The Hard-Hitting Questions
In game journalism it’s a war zone. Relentlessness, determination, getting all mucky in the mire of underbellies, yep that’s what’s needed in the trenches of gaming. That’s why when it came to interrogating Mike and Robert under the fluorescent lights of PAX 2009, I asked the important questions. Questions about “paint” and “line” and articles like “the”.
Yes, people, nearly two years later Paint the Line has been announced!
What game should I play next…
Have you ever posted a forum thread like this? Do you have trouble deciding which socks to wear or when to blink? Penny Arcade’s Decide-o-tron is on its way – and will help you with at least one of those things.
The gist: build a library of games “you like and own” and then it tells you what you should play next. You may never have to assume responsibility for anything ever again.
Here’s hoping it works better than those Amazon suggestions, which seem to work like, “You just bought underpants? You, sir, are a connoisseur of underpants! You must want to buy MORE UNDERPANTS! Here is a virtual blizzard of underpants for you to choose from!!”*
*Note from my Sense of Feminine Pride: I borrowed this example from my husband. I have never bought underpants on Amazon.
3 Indies, One Booth
Spy Party, at the time in Alpha build, was a favorite at PAX Prime 2010 and will be back this weekend (and with an unlimited play station!). Booth 3002 is packing more than Spy Party punch as both Saturday and Sunday morning will feature two additional indie titles – the as yet unannounced title from Fat Princess dev Carbon Games and Miegakure, Marc ten Bosch’s 4D puzzle platformer.
Add this to your PAX calendars:
Chris Hecker’s Spy Party, Booth 3002 all darn PAX -y weekend
Carbon Games (game TBA): Saturday, 10-11 a.m.
Marc ten Bosch’s Miegakure: Sunday, 10-11 a.m.
See you there!
Mac Lion Roar
There were two things I couldn’t cope with in Lion: the natural scrolling and autocorrect. Admittedly, I didn’t even bother going through any kind of trial or adjustment period with the natural scrolling. Lion arrived, I swapped it back in some kind of quasi-Luddite rejection of change.
Autocorrect has had its chance, but I’m over it. Instead of proofreading once, I find myself having to proofread twice just to make sure I caught the [auto]corrections. It’s a bit like the “pubic/public” spell check problem, only somehow “snooty” becomes “syphilis”. It happened.
If you, too, want to uncheck that autocorrect preference:
System Preferences > Language & Text > Text (Correct Spelling Automatically is in the upper right)
Go Home Dinosaurs Playable at PAX
Feisty indie developer Fire Hose Games will be introducing their brand new title, Go Home Dinosaurs!, at PAX this coming weekend.
Described as a fun, new take on tower defense players will piece together weapons shaped as puzzle pieces – all powered by tiny mammals – in an effort to defend against the invading menace: dinosaurs. Tower defense, gophers with lasers, dinosaurs and meteor showers – how can you resist when BBQs need saving from enemy pterodactyls? The cause is just, folks, time to wage war.
Your character and abilities can level up by collecting and trading cards, “This game has it all, blending short, simple, easy-to-get-into fun with deep mechanics that keep things exciting and new.” While platforms are still up in the air, according to Eitan Glinert, Fire Hose Games’ Fire Chief, they’re hoping for “some combination of console, PC, mobile”.
If you’ll be at PAX you can check out the game at booth 6408, in Indie Alley and next to the PAX 10. Anyone that knows me knows that I’m more than a little fond of the TD genre, so I look forward to getting hands-on with the game and telling you all how it’s shaping up!
Permadeath’s Economy
Because really, who can be fussed to remember “Salem” when it’s “that MMO with permadeath”! With the free-to-play MMORPG market already burgeoning with options – and potential players with increasingly limited temporal currency – Salem’s gimmick is definitely attention grabbing. In theory, wouldn’t it be a blast to form your own gang of thieves and assassins and go around wreaking havoc? In practice, the white knight RPG syndrome may bleed right on through into some sort of Salem Police hall monitor task force…
Provided you’ve already thought all that through, here’s some info on the game’s economy from Björn Johannessen, Creative Director, out of gamescom:
The economy will be based around a store owned by the “game” that players can trade and purchase items from. When trading you’ll receive silver based on the value of the resource traded. With this silver you can then buy inaccessible resources or ones you don’t want to spend time gathering. The store will also offer the option to buy silver with real world currency. It’s key for us that all items will be purchasable with the in-game silver only, so all players, whether playing for free or not, can buy any item for sale .
Latest PixelJunk SideScroller Screens Out of gamescom
The awesome Ariel from QGames sent over the latest SideScroller screens fresh outta gamescom!
