Yearly Archives: 2015

Master of Orion Announces Collector’s Edition

Master of Orion

WG Labs today revealed details about the Master of Orion Collector’s Edition. This special digital bundle for the reboot of the critically acclaimed sci-fi strategy game will include the first three legendary Master of Orion titles, a beautifully detailed digital art book, modernized orchestral soundtrack, special retro art style graphic motif, and an exclusive new race only available in the Collector’s Edition: the Terran Khanate. Players will also be granted Early Access—when available—so they can begin their quest for galactic supremacy ahead of other explorers.

The Master of Orion series set the bar for the iconic 4X (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate) strategy genre, and is the foundation for WG Labs’ reimagining of the legend. With the Master of Orion Collector’s Edition, players will have the chance to relive the classic version of the game. To complement the inclusion of Master of Orion 1, 2 and 3, a digital art book is also available, showcasing the game’s deep and intricate artwork. A digital version of the entire modernized orchestral soundtrack by Dave Govett, composer for the original Master of Orion, is also included to make this Collector’s Edition truly epic.

A special retro art style can be applied to replace the modern 3D spaceships with pixelated craft, reflecting the style of the original 1990s version. Finally, a unique race, exclusively for Collector’s Edition owners is available. Named the Terran Khanate, this race is an aggressive and threatening model of a future humanity that mirrors the Human Federation but with a warlike bent, giving players a new way to conquer the stars.

For more information on Master of Orion, visit:

WEBZEN Announces MU Season X Part 3 for September

WEBZEN Announces MU Season X Part 3 for September news header

WEBZEN, a global developer and publisher of free-to-play games, announces that MU Online will release a new content update on 1st September, named “MU Season X Part 3”.

The update will introduce a new fifth Errtel, “Errtel of Radiance”, a level cap increase to 800, a Skill Imprint system and many more improvements to the game.

Errtel of Radiance are special artifacts that can be combined with pentagrams to add additional options for increased elemental damage or defense. Errtel of Radiance can be mounted when the fifth slot of a pentagram is unlocked by using the “Expansion Scroll of Radiance Slot”.

The Skill Imprint system will allow players to make skills more powerful, depending on the element equipped in the pentagram. The imprinted skill must be equipped with the same element as the pentagram in order for the imprint to take effect.

To celebrate this forthcoming update, the MU Online Team is organizing several events in-game, including a Max Level-up Event and an Errtel Reinforcement Event from 1st September until the weekly maintenance on 22nd September, 2015 (UTC).

In addition, new players will be able to join a “Pre-register Event” for beginners, from today through to 31st August, 2015 (UTC). New players who create their first MU character during the event period will be able to get all-in-one starter packages worth $40.

Returning players who haven’t logged in to MU Online since 11st August, 2015 will receive a gift package including a Gold Channel Ticket (14 days), along with more items.

More information on MU Season X Part 3 is now available on MU Online’s official website: http://muonline.webzen.com/

CoD Black Ops III: Biggest Beta Ever on PS4

CoD

Activision Publishing, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Activision Blizzard (Nasdaq: ATVI), today confirmed that Treyarch’s Call of Duty®: Black Ops III Multiplayer Beta, which began on August 19 and ran through August 23, has become the largest beta in PlayStation®4 (PS4™) history.

Millions of gamers downloaded and played the beta, which provided critical feedback and technical data at scale for the Treyarch development team to further fine-tune and polish in preparation for the November 6 launch of Call of Duty: Black Ops III.

“This is about making sure we deliver to our fans the best possible game at launch,” said Rob Kostich, senior vice president and general manager of Call of Duty®, Activision Publishing. “Becoming the biggest beta on PS4 speaks to the excitement felt by gamers and the quality of work by Treyarch. And remember, this beta is just a fraction of the overall multiplayer experience and a portion of what’s coming on November 6 when the full game – spanning campaign, multiplayer and Zombies hits worldwide.”

