Monthly Archives: October 2014

NYCC 2014 Day 2 – Delays, Delays and Slow Days

By Michael Sagoe (Mikedot)

 

Missed the Day 1 recap? Catch it here.

Day 2 of NYCC 2014 has arrived, and there were a handful of vendors and exhibits for me to visit today! Of course, there was also a few game booths in particular that I wanted to jump on, including the Tripwire booth where they were showing off exclusive footage for Killing Floor 2. To make things better, the rest of my NYCC crew had arrived on the scene, so covering the event was going to be a whole lot easier.

First thing on the agenda was a quick demo playthrough for Alien Isolation, which was just released recently. Everyone I knew has been raving about how good it was (or at least how good it was compared to Alien: Colonial Marines.) In Alien Isolation, it takes a more survival horror approach rather than an action shooter approach, as players have escaped the clutches of a SINGLE Xenomorph. While this single Xenomorph sounds like no big deal, the player only has their quick wits and whatever they can find lying around in the environment to protect them. There’s no health bar, as well. If you get attacked even once, it’s game over.

NYCC 2014 Alien Isolation

I did my best to escape the horrible beast, but even after trying to burn it with a flamethrower or hide away in a closet, the damn thing would still find me and tear me a new one. Still, I will admit that the most enjoyable part of the game wasn’t to see if I could escape the beast, but to see exactly how many different ways it would destroy me whenever it catches me. And man, each time it caught me, it performed a unique takedown almost every time. Overall, my small demo for Alien Isolation is an excellent horror title that really does justice for the Alien franchise.

After that, I hopped over to the Brave Frontier booth once more to see if I could snag an interview with the event staff to learn more about the game, but the booth was so packed and the staff was incredibly busy! With that said, sadly I had to reschedule for Saturday, instead.  But on the upside, the event staff mentioned that the creator of Brave Frontier would be there tomorrow to sign autographs and answer questions, so perhaps getting an interview for Saturday will be worth all the delays.

There wasn’t a lot else going on for the day, so I had some time to kill… Time for more cosplay pictures!

One in particular that I REALLY loved was the League of Legends cosplay for Jinx.

NYCC 2014 Jynx cosplay

NYCC 2014 Ahri Cosplay

NYCC 2014 Jinx Cosplay 2

Around 4 PM, it was time to meet up with the exhibit staff for an upcoming gaming service known as LiquidSky: A cloud-based gaming service that will allow gamers to play ANY kind of PC game on a mobile or tablet platform. When I first heard this claim, I couldn’t believe it, but it was true. They already have a handful of popular PC games like League of Legends and World of Warcraft running on their software. And the best part? The service is all browser based, so all you have to do is download a plugin on the LiquidSky website and you’re good to go.

NYCC 2014 Liquid Sky

This whole service really caught my interest, so I decided to interview the guys behind the service. They stated that the service is very young. So young that they only recently started the beta a couple of days ago and only a handful of people even know that the service exists. NY Comic-Con was basically their first introduction of the service to the world, and they were incredibly happy that we gave them the chance to get the word out. Expect our interview on LiquidSky very soon!

Time for more cosplay!

NYCC 2014 Lil Mac Cosplay

NYCC 2014 Cosplay

NYCC 2014 Cosplay 2

I still couldn’t get over how nice the Jinx cosplay. It was easily one of my favorites, second only to the Sub-Zero cosplay spotted.

NYCC 2014 Subzero Cosplay 1

NYCC 2014 Sub Zero Cosplay 2

This was a damn fine recreation of Sub-Zero, too. I have somewhat of a gut feeling that whoever is responsible for this Sub-Zero costume was also the same guy behind the equally as excellent Scorpion costume that I had laid eyes on from last year’s NYCC.

Last up: The Tripwire booth!  My group was all ready and raring to go, eager to know anything and everything regarding the upcoming Killing Floor 2, but once again, we ran into some complications and delays! It turns out that the staff there had their hands tied with other appointments, even though we had one scheduled with them already. Sadly they had to reschedule us for tomorrow, but they promised us no delays or interruptions.

NYCC 2014 Killing Floor 2

Other than that: There wasn’t anything else planned for the day, so I apologize to any readers for this daily recap. Saturday promises to be feature packed, and will be the most active event day in regards to attendee numbers, so look forward to all the action.

