WBIE announces LEGO Marvel Super Heroes

Jan 08, 2013

Marvel Super Heroes are assembling for an action-packed, brick-smashing good time!  Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, TT Games, The LEGO Group and Marvel Entertainment announced today that LEGO® Marvel™ Super Heroes will be available beginning Fall 2013 for the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system, the Wii U™ system and Windows PC, as well as the Nintendo DS™ handheld system, Nintendo 3DS™ handheld system and PlayStation®Vita handheld entertainment system.  LEGO Marvel Super Heroes is the first instalment in the highly successful LEGO videogame franchise to feature famous Marvel characters.

LEGO Marvel Super Heroes complements the LEGO Marvel Super Heroes construction toy collection, which brings the characters, vehicles and action of Marvel’s renowned universe to the world of LEGO build-and-play adventure. There are currently eight iconic scenes from the X-Men, Iron Man and Spider-Man franchises available and more construction sets tied to the new Iron Man 3 feature film will launch later this spring.

LEGO Marvel Super Heroes offers an original storyline in which Nick Fury calls upon Iron Man, the Hulk, Thor, Spider-Man, Wolverine and other heroes spanning the Marvel Universe to save Earth from such threats as the vengeance of Loki and the hunger of Galactus, Devourer of the Worlds.  LEGO and Marvel fans will enjoy classic LEGO videogame adventure and humor, while playing as their favorite Marvel characters.

“We’re very excited to bring a myriad of classic Marvel characters to life in LEGO form for some fun, family-friendly gameplay in LEGO Marvel Super Heroes,” said Tom Stone, Managing Director, TT Games Publishing. “Players will brave the ultimate mission to save the world as they explore famous landmarks in LEGO New York and take the adventure beyond Earth to iconic locations in the Marvel Universe.”

“Fans of both LEGO and Marvel have wanted this game for years, and we’re addressing that demand with more Marvel Universe characters than ever in a console game,” said TQ Jefferson, Vice President, Games Production, Marvel Entertainment.  “If you’re a fan of Spider-Man, the Avengers, Fantastic Four, X-Men, Guardians of the Galaxy or scores of other Marvel characters, this is the game for you.”

American McGee Launches a Kickstarter for Akaneiro: Demon Hunters

Jan 04, 2013

The Kickstarter for Akaneiro is now live here. I think it’s a unique Kickstarter because the product in question actually exists(!) and people are playing it now, but the Spicy Horse team would like to make it even more awesome than it is currently. Spicy Horse and American McGee have made some great games, others not. They’ve gone really far with this game and want to finish it and let more people play it.

Defiance “Advanced Mission Beta 1” Scheduled For January 18-20

Jan 03, 2013

Defiance™, the highly anticipated online open world shooter from Trion Worlds, is now inviting PC players to sign up for the very first beta event which kicks off on January 18^th.

Participants in “Advanced Mission Beta 1” will be transported to a futuristic San Francisco bay area, and will take on the role of an ark hunter.  Part treasure hunter, part mercenary, ark hunters are genetically enhanced operatives who are fearless and lethal, dedicated in their mission to recover valuable alien technology and sell it to the highest bidder.

Players who participate in Advanced Mission Beta 1 will have full access to the tutorial, the expansive terraformed terrain of Mt. Tam, the Waterfront competitive multiplayer map, and the fierce Shadow War open world competitive multiplayer and Arkfall massive co-op boss battles.

Sign up for your chance to get into Advanced Mission Beta 1 by clicking enlist here: http://vonbachindustries.com

The beta event is scheduled to start 8:00 AM PST on 1/18 and run through the weekend, ending at 9:00 PM PST on 1/20.

Defiance is scheduled for release in April 2013, and can be pre-ordered online soon, and now at major games retailers.

