ThinkGeek has announced the launch of the TK-421 iPhone Case. The case is unique as it features a twist-and-fold layout that, when fully-opened, reveals an onboard bluetooth keyboard. There are two models currently available, one for the iPhone 3GS and the other for the iPhone 4. Each retail for $49.99 and are available now.
DreamCatcher Games, Spellbound Entertainment, BVT Group, and JoWooD have released a new patch for ArcaniA – Gothic 4 that slightly alters specific gameplay dynamics, increases the overall performance and getting rid of rare crashes.
Detailed Patchlog:
FIXED: Interruption of interactions with sword strikes
FIXED: Acknowledgments playback after loading a save game
FIXED: Jump interrupted by FMV character freeze
FIXED: Cool down in the inventory screen
FIXED: Reduced ocean clipping problem for Stereoscopic 3D
FIXED: Arrows stick on already disintegrated Demon
FIXED: Stamina consumption while sprinting with equipped spells added
FIXED: SLI issues & optimizations
FIXED: Crash on vista machines when starting the game on the second adapter while the first adapter was disabled
FIXED: Stereoscopic 3D can be deactivated from the NVIDIA control panel before launching game
FIXED: Pickable item restoration
FIXED: Multiple CPU profiles in process manager
FIXED: Clouds use dynamic vertex buffer for frequent locking
FIXED: Performance problem with terrain tile generation
FIXED: Performance bug in trails
FIXED: Rare crash when arrows stuck in players vanished
FIXED: Additional unnecessary loading screen when using a teleport stone-need
In case you missed it, be sure to checkout our full review of Arcania – Gothic 4.
NBC Universal has sent word via the UniversalPics twitter account that the upcoming prequel of John Carpenter’s The Thing, titled ‘The Thing’, will be released on October 14th, 2011. This is an updated date as according to posters seen at Universal Studios in Hollywood, the date was originally April 25th, 2011.
You can check out our iPhone 4 footage of the still-unreleased trailer for the upcoming film here (we know its bad quality and will update it when the official trailer release is made).
Disney Interactive Studios has released a new trailer for their upcoming actioner, Epic Mickey, which gives viewers a behind the scenes look at the 80 years of inspiration available to the developers in creating the game world. Epic Mickey is due out on November 30th, only on the Nintendo Wii.
Square Enix has released the official ‘red band’ trailer for its upcoming PSP action-RPG, Lord of Arcana. Lord of Arcana is due out on January 25th, 2011 for the Sony hand-held platform and features hand and slash gameplay with plenty of giblets to spare.
Blizzard Entertainment has released world of the official launch events to take place around the world on the night of December 6th – most notable in the United States being at the Fry’s Electronics store in Fountain Valley, CA. The Fountain Valley launch event will begin at 9:00pm PT and feature a performance by The Artist Formerly Known As Level 80 Elite Tauren Chieftain, as well as door prizes, developer signings, and more.
We will have a couple of reporters on-hand for the event to provide you with as much coverage as possible of the festivities. Stay-tuned!
Checkout the full launch event info portal for more details!
As with any Kinect title, you are going to need a ton of room to play Kinect Joy Ride. When you load up the game for the first time it will give you the normal Kinect warnings of stopping when you get tired etc, and nce the game loads you can easily use the Kinect tuner to make sure you have enough virtual space to play in. For singleplayer mode, make sure you have at least 7 to 8 feet or the sensor is going to have a hard time reading you. Thankfully, I have an open living room with about 10 feet of space between my TV and setup was a breeze as it not only scanned me right in but also put in my avatar to race with. Putting a player’s avatar in the game is a great little feature and makes you feel, dare I say, ‘connected’ to the game.
Once the initial setup is over, the Kinect sensor experienced no lag in moving through the menus to navigate your different modes of play. Kinect Joy Ride makes no use of the controller at all and allows you to pause the game using an awkward left hand raised motion until the circle fills. This was easy to do and no lag was experienced – though in frantic pausing situations you might just want to grab the controller to pause. It would have been a neat feature to add voice commands to the menus but that is sorely lacking here. Multiplayer setup was a breeze as your partner just needs to step right next to you for the sensor to scan them in. It picked up my my opponent’s image and logged them right into their profile provided they have one setup on your system. If you are playing multiplayer, you will need at least 10 feet of room or Kinect will go a little wonky on you.
