Killing a space warthog with a lightsaber is pretty much the same thing as hitting a magical warthog with a magic sword. It’s neat to see a MMO in a sci-fi setting like Bioware’s upcoming Star Wars: The Old Republic as opposed to the usual fantasy world, but the question remains as to what will make this game more than “World of Warcraft, but Star Wars”?
Today, December 13, marks the release of the first major campaign DLC for Epic’s Gears of War 3. The DLC is entitled “RAAM’s Shadow,” and it takes place prior to the first Gears of War game. It’s all entirely new content, and it substitutes the familiar Delta squad crew for Zeta Squad, a team comprised of both totally new and familiar faces from the story’s canon (although none of the familiar faces were playable prior to this DLC).
The Spike VGA Awards are a yearly fixture in the gaming industry’s calendar, a celebration of the titles that have really set the gaming world alight and an opportunity for developers to tease and torment fans with footage of their upcoming releases. This year’s awards, held at the Sony Pictures Studios in California last Friday, did not disappoint. A number of the superb games that have been released this year walked away with well-deserved awards, and a number of developers took the opportunity to build even more anticipation for their upcoming games. Without further ado, here’s our (fairly brief) round-up of the Spike VGA Awards 2011.
The
Birdman is back, and is finally returning to his video game roots. Tony Hawk
himself announced at the 2011 Spike VGAs that Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater HD will release sometime in summer 2012 for
XBLA and PSN. Fans disappointed with the recent Hawk releases of Ride and
SHRED will be thrilled to hear that Pro Skater HD will in fact be an actual Pro Skater game. HD remakes of classic
levels such as “School” and “Downhill” will be offered in the game. The game is
said to blend the first two Pro Skaters together,
but what that implies is still unknown. Pro
Skater HD will be released for under $20.
Epic has revealed their new IP: Fortnite. Details are scarce right now, but as seen in the short trailer, the game features a cartoony art style and looks to be a zombie survival game. According to Epic’s Cliff Bleszinski, players will be able to “explore, scavenge, build and survive.”
In a short interview with Mike Schramm [Joystiq], Bleszinski said the idea for the game was pitched internally. “I was a staunch supporter of the idea, because the game is just like a no-brainer — I was like, yes.” Although Lee Perry is the project lead for Fortnite, Bleszinski will be involved providing feedback as the game develops.
Anyone that follows baseball and its video games knows that MLB: The
Show is the cream of the crop, and it’s only available on PlayStation.
The latest iteration of the game is currently in development at Sony’s
San Diego studios and features some surprising new tricks.
Gamers are pretty enraged at how Sony is dealing with potential piracy on the PSVita
Following up to their previous statement regarding PSN accounts being one per each device, Sony has now said this is not the case, but that if you do wish to use multiple accounts on the handheld, it will cost you. Each PSN account you have will be bound to the first memory card you use it on and that card will then forever only be able to be used by that unique account, unless you return the card to its default factory state, erasing all the data you would have stored on it. While this isn’t exactly the worst thing in the world and probably is a relatively good way to deal with potential piracy, legitimate customers are going to have to shell out a lot of money if they plan on using more than one account on a Vita. Whether it’s something as simple as two friends or siblings wanting to share a Vita and thus using their own accounts when they log in or people who like to import where a foreign region account is required for certain titles they get overseas, it’s pretty clear this isn’t news people will be happy to find out.
I’m all for companies trying to tackle piracy as it is a big issue in the gaming industry, but I swear 99% of the time they seem to have no clue how to do it in such a way that the good customers, the ones who deserve all the trust and respect, aren’t being hit the hardest by business decisions such as these.
