Archive for the ‘Strategy’ Category:
Blizzard says no LAN in Starcraft II is best idea
There was somwhat of an uproar from the community when Blizzard announced that they would not be featuring LAN support in their forthcoming RTS, Starcraft II.
Below is their reasoning for removing LAN, mentioning Battle.net and piracy:
“We don’t currently plan to support LAN play with StarCraft II, as we are building Battle.net to be the ideal destination for multiplayer gaming with StarCraft II and future Blizzard Entertainment games,” confirms a Blizzard rep. “While this was a difficult decision for us, we felt that moving away from LAN play and directing players to our upgraded Battle.net service was the best option to ensure a quality multiplayer experience with StarCraft II and safeguard against piracy.
“Several Battle.net features like advanced communication options, achievements, stat-tracking, and more, require players to be connected to the service, so we’re encouraging everyone to use Battle.net as much as possible to get the most out of StarCraft II. We’re looking forward to sharing more details about Battle.net and online functionality for StarCraft II in the near future.”
Regardless if its the best idea or not, Starccraft II is sure to be a highly competitve game which means a lot of tournaments. Without LAN tournament organizers are going to have 1 more problem to deal with, bummer.
Read (Destructoid)
WoW held up StarCraft 2 progress
It’s just not Blizzard’s day today, is it? Word comes from Eurogamer that the studio held up the release of its highly anticipated sequel to StarCraft for World of Warcraft.
Rob Pardo told the site that development on the sequel had begun in 2003 and that there had been a playable build since 2005. However, it was held up due to the appearance of World of Warcraft which saw a fair amount of the design team moving to MMO project to help finish the game.
Apparently, these people had lots of great experience and had knowledge and know-how to fix map editor problems, as well as dealing with balancing.
Now you know who to hate for holding up StarCraft 2. The original was released back in 1998. It’s been eleven years since then.
Blizzard: no LAN support in StarCraft 2
Sure to strike legions of stinky nerds who like to huddle in a single, hot room to play videogames competitively, it appears that Blizzard does not have any plans to add LAN multiplayer support to StarCraft 2.
This comes from different previews of the game on Kotaku and IncGamers, both of whom checked out the new Battle.net, the solo campaign and more. When they asked about multiplayer LAN play, this is what they received as an answer: “We will not support it.”
The studio additionally pointed out that there is “zero percent” chance of seeing the game on consoles.
If the news got you down, Joystiq adds salt to the wound by showing seven minutes of multiplayer play from the game. Go cry in the corner, you.
Budding presidentes vie for Tropico 3 beta
Time to bust out your dictatorial skills, as developer Haemimont Games is now accepting beta applications from budding Presidentes for a closed test for the Banana republic simulator Tropico 3.
The beta is set to begin July 13. A standard form awaits your response, though you might want to refrain from unleashing your dictatorship on anyone until you get in.
Tropico 3 is set for release in Europe on PC and Xbox 360 this September. No North American publisher has been brave enough to take a flight to the banana republic yet, so Americans will have to wait a bit longer.
Worms 2 coming to XBLA on July 1
Team 17’s hilarious 2D multiplayer “shooter” Worms 2: Armageddon is coming to Xbox Live Arcade. Originally released 1999 as a successor to Worms Armageddon, Xbox Live owners will on July 1 get a chance to (re)live one of the best Worms games to date. It will retail for $10 (800 MS Points) on XBLA.
Command & Conquer 4 In Development Suggests Survey
I admit to having no interest in the genre, but I often find myself pitying RTS fans due to the long lag time between releases of titles worth playing. With some PC games if you purchased a top of the line system when the original came out you might still be able to play the sequel. If you still had your PC from when Starcraft was released it’d probably struggle to load the trailer for Starcraft 2.
