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Civilization V’s Brave New World expansion feels like a culture club (hands-on preview)

Jason Wilson — Fri, 17 May 2013 21:33:57 +0000

Under my leadership, Morocco had become the cultural center of the world. Culture flourished in my capital, Marrakesh, and it had become the top tourist destination in the world (thus spreading my ideology to other places). I’d attracted more Great Artists and Great Musicians than any other Civilization, and my treasuries were flowing with gold from trade caravans established with every Civ (the Assyrians and the Polish) and city state on my continent.

Then the Zulus had to foul it all up.

With one vote at the World Congress, a council of the world’s Civs, the Zulus had brought enough support from city states on their continent to pass an embargo on Morocco, shutting down my trade caravans with every other Civ and sending me into an apoplectic fit as my balance sheet at once dipped deep into the red.

This is the Brave New World of Civilization V. The new expansion comes out for PC on July 9. The “Brave New World” aspect focuses on how, once you either reach the Modern Era or have a few factories, you have a new option under the your social policies to set ideologies, which then results in new choices among “tenets” to underpin your new ideology.

But culture is where it’s at with Brave New World.

The artsy-fartsy expansion

One of the first experiences you’ll have with Brave New World is with Great Artists, Musicians, and Writers. These new Great Persons create Great Works that fill slots in your cities, which come from buildings and Wonders, and these pieces of art, literature, and music bring in culture and tourism (this is just a mechanic — you won’t see people from other civs traveling to your cities). You can also send these new Great People to other Civs on tours, which ups tourism and culture. You’ll see composers such as Johann Strauss (I settled him in Marrakesh and got the Great Work “Die Fladermaus”).

This came about, explains Brave New World lead designer Ed Beach, because when it came to pursuing relationships with other Civs, he noticed something was lacking.

“Tourism fulfills the second shortcoming we saw with the existing Culture Victory: Namely that you could win one without really engaging with the other players in the game,” Beach said. “Now in Brave New World, you must make sure this amazing culture you created is spread across the globe and permeates the other nations of the world. Tourism is the mechanic that enables that spread.”

I decided early on to focus on generating these new Great People, and I was surprised at how easy it was to do so (and just how much culture I was generating). Later in the game, I was pulling in 400 culture (or more) a turn. It makes pursuing a cultural victory easier, and if you’re a player who prefers plowshares to swords, it gives you more options.

“The culture victory in the Civilization series has been popular among fans; it’s a playstyle that many people seem to naturally embrace. And yet we’ve never before allowed players to really put their own ‘signature’ on their culture as they progress toward a victory of that type.” Beach said. “Introducing Great Works and putting them into ‘themed’ museums and wonders allows you to create something culturally unique, in sort of a parallel to deciding which military units you were going to assemble into your armies when you went off on a conquest.”

World Congress is now in session

The United Nations doesn’t come into play until late in a game of Civilization. The World Congress, however, appears much earlier — and it can have a great influence on how your Civilization grows and the diplomatic relations you have with other world leaders. As I discovered with my diplomatic pissing match with the Zulus.

Ah, the Zulus. Our feud started modestly during the first session of the World Congress — a gathering of the world’s leaders. I proposed a resolution banning happiness from pearls, rendering the resource rather useless. Every nation but one passed it — the Zulus threw every delegate they had against that proposal. This started us down a path toward a cold war, where our relations quickly soured from Friendly to Guarded to Hostile.

But my Civ was on another continent, making open warfare a challenge. So the Zulus decided to use a new weapon against me: the World Congress. Shaka and his gang started proposing resolutions against my interests, culminating in an embargo against me. With delegates the Zulus gained from their allied City States (one per ally) and World Wonders — and my allies committing delegates to other resolutions — Shaka was able to get a trade embargo passed against my Civ. This embargo is worldwide; no Civ would accept a trade caravan from me. I countered with my own embargo proposal, and in ensuing sessions, I mustered votes against anything that would help the Zulus and sponsored resolutions that would hurt Shaka.

And I started building an invasion force as well, resulting in the world’s first arms race.

The World Congress adds new interactions to Civ V, but it doesn’t replace the United Nations — it evolves into it.

“[The World Congress] now springs into action well before the Atomic Era that you would historically associate with the United Nations,” Beach said. “But when you do reach those later stages of the game, the World Congress continues its evolution and does become the U.N. It is after this transformation that a World Leader can be elected, and that Civ wins the Diplomatic Victory.”

Trade winds

Brave New World also brings in trade caravans, special units that set up trade routes with Civs and city states. These don’t supplant trade routes; caravans also a second way to bring in cash. And as other Civs grow, the amount of gold that comes in builds up. In the modern era, I was getting significant amounts — I was able to establish new trade caravans with city states when the gosh-darned Zulus passed the trade embargo, which shut down my trade caravans with them (oddly enough, I could still trade luxury and strategic resources through the Diplomacy screen), and establish a new revenue stream.

Are cultural wins too easy now?

As I played with these news systems — and watched as piles and piles of culture accumulated — I worried that it would be too simple to pursue a cultural victory. But as my
Congress feud with the Zulus shows, Brave New World comes with ways to keep you from simply winning through the arts.

Beach addressed these concerns. “We’ve been playtesting culture victory games for quite a while now to make sure we get the balance right,” he said. “During that time, we’ve had significant changes to how difficult it is to win the culture game. The biggest shift came when we finished tuning up the A.I. to really play the culture game effectively. It’s definitely a challenge now; I have no fears that it is too easy.

“In fact, in some games, when faced with a really dominant cultural A.I. such as France or Brazil [note: In my game, the Zulus crushed Brazil early], you might have to steer in another direction. It’s the equivalent of trying to win a Conquest victory when you are in the same game with Attila and Genghis.”

My final concern — and after my limited time with this preview build of Brave New World (about 10 hours), I can’t fully assess this — that the interactions between this systems, while rich, could be too complex and muddle Civ V’s existing game. But Beach is confident the resulting puzzle is one fans will enjoy.

“I don’t think any single system is very complex in Civ V. It is in the interactions between those systems where the complexity emerges, like religious pressure and science flowing along trade routes, or your tourism pushing the populace of other civs to consider adopting your ideology,” Beach says. “It definitely takes some time playing with this expansion to get comfortable with all these interactions. But once you do, the web of interdependencies makes for a fascinating puzzle that holds one’s interest through the late game better than any earlier iteration.”

Filed under: Games

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Defiance developer cuts staff; MMO Rift unaffected

Jeffrey Grubb — Fri, 17 May 2013 21:05:21 +0000

Trion Worlds recently launched online-shooter Defiance on PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3. Now that the studio has that game out the door, it’s laying off some of its development staff.

Trion confirmed to GamesBeat that it is cutting jobs, as first reported by IGN.

“To best position Trion in a rapidly changing industry, we have reorganized our teams and are expanding our free-to-play offering,” a Trion spokesperson told GamesBeat. “With Defiance, we delivered a great game that more than one million gamers registered to play and continue to enjoy. As we progress from launch to ongoing development of [Defiance], we are adjusting our staffing levels to deliver new content and improved features.”

That new content won’t require the big team Trion had on hand to launch Defiance, which is a sci-fi shooter. Defiance is also a SyFy television program. The game and the show interconnect and affect one another.

Trion claims this move relates solely to the development cycle of Defiance and that these layoffs won’t have an impact on its other projects.

“Rift, and our other titles in development, were unaffected by these changes. We are very much looking forward to the free to play release of Rift and are excited by the other new titles currently in development.”

Rift is Trion’s subscription-based fantasy massively multiplayer online game. It is going free-to-play in June. Trion also has the real-time strategy MMO End of Nations in development, but it hasn’t revealed a release for that yet.

Filed under: Games

EA appoints New York Times digital-product expert to its board

Jeffrey Grubb — Fri, 17 May 2013 20:48:48 +0000

Electronic Arts’ board of directors is getting some extra expertise in digital distribution.

