Trion Worlds has just released a fact sheet for their upcoming MMORTS End of Nations. The development is being handled by Petroglyph games and being published by Trion Worlds. Petroglyph games are know for their past RTS titles such as Universe at War: End Assault and Star Wars: Empire at War.
The game is expected to be released in the later part of 2012, with no firm release date set yet. Beta registration is currently open on the End of Nations Website, so be sure to head on over there and check it out. Thats enough from me for now, check out the key features of the game below;
Key Features
Experience Premier MMORTS Gaming – From the creative minds behind the original Command and ConquerTM and the people who brought you the groundbreaking new MMO RIFTTM, End of Nations will set a new standard in real-time strategy gaming as the world’s first premium Free-to-Play MMORTS!
Behold The Power of Many – Wage War on an unprecedented scale with up to 56 player PVP matches in a variety of massive online battle arenas that will give you countless opportunities to unite and fight and ultimately impact the fragile hold of power!
Engage in a Persistent Global War– Every battle fought and every victory won affects the delicate grasp of territorial control in an ever-evolving conflict. Quickly move from one combat zone to another as a lone wolf or as a team to truly dominate as you take on the Order of Nations or your rival faction. Online campaign mode allows players to experience the depth of story the embodies the battle for global control.
Build Your Ultimate Army – Earn and unlock new units, abilities, and super-weapons, and customize your army with unique mods, upgrades, and visual designs. No two forces will look or play the same. Field one company and play offensively, choose another mid game if your tactics aren’t working and scout, or play defense – how you play in the heat of battle is up to you!
Climb the RanksofCommand – Choose your Commander Class and advance through the ranks of your faction, gaining new abilities and tactics with every battle. Veterans and new recruits lock horns on even ground as skill and desire decide every battle.
Chillingo and Focus Home Interactive have released both a trailer and the official website for the new mobile game Knights of the Round Cable, which was a big hit at E3 this year. Players can check out the trailer below to see some of the grapple-tastic gameplay for the game that is set to release in July for both Anroid and iOS.
Knights of the Round Cable is simple enough to grasp in terms of gameplay, as the knight swings from anchor to anchor to collect gems, dodge enemies, and ride a gigantic bird as players try to perfect the timing of moving from point to point and change direction on the fly. It’s great to see some fairly innovative gameplay in a mobile game, while still keeping it simple and intuitive hopefully it can keep up the momentum from E3 and it closes in on its release.
Check out the screenshot gallery below and check out information from the games website HERE.
The popular empire building world simulation game is expanding today as 2K Games and Firaxis Games release Sid Meier’s Civilization V: Gods & Kings for Mac and PC. Adding more civilizations, technologies, units, buildings and wonders are just the tip of what is being offered though the expansion. Gods & Kings doesn’t just stop there though, as the title will imply players can now aid in bringing religion to their civilization.
Besides the added units, civilizations, leaders, and religion other tweaks and additions include:
Three New Scenarios – Fall of Rome, Empires of the Smoky Skies, and Victorian steampunk.
Reworked Combat – Combat and AI have been improved for balanced army composition, as well as naval ships being grouped as either ranged or melee.
New Diplomacy Options and Espionage – Now includes the ability to have embassies with other civilizations and spies to engage in different types of opponent government surveillance and tampering.
Two New City-State Types – Mercantile and Religious.
All in all, Sid Meier’s Civilization V: Gods & Kings seems to add a lot of content and game changing additions that should add to the success of the Civilization franchise. Be sure to check out the launch trailer below.
Battlefield 3: Close Quarters Publisher: Electronic Arts Developer: DICE Platforms: PC (Reviewed), Xbox 360, Playstation 3 Release Date: Out Now Price: $19.99 (PC – Origin), 1200MSPoints (XBLA), $23.99 (PSN) or in a package with Premium ($49.99 – BF3 Page).
Overview
Battlefield 3: Close Quarters is the second expansion pack to hit the Battlefield 3 franchise. This is the first expansion pack to be released alongside the Battlefield Premium service that has recently been released for Battlefield players on all platforms.
