Have you ever been at a restaurant and wanted some gold coins to spend in a virtual game? Fable 3 will allow you to do just that when Fable 3: Kingmaker launches in the UK, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Netherlands and Sweden. Fable 3:Kingmaker will allow gamers to stake a claim by planting a flag and tagging their real world location via geo location. When enough players plant a flag at a certain location, they will take over that spot and earn gold that can be synced to their Xbox 360 version of Fable 3. You can register October 4, 2010 at www.Fable3Kingmaker.com. Fable 3:Kingmaker will be available on Android, Nokia Symbian, iPhone and Windows Phone 7.
Now, a quote from a most loved developer, Peter Molyneux: “To be able to earn gold you can use in your Fable III game, and to check-in and claim land for your side is brilliant for both Fable III and Xbox 360. We all love the innovation and feeling of being connected that Kingmaker brings to gamers.” This kind of innovation certainly looks exciting, and I hope they bring it to other countries as well.
Well, its been about 2 weeks since Halo: Reach has been out. Most of you have probably beaten it by now and are wondering what you can do to gain credits (Cr) faster so you can get some sweet armor. Cr is what you use to purchase new armor pieces (purely cosmetic) as well as special effects for your armor and voices for your spartan in firefight mode. Cr is also what determines your rank, which determines what items you have available for purchase as well as being the determining factor when it comes to who you are matched up with when you play online. Cr can be earned in all modes of Reach, campaign, firefight and matchmaking.
Just a few basic tips about garnering Cr
– Work on your commendations. Commendations are little in-game mini achievements that are tracked by Bungie, you can view your commendation progress by going to the main menu->player->service record->commendations. Every time you rank up a commendation you get a load of points (usually 2k+) added to your profile, so keep working towards each new milestone.
– Get multikills. Multikills are something that have been around for years and years now and something that everybody should be familiar with. Things like double kill, triple kill, overkill etc.. The higher level multikill you get, the more Cr you are awarded.
– Go for daily and weekly challenges. I understand that sometimes the challenges are a bit too daunting to complete in one day for some people. One of them at the time of writing this is complete 17 games in matchmaking, something that would take about an hour or two and that only counts for one challenge. On the flipside, some are quite easy and can fetch you a hefty amount of Cr for completing, going as high as 2500 Cr (as far as I’ve seen) for just one challenge.
– Play with friends. It’s no secret that playing with friends is better than randoms and while playing with friends won’t necessarily give you any more Cr than normal, it’s a good way to pass the time. What could be an hour playing with randoms feel like an eternity, playing with friends will make the time (and the Cr) fly by, allowing you to build Cr while genuinely having fun.
– Use a variety of methods to take down enemies. While I previously encouraged ranking up your commendations (which will involve using the same method of killing over and over) don’t just stick to one commendation. They become exponentially more time consuming to complete as they rank up, so spread your progress out to a handful of them. A good example is if you are trying to go for the headshot one, use a pistol as that will also rank up the small arms commendation.
– Don’t bother playing in custom games, as you will be getting an extremely reduced amount of Cr, no matter what you do in it.
Now aside from these basic tips and guidelines, there are a few “tricks” that will get you loads of Cr in no time. Note that there has been a bit of hooplah circulating recently about Bungie banning people for using unsavory methods to gain Cr (hacking/modding/cheating) but know that anything and everything I talk about here is completely legitimate and wholly sanctioned by Bungie.
– Gruntpocalypse. Go to matchmaking->cooperative->score attack. This will place you in the firefight score attack lobby. This can only be done alone (this is a good thing, you won’t need to pray that you get a competent team to win). In every set of possible matches that show up to be voted on, there will always be a gruntpocalypse. If the level selected is one you don’t like or aren’t very good on, select none of the above to cycle it out and find a better level. Once the level that you want pops up, select gruntpocalypse and go to town. 5 waves of only grunts, headshot and Cr central. Each match has a maximum of 12 minutes, though the skilled player can usually finish these in about 7 minutes. If you are just starting out your Cr farming you should be raking in an average of about 2200 Cr per match. Trust me when I say that 2200 Cr every 7 minutes is AMAZING.
– New Alexandria exploit. Play the the New Alexandria level (the level where you fly around the city on the falcon completing various tasks) on legendary. The final task will be to take out 6 turrets surrounding the ONI base. Take them out and either after you’ve taken them all out or in the middle of doing so, you will get a checkpoint. Once that checkpoint is finished completing, pause and save and quit. Now all you need to do is just load that save up, complete it (will take about 10 seconds, give or take based on when the checkpoint happened), rinse, repeat. You should be getting a couple hundred for every completion. Not much I know, but its a couple hundred for every 30 seconds or so, and the main point of this is to level up the flawless cowboy commendation (complete a mission on legendary without dying). Each time you do this it will level it up, and due to the perceived difficulty of said commendation, it will level up quite quickly, paying out tons of Cr.