The publisher revealed today that it appointed Denise Warren, the New York Times executive vice president of digital products, to its board. Warren managed NYTimes.com for the national newspaper company and oversaw development of its digital products.

“EA is transforming its business by extending the consumer relationship with digitally delivered high-quality products and services,” said Warren. “I’m impressed with the management of the company and look forward to helping them extend their products to a broader audience on new platforms including mobile and tablets.”

The company also announced that that director Gregory Maffei is resigning his position on the board due to his commitments with TV entertainment distributor Liberty Media.

“Denise Warren brings an enormous amount of digital media experience to EA’s board of directors,” said EA executive chairman Larry Probst. “We look forward to the leadership and perspective that she will provide to our company. I would also like to thank Greg Maffei for his many years of dedicated service to our Board. His guidance, involvement and expertise have been invaluable.”

Filed under: Games

Amazon taking Madden NFL 25: Annivesary Edition preorders — bundled with NFL Sunday Ticket

Jeffrey Grubb — Fri, 17 May 2013 18:35:03 +0000

Electronic Arts’ football franchise is celebrating its 25-year anniversary, and the publisher is teaming with Amazon to start offering preorders for a special version of the new game.

Exclusively at Amazon, players can start preordering the $100 Anniversary Edition. This version comes with bonuses that will get players special in-game items each week of the NFL season. It’s big draw, however, is a special offer from satellite-television service DirecTV.

Gamers that grab the Anniversary Edition will get a coupon that will save them $10 a month on new DirecTV service and a free year of the company’s NFL Sunday Ticket Max. That channel package gives DirecTV subscribers every NFL game of the entire season.

EA claims the $100 box packs over $400 worth of value. DirecTV prices NFL Sunday Ticket Max at $300 on its website.

If you already subscribe to the satellite provider and the standard (non-Max) NFL Sunday Ticket, DirecTV and EA will upgrade your account so that you can watch NFL games on your computer or mobile device.

Finally, if you are unable to subscribe to DirecTV services, the Anniversary Edition will come with a code that will gain customers access to an NFL Sunday Ticket Max trial on computers, tablets, and smartphones. With this, football fans can watch every game of the regular season.

“We’re delighted to offer our fans this special edition to celebrate the franchise they helped build over the last 25 years,” EA Sports senior marketing direct Anthony Stevenson, Sr. said. “Pairing the ultimate football video game experience with the ultimate viewing experience in DirecTV NFL Sunday Ticket Max will deliver incredible value and excitement all season long.”

Filed under: Games, Media

GamesBeat weekly roundup: Google’s game service, EA axes online passes, and a look at The Last of Us

Jasmine Maleficent Rea — Fri, 17 May 2013 17:31:32 +0000

If you follow VentureBeat but don’t regularly check our GamesBeat site, here’s a list of the best video game stories we ran over the last seven days that you may have missed.

This week, Google held its annual I/O conference in San Francisco, revealing plans for cross-platform Google Play support, Electronic Arts decides to kill its online pass initiative that forced used game players to pay for multiplayer access, and GamesBeat gets an early look at Naughty Dogs’ upcoming project The Last of Us.

You’ll also find a review for Metro Last light and previews for Scribblenauts Unmasked and The Bureau: XCOM Declassified.

News

Google I/O

Nintendo Direct

Earnings and funding

New content

Tech

Mobile news

Interviews

Previews

Reviews

Metro: Last Light refuses to let you go (review)

Strange happenings

Pieces of flair

Filed under: Games

Nintendo Direct trailer roundup: Pikmin, Sonic, Wario, and more

Jeffrey Grubb — Fri, 17 May 2013 16:28:56 +0000

Nintendo took the world to Direct town again today with another livestreaming video show filled with information. This time the publisher put the spotlight primarily on its Wii U software lineup for the spring and summer.

You can see all of the detailed coverage of today’s event here, and check out all of the major trailers below:

Sonic & Mario at the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympic Games

Game & Wario

Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D

The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages

The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons

Pikmin 3

Filed under: Games

Nintendo details Pikmin 3′s plot, characters, and control schemes

Jeffrey Grubb — Fri, 17 May 2013 16:02:05 +0000

One of Nintendo’s “launch-window games” for the Wii U is slowly approaching its actual release date, and the publisher is dropping some details to build up the hype.

On Aug. 4, you can finally get the action-strategy title Pikmin 3. The sequel takes players back to the planet of the tiny plant creatures for an entirely new adventure. As part of its Nintendo Direct today, the company revealed the new cast of heroes that replace the original game’s Captain Olimar. This time, players control a boy named Alph, a scientist named Brittany, and a captain named Charlie.

These three explorers are from Koppai, a planet suffering from worldwide starvation. Charlie and his crew must find fruit on the Pikmin planet and return the seeds to their home. Thankfully, the Pikmin are willing to help them, which the explorers need their help since the fruit is gigantic.

Check out Nintendo president Satoru Iwata talk at length about the title:

Outside of the plot, Nintendo also revealed some information about how Pikmin 3 works compared to previous entries in the franchise. The three characters means players can divide into three teams. This should help skillful players quickly tackle complex objectives.

Pikmin 3 is also a little easier for newcomers because it is introducing an option to replay an area rather than forcing gamers who screw up to replay the whole level.

Finally, the company also revealed the multiple control schemes available in Pikmin 3. The GamePad is the most capable option. Players can obviously direct their characters and Pikmin using the device, but it also provides information about the map, the characters, and the Pikmin. If that’s not your jam, Nintendo is also providing support for the Wii Remote Plus and Nunchuk combo. The game also works in off-TV mode on the GamePad for players that can use their TV.

Filed under: Games

The DeanBeat: Maxthon offers an alternative browser that won’t crash while running multiple games

Dean Takahashi — Fri, 17 May 2013 15:00:17 +0000

Maxthon has carved out a name for itself as a reliable alternative web browser built with the cloud in mind. The company has more than 120 million monthly users for its browser, which isn’t as crash-prone as those made by its rivals.

Now the Beijing-based company hopes to transform the web experience further by releasing a WebKit core for Android browsers so they can become better foundations for web-based games. The new release of the browser, which has achieved a billion downloads, will make it work even better with web-based games, the company says.

Karl Mattson, the general manager of Maxthon International, told GamesBeat that the Maxthon cloud browser has carved out a niche among gamers because it allows them to sign into as many as five separate accounts simultaneously. That allows them to play different games at the same time. It is also more reliable since memory-management technology was built into the browser from the ground up. If you’ve ever had a browser crash on you during a game or a multi-window session, you’ll come to appreciate memory management. This is basic plumbing for the internet. And it’s something that is holding up the progress of the game industry, along with the difficulty of making games that can run across various platforms.

“We’ve grown by word of mouth in the gaming community,” Mattson said. “We’re the best browser you’ve never heard of. Now we’re offering the world’s best support for HTML5,” the lingua franca of the web. In a test running HTML5 canvas using the CanvasMark benchmark, Maxthon scored the highest of the major web browsers in running HTML5 pages.

That improved support for HTML5 will make it easier to run both 2D and 3D games in web browsers, enabling games to be written once for the web and run on a variety of platforms. Maxthon is available as an app in Apple’s iTunes App Store and the Google Play store for Android devices.

“Gamers are the canaries in the coal mine in leading support for fast browser performance,” Mattson said.

Mattson said that the browser has become the favorite of pro gamers who play web-based games in professional tournaments. It also offers a split-screen feature on the desktop. Maxthon says it can render web pages on Windows, Android, and iOS faster than any other web browser.

Maxthon is growing in a variety of regions, but its market share in browsers is still below that of rivals like Opera, Firefox, Chrome, and Internet Explorer. The company is now expanding in the U.S. market. Another rival is OnLive, which offers a cloud-based browser that loads pages really fast. But Maxthon doesn’t put quite as much of the computing task in the web-connected data centers, or cloud, itself.

