troubled development. And at GDC last week, Cuthbert revealed that if it weren't because of the language barrier, Star Fox could have been a terrible game.

Star Fox originally started off as a first-person 3D flight game called Starglider. While it was technologically impressive, Shigeru Miyamoto thought that it wasn't a "Nintendo quality" game. He recommended taking away many key elements of Starglider's original design, namely 3D flight and the first-person perspective.

Five free-to-play ideas 'that might not suck' from QWOP's Ben Foddy

The industry has been looking for new ways to capitalize on the free-to-play craze. In spite of its name, free-to-play games make a lot of money. But not everyone is happy with the way F2P games are being monetized. Bennett Foddy, creator of games like QWOP and GIRP, gave five reasons for why free-to-play games "usually suck," and offered his own suggestions on possibly making them suck less.

Perhaps the biggest crime of free-to-play games are the ones where you must pay to avoid grinding. Because you are paying to "reduce the amount of time you spend playing the game," it actually becomes a pay-not-to-play game, which diminishes the "perceived value of the game."

InXile’s Torment: Tides of Numenera is the most funded Kickstarter game ever

A few million in cold hard cash can purchase a lot of Torment.

Developer InXile’s crowdfunding project for Torment: Tides of Numenera comes to a close today at 8 p.m. Eastern (5 p.m. Pacific), but it’s already the most funded game in the history of the financing platform. Over 70,000 backers have pushed the game to $4 million through the service. Contributors have donated an extra $70,000 directly through PayPal.

“There is no way we would have made this kind of money if not for our fans who pushed to make it happen,” InXile founder Brian Fargo told GamesBeat. “What’s even better than this is being able to make the game of our dreams.”
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World of Warcraft 5.3 update adjusts Pet Battles

World of Warcraft has grown so large and ambitious that patches can focus on individual meta-games without even touching the main title. The next patch, for example, will focus entirely on the Pet Battles system, working to reduce randomness in matches.

A post on the Blizzard blog states that the 5.3 update will add a "Hit Chance" for all abilities, giving you more information on how likely you are to strike a target. It will increase or decrease based on abilities as well. In addition, the update will remove the default 5% dodge chance and reduced the higher-level dodge change from 5% per level to 2% per level. All of this is meant to let you more reliably fight higher-level monsters, though Blizzard notes that it also made some slight tweaks to abilities that were left with a 100% hit chance after the other adjustments were made.

The Raven – Legacy of a Master Thief Recording Finished

Nordic Games has recently announced that it finished recording for its upcoming adventure game The Raven – Legacy of a Master Thief, which was developed by KING Art and will be releasing in June for PC. Head here for a behind the scenes look at the development for the voice-acting.

Reinhard Pollice, Business & Product Development Director at Nordic Games, stated that, “The Raven – Legacy of a Master Thief will be one of the most immersive titles that we release this year and has now been brought to life by great voice acting that brings the adventure to life and accentuates the story.

Black Rock Shooter The Game coming to PSP on April 23

The PlayStation Portable hasn't seen much love since its younger sibling arrived, but NIS America is giving it one more shot. Black Rock Shooter: The Game, the game that must remind you it is a game, is coming to the PlayStation Portable on April 23. It will be a PSN release, meaning it should work on PS Vita as well.

The game is part of a trans-media effort in its homeland of Japan, consisting of anime and manga. It centers around an android girl named BRS, created for the sole purpose of eliminating extra-terrestrials that have decimated the population. As of the time she's awakened, only twelve humans remain on earth, presumably all of them trying the tired old "repopulate the species" catch phrase on each other.

Total War: Arena Developers explain Free-to-Play Model

Total War: Arena was announced as a Free-to-Play title at GDC last week by Creative Assembly. Creative Assembly stated that the game requires to have a big player base in order for the game to be cost-free, so said leader designer James Russell.

Free-to-Play games scare people because some games end up being ‘pay-to-win’ instead due to micro-transactions that break the balance of the game’s mechanics. ‘pay-to-win’ usually ends up giving players who spend money the upper edge when it comes to competitive play or difficulty of the game as opposed to those who don’t spend a dime.

Rumour: Watch Dogs, Assassin’s Creed IV Will Require Constant Internet Connection

Creative director at Microsoft Games Studios Alan Orth really became famous overnight, didn’t he? After defending the status of an always-online machine – and being eviscerated for it – news has come via reputed blogger Superannuation that two big upcoming titles are also rumoured to require a constant online connection.