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Yearbook Club
Sally has been working on taking the HAVAmedia team’s school pics – the people that make N4G, NewsBoiler and all the rest go round and round the intertubes. My nephew would approve that my hair is wiggly:
The Fastest Way Around a Con is in a Straight Line
PAX Site is finally updated* with their maps. Feast your eyes on Level 4 and Level 6, the dual-hearts of PAX Prime 2011′s beast.
*Why finally updated? Do you have any idea how hard it is to schedule efficient meetings at a multi-level convention with off-site rooms to boot? Especially since, of late, I’ve lost my ability to “hustle”. Overburdened=Half-speed all the time, regardless of armor attributes.
Rusty Hearts Beta Keys and Phase 2
Just a heads up from PWE for those of you in the Beta, the Rusty Hearts server will go offline on August 17 at 3pm PT/5pm CT until August 24 to make preparations for Phase 2 of closed Beta testing. They’ll be making some changes and adding some content based on the feedback thus far.
If you’re not in the Beta yet, but want to be, we still have some keys – just contact me here. Even if you redeem during the offline period you will be in the Beta – and will receive an email about Phase 2 like the rest of your Beta testing comrades!
August Contests
It’s hard to believe July and its 100% summer awesomeness is behind us, but on the bright side: we’re one month closer to fall game releases! To help you balance your budget, here are the contests for the month of August over on N4G.
Sandboxing
Finished L.A. Noire yesterday, and with the PC announcement got to thinking: Why did I finish L.A. Noire? Or rather, why did I finish L.A. Noire but not Red Dead Redemption?
Because Red Dead was more fun.
Admit it, you spent hours hunting cougar and rattlesnake, riding around on your beautiful steed and saving (or murdering) fellow countrymen on your travels. Along the way to a mission objective you were easily derailed by a passing herd of horses, or a pioneer in need of help, or maybe some treasure hunting – and after a week or so of this, you forgot why you were out there, where you were supposed to go, and what the overarching plot was… and rode off into the sunset. Even with a rattlesnake bite and a bad case of sunstroke, Red Dead sure was a good time.
L.A. Noire has had zero exploratory appeal. Sure, I hop in the occasional car (mostly fire trucks, ambulances and pest control vehicles) just to amuse myself while on a case, but beyond that it isn’t fun to go roaming around the city. Everywhere you go you get yelled at. While driving up an empty dirt road well off a main strip I was hunted by the sounds of invisible pedestrians screaming as I passed, of nonexistent boxes breaking – L.A. is too L.A. for its own good.
This left me with only one thing to do: finish the cases and unlock Free Roam, so that I could drive around causing all sorts of consequence-free mayhem and city damage. Now that the opportunity is upon me, however, I just don’t wanna. The entire game experience, case-by-case, is devoid of a sandbox feel, so I’m taking my shovel and going home.
L.A. Noire on Ur PC
Further evidence that Red Dead Redemption‘s absence from PC is an aberration, L.A. Noire will be on PC this fall.
The PC version of L.A. Noire was developed by Rockstar Leeds. It will run on a wide range of PCs and feature customization, including keyboard remapping and gamepad functionality to both optimize and customize the performance and user experience. Along with increased fidelity and improved graphical enhancements, the PC version will feature 3D support for an even greater sense of interaction and immersion within a painstakingly detailed 1940s Los Angeles.
The rest of the release is non-PC specific jargon-y goodness about the merits of all things L.A. and Noire. Just about done with the game, and it’s an action-adventure game that could do without the action sequences.
Pottermore=More Potter (Duh)
Harry Potter fans, come October there will be…Pottermore.* Rowling and Sony have partnered to create an “online reading experience unlike any other.” Reading, so why is this filed under “Gaming”? Because where should we file “experience”? Er…
According to the Officially Official Website:
Pottermore is a free website that builds an exciting online experience around the reading of the Harry Potter books.
…and there will be a Beta:
Come back on 31st July to find out how you can get the chance to enter Pottermore early.
This will also mark the first (legal) availability of Harry Potter ebooks, and Rowling herself says she will be participating to reveal new information about the Harry Potter universe.
*I tried registering this morning but received error messages. [insert Squib joke]
Rusty Hearts Closed Beta Keys
Christine Yeo sent me a ton of Rusty Hearts keys for the July Beta, you can get yours here.
My preview based on my time with the game at E3 isn’t live yet, but in the meantime: hack-and-slash, dungeon crawling, loot, puzzles.
About
I’m Community Manager for N4G and Admin for the NewsBoiler Network, home to N4G, TechSpy, AnimeShinbun, FilmWatch and 11×2. There’s more words strung together on the N4G Blog.
Check out my about.me profile!
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