GAMEPLAY:
Kinect Joy Ride has your standard modes of gameplay for a family racing title. As you play through single player races, you unlock different tracks and cars for your avatar to play with. I started with the drift race mode, which was just a classic race style, though most of my single player experience was done playing the Mario Kart-like race mode where you can use weapons to bash your opponents into submission.
The devs made the game really easy to play for almost anyone. Tthere is no need to speed up or slow down as the game does that for you. While it takes some getting used to it makes sense as you use your body to control other actions. Leaning to the left or right will allow the car to drift on turns. Turning is done by holding your arms out like you are driving a car and turning in what direction you want to go. I found that Kinect responded well with little to no lag when turning – but it does take some getting used to. I never got the hang of the drifting portion and ended up barely using it. Kinect Joy Ride is all about being over the top so, of course, there are tricks and speed boosts to be found. When you hit certain markers on the track you can lean back to fill up your boost meter and then shove your arms forward to set it off. As you hit ramps you can move your arms or body in different directions to perform tricks. It was a pretty funny experience to see my avatar flip outside of his little hot rod. Oh and, by the way, Kinect also takes photos of you while you play to show off what a freak you look like playing the game. If you want you can also upload them directly to the Kinect Share website for added embarrassment.
The best mode in Kinect Joy Ride is the half-pipe. Think skateboarding but with avatar driven cars and you are in for a fun time. This is all about doing tricks and racking up points. You can also blast your car into objects like floating cherries to score those extra sweet points. It makes you want to keep playing over and over to beat the high score. Half-pipe is the standout mode in Kinect Joy Ride and is a hell of a lot of fun to play. Multiplayer modes were racing against your friends for bragging rights (and the occasional pose-off) and with enough room can be a fun experience.
GRAPHICS AND SOUND:
The graphics in Kinect Joy Ride are cartoony and a perfect fit for a family racing title. Even with all the Kinect action going on, I did not notice any framerate issues or lag in the game when playing with another person. The environments are over the top and it truly feels like you are inside the world of your avatar. The sound in Joyride is on point with no bugs and it fit well with the game. The music was cartoony and the sound effects, while minimal, were also fitting.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
At the E3 2010 Microsoft Press Conference, we saw that the Forza team is working on some sort of Kinect-enabled title. While Kinect Joy Ride does not give the ultimate racing experience, it offers a glimpse at what we just might see in those future titles. Kinect Joy Ride is a fun game for the family and while the singleplayer races can get a bit boring the half-pipe mode is where it is at. If you own a Kinect system and have the room there is no reason not to take this one for a drive.
In a year full of sequels and expansions coming out for so many games, sometimes a gem or two is likely to fall through the cracks and not get the credit it deserves. This can be especially true when sequels in similar genres come out and this has been a solid year for MMORPGs and RPGs with more to come next year. So, it wasn’t too surprising that the next episode in the Divinity games, Divinity 2: Ego Draconis, slipped through the reviews. What is surprising is what Larian Studios did to remedy the issue: they remastered and retooled Ego Draconis to make it better and added a sequel story named Flames of Vengeance, doubling the playtime. The new compilation, titled Divinity 2: The Dragon Knight Saga, plays nice and smooth with interesting character building styles and really funny dialogue.
Atmosphere:
The game starts with beautiful cinematics and excellent music. The music was composed by a Russian musician named Kirill Pokrovsky and the graphics rival any of the big games out there. The light streams through the trees almost looking like a painting at times and the graphics in gameplay are just as good as the graphics in the cinematics. As a result there can be some fairly long load screens going in and out of buildings that can slightly dampen the atmosphere but they are easily forgiven when the quality of the graphics is considered.