Retro City Rampage coming to XBLA on January 2nd for 1200MSP

Dec 29, 2012

Retro City Rampage is an 8-bit open-world send-up to ’80s and ’90s video games and pop-culture. We reviewed the PC version, even! Mashing up the old and the new, you’ll be jumping on civilians for coins then stealing their car to outrun the law.

Whether you want to play the missions or just rampage the city and cause some chaos, Retro City Rampage has you covered. It includes both a full Story Mode of open-world adventure as well as an Arcade Mode for quick pick-up-and-play action. If that’s not enough, it also packs an interactive city full of shops, minigames, customizations, collectibles, special guest stars, and more.

Originally released in October on PlayStation (in North America) and PC, Retro City Rampage for Xbox 360 boasts an additional month of development, polish, tuning and improvements from the first version.

Hammerpoint Interactive issues an Open Letter to The War Z community

Dec 27, 2012

The following is “as is”, copied from my email. No alterations were done:

Dear fellow Survivors,

It has now been more than two months since we launched public access to The War Z. We’ve definitely had our ups and downs, and I thought that this Holiday break was the right time for me to try to step back a little and think about our journey since it started. This may be a little long, but I would appreciate if you could stay with me for a few minutes as I try to go over the highlights of the game as well as some of the hurdles and controversies, how we have addressed that and what our plans are.

First of all a very big and sincere “Thank You!” to all of you. We are really proud of the community we have formed with you guys. Every day we have hundreds of thousands of players on our servers, and this is a life-changing event for the team and me. We are blessed to have you as members of the community and we are well aware that without you the game would be nothing.  Along with that thanks, though, I need to admit that we failed to effectively communicate some of our plans and actions to both our existing players and to our new prospective players. This failure to communicate resulted in some very negative feedback from some members of our community, but while it might be easy to label them as “haters” or some other dismissive term, in all honesty this is my fault.  I became arrogant and blinded by the early success and quick growth of The War Z, our increasing number of players, numbers we were getting from surveys, etc., and I chose not to notice the concerns and questions raised by these members of the game community as well as others.  This failure is entirely on my shoulders and if anything I owe thanks to that vocal minority and admit that I should have paid attention sooner. I chose instead to concentrate on the bigger picture – my dream of turning The War Z from being a game developed by a small indie team into a large online venture, instead of addressing small things first and staying focused on the game issues. At the end my arrogance led us to the moment, when all those small things finally caught up and created a “perfect storm” that affected all of our community members.  For that I’m truly sorry and apologize to all of our community as well as the larger PC gaming community that is not yet playing The War Z.

I do not take this situation lightly, and last week events were especially humbling for me. I’ve experienced a range of emotions, most of which centered on regret for not having addressed some of the issues differently than we did, but we can’t change the past. The only thing we can do is to be sure that we won’t repeat the same mistakes in the future. I have realized that as the leader of this ship, I missed all early warnings that were saying, “Your community is not as happy as you think they are, you need to alter course.” I was too focused on how great we are and how a small independent team got their first game to over 700,000 users in a two-month period.  Though that is something to be very proud of, allowing that to overshadow the existing community and their satisfaction was poor judgment.

I want to give you some insight into what our plans are for the future, but before we get to that, I’d like to clear the air with you on several important topics. 

Community management and moderation – the problem

Even since the early Alpha launch, this game has always cultivated a large and loyal player base that is very active in the game. Again, thank you for this. Unfortunately, we weren’t prepared for this large success and the way we managed the community was not the way it should’ve been. We relied too much on forum moderators, whose primary role was to punish those who break rules, not to engage the community and guide conversations into productive discussions about problems. There wasn’t enough presence of the development team on forums, there wasn’t enough updates on development of UPCOMING features. We failed to communicate our position and messaging on the outside platforms such as Facebook, twitter and various online websites, and when we did this we chose to rely more on arrogance rather than being humble and trying to understand why people were saying negative things. We chose to tune out negative reactions to the game, not paying enough attention to them – and this, again, is my fault. We chose to rely too much on numbers – percentage of refund requests, number and dynamic of our daily and monthly active users, etc. Well, in hindsight – those things probably work well for more casual games, but the hardcore PC gaming community is much different and can be very vocal about what they feel. Even when the percentage of players with negative comments is small, as the community grows, even a small percentage can add up to be a very significant absolute number. And it’s not just a number – those are real people with real issues they are having with the game. OP Productions (publisher for War Z) and me personally have failed to address those issues effectively.

