No matter how much the hardcore MMORPG crowd may want to deny it, almost every game in the genre wants to be, or wishes it could have been, World or Warcraft. This week's Zero Punctuation says as much, with Yahtzee trying to enjoy his Hyborian adventure but wandering into familiar -- but not quite right -- WoW territory.
Check out the NSFW review of Age of Conan after the break.
EA Sports has confirmed an initial report that a demo of its arcade-style boxing game, Facebreaker, will be hitting Microsoft and Sony's download services shortly. More specifically, the Xbox 360 demo will be available on Thursday, July 31 with a PS3 version arriving a week later on August 7.
What sets this demo apart from most others is the approach EA is taking with regards to migrating user-generated content to the final product. Akin to the Spore Creature Creator, players will be able to generate their own custom pugilists and share them with others over the intertubes. The characters will also be accessible in the final version of Facebreaker, which enters the retail ring on September 5.
Here, in all its compressed glory, is the first actual screenshot of Sony and Zipper Interactive's 256-player MAG: Massive Action Game. We say "actual" because it was clear to anyone with eyes that Sony had pulled another Killzone 2 with the MAG video debuted during its pre-E3 press conference. In other words, it was all pre-rendered.
MAG senior producer Rade Stojsavljevic posted the shot to the official PlayStation blog, calling it "a sneak peak from one of [Zipper's] internal play sessions." Stojsavljevic also said that the dev has used its experience working in online games with the SOCOM franchise to create an entirely new server architecture for MAG capable of supporting its, well, massive amount of players.
Yes, motorcycles in Azeroth. One half of the octopus on a motorbike Druid form is complete! This and many other revelations came to us this week at WoW Insider as the Wrath of the Lich King beta opened up, and all kinds of Death Knight and Northrend news and information came falling out. Here's our most popular posts from the last seven days, with lots of new info about the reason you'll be playing WoW again this winter.
Shown for the first time at E3, Sony and Titan Studios' upcoming PSN title, Fat Princess, grabbed us with its classic Zelda-like presentation, 32-player online, and off-color infusion of blood & guts for such an otherwise cutesy title. We also figured there would more than a few folks none too pleased by its title.
It's not just the title that's angering the folks behind sites Feminist Gamers and Shakesville, female-run gaming blogs who are already voicing their displeasure to Sony. It's also the concept that players must feed the titular princess – who starts out slim – in order to make her fat, and thus harder to capture.
Melissa McEwan of Shakesville writes: "Congrats on your awesome new game, Sony. I'm positively thrilled to see such unyielding dedication to creating a new generation of fat-hating, heteronormative assholes," while Feminist Gamer's "Mighty Ponygirl" suggests a simple gameplay switcheroo would solve the problem (and change the title). "Instead of running out into the forest to find cake to fatten up the princess with, why not go out and find gold (which is a lot heavier than cake) to stuff into a treasure chest," she says, adding, "The more gold in the chest, the heavier it would be, and the harder it would be to carry."
Despite the (still limited) fury being directed at Sony, we suspect that there's a fat chance either the title or gameplay will change.
[Update: Titan Studios' art director, James Green, emailed in to say: "Does it make it better or worse that the concept artist (who designed the look, characters, everything) is a girl?"]
The feel-good post-nuclear-apocalypse game about finding a Water Chip, Fallout, joins GameTap this Thursday. There are still no details about when Fallout 2 will make an appearance on the service, but when GameTap originally announced Fallout was coming, the company did say it would be adding the "series." For those with some patience, the original Fallout should be available on GameTap's free service at some point in the future.
Gaming buffet GameTap just announced that THQ- and ValuSoft-published titles will begin finding their way onto the service starting this summer. Notable titles include:
Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War and expansions
Company of Heroes
Red Faction
Supreme Commander
Saints Row 2
Puzzle Quest
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
It's nice to see relatively new titles like Supreme Commander make the list. We're also curious to find out if Saints Row 2 releases on the service the same day as retail, similar to GameTap's deal with Codemasters. The THQ agreement is apparently a "long-term partnership" and some titles will also be made available on GameTap's free ad-supported service. This THQ announcement comes only a few months after Interplay returned and Take-Two committed to the service.
Microsoft confirmed today that the final phase of its XNA initiative would commence later this year when the "Community Games" channel is added to the Xbox Live Marketplace in the US, Canada and select European markets (other regions will be included in 2009 and "beyond"). User-created games will be sold at three price levels: 200 Microsoft Points ($2.50), 400 Microsoft Points ($5) and 800 Microsoft Points ($10). Microsoft has committed to share up to 70% of revenue of an indie game with its developer. (In addition, we're presuming that some games will be offered for free. Actually, no games will be free -- read our full Q&A with XNA GM Boyd Multerer right here!)