The Battlefield community have had a divided opinion on the new expansion with many of the referencing the terms ‘Call’ and ‘Duty’ quite a bit. I happen to disagree with the players that have been spitting these two words around simply because I have a much broader gaming experience behind me and as a result can compare to much more brilliant titles. Read on to find my full impressions.
Story
Unlike the original Battlefield 3 game, Close Quarters does not add on or expand the original campaign at all. This, I found, was quite unfortunate as a multiplayer only expansion pack can only add so much to the overall Battlefield story. In this case, the amount added was ~0, considering that it was a multiplayer only addition.
I found this to be kind of disappointing as I would have loved to have had even a couple of extra levels in the campaign. I mean the environments in the expansion pack are great and having the same kind of level structure in a two or three level campaign would have been awesome. We were just never given this opportunity.
Gameplay
Gameplay in Battlefield 3: Close Quarters is very close to the original Battlefield 3, which is to be expected considering that it is actually an expansion pack to the game. Mechanically speaking, this is Battlefield 3. However, the game differs from Battlefield 3 in that instead of there being these massive open battlefields and large cityscapes, you have close quarters gun fights inside of various buildings and warehouses.
The game comes with four new maps that greatly change the Battlefield experience. Unlike the first expansion pack and the main package, the maps in this game are a much more tight affair that take place nearly completely indoors as opposed to the great outdoors. A lot of players will liken this experience to that of Call of Duty, but this only because of their own limited experience with games. If they had actually played more than what publishers tell them to, they would have played an awesome game known as F.E.A.R (the first one, because the rest sucked).
Now anyone who had played the original F.E.A.R game will have noticed that the multiplayer maps in that game were all very tight, but also very strategic in nature. You were mainly on the interior of buildings with multiple levels and lots of hiding spots in stairwells and halls that could only really be assaulted in one of a few ways. The maps in Battlefield 3: Close Quarters have these exact qualities that made F.E.A.R the multiplayer experience that it was. So anybody who felt at home in that game will most definitely feel at home here in Close Quarters. To be honest, I don’t think that Close Quarters is a homage to F.E.A.R, but that game and this have the exact same multiplayer qualities that make the game fast, frenetic and an all around awesomely fun experience.
Once again level destruction is back, however it is not of the making a building collapse on itself variety. Instead, players are able to shatter walls and the like to create more opportunities to defeat their opponents. However, most of the damage done to a level is in incidental damage caused by missed rounds colliding with the environment. Having this kind of destruction in a localised area gives you a much better feeling of the tenacity of the combat. Seeing the walls break around you also gives you plenty of visual cues as to the direction of the guy shooting at you so that you can better escape and mount an effective counter attack.
The expansion pack also adds a bunch of new weapons to each players arsenal which have to be unlocked by completing various challenges exclusive to the expansion pack. These weapons carry over to the original campaign and the previous expansion pack also. It is likely that the weapons will move forward to the next expansion pack also.
I thoroughly enjoyed the frenetic close quarters gameplay of Battlefield 3: Close Quarters and you shouldn’t be listening to anyone who likens this to Call of Duty, because they’re wrong.
Visuals
Visually, the game is very similar to the main Battlefield 3 package and the previous expansion pack, Back to Karkand. However, there are a few differences in visual style. In the original Battlefield campaign, things were much more external looking, I.E. it was focused on what things should look like from the outside in. Most of the interiors in the original, with the exceptions of the interior focused maps, were very basic.
In Battlefield 3: Close Quarters the maps are designed from the inside out in that they look like the actual interior of a building that has recently, and frequently, been in use. What I particularly liked about the level design was how the maps were not designed symmetrically, but instead were designed systematically. This creates a lot of choke points and other kinds of various advantages that are up to the players to find an exploit to bring their team to victory.