“Our goal is to make the actual software faster,” Mattson said.

Jeff Chen, a student in Singapore, started the browser in 2003 when he created a browser out of frustration. He was tired of the poor performance of the big browsers and found an abandoned browser projected dubbed MyIE. He decided to craft his own browser, dubbed MyIE2. He formed the company Maxthon in 2004 and kept adding features. In 2005, Chen renamed the company Maxthon, and the browser became the first one with tabs. Then it added sandboxed tabs in 2007 for added security. In 2008, Maxthon offered cloud-based services for syncing bookmarks and history.

With memory management, Maxthon allows you to pick up where you left off, no matter what you were working on, with any of your Internet-enabled devices.

“We started with a high-performance web-browsing experience,” Mattson said. “We made a strong commitment in the last year and a half to HTML5 support. We’ve got support in the gaming community because of this. We’re making HTML5 games work really well. As a company, we believe that the browser should change the computing experience.”

That meant that users could log into their browser and access their own favorite web pages and history of browsing from any location. In 2010, Maxthon came out on Android, and it has reached more than 500 million downloads to date on that platform. In 2011, the browser came out on Android tablets. Maxthon is also getting chip makers such as Intel and Advanced Micro Devices to support its software in their hardware. The company received one round of funding from Charles River Capital and WI Harper. Today, the browser is used in more than 150 countries.

Maxthon provides HTML5 support in Android, allowing for high-quality video support and Web GL enhancements. Other new features include the ability to run 2D games at 60 frames per second on devices that can support such graphics. It can also run WebGL 3D graphics.

Maxthon has more than 220 employees and is profitable. Now that’s a company that should be on the radar of all of the major game companies and platform owners.

Filed under: Business, Games, Mobile

Nintendo brings E3 to the people … well, people who go to Best Buy

Jeffrey Grubb — Fri, 17 May 2013 14:45:03 +0000

Nintendo wants to talk directly to you. That’s right — you.

During the week of the Electronic Entertainment Expo trade show in early June, Nintendo is partnering with Best Buy to give consumers the chance to try their unreleased games. The company wants to bypass the press and directly target people around the country.

“This year we’re making E3 for the people,” said Fils-Aime. “We want to make sure you get the chance to try our games as well. We’ve partnered with Best Buy to make it possible for consumer in the United States and Canada to experience select unreleased Wii U games at more than 100 retail locations during the week of E3.”

Fils-Aime didn’t detail what games will be at Best Buy starting around June 10, but this is an interesting move to include consumers in the hype of E3.

Filed under: Games

Nintendo dates Platinum Games’ The Wonderful 101

Jeffrey Grubb — Fri, 17 May 2013 14:35:31 +0000

Developer Platinum Games will finally release its Pikmin-like superhero game The Wonderful 101 in late tsummer.

During a Nintendo Direct livestreaming show, Nintendo chief executive Satoru Iwata revealed it will unleash The Wonderful 101 on Sept. 15 for the Wii U. This is one of the few exclusives that Wii U owners are really looking forward to trying.

The Wonderful 101. September 15. #NintendoDirectNA http://t.co/qcvJ9F02Mr—
Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) May 17, 2013

The Wonderful 101 puts players in control of a massive crowd of superheros. You can combine those superheros, Voltron-like, to create gigantic forms. These combination powers help in the fight against an invading force of 10-story-high aliens.

Platinum Games is the well-respected developer of character-action title Bayonetta, third-person shooter Vanquish, and Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. In addition to The Wonderful 101, the studio is also working on Bayonetta 2 for the Wii U.

Filed under: Games

Nintendo releasing retail version of New Super Luigi U in August

Jeffrey Grubb — Fri, 17 May 2013 14:25:33 +0000

The year of Luigi continues as his Wii U game gets a full retail release.

Today during its Nintendo Direct show, the company revealed that the New Super Luigi U expansion for New Super Mario Bros. U will get its own standalone retail release for $29.99 on Aug. 25. This is in addition to the downloadable eShop version, which goes on sale for $19.99 on June 20.

If you don’t own #NSMBU, a standalone retail version of New Super Luigi U will be at stores 8/25. #NintendoDirectNA http://t.co/5UIU7rEzR6—
Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) May 17, 2013

This is good news for gamers who like owning a physical product. It also gives players a chance to get a cool green box to add to their Wii U game collection.

New Super Luigi U is a remix of the original Wii U platformer that is completely devoid of Mario. This is Luigi’s gig and he won’t have to worry about his older brother overshadowing him.

Filed under: Games

Mario & Sonic head to Russia for the Winter Olympics

Jeffrey Grubb — Fri, 17 May 2013 14:14:10 +0000

Sega and Nintendo are teaming up again for a new Mario & Sonic game.

This time the pair of rivals are heading to Russia for the Sochi Winter Olympics. It will have skiing, snowboarding, figure skating, and more.

Sega and Nintendo aren’t talking release details yet. Since this is an officially licensed product of the Olympics, expect it out sometime before the start of the 2014 Winter Games on Feb. 7.

This is the fourth game in the Mario & Sonic franchise. Previously, the plumber and rodent competed in Beijing, London, and Vancouver.

Filed under: Games

Nintendo and Sega shack up: New Sonic game is Nintendo exclusive

Jeffrey Grubb — Fri, 17 May 2013 14:09:17 +0000

Nintendo and Sega are now working together closely on future Sonic the Hedgehog games.

During a Nintendo Direct livestreaming show today, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata revealed his company will exclusively publish the next Sonic game, subtitled Lost World, on Wii U and 3DS.

“The onetime rivalry between Mario and Sonic has grown into a friendship that has never been closer,” Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime said in a statement. “These announcements in conjunction with Sega demonstrate the commitment we have to bringing great games to the Wii U platform, and set the stage for our upcoming announcements at E3.”

Sonic Lost World will come exclusively to #WiiU and #3DS. #NintendoDirectNA—
Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) May 17, 2013

Nintendo didn’t reveal many details. The publisher plans to reveal more details around the Electronic Entertainment Expo trade show in early June.

This is a lot different than back in the 16-bit days when Nintendo and Sega were the top dogs in the console wars. Sonic was Sega’s flagship franchise, and it represented the company’s efforts to combat Nintendo’s dominance in the market during the 1990s.

Now, both gaming giants are in a very different situation. Sony and Microsoft are arguably the top console manufacturers as Nintendo struggles to sell its Wii U system. Publisher Electronic Arts recently revealed it isn’t making a single game for the system. Getting an exclusive Sonic game on the Wii U and 3DS will please a small group of dedicated gamers, but it probably won’t rescue the floundering home console.

Filed under: Games

Sony reveals more tense moments in The Last of Us (preview)

Dean Takahashi — Fri, 17 May 2013 14:00:14 +0000

Sony’s upcoming The Last of Us is one of the most anticipated titles of the year because it’s filled with three-dimensional characters who move from one life-and-death moment to another in a world where the only thing that matters is surviving.

It seems like we’re getting to see about one level a year for The Last of Us, the new survival-horror game coming from Naughty Dog and Sony. But we’ll all be able to play the PlayStation 3 exclusive starting June 14, when it goes on sale. Last night, I and other reporters saw a new level and played it. And as my past experiences with The Last of Us, this one isn’t disappointing. It fits in with all of the other scenes that Naughty Dog has revealed that deliver a huge dramatic punch.

The PlayStation 3 game may very well be one of the most memorable of the current console generation. The scene I played lived up to those expectations, even though it might seem rather mundane on the surface. It’s set in a postapocalyptic future, where the human race has either been wiped out by a pandemic or transformed into hideous monsters.

Those monsters are either slow like zombies or fast like sprinters. And they’re not necessarily as deadly as the human characters who tangle with the main characters, Ellie (a 14-year-old girl voiced by actress Ashley Johnson) and Joel (voiced by Tony Baker). In this scene, Ellie and Joel need a car, and they track down Bill, an old friend of Joel’s who is either capable of finding a car or rebuilding one for them.