“We’ve been looking forward to getting the game into the hands of the people that matter most – the fans,” said Mark Lamia, studio head of Treyarch. “We can’t thank them all enough for participating and providing us with invaluable feedback and data that Treyarch is already hard at work incorporating into the game for launch. Our goal is to deliver the best Day One experience possible and this beta – along with the input from our passionate community of fans – has helped position us to do just that.”

“Played by millions of PlayStation fans around the world, the response to the beta was massive and shows the strength when bringing together the best-selling console franchise with the best-selling game console,” said Adam Boyes, VP of Publisher and Developer Relations, Sony Computer Entertainment America. “Signaling an impressive start of a new era for PlayStation and this famed franchise, there was no better way to welcome Call of Duty to its new home on PlayStation 4.”

The Call of Duty: Black Ops III beta set new marks on PS4 delivering the most downloads, gameplay sessions and hours of gameplay to date, according to Activision and Sony PlayStation.

Call of Duty: Black Ops III is in development at Treyarch for PlayStation®4 computer entertainment system, Xbox One, the all-in-one games and entertainment system from Microsoft and PC. The Call of Duty: Black Ops III multiplayer beta is available now on Xbox One and PC.

Gigantic: Now in Closed Beta

Gigantic

Independent developer Motiga today announced that their free-to-play shooter MOBA, Gigantic, has entered closed beta for Windows 10 and Xbox One. The closed beta of Gigantic will initially run during the weekends before expanding to a broader testing schedule.

New features and regular content updates are planned for closed beta players, including French, German, and Spanish language support. Opening the door to more players during the closed beta will allow Motiga to further refine and test the game in a controlled way, with a full release planned for later this year.

“After our successful alpha phase, which saw thousands of testers support Gigantic and provide valuable feedback, we are now ready to move to closed beta and welcome many, many more players on both PC and console,” Motiga CEO Chris Chung said. “From the player response we’ve had, it’s clear that Gigantic has inspired many players already, and we’re really looking forward to welcoming a new batch to come in and enjoy the game.”

Gigantic is free to play* and pits teams of five heroes—each with a massive guardian monster—against each other in explosive battles across a variety of fantasy battlefields. The game combines intense combat with strategic map control, and the first team to defeat the enemy guardian seizes the battlefield and wins the game.

For more info, visit http://gogigantic.com

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Mobile Review – Surprisingly Solid

By Ojogo

If there’s one title I never expected to cover here, this has to be it. I do have to admit that I have enjoyed a few episodes of the hit series My Little Pony. The popularity of the fourth generation of this IP has earned a fair share of fans outside of of its expected fanbase. So here I am, reviewing My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, expecting that it will be too girly to my liking – but surprisingly, I was introduced to a game that, while delivering all the expected fan service, has surprisingly solid gameplay.

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Mobile Review

Gameplay

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is a town simulator from Gameloft. You play as the lead pony, Twilight Sparkle, to work restore the world that Nightmare Moon has darkened through finding the different elements of harmony.

MLPFIM Mobile Story

Starting in Ponyville, you are tasked to build structures that provide you with various resources that you can use to buy other structures, bring back the “lost” ponies, and/or push back the darkness Nightmare Moon has spread.

Mini-games

With that goal in mind, you start off with one of the Mane six, Twilight Sparkle, as your first playable pony. You can assign her to do various tasks within Ponyville such as working on stores, doing the daily missions, or just prancing along the bright areas of the world.

MLPFIM Mobile Mission

Most of these missions that open up in-game are composed of mini-games that can increase the level of you and the assigned pony depending on how many points you earn. The various mini-games available are mostly kid-fare, easy to pick up stuff that doesn’t really require much skill.

Each pony that you unlock in-game has the same set of mini-games that you can play, so expect that the number of times you keep on doing the same thing will increase as your available ponies grow, so it tends to be a bit of a grind fest as you reach the late game of MLP.

MLPFIM Mobile Equestria Girls

As if the pony-centered mini-games aren’t enough, Gameloft throws in an Equestria Girls rhythm game to the mix. You get to play with the various songs found in the MLP Movie as the time-locked songs in the rhythm mini-game.