Luckily for RTS fans a survey suggests development has begun on Command and Conquer 4, the final chapter in the Tiberium saga begun nearly fifteen years ago in the original title. The RTS classic comes back with some new changes and improvements. They’re boasting the Crawler, the first ever mobile base in an RTS game (yes, there have been games where the base could move, but presumably this one can move and still retain all its other functions while doing so) as well as some RPG flavors to the game.
As players battle in any mode, whether single player, multiplayer or skirmish they’ll gain experience points which allow you to unlock new units, abilities, equipment and upgrades to take the fight harder to your opponents in your next battle. Cooperative campaigns are making a comeback so players can get a friend in on the action as well in addition to huge five on five multiplayer matches with new objective modes as well as the standard gameplay.
None of these features are exactly confirmed though since they’re all simply mentioned in the survey, but since the Crawler is mentioned in the headline I’m guessing that’s a big favorite.
No cake for you: Fat Princess delayed!
The cake was a lie! Or at least it is a lie this month, as Titan Studios’ downloadable PS3 game Fat Princess has been delayed until later in the summer.
Writing on the European PlayStation Blog, PS Store team member Mike Kebby forwarded the bad news, though he did note that cake will be had by people all over the world once the game is released.
"The game is coming at some point this summer, but there is no confirmed release date at the moment," he wrote.
Have cake and carry fat princesses soon. The game is also in development for PSP.
Huge Dawn of War 2 update coming
Relic has announced a huge update for the RTS Dawn of War 2. The update will bring new features, gameplay tweaks and new content, which is said to be a whopping 8 new maps, ranging from 1v1 to 3v3 player sizes. An open beta will be held for the patch early next month
Hell’s Kitchen Game Review–Another Game That Shouldn’t Be Fun
When I first got my hands on a copy of Hell’s Kitchen for the Wii, I was pretty convinced that there was no way this could be entertaining. I mean, for crying out loud, you ever see that show? It’s just some British guy screaming profanity for an hour while other people cook. And yet, somehow, despite all reason and good common sense, this game is unaccountably fun. There’s no two ways about it; Hell’s Kitchen is fun, but it probably shouldn’t be.
Basically, in Hell’s Kitchen, much like the show you take on the role of an aspiring chef in the none too tender mercies of Gordon Ramsay. You’ll manage a kitchen and a dining room, seating patrons, taking orders, preparing and detailing food to be served. Actually, you’ll just tell a waiter what to do by pointing and clicking with your Wiimote. Everything you’ll do, from mixing ingredients to clearing dishes, is done by pointing and clicking the Wiimote.
You may be wondering how such a game could be on the Wii in the first place, let alone merely rated T, because as anyone who’s actually seen the show knows watching it on network TV ends up with it sounding like a Morse code tutorial as designed by someone on a whole lot of meth. But they actually managed to pull it off by A. continuing the grand tradition of bleeping out any and all of Ramsay’s profane dialogue and B. making the game itself little more than a casual computer game knockoff with licensing bonuses. Playing Hell’s Kitchen felt like nothing so much as a particularly deep episode of Diner Dash.
On the one hand, a casual game like Diner Dash is pretty well suited to the Wii’s admittedly inferior graphics capabiliities and control scheme that focuses on the point and click. Adding on a license like Hell’s Kitchen actually boosts the credibility of things a bit, and gives it a connection to something people are already familiar with. There’s also a really interesting strategy element here that bears mentioning–dishes are all made differently, and you may have three or four dishes to process per table. Thus, you’ll have to figure out which ingredients you need, and in which order you need them. You may need, for example, two eggs, three fruits and two grains. If you’re smart you’ll already have one of each pre-made before you even start. But then you’ll have to start preparing ingredients on the fly, seeing which dishes will take longest to prepare and taking advantage of the time lag to prepare the other ingredients. Plus you’ll have to do the whole thing on the fly under a time limit.