Gameplay:
The Dragon Knight Saga does a few interesting things which will surely earn it mixed feelings among the players. The game doesn’t set up traditional trees like many RPGs – instead, it has skill categories with no particular level of skills. For example, there is a whole section of skills under the label ‘Warrior’ and you can pick whichever skills in the list that you want and invest points without having to have a certain number in one skill before investing in another. Also you can put points in other categories as well so you could have a rogue with warrior skills that can fire mage fireballs. You can only have one class’ weapons available at any time but you can change classes at anytime! This means you can try a quest as a warrior, decide it would be easier as a rogue, go to the trainers and change to rogue, beat the quest and then just go back to the trainer and change back. The theory of the game is that you have been trained in all these fields and you have simply lost the conscious memory of the skills and the trainers help you remember them. So, at any time, you can invest any points in any tree and you can change class at will. To some RPG purists this can be seen as playing it too loose with the character, others might welcome the freedom of making a completely unique character with all the skills they like from all the different classes.
One of the other characteristics of the game that would be a bit debatable is the vagueness of directions and quests. Some would like the fact that it is a large map with lots of exploring to do to find your way to the quests. Others who are used to RPGs that point the way a bit more might get frustrated with how difficult it can be to find your quests and how the enemies you fight might vary in levels in the same area. So you may be fighting some level 2 goblins and wander past them and run into level 5 ones in a large, slaughtering group. Saving a lot is key to getting through the game but don’t rely on the auto-save, it seldom saves.
Divinity 2: Ego Draconis starts you off at level 1 as you would expect but Divinity 2: Flames of Vengeance is continuing the story so it starts you off at level 35. It has you pick a class to start with and gives you generic skills for the class you choose but then you can go right to the trainer, unlearn them and use 35 levels worth of points to once again build a custom character using any skills across the classes. This is really the most unique aspect of the game and will make or break most people’s experience with it.
Storyline/Interactions:
Without giving away too much about the story (there are definitely some spoilers that could be said) you play a Dragon Slayer initiate being trained to hunt down the last of the Dragon Knights, hybrid humans that can transform into dragons. The storyline plays out well, if a bit predictable, and is well-written and interesting. The side quests along the way though are usually where the most fun is to be had. The game writers had some major fun with the dialogue and some of your response options to the NPCs are ridiculous and funny. They also help you define your character as well though. Your character can be a sarcastic jerk who is prideful and rude to everyone, he can be humble and well spoken or he can even be corrupt and foul. These responses will define how the other characters interact with you. If you act like a well-spoken, staunch supporter of the military you won’t make any friends among the commoners. If you tell the pig farmer he needs to stop his barnyard crushes (you actually have the option to say something similar to that) you can expect a quest line to end and that farmer to never speak to you favorably again. This also makes for a fairly unique experience in the game because if you help merchants they give you better deals on goods, if you wrong one they may never sell to you again. You have more freedom in what you say, how you react to knowledge you learn, but all your interactions have consequences.
Another interesting interaction besides dialogue is the choice to read people’s minds. This is an option on just about every dialogue and the results can vary from the mundane to paying of with new skills. Sometimes it can give you dirt on a character to blackmail them or bring them to justice, other times it can show you how innocent the character is. This ability doesn’t come without a cost though, in this case in the form of experience. The concept I believe is that to gain the knowledge from their heads you have to give up some of your own. It makes you pick your targets very carefully because if you read too many minds you find yourself further and further from the next level.
Last Call:
Divinity 2: The Dragon Knight Saga is a very well put together collection of games with a unique character building system as well as interesting gameplay and very fun dialogue options. I’m glad they didn’t let the game slip through the cracks so that folks not only got a second chance to try it, but a chance to double their play.
*DISCLOSURE: A copy of this game was sent to us for the purpose of this review.
Focus Home Interactive and Pendulo Studios have announced that their upcoming 2D, point-and-click adventure title, The Next BIG Thing, will be released on March 25th, 2011 on the Windows PC platform. The game is a departure from the studios’ previous Runaway series and begins a new tale.
Checkout the new screenshots, After the Break!
Bethesda Softworks has announced that id Software’s RAGE has finally hit the Apple App Store in SD and HD (for the latest gen devices) flavors. This version of the shooter is an on-rails experience which clocks in at a hefty 793 megabytes for the HD variant.