As he tweeted recently, he states that “Watch_Dogs and AC4 are also rumored to have a persistent connection requirement? Can buy Watch_Dogs having one, iffy on AC requiring online.”

Weekend PC download deals: The Walking Dead for $10

It's a good weekend of undead or demonic fun this weekend, with The Walking Dead on sale at $10, Dead Island GotY at $5, and Painkiller: Hell & Damnation at $6. Other, more-alive deals at PC digital distributors this weekend include The Witcher 2 for $10, a huge bundle of D&D games for $21, and Borderlands 2 plus its DLC season pass for $25.

Friday, April 5, 2013

Nintendo UK apologizes for low Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate stock

 Nintendo UK has apologized for a shortage of Monster Hunter 3 Ultimater stock in the region. In a series of tweets (via Eurogamer), Nintendo of Europe president Satoru Shibata explained that "high demand" for the Wii U and 3DS role-playing game has made the title tough to find.

"I'd like to apologize for the current stock shortage due to high demand of Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate at retail," Shibata said.

He added that more copies of the Wii U version will "hopefully" hit stores next week, with additional 3DS shipments expected in mid-April.

Aliens: Colonial Marines for Wii U canceled

Gearbox's critically-panned Aliens: Colonial Marines will no longer see release on Wii U. A port for Nintendo's HD console was originally supposed to release in March, but Sega has finally confirmed that it is no longer happening, telling both Kotaku and Polygon about the game's new status.

The port was being handled by Demiurge Studios, and was supposedly the best-looking version of the game. Gearbox Software CEO Randy Pitchford claimed that Demiurge "did amazing work," but that the Wii U release would be up to Sega to "figure out."

Given Wii U's light library, a new game might have been welcomed by Nintendo fans. However, given the game's horrendous reviews, perhaps Nintendo owners were spared.

God of War: Ascension update adds Elite Levels

 God of War: Ascension's multiplayer mode is leveling up. Developer Sony Santa Monica detailed the game's 1.04 update on the PlayStation Blog, revealing it will introduce Elite Levels, meaning the game's allegiance level cap will jump from 30 to 40. With the 10 new levels, additional items, relics, and magic abilities will be added for every allegiance.

"For our Champions who have ascended to the highest levels, and for those on their way, now you have a new goal to reach. It will not be an easy journey," Sony said.

Additional information about Elite Levels will be divulged in the future, though Sony did not provide a release window for the update.

Ghostlight’s worldwide Steam releases could help Japanese role-playing games

Ghostlight is an expert on localizing Japanese games, but we don’t hear of the company much in North America. That may be about to change as the European publisher has been working for months to bring Japanese role-playing games from consoles to PCs worldwide.

It announced its first today, a strategy RPG called Agarest: Generations of War (pictured), which is now visible on Steam Greenlight and is the first entry in developer Idea Factory’s Agarest series.

Generations of War has come to North America before on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 but not PC, and the popularity of Steam could be beneficial. Worldwide release on Valve’s digital distribution platform means the publisher can reach audiences in more territories and generate greater attention for these often underloved games.
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Former CoD dev's 2D platformer fails on Kickstarter

 What would a 2D platformer created by a former Call of Duty developer look like? The world won't find out anytime soon, as Robert Bowling's Kickstarter campaign for The Adventures of Dash has ended, coming up well short of its target.

Funding for The Adventures of Dash closed this week (via Eurogamer), with $33,121 raised of its $400,000 goal. A total of 496 people backed the project.

In an update to to the game's Kickstarter page, Bowling's Robotoki studio explained that it remains passionate about the project and is currently exploring opportunities to release the game.
There was a time when Final Fantasy VII was especially hot. This was coming off the heels of the incredibly successful Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children film that smashed box-office records in Japan and the PlayStation Portable prequel Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII that focused on Cloud’s ally Zack and events leading up to his death.

Another game was announced at that time, going even further back, which would focus on Shinra’s Turks unit and showcase what happened to the first AVALANCHE team. This was Before Crisis: FFVII, but after an announcement, it never made it’s way outside of Japan.