Another awesome thing about the level design is the colour palette. Now I know that the Battlefield games don’t have the most colourful palettes, but this does not mean that they haven’t used the colours available to them to their fullest. In one map I quite liked how it was really white, with all of the walls being this bright white colour at the start of a match. It’s kind of like foreshadowing in itself in that you know it’s going to get trashed and destroyed by machine-gun fire and the way the destruction alters the feel of the map from this bright-white, almost pure affair to this destroyed greywall with holes punched through it bits falling off. It works incredibly well.
Audio
What impresses me about the Battlefield 3 games are that they have an amazing set of audio that go with them. All the weapons sound weaponish and powerful. Not too much has changed audibly from the main Battlefield 3 experience, so there isn’t really all that much to talk about in this regard. Things are pretty similar, so if you’ve played the original Battlefield 3, you pretty much know what you’re in for in regards to the audio in this expansion pack.
Overall
Battlefield 3: Close Quarters is a fairly fun experience that really enhances the Battlefield series. While Battlefield supremacists may cry about the expansion pack not staying true to the series roots, they seem to ignore that these kinds of firefights are prevalent in wars and as such are an evolution of the series’ premise. Players looking to enhance their Battlefield 3 experience will not regret picking up this expansion pack as part of the Battlefield Premium package, or as a standalone package.
althi. released their latest game today. Marine Zoo is a casual simulation game allowing players to create their own marine entertainment park. Players will be able to keep and raise a variety of adorable fish that will require specialized habitats. Special creatures that can be hosted in the park can be found during special events. The game allows for facilities to be customized to player’s tastes and boasts relaxing ambient music. Marine Zoo has social features built in, allowing friends to visit each other’s parks. The game is online only and will require an active connection to the internet via 3G or WiFi.
Marine Zoo is free to play and is available in Japanese and English. Check it out here.
Endless Space is a space strategy game where players are tasked with galactic conquest against other factions which can be controlled by either another player or the AI. In Endless Space, players choose a faction and must build their empire from a fledgling home star system to a galaxy consuming beast in an effort to be the most dominant race in the cosmos. For this preview, two of our editors – Benjamin Webb and Jamie Laike Tsui – have teamed up to tackle the game and give their combined opinions on the games direction. This preview will be more of a discussion instead of our usual format of writing about whatever comes to mind.
Please note that the game is still in BETA and things are likely to change around between now and when the game is actually released.
Benjamin
I felt that the visuals worked for this game quite well, even if they don’t particularly run your PC to the ground like many other titles do. This means that players will be able to run this quite well on most gaming rigs, instead of just the super-hardcore-rich gaming master-race PC gamers that are running 30 monitors across 7 graphics card in a room that only has computer components scattered about it.
But on saying that, I also felt that sometimes they were a little too basic, especially in the galaxy view where you could only really see one of your fleets. I would have loved to be able to select individual fleets, as opposed to clicking on a ship resting on a sun and then selecting a fleet. Or, at the very least, see what my fleets are doing whilst I’m sitting around and waiting for other players.
Jamie
Visually, Endless Space is a winner. Although impressive 3D graphics and animations exist in Endless Space, it is used sparingly. Players spend a majority of their time navigating a myriad of menus. 3D graphics are reserved for the ship design menu and manual fleet battles. However, the animations for the manual fleet battles are fantastic. Battles have plenty of explosions and special effects to satisfy the biggest Michael Bay fan. My only wish is that there are more variations to the fleet battles. After a while, I noticed the fleet battle seemed to be the same animation sequenced rehashed over and over, with the only change being the participants of the battle.
The Galaxy view is slick and well executed. The backgrounds are filled with pictures of the universe that could easily be from NASA’s own telescopes. I found the view to be extremely easy to understand, allowing me to quickly survey a situation with a quick glance. Overall, I found the visuals to be impressive, although I would like to see more variety in the fleet battle sequences.
