THQ recently debuted the Saint's Row: The Third character creation tool - dubbed Initiation Station - prior to the game's scheduled release to give fans a chance to create and upload custom characters that will be available to all players on day one. For fans, it's a great opportunity to play with the creation tools, which have the kind of fine granularity it takes to make a character that looks exactly how they want. For people with more twisted minds, it affords the opportunity to make avatars that look like famous people, and put them in weird costumes.
Saints Row: The Third's Initiation Station
For instance, you can do a pretty decent looking Hulk, thanks to the extended options for skin color in Initiation Station. You can do natural flesh tones as well as less expected colors like green or silver, opening up the possibility of doing a lot of different comic book-inspired characters.
You can always take a crack at doing real-life people as well. Here is my attempt at creating an avatar the looks like Sarah Palin:
Saints Row: The Third's Initiation Station
Not bad if I say so myself, though the hair and the glasses aren't quite right. You are still somewhat constrained by the items developer Volition has given you. Also, I think Hulk looks better in that outfit:
Saturday, October 29, 2011
RolePlayers' Realm XXII: Another Mail Call (and Pandas)!
A few hours before Blizzard announced Mists of Pandaria, our fearless leader Julian Rignall made it clear that he thought adding the Pandarens as a playable race would be a "jump the shark" moment for the entire franchise. Then Blizzard went and did just that, and Julian said that he was excited for WoW all over again. He explains his change of heart along with WoW veteran Karen Chu in the first segment, while I explain why even I'm a little excited for the expansion (hint: Pokemon).
In the second segment, Bob returns to save the podcast once again with another mail call. You, dear listeners, helped as well, of course. You answered the Bat Signal when I put out the call for contributions, this week's topic being, "How did you get into RPGs." The lesson I learned? Our listeners are pretty darn hardcore.
Next time: Lord of the Rings: War in the North!
Full recap below!
Subscribe on iTunes!
Or add us on your RSS Feed!
Episode Breakdown: Download it now!
0:00 | Theme & Introduction
0:30 | World of Warcraft Expansion w/ Karen and Julian
27:45 | Mail Call II w/ Bob Mackey
01:12:35 | Musical Interlude: Track 09 (Dragon Quest)
01:37:30 | Outtro & Next Episode
In the second segment, Bob returns to save the podcast once again with another mail call. You, dear listeners, helped as well, of course. You answered the Bat Signal when I put out the call for contributions, this week's topic being, "How did you get into RPGs." The lesson I learned? Our listeners are pretty darn hardcore.
Next time: Lord of the Rings: War in the North!
Full recap below!
Subscribe on iTunes!
Or add us on your RSS Feed!
Episode Breakdown: Download it now!
0:00 | Theme & Introduction
0:30 | World of Warcraft Expansion w/ Karen and Julian
27:45 | Mail Call II w/ Bob Mackey
01:12:35 | Musical Interlude: Track 09 (Dragon Quest)
01:37:30 | Outtro & Next Episode
Mario Kart Gets Gritty in New Indie Film
One of the cooler video-game-themed movies part of G4's Film Festival is Kart Driver, which features a much darker take on Nintendo's Mario Kart series.
Written and directed by Drew Daywalt, Kart Driver follows Mario as he attempts to save his girlfriend Pauline and defeat what's probably the ugliest interpretation of Donkey Kong we've seen.
Written and directed by Drew Daywalt, Kart Driver follows Mario as he attempts to save his girlfriend Pauline and defeat what's probably the ugliest interpretation of Donkey Kong we've seen.
Postal 3 is Not Dead, Coming to Steam on December 10
After years without any kind of an update on Running With Scissors' Postal III, the company has officially announced that the game will finally be coming to PC through Steam on December 10th.
Postal III sees the return of the "Postal Dude" as he wreaks havoc in the town Catharsis, as well as some special celebrity guests including none other than Ron Jeremy.
While only the PC release date has been announced so far, the developer says that they are still planning on eventually releasing the game on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, too.
Postal III sees the return of the "Postal Dude" as he wreaks havoc in the town Catharsis, as well as some special celebrity guests including none other than Ron Jeremy.
While only the PC release date has been announced so far, the developer says that they are still planning on eventually releasing the game on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, too.
James Cameron: The Future of Games is 3D
James Cameron ushered in a new format when he created Avatar. And not just on the big screen. The Oscar-winning director is also committed to ensuring the new 3D video games he's involved with reach the same high quality as his films.
James Cameron: The Future of Games is 3D
Say "No" to Cheap 3D
Since Cameron's Avatar became a huge movie sensation, Hollywood has stepped up production of 3D movies and oversaturated the ever-growing number of theaters with 2D movies converted to shoddy 3D experiences, such as Clash of the Titans, The Last Airbender, and Drive Angry 3D. The deluge of movies (and some games) with gimmicky, tacked-on 3D has been damaging to the reputation of modern 3D entertainment.
"Hollywood has to stop doing cheap 3D conversions," Cameron says. "If they're going to do conversions, they have to do them right -- and at a high quality. The way I like to put it is that we're still in the wild, wild West. We don't have the standards. People are launching off in all different directions, and it's going to take a while for it to all settle down. But it's the best practices that matter most for this industry. If you think about it, the 3D industry is very early, so we're the equivalent of 1905 in the film world."
Passive vs. Active 3D
Meanwhile, on the home front, 3D TV sales have not skyrocketed, partially because of competing technologies from companies like Vizio, Panasonic, Toshiba, Sony, and Sharp. Walk into a Best Buy and even the sales people might not be able to explain the difference between active and passive 3D TVs (passive technology utilizes the same type of glasses you wear in theaters, while active technology like Nvidia 3D Vision employs more cumbersome glasses, which shutter images extremely quickly to create depth).
The technologies are not compatible with each other, and just as we've seen happen in the battle between Blu-ray and HD-DVD, one format will prevail, leaving those who bet on the wrong 3D technology out of luck. Right now, passive technology seems to be gaining favor, especially since new 1080p passive technology corrects the one complaint videophiles have raised around that 3D technology: 3D TVs previously had to split the HD image resolution in half.
"What I think we did wrong with the Avatar game was to release it before the film opened." -- James Cameron
"It's all going to go passive," Cameron says. "There are new screens that we've seen that are not on the market yet that are spectacular. They're actually gorgeous. They're the cheap plastic Polaroid glasses, and you just can all sit there on the couch together. And if the kids break them, it doesn't matter. That's a far cry from where we are right now with these $100 active glasses that have to be plugged in and charged up—and if the dog eats one, it's a big drama."
Why the Avatar Game Failed
The 3D debate is heating up in gaming as well, and it seems to have more critics than fans -- at least from the outside. Within the game industry, developers seem excited about 3D's potential. With Sony, Nintendo, and Nvidia all trumpeting 3D games -- and key publishers like Ubisoft committing half of their titles to the 3D format -- 3D isn't going to go away. But it's still in its early stages. Even Cameron's first video game project, Ubisoft's James Cameron's Avatar: The Video Game, failed to ride the coattails of the film's success.
"What I think we did wrong with the Avatar game was to release it before the film opened," Cameron admits. "I think that the Avatar brand hadn't been well enough established yet since the film hadn't opened. And the game got lost in the pre-Christmas rush with all the other big titles and sequels, and it didn't do as well as everybody hoped it would. I think there were lessons learned and things we need to do better."
James Cameron: The Future of Games is 3D
Say "No" to Cheap 3D
Since Cameron's Avatar became a huge movie sensation, Hollywood has stepped up production of 3D movies and oversaturated the ever-growing number of theaters with 2D movies converted to shoddy 3D experiences, such as Clash of the Titans, The Last Airbender, and Drive Angry 3D. The deluge of movies (and some games) with gimmicky, tacked-on 3D has been damaging to the reputation of modern 3D entertainment.
"Hollywood has to stop doing cheap 3D conversions," Cameron says. "If they're going to do conversions, they have to do them right -- and at a high quality. The way I like to put it is that we're still in the wild, wild West. We don't have the standards. People are launching off in all different directions, and it's going to take a while for it to all settle down. But it's the best practices that matter most for this industry. If you think about it, the 3D industry is very early, so we're the equivalent of 1905 in the film world."
Passive vs. Active 3D
Meanwhile, on the home front, 3D TV sales have not skyrocketed, partially because of competing technologies from companies like Vizio, Panasonic, Toshiba, Sony, and Sharp. Walk into a Best Buy and even the sales people might not be able to explain the difference between active and passive 3D TVs (passive technology utilizes the same type of glasses you wear in theaters, while active technology like Nvidia 3D Vision employs more cumbersome glasses, which shutter images extremely quickly to create depth).
The technologies are not compatible with each other, and just as we've seen happen in the battle between Blu-ray and HD-DVD, one format will prevail, leaving those who bet on the wrong 3D technology out of luck. Right now, passive technology seems to be gaining favor, especially since new 1080p passive technology corrects the one complaint videophiles have raised around that 3D technology: 3D TVs previously had to split the HD image resolution in half.
"What I think we did wrong with the Avatar game was to release it before the film opened." -- James Cameron
"It's all going to go passive," Cameron says. "There are new screens that we've seen that are not on the market yet that are spectacular. They're actually gorgeous. They're the cheap plastic Polaroid glasses, and you just can all sit there on the couch together. And if the kids break them, it doesn't matter. That's a far cry from where we are right now with these $100 active glasses that have to be plugged in and charged up—and if the dog eats one, it's a big drama."
Why the Avatar Game Failed
The 3D debate is heating up in gaming as well, and it seems to have more critics than fans -- at least from the outside. Within the game industry, developers seem excited about 3D's potential. With Sony, Nintendo, and Nvidia all trumpeting 3D games -- and key publishers like Ubisoft committing half of their titles to the 3D format -- 3D isn't going to go away. But it's still in its early stages. Even Cameron's first video game project, Ubisoft's James Cameron's Avatar: The Video Game, failed to ride the coattails of the film's success.
"What I think we did wrong with the Avatar game was to release it before the film opened," Cameron admits. "I think that the Avatar brand hadn't been well enough established yet since the film hadn't opened. And the game got lost in the pre-Christmas rush with all the other big titles and sequels, and it didn't do as well as everybody hoped it would. I think there were lessons learned and things we need to do better."
Namco Bandai Having a Pretty Big Mobile Sale, Because Halloween
Another holiday, another abundance of awesome sales events up 'till the end of the month. If you're more of a mobile-minded, on-the-go gamer, then you may want to check out some of these iPhone and Android games from Namco Bandai, on sale starting today:
Android:
More Brain Exercise - $2.99 -> $1.49
TNA Wrestling Impact - $4.99 -> $2.49
Isaac Newton’s Gravity - $1.99 -> $0.99
Ms. PAC-MAN - $2.99 -> $1.49
Pac-Man - $2.99 -> $1.49
Pac-Man Championship Edition - $2.99 -> $1.49
Pool Pro Online 3 - $2.99 -> $1.49
iPad/iPhone
Brain Exercise with Dr. Kawashima - $1.99 -> $0.99
Buccaneer Blitz - $2.99 -> $0.99
Fossil Feast - $1.99 -> $0.99
House of Glass - $4.99 (in-app) -> $1.99 (in-app)
Isaac Newton’s Gravity (iPad) - $4.99 (in-app) -> $1.99 (in-app)
Isaac Newton’s Gravity (iPhone) - $2.99 (in-app) -> $0.99 (in-app)
Mishap - $4.99 -> $1.99
Mooniacs - $1.99 -> $0.99
More Brain Exercise with Dr. Kawashima - $4.99 -> $1.99
More Brain Exercise with Dr. Kawashima HD - $6.99 -> $2.99
Mr. Driller - $1.99 -> $0.99
Ms. Pac-Man - $4.99 -> $1.99
Pac-Man - $4.99 -> $1.99
Pole Position: Remix - $2.99 -> $0.99
Pool Pro Online 3 - $1.99 -> $0.99
Puzzle Quest 2 - $4.99 -> $1.99
Star Trigon - $1.99 -> $0.99
Stroke of Midnight - $4.99 (in-app) -> $1.99 (in-app)
Tamagotchi: 'Round the World - $4.99 -> $1.99
Android:
More Brain Exercise - $2.99 -> $1.49
TNA Wrestling Impact - $4.99 -> $2.49
Isaac Newton’s Gravity - $1.99 -> $0.99
Ms. PAC-MAN - $2.99 -> $1.49
Pac-Man - $2.99 -> $1.49
Pac-Man Championship Edition - $2.99 -> $1.49
Pool Pro Online 3 - $2.99 -> $1.49
iPad/iPhone
Brain Exercise with Dr. Kawashima - $1.99 -> $0.99
Buccaneer Blitz - $2.99 -> $0.99
Fossil Feast - $1.99 -> $0.99
House of Glass - $4.99 (in-app) -> $1.99 (in-app)
Isaac Newton’s Gravity (iPad) - $4.99 (in-app) -> $1.99 (in-app)
Isaac Newton’s Gravity (iPhone) - $2.99 (in-app) -> $0.99 (in-app)
Mishap - $4.99 -> $1.99
Mooniacs - $1.99 -> $0.99
More Brain Exercise with Dr. Kawashima - $4.99 -> $1.99
More Brain Exercise with Dr. Kawashima HD - $6.99 -> $2.99
Mr. Driller - $1.99 -> $0.99
Ms. Pac-Man - $4.99 -> $1.99
Pac-Man - $4.99 -> $1.99
Pole Position: Remix - $2.99 -> $0.99
Pool Pro Online 3 - $1.99 -> $0.99
Puzzle Quest 2 - $4.99 -> $1.99
Star Trigon - $1.99 -> $0.99
Stroke of Midnight - $4.99 (in-app) -> $1.99 (in-app)
Tamagotchi: 'Round the World - $4.99 -> $1.99
Monday, October 24, 2011
Show And Tell: Terry Paton
Welcome to Show and Tell, a regular feature where we speak to indie devs about what they’re working on and what they’re releasing soon. Today we speak with Flash developer Terry Paton, who has made a living through making indie games for himself and others.
Can you introduce yourself and tell me a little bit about your studio?
My name is Terry Paton and I’m a Flash Game Developer. I work for myself, earning my living partly from my games and partly from client work. I have made over 100 personal Flash games (and I’ve made around 50 for clients, too).
I’ve worked with Flash making games for around eight years, working alone with my personal games, though recently I’ve started collaborating with others.
I have games out for the iPad, Android Phones, BlackBerry Playbook, and pretty much all my games are also online, free to play in a browser.
What game are you working on at the moment?
I’ve actively been working on three games recently and a few other side projects. My major work has been using the GPU accelerated Flash Player coming soon (called ‘Stage3D’ or ‘Molehill’), via a framework called ‘Flare3D’.
To put some perspective into why I’m working with this, I’ll backtrack a little. About a year and a half ago I started reaching a frustration point with Flash: performance bottlenecks were really becoming an issue, limiting the games I could make. I began looking at some alternatives, specifically tools that allowed multiple platform publishing. I experimented quite a bit and still felt a little frustrated that if I left Flash all the nuances of the platform that I’d learned to deal with would be gone, and I’d be starting from scratch learning how to deal with new problems. It’s around this time that while I was attending the annual Adobe MAX conference in Los Angeles last year, they announced GPU acceleration in the form of Stage3D.
This led me to experiment with various frameworks that tapped in to this new acceleration available to Flash, finally settling on using the Flare3D framework to test out making a game with. This game is Robot Arena, a simple game, pulling inspiration from a classic game on orisinal.com. I’ve designed the game with the intent of it being played on a touch screen device, as well as on the web and I feel it plays well in both formats.
I made Robot Arena as a 2D game, faking 3D effects, as the shift into using Stage3D and Flare3D was quite a learning curve. I wanted to keep things as close to what I knew with my first steps into this area. Robot Arena is ready, but not yet released. Here’s a video showing how it’s come out.
Can you introduce yourself and tell me a little bit about your studio?
My name is Terry Paton and I’m a Flash Game Developer. I work for myself, earning my living partly from my games and partly from client work. I have made over 100 personal Flash games (and I’ve made around 50 for clients, too).
I’ve worked with Flash making games for around eight years, working alone with my personal games, though recently I’ve started collaborating with others.
I have games out for the iPad, Android Phones, BlackBerry Playbook, and pretty much all my games are also online, free to play in a browser.
What game are you working on at the moment?
I’ve actively been working on three games recently and a few other side projects. My major work has been using the GPU accelerated Flash Player coming soon (called ‘Stage3D’ or ‘Molehill’), via a framework called ‘Flare3D’.
To put some perspective into why I’m working with this, I’ll backtrack a little. About a year and a half ago I started reaching a frustration point with Flash: performance bottlenecks were really becoming an issue, limiting the games I could make. I began looking at some alternatives, specifically tools that allowed multiple platform publishing. I experimented quite a bit and still felt a little frustrated that if I left Flash all the nuances of the platform that I’d learned to deal with would be gone, and I’d be starting from scratch learning how to deal with new problems. It’s around this time that while I was attending the annual Adobe MAX conference in Los Angeles last year, they announced GPU acceleration in the form of Stage3D.
This led me to experiment with various frameworks that tapped in to this new acceleration available to Flash, finally settling on using the Flare3D framework to test out making a game with. This game is Robot Arena, a simple game, pulling inspiration from a classic game on orisinal.com. I’ve designed the game with the intent of it being played on a touch screen device, as well as on the web and I feel it plays well in both formats.
I made Robot Arena as a 2D game, faking 3D effects, as the shift into using Stage3D and Flare3D was quite a learning curve. I wanted to keep things as close to what I knew with my first steps into this area. Robot Arena is ready, but not yet released. Here’s a video showing how it’s come out.
47 Billion Shots Were Fired In The Battlefield 3 Beta
Time for some fun with numbers! With the open beta for Battlefield 3 now over, developers DICE and publishers EA have shared some stats from the slaughterthon.
It’s the really big ones that grab you first, like 47 billion shots being fired, 1.5 billion kills being recorded or over 8 million players taking part.
But take a second look at that headshot figure. Someone shot another player’s head off from 635 metres away. My hat is off to you, sir/madam, on the proviso you don’t shoot my head from half a city away while I tip it.