Jagex Reveals Brand New Game Set in the World of RuneScape

Chronicle RuneScape Legends 1

Jagex, the studio behind the multi-award winning fantasy MMORPG, RuneScape, is pleased to announce the development of a brand new game set in the world of Gielinor. Chronicle: RuneScape Legends (working title) is scheduled to launch in 2015 on PC/Mac, tablet, and mobile platforms, and is a collectible card game. Played out within the pages of a living book the game focuses on quest building, allowing players to craft their own miniature RPGs against enemies, including classic RuneScape boss monsters, before entering into tense PvP combat.

Chronicle RuneScape Legends 2

Chronicle: RuneScape Legends made its public debut at RuneFest, which took place on Saturday October 11 at London’s Tobacco Dock. James Sweatman, lead designer of Chronicle: RuneScape Legends, hosted the unveiling of the game at RuneFest, and afterwards commented: “We’ve been quietly developing Chronicle: RuneScape Legends since the start of the year to ensure that it’s not only a fun and compelling player experience, but one still very much interwoven into the rich lore of RuneScape. We’re looking forward to sharing more information on the game over the coming months, especially in regards to Chronicle‘s debut on tablet and mobile!”

RuneScape has been the foundation for Jagex’s success for more than 13 years, and it’s exciting to broaden the brand’s appeal with the compelling quest building gameplay offered by Chronicle,” said Phil Mansell, vice president of RuneScape, “Chronicle: RuneScape Legends represents an important step for Jagex as we add a new game into the RuneScape family. This announcement tops a strong 2014 where our flagship title has continued to thrive.”

Learn more at the just revealed official site.

ACR Drift

ACR Drift is a free-to-play racing game designed exclusively for iOS devices. Players take on the role of international street racers as they weave through traffic, drift through hairpin turns, and otherwise put the pedal to the metal in head-to-head competition with AI opponents or fellow players.

Features:

Sweet Moves: Drift racing is more than just the name of the game, it’s the main focus. Winning races means whipping and sliding through turns like you’re trying to collect on a life insurance policy. Dodging traffic, outmaneuvering the competition and drifting like a pro are all just a swipe away with CROOZ’s innovative, iOS-specific controls.

Own Your Ride: It’s not the size of the car that matters, it’s how many illegal aftermarket parts you’ve put on it. In ACR Drift, buying a car is only the first step. Mod the body to make it look as sweet as it drives, then mod everything else so it drives even sweeter than it looks. With over 50 licensed cars to choose from, the choices you make are guaranteed to stand out.

Race Around the World: From Russia to Hong Kong, Los Angeles and Italy, nitro boost and power slide your way through some of the world’s grandest and most famous cities. If that wasn’t enough, the online multiplayer component offers players the chance to take on fellow racers playing ACR Drift across 135 countries. Do you have what it takes to become an international legend?

Truly Free to Play: The premium currency has its benefits, but you’re never forced to buy it. Pay your way to a better car by winning races, win some more races with your better car to make even more money. ACR Drift is about speed, timing and skill. Don’t want to buy your way to the top? Race your way there.

CROOZ

CROOZ is a Japanese mobile gaming company responsible for: ACR Drift, Battlefront Heroes, and Balloon Kingdom.

SMITE Teases Baka Rework in Early Patch Notes

HiRez Studios continues their war path of god reworks in third person MOBA, SMITE, as one of the oldest gods in the game, Bakasura, sees a huge visual rework in the next patch.

Bakasura_Default_Card

In addition a series of yet unseen Halloween skins are being added into the game alongside seasonal ward skins.

Balances are widespread as well, though most impactful on Apollo, Freya, Rama, and especially Sylvanus. The full details can be read on the official pre-patch notes page.

Crowdfunding Corner: The Fault in the Stars

By Jaime Skelton (MissyS), Senior Editor

This week on OnRPG, we’ve launched our Kicktracker, a new hub where you can keep track on the latest Kickstarter and crowdfunding news for the latest multiplayer online games. As staff, we’ve already had our eye on the crowdfunding trend since it caught on over a year ago  – it’s hard not to notice with as many that have popped up these days. So join us as we kick off this new site feature with a brief look at this week’s crowdfunding news.