Community management and moderation – the solution!

We’re changing our community management procedures and rules right now. We’re going to reevaluate publishing and marketing team performance, and I will make sure that Hammerpoint Interactive developers will have a much stronger voice when it comes to community management and we won’t rely 100% on OP Productions to single handedly handle this. Lots of changes will be happening very fast in the weeks to come. One of the ideas that I proposed was to select 10 players from around the world who can represent the player community and invite them to our offices in Los Angeles, to meet the team, check out what we’re doing, and share with actual developers their concerns, wishes and thoughts on the game. We also will involve community, to a much higher degree, in the process of making our next map for the War Z (called “California”). We’ll be discussing many of the aspects of the map with you and asking for feedback.

We’re revisiting our forum policies; we’re going to bring on an additional community management team, additional moderators and we’ll train them how to respond to things properly. There will still be restrictions on harassment, trash talk, etc. But we’ll make sure that every opinion is heard. At the same time, I must also be cautious: we cannot address all issues and there cannot be only one voice. Please accept that. With hundreds of thousands of players playing, talking, chatting, voicing their strong opinions, there will always be diverging opinions. And some issues that are minor ones are sometimes brought to light by very vocal channels. I would even say there is sometimes a beginning of controversy because the game is now so popular. So there is sometimes a distortion between the severity of the issue and the attention it gets. But we will clearly implement steps to better listen to the community.

What is Foundation Release?

The most asked question of the last week was “is this the final release?”  My answer has always been that for an online game a “final” release means that the game is dead – so there’s really no such thing, you never stop developing, making changes to and adding new features to the game. This is how we came to call the current version of The War Z “Foundation Release.”  We launched the Foundation Release on December 17, 2012 as our first-stage release that we use as a foundation to build upon. It does include the core features and a fully playable environment. This is our version 1.0, and of course  we will continue to improve that version as time goes on.  Did we rush to get it done? That is a tough question, but to answer honestly I think that we all pushed very hard to be first to market and in time for the holidays. Our entire team was working late, long hours to iron out issues and include as many features as possible.  This is part of the reality of being a smaller, independent game developer. If we had a larger team and more funding we may have done things differently, but I’m not sure. I don’t think it was a mistake because our numbers have been strong since day one and, even with the recent negativity, our metrics are really solid and we’ve been continuing to grow.  The negative opinions are always the most vocal, but most players are really enjoying the game and we’ve been attracting more and more daily active players every week.  A lot of the gaming journalists that have been playing the game have also given us some great feedback. I realize that we will take a few hits from some of the traditional gaming press in terms of review scores, but I’m hoping that even they will consider that this game is a living project that will continue to evolve as time goes on. We are very proud of our Foundation Release, and we do stand behind it like we have stood behind any previous version.

What’s on the Horizon?

As for what will happen next with The War Z? We’re currently evaluating the relationship between Hammerpoint and OP Productions.  I firmly believe that Hammerpoint should be playing a more prominent role in publishing/game operating process. We’re in a process of adding new key members to our team, bringing on guys who have much more experience operating and growing successful online games and I know this is going to make a huge difference in terms of development.  We’ll be making some big decisions in terms of leadership for both companies and I will personally change how I handle many things.  Above all we will continue to develop and make this game the best that it can be.

I know that to some people my words won’t matter much. I understand that. I hope that will change as we move forward and deliver the features that our players have been waiting for. I can promise you that from now on things will be much more transparent, and we’ll provide better communication and engage our community to discuss upcoming features way before they appear in the game.