One number missing, but one I’d love to see, is number of recorded users complaining they didn’t get enough time on Caspian Border. It probably gives the “shots fired” tally a run for its money.
It’s the really big ones that grab you first, like 47 billion shots being fired, 1.5 billion kills being recorded or over 8 million players taking part.
But take a second look at that headshot figure. Someone shot another player’s head off from 635 metres away. My hat is off to you, sir/madam, on the proviso you don’t shoot my head from half a city away while I tip it.
One number missing, but one I’d love to see, is number of recorded users complaining they didn’t get enough time on Caspian Border. It probably gives the “shots fired” tally a run for its money.
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Unboxing The Force In The Old Republic’s Collector’s Edition
Bioware has revealed the goods that make up Star Wars: The Old Republic‘s collector’s edition, which includes a Jedi Master’s journal, the official soundtrack, some in-game items and more.
This special version of the game is rounded out by a statue of Darth Malgus, a map of the galaxy, and a “security key” of some unexplained significance.
This special version of the game is rounded out by a statue of Darth Malgus, a map of the galaxy, and a “security key” of some unexplained significance.
The Heroes And Classes Of Blizzard DOTA
You’ve seen the video, now take a look at the character selection screens for Blizzard DOTA, showing off the four classes and iconic heroes taking up arms in Blizzard’s official StarCraft II mod.
This is as close as you’ll get to Blizzard Super Smash Bros.
This is as close as you’ll get to Blizzard Super Smash Bros.
Let’s Explore Zelda: Skyward Sword’s Lava Area
Nintendo
Let’s Explore Zelda: Skyward Sword’s Lava Area
By Stephen Totilo on October 22, 2011 at 9:00 AM
A few weeks ago, I played a lot of The Legend of Skyward Sword. I got up to what I’d call the lava temple, but Nintendo calls it the earth temple. OK. There’s lava in there, Nintendo.
I ran out of time while fighting through the temple. By then I realised that everything I’d seen in trailers had come from moments of the game leading up to that second temple in the game. Maybe I’d missed some trailers, but the feeling I got was that Nintendo’s really only shown us the beginning of Skyward Sword, despite how much they’ve appeared to reveal.
Today, they released a trio of trailers that show some of what I played in my final hours with the game. I’ll try to explain what’s going on…
First up, we’ve got the Eldin Volcano area. As with other areas in the game, you plummet to it from Skyloft, the hub world and main town of Skyward Sword. In this opening area, I met the Mogma, little ground-burrowers who taught Link how to use bomb plants. Since Skyward Sword uses Motion Plus, Nintendo’s designers are able to create challenges that require you to bowl bombs with a half-bowling/half-wrist-flicking motion. You can also toss bombs with an overhand throw. The bowling part was tricky — I had to do it standing up — but it enabled some clever puzzles. I liked some of the toss puzzles, one of which had me lobbing bombs into the holes on the shells of turtle-like enemies. A Nintendo rep told me I’d eventually be able to re-plant bomb plants, but I didn’t get to that.
I also acquired the Digging Mitts, which let Link dig up buried treasure. Nintendo wants people to think of the pre-dungeon areas as dungeons themselves. The Volcano area would qualify, as it was full of puzzles and required as much thought and ingenuinty as a Zelda dungeon usually does.
Let’s Explore Zelda: Skyward Sword’s Lava Area
By Stephen Totilo on October 22, 2011 at 9:00 AM
A few weeks ago, I played a lot of The Legend of Skyward Sword. I got up to what I’d call the lava temple, but Nintendo calls it the earth temple. OK. There’s lava in there, Nintendo.
I ran out of time while fighting through the temple. By then I realised that everything I’d seen in trailers had come from moments of the game leading up to that second temple in the game. Maybe I’d missed some trailers, but the feeling I got was that Nintendo’s really only shown us the beginning of Skyward Sword, despite how much they’ve appeared to reveal.
Today, they released a trio of trailers that show some of what I played in my final hours with the game. I’ll try to explain what’s going on…
First up, we’ve got the Eldin Volcano area. As with other areas in the game, you plummet to it from Skyloft, the hub world and main town of Skyward Sword. In this opening area, I met the Mogma, little ground-burrowers who taught Link how to use bomb plants. Since Skyward Sword uses Motion Plus, Nintendo’s designers are able to create challenges that require you to bowl bombs with a half-bowling/half-wrist-flicking motion. You can also toss bombs with an overhand throw. The bowling part was tricky — I had to do it standing up — but it enabled some clever puzzles. I liked some of the toss puzzles, one of which had me lobbing bombs into the holes on the shells of turtle-like enemies. A Nintendo rep told me I’d eventually be able to re-plant bomb plants, but I didn’t get to that.
I also acquired the Digging Mitts, which let Link dig up buried treasure. Nintendo wants people to think of the pre-dungeon areas as dungeons themselves. The Volcano area would qualify, as it was full of puzzles and required as much thought and ingenuinty as a Zelda dungeon usually does.
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Why Reach dissappoints me
What do firebombs, flamethrowers, fuel rod guns, maulers, missile pods, plasma cannons, SMGs, Spartan lasers, spike grenades, and spikers all have in common?
They’re all found in Halo 3 multiplayer but not in Halo: Reach multiplayer. Is this something that I find is excusable? Absolutely not. If there were a slew of new weapons to replace these in Reach I would consider it a fair trade off. However, this is not the case. While some weapons have been replaced with a similar type of gun (BR becomes DMR; Brute shot becomes a covenant brute shot) these others are a sign of not only stupidity, but overall laziness by the developers.
Halo has been using the same formula for nearly 10 years. It obviously works, unfortunately it works too well. It should be universally agreed (regardless of fanboy status) that the lack of weapons already created for halo 3 haven’t been transferred to Reach is bush-league. I’m sure it’s not too difficult to convert the weapons for Reach considering they had millions of dollars to make the game. And if that wasn’t stupid enough, it’s quite likely that we will find “new” DLC where we will be purchasing the same weapons we used mere years ago in Halo 3.
Why stop with ripping people off with weapons? Why not just throw together very few maps. That would be too mean though, so they went ahead and made levels using the forge feature. Creating levels that anybody could make with their copy. That wouldn’t be so bad, but some of these levels are terribly boring. Sure Cage is great, Asylum is good too, but the rest of the “forge” levels are quite terrible in my opinion.
And what happened to skill? I suck at Halo, don’t get me wrong, but even I could enjoy seeing a number next to my name proclaiming how terrible I was. (It was embarrassingly low) But at least we knew. With the Call of Duty XP system’s “Everybody is a winner!” approach, it destroys competitiveness. I hate it. I dominate Call of Duty, but nobody knows it because they only get to see my experience. Just like Reach is now. It’s ridiculous and shouldn’t be implemented in any game.
They’re all found in Halo 3 multiplayer but not in Halo: Reach multiplayer. Is this something that I find is excusable? Absolutely not. If there were a slew of new weapons to replace these in Reach I would consider it a fair trade off. However, this is not the case. While some weapons have been replaced with a similar type of gun (BR becomes DMR; Brute shot becomes a covenant brute shot) these others are a sign of not only stupidity, but overall laziness by the developers.
Halo has been using the same formula for nearly 10 years. It obviously works, unfortunately it works too well. It should be universally agreed (regardless of fanboy status) that the lack of weapons already created for halo 3 haven’t been transferred to Reach is bush-league. I’m sure it’s not too difficult to convert the weapons for Reach considering they had millions of dollars to make the game. And if that wasn’t stupid enough, it’s quite likely that we will find “new” DLC where we will be purchasing the same weapons we used mere years ago in Halo 3.
Why stop with ripping people off with weapons? Why not just throw together very few maps. That would be too mean though, so they went ahead and made levels using the forge feature. Creating levels that anybody could make with their copy. That wouldn’t be so bad, but some of these levels are terribly boring. Sure Cage is great, Asylum is good too, but the rest of the “forge” levels are quite terrible in my opinion.
And what happened to skill? I suck at Halo, don’t get me wrong, but even I could enjoy seeing a number next to my name proclaiming how terrible I was. (It was embarrassingly low) But at least we knew. With the Call of Duty XP system’s “Everybody is a winner!” approach, it destroys competitiveness. I hate it. I dominate Call of Duty, but nobody knows it because they only get to see my experience. Just like Reach is now. It’s ridiculous and shouldn’t be implemented in any game.
A day out at the Playstation Hub - Dublin
I saw a flyer in the city center a couple of weeks ago about something called “Playstation Hub” happening in the city center itself sometime soon. I decided to go home and search it up a few days later and found out that Playstation had brought a taste of the PS Move to Dublin for a number of weeks and I was stoked. We rarely ever get anything here in Ireland like this and I was looking forward to having a chance to play these new games that were listed and in trying the PS Move.
I decided to pop in today, if only for a short while, to see what it was all about. I happened to get there just 10 minutes after it opened and so the place was pretty empty which gave me a good chance to play all that I wanted to.
First up was Motorstorm Apocalypse (and in 3D!). I found it really, really fun I must say. I was never a big fan of the past Motorstorm games (granted, I barely played more than a demo of them) but this really appealed to me. The driving was pretty pacey and ferocious, car crashes really took apart your car at times. The boost system meant that if you power up your car too much it’ll catch on fire soon enough and have you off the track (or at least that’s what I interpreted was happening!). As for the 3D itself, I have to say I couldn’t really notice it that much. Maybe I didn’t have my glasses on properly as I rushed them on, or maybe it just takes some time to get used to.
Next up I gave LBP2 a shot, the game I was most looking forward to. I began in your pod as normal and had a selection of 4 levels to play from. I chose the first which threw me into a futuristic-looking level where a creature greeted me. I jumped down a chute and went on with it from there. I eventually stumbled on an in-level arcade which gave me a chance to play a game like Pong (although I can’t remember the exact name for this exact version of it). I continued on and found use of the jumping-pads and had a bit of fun with those and looked forward to learning how to use the grapple-hook. Unfortunately, the beta then froze (3 times) which I found to be a bit much, so I left it. But I’ll be back!
I saw a free spot at the Killzone 3 tv so I decided to give it a go. I was looking forward to Killzone 3 for a fair while this past year, but I’ll admit it’s fizzled out. Well, that was until I played this demo.
Superb graphics, much improved shooting mechanics, and quite frankly kick-ass scenery and battles and I’m psyched up for it again. You begin on a ship, shooting down a number of Helghast standing on platforms. You eventually crash and have to continue your journey on foot, but this is where it gets most fun. You continue on to a battle in the middle of a snowy field, blasting your way through and then continue on. Here I fount an enemy staring out a window so I thought I’d give the melee attack a go. My character whips out his knife, pins the enemy up against a wall and cuts him by the throat. All that in stunning HD grapics on a 40′ inch tv – yeah, it gave me goosebumps. The jetpacking action will have to wait unfortunately as I let another few guys play their way through the demo, but I’m in no doubt about Killzone 3 whatsoever now, this game is gonna be a blockbuster.
My first attempt as using the PS Move came with the Time Crisis booth. Thankfully no-one was around to see me flap around wildly trying to get the cursor on the menu move up and down, until I eventually realised I had to hold down a trigger button! I unfortunately couldn’t find any control menu, and so when I went into the game my aiming was all over the place. I couldn’t figure out how to aim my gun with decent accuracy at any enemy, and every time I thought I was finally getting somewhere, I realised that I was actually the one getting hit.
I gave Gran Turismo 5 a shot too. Bare in mind I hadn’t played a racing sim since the early PS2 era and have never been a big fan of them. The graphics were superb, as were the amount of options for customising your car for each particular track. There were 5 different tracks to choose from, along with about 10 different cars, of which I tried the Mercedes-Benz and the Ferrari Enzo. I found it pretty fun despite my horrible driving sim skills. I didn’t notice much car damage when I crashed (which I did, a lot) but maybe it was just the lack of a big impact that made that so. The only downside to that demo I found was that everything seemed so set and a bit dull admittedly during races. Each car went to the exact same side, slowed down at the exact same spot, turned in the exact same line, etc. But these sort of things are gonna happen with early demos like this, the main thing is that this demo serves it’s purpose – showing the GT fans how the game can play (with the added extras and tweaks that will come with the full game) and showing you what the full game can offer you.
I decided to pop in today, if only for a short while, to see what it was all about. I happened to get there just 10 minutes after it opened and so the place was pretty empty which gave me a good chance to play all that I wanted to.
First up was Motorstorm Apocalypse (and in 3D!). I found it really, really fun I must say. I was never a big fan of the past Motorstorm games (granted, I barely played more than a demo of them) but this really appealed to me. The driving was pretty pacey and ferocious, car crashes really took apart your car at times. The boost system meant that if you power up your car too much it’ll catch on fire soon enough and have you off the track (or at least that’s what I interpreted was happening!). As for the 3D itself, I have to say I couldn’t really notice it that much. Maybe I didn’t have my glasses on properly as I rushed them on, or maybe it just takes some time to get used to.
Next up I gave LBP2 a shot, the game I was most looking forward to. I began in your pod as normal and had a selection of 4 levels to play from. I chose the first which threw me into a futuristic-looking level where a creature greeted me. I jumped down a chute and went on with it from there. I eventually stumbled on an in-level arcade which gave me a chance to play a game like Pong (although I can’t remember the exact name for this exact version of it). I continued on and found use of the jumping-pads and had a bit of fun with those and looked forward to learning how to use the grapple-hook. Unfortunately, the beta then froze (3 times) which I found to be a bit much, so I left it. But I’ll be back!
I saw a free spot at the Killzone 3 tv so I decided to give it a go. I was looking forward to Killzone 3 for a fair while this past year, but I’ll admit it’s fizzled out. Well, that was until I played this demo.
Superb graphics, much improved shooting mechanics, and quite frankly kick-ass scenery and battles and I’m psyched up for it again. You begin on a ship, shooting down a number of Helghast standing on platforms. You eventually crash and have to continue your journey on foot, but this is where it gets most fun. You continue on to a battle in the middle of a snowy field, blasting your way through and then continue on. Here I fount an enemy staring out a window so I thought I’d give the melee attack a go. My character whips out his knife, pins the enemy up against a wall and cuts him by the throat. All that in stunning HD grapics on a 40′ inch tv – yeah, it gave me goosebumps. The jetpacking action will have to wait unfortunately as I let another few guys play their way through the demo, but I’m in no doubt about Killzone 3 whatsoever now, this game is gonna be a blockbuster.
My first attempt as using the PS Move came with the Time Crisis booth. Thankfully no-one was around to see me flap around wildly trying to get the cursor on the menu move up and down, until I eventually realised I had to hold down a trigger button! I unfortunately couldn’t find any control menu, and so when I went into the game my aiming was all over the place. I couldn’t figure out how to aim my gun with decent accuracy at any enemy, and every time I thought I was finally getting somewhere, I realised that I was actually the one getting hit.
I gave Gran Turismo 5 a shot too. Bare in mind I hadn’t played a racing sim since the early PS2 era and have never been a big fan of them. The graphics were superb, as were the amount of options for customising your car for each particular track. There were 5 different tracks to choose from, along with about 10 different cars, of which I tried the Mercedes-Benz and the Ferrari Enzo. I found it pretty fun despite my horrible driving sim skills. I didn’t notice much car damage when I crashed (which I did, a lot) but maybe it was just the lack of a big impact that made that so. The only downside to that demo I found was that everything seemed so set and a bit dull admittedly during races. Each car went to the exact same side, slowed down at the exact same spot, turned in the exact same line, etc. But these sort of things are gonna happen with early demos like this, the main thing is that this demo serves it’s purpose – showing the GT fans how the game can play (with the added extras and tweaks that will come with the full game) and showing you what the full game can offer you.
Thursday, October 20, 2011
How Many Players?
You've seen it, thought about it, pondered it in your mind. You see a game you might like to get and you flip it over to see if more than one person can play it at a time.
Sometimes this is the deciding factor for purchasing a game. Maybe you want to play it with your son, daughter, sibling, significant other, mom, or granddad. So you stand there at your favorite retailer and the game clearly states: 2 players.
Yep, you decide to grab the game, pony up your hard earned dough and head home for some local multiplayer mayhem. Only... it doesn't really turn out that way. You get the game in your favorite console, turn on the controller, and click start.
Only, now the game starts and there are no options for a 2 player game. What gives? Where is the other player?
Sometimes you have just been duped like in BattleField Bad Company 2. You get the "Ultimate Edition" that boasts the "Onslaught Mode" which has an "action packed co-op mode."
I was told that "Co-op" didn't mean local two player, but rather that you could play together with someone else online. REALLY!?!! It already states on the back "Network Players 2-24."
What a rip!
Saddened, you return to your favorite retailer and your 5 year old grabs a Wii game that has (comparatively for Wii games) gotten a good rating. You flip it over and lo! The number 2 is on the back. In fact, one of the screen shots shows 2 players and states play with a friend in 21 dedicated levels. Does this mean you are playing with your son? Nope. The two player mode is in "Eggman's Sonic Simulator." Is it truly 2 player (ala Super Mario Bros.)? Nope. If one of you falls behind, then that player is "dragged forward until stopped by a wall." Whatever that means.
These two are hardly the only culprits. There is not enough time in the day, or enough TB on this server to dedicate to all the games that purposefully advertise 2 or more players only to have the game be single player.
It is very simple, publishers. If a game is a single player game, don't try to gimmick it up to make it look like or seem like more than one player on a console can play it at a time. It is lying and doesn't encourage brand loyalty.
If you make a quality 1 player game and it wouldn't take too much to make it split screen go ahead... I am looking at you NFS: Hot Pursuit. Hell, if Toy Story 3 can do it, so can you.
But this is a serious plea for those of us who don't have limitless budgets: Please, just put the number of players on the back. Just the number that will play the main game.
Sometimes this is the deciding factor for purchasing a game. Maybe you want to play it with your son, daughter, sibling, significant other, mom, or granddad. So you stand there at your favorite retailer and the game clearly states: 2 players.
Yep, you decide to grab the game, pony up your hard earned dough and head home for some local multiplayer mayhem. Only... it doesn't really turn out that way. You get the game in your favorite console, turn on the controller, and click start.
