In the ongoing drama over the Jason West and Vince Zampella lawsuit with Activision, Activision has launched a whole new mud slinging campaign against West and Zampella’s integrity, as well as including Electronic Arts in their lawsuit. They say that EA, West, and Zampella conspired together to sabotage Treyarch, keep money for themselves that should’ve gone to their employees, and make a new company to rival Call of Duty.
The second half of our interview with Champions Online Executive Producer Shannon “Poz” Posniewski about Cryptic’s Superhero MMORPG Champions Online which is about switch from a monthly subscription to a free-to-play model
I tried my hardest to come into Hydrophobia Pure, the new “extensive” update for the XBLA game Hydrophobia, with an open mind. I wanted it to fix all of Hydrophobia’s issues but I had my doubts that it would succeed. After spending a few hours with Hydrophobia Pure, I’ve realized one thing; some parts of a game cannot be fixed through just an update.
The developers, Dark Energy Digital, promised many new things in this update and they delivered. The new cover system is great. It’s fast, easy to handle, and tremendously better than the old cover in Hydrophobia. What they didn’t change is the combat itself. For example, it still takes way too many shots to take a Malthusian down. I understand that they had a different idea with the whole “the way to kill these enemies is by waiting for them to get close to an explosive canister then using the canister to kill them” but that’s not fun and Hydrophobia would’ve benefitted greatly by the removal of their kind of combat altogether.
It’s Day 2 of the ridiculously low prices of the Steam Christmas sales, and there is a huge number of deals for great games today. These particular discounts will only last for a day, so be sure to get these games quick if you like the prices you see.
After being pushed from its November release date to a vague “Spring 2011,” DC Universe Online has finally been given a concrete release date by Sony Online Entertainment. The super hero MMO will go live January 11th in North America, and January 14th in the UK. A Sony representative confirmed the date in an interview with IGN, in which a $199 “lifetime subscription” option was also detailed. This one-time payment, equaling just over 13 months in the game’s normal $15/month subscription fee, would allow players unlimited access to the game for as long as they want. Do not feel pressured to make a payment decision right away, though; new copies of the game will ship with a free month of play as a sort of “Thank you” from SOE.
As is becoming the tradition these days, Crystal Dynamics has announced that they will be releasing some of their back catalog on the PS3 in the near future. The last three Tomb Raider games, Legend, Anniversary, and Underworld, will be released together under the name Tomb Raider Trilogy. This actually marks a significant event for fans of Lady Croft and the PS3, as the former two games have never appeared on Sony’s console before. Unlike Ubisoft’s similar efforts with Prince of Persia and Splinter Cell, Tomb Raider Trilogy will be disc-based and not available for download.
Cryptic Studios has a lot on their plate right now; they’re running Star Trek Online, in development on a new Neverwinter game, and their Superhero MMORPG Champions Online is about switch from a monthly subscription to a free-to-play model. We were able to get a few minutes with Executive Producer Shannon “Poz” Posniewski about Champions.
