Yearly Archives: 2014

Vindictus (Europe): Arisha Announced

Vindctus

Today, Nexon Europe is thrilled to announce the arrival of a brand new character, Arisha, to the immensely popular action-packed MMORPG, Vindictus.

As deadly as she is beautiful, Arisha makes light work of her enemies with devastatingly swift sword attacks, extraordinary time-manipulation abilities, and an uncanny knowledge of the arcane.

Equipped with a magical blade, the Spellsword, she can launch fierce, speed of light attacks at opponents, freezing time around them to deal lethal damage. While her Focus, the magically imbued glove she wears on her right hand, allows her to channel magical energy into razor sharp crystals, which she can fire at enemies.

“Arisha is one of the fastest, most furious and fun characters we’ve ever created for Vindictus players” said Anett Jaschke, Community Manager at Nexon Europe. “Distorting time and tearing up the battlefield with the Spellsword is an incredibly empowering experience.”

To commemorate the arrival of Arisha, Nexon Europe revealed that an extra character slot will be allocated to all Vindictus players – so those that already have the maximum nine filled have more motivation to give Arisha a spin.

Nexon Europe also detailed a number of special events that will be taking place throughout December and into the New Year:

Return and Be Rewarded!: 10th December 2014 – 14th January 2015

Players who return to Vindictus and play with others during this period will receive bonus EXP. Those who play as a group can collect coupons which can be redeemed for an exclusive avatar outfit.

Arisha Fighting Box Event: 10th December 2014 – 14th January 2015

Players who reach levels 15, 30, 45, and 60 can open up the Arisha Fighting Box and claim valuable potions, coupons, runes, equipment, and even a title!

Arisha Level Up Event: 10th December 2014 – 7th January 2015

Dedicated players that get Arisha to level 85 during this event will receive a special title.

Ready, Sexy, aaand Action!: 10th – 17th December 2014

Players who want to show their love for Arisha can do so by participating in the Facebook event and getting rewarded.

For more details on Arisha, and to see videos of her in action, visit http://en.vindictus.nexoneu.com/promotion/december14/arisha.aspx.

HEX: Shards of Fate – Shattered Destiny set Released

HEX Shattered Destiny Pack

Today, Gameforge and HEX Entertainment are releasing the second card set – Shattered Destiny – for the digital trading card game HEX: Shards of Fate. In addition to 200 new playable cards, the update also introduces five new heroes and additional skills. Since the latest update the game has already been available in seven languages, and the new cards will similarly be fully localised.

HEX Shattered Destiny Zaakir

Now you see it…
The new ‘tunneling’ feature gives players the ability to play cards concealed, preventing the opponent from seeing their special abilities and making it difficult for them to react. HEX brings this physical game element into the digital realm. The ‘Subterranean Spy’ card, for example, can be used to spy on the opponent’s hand without them knowing about it. Further skills making their appearance with the new set are improved defence against flying creatures, as well as further options for knocking out enemy units directly.

Certain cards are also getting the chance to be socketed twice. As previously, socketing cards can give them further abilities, thus massively expanding the options available for personalising the cards in a collection. The five new heroes further increase the range of possible character skills, making it even easier to mould a deck to suit individual playing styles.

HEX Shattered Destiny Daughter of Stars

Overview of Shattered Destiny:

    •  Over 200 new cards, including eighteen Legendary and over 70 Rare
    •  Five new heroes with unique abilities
    •  Cards with dual sockets for adding abilities
    •  Dual shard cards giving a free choice of resources played
    •  Powerful dragon cards: Tiaanost, Zakiir and Zeedu

New card abilities:

  •  Tunneling: allows concealed cards to be played, surprising opponents with powerful traits.
  •  Lethal: opposing cards taking damage from this ability always die.
  •  Skyguard: cards with this ability can defend against units with Flight.