Only, now the game starts and there are no options for a 2 player game. What gives? Where is the other player?
Sometimes you have just been duped like in BattleField Bad Company 2. You get the "Ultimate Edition" that boasts the "Onslaught Mode" which has an "action packed co-op mode."
I was told that "Co-op" didn't mean local two player, but rather that you could play together with someone else online. REALLY!?!! It already states on the back "Network Players 2-24."
What a rip!
Saddened, you return to your favorite retailer and your 5 year old grabs a Wii game that has (comparatively for Wii games) gotten a good rating. You flip it over and lo! The number 2 is on the back. In fact, one of the screen shots shows 2 players and states play with a friend in 21 dedicated levels. Does this mean you are playing with your son? Nope. The two player mode is in "Eggman's Sonic Simulator." Is it truly 2 player (ala Super Mario Bros.)? Nope. If one of you falls behind, then that player is "dragged forward until stopped by a wall." Whatever that means.
These two are hardly the only culprits. There is not enough time in the day, or enough TB on this server to dedicate to all the games that purposefully advertise 2 or more players only to have the game be single player.
It is very simple, publishers. If a game is a single player game, don't try to gimmick it up to make it look like or seem like more than one player on a console can play it at a time. It is lying and doesn't encourage brand loyalty.
If you make a quality 1 player game and it wouldn't take too much to make it split screen go ahead... I am looking at you NFS: Hot Pursuit. Hell, if Toy Story 3 can do it, so can you.
But this is a serious plea for those of us who don't have limitless budgets: Please, just put the number of players on the back. Just the number that will play the main game.
Hey Gaming Magazine Editor, Your Random, Tacked On Review is Wonky:
Critics of videogames have always had a strong voice in this industry. In the days of yore, a reviewer was truly someone on the inside, "in the know." These people played games (thoroughly) and reviewed them.
Now, I can't turn around without smacking my sackboy into a reviewer who thinks he/ she is an "expert" simply because the reviewer played a game here or there. These reviewers often don't have insider knowledge into the gaming industry and sometimes I wonder if even that would help them with their reviews.
Further, they don't seem to have (or take) the time to play the game through (or at least make a disclaimer that they haven't.) This is most evident in EGM's latest review of LBP2 where the reviewer said the Story Levels are better skipped.... Even though half of the game is Creation which is further enhanced by gaining materials, stickers, and decorations from the erm.... story modes.... skipping them would be stupid.
Lately reviews have turned more fanboyish where bias is evident within the reviews themselves. For instance, in one published review of LittleBigPlanet2, the reviewer stated that the multiplayer levels were "tacked on." I will allow you to digest that for a moment... or wait so you can finish laughing or blinking your eyes. I kid you not, the review actually stated this and claimed that it took away from the overall score of the game.
So this led me to think... I had heard "tacked on" before... and other ridiculous terms used to describe the games we so ardently play. I came to the conclusion that not only are these reviewers out of touch, but they parrot what someone else has said because they have no original thoughts on the game.
So, dear reader, the following terms will clue you into what entails one of these "not so well thought out" reviews:
Wonky - adj. wonkiness, Often used when referring to controllers. (ie: The controls in the game are wonky.) How about, "The controls didn't work the way I wanted them to and I refuse to use the options menu to change that."
Tacked On - vb. tack on, often used when referring to levels. (ie: The (pick one) multi/ single player levels feel tacked on.) Really? Do you even know what it means to make a game? And to claim something that took longer to program than it took for you to play it and write your trite review is "tacked on" is patently absurd.
Random - n often used when the reviewer can think of nothing bad to say. (ie the Physics are random; the gameplay is random; the graphics are random) Do you know how hard it would be to program random physics INTO a game and have them work?
Button Mashing - a vague reference to multiple button presses while playing a game (ie the worst part was the button mashing). Hmm?.. Like Yakuza 3 Button mashing (and I am not talking about the fighting part) or Street Fighter button mashing? Could you be more vague?
Cliche - n. synonyms: "also ran" & "clone" used when the reviewer doesn't know the difference between two entries in the same genre (ie This 1st person shooter is another clone.) Referring to something as cliche doesn't tell us anything. We don't have free access to tons of games and get to play them at work. Tell us what you mean. (Remember Journalism 101?)
1st Person - n. this is supposed to be used as a description of perspective. In reality, a first person game would allow you experience a narrator going through a series of obstacles. The 1st person uses I. The main character should view him/ herself this way. In reality, most shooters are 2nd person, whereas the player character is often referred to with the pronoun "you." (Like a choose your own adventure book.) A truly 1st person shooter would be like Duke Nukem (where the character is already established and doesn't change... 2nd person would allow for the player to be the character.)
Not swearing - if something is "shit" then tell me it is "shit" and not [expletive deleted]. If anything this industry needs, it is for its journalists to grow a pair and use freedom in their speech. I just played a game where zombies ripped apart another character and ZOMG!!!! you used "shit!" Wow... how offensive.
Grind - verb? - This has become a cliched, tacked on term that usually signals something is wrong. Grind has become something bad and when we see this in a review, then it has a negative connotation. So. I don't mind grinding, if it is done right. Dragon Quest does it right. Monsters are harder later on, but you don't have to go out and kill millions of helpless monsters just to get one ability point.
Hype - (used in conjunction with development time and resources) often added to reviews of sequels. (ie It doesn't live up to the hype.) What hype? The hype, you, the journalist heaped upon it? What is a measurement of hype? GT5 certainly had hype but based on what? How is it objective? UC2 was hyped as well and surpassed it... so... whose hype are we talking about? Review the damn game as a stand alone even if it has a 2 or a 13 after it. The developer didn't make the two games at the same time so your review shouldn't review it as such.
Thank you, dear reader, for your time.
And if you are an editor, please, enough with your cliched reviews. They are boring and tell us nothing.. I would rather read a well thought out and thoroughly researched article about one game, than 10 poorly written tacked on reviews for which the reviewer barely got past the opening creds.
So here is a review of your tired, cliched reviews:
Your Random Review of [Insert Game Title] for the [Insert Game System.] is trite. It is a poor example of critique. Your comments are wonky and your analysis is tacked on. It would be even more cliched had I not had to grind through all of the tacked on, random hype of your prowess as a reviewer. And since you have written a review before, it certainly doesn't live up to the standards previously set by your review of [insert other game title] for [insert favorite gaming system.]
Now, I can't turn around without smacking my sackboy into a reviewer who thinks he/ she is an "expert" simply because the reviewer played a game here or there. These reviewers often don't have insider knowledge into the gaming industry and sometimes I wonder if even that would help them with their reviews.
Further, they don't seem to have (or take) the time to play the game through (or at least make a disclaimer that they haven't.) This is most evident in EGM's latest review of LBP2 where the reviewer said the Story Levels are better skipped.... Even though half of the game is Creation which is further enhanced by gaining materials, stickers, and decorations from the erm.... story modes.... skipping them would be stupid.
Lately reviews have turned more fanboyish where bias is evident within the reviews themselves. For instance, in one published review of LittleBigPlanet2, the reviewer stated that the multiplayer levels were "tacked on." I will allow you to digest that for a moment... or wait so you can finish laughing or blinking your eyes. I kid you not, the review actually stated this and claimed that it took away from the overall score of the game.
So this led me to think... I had heard "tacked on" before... and other ridiculous terms used to describe the games we so ardently play. I came to the conclusion that not only are these reviewers out of touch, but they parrot what someone else has said because they have no original thoughts on the game.
So, dear reader, the following terms will clue you into what entails one of these "not so well thought out" reviews:
Wonky - adj. wonkiness, Often used when referring to controllers. (ie: The controls in the game are wonky.) How about, "The controls didn't work the way I wanted them to and I refuse to use the options menu to change that."
Tacked On - vb. tack on, often used when referring to levels. (ie: The (pick one) multi/ single player levels feel tacked on.) Really? Do you even know what it means to make a game? And to claim something that took longer to program than it took for you to play it and write your trite review is "tacked on" is patently absurd.
Random - n often used when the reviewer can think of nothing bad to say. (ie the Physics are random; the gameplay is random; the graphics are random) Do you know how hard it would be to program random physics INTO a game and have them work?
Button Mashing - a vague reference to multiple button presses while playing a game (ie the worst part was the button mashing). Hmm?.. Like Yakuza 3 Button mashing (and I am not talking about the fighting part) or Street Fighter button mashing? Could you be more vague?
Cliche - n. synonyms: "also ran" & "clone" used when the reviewer doesn't know the difference between two entries in the same genre (ie This 1st person shooter is another clone.) Referring to something as cliche doesn't tell us anything. We don't have free access to tons of games and get to play them at work. Tell us what you mean. (Remember Journalism 101?)
1st Person - n. this is supposed to be used as a description of perspective. In reality, a first person game would allow you experience a narrator going through a series of obstacles. The 1st person uses I. The main character should view him/ herself this way. In reality, most shooters are 2nd person, whereas the player character is often referred to with the pronoun "you." (Like a choose your own adventure book.) A truly 1st person shooter would be like Duke Nukem (where the character is already established and doesn't change... 2nd person would allow for the player to be the character.)
Not swearing - if something is "shit" then tell me it is "shit" and not [expletive deleted]. If anything this industry needs, it is for its journalists to grow a pair and use freedom in their speech. I just played a game where zombies ripped apart another character and ZOMG!!!! you used "shit!" Wow... how offensive.
Grind - verb? - This has become a cliched, tacked on term that usually signals something is wrong. Grind has become something bad and when we see this in a review, then it has a negative connotation. So. I don't mind grinding, if it is done right. Dragon Quest does it right. Monsters are harder later on, but you don't have to go out and kill millions of helpless monsters just to get one ability point.
Hype - (used in conjunction with development time and resources) often added to reviews of sequels. (ie It doesn't live up to the hype.) What hype? The hype, you, the journalist heaped upon it? What is a measurement of hype? GT5 certainly had hype but based on what? How is it objective? UC2 was hyped as well and surpassed it... so... whose hype are we talking about? Review the damn game as a stand alone even if it has a 2 or a 13 after it. The developer didn't make the two games at the same time so your review shouldn't review it as such.
Thank you, dear reader, for your time.
And if you are an editor, please, enough with your cliched reviews. They are boring and tell us nothing.. I would rather read a well thought out and thoroughly researched article about one game, than 10 poorly written tacked on reviews for which the reviewer barely got past the opening creds.
So here is a review of your tired, cliched reviews:
Your Random Review of [Insert Game Title] for the [Insert Game System.] is trite. It is a poor example of critique. Your comments are wonky and your analysis is tacked on. It would be even more cliched had I not had to grind through all of the tacked on, random hype of your prowess as a reviewer. And since you have written a review before, it certainly doesn't live up to the standards previously set by your review of [insert other game title] for [insert favorite gaming system.]
Chinese Couple Sells All Three Kids to Play Online Games
A young Chinese couple has sold all three of their children in exchange for money to play online Nick jr games at Internet cafes, reports a southern Chinese newspaper.
According to Sanxiang City News, the couple met in an Internet cafe back in 2007 and bonded over their obsession with online video games. A year later, the parents — who are both under 21 — welcomed their first child, a son. Days after his birth, they left him home alone while they went to play online agame at an Internet cafe 30 km away.
In 2009, Li Lin and Li Juan welcomed their second child, a baby girl, and came up with the idea to sell her for money to fund their online game obsession. They did so, receiving RMB 3,000 (less than $500), which they spent entirely shortly after. The couple then proceeded to sell their first child and got 10 times as much for him — RMB 30,000, or about $4600.
Upon having their third child — another boy — the parents followed in their previous footsteps and also got RMB 30,000 for him.
They were finally turned into authorities when Li Lin’s mother found out what her son and his girlfriend had done.
When asked if they missed their children, the parents answered, “We don’t want to raise them, we just want to sell them for some money.”
Sanxiang City Newsreports the couple didn’t know they were breaking the law.
According to Sanxiang City News, the couple met in an Internet cafe back in 2007 and bonded over their obsession with online video games. A year later, the parents — who are both under 21 — welcomed their first child, a son. Days after his birth, they left him home alone while they went to play online agame at an Internet cafe 30 km away.
In 2009, Li Lin and Li Juan welcomed their second child, a baby girl, and came up with the idea to sell her for money to fund their online game obsession. They did so, receiving RMB 3,000 (less than $500), which they spent entirely shortly after. The couple then proceeded to sell their first child and got 10 times as much for him — RMB 30,000, or about $4600.
Upon having their third child — another boy — the parents followed in their previous footsteps and also got RMB 30,000 for him.
They were finally turned into authorities when Li Lin’s mother found out what her son and his girlfriend had done.
When asked if they missed their children, the parents answered, “We don’t want to raise them, we just want to sell them for some money.”
Sanxiang City Newsreports the couple didn’t know they were breaking the law.
Official Pokemon Game Coming To Smartphones
The Pokemon Company is set to bring an official Pokemon Online game to smartphone devices, marking the first time that an official Nintendo-copyrighted app will be available on the iOS and Android.
Called Pokemon Iie Tap (rougly Pokemon: Say Tap?), the app appears to be a rhythm game where players “tap on Pokemon indigo trading cards to the beat of a song from the anime,” according to a translation by consumer video game site GamesRadar.
According to the game’s official announcement, it will be available for most iOS devices, as well as Android devices running version 2.1 of the platform.
Though this is the first iOS or Android application to carry an official Nintendo copyright, it is not the first mobile app of any kind: a Pokemon mobile phone game called Pokemate was released in Japan in 2006.
Though it is a rarity, Nintendo does have a history of releasing official games on platforms that are not its own, including a promotional Flash game to promote its Tingle character.
A release outside of Japan has not been announced.
Called Pokemon Iie Tap (rougly Pokemon: Say Tap?), the app appears to be a rhythm game where players “tap on Pokemon indigo trading cards to the beat of a song from the anime,” according to a translation by consumer video game site GamesRadar.
According to the game’s official announcement, it will be available for most iOS devices, as well as Android devices running version 2.1 of the platform.
Though this is the first iOS or Android application to carry an official Nintendo copyright, it is not the first mobile app of any kind: a Pokemon mobile phone game called Pokemate was released in Japan in 2006.
Though it is a rarity, Nintendo does have a history of releasing official games on platforms that are not its own, including a promotional Flash game to promote its Tingle character.
A release outside of Japan has not been announced.
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Disney-branded Facebook games coming in 2012, Playdom head says
Can we all just say, “finally?” During a panel named “The Rise of Social Games” at the f8 Facebook Developers Conference in San Francisco, Disney Interactive and Playdom head John Pleasants revealed that two to four Facebook games surrounding Disney xd brands will hit Facebook in 2012. The general topic of the panel was the fact that branded social games are taking off.
Pleasants was joined on the panel by Kabam CEO Kevin Chou, EA Interactive head Barry Cottle and Zynga CBO Owen Van Natta. Facebook director of games partnerships Sean Ryan moderated the panel with the preface that branded games will take over the Facebook platform. And he might be right: EA just released The Sims Social, Zynga will soon re-brand its new Adventure World with Indiana Jones and Kabam recently announced The Godfather: Five Families.
Playdom, which Disney acquired in July 2010 for a whopping $740 million, is ahead of the pack with two branded games on Facebook: ESPNU College Town and ESPN Sports Bar & Grill. Both games performed well, thanks to advertising through the ESPN TV network. While Disney owns the ESPN brand, notice how neither of those actually involve the insanely popular Disney characters we’ve come to love.
Honestly, we’re surprised this didn’t happen sooner. Consider this: Disney has its own cable TV channel through which it could, in theory, advertise whatever it wants. Pleasants didn’t get into why it’s taken this long for disney channel games to throw its cast of characters into Facebook games, but did reveal the power of the Disney name.
Gnome Town, which Playdom launched in the summer–and we enjoyed quite a bit–peaked at 530,000 daily players. But just plopping the Disney logo on top of the existing one made users more likely to spend in the game just through trust of the company’s name, according to Pleasants. “We think it’s an advantage, if you put game play first,” Pleasants said.
It’s comforting to hear this emphasized by these developers. (Kabam’s Chou shared the same sentiment.) Branded games on Facebook are OK in my book, but the last thing anyone wants to see is the genre become a branding machine.
Pleasants was joined on the panel by Kabam CEO Kevin Chou, EA Interactive head Barry Cottle and Zynga CBO Owen Van Natta. Facebook director of games partnerships Sean Ryan moderated the panel with the preface that branded games will take over the Facebook platform. And he might be right: EA just released The Sims Social, Zynga will soon re-brand its new Adventure World with Indiana Jones and Kabam recently announced The Godfather: Five Families.
Playdom, which Disney acquired in July 2010 for a whopping $740 million, is ahead of the pack with two branded games on Facebook: ESPNU College Town and ESPN Sports Bar & Grill. Both games performed well, thanks to advertising through the ESPN TV network. While Disney owns the ESPN brand, notice how neither of those actually involve the insanely popular Disney characters we’ve come to love.
Honestly, we’re surprised this didn’t happen sooner. Consider this: Disney has its own cable TV channel through which it could, in theory, advertise whatever it wants. Pleasants didn’t get into why it’s taken this long for disney channel games to throw its cast of characters into Facebook games, but did reveal the power of the Disney name.
Gnome Town, which Playdom launched in the summer–and we enjoyed quite a bit–peaked at 530,000 daily players. But just plopping the Disney logo on top of the existing one made users more likely to spend in the game just through trust of the company’s name, according to Pleasants. “We think it’s an advantage, if you put game play first,” Pleasants said.
It’s comforting to hear this emphasized by these developers. (Kabam’s Chou shared the same sentiment.) Branded games on Facebook are OK in my book, but the last thing anyone wants to see is the genre become a branding machine.
Capcom, Squeenix, Activision, Ubisoft; Fall of the titans
Greetings everyone.This is an opinionated piece, so don't get all worked out because I insulted your favourite game, tell me instead why do you like that game.
In all my years as a gamer, I've come to love and hate companies through their games, their marketing or their respective preachers.
Be it Sega vs Nintendo, you had your preferences, your colors, your technical data to counterattack in the playground time.