See what I mean? Despite the fact that this game is fairly simple there’s a lot of different permutations involved here, and getting your head around all of them can be downright difficult. That dichotomy is actually kind of weird, and adds to the fun factor. This game shouldn’t be this complex. Or this entertaining. And yet, it is. There’s an odd sort of compulsion to this game that makes you long to jam your success in Ramsay’s smirking little maw and make it all the way to master chef.
And you’ll get the chance to do exactly that here. Even better, you’ll get actual recipes that you can try if you’re desperate to make an incredibly complex dish (seriously, there’s a recipe for a salad that requires BLANCHING vegetables. I took one look at it and said, no, I think I’ll just cut some lettuce.). But the key thing is, Hell’s Kitchen is a hell of a game.
E3 Award nominees announced
The gaming press has voted and the list of nominees for best of E3 2009 has been released. Full list after the jump.
Best Of Show:
Brütal Legend (Double Fine Productions/EAP for PS3, Xbox 360)
Mass Effect 2 (BioWare/Electronic Arts for Xbox 360, PC)
Modern Warfare 2 (Infinity Ward/Activision for PS3, Xbox 360, PC)
Splinter Cell Conviction (Ubisoft Montreal/Ubisoft for Xbox 360)
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (Naughty Dog/SCEA for PS3)
Best Original Game
Alan Wake (Remedy/MGS for Xbox 360)
Bayonetta (Platinum Games/Sega for PS3, Xbox 360)
Brütal Legend (Double Fine Productions/EAP for PS3, Xbox 360)
Heavy Rain (Quantic Dream/SCEE for PS3)
Scribblenauts (5TH Cell/WBIE for Nintendo DS)
Best Console Game:
Brütal Legend (Double Fine Productions/EAP for PS3, Xbox 360)
God of War 3 (Sony Santa Monica/SCEA for PS3)
Mass Effect 2 (BioWare/Electronic Arts for Xbox 360)
Modern Warfare 2 (Infinity Ward/Activision for PS3, Xbox 360)
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (Naughty Dog/SCEA for PS3)
More »
Battalion Wars 2 Game Review–A Third Person Shooter With Bells And Whistles
I had heard vague stirrings of goodness about the Battalion Wars series for some time, so when I found a copy of Battalion Wars 2 on the Wii, I thought I’d found a real winner. See, when I first took a whack at this I thought I was going to play an actual RTS on the Wii. That really perked my interest–for crying out loud, TELL me the Wiimote and nunchuk aren’t just perfectly suited to a point-and-click style interface. Seriously, try and tell me that.
But anyway, you can just about imagine my surprise when I didn’t get a map-driven point-and-click strategy simulation game, but rather a third-person shooter.
We start our little affair in the midst of a battle between the Iron Legion and the Solar Empire. The Iron Legion is about to literally hand the entire world its own ass by knocking out the last functioning army left on the field. Only a last-ditch effort by a single brave soldier can save the entire planet from being ground under the Iron Legion’s massive, heavy boot heel. Fast forward a few years–the Solar Empire has been living in relative peace, but all that is about to change when the Anglo Isles, another area power, gets word that the Solar Empire was working on a new kind of superweapon. The Anglo Isles forces launch an all-out assault, which you must repel. And this is only the beginning of a massive and world-sweeping plot…but who’s behind it? Only by playing through a series of battles all over the planet will you manage to find out.
Yes, this is a third-person shooter. You will, however, have access to a pretty nice variety of units, making this almost a strategy game at the third-person shooter level, forcing you to make decisions about which units to use in which situations. You may need to use flamethrowers against infantry, bazookas against armor, anti-air units against aircraft, and so on. I admit, I haven’t seen that many third person shooters involve quite so much strategy, but that’s still like saying it’s the least painful hammer to hit yourself with.