I do believe that we aren’t even close to uncovering the true potential for The War Z, and I hope that in the coming year, we’ll be able to regain trust from people who were alienated by our actions and we’ll be able to move forward and grow the game together.

Thank you for reading all this, thank you for supporting the game and thank you for helping us to change and realize what’s important as well as what is not.

I hope you are all having a happy holiday and I wish you the best for the New Year!

 

Sincerely,

Sergey Titov

Executive Producer, The War Z

Forza Horizon – January Recaro Car Pack drops on New Year’s Day

Dec 27, 2012

Microsoft and Turn 10 Studios today announced the upcoming release of the January Recaro Car Pack for “Forza Horizon.” Available for download on Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2013 on Xbox LIVE for 400 Microsoft Points, the January Recaro Car Pack will deliver six new cars to “Forza Horizon,” including one of the fastest vehicles to enter the Horizon Festival the 2012 Lexus LFA Nürburgring Edition, a car destined to become a fan-favorite.

Players who own the “Forza Horizon” Season Pass will be able to download the January Recaro Car Pack for no additional cost. In addition, Season Pass owners will also receive the January Season Pass Bonus Car, the 2009 Pagani Zonda Cinque Roadster for free.

The January Recaro Car Pack includes:

• 2012 Cadillac Escalade ESV — For some, owning an Escalade is synonymous with saying, “I’ve arrived.” Big, luxurious, and reveling in ostentatious style, the Escalade is as in your face as it is difficult to find a parking place for. Whether you are looking for something to take on a road trip on the hundreds of miles of open road in “Forza Horizon’s” Colorado, or looking for an intimidating ride to fill up your opponent’s rear view mirror, the Escalade fits the bill.
• 1983 GMC Vandura G-1500 — One of the most versatile vehicles in “Forza Horizon,” the GMC Vandura is undoubtedly a fan favorite. From throwing its bulk around in multiplayer online games to being an ideal canvas for Forza painters, the Vandura can do it all.
• 2012 Lotus Exige S — For 2012, the Exige S gained some mass, adding a little over 500 pounds to its otherwise feather-light curb weight. Thankfully most of that weight is due to the much larger V6 that delivers more than a hundred additional horsepower. The Exige S is nimble as ever but delivers significantly faster acceleration and a much higher top speed than the base Exige, making this driver’s car even more appealing to performance fanatics.
• 2012 Lexus LFA Nürburgring Edition — With only fifty units planned for production, the LFA Nürburgring Edition is a rare bird; a specially track tuned edition aimed at potential owners who intend on driving their LFA competitively. The “Forza Horizon” edition doesn’t come with a free night at Motorsport Hotel Nürburgring like the real one does, but it does include the bump in horsepower, Recaro race seats, a recalibrated closer shifting transmission, and a fixed rear wing. The result is a car that’s as unforgettable behind the wheel as it is when you watch it pass by.
• 2005 Mercedes-Benz SLR — This carbon fiber constructed, 617-horsepower exotic sport-GT is the product of the relationship between Mercedes-Benz and McLaren. The result is nothing less than astounding–lightning quick acceleration, optimum weight distribution, and unparalleled safety. The SLR is refined and stylish, but let’s not forget that barely tamed AMG twin screw powerplant, which is the heart and soul of this angry beast.
• 1995 Ford Mustang Cobra R — A good sign of a car’s track potential is when you have to show a valid racing license to order one. Such was the case with the Cobra R. First, the folks at Ford’s Special Vehicle Tuning group lightened the new Mustang wherever possible then they dropped in an SVT-tuned, 5.8-liter Windsor V8. Brake cooling ducts replaced the fog lights and the suspension was improved to keep up with the potential of the 300 horsepower under the hood. Just 250 Cobra R models were built and while rare, they are easily spotted by the tall center tier of the hood that was necessary to accommodate the Windsor and its considerable intake.