Mordheim City of the Damned: Now in Early Access Phase 2

Mordheim

Rogue Factor’s turn-based tactical-RPG Mordheim: City of the Damned will receive its first content update on Thursday the 11th, having successfully launched its Early Access campaign – to 90% ‘very positive user reviews on Steam’ – a few weeks ago. Based on the Games Workshop tabletop game, from Thursday Mordheim: City of the Damned will now feature The Sisters of Sigmar, and the first part of the Warcamp – a hub from which you manage your warband and other activities – with weapon and armour management.

Mordheim: City of the Damned launched with The Mercenaries of the Empire, and The Skaven of Clan Eshin, with the first content update slated for Thursday bringing that total to three. The Cult of the Posessed along with a host of other features will be released in the near future according to the Early Access road-map on the Steam page.

For a detailed explanation of exactly what’s coming in this first content update, see below:

The Sisters of Sigmar: A magic and melee based warband deemed as ‘heretics’ by the broader Cult of Sigmar because they miraculously survived the impact of the twin tailed comet. Completely devoted to their god, the Sisters of Sigmar seek to cleanse Mordheim of the many evils within the city walls, locking away the wyrdstone to ultimately contain its corruptive properties. Their skills include ‘Healing Circle’, an AOE healing spell. ‘Comet of Sigmar’, a magical attack that bypasses armour. And finally “Blessing of Speed”, which increases movement of its target by 1 meter, and increases climb, leap, and jump-down checks by 10%.

The Warcamp: The Warcamp is a hub from where you’ll head into skirmishes and manage your warband. This feature will be updated incrementally, to include more activities throughout Early Access and to release.

Armour and weapon customisation: In this update, you will be able to change the armour for each unit in your warband with statistical changes. Visual changes will be coming later in the Early Access. You will also be able to change weapons, with two sets for each unit. Visual changes for weapons are included in this update.

Do not worry about looting items for now – as we head into Early Access Phase Two, we’ve given you a whole lot of armour and weapons to choose from, which can be accessed from the Management area of your hideout!

For more info, visit http://mordheim-cityofthedamned.com/

Skyforge’s Naori Island Unveiled

SF_Naori_Head

My.com, the Allods Team and Obsidian Entertainment today invites you to take a tour of another open area of the upcoming MMORPG, Skyforge.

SF_Naori_Screenshot_01

Naori Island is a tropical resort on Aelion, which was once a peaceful place where people could rest from battles and mundane concerns. But the war against alien invaders left its mark on this place and it desperately needs the help of immortals.

SF_Naori_Screenshot_02

The moment players set foot on the island, they will find themselves in the thick of things. They will be confronted with several enemies at once: the sea creatures have occupied the coast, the Temple troops are surrounded by Thanatos’s henchmen, and wild animals have started to wander into residential areas and attack everyone they see.

SF_Naori_Screenshot_03

So that players can take a look at the stunning Naori Island, a 3D panorama of the area has been created and can be viewed here: http://static.sf.my.com/panorama/naori_island/en.html

DC Universe Online: Legends PvE Mode and More Released

DC Unieverse

Today DC Universe Online (DCUO) launched a new game mode: Legends PvE, which allows players to play some of the game’s most exciting group instances as iconic characters like Batman, Green Arrow, The Joker, Superman and more. Previously, players could only play as these iconic characters in arena battles via Legends PvP mode.

The latest game update also includes the debut of Deathstroke, one of DC Comics most deadly assassins, to the Legends roster.

Highlights and additional details of the DCUO update (Game Update 43) can be found below.

  • Legends PvE Mode: Play with any unlocked Legends character in some of the game’s most famous instances. New Legends PvE instances will be gradually released, starting with the South Gotham Courthouse alert.
  • New League Hall Environment: Undersea – Featuring a unique look and two new terrains (Trench and Reef), players can create or relocate their League Hall to this new area.
  • Updated Combat HUD: Equipped Combat Rating will now be displayed for players level 30 or higher where the level of the player was once visible.
  • Season’s Greedings!: A special holiday event marks the return of Larfleeze as he looks to satisfy his insatiable greed; players must find and recover stolen gifts across Metropolis and Gotham City before it’s too late!