But Bill is hiding out in a small town, and it is protected by all sorts of booby traps. Bill has chosen to survive without the help of other people. He considers other people a liability, and he has protected himself with barricades and bomb traps. Ellie and Joel walk into the town and scavenge for everything. They have to figure out how to get past barriers. They can, for instance, set up a plank between two buildings to get past fences. They pick up things like lead pipe with scissors on it.

You’re tempted to pick up everything, since you know it will all be useful at some point. And you can craft the things you find into weapons or other potential lifesavers. I played the “Lincoln” level as Joel. The first time I saw one of the “infected” people, I just about fainted. I wasted a few bullets and scissor-pipes learning how to properly dispatch the attacker, who was quickly joined by a second foe. I found that brute force, swinging the pipe against the creature’s head and sending blood everywhere, was the most economical. I only had a handful of bullets.

As I got deeper into town, I had to dispatch more foes. But I didn’t have as much freedom to explore as I thought. Ricky Cambier, one of the game designers at Naughty Dog, told me afterward in an interview that the designers want to tell a story. That means they need to direct you down a path, and it doesn’t pay to give you too many choices when moving down that path.

After all, you have choices where they really matter. Do you save that last bullet to shoot the “Clicker” coming after you, or do you use it to keep the bad guy away from Ellie?

In any case, I got a little frustrated looking for the path from one building to another. Sometimes that meant finding the one door that would open, the way up over a fence, or a wood plank that connected the buildings together. Moving from one backyard to another was a pain, particularly because Bill’s booby traps got in the way. You pretty much have to search everything, as you often find precious bullets in desks or notes written by other survivors that give story clues.

When you get to the point in the game where you have to make your decisions precisely, you’ll know it. In this case, Joel winds up in a trap and Ellie has to free him. But as he is trapped, the monsters come attacking. Joel has to shoot the ones coming at him and the ones attacking Ellie. At the same time, he has to preserve his ammo. Even the lead pipes break after you crack too many heads.

When the monsters were attacking, I cursed every time I missed with a shot or failed to completely take them out with a head shot. Agh, one more bullet wasted! And when I failed, the consequences were ugly. At some point, Bill comes out to rescue us, but then we have to run for our lives. It is just a few minutes of action, but it is harrowing. It’s the sort of action that can give you a heart attack.

Then Bill is just a plain asshole, as he is more upset with you that you have set off a bunch of his booby traps in trying to stay alive. And you discover from him that you have to go back out there and scavenge. But scavenging isn’t easy, because you can’t carry much stuff.

One of the riveting parts of the story is the growing relationship between Joel and Ellie. In this part of the game, she asks for a weapon so that both of them will be armed. He refuses her. Is it for a lack of trust? These are two of the last good people in the world, and yet they don’t trust each other. Their perspectives are interesting. Joel grew up before the pandemic, but Ellie has only known life in the hellish post-pandemic world.

The Last of Us is dramatic and frustrating at the same time. But it’s brilliant storytelling in a video game.

Filed under: Games

April 2013 NPD: Injustice tops software chart as console industry continues to shrink

Jeffrey Grubb — Thu, 16 May 2013 22:54:28 +0000

The gaming industry continued its recession in April. Consumers spent $495.2 million on new physical video games at retail last month, according to the industry-tracking firm The NPD Group.

That total sales number is down 25 percent from April 2012. Unsurprisingly, hardware took the biggest hit. Manufacturers only sold around $109.5 million in new home and portable consoles. That’s down a massive 42 percent from the same period in 2012.

Software was also down from $307.2 million in 2012 to just $254.3 million. That’s a 17 percent recession.

As always, it’s important to remember that NPD only tracks new sales at brick-and-mortar stores. These numbers don’t include digital sales.

Software

Here is a list of the best-selling games in April 2013:

Injustice: Gods Among Us (Xbox 360, PS3, Wii U)
Dead Island: Riptide (Xbox 360, PS3, PC)
BioShock Infinite (Xbox 360, PS3, PC)
Call of Duty: Black Ops II (Xbox 360, PS3, Wii U, PC)
Defiance (Xbox 360, PS3, PC)
Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon (3DS)
NBA 2K13 (Xbox 360, PS3, Wii U, Wii, PSP, PC)
Skylanders Giants (Wii U, 360, PS3, 3DS, Wii )
Lego City Undercover: The Chase Begins (3DS)
MLB 13: The Show (PS3, Vita)

Warner Bros. Interactive’s DC Comics fighting game topped a weak month for software sales. The brawler and Deep Silver’s zombie game Dead Island: Riptide forced BioShock Infinite out of the top spot.

“Despite overall declines, April title launches in 2013 fared better than games that launched in April 2012, up 118 percent in unit sales and 130 percent in dollar sales,” NPD analyst Liam Callahan said in the report. “This increase was driven by games like Injustice: Gods Among Us, Dead Island: Riptide, and Lego City Undercover: The Chase Begins.”

The biggest surprises for April are probably the games that are still here from March and the ones that dropped off completely.

March saw the release of Tomb Raider, Gears of War: Judgment, and God of War: Ascension. Not a single one of those maintained strong enough sales to make a repeat appearance.

That’s compared to titles like Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon, NBA 2K13, and MLB 13: The Show. Sony’s baseball title, The Show, hung on at 10, which is impressive for a sports game exclusive to PlayStation hardware. Luigi’s Mansion held strong at six and NBA 2K13 jumped up to seven likely thanks to the start of the NBA playoffs.

Of course, Call of Duty: Black Ops II is still selling well.

Finally, for software, it’s worth noting that 3DS titles are starting to get a stronger foothold on this chart. Luigi’s Mansion is one thing, but Lego City Undercover: The Chase Begins isn’t exactly a Nintendo staple. It might help that Nintendo published and promoted the game itself.

Hardware

The Xbox 360 once again led all consoles in terms of sales with 130,000 units sold in April. That is 28 straight months of dominance against the PlayStation 3, the Wii U, and the Wii.

“When looking at month-to-month hardware trends with weeks normalized for the five-week March period compared to the four-week April period, we have seen declines hover around 30 percent over the past few years, while March 2013 to April 2013 declines were slightly higher at 38 percent,” said Callahan.

Like I said last month, the hardware market is saturated. Few people are buying hardware because just about everyone already has a console that wants one. Gamers are also hesitant to pull the trigger on new hardware in a year that might see the release of two brand new systems.

Sony already revealed its PlayStation 4 in February. Microsoft plans to lift the veil on the next Xbox during a presentation on May 21.

Filed under: Games

DICE L.A. is ’100% focused on Battlefield 4′

Jeffrey Grubb — Thu, 16 May 2013 21:48:35 +0000

Yesterday, GamesBeat reported that Electronic Arts opened a new studio named DICE L.A. in Los Angeles. The publisher told us yesterday that the team is going to work on Battlefield games. Now we know exactly which Battlefield game that is.

DICE L.A. is working on Battlefield 4. Several sites yesterday echoed a Wall Street Journal report that the developer would focus on Star Wars games. That isn’t entirely the case, according to EA.

“With regards to DICE L.A., they are an extension of DICE Sweden and are working on the same projects across both locations,” EA PR director Pete Nguyen told GamesBeat. “Both teams are 100 percent focused on Battlefield 4.”

This is similar to the arrangement Ubisoft has with its multiple studios all working on Assassin’s Creed games. For example, that publisher has six development teams listed in the credits for Assassin’s Creed III.

As for the reports that DICE L.A. will focus on Star Wars — “focus” is a bit misleading.

“We recently announced that with our Star Wars license agreement, DICE and Visceral will join BioWare in developing future Star Wars games using our Frostbite engine,” said Nguyen. “As DICE in Sweden works on Star Wars so too will DICE in L.A.”