 

Trouble In Transverse

Okay, so we’re a little late on this one. Early in September, we reported that Piranha Games – maker of MechWarrior Online – had started crowdfunding for a new MMO, Transverse. Unfortunately for Piranha, this didn’t go over well, particularly with the MechWarrior Online community on Reddit, who proceeded to take over the Transverse sub-reddit while Piranha, on the other hand, got shadowbanned for creating it.

Redditors weren't kidding around.Redditors weren’t kidding around.

So why the hatred for a game that could have been Wing Commander Online? It comes down to Piranha’s reputation with its MWO playerbase. Many founders of MWO have complained of broken promises and even of being ignored (as they are no longer the “core audience” Piranha was targeting). The company’s also built a reputation with MWO players of being slow with updates and poor at quality control.

Still, Piranha made some huge mistakes with the crowdfunding for Transverse itself. They raced to pull a YouTube trailer after it received massive downvotes. Their funding goals were absurd – $500,000 just to gauge interest in the game, $1 million for the base game, and $2 million to introduce space combat (in a game whose primary focus is space combat) – not to mention a planned release date for 2015 for a game not yet in development. Compare that to Star Citizen’s progress and funding, Elite: Dangerous’ success, and many other online games that have passed through Kickstarter, and you can see why the studio barely got $10,000 in funding pledges before they cancelled it last week.

Seldon Crisis has a battle ahead of it.

Seldon Crisis has a battle ahead of it.

The ‘Crisis’ in Seldon Crisis

When Seldon Crisis appeared on the crowdfunding radar, it seemed like another pretty typical sci-fi sandbox MMO (you’re noticing that trend too, right?). However, it had one unique thing going for it: it was based on the Asimov ‘Foundation’ series. More specifically, a piece of fan-fiction by author Riccardo Simone based on that extensive and classic Asimov story. There was just one burning question I had: did they have cooperation from the Asimov estate?

Today, it looks like I got my answer: no. As Seldon Crisis announced a new Indiegogo campaign, it turns out they didn’t abandon Kickstarter – they were canceled due to an intellectual property dispute with the Asimov estate. The new campaign doesn’t seem to mention Asimov directly, but we don’t expect it to go far: after all, the very name ‘Seldon Crisis‘ is derived straight from Asimov. Additionally, the team seems to be dodging the press and has been recently recycling (deleting, and then reuploading) multiple videos on its YouTube channel. We hate to say it, but this one is also probably a bust.

C'mon, you have to look forward to this game at least a little.

C’mon, you have to look forward to this game at least a little.

Stars in the Darkness

Not everything is dark skies in crowdfunding land this week, however. The Repopulation is moving forward nicely, Ascent: The Space Game is heading back to Kickstarter for more funding, and the very creative Moon Hunters has been successfully funded. Our writer Ragachak has also recently gotten a hands-on look at Warlocks, which is looking pretty good for pre-Alpha and also met its Kickstarter goal this week. Dicetiny also hit Kickstarter this week, and Town of Salem is excelling in its funding goals (249% funded at the time of this writing).  Meanwhile, Untold Universe cancelled its Kickstarter to take a more direct approach with its community.

So while this week seems like a lesson in how not to run a crowdfunding campaign, there’s still plenty of brave new worlds waiting to be funded, created, or explored. Make sure to check in regularly on the Kicktracker for the latest in crowdfunding news!

NYCC 2014 Day 1 – Previews and New Discoveries

By Michael Sagoe (Mikedot)

 

Another year, another New York Comic-Con! The event that I’ve been waiting all year for has finally arrived.  This year promises to have just as many events, excitement and half-naked men dressed up in Salior Moon cosplay as last year, and I was more than ready to take the Javits Center head on…

But first, I and my associates had to make a stop by an off-site studio before heading off to the main event floor, so my inevitable battles against creepy cosplayers would have to wait. Square-Enix invited me to check out their upcoming game titles once more, and they had quite an interesting mix of games available for previews, including Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris, Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition, Hitman: Sniper and more.

New York Comic Con 2014 1

First game I previewed at the shop was the new Lora Croft game, which is a direct sequel to Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light, a top-down action game featuring twin-stick shooter combat and tons of cooperative play. Temple of Osiris continues to improve on this award winning formula by introducing 4-player co-op into the mix. While this new title is mostly delivering more of the same, the four player co-op was an absolute blast to play due to how important cooperative actions can be for clearing objectives and finding secret treasures. But still, the game is also an arcade-style, score based challenge, so players are all still competing against each other for points, so I can say without much doubt that this will be a game that will be ruining A LOT of friendships for months and years to come.