And that was an ok context if dealt with rational autocriticism, you could learn from others, or silently concede "victory" to your opponents when credit was due.
Not everyone was up to the simple task of being a damn human being, and the ocassional raging fanboy would burst in tears and throw you stones if you compared SNES Aladdin with MD Aladdin.It was like insulting his mother.Corporations started to carefully watch over gamer's passion and loyalty as consumers.
Then it got complex, SEGA had burnt fans irrespectfully, causing a huge exodus of people "joining" Sony and Nintendo.
At that point we had growing concerns with third parties, perhaps a Resident Evil version (Saturn) did not have transparencies and texture filtering was inferior, then, whose fault was? was it the hardware or the developer being lazy?
This situation escalated when traditional PC programmers joined the console realm in the sixth generation, like Epic.
Through the years, I did not learn programming , yet I learned programmers are not "lazy" just because a game is inferior in a platform.This, however, does not mean the console is "crippled" either.
The blame lies mostly in third party publishers, they grew exponentially this last 15 years, being now bigger than ever.They have almost absolute control over content, sequels, deadlines, budgets, and DRM.
Why? How? they absorbed dozens of tiny programming studios, aditionally media moguls and marketing lobbies literally bought whole companies just because they were beginning to give more revenue than movies.So when the honey jar was open, millions of flies appeared.
So, when income for dedicated programming is not clear, corners are cut.When piracy is an option abusive DRM is applied left and right.When a game is not finished, is released IN PARTS with the excuse of DLC, or as a conglomerate of leftovers in a sequel, "Last Fantasy 89: quest for your wallet".
If the marketing department says the public are now rabbits, carrot games will flood the market tomorrow.
There are few independent developers here and there, but make no mistake, the titans will swallow them at their first attempt of growth.
Activision is one of the worst offenders, a corporate conglomerate responsible for milking a franchise after supposedly harassing and "firing" their creators, they took IW's engine and literally ran with it.After all, they "funded" it, mmh? They also tried to gun down brutal legend, after rejecting it, just when EA took it from the garbage bin, they tried to settle it in court.Just because their mortal enemy took their leftovers, they tried to destroy Tim Schafer's creation.
Squeenix is also one of the Rotten Titans.Last pure, brave original games I remember from them are Vagrant Story and Chrono Cross.In the PS2 era, people were crying for a FFVII remake, but they did with it whatever they pleased.
What follows is the decent but broken FFX(no airship, 3 different music directors with nobuo uematsu's music unrecognizable, no world map, just one minigame, absolute absence of humor, sex or physical violence, no yoshitaka amano), more emphasis is put on CGI scenes and wardrobe. What follows is a huge hiatus with a PC final fantasy with no vertebral story (XI)(which non FF fans loved)and years of teasing with XII pics.Where was FFVII? broken down in a dozen mediocre spinoffs.Because hey, why doing a remake when you can give joey his own series?
FFXII was decent, but it was trying to be an historical action movie, again, with more emphasis in CGI and costume design than ever.Now it was like a theme park, there is no real controversy, is just a fashion parade pretending to be a pollitical comentary.And the ending...oh, FFXII ending segment.
I will not spoil things for anyone, I will just say it gave me the same sensation that SW: Episode I final scene.That is, of a soulless, bland thing infecting my eyes.
Don't even get me started on the whiny clowns and retarded summons of XIII.
FFXII's and XIII production timeframes were not justified in any form, feel free to think otherwise, but Squeenix is just playing it safe, milking the cow and trying to cater to non FF fans, I even dare to say, they are just trying to get to non gamers.You know, because they are "the potential market", "the new target", "a new breed of fans", also called "easy money".
So enjoy your FFXIII-2, some of us already know it's obviously crap before it releases.I also recently lost all hope in Vs XIII, the only game that got my interest back, you know, when it was announced SEVERAL years ago.
Squeenix, they do what they please, experts in CGI, fashion and absurd PR.The only thing I can thank them for is for publishing Nippon Ichi's Disgaea 3 in Europe.
Last drop comes from Capcom acting like the damn GESTAPO, with draconian DRM's that won't let you play your legally purchased content unless you're online, Activision Style pricing strategy, and now literally trying to make Megaman disappear from the face of the earth, they even confronted Megaman cosplayers in comic con, cancelled games, and blamed gamers for it.They just don't care RE5 is a dull action buddy movie, or that Dark Void is pure mainure.They, however, care to give the finger to EU territories with release dates and pricing, whenever possible.
Ubisoft...the sad king of shovelware, tons of party games and things with the letter Z in it (babyz, parrotz, shitz), Asassin's creed is way, way overrated.
The only thing I have hope for from them is Rayman Origins.
These are Developer/Publisher groups run by 60 Y.0., PhD's in economics, people which only concern is profit first, advertising second, gaming quality a distant tenth.They should learn from Developers like FROM or ATLUS, they should learn from brave and nice publishers like Bandai Namco, and over all, they have to learn from gaming history, that casual audiences will easily turn their backs on them when the next Iphone 9 with angry birds 2 and ZUMA RELOADED comes out.
This monsters are on the brink of making a disaster out of the gaming world if they keep on listening to their blind, ignorant marketing corpus.
It already went too far.Vote with your wallets and let 'em have it.
In all my years as a gamer, I've come to love and hate companies through their games, their marketing or their respective preachers.
Be it Sega vs Nintendo, you had your preferences, your colors, your technical data to counterattack in the playground time.
And that was an ok context if dealt with rational autocriticism, you could learn from others, or silently concede "victory" to your opponents when credit was due.
Not everyone was up to the simple task of being a damn human being, and the ocassional raging fanboy would burst in tears and throw you stones if you compared SNES Aladdin with MD Aladdin.It was like insulting his mother.Corporations started to carefully watch over gamer's passion and loyalty as consumers.
Then it got complex, SEGA had burnt fans irrespectfully, causing a huge exodus of people "joining" Sony and Nintendo.
At that point we had growing concerns with third parties, perhaps a Resident Evil version (Saturn) did not have transparencies and texture filtering was inferior, then, whose fault was? was it the hardware or the developer being lazy?
This situation escalated when traditional PC programmers joined the console realm in the sixth generation, like Epic.
Through the years, I did not learn programming , yet I learned programmers are not "lazy" just because a game is inferior in a platform.This, however, does not mean the console is "crippled" either.
The blame lies mostly in third party publishers, they grew exponentially this last 15 years, being now bigger than ever.They have almost absolute control over content, sequels, deadlines, budgets, and DRM.
Why? How? they absorbed dozens of tiny programming studios, aditionally media moguls and marketing lobbies literally bought whole companies just because they were beginning to give more revenue than movies.So when the honey jar was open, millions of flies appeared.
So, when income for dedicated programming is not clear, corners are cut.When piracy is an option abusive DRM is applied left and right.When a game is not finished, is released IN PARTS with the excuse of DLC, or as a conglomerate of leftovers in a sequel, "Last Fantasy 89: quest for your wallet".
If the marketing department says the public are now rabbits, carrot games will flood the market tomorrow.
There are few independent developers here and there, but make no mistake, the titans will swallow them at their first attempt of growth.
Activision is one of the worst offenders, a corporate conglomerate responsible for milking a franchise after supposedly harassing and "firing" their creators, they took IW's engine and literally ran with it.After all, they "funded" it, mmh? They also tried to gun down brutal legend, after rejecting it, just when EA took it from the garbage bin, they tried to settle it in court.Just because their mortal enemy took their leftovers, they tried to destroy Tim Schafer's creation.
Squeenix is also one of the Rotten Titans.Last pure, brave original games I remember from them are Vagrant Story and Chrono Cross.In the PS2 era, people were crying for a FFVII remake, but they did with it whatever they pleased.
What follows is the decent but broken FFX(no airship, 3 different music directors with nobuo uematsu's music unrecognizable, no world map, just one minigame, absolute absence of humor, sex or physical violence, no yoshitaka amano), more emphasis is put on CGI scenes and wardrobe. What follows is a huge hiatus with a PC final fantasy with no vertebral story (XI)(which non FF fans loved)and years of teasing with XII pics.Where was FFVII? broken down in a dozen mediocre spinoffs.Because hey, why doing a remake when you can give joey his own series?
FFXII was decent, but it was trying to be an historical action movie, again, with more emphasis in CGI and costume design than ever.Now it was like a theme park, there is no real controversy, is just a fashion parade pretending to be a pollitical comentary.And the ending...oh, FFXII ending segment.
I will not spoil things for anyone, I will just say it gave me the same sensation that SW: Episode I final scene.That is, of a soulless, bland thing infecting my eyes.
Don't even get me started on the whiny clowns and retarded summons of XIII.
FFXII's and XIII production timeframes were not justified in any form, feel free to think otherwise, but Squeenix is just playing it safe, milking the cow and trying to cater to non FF fans, I even dare to say, they are just trying to get to non gamers.You know, because they are "the potential market", "the new target", "a new breed of fans", also called "easy money".
So enjoy your FFXIII-2, some of us already know it's obviously crap before it releases.I also recently lost all hope in Vs XIII, the only game that got my interest back, you know, when it was announced SEVERAL years ago.
Squeenix, they do what they please, experts in CGI, fashion and absurd PR.The only thing I can thank them for is for publishing Nippon Ichi's Disgaea 3 in Europe.
Last drop comes from Capcom acting like the damn GESTAPO, with draconian DRM's that won't let you play your legally purchased content unless you're online, Activision Style pricing strategy, and now literally trying to make Megaman disappear from the face of the earth, they even confronted Megaman cosplayers in comic con, cancelled games, and blamed gamers for it.They just don't care RE5 is a dull action buddy movie, or that Dark Void is pure mainure.They, however, care to give the finger to EU territories with release dates and pricing, whenever possible.
Ubisoft...the sad king of shovelware, tons of party games and things with the letter Z in it (babyz, parrotz, shitz), Asassin's creed is way, way overrated.
The only thing I have hope for from them is Rayman Origins.
These are Developer/Publisher groups run by 60 Y.0., PhD's in economics, people which only concern is profit first, advertising second, gaming quality a distant tenth.They should learn from Developers like FROM or ATLUS, they should learn from brave and nice publishers like Bandai Namco, and over all, they have to learn from gaming history, that casual audiences will easily turn their backs on them when the next Iphone 9 with angry birds 2 and ZUMA RELOADED comes out.
This monsters are on the brink of making a disaster out of the gaming world if they keep on listening to their blind, ignorant marketing corpus.
It already went too far.Vote with your wallets and let 'em have it.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Angry Birds for PC
Finally, those birds that everybody likes has arrived on PC. After iPhone, iPad, Android and other mobile versions, also iPhone cases and toys, Angry Birds has finally arrived on the PC thanks to the Intel App Up store. It’ll work fine and dandy on laptops and netbooks and will cost you only $4.99 to download. Nice price for this lovely game.
Angry Birds is a global phenomenon in mobile gaming and the top grossing iPhone app of 2010. So if you’re not a smart-phone wielding hipster, you no longer have an excuse not to be part of this franchise.
Overall it’s pretty much an identical game play experience to the iPhone app, with some minor differences. It’s snappy, gorgeous, and it sounds amazing. On the netbook version you use a mouse or trackpad instead of touch. There is an open hand icon when the mouse is in hover state, and a closed hand icon when you are clicking or dragging. This visible clue when pulling the slingshot is a nice aid. It allows you to fine tune shots more than just observing the angle of the slingshot band.
Angry Birds for PC
Larger screen means more visibility in the game. On many levels you can see the target that can’t be seen on the iPhone. The previous shot trail is more easily seen, allowing fine tuning of your next shot. Overall the animations and physics seem to have more fluidity.
In terms of features, options, menu etc it’s pretty close to the original. On the netbook the replay level icon has been added to the game space. So you don’t need to pause first then replay. If you start off with bad shot, just click the replay icon, then you can start over. Saving a click is nice. There is a Menu button in the Pause menu that gets you back to the Start screen. There are some things not in play on the netbook version. The leader board and achievements are not available in the main menu. The Golden Eggs are there.
Angry Birds strikes an interesting balance of repetitive, simple tasks and challenging game play working for the many scenarios. So, if you liked this game on your iPhone or Android phone, you’ll sure like it on your big PC screen. If you are new player, don’t hesitate and join the fun now.
You must know and recognize the game from the Rovio, Angry Birds.
This game consists of seven birds with super abilities are different. By using slingshots, you can control the jump and the height of ill-tempered birds to tear down the building where the collection of green pork fat is shelter.
Where is a funny collection of birds swelled, turned into a grumpy group of birds which destroy the kingdom of lustful pigs these cunning thieves.
Angry Birds now not only for the iPhone, Android OS, PS3 and PSP. even Angry Birds has been available in Ovi Store for Nokia. And now Angry Birds have been available for Windows XP and Windows 7
Free Angry Birds for PC
Plenty of dodgy website owners want to rip off Google and push traffic towards their sites on the bogus promise of the free version of Angry Birds for PC. This is only a scam but in fact there exists a download free Angry Birds for PC nevertheless, you will need to move quickly to take advantage of that offer
Finland games producer Rovio Mobile has produced their very 1st version of Angry Birds Game for the Apple iPhone. This particular game was immediately caught by the iPhonesters, and Rovio understood that they will become successful. That has been fine. However, Rovio needed to get going by recoding Angry Birds Games for several programs, which become easier for small companies to get done.
Several weeks went by and finally, the Nokia and Android users could get themselves the Angry Birds Game. After that, the RovioMobile switched their attentions to the huge users of the PSP or the Play Station Portable and the PS3. That has been an additional huge porting project for Rovio operations.
During that time, the PC users have been reading and hearing rumors regarding Angry Birds for PC. Ultimately, in January, Angry Birds for PC was released, and downloading is not for free. However, not everybody is willing to pay for $5 for just a game, even if they will enjoy playing with it. These days, several users have grown to be familiar of getting some thing for free, so there are many who are on the lookout for a totally free Angry Birds for PC download. It can be downloaded via Windows 7 and Windows XP and Vista, or Mac support. But downloading can only be downloaded if you have an internet connection for the process to activate successfully.
Angry Birds pc is one of the well-known games that have taken the popularity with over 200 million downloads. The availability of this game is taking place in almost all of the popular platforms. In addition to playing the game online in the browser you can now download it on your laptop and take it wherever you may go to enjoy the amazing games, enabling you to play whenever, wherever you go. Take it to your workplace or even in the park, while resting and basting under the sun. Probably launching the Angry Birds for PC the wisest and the best move the game maker ever made. This availability made for the millions of platform owners, even made the popularity of Angry Birds known to more video-gaming enthusiasts more than over.
Incoming search terms:
* angry birds for pc
* activate free angry birds for pc
* angry birds FLASH SCAM
* angry-birds-online scam
* free angry birds games full version for window xp
*
- Angry Birds PC Updated
The PC version was updated last week which we talked about in this post. This update will finally include all episodes of Ham ‘Em High and the two chapters of Mine and Dine. I’m sure this is welcome news for all the PC players who have been feeling left out. It shouldn’t have taken this long to get all the episodes out but that’s in the past now so lets just get to playing. Since all the chapters are available you also have access to all of the golden eggs. You can finally complete your collection!
As a side note because I didn’t want to do an entire post about the subject, have you all seen the Angry Birds bra? It’s available over on etsy you should go check it out. I personally don’t know anyone who would wear it but i’m sure there is someone out there who would. I don’t recommend buying this for you girlfriend or wife unless she really loves angry birds.
Angry Birds is a global phenomenon in mobile gaming and the top grossing iPhone app of 2010. So if you’re not a smart-phone wielding hipster, you no longer have an excuse not to be part of this franchise.
Overall it’s pretty much an identical game play experience to the iPhone app, with some minor differences. It’s snappy, gorgeous, and it sounds amazing. On the netbook version you use a mouse or trackpad instead of touch. There is an open hand icon when the mouse is in hover state, and a closed hand icon when you are clicking or dragging. This visible clue when pulling the slingshot is a nice aid. It allows you to fine tune shots more than just observing the angle of the slingshot band.
Angry Birds for PC
Larger screen means more visibility in the game. On many levels you can see the target that can’t be seen on the iPhone. The previous shot trail is more easily seen, allowing fine tuning of your next shot. Overall the animations and physics seem to have more fluidity.
In terms of features, options, menu etc it’s pretty close to the original. On the netbook the replay level icon has been added to the game space. So you don’t need to pause first then replay. If you start off with bad shot, just click the replay icon, then you can start over. Saving a click is nice. There is a Menu button in the Pause menu that gets you back to the Start screen. There are some things not in play on the netbook version. The leader board and achievements are not available in the main menu. The Golden Eggs are there.
Angry Birds strikes an interesting balance of repetitive, simple tasks and challenging game play working for the many scenarios. So, if you liked this game on your iPhone or Android phone, you’ll sure like it on your big PC screen. If you are new player, don’t hesitate and join the fun now.
You must know and recognize the game from the Rovio, Angry Birds.
This game consists of seven birds with super abilities are different. By using slingshots, you can control the jump and the height of ill-tempered birds to tear down the building where the collection of green pork fat is shelter.
Where is a funny collection of birds swelled, turned into a grumpy group of birds which destroy the kingdom of lustful pigs these cunning thieves.
Angry Birds now not only for the iPhone, Android OS, PS3 and PSP. even Angry Birds has been available in Ovi Store for Nokia. And now Angry Birds have been available for Windows XP and Windows 7
Free Angry Birds for PC
Plenty of dodgy website owners want to rip off Google and push traffic towards their sites on the bogus promise of the free version of Angry Birds for PC. This is only a scam but in fact there exists a download free Angry Birds for PC nevertheless, you will need to move quickly to take advantage of that offer
Finland games producer Rovio Mobile has produced their very 1st version of Angry Birds Game for the Apple iPhone. This particular game was immediately caught by the iPhonesters, and Rovio understood that they will become successful. That has been fine. However, Rovio needed to get going by recoding Angry Birds Games for several programs, which become easier for small companies to get done.
Several weeks went by and finally, the Nokia and Android users could get themselves the Angry Birds Game. After that, the RovioMobile switched their attentions to the huge users of the PSP or the Play Station Portable and the PS3. That has been an additional huge porting project for Rovio operations.
