Yesterday our very own Luke Halliday was quite excited to hear that there would be a new multipalyer trailer released today from Rockstar Games for Max Payne 3. Now that trailer has been released and can be seen below in all its glory.
The trailer itself is the second half of a two part series that detailed the game’s multiplayer mode and this specific video focuses on how bullet time will factor into the online gameplay as well as multiplayer crews, burst abilities and more. One of the biggest focuses of this video is the multiplayer mode known as “Gang War” a multi-stage gameplay mode featuring different multiplayer types.
In what can only be seen as a quite shocking announcement, Bethesda has revealed that The Elder Scrolls series will be going online sometime in the future and it will be called “The Elder Scrolls Online.” The game is currently being developed for the PC and Mac and more details about the title are expected to be revealed in the June issue of Game Informer.
To go along with this huge announcement Matt Firor, lead developer with Zenimax Online Studios, stated that he and his team are “committed to creating the best MMO ever made – and one that is worthy of The Elder Scrolls franchise.” Currently the only knowledge we have about the game is that there will be three factions warring for the Emperor’s throne. Also revealed was that the game will take place a thousand years before the events in Skyrim and will follow the activities of the Daedric Prince Molag Bal who is trying to pull all of Tamriel into his hellish world.
This shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise to many, but the official Call of Duty Twitter has revealed that their will indeed be a zombie mode in Call of Duty: Black Ops II. Today they released a piece of red artwork featuring a woman with a shotgun and a dead zombie head. Whether she will be one of the main characters in this zombie journey is yet to be seen.
The full uncropped image can be seen below. To go along with this image they teased “Zombies are coming. Where’s your shotgun?” Everyone loves a good zombie mode and Black Ops I’s zombie mode is still popular even today among those who just can’t get enough zombie killing.
The Steam Workshop was made available for Skyrim mods back in the middle of February and since then Skyrim players have been busy little bees. Since its release, over 11.6 million Skyrim mods were downloaded from Steam alone, bringing the total up to 13.6 million which is quite an impressive number.
The news about this number appeared on the Bethesda Game Studios’ developer Twitter. These mods are everything from whole new quests, new spells, more textures, changes to the game’s physics and plenty of other adjustments. Those interested in what the most highly rated mod at the moment will be surprised to hear it is a simple audio modification which will bring your dungeon crawling experience to life with over 90 more sound effects in the “Sounds of Skyrim – The Dungeons” mod.
Yesterday anyone who had the Rock Band iOS app on their phone was presented with an alarming message saying that their app which they bought with their own money and most likely paid extra money for to get more songs, was going to be shut down and “No longer playable” after May 31st.
In what can only be seen as an immediate backpedaling, EA released a short statement to Joystiq stating: “Rock Band for iOS will remain live – the in-app message users received yesterday was sent in error. We apologize for the confusion this caused. We’re working to clarify the issue that caused the error and will share additional information as soon as possible.” Whether it was an actual error or EA chose to keep the app alive after public outrage may always remain a mystery.
Winter Wolves has released a new RPG for PC, Mac, and Linux today titled Loren The Amazon Princess. In the game instead of guiding the title character Loren to her destiny, players get to play as her servant and try to aid Loren as she searches for her mother, Queen of the Amazons. The game features character development with enough choices to prevent players from accomplishing everything in one play.
Choosing from either male or female and either warrior or thief, players can choose their character’s background, starting stats, and personality. The game also has class skill trees that combine with unique character skill trees for even more depth when leveling. Combat isn’t a walk in the park as the game has more than 100 different enemies, with weaknesses and status effects that players can utilize in battle and make combos between the characters.
Loren The Amazon Princess contains more than two novels worth of game text as characters interact with each other and advance within the plot itself. The interaction allows players to learn more about the different characters in the party and even has the possibility to find romance with a wide range to appeal to all demographics, including options to censor specific content.
Fans of old school character driven RPGs should check out the game HERE.
ChangYou Inc. and Bridea have partnered up to release the new free-to-play FPS Renaissance Heroes. Previously known as DaVinci Online, the game features a 16th Century backdrop as players fight for pieces of the plans for DaVinci’s final machine. Utilizing the arena-style gameplay of FPS games of past, weapons and locations from the period, and a set of unique heroes with varying designs and skills, Renaissance Heroes aims to provide a unique experience for varying tastes in gameplay style.
