Battlefield 2142 veterans will feel "right at home" with Battlefield 4's Carrier Assault mode
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Carrier Assault is the contemporary “reimagining” of Battlefield 2142’s Titan mode we learned about last month. Now we know how it works. DICE say pining 2142 players will “feel right at home” with the mode’s array of optional objectives - despite the new setting.
“We hope you will get the same thrill out of parachute-spawning down to a carrier as you did when blasting off in a rocket pod towards a Titan,” said lead gameplay designer Gustav Halling.
No more console-ation prize: Ubisoft to release Watch Dogs simultaneously on PCs, Xboxes and PlayStations
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We’ve become accustomed to getting our open-world Ubisoft games a month later than our mates on the consoles. By that time, they’ve long since captured all their territories, talked things out with Vaas, and worn out the knees of their white robes on treetrunks. We’ve lived with it - but it hasn’t exactly engendered the sort of shared pop cultural zen moments Ubisoft would presumably like us to be having.
Maybe that’s all about to change? Ubisoft’s schedule for 2014 would seem to confirm as much. Watch Dogs is set for a May 27 release on Xboxes, PlayStations, and PCs.
Tomb Raider has "exceeded" profit expectations after all
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Last year, Tomb Raider briefly become (for some) an emblem for the futility of big budget game development. After a warm public welcome and 3.4 million copies shifted in its first month, the reboot was nevertheless declared a disappointment by publishers Square Enix - who told investors it had “failed to meet” financial targets.
Now, maybe, the wailing can stop. A year to the week Tomb Raider was released, Crystal Dynamics head Darrell Gallagher has posted a triumphant missive about the game’s “commercial momentum”, which will likely see it become the best-selling game in the history of the series.
EVE Source hardcover edition available now
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EVE Source hardcover edition, the massive EVE universe compendium from CCP and Dark Horse is available in comic book stores and online retailers for £29.99/$39.99.
The 200-page tome fleshes out the EVE universe with lore, never-before-seen materials and artwork. It was announced last year along with the EVE: True Stories comic, the second issue of which is also now out. You can pick that up for free at Dark Horse Digital or on the Android and iOS apps.
A sneak peek at Dota 2's Free to Play Competitor's Pack
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Free to Play, Valve’s Dota 2 documentary, which follows three pro players as they prepare and compete in the first Dota 2 International Tournament premieres on March 18th.
To celebrate its launch on Steam the next day, Valve will be putting up the Free to Play Competitors Pack for Dota 2, with items designed by Valve and contributors from the Dota community. Get a sneak peek at the items below.
Knowing UemeU: the "ultimate sandbox" for Minecraft graduates
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UemeU (pronounced “you, me, you”) is a sandbox so large that it’s easily mistaken for an engine - a tool to create games rather than a game itself. It’s easy to see why. Look at the cascading range of symbols on its build mode interface and you’d think Photoshop before Final Fantasy - were it not for one, grounding element.
A Tron-like spectral blue hand sits on-screen at all times. To its owner it’s both 3D mouse pointer and gearstick, changing gestures to remind the player what mode they’re in. To other players, it’s a disembodied marker - a huge hand-of-god aide-memoire for where your mates are.
But more importantly than that, it’s an undeniable link to the FPS - jutting from the bottom of the screen like Doom Guy’s shotgun. A hand that claws at the faces of naysayers and screams, “I am a game”. For UemeU can be FPS, or RPG, or puzzle-platformer. It’s a game in which players make games, like Minecraft, or Little Big Planet. Only much, much more ambitious.
Solving homelessness: The Old Republic to get player housing
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Up until recently, BioWare’s Star Wars: The Old Republic had little in common with the now deceased Star Wars Galaxies. The former is a linear, narrative-driven MMO, while the latter was a huge sandbox ripe for roleplaying. But with SWTOR’s Galactic Starfighter expansion, which is like a limited, arena-based version of Jump to Lightspeed, the two MMOs have been brought ever so slightly closer together.
And now BioWare has announced player housing. How it will be implemented and what purpose it serves is still not clear. The trailer below is of a Coruscant apartment, complete with mailbox and droid pal.
You've got red on you: First Look at Reaper of Souls' Blood Marsh
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When you name a location “Blood Marsh,” you are creating certain expectations; that visitors will bleed or at the very least see blood, and that it’s probably going to be a marsh.
Blood Marsh is the next location in Blizzard’s First Look series, detailing the new environments in the upcoming expansion, Reaper of Souls. It lives up to the name.