Benjamin
The audio in Endless Space, I felt, is quite bland. There is only so much of the space overworld theme that you can take before you turn the volume down and crank up your own playlist in the background. While I can understand the reason behind the tune, inducing a player’s thinking processes, there needs to be a greater variety of these tunes with varying arrays of dynamics to truly lift the scenario. Imagine if you had to play a game for hours only to be listening to that one tune over and over again, that one tune that is the only tune, over and over again. You too would turn the music off, no? Other than that, everything sounds as it should and the music in the space combat is pretty entertaining. I just feel that it could use a little more work before it is released to the public.
Jamie
Personally I appreciated the subtle music in Endless Galaxy. The music gives players the feeling of the vastness of space. According the website, additional tracks are currently in development. I believe adding a greater range of dynamics to the new music would not be the way to proceed. Endless Space could easily be described as chess in space. Considering the deep thought and strategizing that goes into the game, I feel the music remaining unobtrusive would be for the best.
Benjamin
For a game that doesn’t come with an instruction booklet, tutorials would be a great way to learn how to play this game. Unfortunately, at the moment, these only exist as tooltip pop-ups during gameplay that are incredibly light on details and do an incredibly bad job at describing things. Even after reading all of the tutorials I still had no idea what was going on and had to learn to play on the fly. To be honest, I still have no idea on what’s going on, but I seem to be doing better than I was initially.
Jamie
Players of MMO games may recognize an old meme showing a graph depicting the learning curves of popular MMO’s such as World of Warcraft and Lord of the Rings Online in comparison to EVE Online. EVE Online was depicted to have a cliff of doom where small stick figures died in a variety of gruesome stick figure deaths due to the learning curve. I had a déjà vu of EVE Online on first play through of Endless Space. And the second, third, and fourth play through. Part of the problem is the low quality of the tutorial. For a game as complicated and deep as Endless Space, it was a huge surprise to find the tutorial in the game was simply screenshots and a wall of text explaining how basic gameplay was done. I feel a game like this would at least have a tutorial mission where new players are hand held through their first mission from beginning to victory. Considering the tutorial quality of most major game releases today, Endless Space has a lot of room for improvement on easing the steep learning curve.
Benjamin
Endless Space is like those classic games where you get a solar system, inhabit the planets and then go on to conquer the next system. It is also a lot like Civilization in its technology trees and its diplomacy between factions. This is the kind of game that you would either play as a single player campaign or at a LAN with a group of friends.
The space battles in this game are incredibly fun to watch the first few times or when there’s potential for an epic battle to ensue. However, most of the time you’ll be watching a small fleet of your own ships taking on a group of pirates which gets old incredibly quickly. The main part of the combat is the selection of various tactics that lock in and anything after this is purely observational. I found that the combat in this game was a kind of scissors-paper-rock ordeal, but with more options. For instance, Defence will beat Offence, but Sabotage will defeat Defence. Learning these mechanics is a must for tactical expertise. Or you can skip it all and set the combat to automatic and have the AI look after it.
One aspect of gameplay that really annoyed me was that I have no idea why I couldn’t sometimes move my ships from one system to another. I understand that each unit has a maximum number of moves it can make per turn, but if I have two systems that I control and are connected by regular space and not a warp-hole-thing, then why can I move NONE of my units, even if I could move that same unit in the last turn? Maybe this is just a bug in the Beta version or a quirk of my chosen race, but it was still annoying when I couldn’t even move to defend my own territories.
Jamie
Endless Space is best described as Risk meets Civilization in space. The game has an extremely deep research tree and multiple ways to win the game. I really appreciated the depth of the game. I found myself tinkering endlessly with the game in one save, yet on another game I was able to leave the fine details up to a very capable AI. Combat can be done through an automatic mode that quickly crunches the numbers and provides the results immediately or a many rock paper scissors mode. I found the execution of ship battles to be a fun idea, but after a while I realized these battles could take a fraction of the time considering three options are selected and the battle carries on. There were some bugs that ranged from minor glitches to serious gameplay oddities that made little sense that hopefully will be ironed out for final release.
