Fallen Earth Lands on the Mac [Mac]
Somehow the Mac went from gaming afterthought to everyone’s favorite platform in the span of a week. Now the MMO Fallen Earth is Mac compatible, beginning with today’s Beta release of the game.
Icarus Studios, the co-developers of Fallen Earth, have put together a Mac-compatible xScape platform, buit on the open source software Wine. A statement from Icarus said the new platform allows “players to connect to the same live server as PC users with game features optimized for their resident operating system.”
For optimal play, Mac users will need an Intel-based Mac, running Mac OS 10.5 (Leopard) or later, with at least 2 gigs of RAM and a video card with 256 MB of RAM. There’s more info inside this FAQ.
Icarus Studios Launches Macintosh Compatible MMO Platform [Official Site]
OnLive Streaming Game Service Going Public June 17th, for $15 a Month [Gaming]
Remember OnLive? The online game service, which renders PC games in the cloud and streams them to any Mac or PC, regardless of its graphics power? Well, it’s coming, for real, on June 17th. It’ll $15 a month, base.
The release will coincide with the E3 conference this year, and will be available to the 48 contiguous states. No word on when the currently running beta will die, or on the full title list they’ll have at launch, but says Maximum PC exie Will Smith:
OnLive is looking much more like a service, than a demo that streams PC games over the net… looked much better this year than last. No blocky compression artifacts.
Which is promising, because to be honest, it looked fine when we saw it in 2009.
CNET’s got a little extra info, including a preliminary games list, subject to change at E3:
Borderlands, Dragon Age Origins, Mass Effect 2, Assassin’s Creed II, Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands, and Metro 2033
These are “anticipated” games, and they’re just a sampler. As for the service’s tardy arrival (it was supposed to go public over the winter), OnLive says they just wanted to wait and make the service “better.” [Will Smith]
Microsoft SideWinder X4 Review: Step Up, Son [Review]
First law of gadget recessionomics: Take something you make, which is great, make it ever so less great, and sell it for ever so less money. That’s how you end up with products like Microsoft’s SideWinder X4 keyboard.
The Price
$60 MSRP, $46 retail.
The Verdict
The SideWinder X6 was a marvelous fresh start for Microsoft’s rejuvenated gaming hardware division, designed with a brooding Death Star aesthetic, shit hot jog wheels, and a hot-swappable detachable number pad that can be hooked up to the left or right side. It’s just $20 pricier MSRP (but retail, $12) than the X6, and I’ll tell you straight up, a better deal.
The SideWinder X4 is virtually identical at the core—same basic keyboard layout (including the too-long spacebar), chaos-red backlighting, and laptop-esque throw distance for the keys—but it ditches the most lovable aspects of the X6: the jog wheels and the detachable keypad. Instead, it touts anti-ghosting, so you can mash 26 keys at once and have them all register. Also, it’s got fewer macros total (though really, it still has plenty enough). And a smaller wrist rest.
The core features are solid. It held up to the Twister-style keyboard gymnastics you occasionally have to perform in Battlefield: Bad Company 2, and the snap of the keys is on point: Crisp and squishy, like a croissant.
But! The fact remains, its older, more capable brother costs a few nickels more and is well worth the extra scratch. So if you can find the X4 for $20 in a bargain bin in a couple months and need a basic gaming, then it’d be a solid buy. In the meantime, if you’re gonna get a gaming keyboard, step up to the X6. (Personally, I’m waiting for the inevitable X10.)
We’re still suckers for the whole brimstone and fire in space aesthetic (for now)
A solid “basics” gaming keyboard, but why go for basics when it comes to gaming gear?
Software for keyboard is kinda eh compared to Logitech, SteelSeries and Razer
Too many features stripped for such a small price reduction
Old Republic Is EA’s Biggest Ever Development Project [Ea]
According to the man who’s had to write the cheques for the game’s development, Electronic Arts is taking massive multiplayer online title The Old Republic seriously. Very seriously.
Speaking at a Wedbush Morgan Securities get-together earlier today, EA’s Eric Brown revealed that the upcoming Star Wars: The Old Republic MMO is the “largest ever development project, period, in the history of the company”.