It’s also worth noting that just about all of the people who list “DICE L.A.” as their employer on LinkedIn also worked on developer Danger Close’s Medal of Honor: Warfighter.

Lead artist Chris Healy, senior designer Richard Starr, senior level artist Daniel Sundberg, and lead UI designer David Sirland from Danger Close have all now moved on to take similar roles at DICE L.A.

In January, EA mothballed the Medal of Honor franchise after the last two entries in the franchise sold sluggishly compared to Call of Duty and Battlefield. It seems like Danger Close was similarly put on ice.

“Medal of Honor is on hiatus,” PR representative Tammy Levine told GamesBeat. “Some of the most passionate and talented members of that team have joined DICE L.A. Most others have moved on from EA.”

Filed under: Games

Call of Duty’s Uprising maps storm PlayStation 3 and PC

Jeffrey Grubb — Thu, 16 May 2013 20:59:38 +0000

The endless march of time means we’ll all eventually perish from this Earth, but it also means that silly things like Xbox 360 time exclusives will also pass. Maybe that’s not a fair trade, but I’ll take it.

Today, publisher Activision launched the Uprising map pack for Call of Duty: Black Ops II on PC and PlayStation 3. That means those players can hop online now and download the $15 expansion.

Uprising includes four new maps titled Magma, Encore, Vertigo, and Studio. Magma is a Japanese town on the outskirts of an erupting volcano (don’t touch the lava; the ground is lava). Encore is in London at an outdoor amphitheater. Vertigo takes players to a futuristic Indian skyscraper. Finally, Studio is an updated take on the popular Firing Range map from the original Black Ops.

In addition to those multiplayer maps, Uprising features a cooperative zombie-gangster mode called Mob of the Dead. It stars Ray Liotta (Goodfellas), Chazz Palminteri (The Usual Suspects), Joe Pantoliano (The Sopranos), and Michael Madsen (Reservoir Dogs) in the four player-character roles.

To hype the PS3 and PC release, Activision unleashed this new promotional video:

Filed under: Games

Electronic Arts adding amusement parks to SimCity in $10 expansion

Jeffrey Grubb — Thu, 16 May 2013 20:38:23 +0000

When publisher Electronic Arts launched SimCity in March, players had a few options for city specialization. Would-be civil engineers could focus their virtual towns on gambling, technology, or a few other industries. Now, EA is planning to expand those options in downloadable content.

Online retailer Green Man Gaming temporarily hosted a page up for a $10 Amusement Park Pack for the city-building title, according to a thread on the SimCity Reddit page. The website removed that product, but the official SimCity page on Facebook has all but confirmed that the expansion will debut this month.

“Some of you may have seen thrilling new SimCity content that arrived too early at the gate,” reads the Facebook post. “It’s coming May 28. We think you’ll be amused.”

SimCity is an urban-planning game where players have full rule over how a city grows and expands. Each city owns a lot within an online region. Specializations enable players to better serve the needs of their region and attract new residents and tourism.

SimCity is best known for its disastrous launch due to that online infrastructure. The massive influx of new players over its first two weeks overwhelmed EA’s servers. After several patches, the company eventually put those problems behind them.

Filed under: Games

Nintendo of America started localizing Animal Crossing: New Leaf in 2010

Jeffrey Grubb — Thu, 16 May 2013 18:03:03 +0000

Nintendo has some of the best localization in all of gaming. It’s Treehouse translation team is responsible for the delightful writing in the Animal Crossing games, the Mario & Luigi franchise, and more.

In preparation for the June 9 launch of Animal Crossing: New Leaf on the Nintendo 3DS, the publisher is trotting out the Treehouse to talk about its history with the franchise and what it was like to work on the new game.

In an official Nintendo YouTube video, the localization team revealed that New Leaf was a three-year-long project that required close collaboration with the Animal Crossing development team.

“Planning [for Animal Crossing: New Leaf] started in late 2010,” Nintendo of America localization manager Reiko Ninomiya said in a video interview. “We’re really fortunate with this franchise — the development teams in Japan are always open to our feedback, but they are especially so with this franchise.”

Ninomiya said that the Japanese studio understands that Animal Crossing needs to have a certain intimacy to its language for it to touch gamers in the way that is familiar and comfortable.

“In late 2010 we started brainstorming with the development team in brainstorming ideas for events and items and even how some of the old characters and events could be twisted and changed and evolved,” said Ninomiya. “Animal Crossing has always been special in that localization is very involved throughout the entire process.”

Despite that early start, Treehouse didn’t start on the actual translation of Animal Crossing: New Leaf’s dialogue until March 2012. Treehouse did an English, French, and Spanish translation for the North American region. It also worked closely with Nintendo of Europe, which developed it in several additional languages.

Check out the interview in the official Nintendo video below:

Filed under: Games

Crytek’s Warface invades Japan under Nexon’s management

Jeffrey Grubb — Thu, 16 May 2013 17:16:15 +0000

Developer Crytek plans world domination by way of free-to-play PC games. The studio’s Warface first-person shooter already has 10 million players in Russia, and now it is preparing to move into the Japanese market.

Crytek is announcing today that it is partnering with South Korean publisher Nexon to bring Warface to Japan. Nexon, which has its headquarters in Tokyo, will oversee the game on behalf of Crytek.

“Expanding Warface to Japan is a very important step for us,” Crytek chief executive officer Cevat Yerli said in a statement. “Since it’s a global IP, this move perfectly underlines our strategy in sharing the game’s unique action with gamers around the world. Nexon is a very trusted partner; they have shown us tremendous results in South Korea, where Warface just entered open beta after receiving highly positive feedback from gamers during closed beta. We are sure that Nexon will play a key role in ensuring Warface’s success in Japan as well.”

Warface is a modern-military shooter similar to Call of Duty and Battlefield. It runs on Crytek’s proprietary CryEngine graphics technology, which powers stunning triple-A titles like Crysis 3.

Crytek plans on leaving behind most of its retail-game business in favor of the free-to-play Warface model.

“We decided five or six years ago that we want to marry the quality of triple-A games with the business model of free-to-play,” Yerli told GamesBeat in February. “And out of that position, [Warface was] born. We kept pushing the quality bar higher on our console business, which is the main dominating business for the Western world, but we are observing, plainly — and we see this already with Warface — that the free-to-play market is on the rise. I think over the next two to three years, free-to-play is going to rival retail with quality games like Warface.”

Filed under: Games

Warframe is the online co-op space ninja game you’ve been waiting for (interview)

Sebastian Haley — Thu, 16 May 2013 16:30:38 +0000

Warframe has been a long time coming. The ambitious, free-to-play cooperative action game is the dream project of independent developer Digital Extremes, the studio behind titles such as The Darkness II, several entries in the Unreal Tournament franchise, and 2008’s highly underrated Dark Sector.

It’s the latter game that Warframe is so heavily based upon — or more appropriately, Dark Sector was based on a sliver of the concept that would eventually become Warframe, as creative director Steve Sinclair explains below. Warframe entered open beta on March 21 and has exceeded over 1 million players, rapidly climbing the ranks of popular game-tracking and social networking site Raptr.

Warframe uses premium Kickstarter-esque “founders packages” along with sales of Platinum, the in-game currency, to help fund its ongoing development. Awhile back, GamesBeat spoke with Sinclair about the game’s storied past, its monetization efforts, and the future plans for this potentially “endless” endeavor.

GamesBeat: Can you tell how Warframe came about? I understand it goes as far back as Dark Sector?

Steven Sinclair: It’s a long story. Most of it is boring and filled with naivety and hubris. We dreamed big and started building a next-gen engine before the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 were announced. Crazy ideas, like Arthur C. Clarke had said: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” We started building and getting people excited about the visuals and the graphics, but when we hit the road to get it published, we hit a wall. WWII shooters were what all the marketing departments wanted. Many publishers came close but ran us through the “comparables” matrix and decided that a hard sci-fi game wouldn’t sell enough.