Fan Service

If it wasn’t a bit obvious. My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is chock-full of fan-service material that any MLP fan could desire.

MLPFIM Mobile Event Splash

Gameloft really did a good number on this one, as not only will you be able to bring back the mane 6, you’ll be able to bring back characters that don’t get much air time in the TV series and movies. What makes it more interesting is that since the game allows you to go through each town or city found in the series, the pony roster is immense. This means that the game’s replayability value is huge, since you are required to cycle around not just Ponyville, but also Canterlot, Crystal Empire, Sweet Apple Acres, Cloudsdale, and Foal Mountain just to name a few.

The game also features the voice work of the characters from the series. You get to actually hear the characters as you hear them in the series whenever their dialogues pop up on screen. This gives the game a tad bit more legitimacy to the whole fanbase since normally, you won’t expect full dialogues coupled with their respective VOs on IP licensed free-to-play games like these.

MLPFIM Mobile Shop

Paywall

With such a superb work on the game’s various fan-service features, I expected the game would ask for your wallet to open up the game. The amount of money you have to throw into the game is huge. Some of the ponies need tons of gold to purchase, and some of the more prominent characters are purchasable only through crystals, the game’s premium currency.

What surprised me was how early this was prevalent in-game. You’ll see how expensive it is to play the game once you unlock Canterlot, because almost everything there is really expensive.

MLPFIM Mobile Minigame

Of course as per the nature of these kinds of games, you do have the option to just rely on farming the free crystal being given to you on each successful mission accomplishment. On the other hand, gold is harder to come by as most of the mini-games you are required to play require you to spend gold, with the cheapest set at 100.

Conclusion: Great (4/5)

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is a great example of a game that rewards its fans from the start of their playthrough. Its appeal comes mainly from how Gameloft was able to blend in the whole world of Equestria and make it such an enchanting, albeit expensive, world to sink your teeth into. Fans of the series get to enjoy not only the Mane 6, but get the opportunity to know more about the series’ support characters even down to the supposedly unfamiliar characters that pop out from the TV series once in a while.

MLPFIM Mobile Score

I find it remarkable that the game doesn’t restrict you in how much things you can do in one sitting. It doesn’t let up and as you continue playing, you get to discover new unlocked features. I love that under normal circumstances, games tend to provide less things to do as you go to the late stages of your playthrough but with MLP, you are given more things to play with.

Overall, I can say that the game is a solid town sim that fans and non-fans of the series can enjoy. If there’s one thing that I can count against it, it’s that the game is too tied to the series that people unfamiliar with the series can and will be turned off. But then again, the game itself isn’t really geared for a mature audience. Yet at the back of my mind, the game (in as much as the TV series is) will have its fair share of fans who wouldn’t admit that they have this game installed.

Vainglory Announces Seasons Beginning in October

Vainglory Announces Seasons Beginning in October news header

Vainglory has announced today its plan to offer quarterly competitive eSports season, starting this October with the Autumn 2015 Season.

Each year the Vainglory calendar will be divided into four seasons: Winter (January through March), Spring (April through June), Summer (July through September), and Autumn (October through December). This will keep a constant flow of new content and activities throughout the year, and give players a host of trophies to earn.

Each season will offer players and teams rewards based off in-game achievements. In order to make things inclusive, rewards will be offered both for competitive skill and for dedication to Vainglory. Achievements will vary from season to season.

To kick things off, Vainglory is offering a special preseason trophy (available with update 1.8). Players will have about one month to reach the highest possible skill tier in Ranked Play. Each player’s preseason achievement will be saved as a permanent trophy at the start of the Autumn Season, when the skill tier resets.

Vainglory is also offering official sanction of regional competitive tournaments and leagues. Leagues have been confirmed for Europe, North America, and Korea. The inaugural season will offer a global prize pool of over $100,000. Super Evil Mega Corp will also be working with Twitch to promote the Vainglory eSports community, starting with the VGL regional qualifiers for North America and Europe.