During that time, the PC users have been reading and hearing rumors regarding Angry Birds for PC. Ultimately, in January, Angry Birds for PC was released, and downloading is not for free. However, not everybody is willing to pay for $5 for just a game, even if they will enjoy playing with it. These days, several users have grown to be familiar of getting some thing for free, so there are many who are on the lookout for a totally free Angry Birds for PC download. It can be downloaded via Windows 7 and Windows XP and Vista, or Mac support. But downloading can only be downloaded if you have an internet connection for the process to activate successfully.
Angry Birds pc is one of the well-known games that have taken the popularity with over 200 million downloads. The availability of this game is taking place in almost all of the popular platforms. In addition to playing the game online in the browser you can now download it on your laptop and take it wherever you may go to enjoy the amazing games, enabling you to play whenever, wherever you go. Take it to your workplace or even in the park, while resting and basting under the sun. Probably launching the Angry Birds for PC the wisest and the best move the game maker ever made. This availability made for the millions of platform owners, even made the popularity of Angry Birds known to more video-gaming enthusiasts more than over.
Incoming search terms:
* angry birds for pc
* activate free angry birds for pc
* angry birds FLASH SCAM
* angry-birds-online scam
* free angry birds games full version for window xp
*
- Angry Birds PC Updated
The PC version was updated last week which we talked about in this post. This update will finally include all episodes of Ham ‘Em High and the two chapters of Mine and Dine. I’m sure this is welcome news for all the PC players who have been feeling left out. It shouldn’t have taken this long to get all the episodes out but that’s in the past now so lets just get to playing. Since all the chapters are available you also have access to all of the golden eggs. You can finally complete your collection!
As a side note because I didn’t want to do an entire post about the subject, have you all seen the Angry Birds bra? It’s available over on etsy you should go check it out. I personally don’t know anyone who would wear it but i’m sure there is someone out there who would. I don’t recommend buying this for you girlfriend or wife unless she really loves angry birds.
BBCW launches CBeebies games app
Games based on popular CBeebies Games series Charlie & Lola, Teletubbies, 3rd & Bird and Numberjacks are available through a new app launched by BBC Worldwide.
CBeebies On The Go is available for free on the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad to pre-school children in Australia, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka and South Korea.
Developed by Tag Apps, it includes matching pairs picture games for the Teletubbies and Charlie & Lola, a Kerwhizz jigsaw game and a 3rd & Bird tap-the-fruit challenge. It also holds a number of short video clips from popular shows.
Director of CBeebies investment at BBCW, Henrietta Hurford-Jones, said the team had “worked hard to build a product that upholds the core values of learning through play”.
She added: “This new kids’ app is a first for the Channels business, so the learnings from this pilot phase will help shape any future plans to roll CBeebies Games On The Go out to new territories and different devices.”
More than 53m homes have access to the CBeebies channel worldwide.
CBeebies On The Go is available for free on the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad to pre-school children in Australia, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka and South Korea.
Developed by Tag Apps, it includes matching pairs picture games for the Teletubbies and Charlie & Lola, a Kerwhizz jigsaw game and a 3rd & Bird tap-the-fruit challenge. It also holds a number of short video clips from popular shows.
Director of CBeebies investment at BBCW, Henrietta Hurford-Jones, said the team had “worked hard to build a product that upholds the core values of learning through play”.
She added: “This new kids’ app is a first for the Channels business, so the learnings from this pilot phase will help shape any future plans to roll CBeebies Games On The Go out to new territories and different devices.”
More than 53m homes have access to the CBeebies channel worldwide.
Disney-branded Facebook games coming in 2012, Playdom head says
Can we all just say, “finally?” During a panel named “The Rise of Social Games” at the f8 Facebook Developers Conference in San Francisco, Disney Interactive and Playdom head John Pleasants revealed that two to four Facebook games surrounding Disney xd brands will hit Facebook in 2012. The general topic of the panel was the fact that branded social games are taking off.
Pleasants was joined on the panel by Kabam CEO Kevin Chou, EA Interactive head Barry Cottle and Zynga CBO Owen Van Natta. Facebook director of games partnerships Sean Ryan moderated the panel with the preface that branded games will take over the Facebook platform. And he might be right: EA just released The Sims Social, Zynga will soon re-brand its new Adventure World with Indiana Jones and Kabam recently announced The Godfather: Five Families.
Playdom, which Disney acquired in July 2010 for a whopping $740 million, is ahead of the pack with two branded games on Facebook: ESPNU College Town and ESPN Sports Bar & Grill. Both games performed well, thanks to advertising through the ESPN TV network. While Disney owns the ESPN brand, notice how neither of those actually involve the insanely popular Disney characters we’ve come to love.
Honestly, we’re surprised this didn’t happen sooner. Consider this: Disney has its own cable TV channel through which it could, in theory, advertise whatever it wants. Pleasants didn’t get into why it’s taken this long for disney channel games to throw its cast of characters into Facebook games, but did reveal the power of the Disney name.
Gnome Town, which Playdom launched in the summer–and we enjoyed quite a bit–peaked at 530,000 daily players. But just plopping the Disney logo on top of the existing one made users more likely to spend in the game just through trust of the company’s name, according to Pleasants. “We think it’s an advantage, if you put game play first,” Pleasants said.
It’s comforting to hear this emphasized by these developers. (Kabam’s Chou shared the same sentiment.) Branded games on Facebook are OK in my book, but the last thing anyone wants to see is the genre become a branding machine.
Pleasants was joined on the panel by Kabam CEO Kevin Chou, EA Interactive head Barry Cottle and Zynga CBO Owen Van Natta. Facebook director of games partnerships Sean Ryan moderated the panel with the preface that branded games will take over the Facebook platform. And he might be right: EA just released The Sims Social, Zynga will soon re-brand its new Adventure World with Indiana Jones and Kabam recently announced The Godfather: Five Families.
Playdom, which Disney acquired in July 2010 for a whopping $740 million, is ahead of the pack with two branded games on Facebook: ESPNU College Town and ESPN Sports Bar & Grill. Both games performed well, thanks to advertising through the ESPN TV network. While Disney owns the ESPN brand, notice how neither of those actually involve the insanely popular Disney characters we’ve come to love.
Honestly, we’re surprised this didn’t happen sooner. Consider this: Disney has its own cable TV channel through which it could, in theory, advertise whatever it wants. Pleasants didn’t get into why it’s taken this long for disney channel games to throw its cast of characters into Facebook games, but did reveal the power of the Disney name.
Gnome Town, which Playdom launched in the summer–and we enjoyed quite a bit–peaked at 530,000 daily players. But just plopping the Disney logo on top of the existing one made users more likely to spend in the game just through trust of the company’s name, according to Pleasants. “We think it’s an advantage, if you put game play first,” Pleasants said.
It’s comforting to hear this emphasized by these developers. (Kabam’s Chou shared the same sentiment.) Branded games on Facebook are OK in my book, but the last thing anyone wants to see is the genre become a branding machine.
Phineas And Ferb 3D Game – Disney XD Games 63
New Disney Game – Phineas and Ferb
Disney released a new game. Phineas and Ferb 3D online game. Klick here to read the complete review.
The new game is available at the Disney XD discovery channel. Get ahead of the game before its officially released next week!
Disney is introducing the brand new DisneyXD game. Phineas and Ferb in: The Transport inators of Doooom!
Doofenschmitz is up to his old tricks again, and who has gone missing? Phineas! Help Ferb find his brother and try to help Agent P thwarth Doofenschmitz evil plans!
Check out this new exciting Disney XD online game before all others do at the Disney Cartoon network games website!
Check out Disney’s cartoon network to find a lot of amazing games and news. Disney offers a lot of cartoon games on their site. So head over to the Disney XD site and play the new Phineas and Ferb – The Transport-inators of Doooom! game!
Have Fun!
Disney released a new game. Phineas and Ferb 3D online game. Klick here to read the complete review.
The new game is available at the Disney XD discovery channel. Get ahead of the game before its officially released next week!
Disney is introducing the brand new DisneyXD game. Phineas and Ferb in: The Transport inators of Doooom!
Doofenschmitz is up to his old tricks again, and who has gone missing? Phineas! Help Ferb find his brother and try to help Agent P thwarth Doofenschmitz evil plans!
Check out this new exciting Disney XD online game before all others do at the Disney Cartoon network games website!
Check out Disney’s cartoon network to find a lot of amazing games and news. Disney offers a lot of cartoon games on their site. So head over to the Disney XD site and play the new Phineas and Ferb – The Transport-inators of Doooom! game!
Have Fun!
Play the Scary Maze Game With Your Friends!
Have you ever played the Scary Maze Game 8 now? If not, brotha you haven’t lived!!! This maze game is the most awesome game on earth! But in order to play it you MUST have a partner in the room with you. So go find a friend, co-hort, or even an enemy – it doesn’t matter! Then match your wits and your mouse skills with the game and see if you’re awesome enough to win the BIG prize at the end!
Chinese Couple Sells All Three Kids to Play Online Games
A young Chinese couple has sold all three of their children in exchange for money to play online Nick jr games at Internet cafes, reports a southern Chinese newspaper.
According to Sanxiang City News, the couple met in an Internet cafe back in 2007 and bonded over their obsession with online video games. A year later, the parents — who are both under 21 — welcomed their first child, a son. Days after his birth, they left him home alone while they went to play online agame at an Internet cafe 30 km away.
In 2009, Li Lin and Li Juan welcomed their second child, a baby girl, and came up with the idea to sell her for money to fund their online game obsession. They did so, receiving RMB 3,000 (less than $500), which they spent entirely shortly after. The couple then proceeded to sell their first child and got 10 times as much for him — RMB 30,000, or about $4600.
Upon having their third child — another boy — the parents followed in their previous footsteps and also got RMB 30,000 for him.
They were finally turned into authorities when Li Lin’s mother found out what her son and his girlfriend had done.
When asked if they missed their children, the parents answered, “We don’t want to raise them, we just want to sell them for some money.”
Sanxiang City Newsreports the couple didn’t know they were breaking the law.
According to Sanxiang City News, the couple met in an Internet cafe back in 2007 and bonded over their obsession with online video games. A year later, the parents — who are both under 21 — welcomed their first child, a son. Days after his birth, they left him home alone while they went to play online agame at an Internet cafe 30 km away.
In 2009, Li Lin and Li Juan welcomed their second child, a baby girl, and came up with the idea to sell her for money to fund their online game obsession. They did so, receiving RMB 3,000 (less than $500), which they spent entirely shortly after. The couple then proceeded to sell their first child and got 10 times as much for him — RMB 30,000, or about $4600.
Upon having their third child — another boy — the parents followed in their previous footsteps and also got RMB 30,000 for him.
They were finally turned into authorities when Li Lin’s mother found out what her son and his girlfriend had done.
When asked if they missed their children, the parents answered, “We don’t want to raise them, we just want to sell them for some money.”
Sanxiang City Newsreports the couple didn’t know they were breaking the law.
Official Pokemon Game Coming To Smartphones
The Pokemon Company is set to bring an official Pokemon Online game to smartphone devices, marking the first time that an official Nintendo-copyrighted app will be available on the iOS and Android.
Called Pokemon Iie Tap (rougly Pokemon: Say Tap?), the app appears to be a rhythm game where players “tap on Pokemon indigo trading cards to the beat of a song from the anime,” according to a translation by consumer video game site GamesRadar.
According to the game’s official announcement, it will be available for most iOS devices, as well as Android devices running version 2.1 of the platform.
Though this is the first iOS or Android application to carry an official Nintendo copyright, it is not the first mobile app of any kind: a Pokemon mobile phone game called Pokemate was released in Japan in 2006.
Though it is a rarity, Nintendo does have a history of releasing official games on platforms that are not its own, including a promotional Flash game to promote its Tingle character.
A release outside of Japan has not been announced.
Called Pokemon Iie Tap (rougly Pokemon: Say Tap?), the app appears to be a rhythm game where players “tap on Pokemon indigo trading cards to the beat of a song from the anime,” according to a translation by consumer video game site GamesRadar.
According to the game’s official announcement, it will be available for most iOS devices, as well as Android devices running version 2.1 of the platform.
Though this is the first iOS or Android application to carry an official Nintendo copyright, it is not the first mobile app of any kind: a Pokemon mobile phone game called Pokemate was released in Japan in 2006.
Though it is a rarity, Nintendo does have a history of releasing official games on platforms that are not its own, including a promotional Flash game to promote its Tingle character.
A release outside of Japan has not been announced.
Nick Jr., MTVN expand in Asia
Rugrats and music fans in Singapore and Malaysia will be able to tune in to “Dora the Explorer” and 24-hour music videos, docus and concerts with the launch of Viacom’s Nick Jr. and MTVN HD in the territories in coming weeks.
Nick Jr Games. will bow on Singapore’s Starhub from May 18, while MTVN HD will air on Telekom Malaysia Berhad’s HyppTV in Malaysia from June 1.
Nick Jr. will be available on the StarHub TV’s Kids Basic Upsize Group, while MTVNHD will be available to existing StarHub TV’s Entertainment Basic Group customers who are subscribed to the Basic HD Upsize group.
TM will offer the two channels a la carte to its subscribers on HyppTV, Malaysia’s newest pay TV service.
The services will roll out to the rest of the region at a date to be announced.
Nick Jr Games. will bow on Singapore’s Starhub from May 18, while MTVN HD will air on Telekom Malaysia Berhad’s HyppTV in Malaysia from June 1.
Nick Jr. will be available on the StarHub TV’s Kids Basic Upsize Group, while MTVNHD will be available to existing StarHub TV’s Entertainment Basic Group customers who are subscribed to the Basic HD Upsize group.
TM will offer the two channels a la carte to its subscribers on HyppTV, Malaysia’s newest pay TV service.
The services will roll out to the rest of the region at a date to be announced.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
5 Reasons I hate Gamestop
5. Preorders - Seriously guys, I don't want to preorder the game as soon as its freaking announced. I'm pretty sure you won't run out of copies considering we live in the 20th century were we don't hand make these games in the back of the shop. If its a highly anticipated game I'm pretty sure the video game companies will produce enough for everyone. And if not, I can just walk across the street to the local Walmart to pick up a copy. So there we go douche!
( The funny thing is I actually accused one of the Gamestop employees of not preordering any games, and he actually showed me his "gamestop account" where he had every new game preordered. Yeah!? Just proves hes a bigger tool than I thought!!! )
4. Douchebag Vibe- As soon as you enter the store don't you feel the weird doucheness in the air? Yes its there BO and body sweat. I'm just kidding about that one. But they are what I like to call "Wannabe Douche" Its when they try to hard to be a douche bags that just makes them look like complete idiots. Every time a girl walks in they automatically drop what there doing and go help the lady out. Sounds polite? Well its not its pretty pathetic to me........ Ha!
3. DLC - They seriously find DLC to be the coolest thing around. "Woah Bruh, new DLC makes my gun change colorssss!!!!" NO! Its not cool "bruh"! I'd rather get a 20 dollar gift card for purchasing the game at Walmart than preorder it and Gamestop and get some shitty DLC......... "But Bruh! its a once in a life time!" Will "bruh" Im probably going to only play the game a month in my lifetime! .....Ha!
2.PC Games - Seriously Pc gaming isn't dead yet, so why do you pretend it is! And why is it you must open every Pc box and take out the disc and leave every product key showing. Do you take the disc lick it and put it on your shelf to remove the scratches? STOP LICKING MY PC GAMES!!!!!!!! And just leave them in the box please!
( The funny thing is I actually accused one of the Gamestop employees of not preordering any games, and he actually showed me his "gamestop account" where he had every new game preordered. Yeah!? Just proves hes a bigger tool than I thought!!! )
4. Douchebag Vibe- As soon as you enter the store don't you feel the weird doucheness in the air? Yes its there BO and body sweat. I'm just kidding about that one. But they are what I like to call "Wannabe Douche" Its when they try to hard to be a douche bags that just makes them look like complete idiots. Every time a girl walks in they automatically drop what there doing and go help the lady out. Sounds polite? Well its not its pretty pathetic to me........ Ha!
3. DLC - They seriously find DLC to be the coolest thing around. "Woah Bruh, new DLC makes my gun change colorssss!!!!" NO! Its not cool "bruh"! I'd rather get a 20 dollar gift card for purchasing the game at Walmart than preorder it and Gamestop and get some shitty DLC......... "But Bruh! its a once in a life time!" Will "bruh" Im probably going to only play the game a month in my lifetime! .....Ha!
2.PC Games - Seriously Pc gaming isn't dead yet, so why do you pretend it is! And why is it you must open every Pc box and take out the disc and leave every product key showing. Do you take the disc lick it and put it on your shelf to remove the scratches? STOP LICKING MY PC GAMES!!!!!!!! And just leave them in the box please!
October Contest Details!
All you Oktoberfest celebrants feeling okay this morning? Remember, if the game volume is giving you a headache...just use headphones? We know you guys need cash for your fall Collector's Editions, so here are the N4G contests for October! Winners from September will be announced in the coming days. We have some more contests coming (swag, beta codes) this month, so remember to stay tuned to this N4G blogspace for more goodies!
JOIN N4G AS WE GAME FOR KIDS
Hop over and check out what N4G staff and members are doing to help raise awareness and money for the Children's Miracle Network! See how you can be involved - and how you can enter to win a bunch of swag from GDC, E3 and PAX!
http://n4g.com/user/blogpos...
LOYAL READER LOTTERY:
We will continue our Loyal Reader Lottery! When you visit N4G at least once during every 24 hour period during the month of October you are entered into our Loyal Reader Lottery! If you want to keep track you can follow along with your Daily Visit score*, so if you want to make sure you've logged in during a 24 hour period check this score on your profile!
Prize: 3 Winners - $100 Amazon Gift Card each!
BEST USER BLOG: You must post a User Blog in the month of October! The top User Blog as voted by staff and the ten most active members of the month wins! There's no limit to how many wonderful User Blogs you can write and enter, anything you author here on N4G during the month of October will be eligible.