Renaissance Heroes is built to allow up to 12 players in classic match types like Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, and Capture the Flag and since it is built with the Unreal 3 Engine, it will feature AI to help fill in the gaps of player-controlled characters. Also featuring in-game currency, ranking system, and more than 100 achievements, players will be able level up their character as they play. Be sure to check out the official trailer below and sign up for the beta HERE.
Islands of Diamonds Developer: Happy Monitor Games Studio Platforms: iPhone (reviewed), iPod Touch, iPad (iOS 3.1.3+) Release Date: April 23rd, 2012 Price: $0.99 (BUY NOW), Free Lite Version (PLAY NOW)
Overview
Islands of Diamonds sees you rolling a coconut around a level, gathering all the diamonds and any gems you can manage before the time runs out.
Story
You’re a coconut, who’s greedy for diamonds. Maybe he wants to surprise his girlfriend with a necklace? Maybe he needs to sell the precious stones to buy food for his starving family?
Gameplay
When you open the game, there are a series of options you are presented with. The first being the difficulty level you’d like to play at. This pretty much only affects the time you have to complete a level, as well as how much each gem is worth in points and such.
Then you can choose your control method. Originally, there was only “tilt” and “touch” options available here, and if you choose either of those, you’ll quickly find that playing using those controls is pretty much impossible. They have since added the “joypad” option to the list. This mode includes 4 diagonal directions (as the game is in an isometric-style view), and also adds a “brake” button in the centre; a feature completely lacking in the other two modes. These features make the “joypad” mode the only one that is even remotely playable. Once you choose this mode, each level becomes beatable, as opposed to insanely-hard-no-matter-what-you-do.
So while it’s good to see that they have listened to the players of their game, it makes me wonder how they didn’t realise the other control modes would be a problem in testing. From the looks of their gameplay videos, the controls look a little more manageable on the iPad, giving you more fine-tuned movement using the larger screen and overall size of the device.
You are then presented with a level selection screen, with 3 separate and themed maps. Islands are marked in groups across each map, with an accompanying padlock symbol that will change to a golden, unlocked one once you get that far, and a golden coin once you’ve beaten it.
Each level is a small group of islands made up of blocks, moving platforms, launching pads and the like. There is the odd bit of regular land from time to time, but the bulk of play will be on these blocks; doing your best not to fall off into the water (or lava in later levels), exploring to find and pick up as many gems as you can, and to find a path to every diamond in order to complete the level.
To introduce a level to the player, the camera cuts to each diamond available, and then to the centre, where your coconut will spawn. Unfortunately the camera doesn’t actually pan across to each diamond, but simply jump-cuts to the new view, leaving you with no idea as to how they are positioned in relation to each other or even your spawning position. Also, this “intro” is not skippable, so if you failed at completing the level, and are retrying it, or simply want to play it again, you’ll be sitting through this little cutscene every single time, no matter what.
You may notice that as you play, the camera can be a little odd at times. It seems to only move on a 2D plane, not moving up or down with the coconut. This means that on a tall level, when you’re at the bottom, you’re tiny, and when you’re at the top, you’re huge, and can hardly see where you’re going. On the few levels where there are blocks and platforms that you need to roll underneath, you simply cannot see the coconut at all. Now, that may seem obvious, but it really makes navigating those sections difficult, or at least awkward and cross-your-fingers-and-hope-you-make-it.
As you progress through the game, there are a few little additions that will crop up in the levels, keeping it somewhat interesting; crumbling blocks, one-way flaps, physical objects you can bump into and push around, as well as switches and levers.
You may notice that if you fall off of the level, into the waters or magma below, your life counter (starting at 3) does not decrease. It turns out that you only lose a life when the timer runs out, leaving you to merrily fly into the water as a shortcut to getting back to the starting position. I’m not entirely sure if this was intentional, but it kinda ends up with falling off not having any penalty at all.
After each level your score is tallied up from how many diamonds and gems you picked up, as well as how much time you have left on the clock (unless you’re on easy mode). You are then showed your best time and score for that level, along with the achievements for that level. Each level has 7 available achievements, ranging from completing in different difficulty modes to not falling into the water during a playthrough. For some reason, you aren’t just showed the new achievements you’ve unlocked, or even all of the achievements you’ve unlocked thus far; it shows you every single available achievement, with a little pause for each one to make sure you know it’s there.
