It was revealed today that Microsoft registered at least two new domain names related to Halo. MarkMonitor has (which also handles Microsoft.com) registered nearly all of the “dot” iterations of “Halo Infinity” and “Halo Infinity Multiplayer,” like .net and .org. In addition, they registered the site SpartanOps.org and morethanjustamap.com earlier in the week.
The Halo map “Infinity” was exclusive to the PC port of Halo: CE.
Microsoft has yet to respond to these findings. What do you think they intend to do with the Halo franchise? Leave a comment below with your thoughts.
Anomaly: Warzone Earth has been ported to many systems. The newest version of the game came out today on XBLA. In the developer diary below, you will find how the development made this game different than others. For starters, their is a new feature called ‘Tactical Missions.’ In addition, many missions will require you to ‘think outside the box.’
Once you have watched the video, let us know what you think in the comments below. You will be able to read our review of the game soon.
The Consumerist holds an annual poll every year to decide who the worst company in America is. This year EA was included in the nomination process. And this year it also ‘won’ the title of ‘The Worst Company in America.’ Their prize was a Golden Poo.
To get the title, EA had to beat out 64 other companies through 4 bracket rounds. In the final round, EA killed Bank of America by 29 points. Obviously, dreadful customer support and other anti-consumer moves have not been kind to Electronic Arts. One would hope that this ‘award’ will help set EA straight, but more than likely it won’t.
In a statement to Joystiq, EA says: “We’re sure that bank presidents, oil, tobacco and weapons companies are all relieved they weren’t on the list this year. We’re going to continue making award-winning games and services played by more than 300 million people worldwide.”
Nival, the makers of Heroes of Might & Magic V, have released a new trailer for their new game, Prime World, to help gear up for the open beta that is coming to the UK soon. Don’t feel left out though, the beta will be going beyond the UK, it’s just opening to them first. So be sure to keep your eyes open, so you can get in on the struggle between technology and magic the game has in store.
Prime World is going to be a free to play online action strategy. Players will engage in PvP combat and base management to gain an upper hand on the energy resource of Prime. In addition, the game will utilize social features to reward playing well together as a team. If you’re in the UK be sure to check out the beta when it opens, everyone else try to wait until it opens for you too.
Not content with following up on the much loved Epic Mickey with Epic Mickey: The Power of Two for consoles, Disney Interactive have announced that the 3DS will be getting in on the action too.
Disney Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion is slated to be something of spiritual successor to hit Sega Genesis title Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse.
Paying tribute to the classic Sega Genesis title it will focus on the fabled Castle of Illusion, which has fallen into Wasteland, an alternate world filled with 80 years of forgotten Disney characters and theme park attractions – and now forgotten video games. The evil witch Mizrabel, villainess from Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse, finds herself an unwilling inhabitant of Wasteland, and unleashes a plot to escape using the Castle of Illusion to imprison and drain the cartoon essence from currently famous Toons.
Players will take on the role of Mickey Mouse as he utilises his magical brush to wield paint and thinner to confront Mizrabel and save the Toons.
Disney Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion is being created by DS developer DreamRift, in collaboration with Disney Interactive’s Junction Point. The game is slated for a fall 2012 release on the Nintendo 3DS.
Remember Boulder Dash XL which released on Xbox Live Arcade and PC a while back? Do you remember thinking how much better it would have been had it been on Nintendo 3DS? Well even if you didn’t, Reef Entertainment, GMG Play and First Star Software, Inc have signed an agreement which will see the game published on 3DS in Europe.
The North American market will also be getting this action-puzzler ported to 3DS. New 3DS exclusive features include street pass functionality to share unlocks and high scores, and the four cave worlds of ice, ancient, reactor and space displayed in full glasses-free 3D.
Boulder Dash XL 3D will be available for £19.99/€29.99 across Europe on July 20th 2012.
A Valley Without Wind is finally coming out of beta. Arcen Games has announced that the game will be releasing on April 23rd, but that’s not all as when it releases as a full game, it will be available for the first time through Steam. A Valley Without Wind is a 2D sidescroller with elements from all different kinds of games from platforming, to puzzle, to shoot-em-up, to strategy.