Microsoft expects that user-created contributions will double the number of downloadable games available on Xbox Live when the Community Games beta launches in the fall as part of the "New Xbox Experience." A peer-review system -- already in operation -- will theoretically keep these titles from coming under the watchful eye of the delisting committee. Though, just in case a few stinkers slip through the cracks, let's keep our fingers crossed for the availability of demo versions.
[Note: Above image is not an accurate depiction of XNA development conditions.]
Capcom is performing a very special move for those miffed at the generally broken state of the Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix "open beta." Despite originally dismissing connection issues and other awkwardness as the pitfalls of pre-release software, it is now planning to offer a patch to address them, according to a post on its official blog.
The patch is slated to contain "several fixes for the open beta," and Capcom states that "the overall experience in the beta will be vastly improved." More details – including a release date – are promised to be forthcoming, so don't put away those arcade sticks just yet.
First it was Quake Zero, then it became Quake Live, and now we have a fresh new look at Quake Arena, id's free-to-play, browser-based iteration of Quake III Arena. As you'd expect, the visuals are decidedly simple, but still stylish nonetheless. We noticed a few instances of gameshow-like billboards peppered throughout levels; while they simply read "Quake Live" in the video, it's likely these are placeholders for in-game advertising.
The trailer beckons viewers to QuakeLive.com for more info, but the site is still serving the sole purpose of a gateway for beta signups. From what's shown in the footage, it will eventually become a very robust matching and ranking component of the game. With QuakeCon kicking off in just a couple of weeks we expect to find out more details soon.
Valve's Doug Lombardi just shot us an email containing the final box art for ... wait, what was it again? Something about "Left" and "Dead." Ah, that's right! It's Left 4 Dead. Thanks, Mangled Hand! What would we have done without you? It's a shame you won't be able to grace the cover of the sequel, though. Perhaps your brother could ... unless he's let all that money he got from the Dead Spacecover shoot go to his head thumb.
Gene expansion can be a tricky undertaking, as Konami learned this past Thursday when the first premium Metal Gear Online expansion pack was released and promptly generated a host of service issues. Actually, in Konami's words: "major system related problems" (and we're not just talkin' convoluted access this time). In fact, so damaging has the upgrade been that it takes a 37-entry timeline just to brief us on the drama leading up to the completed refund on Saturday. For those wondering about the "foreseeable future," here are the most current updates:
MGO Shop - "At 18:00 on July 19th 2008, there are still no permanent solutions as yet. IP restrictions still stand, but it is planned that a different will be used and we expect the waiting times for purchases to be improved as a result."
Reward Shop - "At 18:00 on July 19th 2008, there are currently no set time schedules on its re-opening. We will make further announcements on this site should the situation change in any way, so please keep checking the site for further updates."
"We would like to take this opportunity to express our sincere apologies for the problems that have affected all our customers that have been with us since the start of the 'Premiere Beta,'" Konami writes, concluding, "We are currently doing all in our powers to bring a permanent solution to the ongoing problems in the quickest possible time." In the meantime, we suggest you play through the single-player campaign ... again!
Target is offering up pre-sale cards for LittleBigPlanet that claim an October 21st release date for this eagerly awaited game. We've known it would be coming (hopefully, keep your cute little fingers crossed) in October of this year, and hopefully this date won't be changing. Plus we're still itching to get our hands on a demo before then so we can practice our sponge-collecting skills.
There's still no definitive word if Sony will be offering this up for download as well as the retail Blu-ray version. In this Gamespot video at about three minutes in, they say "We're hoping to have it on the Playstation Network Store as well." Maybe Sony's planning on releasing a trimmed-down version of the game for download, and opening up the full game to retail customers, similar to what EA has done by putting out the Spore Creature Creator as a free download in advance of the full Spore game coming later? Either way, October can't get here fast enough. Free candy and LittleBigPlanet? Sold.
Although we'd gotten used to three songs being added every week to Rock Band's music store, Harmonix told us this week a little bit more could become the norm as the developer pushes to have 500 songs by the end of the year. This week, the band Trent Reznor built and Shinedown add some songs to the library.
Nin Pack(440 MS points / $5.49) -- Also sold seperately (160 MS Points / $2)
"Burn"
"Capital G"
"Last"
Individual Shinedown tracks (160 MS points / $2)
"Devour"
"Junkies For Fame"
Videos for the tracks can be found after the break. The consoles return to a regular DLC schedule next week (following this week's Tuesday release of The Who pack), with songs being available next Tuesday and Thursday on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 respectively.
We've been a little busy with all the E3-ing and being hosts, so here's the PSN Thursday update for this week. PS1 classic Rayman is available, along with PSN game Elefunk. There's also several E3 videos and just sunshine with rainbows. So tired ...