Given the list of cars, this answers the questions we had about extra cars appearing.

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year from Our Friends at Bohemia Interactive

Dec 24, 2012

Buying Games while Saving Money during the Steam Holiday Sale

Dec 21, 2012

Yes. This is the same thing as my Autumn Guide, but it all still applies. Since this sale lasts longer, you may need a reminder. You should avoid impulse buying so you don’t regret that game being further discounted later.

The Steam sales are big, and have many options. There are Flash Deals (expiring every few hours), Daily Deals (the best deals), and regular Deals (never buy until last day). But there’s a very simple methodology when it comes to buying during any of the Steam sales that you should know. You should pass it on to your friends and anyone you know who uses Steam so you can save yourself money this holiday season and overall.

New Screenshots for Harold, coming in 2013

Dec 21, 2012

Harold is slated for a 2013 release on consoles and PC and we have some fresh screens from the never-before-seen ‘Beach’ levels.

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About Harold

Harold puts players in the role of a guardian angel tasked with guiding the title character, Harold, through a series of increasingly complicated obstacle courses. Harold will need all the help he can get running, jumping and sliding across multi-tiered levels and against challenging opponents. For more information on Harold, check out www.moonspiderstudio.com, follow the game on Twitter @HaroldtheGame and become a fan on Facebook at www.facebook.com/haroldthegame

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Anomaly Korea invades App Store and Google Play

Dec 21, 2012

11 bit studios announced today that “Anomaly Korea,” the sequel to the critically acclaimed “Anomaly Warzone Earth,” is now available for iOS and Android devices via the iTunes App Store and Google Play.  A partnership of 11 bit studios and Chillingo published the iOS version, while 11 bit published the Android version.

[youtube=http://youtu.be/gFPx0gQnolA]

BYOB to the NBA Baller Beats Demo on Xbox Live Marketplace

Dec 20, 2012

Majesco Entertainment announced today that NBA Baller Beats, the first ever motion-based sports video game where you use a REAL ball to develop REAL skills, is now a playable demo on the Xbox LIVE online entertainment network for the Xbox 360 video game and entertai nment system from Microsoft.

The Lost Treasures of Infocom out for iPhone and iPad

Dec 20, 2012

Choose your own adventure through 27 classic gaming masterpieces in The Lost Treasures of Infocom! Available for the first time on the iPhone and iPad, The Lost Treasures of Infocom combines interactive storytelling and text adventure gaming to deliver clever and engaging puzzles, unexplored worlds and unexpected twists never before seen on mobile devices.

The Lost Treasures of Infocom has been designed specifically for iOS, with a customized interface designed specifically for tablets and smartphones. Each of the games, packaging, and in-box items have been faithfully reproduced for fans of the series, along with hints and maps.  The classic hit Zork™ I: The Great Underground Empire is included FREE.  With over 350 hours of gameplay, a whole new generation of gamers can discover the wonder of The Lost Treasures of Infocom.

Gamers can purchase additional 5 game bundle packs at $2.99 each or own the entire game collection PLUS all game maps AND the exclusive, never-published bonus adventure “Zork: The Undiscovered Underground”, for just $9.99.

Collectable Games Available:

• A Mind Forever Voyaging
• Ballyhoo
• Border Zone
• Cutthroats
• Deadline
• Enchanter
• Hollywood Hijinx
• Infidel
• Leather Goddess of Phobos™
• The Lurking Horror
• Moonmist
• Planetfall®
• Plundered Hearts
• Seastalker
• Sorcerer
• Spellbreaker
• Starcross
• Stationfall
• Suspect
• Suspended: A Cryogenic Nightmare
• The Witness
• Trinity
• Wishbringer
• Zork 1: The Great Underground Empire (FREE with free initial download)
• Zork 2 : The Wizard of Frobozz
• Zork 3 : The Dungeon Master
• Zork: The Undiscovered Underground (exclusive, never-published bonus adventure as a special bonus)

Discover interactive fiction and classic adventure gaming today with The Lost Treasures of Infocom! The Lost Treasures of Infocom is available for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch and Zork 1: The Great Underground Empire  is FREE with a free initial download.