For a company with so many big games in its back catalogue, that’s a big project. To give you an idea on how big, Brown guesses that genre superpower World of Warcraft has so far cost Blizzard around USD$100 million. Considering the average game costs between $20 and $30 million to develop, you can see EA isn’t screwing around on its Star Wars MMO.
SWTOR is EA’s “largest ever” project [Eurogamer]
Medal of Honor Is Coming Back The Hard Way [PS3]
Bringing back an old franchise that withered isn’t easy. Bringing back Medal of Honor the way it’s coming back this year? That’s hard.
At an Electronic Arts press event in New York City, I recently had a chance to check out the new Medal of Honor, witnessing a small piece of the game’s military adventure in Afghanistan. I knew I was witnessing an attempted comeback, the resurgence of a once glorious franchise that had last murmured with 2007’s Medal of Honor Airborne. And I knew the new game had two development studios, EA LA for the single-player and Battlefield-makers DICE for the multiplayer.
I hadn’t thought through just how hard EA must be pushing this title to contend with the big boys in the genre, Modern Warfare 2 and its ilk. ” It certainly shows the commitment on the part of EA that they care about this franchise, because this certainly isn’t the most economical way of doing it,” the game’s executive producer, Greg Goodrich told me.
This is a game with not just two development teams, but two game development engines. EA LA is building their campaign using Unreal Engine 3. DICE is using its Frostbite engine.
Maybe even harder than that will be the EA LA team’s attempt to tell an exceptional story. In my interview with Goodrich, he emphasized that this game’s campaign would be about the experiences of a group of men in the real and current war in Afghanistan.
“We’re focusing on the foot solider,” he said. “The best way I heard it said, by one of our consultants, is that it’s not about the hate of the enemy but it’s about the love for the brother behind me. I’m going home. He’s going home. That’s the point we’re taking. It’s not about the enemy. It’s about brotherhood.”
This new Medal of Honor occurs during the first half of the U.S.-led NATO war in Afghanistan. The enemy is Al Qaeda, the Taliban and foreign fighters from places such as Chechnya. These enemies gamers will fight are “what our men and women are facing right now [in Afghanistan,]” Goodrich said. “It’s a new enemy and it’s an unpredictable enemy.” Players can expect guerrilla tactics, tricky urban combat and more. The game’s campaign will stretch from city slums to mountain sides. They’re not the familiar military shooter Nazis.
There is more than one lead character in this game. Players will get in the boots of an unspecified number of combat veterans. They are fictional, though their experiences are based on those of special forces.
A trailer going live this week showcases the two types of soldiers the player will become: a part of the “scalpel” and a part of the “sledgehammer.” Think of the player having turns at being both a quiet assassin to an Army Ranger caught up in the heat of a big battle.The scalpel are the elite forces who surgically achieve military goals with stealth and deadly proficiency. The sledgehammer are the ground troops, the troops who attack in large numbers.
I saw a little of the scalpel in the New York event, sadly without any clear example of that storytelling drama coming to the fore. That’s not to say it seemed bad. The game, running in Unreal Engine 3 looked solid. The mission was set on snowy Afghan mountains near the Shah-i-kot valley while the sky was darkened though not fully night. Our character and his buddies were sneaking through to try to take out anti-aircraft guns. They attacked some enemies and moved on. A friendly plane flew in to provide supporting fire. Then, an enemy convoy rolled through, driving through a distant pass and blinking with strobe signals placed on their vehicles by the player in an earlier mission. The beacons were all our guys needed to call in an attack. Goodrich, who was demoing the game, called in an air strike. Thanks to the mountain and valley setting, the brief engagement I saw had a more vast visual scope than I’m used to seeing in this kind of shooter. Most of the vista we could see was nature — mountains and big sky — but the fighters and vehicles were made to feel all the more part of something grand, if not something overly busy and crowded. This combat had visual depth and reach beyond the few meters in front of our fighting man’s face.
The version of the game I saw was early. Plenty of stuff is still up in the air, even including, Goodrich confirmed, the meaning of rows of bullets that appear over friendly characters if the player checks those characters’ status.What does it mean? Nothing yet, he said. The version of the game I saw included now-standard regenerative health system. Resting leads to recovery, just as it did in Gears of War.