Sega to shut down Medieval 2: Total War studio

Sega's Australian studio is reportedly set to shut down sometime later this year. It most recently worked on the London 2012 tie-in game, but was best known for its work on Medieval 2: Total War.

Sega confirmed the closure to Kotaku, simply saying it will be shut down "later this year." It then told Eurogamer that the company is under consultation and can't comment on details of the closure.

The studio was formerly known as Creative Assembly Australia, during its work on the Total War series. The main office of The Creative Assembly is located in the United Kingdom, and responsible for the more recent Total War: Shogun 2 and upcoming Total War: Rome 2.

Farming Simulator sprouts on consoles in September

It can be nerve-wracking, waiting for an exciting series to finally come to your preferred platform. What if it's a shoddy port? Will the controls work? And if it's delayed by months, that's even more worrying. Be strong, gentle player: this one's worth the wait. Farming Simulator will finally arrive on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in September, complete with a console-exclusive American farm and extra vehicles.

Giants Software's very first console entry in the series is an adaptation of Farming Simulator 2013, which launched on PC in October 2012. It was supposed to trundle on over to consoles in the first quarter of 2013, but publisher Focus Home today announced it won't arrive until "the first week of September," so most probably September 3.

Company of Heroes 2 preorder incentives detailed by Sega

 The preorder bonuses for upcoming RTS Company of Heroes 2 have been detailed by publisher Sega, offering both single-player and multiplayer content for prospective customers.

Preordering the game from participating retailers will give players free access to the Theatre of War mini-campaign, offering an unspecified amount of additional single-player content. Sega says this will be available post-release, but no date was mentioned.

For the multiplayer part of Company of Heroes 2, customers who preorder will get the Winter Ambush and Voronezh Front skin packs for vehicle customisation alongside two multiplayer commanders for each army. The German forces get the Joint Operations Doctrine, which specialises in artillery, and the Offensive Spearhead Doctrine for better heavy armour and airstrikes.

Man destroys his Xbox 360 with an axe in retaliation for Xbox 720 always-online rumours

Francis, who grew in popularity during the Diablo 3 error fiasco, has done it once again and has released a highly entertaining video showing how enraged he is at rumors mentioning the possibility of always-online Xbox 720.

We covered that news here and according to that a creative director at Microsoft had tweeted that always-online is what he expects in most of his electronic devices and told people to deal with it.

He got nailed by the media and his account has been set to private. So now, Francis, has decided to smash his Xbox 360 in retaliation to that, and you can check out the video which shows him struggling.

Minecraft PC Sales Hit 10 Million Units, New Features Teased

The hits just keep on rolling for indie developer Mojang, as Minecraft PC recently hit the 10 million sales mark according to a tweet from lead designer and developer Jens Bergensten. He also linked to a picture of a woman with a horse and said it was a hint to one of the main features of the upcoming 1.6 update for the game. Mounts, maybe?

As such, 2012 has been a very lucrative year for Mojang. Not only did Minecraft’s different versions sell more than 15 million copies, but the total revenue for the studio equaled roughly $340 million. This meant roughly $240 million in revenue and $100 million arriving in licensing deals.

Tekken Card Tournament now on mobile devices

The Tekken card game announced in January is now available, marking the series' first move into the free-to-play market. Tekken Card Tournament, a CCG based on the popular fighting franchise, is now available. While initially only announced for iOS, with other platforms a possibility, it has launched on PC and Android as well.

As a free-to-play game, of course, it offers in-app purchases. You can earn your way to currency to buy booster packs, or purchase heaping sums of it at various tiers. Booster packs cost 120-320 credits. The Bank sells 50c (99 cents), 120c ($1.99) 250c ($3.99), and so on. The most expensive pack is the Vault, which grants 10,500 credits (enough for about 90 of the low-tier packs) for $99.99. Namco also promises physical booster packs coming this summer, which will let you scan to add them to your digital collection and play with augmented reality functions.

Thursday, April 4, 2013

Witcher 3 does not have any DRM – CD Projekt

CD Projekt RED have confirmed that The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt will not have any DRM. Maciej Szczesnik, who is the game designer, has also added that if the game has to be cracked by pirates it will be.

However, we don’t know what type of security measures are there on next gen consoles. That could be helpful to the studio in minimizing piracy. However considering the series is mostly PC-based, the designer does have a point.
“We are trying to get rid of DRM. If someone wants to pirate a game, eventually he will,” he told Kotaku.