Full details about Game Update 43 can be found here: https://forums.station.sony.com/dcuo/index.php?threads/game-update-43.230137/#post-2967001

Cities: Skylines Unveils New Trailer and Signup Campaign

Cities Skylines

Paradox Interactive today unveiled a brand new trailer for Cities: Skylines, the upcoming city simulation game from Colossal Order, and also detailed a new initiative for future city planners where players can contribute to the creation of a city park that can be enjoyed in-game upon the title’s release.

Take a peek at the bustling, beautiful urban landscapes of Cities: Skylines in the newly released trailer showing a skyscraper’s worth of new footage:

aradox Interactive has today opened up the “Save The Lot” campaign where players can sign up and help create a beautiful in-game item for Cities: Skylines—a tranquil Japanese-inspired city park. City builder enthusiasts can head to www.citiesskylines.com and sign up to receive the item upon release, and the more sign ups the more illustrious the park will become. For more details, please visit www.citiesskylines.com.

Elite: Dangerous Pre-Launch Press Preview Event

By CMDR Zelus

 

 

Last Thursday I had the wonderful opportunity to play one of the latest builds of Elite: Dangerous with some of the fellows from Frontier Developments. The event was held in the St. Regis Hotel in the heart of San Francisco, and it was quite the treat.

 

For those not up to speed with Frontier Developments’ Elite series, Elite: Dangerous is the fourth in a line of open world space adventure games where the player can bounty hunt, trade, and explore their way to Elite status – the highest pedigree of pilots. Elite: Dangerous is the first MMO game in the series and also the first game to feature a 1:1 navigable representation of the Milky Way galaxy. The gameplay in Elite has always been from the pilot’s perspective while the piloting and combat sit closer towards the simulation side of things rather than arcade-y side.

 

Elite: Dangerous Press Setup

The setups available at the event – note the NVIDIA supplied rigs with titans in them.

 

At the event I was presented the option to play with either an Oculus Rift, or a 4K monitor with a Saitek X52 throttle and flightstick, or a standard mouse and keyboard – Having never played an Elite game prior, I opted for full immersion with the Oculus Rift with the Saitek X52 setup. Over the course of an hour I played through all of the tutorials and got familiar with travelling around in space. In a word, it was fantastic. I’ve tried another in-development space flier with the Oculus Rift before – EVE: Valkyrie – and Elite: Dangerous is much more punishing and harder to control, but in the end more rewarding. Though the Oculus Rift DK2 has some very well known ‘screen door’ issues, you’d be hard pressed to notice it when you’re missile locked or travelling at 100 times the speed of light. The texture work, sound, and control responsiveness are impressive and suit the Oculus Rift and flightstick setup very nicely. Overall, the game runs without the slightest hick-up or graphical lag spike (given, on an NVIDIA Titan) and feels great.

 

At the event some story bits and details were revealed: In the year of 3300, Emperor Hengist Duval, who may be the most powerful person in the galaxy, is ill at 118 years of age. His empire, or rather, The Empire, has no direct heir and thus a power struggle has begun. By their actions, players will help steer the fate of the galaxy by doing missions, trade, assassinations, and exploration for certain individuals and sub-factions vying for the emperor’s seat. Players may also choose to support the Alliance or the Federations instead. As a result, players will influence how the story unfolds on a galactic level; regularly scheduled updates will reflect players’ influence and choices.

 

Elite: Dangerous Gamma Event

Doing this to a ship larger than you and in the gravity well of a planet is generally a risky strategy.