As with most things in this game, you cannot skip any of this, no matter how many times you’ve seen the exact same list of 7 available achievements. Once the list has finished doing it’s thing, you can scroll through it, to read more about each achievement and see which ones you still need to get. Again, as with most other things in this game, the interface isn’t smooth or even using familiar controls, and tends to bug out from time to time. In this case, instead of the usual swipe-to-scroll gesture, you have to tap on the top-most or bottom-most item to scroll around one item at a time.
A big “next” button is then shown to you, letting you get back to the map/level-select screen, to continue to the next one available to play.
The developers have not implemented any multi-tasking features whatsoever, which can become annoying if you receive a phone call or switch to the browser in between plays, expecting the level to be remembered so that you can continue from where you left off. Instead, you’ll be put back to the very first loading screen, make your way through the menu system, and finally tap on whichever level you want to continue with and, of course, start it from the beginning.
Audio & Visual
The music is pleasant enough, with each map having its own track. The sound effects are serviceable, although some, like the ticking timer for example, are a little too loud and distracting. From time to time, the coconut will sounds worried, or mumble things liek “careful” when you’re making your way across a thin ledge. This is a nice touch, and keeps up the overall cutesy feel of the game.
The visual style in Islands of Diamonds is essentially cell-shaded, with hints of regular textures here and there. The components in each level are simple but effective, making it pretty clear as to how things work, and how you’re meant to solve the puzzles. Some levels have little bits of text hovering above new components and such, and when you pick up a gem or diamond, a block of text floats up from it, telling you how many points you received for it, or how many are left, respectively. Apart from the odd added component here and there, the only real difference between the beach, ice, and lava maps is the colour-scheme; everything tinted yellow, blue, or red respectively. The overlays are nicely rendered vector-art pieces slotted away in the corners of the screen, and they get the job done.
Overall
So. Islands of Diamonds, eh? Hm… It’s the first release of fledgling game studio “Happy Monitor”, and taking that into account can make some of the problems and issues this game has forgivable. That said, this game needs a lot of work. The basics are there, and they’ve done a great job of creating a whole games with no budget and so few people working on it in their spare time, effectively. But I just don’t think it can really compete with so many polished and well-tested games on the market today.
And so, while I cannot really recommend this title, I wish it’s creators all the best as they put their experience in making this game to good use in creating future titles.
Warlock: Master of the Arcane is coming out on May 8th, so Paradox Interactive and Ino-Co have released a video tutorial to better prepare eagerly waiting players. The video covers the different aspects of the game from development of cities, to moving units from place to place, to the different aspects of magic, to diplomacy with other warlocks, and exploring for more resources or places to build.
An empire building game with a fantasy setting, players must build up the influence of their warlock in hopes of becoming the sole master of magic in the “Majesty” universe of Ardania. Players can also find portals to the other universes to explore and utilize for resources in their quest for total control. Warlock: Master of the Arcane is coming out for the PC May 8th, so be sure to check out the video below to get a good grasp of the mechanics beforehand.
For those who are eager for ticket news on the second EB Expo, to be hosted in Sydney, will be pleased to hear that ticket details, along with some more details, have been released. The expo will run between October 5 to 7.
The cheapest ticket is a half-day pass which will cost you AU$39.95. Also available is a Family Pass, which allows two adults and two children in for a half-day for AU$99. The Gamer Pass (AU$69) will allow entry for one full day and include a souvenir photo and a free ticket. For those with more cash and want the best experience, then the Express and Ultimate Gamer Pass is the way to go. While the Express Gamer Pass (AU$189) will allow you to enter one day with first priority, the Ultimate Gamer Pass (AU$499) will allow attendees to enter all five sessions, reserve seating for the opening session as well as a tour of the stage while it is being built. All tickets will be available from May 24.
Alongside the ticket information, two cosplay competitions have been announced. The first cosplay competition is tailored to the hardcore cosplayers, with a AU$3000 EB Games voucher up for grabs. A second cosplay competition is tailored to those who casually dress up. The prize for that is a AU$400 Madman voucher. Both vouchers will be quite handy for those who enjoy games or anime. In terms of exhibitors, a list for 2012 has not been released, but it is expected that those who attended the 2011 EB Expo will make a second appearance. A special guest has also been hinted.
To purchase tickets and find out more information, go to the official EB Expo website. Of course, check out Capsule Computers for more news on the 2012 EB Expo.