Benjamin
The UI for this game, I found, was way too simplistic. For such a complex game, a simple UI is not the way to go. I would like to see more buttons that do more things, I want to customise the way my UI looks. I would also love to have a more obvious way to issue commands from the UI.I mean, it does work, but does it work the best that it could? Not really. If I’m right-clicking to move my fleets, and none of them are moving, and the game is not telling me why they’re not moving, I am sitting there in a fit of rage and not understanding anything. Give me buttons to move my units, give me a toolbox that tells me why I can’t do
something.
Jamie
I on the other hand really liked the UI. Coming from a Starcraft background was a tad jarring considering Starcraft heavily emphasizes the use of the right mouse button to issue commands. I found the left click to select/right click to cancel to be a rather intuitive set up once I became used to it. However, I found moving fleets around to be extremely awkward as I was required to right click a star system to move my fleet. This was counterintuitive to everything I had learned beforehand. I would also like to see an error message explaining why fleet movements cannot be completed. For example, it took several tries before I figured out exactly what research I needed to complete before I could move my fleets through wormholes. I had no idea why I was unable to move my fleet through a worm hole or what research I could use to address the situation. The lack of information and feedback provided to the players plays a huge role in the killer learning curve in Endless Space.
Benjamin
As I said earlier in the gameplay topic, I think this game would work better in a LAN setting than it would in an internet setting. However, the games reliance on Steam makes it impossible (at the time of writing) to set up a LAN match between friends. However, that’s not to say that you and your friends couldn’t just run it off one router or something at someone’s house. It just seems counter-intuitive, given the game type, to not have a local option. One MAJOR gripe about the multiplayer in this game is that when the original host drops, all clients error out without the ability to save the game state for if the host returns. It would be nice if there was some kind of host-migration or an auto-save feature so that players could pick up where they left off. Just remember that this is a pre-release build and things may still change in this regard.
Jamie
Overall I see a lot of potential in Endless Space. The developers seem extremely keen to work with the player base to develop Endless Space. The game is extremely deep and can easily causes hours to disappear from my day. Visually, Endless Space is satisfying and the audio melds seamlessly into the experience. I would have liked to seen more variation in the fleet battles and hope to hear more high quality music tracks to listen to. There are some bugs that need to be ironed out, but of course that is what beta testing is for. However I feel the developers could really work on a better tutorial and tooltip/feedback system for players. This would help ease the already high learning curve. Endless Space has been an impressive beta and I look forward to the final release of Endless Space.
Gameloft have announced that they have signed a licensing deal with Hasbro, which means that they will develop and market My Little Pony and Littlest Pet Shop games across a whole bunch of platforms such as the iPad, iTouch, iPhone and Android. They’ll have the franchises up and running before the end of the year, so if you know someone who has the My Little Pony or Littlest Pet Shop fever, then this is definitely something to look into getting them.
The Senior Vice President of Digital Media and Marketing at Hasbro had this to say about the deal:
“Creating highly inventive and accessible digital play experiences based on our world-class brands continues to be at the core of Hasbro’s mission and we envision Gameloft to be a key player in the ongoing execution of that global strategy. This agreement brings together Hasbro’s powerhouse girls’ brands with one of the industry’s preeminent mobile game developers which will take MY LITTLE PONY and LITTLEST PET SHOP play to an entirely new level of fun.”
Meanwhile, the Senior Vice President of Publishing at Gameloft had this to say about Gameloft’s side of things:
“Creating highly inventive and accessible digital play experiences based on our world-class brands continues to be at the core of Hasbro’s mission and we envision Gameloft to be a key player in the ongoing execution of that global strategy. This agreement brings together Hasbro’s powerhouse girls’ brands with one of the industry’s preeminent mobile game developers which will take MY LITTLE PONY and LITTLEST PET SHOP play to an entirely new level of fun.”
Keep tuned to Capsule Computers for more information on these two huge brands as their mobile games are developed and sent out to those keen Pony and Pet fans.
This week in EA Mobile news there are a few updates coming out for some favourite games, such as Sims Freeplay, Theme Park and Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12.
