The demonically-besieged world of Sanctuary needs heroes. Now you can join in the apocalyptic battle for FREE via the all-new Diablo III Starter Edition. Available exclusively via Battle.net, the Starter Edition allows you to fight your way up to the Skeleton King boss in Act I, and advance all the way to level 13, without having to purchase a copy of Diablo III.
You can get the FREE Starter Edition in any of the following ways:
· Log in to your existing Battle.net account at http://www.battle.net, and sign up for the Diablo III Starter Edition through the “Your Game Accounts” section.
· Create a new Battle.net account here and the Diablo III Starter Edition license will be added to your account automatically.
· Grab the Diablo III game disc from a friend, install the game, and then log in with your Battle.net account. The Diablo III Starter Edition will be added to your account automatically.
Note that certain game features are restricted on Starter Edition accounts. Any progress and achievements you earn while playing the Starter Edition will automatically carry over if you decide to upgrade to the full version of Diablo III, and the Starter Edition restrictions will be removed.
COLOGNE, Germany – Aug. 14, 2012 – Electronic Arts Inc. announced today that EA SPORTS has developed a new feature for FIFA Soccer 13 called EA SPORTS Football Club Match Day that will drive the deepest and most meaningful connection yet between a videogame and the real world of sport ever achieved. FIFA Soccer 13 and the real-world soccer season will be completely connected for the world’s top leagues. EA SPORTS Football Club Match Day will drive real-world news ripped from the headlines around the world into FIFA Soccer 13. Real-world drama such as injuries, suspensions, team form, and media gossip will be reflected through in-game commentary and play out in-game.
“This is a huge technological innovation that will make every match feel like a seamless extension of the headlines ripped from the sports pages around the world,” said David Rutter, Executive Producer of FIFA Soccer 13. “There is nothing bigger in the world of sports than match day. It brings together the emotions, passion and drama of the world’s sport for players, pundits, managers and fans alike. We are going to capture that experience and bring it to life in-game.”
Through EA SPORTS Football Club Match Day, fans will be following the heartbeat of soccer and their favourite club. Real-world fixtures and upcoming clashes of their favourite club in the top leagues will enable them to play right along with the beats of the season. Player form—displayed in detail within the team management screens—will change frequently, so players in form, or players struggling to keep form, will see their stats change throughout the season based on their real-world performances. Plus, Games of the Week will highlight the top global matchups for fans to enjoy.
EA SPORTS Football Club Match Day will be available for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC, and will be included in a FIFA Soccer 13 demo for all three platforms that will launch around the world on September 11.
Konami Digital Entertainment, Inc. today announced that Frogger Frenzy Free is now available for iOS devices. Frogger bounces his way to a new adventure filled with fast-paced pinball action, featuring unique stages, special modes and Facebook Connectivity, allowing players to compete with their friends via their Facebook account.
In Frogger Frenzy Free, fans can defeat new and old enemies to rescue Lily and save Frogger’s home from the evil clutches of RoboCroc. It’s pinball with a twist as Frogger curls up into a ball and rolls, flips and leaps his way to victory. Gamers can play on incredibly detailed pinball tables with 3D rendered graphics, ramps and realistic physics. Players can also use flippers to shoot the ball up ramps, hit targets and unlock special modes including BOSS BATTLES, FROGGER FRENZY and MULTIBALL. Featuring three action-packed tables including the Swamp, City and Space Station, gamers participate in tournaments to show the world who is the ultimate pinball master. Special power-ups and bonuses are available by leveling up, hitting the targets and completing loops.
As an added bonus, Frogger fans can connect with their Facebook account to compete with their friends and get access to their unlocked achievements and power-ups on both their iOS device and Facebook.
Frogger Frenzy Free is available now for free on iOS devices. For more information, please visit www.facebook.com/froggerpinball.
Ronimo Games has released a brand new multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) game for Steam, aptly named Awesomenauts. The MOBA genre of games has seen a rise lately, with the success of League of Legends and Defense of the Ancients, but Awesomenauts puts a 2D action shooter spin on the whole genre. Awesomenauts is full of great characters that are created with a very particular aesthetic, solid gameplay, but does suffer from some balance issues with the characters that are currently available. Overall, Awesomenauts lives up to it’s name, which was a very pleasant surprise for me.