PS4 will cost £300 says The Sun

British tabloid The Sun has revealed that the PS4 will cost £300 and that probably translates to $450 in US money.

Of course, Europeans tend to pay a lot more due to various taxes and we already know for a fact that the system won’t be costing more than $500.
The PS4 is “believed to be coming out in October and could retail for £300,” according to The Sun, reported by MCV.

The day the music died: A tribute to Rock Band

Like it or not, the age of the plastic instrument was never going to last. After burning perhaps a bit too brightly over the course of the last decade, Guitar Hero and its ilk fizzled out in 2011, passing their collective torch to a lone survivor: Harmonix’s Rock Band series. For a long while, we watched in awe as Harmonix continued to float a sinking ship, playing catch-up with the spectre of an industry that just didn’t exist anymore.

So it’s no surprise that this week, with the addition of Don McLean’s “American Pie” to the library, Harmonix is taking its leave from the franchise. After more than five years of weekly downloadable content support, Rock Band is no more, along with the genre it helped make popular.
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Thief: Stepping Out of The Shadows

“I’ve been away, but I couldn’t tell you where. Time’s moved on. Powers have shifted. New greeds replace the old.”

Those lines – uttered by Thief’s returning antihero Garrett in the demo I saw – are acutely self-aware. (You can almost see the writer winking at you.) Thief has spent too long in the shadows – an entire generation, in fact. And as Garrett rightly points out, time’s moved on. Today’s player is different, and so are their expectations. A game often has to appeal to the widest possible audience. The original Thief series was in many ways an uncompromising experience – a hardcore stealth title – that made few concessions to accessibility. It was purposefully arcane, ambiguous, difficult.

Id Software’s fate reportedly uncertain with Rage 2 cancellation and Doom 4 delays

Id Software is one of the pioneering studios of the game business, but what has it done for its owners lately? That’s the question at hand as Kotaku reported today that id is in trouble after its parent company ZeniMax canceled Rage 2 and asked id to completely rework Doom 4.

Doom 4 has been in the works for five years, and Kotaku reported that the studio has little to show for it despite a major reboot. The publication cited multiple unnamed sources for its story, but Bethesda Softworks, the sister company for id under the common parent ZeniMax, issued a statement that corroborated the troubles in the development of Doom 4.
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Beyond: Two Souls wasn’t a lot more expensive than Heavy Rain

David Cage has revealed that Beyond: Two Souls didn’t burn a hole in Sony’s pocket and cost just a little more than Heavy Rain.
The latter had a budget of $25 million or something around that figure, and it includes development and marketing costs.

“I don’t know if the budget is public but it’s been a very, very reasonable price,” he told CVG. “We do very complex games, but I don’t think they’re very expensive compared to others out there.”
“The project is cheaper because we’ve got better at what we do. We’re very tools-centric and we pay close attention to our costs. We don’t do anything crazy with the finances, we pay correctly but we don’t have sports cars, boats or the rest of it. We run the company very seriously.”

Thief preview: out of the shadows

The team at Eidos Montreal has a tough road ahead with its reboot of Thief. On the one hand, it must face the expectations of old-school players who loved the original Looking Glass and Ion Storm games. On the other, it must appease newer gamers who may have limited experience with stealth action. So what does the studio do? Producer Stephane Roy said they plan to stick to their own vision of what Thief should be. For those familiar with the franchise, he said, "this is not a prequel or a sequel. It our interpretation of what is Thief. The original Thief had more of a magical feel. This is more mystical."

A 25-minute hands-off gameplay demonstration introduced us to the medieval Victorian city that Garrett calls home. The city is run by a Baron trying to push the city into the Industrial Age, while a shadowy charismatic leader seeds revolution among the populace. As the cynical dark anti-hero, Garrett is caught in the middle of this struggle between rich and poor.

Monaco begins stealing hearts on April 24

You look like the kind of person who could get into some top-down thieving. That’s a good thing, because developer Pocketwatch Games is preparing to finally debut its stealth-action heist game, Monaco.

Monaco releasePocketwatch revealed today that Monaco will finally hit Steam and Xbox Live Arcade on April 24 for $15. It’s also available to preorder directly through Pocketwatch Games’ website.