Prizes: One winner will be chosen and receive a $100 Amazon Gift Card!
BEST USER Review: You must post a User Review in the month of October! The top User Review as voted by staff and the ten most active members of the month wins! There's no limit to how many wonderful User Reviews you can write and enter, anything you author here on N4G during the month of October will be eligible.
Prizes: One winner will be chosen and receive a $100 Amazon Gift Card!
CONTRIBUTOR CONTEST: Submit news and get a top 2 News ranking in October and you can win up to three games!
The prizes are:
1st: 3 Games of Choice (standard edition)
2nd: 2 Games of Choice (standard edition)
FORUM LOTTERY:
Post on the forums during the month of October! Two winners will be chosen at random and will each receive $100 Amazon gift cards!
_____________________
*Just a note: I'm sorry the Daily Visit score isn't more 'every day' instead of its current 'every 24h1m', but that is just the front end tracking for you guys and when we run the lotto we pull from a more accurate list. So for those of you visiting every day diligently but not triggering the Daily Visit score reward, don't stress about it!
_________________
Some Terms and Conditions:
Terms and Conditions
1. Competition is open to all N4G users, except for employees of HAVAmedia and immediate relatives. Contests are not limited to the US/NA.
2. Closing date is 11:59 PM 31st October 2011.
3. In the event of unforeseen circumstances N4G/HAVAmedia reserves the right to substitute the prizes for alternatives of equal or greater value.
4. Prizes are not transferrable.
5. The winners of the competition will be notified by N4G ticket on or after November 7, 2011.
6. Failure to reply to ticket notification within fourteen (14) days results in forfeiture of prize.
__________________
More Info on the Forum Lottery (what follows ONLY applies to the Forum Lottery):
What it is -a monthly lottery contest where the winner(s) will receive various prizes.
How it works -Using a random generator engine we choose a forum, active thread and a winner. The finer details:
-Single post wonders, spammers, rude or offensive remarks all result in a DQ.
-The sub-forums located in the N4G related block (Announcements & Rules, contributor, etc) will not be eligible to win, nor will comments made within the Randomicity thread.
-You can only win the Forum Lottery once every six months.
__________________
As always, let me know if you have any questions!
JOIN N4G AS WE GAME FOR KIDS
Hop over and check out what N4G staff and members are doing to help raise awareness and money for the Children's Miracle Network! See how you can be involved - and how you can enter to win a bunch of swag from GDC, E3 and PAX!
http://n4g.com/user/blogpos...
LOYAL READER LOTTERY:
We will continue our Loyal Reader Lottery! When you visit N4G at least once during every 24 hour period during the month of October you are entered into our Loyal Reader Lottery! If you want to keep track you can follow along with your Daily Visit score*, so if you want to make sure you've logged in during a 24 hour period check this score on your profile!
Prize: 3 Winners - $100 Amazon Gift Card each!
BEST USER BLOG: You must post a User Blog in the month of October! The top User Blog as voted by staff and the ten most active members of the month wins! There's no limit to how many wonderful User Blogs you can write and enter, anything you author here on N4G during the month of October will be eligible.
Prizes: One winner will be chosen and receive a $100 Amazon Gift Card!
BEST USER Review: You must post a User Review in the month of October! The top User Review as voted by staff and the ten most active members of the month wins! There's no limit to how many wonderful User Reviews you can write and enter, anything you author here on N4G during the month of October will be eligible.
Prizes: One winner will be chosen and receive a $100 Amazon Gift Card!
CONTRIBUTOR CONTEST: Submit news and get a top 2 News ranking in October and you can win up to three games!
The prizes are:
1st: 3 Games of Choice (standard edition)
2nd: 2 Games of Choice (standard edition)
FORUM LOTTERY:
Post on the forums during the month of October! Two winners will be chosen at random and will each receive $100 Amazon gift cards!
_____________________
*Just a note: I'm sorry the Daily Visit score isn't more 'every day' instead of its current 'every 24h1m', but that is just the front end tracking for you guys and when we run the lotto we pull from a more accurate list. So for those of you visiting every day diligently but not triggering the Daily Visit score reward, don't stress about it!
_________________
Some Terms and Conditions:
Terms and Conditions
1. Competition is open to all N4G users, except for employees of HAVAmedia and immediate relatives. Contests are not limited to the US/NA.
2. Closing date is 11:59 PM 31st October 2011.
3. In the event of unforeseen circumstances N4G/HAVAmedia reserves the right to substitute the prizes for alternatives of equal or greater value.
4. Prizes are not transferrable.
5. The winners of the competition will be notified by N4G ticket on or after November 7, 2011.
6. Failure to reply to ticket notification within fourteen (14) days results in forfeiture of prize.
__________________
More Info on the Forum Lottery (what follows ONLY applies to the Forum Lottery):
What it is -a monthly lottery contest where the winner(s) will receive various prizes.
How it works -Using a random generator engine we choose a forum, active thread and a winner. The finer details:
-Single post wonders, spammers, rude or offensive remarks all result in a DQ.
-The sub-forums located in the N4G related block (Announcements & Rules, contributor, etc) will not be eligible to win, nor will comments made within the Randomicity thread.
-You can only win the Forum Lottery once every six months.
__________________
As always, let me know if you have any questions!
Why Video Games Should Stay a Sport
An article recently has brought up this blog
http://n4g.com/news/857547/...
So why should games be considered a sport?
If kicking, smacking, throwing, a ball into a hole, goal, etc.. to score a point is considered a sport then why not games?
Running in a straight line for 100m, speed reading, board games, etc... are sports as well so why shouldnt gaming not be considered a sport?
A average person would not think games should be a sport but there are very skilled gamers and there are also very skilled football players that seperate an average player from a pro.
It is harder for those to see skill in gaming because they do not know what is going on or are used to big sports like football, basketball, golf, hockey, track and field, etc... to see that sports do not have to be like that.
In many sports there are many different things going on that each player has to think about and do. There is no difference with that and gaming.
What skilled gamers think about in a short amount of time and then having to do it is harder to see if you do not understand the game unlike in many popular sports you can see what they are trying to do very fast.
I have no idea how korean's play star craft the way they do but because I can understand what they are doing it is impressive. If someone that does not know anything about it sees them play then they would think that they are just pressing random keys on the keyboard.
For us to see if games should be considered a sport lets see what sport means
Sport:
1.An activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others.
2. Entertainment; fun
3.A source of amusement or entertainment
Now I will prove how gaming can meet all of those three things.
1.Chess is a sport and it has almost zero physical exertion. Gaming has more physical exertion then chess so if chess is considered a sport then why shouldnt games?
2.Many people find gaming entertaining and fun
3.Same reason as #2
Here is a quote from wiki(I know, not the best source)
"Electronic sports, abbreviated e-sports is used as a general term to describe the play of video games competitively. Other terms include competitive gaming, professional gaming, cybersports and v-sports. One of the founding fathers of electronic sports leagues is Angel Munoz, founder of the Cyberathlete Professional League)."
There are many that have their own views on what should be a sport or not so you can have many different opinions. How I see it is that if this sport can be considered a sport then why can't this be also?
http://n4g.com/news/857547/...
So why should games be considered a sport?
If kicking, smacking, throwing, a ball into a hole, goal, etc.. to score a point is considered a sport then why not games?
Running in a straight line for 100m, speed reading, board games, etc... are sports as well so why shouldnt gaming not be considered a sport?
A average person would not think games should be a sport but there are very skilled gamers and there are also very skilled football players that seperate an average player from a pro.
It is harder for those to see skill in gaming because they do not know what is going on or are used to big sports like football, basketball, golf, hockey, track and field, etc... to see that sports do not have to be like that.
In many sports there are many different things going on that each player has to think about and do. There is no difference with that and gaming.
What skilled gamers think about in a short amount of time and then having to do it is harder to see if you do not understand the game unlike in many popular sports you can see what they are trying to do very fast.
I have no idea how korean's play star craft the way they do but because I can understand what they are doing it is impressive. If someone that does not know anything about it sees them play then they would think that they are just pressing random keys on the keyboard.
For us to see if games should be considered a sport lets see what sport means
Sport:
1.An activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others.
2. Entertainment; fun
3.A source of amusement or entertainment
Now I will prove how gaming can meet all of those three things.
1.Chess is a sport and it has almost zero physical exertion. Gaming has more physical exertion then chess so if chess is considered a sport then why shouldnt games?
2.Many people find gaming entertaining and fun
3.Same reason as #2
Here is a quote from wiki(I know, not the best source)
"Electronic sports, abbreviated e-sports is used as a general term to describe the play of video games competitively. Other terms include competitive gaming, professional gaming, cybersports and v-sports. One of the founding fathers of electronic sports leagues is Angel Munoz, founder of the Cyberathlete Professional League)."
There are many that have their own views on what should be a sport or not so you can have many different opinions. How I see it is that if this sport can be considered a sport then why can't this be also?
September Contest Winners!
Congratulations!!
LOYAL READER LOTTERY:
Congratulations, Jio!
Winner: Jio
Prize: OnLive Game Console plus Wireless Controller
BEST USER BLOG:
Winners:
wquach - http://n4g.com/user/blogpos...
iamnsuperman - http://n4g.com/user/blogpos...
Prizes: wquach and iamnsuperman each receive $100 Amazon Gift Cards!
BEST USER Review:
Winners:
GameGambits - http://n4g.com/channel/gear...
Arnon - http://n4g.com/channel/dead...
Prizes: GameGambits and Arnon each receive $100 Amazon Gift Cards!
CONTRIBUTOR CONTEST:
Congratulations!
1st: -Mezzo- 3 Games of Choice (standard edition)
2nd: n4gboy 2 Games of Choice (standard edition)
FORUM LOTTERY:
KionicWarlord222
flip-it3
Prizes: KionicWarlord222 and flip-it3 each receive $60 Amazon Gift Cards!
Congratulations, everyone! If you're curious about what you can win in October, visit http://n4g.com/user/blogpos...
LOYAL READER LOTTERY:
Congratulations, Jio!
Winner: Jio
Prize: OnLive Game Console plus Wireless Controller
BEST USER BLOG:
Winners:
wquach - http://n4g.com/user/blogpos...
iamnsuperman - http://n4g.com/user/blogpos...
Prizes: wquach and iamnsuperman each receive $100 Amazon Gift Cards!
BEST USER Review:
Winners:
GameGambits - http://n4g.com/channel/gear...
Arnon - http://n4g.com/channel/dead...
Prizes: GameGambits and Arnon each receive $100 Amazon Gift Cards!
CONTRIBUTOR CONTEST:
Congratulations!
1st: -Mezzo- 3 Games of Choice (standard edition)
2nd: n4gboy 2 Games of Choice (standard edition)
FORUM LOTTERY:
KionicWarlord222
flip-it3
Prizes: KionicWarlord222 and flip-it3 each receive $60 Amazon Gift Cards!
Congratulations, everyone! If you're curious about what you can win in October, visit http://n4g.com/user/blogpos...
Abdou23 (User) * Contributor * 3 bubbles * 5 in CRank * Score: 5280 "" PM Add as friend Track Ignore Report I regret buying a 3DS…
So i bought my 3DS only days after it’s release hoping to jump into the amazing world of Mario and his family in 3D, but soon enough i had my dreams crushed, i bought the device along with Street Fighter 4 and although i’m not a big fan of fighting games and as i never played any previous parts of the series before i had to go with it because it was the only decent launch title and it was very successful, so i said what the hell i can get this one now just to try the 3D effects and later i can buy others, but that later is still going on and i haven’t found any other good game i can buy yet.Who’s fault it’s you say?! well it surely isn’t mine, i have the money and the willing but there is nothing in the market for me to buy.When the first announced the 3DS there was some amazing games along wit hit, Mario Kart,Luigi’s Mansion,Mario 3D. but up to this moment all we see is exactly 6-7 game which all are remakes except for maybe 1 or 2,Nintendo failed big time at presenting a decent launch titles for this device, not only that by they also failed to bring any originality to it, some NES remakes and couple retail remakes is just a load of crap,This is not why i bought a 3DS for and i don’t even think this is what anyone bought the device for.There are some people who got excited when Nintendo announced the free SNE games and i actually petty these people, did they go spend 250$ to play more that 20 years old games?
And now the talking about introducing the extra analog stick of course with extra cost and extra wight and dimensions for the device.So we were okay buying this device with just one analog stick because we were looking for an experience different from what we have when playing on consoles, games like Mario,Luigi’s Mansion,Mario Kart and others can be played fine without the right analog stick and those types of games can be only found on a nintendo system,I don’t buy a Nintendo handheld system to play FPS games, i buy it to play other unique games that i can’t play on my PS3/360 now it looks like the device is loosing it’s uniqueness by aiming to compete with Playstation Vita in running these action games in a very dated graphics.
What made the Wii so successful is because it offered something new and unique to the market despite it’s HD lacking and low graphics capabilities comparing with PS3/360, the 3DS had the potentials but Nintendo just destroyed it.and now i winded up with a 250$ device that i nearly touched since the day i bought it, thank god for the case i bought it with otherwise it would have been full of dust by now.Nintendo really needs to fire some people.
And now the talking about introducing the extra analog stick of course with extra cost and extra wight and dimensions for the device.So we were okay buying this device with just one analog stick because we were looking for an experience different from what we have when playing on consoles, games like Mario,Luigi’s Mansion,Mario Kart and others can be played fine without the right analog stick and those types of games can be only found on a nintendo system,I don’t buy a Nintendo handheld system to play FPS games, i buy it to play other unique games that i can’t play on my PS3/360 now it looks like the device is loosing it’s uniqueness by aiming to compete with Playstation Vita in running these action games in a very dated graphics.
What made the Wii so successful is because it offered something new and unique to the market despite it’s HD lacking and low graphics capabilities comparing with PS3/360, the 3DS had the potentials but Nintendo just destroyed it.and now i winded up with a 250$ device that i nearly touched since the day i bought it, thank god for the case i bought it with otherwise it would have been full of dust by now.Nintendo really needs to fire some people.
Monday, October 10, 2011
Microsoft Research releases Facebook game for 'research'
Sure you are, guys--we're onto you. The Research division at Microsoft has released its first Facebook games, Project Waterloo, in order to find out how people interact and negotiate with one another across social networks. The game is a turn-based combat simulator in which players allocate 100 generic troops across five locations. In a way, Project Waterloo works a lot like Zynga's Words With Friends.
Of course, we're referring to the one-on-one, turn-based gameplay, not the words. Players challenge friends with allocations of 100 troops either using a slider or directly entering a number in each location on the battlefield. Said friends can then respond with their own strategic positioning using 100 troops, and if they don't currently play the game, they will be invited prior to responding.
So, it might help to think of Project Waterloo as a cross between games like Words With Friends and the classic board game Battleship. Players can also start games with random players, regardless of whether they're Facebook friends. Project Waterloo, according to a post on the Microsoft Research website, is the start of the "Facebook Game Theory Lab." This will serve as a platform through which Microsoft Research explores concepts of strategic human interaction within "resource allocation and negotiation games." The team of four researchers wrote:
The goal of the project is to test the behaviour of real people in game theoretic interactions, and especially those that take place in social networks. Some example questions are: how do people negotiate with one another? How does such negotiation take place in social networks? How can we aggregate opinions of individuals to arrive at high quality decisions? In what ways do people reciprocate other people's actions?
Project Waterloo in action
While it doesn't appear that Project Waterloo will be a source of revenue for Microsoft Research's parent company, the team does use words like "viral marketing" to explain how it will reach new players. Ultimately, we don't see a game like this taking off commercially, but it is another step in that direction, as Microsoft has already expressed interest in entering the space. Just recently, the company began to offer support to developers through its Windows Azure service. Perhaps Project Waterloo and the Facebook Game Theory Lab represent Microsoft further testing the waters.
Click here to play Project Waterloo on Facebook Now >
[Via ZDNet]
What do you think of Microsoft's very scientific foray into Facebook games? Do you think the company would ever dive into the industry like Google or Facebook has? Sound off in the comments. 2 Comments
Of course, we're referring to the one-on-one, turn-based gameplay, not the words. Players challenge friends with allocations of 100 troops either using a slider or directly entering a number in each location on the battlefield. Said friends can then respond with their own strategic positioning using 100 troops, and if they don't currently play the game, they will be invited prior to responding.
So, it might help to think of Project Waterloo as a cross between games like Words With Friends and the classic board game Battleship. Players can also start games with random players, regardless of whether they're Facebook friends. Project Waterloo, according to a post on the Microsoft Research website, is the start of the "Facebook Game Theory Lab." This will serve as a platform through which Microsoft Research explores concepts of strategic human interaction within "resource allocation and negotiation games." The team of four researchers wrote:
The goal of the project is to test the behaviour of real people in game theoretic interactions, and especially those that take place in social networks. Some example questions are: how do people negotiate with one another? How does such negotiation take place in social networks? How can we aggregate opinions of individuals to arrive at high quality decisions? In what ways do people reciprocate other people's actions?
Project Waterloo in action
While it doesn't appear that Project Waterloo will be a source of revenue for Microsoft Research's parent company, the team does use words like "viral marketing" to explain how it will reach new players. Ultimately, we don't see a game like this taking off commercially, but it is another step in that direction, as Microsoft has already expressed interest in entering the space. Just recently, the company began to offer support to developers through its Windows Azure service. Perhaps Project Waterloo and the Facebook Game Theory Lab represent Microsoft further testing the waters.
Click here to play Project Waterloo on Facebook Now >
[Via ZDNet]
What do you think of Microsoft's very scientific foray into Facebook games? Do you think the company would ever dive into the industry like Google or Facebook has? Sound off in the comments. 2 Comments
RockYou seeking skilled recruits ... to play Galactic Allies [Video]
Look, RockYou knows that you're not an architect by trade, and you're certainly no cook. So, why not stop pretending to do things real people do and pretend to be something completely fictional, like a galactic fleet commander? With developer 3 Blokes, the Facebook game publisher recently released Galactic Allies to Facebook, the studio's second strategy game.