 

After being briefed on the story and playing for a bit I had a quick unstructured interview with the series creator, David Braben. In the interview David told me that Elite: Dangerous’ textures and models will scale for 4K, 8K, and 16K resolutions and the game itself will scale well for mid-line to high-end systems; essentially future-proofing the game (to an extent). David commented, “Who knows what will become the next ‘standard resolution?’ We’ll be ready.” I asked David about the release schedule and timing of Elite: Dangerous, mentioning that it’s sublime for the game to be released in the wake of the Interstellar film, just after the Rosetta comet landing success, and before the release of other space games like No Man’s Sky, EVE: Valkyrie, and Star Citizen. He cheerfully responded, “It’s really a coincidence – really lucky. There’s been a resurging interest in space, recently. While I was growing up we had all sorts of space-related events, and now it’s finally back! It really is a revival of the space culture.”

 

Since the event, I’ve logged about 15 hours of flight time in the ‘Gamma’ build of the game. In retrospect, I can say that owning a flightstick for Elite Dangerous is totally worth it for the precision and sense of authenticity. At the time of writing and to the best of my knowledge there aren’t any major future updates for those on the ‘Gamma’ channel, so those on the ‘Gamma’ channel can likely sit tight with minimal patching until the final release. For those wondering if there will be a wipe of Beta/Gamma player data, there in fact will NOT be.

 

Elite: Dangerous Press Cockpit

This, but in your eyes.

 

Elite: Dangerous is scheduled to launch on the 16th of this month for $59.99, but if you buy it early then you’ll get $10 off. I’ll be writing a full review once the game launches and the new population of players really gets rolling.

Elegy for a Dead World: Now Available

Elegy

Critically acclaimed fiction writing game, Elegy for a Dead World (“Elegy”), launches today for Windows, Mac, and Linux on Steam at $15. In Elegy, players explore distant planets and write about the people who lived there.

A Game About Writing

In Elegy, you’ll travel to three worlds and write stories about their long-dead societies. You’ll lose yourself in settings inspired by the works of poets Keats, Byron, and Shelley, and use the game’s system of writing prompts to help create your own masterpieces.

Explore 27 different writing challenges, through which you create narratives about the worlds you visit, from multiple perspectives. In one challenge, you play an archaeologist, uncovering clues and writing about a city’s final days; in another, you’re a thief, composing a song about searching the wreckage for valuables; and in another, you’re a bard penning a lament in rhyming couplets.

When you’ve finished writing a story, share it with other players via Steam Workshop; then read others’ works, and commend your favorites.

Artistic Intent

The developers created Elegy to share the joy of creative expression — ideally, they want to give non-writers an environment in which they can tell stories. With visuals inspired by Romantic painter J. M. W. Turner, the game provides a playground for individual imagination, and a community where everyone is an artist. Elegy’s developers, Dejobaan Games and Popcannibal, are leaving the discussion of what art or a game is to critics, and merely asking gamers, “What will you write?”

Early Acclaim

Elegy raised 150% of its funding target in its October 2014 Kickstarter campaign. During development, it received two IndieCade selections, an Independent Games Festival Honorable Mention and a GDC Experimental Gameplay workshop selection. Educators are also using the game to inspire students in English as a second language (ESL), creative writing, and game design classes at nearly 50 institutions in 13 countries.

More info at ElegyForADeadWorld.com.

Outwitters coming to Android in January 2015

Outwitters

One Man Left Studios is proud to announce that our quirky turn-based strategy game,  Outwitters, is coming to Android in January. This App Store Editor’s Choice pick has garnered over a million downloads since its iOS launch. The game will remain free to play with ads and additional content available for in-app purchase.

In Outwitters, 2-4 players take turns investing their resources (called wits) to summon reinforcements, navigate enemy defenses, and destroy their opponent’s base. You can challenge your friends or get skill-matched by our robust league ranking system. There are four races to choose from, each with its own cast of characters and a combat specialty to master. Will you side with the seafaring Scallywags, cybernetic Feedback, vitamin-rich Veggienauts, or the aptly-named Adorables?

For more info, visit http://onemanleft.com/games/outwitters/