Monaco puts players in control of a variety of specialized thieves either in a four-player co-op mode or single-player campaign. Each character can only see objects within their line-of-sight. Walls and other obstacles will cause huge portions of the screen to gray out.
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Pandora's Tower finally feasting in North America on April 16

The trouble with dating simulators is that they're so unrealistic. Flowers, fragrances, whiskey and chocolates are awful gifts for one you want to stick it to. Now Pandora's Tower, that knows what to give: hunks of flesh torn from the still-twitching corpses of rare monsters. We can all pick up a few tips come April 16, as publisher Xseed announced today that's when the action-RPG's awfully late North American release will be.

Big Romance doesn't want you to know this secret, so developer Ganbarion has wrapped the truth up in an extravagant plot. A singer has been cursed and is transforming into a monster, and only delicious fresh monster flesh can cure her. So off you go to a series of mysterious towers to scale their heights and kill monsters, ultimately bringing back a tasty gift from the boss at the top.

Duke Nukem 2 released for iOS

Before Duke Nukem had sunglasses, delivered pithy one-liners and surrounded himself with strippers, he was just kicking alien butt. To commemorate the 20th anniversary of Duke Nukem 2, Interceptor Entertainment and 3D Realms have released the 2D side-scroller for iOS.

"It's an amazing experience to be able to work on such a beloved franchise," Frederik Schreiber, CEO and game director at Interceptor Entertainment, said in a press release. "As kids, we were all big fans of Duke Nukem II, and working with Scott Miller and 3D Realms to bring this classic back to life on new platforms was a dream come true."

Comic Book Reviews for 4/3/13

With Thanos set to be the big bad in Phase Two of the Marvel movies, it's no surprise that Marvel Comics is giving the character renewed attention as of late. The latest story comes in the form of Thanos Rising, an origin story about how the Mad Titan rose to power. In addition, Marvel also released the next chapter of Age of Ultron and an utterly fantastic issue of Indestructible Hulk with the presence of the incomparable Walt Simonson.

At DC, Detective Comics celebrated its (technically) 900th issue as new creative teams debuted on both Action Comics and Swamp Thing to pleasing results. There were also a shocking amount of highly-rated books, so it seems this was a stellar week for comics.

LucasArts’ mixed legacy: A breeding ground for great games and designers that relied too much on Star Wars

Filmmaker George Lucas created LucasArts in 1982 as an expansion of Lucasfilm beyond the realm of movies. The game division collaborated with Atari on titles such as Ballblazer and Rescue on Fractalus in 1984. They were released on the Atari 5200 console under the Lucasfilm Games label, and versions for home computers debuted in 1985. It was a small start to what would become a sprawling business in Marin County, where Lucasfilm was initially based.

lucasarts logoThe company would come to have soaring hits and disastrous diversifications. Those mixed results persisted for more than 30 years, and the division’s long history finally came to an end today as Disney announced it was closing down LucasArts. In doing so, Disney is breaking the hearts of a lot of veteran gamers who are nostalgic for the old Lucas games.
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Injustice: Gods Among Us for iOS is free-to-play, features 3v3 tag-team fighting

As previously reported, Injustice: Gods Among Us is coming to iTouch devices. Developed by the same team that worked on Batman: Arkham City Lockdown, the iOS version of NetherRealm's brawler is a "completely custom experience" for mobile. Not only does it feature a new control scheme for touch (that doesn't involve a virtual D-Pad, thankfully), but it also features 3v3 tag-team fighting--a feature not found in the original game.

The controls are quite clever, at least in theory. You'll tap on the screen for quick attacks, swipe for power attacks, and block by pressing both fingers on the screen. You'll also be able to swap characters by touching their portrait, and access special moves by pressing the corresponding icon at the bottom of the screen.

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Here’s why Garrett’s voice actor was changed in Thief

Garrett is the protagonist of the Theif game which is scheduled to be released on the PC and next gen consoles. Stephen Russell voiced him in the past three games but he won’t be there in this new game and we have the reasons for that.
The game’s narrative director Steven Gallagher and audio director Jean-Christophe Verbert revealed why they made this decision.

“Stephen was considered quite heavily. We actually had him in for some preliminary vocal recordings in fact,” Gallagher said in a community interview.
“Yes, it was actually very early during development at that time that we had him involved, before we made the decision to record our actor’s voices and their movement at the same time using a full performance capture technique,” Verbert added.