A Medal of Honor team that is still sorting out its visual presentation is a team that’s not ready to elaborate too much on the game’s story. Goodrich said we were seeing the experiences of Tier 1 Operators, the best fighters in the world. Some real life Tier 1 guys have even consulted on the game, though Goodrich wouldn’t detail what they asked to be added or changed in the game. He did assure me that the single-player campaign of Medal of Honor isn’t meant to be afterthought. He knows some players ignore shooter campaigns and jump right into multiplayer, but Goodrich seemed even more excited about the chance to make a great single-player campaign with no distractions.
“Naturally in development, developers, whether they think this or not, will focus on what they’re good at,” he said. “If you find a developer that’s really good at single player they’ll focus on that. Multiplayer becomes sort of an afterthought.” The two-studio approach is meant to get the focus and the diversity of expertise all on the same game disc under the same name.
I wasn’t shown Medal of Honor multiplayer at this event, which is being made by a different development studio, DICE.
We didn’t learn much about who, specifically, we would be in the game nor what this story of brotherhood will be like.
But it is upon this foundation, upon the shoulders of Medal of Honors that came before, that EA is constructing this ambitious two-team game. Using two teams for a game’s two halves seems like the kind of thing you do if, upon the foundation, you wish to build something grand. Medal of Honor has about six months to prove that it can be worthy of that kind of support.
Medal of Honor is set for a fall 2010 release on the PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.
True Crime Impressions: Finally, Dumpster Kills [Gdc10]
Activision’s True Crime series goes back to the drawing board with a Hong Kong action-adventure reboot, a game that puts the player in the role of an undercover cop, one who knows how to use a freezer door in a fight.
In True Crime, players infiltrate a low level Triad crime syndicate as Wei Shen, born in Hong Kong, Americanized and back in his native land to bust some gangster heads. In the demo steered by developers from United Front Games, we were introduced to Wei Shen as he met with the jacked up Winston, a club going who had a job for our undercover hero.
That job started with a quick drive through the streets of North Point, True Crime’s fictional interpretation of Kowloon. United Front reps pointed out the game’s driving model as arcadey, a design choice likely influenced by the ex-Need For Speed developers on staff.
The streets of North Point, painted green and pink from the flood of neon lights, are busy, but not congested, and the drive to the factory where Shen’s target resided was short.
At this point, we got a good look at True Crime’s hand to hand combat. There were a handful of high flying kicks, but much of the action was standard fisticuffs, not kung fu flick fare. Shen’s moveset looked robust, throwing haymaker punches, snapping limbs and performing some brutal environmental finishing moves.
In one finishing move, Shen lifted up a thug over his shoulders, dumping him into the garbage bin behind. In another, Shen shoved some unlucky punk against a refrigerator, crushing his skull with the freezer door.
True Crime’s combat also includes the use of weapons, like the meat cleaver that Shen picked up from an enemy and plenty of guns. The combat in True Crime appears to be its strongest mechanic, at least from what we saw at GDC, with a surprising level of depth and variety in the kicking and punching department.
After Shen shot, sliced and pummeled a few dozen bad dudes, he caught up with his prey—who may have gone by the name Dog Eyes—took him hostage and attempted to walk him out of the factory, still blasting away at thug with his handgun. Unfortunately for our undercover hero, old Dog Eyes gave Shen the slip amidst some serious confusion.
The mission then branched off into a driving sequence, with Wei Shen chasing a cop car in a hijacked motorcycle, ultimately carjacking that police cruiser with a bad-ass leap, Pursuit Force-style.
The new True Crime, shown in a pre-alpha state, looked promising, if only for the deeper combat and the use of meat cleavers on lowlife criminals. Much of what we’d seen, we’d seen before in other open-world games, but True Crime’s Hong Kong cinema influence is at least interesting and a good base upon which to build an intriguing story.
True Crime Impressions: Finally, Dumpster Kills [Gdc10]
Activision’s True Crime series goes back to the drawing board with a Hong Kong action-adventure reboot, a game that puts the player in the role of an undercover cop, one who knows how to use a freezer door in a fight.
In True Crime, players infiltrate a low level Triad crime syndicate as Wei Shen, born in Hong Kong, Americanized and back in his native land to bust some gangster heads. In the demo steered by developers from United Front Games, we were introduced to Wei Shen as he met with the jacked up Winston, a club going who had a job for our undercover hero.