New Battlefield 4 update goes live; fixes bugs and crashes, tweaks weapons and vehicles
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DICE has updated Battlefield 4 with a new patch. The studio is still working on stabilising the game and this update should fix some crashes, a variety of bugs and tweak pistols and grenades along with general weapon and vehicle changes.
Direct your eyes below for the full patch notes.
The lost multiplayer modes of BioShock Infinite
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Sources from Irrational who worked on BioShock Infinite and were there they day Ken Levine announced that the studio would be winding down detailed the last years of the developer in an interview with Polygon, recently.
They discussed Levine’s creative process, the constant iterations and changes and the scrapping of two multiplayer modes: Border Control and Spec-Ops.
Matt Stone on South Park: The Stick of Truth and censorship
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South Park: The Stick of Truth’s censorship in various parts of the world hasn’t really bothered series co-creator Matt Stone, he says in an interview with the Guardian.
The pretty lewd game - which I liked a lot - saw a couple of scenes cut in Australia, the Middle East, Africa and Europe, though the PC version was uncensored in the UK, and there was no censorship in the US. “It's not that big a deal,” Stone says.
Illuminating: Dark Souls 2 system requirements unveiled
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Namco Bandai has released the system requirements for the PC version of Dark Souls 2, updating the Steam store page. It’s due out on April 25th, just over a month after the console versions.
While From Software promises upgraded textures and a better frame-rate, this hasn’t led to taxing system requirements, which are pretty low. Check them out below.
CRYENGINE-powered Enemy Front gets a new In-Engine Teaser Trailer
CI Games has released a new in-engine teaser trailer for it WW2 FPS title, Enemy Front. Enemy Front will allow players to choose their preferred combat techniques including all-out combat, sniping, stealth and sabotage as they assume control of American war correspondent Robert Hawkins and align with resistance fighters opposing the Nazi regime across European battlefields. The game is powered by CRYENGINE and is planned for a Summer 2014 release. Enjoy! Continue reading
Batman: Arkham Knight Added To Steam, Confirms October 14th Release Date
Well lookie here; we got us another indication/hint/confirmation/you_name_it about the release date of Batman: Arkham Knight. Even though Rocksteady has not announced any release date for Batman: Arkham Knight, Gamestop initially leaked that the game would be coming on October 14th, something that is further strengthened by the game’s official Steam page. Continue reading
RPCS3 Is A New PS3 Emulator, Still In Early Stage, Boots Commercial Game
We know that a lot of you want to get your hands on a PS3 emulator. Well, that day may come sooner than expected, as a team of developers is currently working on a PS3 emulator that is able to boot a commercial game. In the realm of emulation land, this is huge. Yes, this is laggy and buggy but the fact that an emulator can boot a commercial PS3 game is HUGE. The name of the emulator is RPCS3 and you can view two videos from it running a commercial game below. Enjoy! Continue reading
Humble Weekly Sale Offers PopCap Games For Charity
By Graham Smith on March 7th, 2014 at 8:00 pm.
This week’s Humble Weekly sale is a PopCap bundle, but with an added twist: EA are giving 100% of their cut to charity. Two charities, in fact, between which you can choose your split: the V Foundation for Cancer Research, and The Melanoma Research Alliance which specifically fights skin cancer.
Pay more than $1 and you’ll get a copy of Peggle (download size: one Peggle), zen-like match three puzzler Bejeweled 3, word puzzler Bookworm Deluxe, and two other games. Pay more than $6 and you’ll also get Plants vs. Zombies, Zuma’s Revenge and Peggle Nights. You’ll even get Origin and Steam keys for each one.
Maybe this is Kindness Week and we only just realised?
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Zeno Clash Dev On Abyss Odyssey’s Procedural Insanity
By Nathan Grayson on March 7th, 2014 at 7:00 pm.
You certainly can’t knock Zeno Clash and Rock of Ages developer ACE Team for a lack of ambition. Their previous titles’ massive scope and rampant, otherworldly weirdness demonstrated that in spades. So how do you follow that? Why, by jutting off in an entirely different direction, of course. Abyss Odyssey is a procedurally generated, Street Fighter and Super Smash Bros-inspired roguelike-like (but not quite) um… thing. ACE Team’s first set of words about it didn’t quite do it justice, which is why we’ve given them a couple thousand more to work with. Go below to get a better sense of how Abyss Odyssey will work, which utterly mad art style inspired this one (the grand ACE Team tradition), why they’re not doing Steam Early Access, and whether or not they think procedural generation will hurt their knack for insane world-building.
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