Angry Birds studio sales double in 2012

The Angry Birds sensation is not fading away.

Developer Rovio Entertainment today announced financial results for 2012, revealing revenue grew 101 percent to €152.2 million ($195.1 million) up from €75.6 million ($96.8 million) last year.

Earnings before interest and taxes hit €76.8 million ($98.4 million), up 64 percent year-over-year, while net profit was €55.5 million ($71.1 million) compared to €35.4 million ($45.4 million) last year.

"Rovio has grown from a phenomenon to a very successful global business," Rovio CEO Mikael Hed said in a statement. "In 2010 we set out to build an entertainment company and after last year's performance we are on a strong path to achieve our goal."

EverQuest II: Scars of the Awakened Enters Enters Open Beta

Sony Online Entertainment’s EverQuest II: Scars of the Awakened has now entered into the open beta stage of testing according to an official announcement from the developer’s site. Although the beta server may not be accessible according to the dev, all current characters will be deleted by the server’s periodic wipe. Players can still copy their characters, live or Test, over to the server though.

With the new open beta, players can access the Cobalt Scar and Siren’s Grotto areas the former being an overland zone with new quests and collections while the latter is a new dungeon featuring several challenges for solo, group and raiding players.

Levine: Violence has always been part of the storyteller's toolkit

 In the wake of the December Newtown, Conn. shooting that left 20 children and six adults dead, Ken Levine has responded to the ongoing violence in games discussion. Speaking with NPR's On Point radio program, Levine said violence being used as a narrative device is nothing new.

"Violence, for better or for worse, is…going back to the dawn of narrative, is a part of the story teller's toolkit," Levine said.

Levine then brought up an example of his childhood, explaining that he had a tough time making friends growing up and so he spent a lot of time playing Dungeons & Dragons. At the time, this game was linked to murders and suicides, though Levine said it did not have a negative effect on him.

Mark Rein thinks Fortnite may be Epic Games’ best work

Mark Rein from Epic Games has stated that Fortnite may be their best game. In case you don’t know what that is, they announced the game last year and it was supposed to be something that was created to give a break to the team from making Gears of War games.

The game “might be the best thing we’ve ever done” Rein said and “It’s so good that I pulled all Fortnite content from this engine demo three weeks ago.”

“All of the Unreal demos we were going to do [at GDC] were all going to use Fortnite content. You saw in the tools demos – the rooms, the globes, the animations… that was all created after I said, ‘Fortnite is too good to ruin in this demo.’ And by ruin I meant showing people a little, tiny bit of it – a little streak of world.”

Uncharted and Tomb Raider would be better if they weren’t shooters

Every action adventure game that tries to have a decent storyline runs into the dichotomy of the protagonist having to shoot hundreds of people because of how the game is designed. The problem is a simple mismatch of genres.

Possibly the most famous question in the gaming community is, “How can Uncharted’s Nathan Drake be an everyman if he kills a thousand people over the course of the game?” The new Tomb Raider has run into the same problem. Near the beginning, players see protagonist Lara Croft freak out the first time she kills a person, and five minutes later, she’s mowing people down by the dozens. Don’t even get me started on Call of Duty.
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SEGA Adds Disclaimer to Aliens Trailers

SEGA Europe has agreed to add disclaimers to trailers for Aliens: Colonial Marines acknowledging that they do not reflect the final game, as a result of a complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority by Reddit user subpardave.

The Redditor originally contacted the ASA to complain that trailers for the game that claimed to be in-game footage bore almost no resemblence to the final game, and were misrepresentative. "I submitted my complaint based on the absurd differences between the 'in game' and 'playthorugh' footage that was widely used to advertise A:CM. Of course, the game looked and played NOTHING like what was shown to consumers," he wrote.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution Director's Cut improvements staying on Wii U

The revamped boss fights of Deus Ex: Human Revolution's Director's Cut on Wii U won't make the jump from to its home platforms, I'm sorry to say. While Wii U players will get to sneak and hack through the expanded fights, the rest of us will be forever stuck shooting faces.

"Our goal right off the bat was not to make a port," designer Emile Pedneault told The Penny Arcade Report. "We really wanted to take this opportunity working on the game again to just change what was ehh, so-so with the game and bring some new features to the game."