Sims Freeplay is getting an update that allows players to improve their social skills and get their party on, with their Sims now able to become a bartender or a DJ, and go for a night out at a local club to fast track friendships. Because we all know how easy it is to make friends at clubs, where everyone turns into far more friendly and agreeable forms of themselves. You can also buy drinks for your Sims to inspire them, or visit the Party Boat for daily rewards.
As well as letting your Sims turn into more social butterflies, you can now share events via Facebook, or compare town value, level and Sim count to friends on leaderboards. And with the more neighbours a player has the more benefits their earn, from additional daily rewards to unlocking special items.
Things have also been updated for toddlers, with more items for them, including doll houses, tea sets and kiddie pools. And they haven’t forgotten your little furry friends either, with fish tanks and six cat breeds, as well as more accessories for them.
If you already have Sims Freeplay then make sure to update your app for all of these awesome features. If you don’t have it yet then make sure to grab it HERE for FREE on the iPhone, iTouch and iPad, as well as on Google Play.
Theme Park has also been given an update for all of you theme park aficionados to play with. The update includes never before seen entertainers, such as the astounding Strongman or mystifying Rhino. There are also over fifteen new rides, with even more to come, that are guaranteed to give your guests a real thrill as they experience anything from the new Monster Trucks ride to the 3D cinema.
Not intriguing enough for you? Well you can also take a chance with a Mystery Box and find one of the five rides. Or you can just play daily and be rewarded each week with exciting rides and attractions, the more you play the more you get!
Have you finished leveling up? Well not anymore, the level cap has been increased from 50 to 70, so you have extended gameplay and new end game rides to play around with!
So you better update your app to get these cool new features. Don’t have Theme Park yet? Well don’t worry, you can get a copy on your iOS device easily enough! Theme Park is available NOW on iPhone, iTouch and iPad for FREE. Grab it HERE
Last, but by no means least, is the update for Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12 that introduces for Cross Play integration, a feature that allows players to ear rewards by completing challenges across multiple EA sports golf titles (more specifically, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 13 (console), Tiger Woods PGA Tour Online, Tiger Woods PGA Tour Facebook and Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12 on iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad in North America).
So, any time a player completes a portion of a challenge like scoring a birdie, across their multiple games, it contributes to their overall number of total birdies scored. Which will totally help stave off the disappointment you feel when you realise you’ve made an amazing shot in the wrong game. Plus, the more platforms you play the game on, the greater the rewards you earn are.
You can also unlock achievements in Game Center, or connect with friends through Origin and compete with them in the Closest To the Pin Challenge.
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12 is available NOW on iPhone, iTouch and iPad for $0.99. Grab it HERE.
Because EA loves Australia and New Zealand, they will be releasing an exclusive limited edition version of Medal of Honor: Warfighter, which is due to be released on the 26th of October, 2012.
The exclusive limited edition of Medal of Honor: Warfighter is a one-of-a-kind retail box. The special edition box was designed in exclusive collaboration with the Australian Special Air Service Regiment (SASR) in order to make sure that all the real world weapons and gear were present inside.
EA have also released the special edition packshots, which you can see above. Be sure to let us know what you think of the special limited edition in the comments section below.
Capcom has release more gameplay footage for Resident Evil 6. This time the gameplay picks up right after Leon has shot the President. So fans can expect more survival horror footage with this one. At E3 Capcom had stated that Leons campaign would play like Resident Evil 2 and 4. Where Chris’s campaign would be like Resident Evil 5, and Jake’s campaign would be like Resident Evil 3. Capcom also stated that each campaign is 70% the size of Resident Evil 5.
This Resident Evil is looking like the best Resident Evil in the franchise, but what do you think about this gameplay footage , and Resident Evil 6 in general?
Theme Park has also been given an update for all of you theme park aficionados to play with. The update includes never before seen entertainers, such as the astounding Strongman or mystifying Rhino. There are also over fifteen new rides, with even more to come, that are guaranteed to give your guests a real thrill as they experience anything from the new Monster Trucks ride to the 3D cinema.