New York Comic Con 2014 2

Next within the Square-Enix booth, we previewed a new kind of indie title called “Life is Strange”, a modern adventure game with a twist, featuring a protag named Max who is just an average teenage girl, but with the ability to control time. This game was created by the same developers behind Capcom’s recent title “Remember Me,” and the devs stated that they wanted to do something special with the time controlling elements from Remember Me, but set in a much different setting.

One of the more unique aspects with Life is Strange is the game’s visual style where every single texture has a hand drawn look, yet is able to maintain a realistic feel to it. This is a game about choices of what could be and what could have been, which really sets itself apart from other puzzle adventure games like it. As you progress though the game, you can rewind time to undo actions and change possible outcomes in the story. The whole premise seems incredibly interesting to me due to how steeped in reality the game is, yet doesn’t seem to go too overboard with the whole time rewinding ability as its plot device. Pretty much, this game was made to get us to think long and hard about the choices we make in life.

New York Comic Con 2014 3

New York Comic Con 2014 4

The booth presented here also had a very modern tone with various photos and knick-knacks spread about. The event presenters at this booth also did a nice job easing the viewers into the game as we ended up shooting the shit while he held up Polaroid pictures of characters from the game.

Last game we checked out was the upcoming Final Fantasy Type-0 HD, which is a re-release of an action RPG for the PSP. Now this game was a little bit of a strange one, as it was originally supposed to be a mobile phone game, but decided to scale it up for handhelds because they felt it would have gotten a better reception if it was presented as a new flagship title.

New York Comic Con 2014 5

With that said: This game in particular wasn’t exactly my cup of tea. The gameplay was very much like FFVII Crisis Core or Kingdom Hearts, but at a dreadfully slower pace. It also didn’t help that some visuals didn’t translate well from the PSP version, such as Irift’s summon model, which has noticeably low polygons compared to all the other updated models. And besides that, the gameplay seemed incredibly repetitive when it came to mission objectives. Perhaps there’s a lot more to the core gameplay and mission structure than what I was presented in the press demo, but it doesn’t seem like this title will be getting much of my attention.

NOW that all that was out of the way: It was time to ACTUALLY hit up the convention center!

New York Comic Con 2014 6

This year had a lot of condensed entertainment scattered around categorically, with most of the gaming booths settled neatly next to each other instead of being spread all around. Of course, there was still a few strays here and there, such as the Brave Frontier booth which was registered as a premium booth.

Speaking of which: Brave Frontier is an ever popular turn-based RPG for mobile and tablet devices that features flashy over-the-top action with classic JRPG visuals. Not to mention that it also features Hatsune Freaking Miku as a playable character, and the booth staff was giving away special NYCC codes for attendees.

New York Comic Con 2014 7

New York Comic Con 2014 8

PS: If anyone wants me to grab one for them, leave a message in the comments!

After taking a break from walking around the event floor, it was time to attack cosplayers!

New York Comic Con 2014 9

New York Comic Con 2014 10

New York Comic Con 2014 11

And after THAT was done, I really had to take a break and rest up for a bit, so I took a seat down at the Twitch booth where they were showing off a bunch of games as well as hosting several game dev interviews. One of the more interesting interviews that popped up was a tech developer interview for an upcoming multiplatform MMO called “Firefly Online.”  I had never heard about this game until this very day, and I was very intrigued since it was based completely off the cult favorite TV series “Firefly.” While I sat down and watched the whole interview from start to finish, they mentioned that they would be hosting a panel later that day, and would be showcasing some new details and gameplay.

New York Comic Con 2014 12

I decided to check out the panel for myself and I will say that it does look pretty interesting. As a sci-fi MMORPG, players will be able to cruise the galaxy as space cowboys for hire (space truckers are dirty scumbag criminals), all fitting into the vibe presented by Firefly very well. The combat also featured turn-based tactical combat similar to games like XCOM or Shadowrun, so fans of those games should feel right at home.

Overall, the first day was pretty eventful, and just like last year, it wasn’t as packed since Thursday and Sunday usually have the least amount of attendees. Tomorrow and Saturday will be much more ruthless, I’m sure, so please pray for my safe return as I do battle against more half-naked men in Sailor Moon cosplay as events continue to unfold.

Catch Day 2 of our NYCC coverage now!