Everybody likes pirates, right? Not the pirates we have nowadays, the pirates popularized by a certain series of Disney films, who sail the seven seas on big ships waving cutlasses and shouting ‘yarr’. If you’re a particular fan of that kind of pirate, you’ll be interested to see that Deep Silver and Piranha Bytes, the developers of Risen 2: Dark Waters, have released the first in what will be a series of in-depth ‘making of’ videos for the game.
Magicka, a popular ARPG in the vein of Diablo and Torchlight (But much sillier) just received a large engine overhaul and is going to get some brand-new content. Arrowhead Studios, the development team behind the game, are pushing out this update to address some of the larger concerns from their playerbase.
Many of you are already familiar with Bethesda’s legal escapades with Minecraft developer Mojang, but it’s highly possible that Bethesda isn’t taking everything involved too seriously. As seen in the screen below, a character in Bethesda’s latest game, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim¸ is about to loot a “notched pickaxe,” the central tool of Mojang’s Minecraft.
Today, Microsoft has released the Halo Living Monument, an interactive 3D model of Master Chief which allows fans of the Halo series the opportunity to load pictures of whatever they wish related to their experiences with Haloonto it. Master Chief’s body is split up into hexes, much like Civilization V, for the pictures to be uploaded to.
More and more MMORPG developers are choosing to go with a free-to-play model for their games. On top of that, more and more existing MMORPGs are being converted from their subscription models to free-to-play, the latest of which is going to be Everquest II.
Sony’s venerable Everquest series was the biggest thing in the MMORPG world prior to Blizzard taking the stage with World of Warcraft and Sony is trying to draw players back to the second game by launching both a new expansion and re-launching the game as a free-to-play title. You can watch the trailer for the re-launch below.
Blizzard have a bit of a reputation for the goodies they give to gamers who visit their yearly convention (Blizzcon) and in the aftermath of Blizzcon 2011 they have announced a slew of goodies available for purchase for people who attended or watched via a Blizzcon 2011 pay-per-view virtual pass.
The goodies themselves look quite cool and go beyond the usual game related merchandise. Gamers can get their hands on things like a Megablocks Battlecruiser and a variety of Murloc plushies. Gamers can even buy a World of Warcraft breifcase and a rather…colorful Diablo 3 shirt.
In the predawn darkness between the release of GTA: San Andreas and GTA: IV, fans of open-world mayhem simulators found themselves in a bind. A new generation of consoles was upon us, and yet the genre which contributed vastly to the success of Sony’s Playstation 2 and the coffers of Rockstar North had nothing to offer those who had upgraded. There was simply a void. For those gamers craving high-speed police pursuits through fictional cities, mowing down groups of pedestrians, and taking to the skies in stolen military hardware, options were limited. Most had no other alternative than to turn back to San Andreas and patiently await Rockstar’s next entry in the series. That’s when Volition, known primarily for their work on the Red Factionseries, stepped into the fray with their answer to the deficiency: Saints Row.