Appstore Link: http://goo.gl/vzFfD

Ravaged gets FREE DLC titled “Apocalypse DLC Pack”

Dec 20, 2012

2 Dawn Games and Reverb Publishing today announced Ravaged, the 32-player, post-apocalyptic first-person shooter, is receiving a massive free DLC boost replete with new weapons, vehicles, one new map, and more, just in time to hit Steam’s Winter Holiday Sale. Ravaged, normally priced at $9.99, is now on sale at Steam for $4.99 starting today, Thursday, December 20, and lasting through Friday, January 4, 2013.

Ravaged, which is already packed with more than 40 land and air vehicles and weapons, will see incredible new vehicles such as the monstrous Tractor Tank, new heavily armored Mini-Copters, a variety of weapons such as AK-47s and M16s, a new Nail Gun, VOIP, and more to complement the already robust game.

Ravaged and the new free “Apocalypse DLC Pack” also can be purchased at Rain Digital Games, 2DawnGames, GameStop, GamersGate, Origin, Green Man Gaming, and GameFly.

The complete “Apocalypse DLC Pack” includes:

• Devastating New Vehicles: The Tractor Tank, Quads and Trikes with two seats, and the new Mini Chopper with mini guns on each side for the Resistance and the Scavengers.
• An Arsenal of New Weapons: The new weapon unlock system offers players the brutal Nail Gun, AK-47 (with scope), AK-47 (with silencer),.357 (gold colored), Mp7, M16 Scope, M16 Silencer, MK16 with Ironsight, and AN94 IronSites.
• New Map: Introducing The Dust Bowl, a large map built for vehicle gameplay.
• Voice-Over Internet Protocol (VOIP): Players can now voice chat with their squad instead of using third-party software.
• More Visible Squads in UI: Player squads are easier to locate.
• Auto-Kick: For players that don’t spawn for three minutes
• New Skins: Three new skins for the mini-helicopters.

“This new DLC Pack is a gift from us to our community,” said Boris Ustaev, founder at 2 Dawn Games. “We strongly believe this new assortment of maps, vehicles, and weapons will increase the chaotic team-based fun so many people have already enjoyed with a whole new level of depth and replayability. And the best part? It’s free.”

Unlike other publishers that have dropped dedicated PC features over the years, Ravaged supports a surplus of them including public dedicated servers, competitive support, advanced graphic settings such as Eyefinity and Crossfire, and the anti-cheat system FairFight by GameBlocks, which deters cheating. Ravaged is available at the exceptional value of $9.99, and the multi-unit “Clan Pack” containing four games and normally sold for $39.99, is also on sale for $29.99 (a $10 discount).

Ravaged is rated M for mature due to the violent subject matter, and is not intended for younger audiences.

[box_light]Look for more DLC updates to Ravaged in 2013. For more details on DLC and community events such as “Hunt the Devs,” listen to the development team’s regular podcasts on 2dawn.com. Be sure to follow 2 Dawn Games on Twitter and Facebook.[/box_light]

Akaneiro: Demon Hunters reveals Bleeding Grove

Dec 20, 2012

Once a thriving fruit orchard and farming community, Bleeding Grove was hardest hit when the Demon Wolves were loosed upon Yomi Island. Now the dead lay strewn among the neglected orchard rows, rotting alongside their abandoned harvest. Beyond the orchard lies a cave, once the den of a local wolf pack. It is unknown how they exactly succumbed to demonic corruption or what befell the great Alpha wolf – Moroko. Perhaps the den holds some evidence of what truly occurred, and who is responsible.