Reloaded Games takes freemium APB back to pay-for-play with APB: Vendetta

Here’s an interesting way to turn a free-to-play property back into a pay-to-play franchise.

A massively multiplayer Grand Theft Auto-style game from David Jones, creator of the billion-dollar Grand Theft Auto franchise, looked like a home run on paper. An open world, very slick character customization, and emergent gameplay where any criminal activity immediately flagged a proportional response from legalized vigilantes just couldn’t lose. But APB: All Points Bulletin’s great ideas crashed headfirst into a disastrous execution anchored to a fading dinosaur of a business model — the monthly subscription fee. Before even making it to the three-month mark, Realtime went into administration and turned the APB servers off, effectively killing the game on September 16, 2010.
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IGN Hangouts: Olympus Has Fallen With Gerard Butle

Olympus Has Fallen, the new action thriller from Antoine Fuqua (Training Day), is in UK cinemas on Wednesday, April 17th and we've got the film's star Gerard Butler coming to IGN's London office to answer your questions in a Hangout that we'll be livestreaming to the internet.

The Scottish actor plays former Secret Service agent Mike Banning, who attempts to rescue the President from a besieged White House which has been overrun by terrorists. We described Olympus Has Fallen as "old-fashioned, ass-kicking action" in the IGN review which you can read here.

Leisure Suit Larry HD remake coming in late May

That lovable loser Larry Laffer is getting remade in HD, but unfortunately his coming out party is going to be a bit delayed. An update on the Leisure Suit Larry HD Kickstarter page reveals that the game will be coming out in late May "at the earliest."

Paul Trowe, head of developer Replay Games, revealed the news, saying his 13 years in QA won't let him "ship a buggy product." He also confirmed the pre-production of a free-to-play Larry casino game, and another LSL in the pipeline, be it a remake of LSL 2 or an all new Larry 8.
Trowe was practically giddy about the game when he showed it at GDC. He emphasizes that the game is not about sex, but Larry's attempt to lose his virginity. As the player, you need to keep Larry safe from sexual diseases, mad pimps and bad situations in general.

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Torchlight II releases mod tools and Steam Workshop support

 RPG Torchlight II has been updated with the inclusion of GUTS, developer Runic Games' custom editor for the game, and full integration with the Steam Workshop.

Interested modders can now create and distribute custom Torchlight II maps, quests, skills, and items. A mod manager is included, which gives players the ability to automatically obtain and subscribe to collections of mods.

When playing modded games, players can set the loading order of mods, view the mod history, and be told the potential impact of disabling any modifications before doing so.

DayZ could get a console release, Sony “obviously interested”

DayZ standalone could release on the consoles, according to creator Dean Hall’s comments at GDC.

He told The Escapist that if the PC version turns out to be successful maybe the console version could come out as well. Sony has shown interest in the game and it is also the “kind of game that Sony are interested in”, Hall added.

“Certainly I think if we don’t, for want of a better word ‘fuck up,’ the PC release then I would say a console port is almost certain,” he revealed. “I know a lot of people get really hot and bothered about it. Like, I’m not a console gamer, I’m a PC gamer, but I don’t think it necessarily has to hurt things.”

Moebius adventure gets an alpha story trailer

Pinkerton Road's adventure game Moebius has been flying under the radar since it was crowdfunded in May of last year. But a new gameplay trailer showing off an alpha build of the game should help pique interest in Jane Jensen's new title.

The game will follow Malachi Rector as he follows the trail of a dead politician's wife. He has a photographic memory and a keen sense of history that aids him in his travels. The video offers a little bit of the game play mechanics, but is more a story tease than anything else. Kickstarter backers have gotten a copy of the early game to provide feedback on the game's future direction.

The game is expected to come out on PC, Mac, Linux and iPad sometime later this year.

Injustice: Gods Among Us free demo hits April 4

Warner Bros. has confirmed a free demo for the upcoming NetherRealm DC fighter, Injustice: Gods Among Us.

The demo--to be released on the Xbox 360 and PS3--will feature Batman, Wonder Woman and Lex Luthor in the Gotham City arena.

The demo will be available from April 4 on the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Marketplace.

The publisher also announced Black Adam will feature as an in-game character when Injustice: Gods Among Us is released in North America on April 16. The game will launch on the Xbox 360, PS3, and Wii U.
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