Those interested in how A Valley Without Wind plays can download the demo from Arcen Games HERE, or if you can wait until PAX East it will be on display at their booth. If you get hooked enough, the beta will still be available before the full release, so you can see just how much A Valley Without Wind‘s world, Environ, has to offer. Entering the beta now from Arcen, GamersGate, Impulse, and MacGamesStore for $9.99, saving 33% when it releases.
There’s only two more weeks until The Witcher 2: Assassins of KingsEnhanced Edition hits store shelves for Xbox 360, but CD Projekt have announced that copies of the “Dark Edition” (Collector’s Edition to you and me) have already sold out in the United States.
Michael Nowakowski, a member of CD Projekt’s board said:
It’s great news for us, that the Dark Edition was such a success worldwide. I hope players will appreciate the gadgets we prepared for them. We’d like to remind you that there are still remaining copies of The Enhanced Edition of The Witcher 2. By buying this version of the game you still get more than you would expect from a standard Xbox game. Apart from the manual and the game itself it contains an official soundtrack CD, a quest handbook and a world map.
The Enhanced Edition of The Witcher 2 provides four hours of additional content from the original PC release and features clearer, more-fleshed out endings for the game. So if hunting monsters, hardcore games, or things that put the “Mature” in M-Rated are your thing, then be sure to mark your calendars for the game’s release on April 17th.
Oh, and if you’re a PC gamer, don’t fret, you’ll be getting these Enhanced Edition updates as a free DLC on the same day.
Cubemen Developer: 3 Sprockets Platforms: PC (Steam, reviewed), Mac (AppStore), iPad 2+ Release Date: 16 March (out now on above platforms) Price: $3.99 (Steam, Mac App Store, iPad App Store)
Overview
Cubemen is a strategy game crossing the RTS (Real Time Strategy) and Tower Defence genres. This game does away with the trappings of graphics and animations and goes for pure strategy; treading just this side of the line between abstract and realism.
Story
You’re blue; he’s red. Have at it!
Gameplay
This game is all about the strategy. You create men by spending points, and gain points by taking down the opposition. As time goes on, and you accrue more points, you’ll be able to send out more powerful units to defend your base from the oncoming waves of enemies.
There are a total of 7 different units at your disposal, costing progressively more, and becoming equally more powerful.
Grill (10 points) is your basic pistol-toting unit, with a limited range, but useful for cannon fodder, or drawing away the enemy’s attention.
Flint (20 points) wields a flamethrower, and features a substantial range increase from the Grill unit. Spraying bursts of fire at the enemy lets him hit many units at once, good for crowd control.
Moty (30 points) fires mortar rounds at the enemy, working pretty much like a grenade launcher, exploding after a time and doing damage to any surrounding units.
Fred (40 points) holds a freeze gun, working pretty much like Flint’s flamethrower, but slowing down enemies instead of damaging them.
Ricky (50 points) holds a rocket launcher, packing a mean punch. He also has the best range, making him perhaps the best unit in numbers.
Lazlo (60 points) hefts a beefy laser rifle, letting him do massive damage in short bursts.
Mike (100 points) is the field medic of your army, and roams around the battlefield healing your soldiers as they take damage.
Each unit has a numer key associated with it, letting you quickly and easily deploy your men onto the battlefield. Once you select which unit you want to place, any tile he can access will be indicated by a blue square in it’s centre. Select the destination by clicking one of these tiles. While the path-finding AI of the game is usually fine, there are some levels with a particularly tricky layout, causing units to attempt to scale unscalable walls or the like.
As soon as the unit is created, he will move to this target position, and fire upon any enemy within range. You can select him by clicking on the tile he is currently on. This will show you his health, as well as his range (as a circle) and current direction he is facing. While selected, you can then tell him to move to a new position, or, using the controls shown on the bottom-left of the screen, switch between “furthest enemy” and “nearest enemy” targeting modes. There are times when it looks like a unit is just about in range of an enemy unit, but doesn’t fire, which can be a little annoying.