The game enlists players as commanders of their very own fleet of star ships in a battle to protect their end of the galaxy from alien enemies. In a more casual approach to the growing sub genre of hardcore strategy games on Facebook, Galactic Allies lets players directly control their space-faring units to avoid enemy fire in real-time combat. (Of course, battles are exchanged between players asynchronously.)
While it's not marketed as such, the game looks a lot like the spiritual successor to 3 Blokes's first game on Facebook, Galactic Trader. But this time around, the developer has resources from a major publisher, which can only mean one thing: a goofy trailer displaying almost everything the game has to offer in a 60-second nutshell.
Gallery: Galactic Allies on Facebook
Also, the game wasn't exactly live when we first revealed it to you, so check out the fun trailer down there. And when you're done with that, click on the link below to hop into Galactic Allies. That is, if you think you can answer the call--come on, even the narrator wants in.
Click here to play Galactic Allies on Facebook Now >
Have you tried Galactic Allies on Facebook yet? What do you think of where hardcore strategy games on Facebook are at right now? Sound off in the comments. 1 Comment
The game enlists players as commanders of their very own fleet of star ships in a battle to protect their end of the galaxy from alien enemies. In a more casual approach to the growing sub genre of hardcore strategy games on Facebook, Galactic Allies lets players directly control their space-faring units to avoid enemy fire in real-time combat. (Of course, battles are exchanged between players asynchronously.)
While it's not marketed as such, the game looks a lot like the spiritual successor to 3 Blokes's first game on Facebook, Galactic Trader. But this time around, the developer has resources from a major publisher, which can only mean one thing: a goofy trailer displaying almost everything the game has to offer in a 60-second nutshell.
Gallery: Galactic Allies on Facebook
Also, the game wasn't exactly live when we first revealed it to you, so check out the fun trailer down there. And when you're done with that, click on the link below to hop into Galactic Allies. That is, if you think you can answer the call--come on, even the narrator wants in.
Click here to play Galactic Allies on Facebook Now >
Have you tried Galactic Allies on Facebook yet? What do you think of where hardcore strategy games on Facebook are at right now? Sound off in the comments. 1 Comment
A Bit Lucky goes all in on hardcore Facebook games with Lucky Space
We know you're all thinking it, so we'll just come out and say it: Sci-fi is huge in Facebook games right now. (Like, crazy big.) The next developer to take a crack at the theme is A Bit Lucky with Lucky Space. The San Mateo, Calif.-based developer's second social game launches today, and it's light years away from Lucky Train.
In Lucky Space, players inherit a lifeless, barren alien planet purchased by Dr. X in his final days in search of the riches he was so sure are buried deep beneath its purple crust. You'll establish a thriving space colony with one mission: strip mine the planet for all its worth in rare gems and resources. Of course, it won't be long before you discover that Dr. X was onto more than just shiny rocks and black gold.
As you expand your colony and upgrade its buildings with unique components like the Force Field Dome and Ultra-Power Laser Extractor, you'll slowly uncover the remnants of an alien civilization. Through a series a quests and the help of your friends, you will dig out alien ruins while protecting your colony from a series of natural (to this world, maybe) disasters like meteor strikes. While the game is dubbed "hardcore," it doesn't look or sound as if combat is a focus in Lucky Space.
Gallery: Lucky Space on Facebook
"Lucky Space was inspired by our love of the sci-fi genre and the desire to innovate within the social gaming space," A Bit Lucky CCO Jordan Maynard said in a release. "We've been able to blend social gaming with hardcore PC gameplay mechanics to create a new and engaging experience."
Regardless of the game being deemed "hardcore" with a lack of combat, a tenant of most Facebook games given the silly adjective, Lucky Space sounds like it might have players depend on their friends more than in most social games. You will need friends not just to visit your colony for a few boosts, but to trade rare components and identify mysterious alien artifacts. One thing we know for sure is that the game looks like a vibrant, even jolly take on Facebook games skewed for the hardcore crowd. But don't just take our word for it, check out the trailer below and see for yourself.
Click here to play Lucky Space on Facebook Now >
What do you think of A Bit Lucky's second Facebook game so far? Do you think there's still room for Facebook games within the sci-fi genre, or are you on the lookout for something new? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment
In Lucky Space, players inherit a lifeless, barren alien planet purchased by Dr. X in his final days in search of the riches he was so sure are buried deep beneath its purple crust. You'll establish a thriving space colony with one mission: strip mine the planet for all its worth in rare gems and resources. Of course, it won't be long before you discover that Dr. X was onto more than just shiny rocks and black gold.
As you expand your colony and upgrade its buildings with unique components like the Force Field Dome and Ultra-Power Laser Extractor, you'll slowly uncover the remnants of an alien civilization. Through a series a quests and the help of your friends, you will dig out alien ruins while protecting your colony from a series of natural (to this world, maybe) disasters like meteor strikes. While the game is dubbed "hardcore," it doesn't look or sound as if combat is a focus in Lucky Space.
Gallery: Lucky Space on Facebook
"Lucky Space was inspired by our love of the sci-fi genre and the desire to innovate within the social gaming space," A Bit Lucky CCO Jordan Maynard said in a release. "We've been able to blend social gaming with hardcore PC gameplay mechanics to create a new and engaging experience."
Regardless of the game being deemed "hardcore" with a lack of combat, a tenant of most Facebook games given the silly adjective, Lucky Space sounds like it might have players depend on their friends more than in most social games. You will need friends not just to visit your colony for a few boosts, but to trade rare components and identify mysterious alien artifacts. One thing we know for sure is that the game looks like a vibrant, even jolly take on Facebook games skewed for the hardcore crowd. But don't just take our word for it, check out the trailer below and see for yourself.
Click here to play Lucky Space on Facebook Now >
What do you think of A Bit Lucky's second Facebook game so far? Do you think there's still room for Facebook games within the sci-fi genre, or are you on the lookout for something new? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment
Glitch, the weirdest Facebook-connected MMO yet, goes live today
(Editors Note: Glitch is not a Facebook game, but a Facebook-connected social MMO that exists in its own space on Glitch.com. Changes were made in this article to reflect this correction.)
And by weird we mean, "Just what the heck do I do in this game?" weird. When we first heard that Flickr co-creator Stewart Butterfield was working on a new breed of social game called Glitch earlier this year, we were excited to see what was in store. Starting today at 1 p.m. eastern, you can experience the goofy first release from Butterfield's Canada-based Tiny Speck.
Glitch, announced way back in November of last year, is Butterfield's attempt at putting the tools for expression in the players' hands. "Our vision for Glitch is to bring a new level of creativity, beauty and social engagement to players who expect more from their online social gaming experience – an experience that has value beyond traditional forms of entertainment," Butterfield told Kotaku. "Glitch is an experiment in culture building. We provide raw materials and a stimulating environment, but it's the players who bring the infinite world alive, shaping it with their imagination."
Based on an early look at the game co-created by Butterfield and Keita Takahashi--the man behind the equally- strange Katamari Damacy series of games--I can confidently say that the game will fill your daily quota of quirkiness. For instance, I recall during my time with an early build of the game entering a building you would normally find in Washington. Inside, I was to apply for an arbitrary license, and was told by an in-game character to sit and wait for my turn.
Growing confused and impatient from waiting for the green-faced clerk to return from behind the desk to call my name, I left the building. When I returned, I was forced to restart the process. So, I reapplied for the license, and literally waited for 10 minutes for the garish desk clerk to return with my new card for whatever purpose. That's when it hit me: Through Glitch, Butterfield was making a statement on the hilarity of bureaucracy. And you know what? I literally laughed out loud in front of my laptop.
However, what's worrying is that the average FarmVille fan isn't concerned with lofty if humorous statements or open-ended gameplay with nearly infinite methods of expression. They just want to feel accomplished within five minutes and get back to work from their lunch break. Since my look at the game, however, Tiny Speck has made major changes to Glitch to appeal to that crowd, Kotaku reports. That said, why not give Glitch a try--it might be the first social game to make you laugh out loud.
Click here to try out Glitch through Facebook Now >
Are you looking for a new kind of social game experience? Do you think lofty games like Glitch can find success in the world of CityVille and The Sims Social? Sound off in the comments. 2 Comments
And by weird we mean, "Just what the heck do I do in this game?" weird. When we first heard that Flickr co-creator Stewart Butterfield was working on a new breed of social game called Glitch earlier this year, we were excited to see what was in store. Starting today at 1 p.m. eastern, you can experience the goofy first release from Butterfield's Canada-based Tiny Speck.
Glitch, announced way back in November of last year, is Butterfield's attempt at putting the tools for expression in the players' hands. "Our vision for Glitch is to bring a new level of creativity, beauty and social engagement to players who expect more from their online social gaming experience – an experience that has value beyond traditional forms of entertainment," Butterfield told Kotaku. "Glitch is an experiment in culture building. We provide raw materials and a stimulating environment, but it's the players who bring the infinite world alive, shaping it with their imagination."
Based on an early look at the game co-created by Butterfield and Keita Takahashi--the man behind the equally- strange Katamari Damacy series of games--I can confidently say that the game will fill your daily quota of quirkiness. For instance, I recall during my time with an early build of the game entering a building you would normally find in Washington. Inside, I was to apply for an arbitrary license, and was told by an in-game character to sit and wait for my turn.
Growing confused and impatient from waiting for the green-faced clerk to return from behind the desk to call my name, I left the building. When I returned, I was forced to restart the process. So, I reapplied for the license, and literally waited for 10 minutes for the garish desk clerk to return with my new card for whatever purpose. That's when it hit me: Through Glitch, Butterfield was making a statement on the hilarity of bureaucracy. And you know what? I literally laughed out loud in front of my laptop.
However, what's worrying is that the average FarmVille fan isn't concerned with lofty if humorous statements or open-ended gameplay with nearly infinite methods of expression. They just want to feel accomplished within five minutes and get back to work from their lunch break. Since my look at the game, however, Tiny Speck has made major changes to Glitch to appeal to that crowd, Kotaku reports. That said, why not give Glitch a try--it might be the first social game to make you laugh out loud.
Click here to try out Glitch through Facebook Now >
Are you looking for a new kind of social game experience? Do you think lofty games like Glitch can find success in the world of CityVille and The Sims Social? Sound off in the comments. 2 Comments
Raptr report: Gamers play Zynga's 'Ville games almost as much as Halo
Wait a second, that's not possible. Zynga games are for casual players, aren't they? Well, maybe not as much as previously though. A report issued by Raptr, the social network for gamers, reveals that the 265 million fans of games like CityVille and FarmVille are playing those games almost as much as Halo players. More importantly, Raptr users are playing said games more than "core" game franchises like Grand Theft Auto, Assassin's Creed and Gears of War combined.
Raptr's report breaks down the top game franchises on the social network by time spent playing, as the service tracks whenever users enter a game and for how long they play. Zynga's stable of games tails top hardcore franchises like Call of Duty's massive 43 percent time share and Halo's 14 percent with 13 percent. The remaining 12 percent is reserved for other hardcore games.
According to the report, big time hardcore games like CoD and WoW are played for longer sessions at a time, but Zynga Facebook games such as Empires & Allies or Pioneer Trail are played more frequently. In fact, Raptr goes on to say that about 12 to 20 percent of CityVille players are also deep into games like StarCraft 2 and Call of Duty Black Ops. And the percentage of Xbox 360 owners that have played a Zynga game increased by 50 percent to a total of 30 percent, the report claims.
Top Franchises by Share Time Spent
The data goes on to show that Zynga controls 60 percent of the market in social games, at least judging from Raptr's 10 million users. And before The Sims Social came along, the massive company's top games racked up three times as many hours as the rest of the top 10 Facebook games combined. Not to mention that Zynga fans are loyal: 90 percent of FrontierVille, Treasure Isle, CityVille, and Empires & Allies players were pulled from existing Zynga games.
While it almost goes without saying, Zynga is still killing it. More importantly for the company, however, is that reports like this will help instill confidence in its upcoming $1 billion initial public offering. With recent news that the company's profits plummeted 90 percent--and that The Sims Social has gobbled up most of its top games--made those prospects shaky.
[Via VentureBeat]
Do you happen to be a "hardcore gamer" that dabbles in Zynga games? Are you surprised at all by Raptr's findings? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment
Raptr's report breaks down the top game franchises on the social network by time spent playing, as the service tracks whenever users enter a game and for how long they play. Zynga's stable of games tails top hardcore franchises like Call of Duty's massive 43 percent time share and Halo's 14 percent with 13 percent. The remaining 12 percent is reserved for other hardcore games.
According to the report, big time hardcore games like CoD and WoW are played for longer sessions at a time, but Zynga Facebook games such as Empires & Allies or Pioneer Trail are played more frequently. In fact, Raptr goes on to say that about 12 to 20 percent of CityVille players are also deep into games like StarCraft 2 and Call of Duty Black Ops. And the percentage of Xbox 360 owners that have played a Zynga game increased by 50 percent to a total of 30 percent, the report claims.
Top Franchises by Share Time Spent
The data goes on to show that Zynga controls 60 percent of the market in social games, at least judging from Raptr's 10 million users. And before The Sims Social came along, the massive company's top games racked up three times as many hours as the rest of the top 10 Facebook games combined. Not to mention that Zynga fans are loyal: 90 percent of FrontierVille, Treasure Isle, CityVille, and Empires & Allies players were pulled from existing Zynga games.
While it almost goes without saying, Zynga is still killing it. More importantly for the company, however, is that reports like this will help instill confidence in its upcoming $1 billion initial public offering. With recent news that the company's profits plummeted 90 percent--and that The Sims Social has gobbled up most of its top games--made those prospects shaky.
[Via VentureBeat]
Do you happen to be a "hardcore gamer" that dabbles in Zynga games? Are you surprised at all by Raptr's findings? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment
Thursday, October 6, 2011
FarmVille Animal Habitat Expansions allow storage of 40 animals each
One of the biggest problems many farmers had with the new series of Animal Habitat Buildings in FarmVille is their small storage capacity of 20 animals each. This is especially true for the Horse Paddock and Cow Pasture, as they have almost entirely replaced the Horse Stable and Dairy Farm buildings on all farms. Either way, the 20 animal capacity has "forced" many farmers to build multiple buildings of each kind, just to have room for all of the grown Mystery Babies we claim from friends. Now, though, that is all about to change, as Animal Habitat Expansions have started a slow rollout in the game.
To be clear, each Animal Habitat can be expanded, but they must all be expanded separately. To begin, just head inside your Animal Habitat and click on the "Expand" button at the very top, next to the "Animals" tab. Each expansion requires you to collect the same items that the building was constructed with to begin with. So, for example, in the Cow Pasture you'll need to collect additional Hay Bundles, Stones and Tin Sheets.
The first expansion of each habitat looks to require 15 of each item, and will take your habitat from 20 animals max to 30 animals. If that's still not enough, you can collect 20 more of each individual ingredient and take your capacity to the now current max of 40 animals per Animal Habitat. As usual, you can ask your friends to send you these ingredients, or you can purchase them outright for Farm Cash.
Is 40 animals per habitat enough? That will ultimately be up to you to decide, but if the maximum capacity of Animal Habitats increases even further, we'll make sure to let you know. Now, if only we could have the amount of Animal Feed per Mystery Baby decreased...
Will you expand all of your Animal Habitats, or are there just one or two different buildings that should be larger on your farm? Sound off in the comments.
To be clear, each Animal Habitat can be expanded, but they must all be expanded separately. To begin, just head inside your Animal Habitat and click on the "Expand" button at the very top, next to the "Animals" tab. Each expansion requires you to collect the same items that the building was constructed with to begin with. So, for example, in the Cow Pasture you'll need to collect additional Hay Bundles, Stones and Tin Sheets.
The first expansion of each habitat looks to require 15 of each item, and will take your habitat from 20 animals max to 30 animals. If that's still not enough, you can collect 20 more of each individual ingredient and take your capacity to the now current max of 40 animals per Animal Habitat. As usual, you can ask your friends to send you these ingredients, or you can purchase them outright for Farm Cash.
Is 40 animals per habitat enough? That will ultimately be up to you to decide, but if the maximum capacity of Animal Habitats increases even further, we'll make sure to let you know. Now, if only we could have the amount of Animal Feed per Mystery Baby decreased...
Will you expand all of your Animal Habitats, or are there just one or two different buildings that should be larger on your farm? Sound off in the comments.
FarmVille Halloween Items: Dark Apple Tree, Batwing Horse, Bat Pumpkin and more
With tonight's FarmVille update, we not only see the launch of the Apple Bobbing / Barrel feature in the game, but there's also been an addition to the current Halloween limited edition item theme. It's interesting that the Apple Barrel feature comes out now, rather than a Halloween collection event, but either way, these new store items should be enough to tide you over until further developments (apparently) arise. Here's a look at the new items available in the store.
Trees
Dark Apple Tree - 8 Farm Cash
Giant Dark Apple Tree - 14 Farm Cash
Halloween Lantern Tree - 8 Farm Cash
Giant Halloween Lantern Tree - 14 Farm Cash
Yet again, we see two different pairs of Halloween trees released this evening, but neither really scream Halloween. The Dark Apple Trees are simply a dark purple color, while the Halloween Lantern Trees are more themed with hanging lanterns appearing when they're ready to harvest. However, I can definitely see these trees being used in a general Fall theme as well, and not specifically Halloween. Either way, remember that the two more expensive trees can be earned for free via Mystery Seedlings.
Animals
Dire Wolf - 10 Farm Cash
Batwing Horse - 26 Farm Cash
Bat Rabbit - 14 Farm Cash
Pink Patch Bull - 1.5 million coins
The Batwing Horse is a dark, black and green horse with large wings. It honestly does look like someone combined a bat and a horse. The same thing can be said for the Bat Rabbit, with its widespread wings, although the rabbit portion doesn't look like other rabbits traditionally released in the store. As for the Pink Patch Bull, this is a special item that's only available for a week.
Buildings
Werewolf Shack - 15 Farm Cash
Dilapidated House - 20 Farm Cash
Unfortunately, both of these buildings cost Farm Cash, although they do give players that want a spookier, gloomier Halloween theme something to get excited about (that is, as opposed to all of the happier, brighter items already released in the theme). The Dilapidated House is the larger of the two items, but the Werewolf Shack comes with some cool animations (eyeballs blinking in the windows) and extra details.