That job started with a quick drive through the streets of North Point, True Crime’s fictional interpretation of Kowloon. United Front reps pointed out the game’s driving model as arcadey, a design choice likely influenced by the ex-Need For Speed developers on staff.
The streets of North Point, painted green and pink from the flood of neon lights, are busy, but not congested, and the drive to the factory where Shen’s target resided was short.
At this point, we got a good look at True Crime’s hand to hand combat. There were a handful of high flying kicks, but much of the action was standard fisticuffs, not kung fu flick fare. Shen’s moveset looked robust, throwing haymaker punches, snapping limbs and performing some brutal environmental finishing moves.
In one finishing move, Shen lifted up a thug over his shoulders, dumping him into the garbage bin behind. In another, Shen shoved some unlucky punk against a refrigerator, crushing his skull with the freezer door.
True Crime’s combat also includes the use of weapons, like the meat cleaver that Shen picked up from an enemy and plenty of guns. The combat in True Crime appears to be its strongest mechanic, at least from what we saw at GDC, with a surprising level of depth and variety in the kicking and punching department.
After Shen shot, sliced and pummeled a few dozen bad dudes, he caught up with his prey—who may have gone by the name Dog Eyes—took him hostage and attempted to walk him out of the factory, still blasting away at thug with his handgun. Unfortunately for our undercover hero, old Dog Eyes gave Shen the slip amidst some serious confusion.
The mission then branched off into a driving sequence, with Wei Shen chasing a cop car in a hijacked motorcycle, ultimately carjacking that police cruiser with a bad-ass leap, Pursuit Force-style.
The new True Crime, shown in a pre-alpha state, looked promising, if only for the deeper combat and the use of meat cleavers on lowlife criminals. Much of what we’d seen, we’d seen before in other open-world games, but True Crime’s Hong Kong cinema influence is at least interesting and a good base upon which to build an intriguing story.
Monkey Island 2 Special Edition: Yaarrr First Screenshots [Gdc10]
Just like we told you, there will be a Monkey Island 2: Special Edition. Here are your first screenshots!
And not just screenshots, comparison shots! So we can all see how far video games have come in the past 19 years, and then fill a comments section of a video game website with calls for some other decades-old game to be remade on a modern console.
Sony Motion Controller is Called PlayStation Move, Launches Fall 2010 (Hands On!) [Playstation Move]
Sony’s finally put a name to their motion controller, and it’s called PlayStation Move. Updated with hands on.
Sony will have multiple packages. A standalone Move controller, or a package with PlayStation Eye + Move + a game, or an entire console solution. The Eye and Move and game combo will be less than $100. The preliminary launch window is Fall 2010.
One of the games for it is called Sports Champions, a game with a bunch of smaller mini games. One demo is a swordfighting duel game with a sword/mace and shield. It’s similar to the swordfighting one in Wii Sports Resort, but with a shield too. This needs two motion controllers at once.
One cool effect that they can do with the benefit of having a PS Eye is that they can do augmented reality stuff, like putting a paintbrush or a tennis racquet onto your Move controller on screen.
Sony also didn’t say that the controllers came in a pair, so for the games that require two controllers (like the swordfighting one), you may have to buy two Move controllers. Very Nintendo WiiMote + Nunchuck-esque in terms of having to buy two things.
Motion Fighters. A street fighting game that actually looks pretty cool, as it makes you make the entire motion instead of just flicking your wrist.
Oh, and there’s also a sub-controller that you can buy as an attachment to turn the controller into a WiiMote+Nunchuck like configuration. It’s also wireless.
Hands On
Update: I just got hands on with two of the games, one is Socom, a shooter that has been adapted to use the Move and the sub-controller, the second is the Sports Champions swordfighting.
Socom, compared to point-and-shoot shooters on the Wii, was much smoother, much less jittery and more accurate. The combination of Move and PlayStation Eye seems to work well in this aspect, but it’s not exactly better to use this when you compare it to a standard controller or a Mouse + Keyboard. I can see this as better for novices to shooters, being able to aim where you want to shoot.
The other game, the Sports Champions sword + shield fighting, is about what you’d expect. It’s more or less 1:1 motion, like the Wii MotionPlus, but it’s not so much more accurate than the Wii that you’d call it a dramatic improvement. An improvement, yes, but not dramatic. The left hand also holds a controller in order to wave the shield around, and that was a bit awkward in my experience. Right hand was fine, left hand a bit awkward to control simultaneously.