A total of 20 waves of enemies will assault your base, sometimes from more than one spawning position on a map. Each wave’s units will increase in their ability to defend themselves, staring with helpless little guys, and ramping up to giants who call down a rain of fire on your units. Once you’ve got the basics down, however, these will become no match for your tactics.
The levels are varied, and numerous, each posing a new challenge to work around; a new type of enemy, a problematic layout, or just more enemy units to defeat with each wave. They are ordered in ascending difficulty, and are marked from “Easy” to “Insane” as you progress. This ordering, however, is a little off at times. Certain levels, while they may seem more complex and challenging, end up being easier than others in the same difficulty category. There are also one or two levels in the “Easy” category that I found impossible until I’d played through some of the harder levels, and figured out the basic strategy of the game.
Some maps are also simply too slow, or too hard, to have the patience to beat. When it takes you half an hour to figure out that you’re going to lose, it can be hard to give it another go. At the same time, most of the other levels, once you’ve got into the groove of the game, are just too easy.
There is also a “Skirmish” mode, in which you play against an AI bot, or player online, as equals, both sending out units, and at the same time, automatically sending out waves to attack your opponent’s base. There is a key difference here, however. You may only place units at certain positions. This leads to a certain amount of line-drawing, you pushing to take a position here, and falling back in retreat there.
Unfortunately, because you are both so equally matched, games can get very even, leaving you playing for quite a while without any meaningful progress. That, paired with seemingly no one else actually playing online for you to play with, makes for quite a dry experience in this mode. Now, I have heard talk about player-created maps, and I’m sure as the game picks up popularity the lobbies will start filling up with people ready to take you on.
While playing, you can rotate the camera around the level as well as zoom in, which is useful. Playing the windows version at least, I found I had to tweak the settings to let me do this with any speed, however. Also, at times the zoom feature wouldn’t let me get any closer to the action, even though I was still a ways out. At times, this made it difficult to select a particular unit I needed to move.
Audio & Visual
The art style of this game is simple and to the point. It’s called “Cubemen” for a reason. Everything, from the level and units, even down to the particles and projectiles, there’s a lot of cubes in this game. Everything has a classy, soft, yet precise style, keeping everything clear, but looking nice. The particle effects look great, and the way every fired projectile is a translucent cube shows a nice attention to detail, and committal to the style.
The music was passable, but very quiet, and with no way of turning it up. The sound effects were simple and got the job done. They can both be muted on the main game screen using two simple buttons.
You can also switch views using a simple button press, toggling “top-down” mode on or off. There’s also a button for increasing and decreasing game speed. I always moved it up to top speed, though; on some levels, the waves take a long time to get anywhere near your units, and speeding up the gae took away some of this tedium.
Overall
It’s hard to rate this game. On the one hand, the gameplay itself was pretty fun. The mechanics worked well, and the strategy element was well realised. The game also has a lot of problems, however. With more than a few bugs, as well as some odd control and design choices, make it hard to wholeheartedly recommend this game.
It was originally created for a competition, and it feels like it lacks the polish of a fully-realised (and finished) game. If you like your strategy, and are interested by the cross-genre mix of RTS and Tower Defence, then by all means, pick this one up. But if you’re looking for something to suck your time away, then you might be looking for something a little more… complete.
A new real-time strategy has come out on the App Store, called Amoebattle. So you RTS fans out there better strap in, this is going to be an interesting addition to your App collection.
Amoebattle takes you into the microscopic world, as you lead your group of amoebas against a fast spreading infection that you have to do battle with, or risk losing everything. There are nine types of creatures to play with, beautiful graphics and stages, and an awesome art style to boot.
There are twelve mission campaigns, each one unique and intense, and each carrying the allure of a Game Center Achievement. With a range of amoebas, as well as Probes, which can turn the power balance of the battle at the touch of a finger, this is certainly an app that will keep you on your toes.
Keep an eye out on the site for a review soon!
Amoebattle is available NOW on the iPhone, iTouch and iPad for $5.49 – Grab it HERE
A new real-time strategy has come out on the App Store, called Amoebattle. So you RTS fans out there better strap in, this is going to be an interesting addition to your App collection.