Decorations
Bat Pumpkin - 50,000 coins
Haunted Drive Inn - 18 Farm Cash
Giant Candelabra - 20,000 coins
Werewolf Gnome - 15 Farm Cash
Here, the two coin items are less elaborate than the Haunted Drive Inn, as you'd expect, but they're still rather cool and are nicely sized items for the price(s). As with the other items released this evening (including the Avatar Costumes below), these decorations will be available in the game for the next two weeks.
Avatar Costumes
Wolf - 8 Farm Cash
Vampire I - 10 Farm Cash
Vampire II - 10 Farm Cash
Here, the two types of Vampire costumes go with either gender. Vampire I is for male avatars, while Vampire II is a dress and wing combo for female avatars. Remember, it's not this often that we see so many items release for avatars, so if you want your avatar to have fun costumes the rest of the year through (and into next), this is a great time to stock up.
In addition to these items, there's a new purchase / collection event going on that will reward you with a free Halloween Forest item (a heavily animated forest with four trees, blinking eyes in the shadows and ghosts) for purchasing eight items released this evening. You'll have to purchase the Dark Apple and Halloween Lantern Trees (both large and small), along with the Batwing Horse, the Dire Wolf, Werewolf Gnome and Werewolf Shack. That's an expensive set of items, sure, but if you purchase them all within a week, the exclusive Halloween Forest is yours.
What do you think of these limited edition Halloween items? Will you purchase eight of them to receive the Halloween Forest? Let us know in the comments.
Trees
Dark Apple Tree - 8 Farm Cash
Giant Dark Apple Tree - 14 Farm Cash
Halloween Lantern Tree - 8 Farm Cash
Giant Halloween Lantern Tree - 14 Farm Cash
Yet again, we see two different pairs of Halloween trees released this evening, but neither really scream Halloween. The Dark Apple Trees are simply a dark purple color, while the Halloween Lantern Trees are more themed with hanging lanterns appearing when they're ready to harvest. However, I can definitely see these trees being used in a general Fall theme as well, and not specifically Halloween. Either way, remember that the two more expensive trees can be earned for free via Mystery Seedlings.
Animals
Dire Wolf - 10 Farm Cash
Batwing Horse - 26 Farm Cash
Bat Rabbit - 14 Farm Cash
Pink Patch Bull - 1.5 million coins
The Batwing Horse is a dark, black and green horse with large wings. It honestly does look like someone combined a bat and a horse. The same thing can be said for the Bat Rabbit, with its widespread wings, although the rabbit portion doesn't look like other rabbits traditionally released in the store. As for the Pink Patch Bull, this is a special item that's only available for a week.
Buildings
Werewolf Shack - 15 Farm Cash
Dilapidated House - 20 Farm Cash
Unfortunately, both of these buildings cost Farm Cash, although they do give players that want a spookier, gloomier Halloween theme something to get excited about (that is, as opposed to all of the happier, brighter items already released in the theme). The Dilapidated House is the larger of the two items, but the Werewolf Shack comes with some cool animations (eyeballs blinking in the windows) and extra details.
Decorations
Bat Pumpkin - 50,000 coins
Haunted Drive Inn - 18 Farm Cash
Giant Candelabra - 20,000 coins
Werewolf Gnome - 15 Farm Cash
Here, the two coin items are less elaborate than the Haunted Drive Inn, as you'd expect, but they're still rather cool and are nicely sized items for the price(s). As with the other items released this evening (including the Avatar Costumes below), these decorations will be available in the game for the next two weeks.
Avatar Costumes
Wolf - 8 Farm Cash
Vampire I - 10 Farm Cash
Vampire II - 10 Farm Cash
Here, the two types of Vampire costumes go with either gender. Vampire I is for male avatars, while Vampire II is a dress and wing combo for female avatars. Remember, it's not this often that we see so many items release for avatars, so if you want your avatar to have fun costumes the rest of the year through (and into next), this is a great time to stock up.
In addition to these items, there's a new purchase / collection event going on that will reward you with a free Halloween Forest item (a heavily animated forest with four trees, blinking eyes in the shadows and ghosts) for purchasing eight items released this evening. You'll have to purchase the Dark Apple and Halloween Lantern Trees (both large and small), along with the Batwing Horse, the Dire Wolf, Werewolf Gnome and Werewolf Shack. That's an expensive set of items, sure, but if you purchase them all within a week, the exclusive Halloween Forest is yours.
What do you think of these limited edition Halloween items? Will you purchase eight of them to receive the Halloween Forest? Let us know in the comments.
FarmVille Apple Bobbing Goals: Everything you need to know
While the Apple Bobbing / Apple Barrel feature launched in FarmVille earlier this afternoon, don't think that Zynga is letting the feature start and end so quickly. If you've got the time, Zynga is ready to fill it with six new goals that will see you being rewarded with a brand new Horse if you complete them all. Does that have your attention? Good! Let's get started on our guide to the Apple Bobbing Goals, so you can get through them (and receive your rewards) as quickly as possible.
Picking Some Fun
* Get 6 Apple Baskets
* Place and Orchard
* Harvest 5 Apple Trees
If you already have an Orchard on your farm, this task will thankfully already be completed for you. As for harvesting the Apple Trees, it doesn't seem to matter if they're harvested within an Orchard or outside of one, but either way, they can be purchased from the store for 325 coins each. As for the Apple Baskets, they can be earned by posting a general request to your news feed. For finishing this first goal, you'll receive 100 XP, one Apple (for placement inside your Apple Barrel), an Apple Cart decoration and 1,000 coins.
Cream of the Crop
* Get 6 Blue Ribbons
* Harvest 25 Pumpkins
* Harvest 25 Squash
Luckily, both of these harvesting tasks can be completed at the same time, so long as you have 50 plots of land on your farm. This isn't likely to be an issue, so just wait eight hours for the Pumpkins to be ready to harvest and (unfortunately) two days for the Squash. This is one case where you may want to plant these Squash early, before you ever start on this second goal, just to be more prepared later on. Finishing this second goal gives you an Apple for your Barrel, 100 XP, a Honeycrisp Apple Tree and 1,000 coins.
Bobbing Around!
* Get 6 Horsehead Rakes
* Harvest 50 Strawberries
* Place Honeyrisp Apple Tree on Farm
You'll receive the Apple Tree in your Gift Box, so just pull it out and onto your farm to pass that step. You can do this while you're waiting the four hours for your Strawberries to grow. By making it past this third goal, you'll receive 100 XP, an Apple for your Barrel, a Pig with an Apple and 1,000 coins.
A Fall Treat
* Get 6 Romantic Centerpieces
* Harvest 1 Orchard
* Harvest 5 Cows
The Romantic Centerpieces aren't new to the game, so you might already have some in your inventory, saving you the trouble of posting another request to your news feed. Either way, Orchard become ready to harvest once every two days, while you can harvest five cows in a single day as well. Complete this goal and you'll receive three Apples for your Barrel, 300 XP, an Apple Covered Sheep and 3,000 coins.
A Canter to the Left
* Get 6 Horse Combs
* Harvest 10 Horses
* Harvest 100 Fruit
Luckily, it doesn't appear to matter which king of fruit you harvest, so long as you don't harvest fruit trees and expect that to count. This definitely has to be a fruit crop that you plant on squares. As for the Horse Combs, they've been required for multiple goals now, so you should have no problem finding six, even if you have to ask for them on your news feed. Finish this goal and you'll receive 300 XP, three more Apples for your Barrel, an Apple Costume Chicken and 3,000 coins. Yes, that's right - a white chicken dressed as a red apple.
Will It Pop?
* Get 6 Popcorn Machines
* Harvest 100 Vegetables
* Harvest 1 Orchard
By this point, hopefully two days will have passed since the fourth goal here, so that your Orchard(s) are once again ready to harvest. If not, you can kill some time by planting any vegetable crop for the second task, and can post a general news feed item to your wall requesting the Popcorn Machines. For finishing this final goal, you'll receive 300 XP, three Apples for your Barrel, 3,000 coins and - as promised - the Apple Horse.
All six of these goals need to be completed within a two week time frame. That gives you plenty of time to build an Orchard if need be, and to plant those Squash that take two days to grow. Still, if you plan ahead, you'll be able to finish these goals even more quickly and then get back to collecting Apples for the prizes inside the Apple Barrel proper. Good luck in receiving them all!
What do you think of these Apple Bobbing goals? Do you like the Apple Barrel feature itself? Sound off in the comments.
Picking Some Fun
* Get 6 Apple Baskets
* Place and Orchard
* Harvest 5 Apple Trees
If you already have an Orchard on your farm, this task will thankfully already be completed for you. As for harvesting the Apple Trees, it doesn't seem to matter if they're harvested within an Orchard or outside of one, but either way, they can be purchased from the store for 325 coins each. As for the Apple Baskets, they can be earned by posting a general request to your news feed. For finishing this first goal, you'll receive 100 XP, one Apple (for placement inside your Apple Barrel), an Apple Cart decoration and 1,000 coins.
Cream of the Crop
* Get 6 Blue Ribbons
* Harvest 25 Pumpkins
* Harvest 25 Squash
Luckily, both of these harvesting tasks can be completed at the same time, so long as you have 50 plots of land on your farm. This isn't likely to be an issue, so just wait eight hours for the Pumpkins to be ready to harvest and (unfortunately) two days for the Squash. This is one case where you may want to plant these Squash early, before you ever start on this second goal, just to be more prepared later on. Finishing this second goal gives you an Apple for your Barrel, 100 XP, a Honeycrisp Apple Tree and 1,000 coins.
Bobbing Around!
* Get 6 Horsehead Rakes
* Harvest 50 Strawberries
* Place Honeyrisp Apple Tree on Farm
You'll receive the Apple Tree in your Gift Box, so just pull it out and onto your farm to pass that step. You can do this while you're waiting the four hours for your Strawberries to grow. By making it past this third goal, you'll receive 100 XP, an Apple for your Barrel, a Pig with an Apple and 1,000 coins.
A Fall Treat
* Get 6 Romantic Centerpieces
* Harvest 1 Orchard
* Harvest 5 Cows
The Romantic Centerpieces aren't new to the game, so you might already have some in your inventory, saving you the trouble of posting another request to your news feed. Either way, Orchard become ready to harvest once every two days, while you can harvest five cows in a single day as well. Complete this goal and you'll receive three Apples for your Barrel, 300 XP, an Apple Covered Sheep and 3,000 coins.
A Canter to the Left
* Get 6 Horse Combs
* Harvest 10 Horses
* Harvest 100 Fruit
Luckily, it doesn't appear to matter which king of fruit you harvest, so long as you don't harvest fruit trees and expect that to count. This definitely has to be a fruit crop that you plant on squares. As for the Horse Combs, they've been required for multiple goals now, so you should have no problem finding six, even if you have to ask for them on your news feed. Finish this goal and you'll receive 300 XP, three more Apples for your Barrel, an Apple Costume Chicken and 3,000 coins. Yes, that's right - a white chicken dressed as a red apple.
Will It Pop?
* Get 6 Popcorn Machines
* Harvest 100 Vegetables
* Harvest 1 Orchard
By this point, hopefully two days will have passed since the fourth goal here, so that your Orchard(s) are once again ready to harvest. If not, you can kill some time by planting any vegetable crop for the second task, and can post a general news feed item to your wall requesting the Popcorn Machines. For finishing this final goal, you'll receive 300 XP, three Apples for your Barrel, 3,000 coins and - as promised - the Apple Horse.
All six of these goals need to be completed within a two week time frame. That gives you plenty of time to build an Orchard if need be, and to plant those Squash that take two days to grow. Still, if you plan ahead, you'll be able to finish these goals even more quickly and then get back to collecting Apples for the prizes inside the Apple Barrel proper. Good luck in receiving them all!
What do you think of these Apple Bobbing goals? Do you like the Apple Barrel feature itself? Sound off in the comments.
Pixel Ranger on iPhone: This retro beauty craves a joystick and buttons
This is the type of game that will make you reach for the quarter slot that doesn't exist on your iPhone. MetroGames, most recently known of Coco Girl on Facebook, has released an iPhone version of its gloriously retro Facebook game, Pixel Ranger, for $.99 on the App Store (published by Chillingo of Angry Birds fame).
In a nutshell, the game embodies everything you remember of classic, upward-facing shooter games like Galaga and 1942, only without the rosy colored glasses. You are Pixel Ranger (no, really?), and token pixelated aliens have kidnapped your lady and even your horse--the nerve.
And you're gonna' muster every last pixel to crush the baddies and bring them back. And if you haven't played the original on Facebook, you will quickly realize that the previous statement is more than mere flavor text. Every shot you make with Pixel Ranger's buckshot by tapping above or below him consumes ammo, or pixels, which also happen to be his life source. Of course, the only way to replenish your life is by downing more enemies that drop more ammo pixels to the ground.
Because being hit by enemies or their projectiles takes a chunk of your pixels, this creates an interesting balance between survival and attack, but more importantly makes accuracy paramount across the game's 12 acts and over 50 levels. And that's just in Classic Mode, in which each episode has a finite ending that rates your accuracy and other scores. In Endless Mode, however, you're simply going for the highest score and to last the longest across three stages. But to unlock all three, you must play through Classic Mode to the bitter end.
Gallery: Pixel Ranger on iPhone
And unfortunately, there isn't a better word to describe reaching close to the end than "bitter." Granted, Pixel Ranger is a beautifully-drawn homage to the classic games you'd find yourself easily dropping 20 bucks worth of quarters into as a kid. But with that comes tribute to just how mind-numbingly difficult those iconic games were. Pixel Ranger is one tough game, and that's not only thanks to the swarms of enemies you'll face in later levels. To put it bluntly, the iPhone's only method of control, its touchscreen, becomes a hindrance. (Moving the little guy from left to right is done by tilting the device.)
Pixel Ranger on iPhone gameplayThere is simply not enough room for both of your thumbs to jump--something you'll almost always forget to do when the baddies sneak up from underneath you--and shoot while getting a good view at just what in the world is going on. With a mouse and keyboard, this game's controls are a cinch on Facebook, but touch-based gameplay simply doesn't equate to accuracy. At least not the accuracy you need to do well in Pixel Ranger's later episodes.
Perhaps the game should have been presented in a landscape orientation rather than upright ... but that would draw from the verticality through which it channels the classics. But forget the touch controls and the orientation. A game that captures the essence of classic arcade cabinet shooters this well deserves more: Pixel Ranger was destined for a joystick and buttons. (Play the game for a long while using just the touch screen and you'll get it.)
Pixel Ranger is both "retro" enough to have you clamoring for some good old Galaxian, and original enough in its design and vibrant pixel art to keep you firing off that pixelated buckshot. That is, until you reach around Act 6 and your thumbs' ability to manage Pixel Ranger's, well, pixels slowly decays. If only for the refreshingly original, vivid nostalgia bomb, it's tough not to recommend Pixel Ranger. Just be prepared for a battle between both pixelated aliens and the screen that covers them.
Click here to download Pixel Ranger from the App Store Now >
Have you tried out Pixel Ranger on iPhone yet, and if so what are your thoughts? What do you think of undeniably retro-themed games that are made today? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment
In a nutshell, the game embodies everything you remember of classic, upward-facing shooter games like Galaga and 1942, only without the rosy colored glasses. You are Pixel Ranger (no, really?), and token pixelated aliens have kidnapped your lady and even your horse--the nerve.
And you're gonna' muster every last pixel to crush the baddies and bring them back. And if you haven't played the original on Facebook, you will quickly realize that the previous statement is more than mere flavor text. Every shot you make with Pixel Ranger's buckshot by tapping above or below him consumes ammo, or pixels, which also happen to be his life source. Of course, the only way to replenish your life is by downing more enemies that drop more ammo pixels to the ground.
Because being hit by enemies or their projectiles takes a chunk of your pixels, this creates an interesting balance between survival and attack, but more importantly makes accuracy paramount across the game's 12 acts and over 50 levels. And that's just in Classic Mode, in which each episode has a finite ending that rates your accuracy and other scores. In Endless Mode, however, you're simply going for the highest score and to last the longest across three stages. But to unlock all three, you must play through Classic Mode to the bitter end.
Gallery: Pixel Ranger on iPhone
And unfortunately, there isn't a better word to describe reaching close to the end than "bitter." Granted, Pixel Ranger is a beautifully-drawn homage to the classic games you'd find yourself easily dropping 20 bucks worth of quarters into as a kid. But with that comes tribute to just how mind-numbingly difficult those iconic games were. Pixel Ranger is one tough game, and that's not only thanks to the swarms of enemies you'll face in later levels. To put it bluntly, the iPhone's only method of control, its touchscreen, becomes a hindrance. (Moving the little guy from left to right is done by tilting the device.)
Pixel Ranger on iPhone gameplayThere is simply not enough room for both of your thumbs to jump--something you'll almost always forget to do when the baddies sneak up from underneath you--and shoot while getting a good view at just what in the world is going on. With a mouse and keyboard, this game's controls are a cinch on Facebook, but touch-based gameplay simply doesn't equate to accuracy. At least not the accuracy you need to do well in Pixel Ranger's later episodes.
Perhaps the game should have been presented in a landscape orientation rather than upright ... but that would draw from the verticality through which it channels the classics. But forget the touch controls and the orientation. A game that captures the essence of classic arcade cabinet shooters this well deserves more: Pixel Ranger was destined for a joystick and buttons. (Play the game for a long while using just the touch screen and you'll get it.)
Pixel Ranger is both "retro" enough to have you clamoring for some good old Galaxian, and original enough in its design and vibrant pixel art to keep you firing off that pixelated buckshot. That is, until you reach around Act 6 and your thumbs' ability to manage Pixel Ranger's, well, pixels slowly decays. If only for the refreshingly original, vivid nostalgia bomb, it's tough not to recommend Pixel Ranger. Just be prepared for a battle between both pixelated aliens and the screen that covers them.
Click here to download Pixel Ranger from the App Store Now >
Have you tried out Pixel Ranger on iPhone yet, and if so what are your thoughts? What do you think of undeniably retro-themed games that are made today? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)