Jul 29
Maybe Microsoft isn’t losing as much money on consoles as previously thought. According to news and rumor site Fudzilla, cost improvements for the Xbox 360 Slim have the Redmond giant making more money on its console than ever before, which could result in upcoming price cuts.
“According to our sources, it is likely that Microsoft will drop the prices of both the low-end and high-end models by as much as $50 next year,” Fudzilla says. “It is already being suggested that the news could come as soon as E3 next year.”
What’s more, Fudzilla says its sources have also indicated a two-phase price drop for the Kinect. The first is rumored to come when Microsoft drops the Adventures pack-in title, and then another closer to the holiday shopping season in 2011.
written by cimaul
\\ tags: Xbox 360
Jul 29
A key PlayStation Move-compatible title won’t be launching until 2011. Zipper Interactive confirmed today on their official website that SOCOM 4 has been delayed.
While the game was playable at both GDC and E3, it seems that it wasn’t quite ready. Zipper didn’t say why the game has been delayed, but they did say that they didn’t want to take “any shortcuts.”
“Instead, we want to deliver the best and most immersive SOCOM game we possibly can and we’re going to use our extra time to do just that,” Zipper Interactive community manager Jeremy Dunham wrote.
SOCOM 4 was originally slated for this fall, making it a key cog in the launch of the PlayStation Move. While SOCOM 4 doesn’t have an official release date, the new 2011 window puts it close to Killzone 3, which is slated for next February.
We’ll let you know when Zipper announces a new release date.
written by cimaul
\\ tags: game, Playstation
Jul 19
The Disciples games had their own comfortable sub-niche in the genre of fantasy strategy. Unlike games with finicky tactical combat, Disciples focused on the units moving around the strategic maps. Battles played out quickly on a simple grid rather than the extensive, chess-like encounters that characterized games like King’s Bounty, Heroes of Might and Magic, Master of Magic, and Age of Wonders. It was simple, fluid, and uniquely slick.
But for whatever reason, Disciples III has decided to be like the competition. Now it’s virtually identical to King’s Bounty and Heroes of the Might and Magic, except for the fact that it’s nowhere near as good as either of them. If you’re going to compromise your unique identity, the worst thing you can do is do it poorly.
There’s almost nothing to recommend the new tactical battles, especially since the A.I. is unable to play them in any meaningful way. For instance, there are special squares on the map that give units a bonus. The A.I. is absolutely unaware of these. A cover system lets melee units defend frail neighbors, which is a great way to lend the tactical battles a sense of actual tactics by encouraging units to stay together. The A.I. has no sense of this. The A.I. has no idea how to effectively use unit abilities, ranged fire, spells, and so forth. This is a classic example of how a strategy game is utterly undone when it doesn’t have a competent A.I. Continue reading »
written by cimaul
\\ tags: game, PC, RPG
Jul 15
Previews
Before you hunker down for multiplayer stabbing at Comic-Con, here’s some advice to help you not get stabbed a lot.
Early on in Assassin’s Creed 2, you run across a room full of, er, “Animii” (shortly before his departure, former Ubisoft creative director Patrice Desilets confirmed that this is the proper plural form of “Animus”), and because at that point you’re simply running away, there’s little-to-no explanation as to what this room full of Animii is for. Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood finally answers that question: said room is a gigantic training room for Templars to learn how to be Assassins.
If you’re curious about the single-player and the lore stuff that happens in this follow-up to AC2, then check out the video below for a quick tour of stuff like improved villas and having a fully rendered Rome as your open-world playground. If you’re curious about what it will be like to play a multiplayer version of Assassin’s Creed, you actually have a chance to do just that — provided that you hit up San Diego Comic Con next week. For those of you who will, here’re some advanced tips so that you don’t suck as much as I do when playing. Continue reading »
written by cimaul
\\ tags: PC, player, PS3, Ubisoft, Xbox 360
Jul 14
While titular character DeathSpank attempts to convince an orphan girl to get into his bag (there’s context to this, which I will leave for you to discover for yourself in-game), she demands that he find her a cell phone. You then have to choose from a bevy of adventure game dialogue-style options, one of which expresses confusion with, “What does an orphan need a cell phone for?” To which she replies, “To update my blog, of course!”
That is the kind of humor that peppers DeathSpank (the game): a sort of deadpan absurdity where pretty much anything — no matter how anachronistic or fourth-wall-breaking — gets said as naturally as we would discuss the time of day. The unflinching delivery of some of the most surprising and out-of-left-field (yet flowing and not at all awkward) dialogue makes DeathSpank simply one of the funniest games to watch and listen to. The script, filled with references and quips covering topics from fantasy RPG tropes to the secret history of felt to the value of unicorn excrement to even sly references to other games, positively shines with classic designer Ron Gilbert’s influence. The jokes hit on so many topics that something is bound to make you chuckle — multiple times even. Even the diverse color palette, the Animal Crossing-esque “on-a-hill” perspective, and the visual gags, along with the voiced dialogue, all make DeathSpank a charming standout compared to other games of its ilk. Continue reading »
written by cimaul
\\ tags: game, PC, PS3, RPG, Xbox 360
Jul 13
When the first Dragon Age 2 details were revealed last week, it sounded a lot like the game was moving away from the classic RPG roots of the first title and more toward the hybrid action-RPG style of BioWare’s other big franchise, Mass Effect. Now new details are hitting the net from Game Informer’s cover feature on Dragon Age 2 (via Kotaku), and they’re only strengthening that supposition.
For starters, the story confirms that with Dragon Age 2’s new hero, Hawke, being fully voiced, the game will eschew the dialogue trees of the first Dragon Age for a “dialogue wheel” system similar to Mass Effect. One new wrinkle, though, is that Dragon Age 2’s dialogue wheel will show you exactly what type of response each option will give, noting whether it’s “anger” or “flirting,” and so on.
Interestingly, though, a whole new character with his (or her) own personality doesn’t mean everything you did in the first Dragon Age doesn’t matter. Dragon Age 1 save files can still be transferred over to Dragon Age 2, which actually begins during the final moments of the first game. Continue reading »
written by cimaul
\\ tags: PC, RPG
