Jul 06 2010
Rob Donald called it back in May: “I am totally expecting to see … a perfect recreation of The Last Supper in someone’s end zone.” The Backbreaker producer hasn’t been proven right yet, but one artist is hard at work. More »
Jul 06 2010
According to an email sent out to folks signed up for the Might & Magic Heroes Kingdoms newsletter, the game is nearing its beta stage of development. The site is fairly spare and some of it is in French but there is an indication in the newsletter that registering on the site will make users eligible for the beta.
Jul 06 2010
Although we’re not yet finished with 2010, it seems to have developed a pattern of games going free-to-play. Add Monato Espirit to that list, as the game has recently moved from its own rather unique model for payments to a more traditional setup. Conversions of the sort usually come with mixed excitement and trepidation from the community, but it looks as if the response has been fairly uniform in its positivity, as the game’s prior model was at once more open and more restrictive.
Under the old model, the game used purchasable MetaTix as its main currency — it eschewed NPC vendors and gold drops in favor of tradable MetaTix to fuel the economy. The changed experience offers a far more traditional setup with in-game money and an in-game cash shop to facilitate microtransactions. While new business models are always interesting, it would appear this one wasn’t tremendously beloved by Monato Espirit’s players, meaning that the game’s shift has been welcomed with open arms.
[Thanks to Alex for the tip! ]
Filed under: Fantasy, Business models, Economy, Game mechanics, Free-to-play
Monato Esprit switches to a traditional free-to-play model originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 06 Jul 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Jul 06 2010
Now that Sega’s Japanese gangster series is kicking its way to the PSP with Yakuza: Black Panther, Sega is obligated to make a custom case…. in faux patent alligator! It’s part of the Yakuza: Black Panther limited edition package. [Andriasang] More »
Jul 06 2010
NHL Slapshot, EA Sports’ upcoming hockey title on the Wii, was one of a few sports games I got no hands-on time with at E3. So I missed the boat regarding its core offerings. This video spells it all out. More »
Jul 06 2010
Now that they’re working on Dungeon Siege 3 for Square Enix, are there any other Square Enix series the company would like a stab at? “Chrono Trigger,” says CEO Feargus Urquhart. More »
Jul 06 2010
Service-based viewers for Second Life are a little different to the standard kind of viewer software that users might be used to. Standard viewers are downloaded to your PC, run on them and talk directly to the servers. Service-based viewers (also sometimes referred to as ‘cloud-based’) are either running on a remote server through a web interface, or running on a cloud (or other remote system) and sending data and graphics to a thin client that you run locally. The ill-fated Vollee client was one such example, and Comverse is another.
Most of the (relatively few) extant viewers for mobile devices (iPhones, iPads, et al), and web-based Second Life viewers like AJAX Life are service-based viewers, and Linden Lab seems bent on closing them down.
Continue reading Linden Lab guns for service-based Second Life viewers
Filed under: Business models, News items, Opinion, Second Life, Mobile, Legal, Virtual worlds
Linden Lab guns for service-based Second Life viewers originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 06 Jul 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Jul 06 2010
Crackdown was as addictive as the drug referenced in the game’s title. But the second hit of cybernetically enhanced crime-fighting action doesn’t get you nearly as high.
Easily the sleeper hit of 2007, the original Crackdown was an intoxicating combination of Super Mario and Grand Theft Auto. You ran at lightning speed around an open city, killing waves of enemies, and could also punch people to death in seconds and leap obscenely high. The game created by this potent mix was simple, addictive fun.
The Mature-rated Crackdown 2, available Tuesday for Xbox 360, is a letdown. At first, it recaptures that old feeling — leaping about the city, collecting orbs that enhance your powers, all footloose and fancy-free. But a few hours in, the game starts to get repetitive, boring and occasionally frustrating.
Yes, bringing a few friends in to play cooperatively can help with all these things. But perhaps building the game around co-op play is what messed everything up.
You can drive vehicles in Crackdown 2, but why would someone who can leap across skyscrapers need a car?
Images courtesy Microsoft
Like its predecessor, Crackdown 2 is light on storyline. You’re an agent working for a corrupt government, and your city is under attack from two different groups: a bunch of zombielike freaks and a “terrorist” organization called Cell. It’s pretty much apparent from the beginning that the agency’s goons are the real jerks (inasmuch as that fact was revealed at the end of the last game) and the Cell is the good guys, but you have little choice other than to kill them all anyway.
The agency’s solution to the problem of the freaks is called Project Sunburst, and it involves placing beacons throughout the city to gather power in hopes of setting off an explosion that blasts the freaks to kingdom come.
That’s pretty much what you do for the next six hours: Climb up buildings and trigger power-emitting devices on the rooftops, then drop a beacon and defend it from freaks until it’s fully charged. Wash, rinse, repeat until the game ends abruptly.
This is a pretty radical departure from the previous game’s design. In the original Crackdown, you were tasked with taking down a series of crime lords. Each was holed up inside his stronghold, surrounded by minions. You could go in with guns blazing, but there was usually a better way — if you upgraded your jumping ability, you could usually sneak up the side of the building, leap in through a window and punch the boss to death before his guys even noticed you.
Taking the back door sometimes required more work, but it felt like you were putting all that superhuman agility to use. Feeling like you’d just broken the game was intoxicating, even if it was what the designers intended you to do all along.
I got this feeling just once in Crackdown 2: There was a power point located on an offshore island, and I climbed up the cliff face on the back to get to it. Every other point in the game is just plopped on top of some random building that is trivial to climb, staffed with enemies who pose no threat.
And then, to get the beacons online, you have to drop down into a pit full of freaks, and massacre them before they destroy the thing. These fights start out feeling a bit out of place: Who planted all these big set-piece firearms battles in my game about jumping and punching?
Later, once the Freaks get bigger and stronger, it becomes annoying to have to try the beacon missions over and over. I didn’t even bother attempting the last few on my own — I just called in some co-op buddies, at which point the missions went from frustrating to mindless. We had more fun, although the ratio of complaints to laughter in our in-game chatter was a bit on the high side.
Crackdown 2 is still based on a fun mechanic. I had the best time when I ignored all the missions that were flashing on my map and went around collecting agility orbs. These are placed at the tops of buildings and boost your athletic powers, letting you jump even higher and farther to reach — yes, more agility orbs. New renegade orbs run away from you, leading you on rooftop chases, but I stopped going after them when I realized I could get bigger boosts by hunting down more of the stationary orbs.
The game’s approach to cooperative play is also worthy of commendation. Your character and your gameplay progress are saved separately. This means you can bring your character into a friend’s game and power him up — any orbs you haven’t found yet in your own game will be there in your friend’s, so you are still making progress even when you’re helping a pal finish his own story. (The only real issue I had was that when we finished the game together, it unceremoniously booted all my co-op buddies offline while I watched the credits.)
Crackdown 2 seems like it was built around cooperative gameplay. The take-down-the-drug-lord mechanic of the previous game worked best for a solo agent, whereas the sequel’s power points and beacon-defense missions are designed for four.
An interesting experiment? Sure. But the changes to the game design have all but removed the most-fun parts while emphasizing the game’s weaknesses. Whoops.
WIRED Unique gameplay, decent co-op play, amusing voiceovers, pretty music.
TIRED Missions that alternate between boring and frustrating, no great climbing moments, anticlimactic ending.
$60, Microsoft
Rating: 
Read Game|Life’s game ratings guide.
See Also:
Jul 06 2010
The people who make the PlayStation have received their share of flak for creating systems that were tougher to make games for than their competitors. That’s something PlayStation big boss Kaz Hirai wants to change. More »