– ONI: Sword base exploit. This one is similar to the previous one, though make sure you have scoring turned on so you can track your Cr. I have embedded a video of me performing this exploit below. The basic gist is that you skip all the enemies, run to the target locater (satellite missile launcher), get a checkpoint and go to town. You fire the satellite blast, often getting a killionare (the best multikill) which should be getting you about 100 Cr instantly (as shown next to your motion sensor). Once you get the Cr, revert to last save and do it again. The Cr you are getting is being saved to your profile, not to this actual save, so every time you do this you are accumulating Cr. Again, this is small pickings but it is very fast once you start it and the big payoff is the two commendations it levels up, as shown in the video.
Just a forewarning, after you do these methods several times, you will start getting lower amounts of Cr. This is normal and unavoidable. There will be a point where it’s no longer beneficial to waste your time on these unless you are doing so to rank up a commendation. After this point, just go back to gruntpocalypse or completing daily challenges.
Well, there you have it. Once again, none of this will get you banned, although there is a daily Cr limit made by Bungie so nobody can get too many credits in one day. If you happen to hit the cap, no worries, nothing bad will happen, just for that day you won’t be able to earn Cr anymore. The cap is very high as well, so if you hit the cap, kudos to you. Now go get out there and start leveling up to get some sweet armor so you can rub it in your friends faces as you teabag them. 🙂
Activision has given us a bit of insight into how they are making Call of Duty: Black Ops’ multiplayer something completely different and will set it above the rest of the CoD multiplayer. That is that they have added in a currency system and a complete character customization feature.
From the video below you can see that they emphasize on how the new level system works and how the new currency system works. As you level up you will unlock entire groups of weaponry and skills, and then you can use your currency to enable them for use. So rather than having to wait until a higher level to blast people away with a RPG, you can do it away when you unlock that explosive group and pay the fee.
From what it looks like the currency system will be obtained much like experience points are, through kills, matches, and various in game accomplishments. They have also shown how you can fully customize your gun camouflage and face paint, including an all new Emblem Editor which allows for thorough emblem creations.
Now this is just me saying it here, and I know that comparing the two can lead to lots of venom. But this new currency system seems very familiar to the CR system Bungie placed inside of Halo: Reach for customization. But it looks like Activision has taken it a step further by implementing every aspect of your character from their appearance to their weapon into the currency system.
With this new feature I can’t wait to see what type of customization we will be seeing on November 9th when the game arrives on all major consoles.
GOG.com recently had the video game community up in arms over its publicity stunt. The website announced it would be closing, but in reality they were just launching a new website. Perhaps to make up for this or to get new people interested (like me) they are offering quite a few games for 50% off. You can check out the full list of games here. Some of the notable highlights include Psychonauts for $4.99 and Duke Nukem 3D: Atomic Edition for $2.99.
With the release of Sonic Colors in just a little bit over a month away, Sega is starting to release wallpapers to the title on their official blog. The first can be seen pictured above and features Sonic in all of his glory along with the new wisps that will be in Sonic Colors. You can download it in full here.
Sonic Colors releases for the Nintendo DS and Wii November 11th for the AU, November 12th for EU & November 16th for the U.S.
Sega has just released a brand new trailer for Vanquish showing off some the the action packed battles within the game. In my opinion this is my favorite trailer for Vanquish released to date. Within the trailer you can see some of the enemies within the game and get a bit more of a look into the story from that perspective. So without babbling on any more about how awesome the game is already looking, here is the new trailer which you can check out below….
Razer is a brand known for their high-end precision gaming peripherals. They have now announced that Ed Larkin of Mouse Bungee is now apart Razer’s innovation team. Here is an official statement of Razer’s newest team member.
“I fondly remember playing the original Quake with my Mouse Bungee and I loved not having to deal with tangling wires anymore. It was a simple but innovative solution to a problem common to so many gamers” says Min-Liang Tan, CEO & Creative Director of Razer. “I’m proud to have a talent like Ed on our team and am excited about the ideas and inspiration he will bring on board.”