Swinging the hammer to your left, or right, or over your head actually moves it on screen, but again, it’s not SO much better than Wii MotionPlus. The graphics, of course, are one generation higher, but the controls, ehhh.
PLAYSTATION®MOVE MOTION CONTROLLER DELIVERS A WHOLE NEW ENTERTAINMENT EXPERIENCE TO PLAYSTATION®3
New PlayStation®Move Sub-Controller, Enabling Intuitive Navigation, to Accompany the Release of the Motion Controller This Fall and 36 Developers and Publishers to Support PlayStation®Move Platform
Tokyo, March 10, 2010 – Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE) today announced that PlayStation®Move motion controller for PlayStation®3 (PS3™) computer entertainment system launches worldwide this fall, offering a motion-based, high-definition gaming experience unlike anything on the market. Concurrently with its launch, SCE will also release PlayStation®Move sub-controller to be used along with the motion controller for intuitive navigation of in-game characters and objects. The PlayStation Move platform, including the motion controller, sub-controller, and PlayStation®Eye camera*1, together with a strong lineup of software titles, will deliver an innovative and highly immersive experience on the PS3 system.
The combination of the PS3 system and PlayStation Eye camera detects the precise movement, angle, and absolute position in 3D space of PlayStation Move motion controller, allowing users to intuitively play the game as if they themselves are within the game. PlayStation Move motion controller delivers unmatched accuracy through its advanced motion sensors, including a three-axis gyroscope, a three-axis accelerometer, and a terrestrial magnetic field sensor, as well as a color-changing sphere that is tracked by PlayStation Eye camera. Through PlayStation Move system, both fast and subtle motion can be detected, whether the user is swinging a tennis racket, or painting with a brush. With PlayStation Move motion controller, users can provide direct input through action buttons and an analog trigger, while receiving physical feedback from rumble functionality and visual feedback from the sphere’s ability to display a variety of different colors. Furthermore, PlayStation Eye camera can capture the player’s voice or image, enabling augmented reality experiences.
The newly announced PlayStation Move sub-controller is a one-handed controller, developed to further expand the game play options that PlayStation Move games can offer*2. PlayStation Move sub-controller features a sleek curved design that pairs with the motion controller and comes with an analog stick and directional buttons that allow users to easily control the game when moving characters or choosing a direction. Like all other Wireless Controllers for the PS3 system, it comes with a built in lithium-ion rechargeable battery as well as Bluetooth® technology, enabling the controller to transfer the input information wirelessly to the PS3 system without a cable. PlayStation Move motion controller and sub-controller will further broaden the gaming experience on the PS3 system for all genres, from games that use one motion controller to games that use both controllers.
The introduction of PlayStation Move controllers has been well received within the industry and now 36 third party developers and publishers*3 have decided to support PlayStation Move platform. In fiscal year 2010, SCE Worldwide Studios will also release more than 20 games that are either dedicated to or supported with the PlayStation Move platform.
SCE, with strong support from software developers and publishers, will deploy various measures to enhance the PlayStation Move software title line-up and vigorously promote the PS3 platform.
OnLive Starts Streaming Games On Demand This June For $15 A Month [Gdc10]
PC gaming service OnLive, officially unveiled at last year’s Game Developers Conference, was finally dated and priced at this year’s show. The on demand streaming game arrives June 17th in the United States, priced at $14.95 USD per month.
But wait there’s more! OnLive is comping the first three months worth of service to the first 25,000 qualified people who sign up for the service and promises multi-month pricing “loyalty programs” will be announced closer to E3. OnLive says it also plans to release rental and purchase pricing details closer to E3.
The bad news? OnLive will be launching in the 48 contiguous United States, leaving poor Hawaii and Alaska in the cold.
Keep in mind that $14.95 USD monthly fee does not include the rental and ownership fees associated with actually playing those games. The subscription fee pays for things like “instant-play free game demos; multiplayer across PC, Mac and TV platforms; massive spectating; viewing of Brag Clips video capture and posting; and cloud-saving of games you’ve purchased.” Yeah, don’t toss your PC in the nearest Dumpster just yet.
Additional details on OnLive, straight from DICE, can be read right here.