So we shelved the sci-fi. We adapted the pitch and toned it down so the company could survive. We lost a bit of control. We lost a bit of mojo. But we were stubborn and held on to some of the ideas in a subtle way. We took the race Tenno and named Dark Sector’s hero after him. We took the technology of Warframe and made it the virus that gave him his power. Then we crunched through the years of what it actually, properly took to build a game engine and a game from scratch, which we had completely underestimated. Then we shipped it just as it was getting a life of its own — before it was perfect. Despite its flaws, I appreciate you calling it underrated: I am still very proud of what we accomplished. I loved the Glaive. I loved how the powers evolve. But it was a death march to get it out, and my story for it sucked.

Years go by, and we make more and more awesome stuff. The Darkness II was incredible, a fantastic story with a great noir style. The Demon Arms are endless fun. We have Star Trek very near to ship, and it’s amazing to see Kirk and Spock both in terms of personality and as contrasting play-styles. The stealth/action choices the team built have brought a systemic depth to the game that will surprise people.

Now we are faced with new projects and what the future of the company is and where the industry is going. James built this company on shareware and saw the growing free-to-play market as getting back to our roots. The model is very much getting back to making a game that ships directly to customers that we have more ownership over and [more] interaction with our gamers. So we looked around at what ideas we had and decided that the sci-fi Dark Sector concepts would be a way to hit the ground running. It was time to make the game we always wanted to and to do it on our terms. Time to finish what we started back 10 years ago.

GamesBeat: Digital Extremes is no stranger to triple-A titles developed for big-name publishers. What are the specific advantages and disadvantages of doing a game like Warframe on your own versus Star Trek, The Darkness, etc.

Sinclair: Disadvantages: budget. Do-or-die stakes of self-funding. You have to do your own marketing, customer support, infrastructure — a whole new learning curve. Sacrifice established brands — or not a sequel — distribution channels and retail expertise.

Advantages: creative control — glorious creative control! More — much more — than a pittance of the profits. A chance to take risks and think differently. You can actually have an open and honest discourse with players instead of being on-message and repeating talking points — this is my favorite one.

GamesBeat: What’s your estimated goal for having the launch version of Warframe “complete” and out of beta?

Sinclair: A game like Warframe is really different for us. It’s about building a community of invested players and keeping them interested over a long period of time. This implies terms like “finished” or “complete” are a death sentence. Our dream for Warframe is that it is never complete but constantly growing and evolving. Shedding the bad stuff and adding new possibilities.

I’m hoping that Season One of Warframe kicks off this year, but we still have to face the fire of open beta.

GamesBeat: How do you go about designing the Warframes and their abilities?

Sinclair: It happens organically, which is code for chaotically. Scott McGregor, our design lead, sits next to me and writes Lua and experiments until it gets cool. We play it and iterate on it until we think it fits, and then we ship it. We don’t pretend to put [in] thousands of hours of thought or testing like our players do. They are fantastic at showing us the problems, and we try to repay them with fixing, buffing, and nerfing until it fits with the whole.

That said, there is a general design goal that is always the same: differentiation. Our ultimate goal is that if you asked the question, “Which is the best Warframe?”, everyone would have differing opinions. That is a sign we are making them diverse enough, deep enough to master.

Filed under: Games

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Razer launching Atrox fighting-game arcade stick this month

Jeffrey Grubb — Thu, 16 May 2013 16:25:30 +0000

Some players take their hobby very seriously. That doesn’t just mean spending tons of time hopping and jumping in triple-A titles — it also means they invest a lot of money to make sure they have the best experience possible while playing.

That’s the crowd that game hardware and accessory company Razer tries to serve, and it’s targeting the hardcore fighting-game community with its latest product: the Atrox arcade fighting-game arcade stick.

Razer will begin taking preorders for this new Xbox 360-only controller on May 21 at $200. Razer will ship the stick to customers in Japan later this month. Worldwide consumers won’t get it until June.

For the Atrox, Razer worked closely with pro players to help construct the best controller possible. The result, Razer claims, is an arcade stick with 10 highly responsive buttons and a precision eight-way joystick that won’t fall apart under heavy use. On top of that, you can pop open the Atrox for easy modding.

“Following a huge beta testing program, we’re confident that we’ve built an arcade stick enthusiasts will love,” Razer chief executive officer Min-Liang Tan said in a statement. “We know that the fighting-game community is huge on modding their arcade sticks, and that is why we made the Razer Atrox extremely mod friendly. We are excited to see what extreme mods the Razer Atrox will be the base for.”

Below we’ve included a gallery and a full list of the controller’s specifications:

Specifications:

10 tournament-grade buttons.
Joystick with ball top — also comes with bat top.
Interchangeable top plate.
Easily accessible internals.
Honeycomb structure for easy mounting.
Built-in storage room.
13-foot detachable USB cable.
2.5 mm audio jack for Xbox Live headset.

Filed under: Games

10 Android apps that already use Google Play game services

Jeffrey Grubb — Thu, 16 May 2013 15:32:22 +0000

Google made a lot of big moves to impress Android game developers at the I/O developer conference in San Francisco yesterday. One of its most interesting new products is an Xbox Live-like network that provides cross-platform multiplayer, achievements, and cloud saves for mobile titles called Google Play game services.

This suite of tools launched immediately after Google officially revealed it during its keynote presentation. In fact, some developers already updated their games with full support for Google Play game services.

We’ve gone ahead and collected 10 games available now on Google Play that use the new features. Check ‘em out below:

Super Stickman Golf 2: Free

Noodlecake Studios’ 2D arcade golf title gets expanded multiplayer support on Android with the implementation of Google Play game services. The developer added a new multiplayer mode along with achievements, leaderboards, and cloud saves.

Riptide GP: $1.99

Google worked closely with developer Vector Unit to get it on board early for these new Google Play features. The company added leaderboards, achievements, and cloud saves to its popular water-based racing title.

Shine Runner: 99 cents

This is another Vector Unit app. The arcadey smuggling game features the same support for leaderboards, achievements, and cloud saving.

Beach Buggy Blitz: Free

One more Vector Unit app has Play game services support. The company once again added leaderboards, achievements, and cloud saving.

Osmos HD: $2.99

Hemisphere Games’ beloved tablet title, Osmos HD, gets multiplayer powered by Google Play. The studio added local and online multiplayer with friends or with random match-making. It is also introducing 19 new achievements.

Modern Combat 4: Zero Hour: $6.99

Developer Gameloft completely reworked its multiplayer service to work with Google’s new tools. Now players can sign in with Google+ and use that for matchmaking and cloud saves in the first-person shooter.

Townsmen: Free

Studio HandyGames implemented Google Play game services into its medieval city-building title yesterday. Players can now sign in with Google+ to access online leaderboards and 61 in-game achievements.

Farm Invasion USA: Free

HandyGames also added the new features to its 2D alien-crushing title. Gamers can now check leaderboards and achievements for this app as well.

Rocket Island: Free

HandyGames also has some new features for its steampunk hex-based puzzle game. The studio added leaderboards and achievements to the game.

Campus Life: Free

Developer Pocket Gems is using Google Play game services to add leaderboards to its Campus Life sorority simulation title.

Filed under: Games, Mobile

Hidden Path finds an angel to finance the final development of Defense Grid 2 (exclusive)

Dean Takahashi — Thu, 16 May 2013 14:30:47 +0000

Hidden Path Entertainment has found an angel investor to fund the final step of development for Defense Grid 2, the sequel to a popular tower-defense game.

Last year, Bellevue, Wash.-based developer Hidden Path managed to raised $271,726 from more than 6,000 donors for a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign. But the money didn’t fully fund the cost of final development. GamesBeat has learned that Steven Dengler, the chief executive of foreign exchange website XE.com and a successful entrepreneur, decided to invest the remaining funds that Hidden Path needs in order to polish the game, where players must defend military bases from waves of attacking aliens by positioning weapons in towers.