Perhaps another interesting issue with this game is that it’s uniquely well suited for the younger set. For all the gunplay in this game, I don’t remember seeing any blood. There are explosions, but these are really little more than bursts of color. Enemies set on fire with your flamethrower simply fade out after a while. I’ve heard about parents buying this game for children as young as seven despite the fact that it’s rated for teenagers. Frankly, I’m not sure why this game rated a T myself–asides from the popgun-like effects of the gunfire there’s not much in the way of truly objectionable content here. But that’s neither here nor there–I’d honestly say that T might be an overreaction on the ESRB’s part.
The game itself, meanwhile, is fun in a cartoony sort of way, with fairly decent sound and graphics, plus quite possibly one of the better third-person shooters I’ve played thanks to its heavy dollops of strategy and occasional humor. You might want to take a run at Battalion Wars 2, if for no other reason than they try harder than most of the rest.
The Peregrine: Bringing Technology Back To The 90s
At E3 Iron Will Technologies is unveiling an innovation of theirs that’ll bring many gamers back down memory lane to a time of bad haircuts, ripped-up jeans and Fred Savage. In his classic film The Wizard where he attempts to get a young video game prodigy to a gaming competition. One of the most tense scenes involved one of the antagonists unleashing one of the most bizarre yet desirable peripherals of the early gaming world: the Power Glove.
It was intended to translate a gamers hand movements into control inputs, but due to its imprecision and lack of dedicated games it didn’t really catch on, and was regarded as a gimmick, but the concept has remained popular. Films like Minority Report, Johnny Mnemonic and others have showed extreme fascination with the concept of controlling a computer via hand inputs.
The Peregrine is an attempt by Iron Will to bring this generally science-fiction concept into real life. MMOs and RTS games are notorious for complex control schemes that require endless numbers of key shortcuts for success and to fumble one in the midst of a raid or skirmish can destroy your slim chance of victory. The Peregrine promises to offer over thirty key shortcuts by tapping your thumb to various points on your fingers. Of course the control options are customizable and luckily for those prone to long, long gaming sessions the sensor disconnects and the glove itself is washable.
Blizzard shooting for 09 Starcraft II release
Despite beating around the bush every which way they can, Blizzard has finally come out and said during an investor webcast that they are hoping to have StarCraft II on shelves by the end of this year.
Joystiq quotes Blizzard president Mike Morhaime as saying:
“We’re targeting an end of year release this year for StarCraft II. But as always, we won’t release it until it meets our standards and the expectations of our players.”
So there is it, while it’s not completely definite its at least more definite that StarCraft II will in fact be hitting shelves by the end of the year, or so they hope. As for the beta? Still slated to be released sometime this summer.
Blizzard giving away Blizzcon tickets through fansites
Now don’t get your hopes up too high because unfortunately we weren’t able to secure any Blizzcon tickets to give away to you guys, the readers. Fortunately, there is a slew of websites that were more fortunate than us and were able to get their hands on some Bilzzcon tickets to give away.
Below is a compiled list of all known fan sites holding Blizzcon ticket giveways, courtesy of Starcraft Wire:
StarcraftWire.net – Giveaway 1 – Giveaway 2 BlizzPlanet Diii.net – (coming soon) Diablo-Source StarCraft-Source inStarCraft StarCraft II Australia StarCraft 2 Source TankSpot World of Raids WoW Interface
So, you won’t be getting a Blizzcon ticket from us but at least you still have the opportunity to get your hands on one while Blizzard prepares to put some more up for sale.
You can read more about Blizzard’s annual convention, Blizzcon, here.
Tags: blizzard, blizzcon, diablo 3, frozen throne, giveaway, rts, sould out, starcraft 2, tickets, warcraft, world of warcraft
2029 Online alpha testing starts today
Alpha testing for the upcoming MMO 2029 Online starts today. Anyone can download the client and begin playing the Sci-Fi RTS instantly. The installation file clocks in at around ~333MB, so it won’t hurt to try it out if you have nothing else to do on this lazy Sunday.
2029 Online is a free-to-play game which will rely on microtransactions for profit. More details and updates are available on the official website.
via GamersHell