“When Razer first approached me and asked me to join their team, the decision was quite easy. I have the utmost respect for the brand as it understands gamers like no other company out there”, says Ed Larkin, Designer and Inventor of the original Mouse Bungee. “Supporting competitive gaming from day one, they have created this industry and always stayed close to their roots. It is that kind of environment that turns out phenomenal gaming products and I’m looking forward to being a part of it.”
With that announcement comes the announcement of their latest product, appropriately titled “The Razer Mouse Bungee”.
The Razer Mouse Bungee is a gaming accessory that has been trusted by old school gamers for years. Featuring a robust and stable base plate with 3 non-slip and non-scratch feet and a dual/parallel suspension spring, the Razer Mouse Bungee gives any wired mouse the freedom of motion normally associated with cordless mice by eliminating mousecord snags, drag and tangles. Mouse wires also conveniently snap into place on the rear cord lock so mice won’t be weighed down and will be held at the same point. Razer’s Mouse Bungee is the ideal accessory for high-speed gaming with wired gaming mice.
Product Features:
Base plate with 3 non-slip, non-scratch feet
Rear cord lock to keep mouse wire in place
¼ lb. chrome stabilizer sphere
Mouse cord suspension clip
Dual/parallel cord suspension springs
The Razer Mouse Bungee will be available later this year. As a person who has struggled through many mice snags myself, this new product looks great and will be one I will have to try out for sure. If you missed it you can check out MasterAbbot’s recebt interview with the Razer Team about the other new products in the works by clicking here.
Nintendo’s virtual art studio is now looking even more promising with Nintendo just releasing a list of new features to be included in the title. From a personal virtual tutor to the ability to use the DSi’s cameras to take photos for reference while creating your art, Art Academy is looking to have it all. Here is the full list of newly announced features:
Students can learn at their own pace. The in-game tutor, Vince, guides them through each new lesson and gradually introduces new artistic concepts. Each new lesson builds upon concepts studied in previous lessons, complete with step-by-step examples. Lessons can also be saved in progress, to be completed at another time.
Students use the stylus on the touch screen as though they were holding a pencil or paint brush. Pencils and paintbrushes of different sizes, combined with color mixing and paint dilution effects, produce realistic results and feel very natural.
Students have broad artistic freedom as they create their artwork. The lessons are used as guides to learn new art techniques, while Free Paint is a personal, portable art studio ready to capture their latest inspiration.
If the Art Academy software is being used on a Nintendo DSi™ or Nintendo DSi XL™ system, artists can use the built-in cameras to take pictures of the things they want to paint and use them as a reference material wherever they go.
Completed artwork can be framed and saved in the Gallery.
Artists can wirelessly send the Demo lesson, via the local wireless connection, to another Nintendo DS owner to sample.
Art Academy includes the same tool set and all ten of the lessons found in the previously released Nintendo DSiWare™ titles, Art Academy: First Semester and Art Academy: Second Semester. With additional mini lessons and more than 80 motifs have been added to provide a variety of reference material for artists to use when creating their own masterpieces.
The lessons might end, but the joy of creating art never does. All of the skills learned in Art Academycan be applied to real-life artist’s materials outside of the Nintendo DS environment.
Nintendo is really packing the content into this title and for fans of the Art Academy titles for the DSiWare, this will be one you don’t want to miss. Art Academy hits stores October 25th for the Nintendo DS and will have a nice affordable price point of just 19.99 when it is released.
Not many games this week, although it’s not surprising with Nintendo’s busy week what with the Nintendo press conference in Japan and plummiting stocks and shares. This weeks notable release would be Aura-Aura Climber, published by Nintendo which looks interesting. It’s only 200 DSi Points, so some of you may want to check that out. Other than that, two WiiWare titles and two ‘Petz’ games for DSiWare. The ‘Petz’ games offer either dog or cat variations, pleasing both dog and cat lovers.
So as you have probably guessed from the headline, the release of long awaited Gears of War 3 has been pushed from its April 5th, 2011 all the way to holiday 2011. For those of you who don’t like figuring out the math for how many months later that is, it is 8 months delayed, now being over a year away. Unfortunately, we should all have seen this coming as this same scenario played out last year. Many of the holiday releases were pushed back into the spring and some even into the summer and now it looks like this process is starting again.
As quoted from Microsoft, “”The teams at Microsoft Game Studios and Epic Games have done great work thus far readying the title for release in the Spring of 2011…However, we’ve elected to move the launch of Gears of War 3 until Fall 2011 to make it the marquee title for the holiday season.” I’m sure some/most of you are saddened by this news, but worry not! To cheer you up, go watch this silly video of two japanese guys (one playing and the other simply aiding in commentary) playing tag with a 1up in Super Mario 64. 😛