Jeff Pobst, the chief executive of Hidden Path, kept Dengler’s identity as a “mystery investor” secret until now. Dengler, it turns out, is a serial supporter of video game crowdfunding campaigns on Kickstarter. Through his investment firm Dracogen, he has done a lot of game financing on a per-project basis.

That includes two three-game deals with Double Fine Productions. In doing so, he hopes to inspire other well-to-do investors to put more money into games. He also pledged more than $10,000 for the top-tier Kickstarter reward for the successful crowdfunding campaign for Torment: Tides of Numenera, the newest title from InXile’s Brian Fargo. And he backed the Kickstarters for Project Eternity, Wasteland 2, and the Veronica Mars movie.

He has also been the executive producer of a number of web-based video shows, including “Fallout: Nuka Break,” “Star Trek Continues,” “The Jeff Lewis 5-Minute Comedy Hour,” Sandeep Parikh’s “Save the Supers,” and Teal Sherer’s “My Gimpy Life.”

Defense Grid 2 is scheduled for the first half of 2014. Pobst is grateful for the investment from Dengler, who says he will be happy if he can make his money back.

“We did the original game, and it did well in unit sales but not great in dollars,” Pobst said. “With the sequel, we wanted the opportunity to work on a multiplatform game.”

The team spent 2.5 years looking for a publisher, but they couldn’t find anyone. So they turned to Kickstarter in the middle of 2012. That project was successfully funded, but the project was bigger than expected. So Pobst approached Dengler, who had talked about his love for Kickstarter campaigns in the press.

“I don’t have rights, and I am not a publisher,” Dengler told GamesBeat. “I did smaller financings for fun. But I see that the thing that is broken in the industry is that publishers want your soul. Self-publishing has to become a better option. Jeff didn’t have to twist my arm.

“I’m not in this to make my fortune,” he said. “This gets a game out there that people want to play. I don’t want to own part of the company. I want to help make a game.”

Dengler said he played the original Defense Grid and pledged money to the Kickstarter for Defense Grid 2 even before Pobst approached him. He played the game with his two young boys, and they loved it. He liked how it taught them strategic thinking.

Pobst said that publishers liked the first game, but they didn’t think the sequel would sell enough units to help them meet their own ambitious goals.

“They needed a bigger return on investment,” Pobst said. “Steven represents a group of people who could revive independent games.”

Hidden Path has 11 employees working on the game and 41 altogether. It was founded in 2006. The founders, including Pobst, were previously members of Microsoft’s Advanced Technology Group for the Xbox division. Their job was to go around the world to help developers make great games for the launch of the Xbox 360 in 2005.

They formed Hidden Path and published Defense Grid: The Awakening in 2008 on the PC, and it published the game on Xbox Live Arcade in 2009. The title made its way to the Mac in 2010.

Filed under: Business, Dev, Games

Twisted Metal creator collaborating on new vehicular combat game Autoduel

Stefanie Fogel — Thu, 16 May 2013 14:30:03 +0000

Twisted Metal and God of War creator David Jaffe has signed on as a creative adviser for independent game developer Pixelbionic’s first project, a vehicular combat title called Autoduel.

Autoduel is an online PC game focused on team-based battles. It will feature over 20 unique cars that players can upgrade, three factions, and a variety of maps. Pixelbionic claims that Autoduel is an homage to car-combat games of the past such as Interstate ’76 and Jaffe’s own Twisted Metal series, a genre the studio says is “ignored by publishers.”

“I was super excited when I heard Pixelbionic’s vision for Autoduel,” said Jaffe. “As a huge fan of the genre, I’m really looking forward to contributing to the game’s vision and design goals.”

Pixelbionic co-founder and president Mike Arkin says that his studio’s mission is to assemble a team of car-combat visionaries and deliver a game that fans will not only want to play but help create. The developer plans to reveal even more core members of its team in the near future as well as launch a Kickstarter campaign.

Filed under: Games

The dark, silly, and bizarre influences behind PS3′s Puppeteer (exclusive)

Dan "Shoe" Hsu — Thu, 16 May 2013 14:00:53 +0000

Gavin Moore, creative director of the upcoming Puppeteer for the PlayStation 3, says he wants to be able to play his platform/action game with his kid. A game that’s about a maniacal tyrant who beheads a young boy. A game that takes place in dark, frightening worlds. A game that has tons of spider webs.

Good thing Moore has a 9-year-old — any younger might give us pause.

He calls Puppeteer, “a dark fairy tale that we’ve written for children and adults,” but it’s so much more interesting than that. The unusual presentation has you controlling protagonist Kutaro (the headless boy) in sets that evolve and swap as different scenes play out. The world advances around you more than you advance within a world. Picture a theatrical production right in front of you complete with a narrator and a “live” audience that reacts appropriately. (“That came about because I would come home late at night, play my game, and no one would be around to cheer me on,” says Moore). Except that you can manipulate the on-stage antics.

And yes, Puppeteer is scary. But it’s scary in a most lighthearted and oftentimes humorous manner. (See page two for more screenshots plus a trailer.) We’d almost call it Tim Burton-esque if Moore didn’t beat us to it.

During a recent press demo, he cited the quirky movie director as one of his biggest inspirations on this particular game, and that got us wondering: What are all the twisted — and dark — sources that influenced Moore and his vision for Puppeteer? We asked, and he offered his thoughts on …

**… movie director Tim Burton (Beetlejuice, The Nightmare Before Christmas)**

Gavin Moore: One of the funny things about Tim Burton is that he’s originally an animator, which is what I was before I became a creative director. His moving into being a director is a very substantial vision for me as well — moving from being an animator to doing my own thing.

But the wonderful thing about him is he has this great eye for detail. There are all these small touches in his movies. If you look at it once — if you watch the movie once, you miss tons. Then you look at it again and say, “That’s kind of cool. I didn’t realize he’d even bothered to go that far and put that in.”

Puppeteer is like a sensory overload because everything’s moving around you at the same time. Characters are speaking all the time. The audience is reacting all the time. There’s a lot of stuff that you might not pick up or see. People are saying, “I want to see everything, and there’s too much going on!” Well, play it again. Enjoy it again. Watch it and pick up all those little things you didn’t see the first time around. That’s one influence [Burton had] on the creation side of it.

For instance, we break the fourth wall a lot. As the player progresses, the argument between the owner of the theater, who’s narrating, and some of the cast members — and the way they react to the audience — starts to happen. But then, in the background where other characters are acting, some of the actors are having a go at each other. It’s just something you don’t pick up on. But once you go through it and start to see those relationships happening in the story — or outside of the story but inside the theater — you start to pick up on those.

**… comedy troupe Monty Python (Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Life of Brian)**

Moore: I grew up on Monty Python, being English. That’s the basis of all great English humor. It’s just the way they could do something completely insane and make it funny.

That was a great influence for us on Puppeteer. We knew we were going to make it crazy and wacky, and we wanted to keep people playing. They’d want to keep seeing what this bizarre game was showing them. The situations that our hero gets himself into are more and more insane as you progress through the game. So that was a big influence.

How can you possibly do a sketch like the Ministry of Silly Walks? It’s such a British thing, right? Here’s a ministry that exists in Parliament where all they do is give money out to people who have silly walks. But Puppeteer is full of those little individual situations of weirdness. You’re playing the game in this main part of the story, but there are so many characters coming at you from all different angles that are doing these bizarre things. You’re kind of like, “What’s that about?” Then, “Oh, OK, I get it” — it links to something later on in the game.

One of my favorite characters that is completely, utterly pointless in the whole game – doesn’t need to be there at all — is the vampire. He’s been told that there’s no sun on the dark side of the moon, so he moves from Earth to the dark side of the moon. But he can’t find any female virgins to suck their blood.

You wake him up out of this coffin, and he sits up there, and he’s all depressed. Then he starts going on with his little monologue, and he starts saying, “Oh, they told me to go to the dark side of the moon and blah blah blah, but I’m a vampire, and there aren’t any virgins here, wah wah wah. I remember the good old days when I could go down to the local village and suck the blood of loads of women, and they were afraid of me, and they were afraid of the dark. Then this Edison came along! He made electricity!”

He just goes on with his own monologue about the disappointment of his life, which is full of these little points about human nature and stuff. We’re not afraid of the dark anymore. We used to be, but now we’re not. Most kids have seen more violence in video games — he goes on about that. “Why should they be afraid of me?” Pixel shaders and all this sort of stuff — he goes on about that. There are these little hints for gamers and game creators in there.

Filed under: Games

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‘Leveling up’ on Google Play Services means enhancing quality and utilizing social networks

Jasmine Maleficent Rea — Thu, 16 May 2013 01:59:37 +0000

When you think of the Google Play store, it’s easy to conjure images of piracy, poorly performing apps, and clumsy microtransactions. Google is keenly aware of these faults and — with its new dedication to cross-platform Google Play support — wants to help developers get the most out of their products and allow players to share their successes with friends.

“Leveling up” your Android game seems ludicrously simple: Focus on quality, support various screen resolutions, and strive to give your users a hassle-free experience. This year’s developer talk focused on urging gamemakers to put more thought into their products and take advantage of the various services Google is rolling out in the coming months.

In an attempt to bolster app quality and developer support, Google now has an in-depth list dedicated to what it takes for a game to reach the vital “featured” status in the Play store. Unsurprisingly, having your game advertised across a multitude of Android devices requires you to thoroughly test your product on various versions of the Android OS, adequately implement common features across all devices, and simply make your creation usable. A large part of Google’s developer talk harped on the fact that the company does vet applications submitted to its service and that software found buggy, exploitative, or generally lacking in polish will not succeed.

Designers looking to polish their apps can use the company’s revised requirements. Developers can even provide a features checklist (found on the design website) to testers so they can focus on what does and doesn’t work with a title before they publish it. If an app launches on the store having overcome common problems with resolution and simple Android interface options, it has a higher chance of reaching “featured” status.

And getting featured can make or break apps on Google Play. In some instances, the week-long feature period can account for nearly 55 percent of a game’s total revenue. Ideally, products are strong enough to remain profitable after this advertising period, but it still behooves developers to play along with Google’s testing procedures and expedite the process. Paying attention to how in-app purchases work and incorporating social functionality can push a good title into the realm of greatness through player connectivity.

Additionally, localization is an increasingly vital force for making software more profitable. Developers like Gameloft, who localize and style its products for foreign markets, see much more installs than companies that simply release the same English app worldwide. Google is now actively trying to help gamemakers retool their products to succeed in non-English-speaking countries.

Beyond paying more attention to how games perform and global marketing, Google is also urging developers to take advantage of new social features coming to the Play store. Soon, whenever players create accounts, they will have direct access to Google Plus, the slowly growing social network. From here, they can create challenges for their friends and recommend content. They can even share certain moments in games online with others.

Google wants to fight the reputation that its game service is a scary, unregulated place. Through simple revenue incentives and opening up how it selects items for its weekly featured app services, Google wants to inspire developers to reach out to customers and improve the service’s image from within. Motivating developers to triple-check apps and giving dedicated Google users an easier way to share content with each other will do a great deal to present Google Play Services as a less foreboding and confusing store.

Filed under: Games

EA kills its controversial Online Pass program

Jason Wilson — Wed, 15 May 2013 23:17:43 +0000

EA is doing away with its Online Pass program from this point forward, a decision the video game publisher says is partially based on player response.

“Yes, we’re discontinuing Online Pass,” EA senior director of corporate communications John Reseburg confirmed to GamesBeat in an e-mail. “None of our new EA titles will include that feature.”

The modern military first-person shooter Battlefield 3 and a number of other EA games such as Madden NFL use Online Pass. You need it in order to play many of a game’s online features, including multiplayer. A code activates the Pass, which has a one-time use. You need a new code (which the publisher offers, of course, for a fee) if you’re playing the game on another console or if you bought the software used and the original owner redeemed the original. But players never embraced this feature.

“Initially launched as an effort to package a full menu of online content and services, many players didn’t respond to the format,” Reseburg said. “We’ve listened to the feedback and decided to do away with it moving forward.”

Online Pass is seen by publishers as a bulwark against the second-hand market, which retailer GameStop dominates. Publishers were worried that consumers were buying games used instead of new — especially big games with popular multiplayer modes. So the online pass became a way that publishers forced consumers to either buy a game new — or pay extra for online.

But from this point forward, you won’t need an Online Pass for any of EA’s games online.

“We’re still committed to creating content and services that enhance the game experience well beyond the day you first start playing,” Reseburg said.

EA wasn’t the only publisher using an online pass system. Activision and Ubisoft are among a handful that make use of it.

Filed under: Games

Google Play game services can shut down a pirated Android game

Jeffrey Grubb — Wed, 15 May 2013 22:06:31 +0000

Piracy is one of the major issues scaring developers away from putting resources into Android development. Today, at the Google I/O developer conference, Google introduced some new features in its Play game services that will help developers combat piracy.

Google Play game services is an ecosystem that helps developers implement cloud saves, leaderboards, and more in mobile games on Android, iOS, and computers. On Android, however, it has a few extra tricks — like the ability to detect if a player is using an unauthorized version of a game.

“The games team shares developers’ concerns about piracy in Android games,” Android lead engineer Steve Martin told developers at I/O. “Not every game should have to be free-to-play. We’d much rather you guys had a choice in the matter.”

Google Play knows whether a player downloaded a game through the official market or not. It then alerts the developer and lets each studio decide how to deal with the pirate.

“We can return an error to the game if you so choose,” said Martin. “You can decide what your game does next. You can choose whether or not you let the pirated game use Play game services. For example, you could choose to not allow a pirated game to use multiplayer features.”

This is another instance during this conference where Google is focusing on reassuring developers that are hesitant about developing for Android. It’s early in the event, and we won’t know if it is enough — but as of right now, Google is saying all the right things.

Filed under: Games

Why Google Play game services works on iOS

Jeffrey Grubb — Wed, 15 May 2013 21:44:50 +0000

Google is making a big push to get game developers on board its ecosystem at its annual I/O developer conference. For game studios, one of its big new products at the event is Google Play game services, which the company announced during its keynote presentation earlier today.

Google Play game services is an ecosystem that developers can tap into to provide cloud saves, achievements, leaderboards, and multiplayer to mobile games. One of the most interesting aspects is that Google isn’t just enabling this technology for Android — Play game services also works on Apple’s iOS.

During a session with Google’s leaders on the project, the company explained why it wants the services to work on iOS.

“We want the whole world to play together,” Google developer advocate Todd Kerpelman said. “I know that’s a little bit touchy-feely — kids holding hands around the world — but at the core level, it’s really true. All of us on the team are gamers. By that I don’t mean that we just play games — we haven’t had a lot of time lately — it’s more that we understand that games are powerful.”

Google’s intent with these new services isn’t just enabling players to pick up a game on their PC that they left off on an iPad. It wants thsoe on one platform to play against another without any hassle.

“There are a lot of people who own and play games on Android devices. Likewise, there are a lot of people who own and play games on other types of devices,” Android lead engineer Steve Martin said. “Our goal is to enable everyone to play with who they want and not just with people who own a certain type of device. “

This technology is powered by a special kind of API that is accessible by any connected device. Martin said they don’t want to exclude any piece of hardware. That means phones and tablets but also Macs and PCs.

“Games can push technology forward,” said Kerpelman. “They drive platform adoption. They fulfill human needs in a way a spreadsheet just can’t.”

Likewise Google is probably hoping that Play game services fulfills developer needs in a way that Apple’s GameCenter competition just can’t.

Filed under: Games, Mobile