Story:
The story and the aesthetics of Awesomenauts comes right out of my child hood and plays like a Saturday cartoon from the 80’s. Awesomenauts is set in the future, the year 3587, where massive robot armies wage war across the universe. Each side in this massive conflict begin to hire mercenaries to help break the stalemate. These mercenaries, the Awesomenauts, are who you play as during each skirmish versus the other players online or against practice bots.
The story here is more of a background character, explaining more why you are fighting against another team then really acting as any type of driving narrative for game play. You are fighting against another set of mercenary Awesomenauts over the resource known as Solar, and for control over the planet that you are on. Currently, there are four planets, or maps, that get unlocked as you level up. Each character has a little bio that fits the character design, more on that actual design later. Overall, the story really sets up the aesthetics of the entire game and gives it a good structure and basis for what is going on, without actually driving the narrative of the story or forcing the story to move anywhere.
Game play:
The game play of Awesomenauts plays like a typical MOBA game. The battles are three versus three, so they are small but can be quite frantic, thanks to the size of the arenas that you fight in. You select a character and a load out in the beginning of the game. The load out will be the types of upgrades that you can purchase throughout the game as you level up and gain Solar, which is the monetary unit for purchases in Awesomenauts. Similar to League of Legends, Awesomenauts allows you to create and modify your Awesomenaut in a unique way. You choose your load out, then choose what you want to purchase during game play. Being able to pick a load out also before the game begins, also allows you to set up a plan of purchases, which helps if you are not overly familiar with your particular Awesomenaut.
You can purchase up to 2 more special attacks that is in addition to your base attack. These attacks are bound to your mouse, which means the game plays much more like a first person shooter then the other MOBA games on the market. You move using the keyboard, then target and fire using your mouse, with each button being bound to a special attack. The other bonuses you buy to upgrade your Awesomenaut all modify these attacks or your base stats.
During game play, your base will generate robots to help you defeat the other team’s turrets that block your path to the opponents’ power core. Again like League of Legends, you have to use the bots to push your team to destroy each turret in order to get to the power core, while fighting off the other team, or hunting creeps that are found on the map. The creeps will give you experience and Solar for each one you destroy, while also giving you a little health. The first team to destroy the opposing power core, wins the match.
The game is mostly an online game, made to play against other teams of three live players. What is really nice with the game play design here, is that if there isn’t enough players, the game will generate bots to fill in the missing spots. Then as players drop in, they take the spots of these bots. This ensures that games are easy to find, and they were for me. You can also play in an offline practice mode, which still allows for achievements and earning experience, so online play isn’t a necessity to unlock other items. Once a player picks a character, that character is locked out for the others, so make sure you pick quickly if you have a favorite. The only negative that I could see here was the balance of the characters. Currently, Yuri the Spacemonkey is a wrecking ball and dominates most games that I played in. Ronimo is looking at these balance changes, and have already put out patch 1.2, which addresses some of these concerns.
I have made a lot of comparisons to League of Legends here with Awesomenauts, and it’s hard not to. Both are MOBA type games, using bots and characters to destroy turrets on the way to destroy the opposing power core. However, the difference is in the actual game play and the aesthetics of both games. Awesomenauts plays much more like a side scrolling shooter, then an action rpg like League of Legends does. League of Legends borrows heavily from Warcraft III, while Awesomenauts truly borrows most of it’s ideas from my child hood and 80’s cartoons. So, if you think this is just another MOBA League of Legends or Dota clone, stop right there! This game plays nothing like those, and, for me, it plays much better as an actual game.
Aesthetics:
I have mention this before, but the aesthetics of Awesomenauts comes right out of a 80’s Saturday morning cartoon, right down to the opening theme song. The characters are all designed with this type of motif in mind, from the rapping frog creature with the Kid N’ Play haircut, to the space cowboy Lonestar. The graphics look very cartoon like themselves, which works with the aesthetic that Ronimo is working towards. The action was fast and fluid looking on my PC, which recently had a huge upgrade to the video card so I can see more of what the developers were intending here. Awesomenauts may not be on the cutting edge of graphics, but the aesthetics and designs here are just…..awesome.
Even the voice work fits the aesthetics for Awesomenauts. Each character is voiced to spout one liners during game play, and I felt that each character’s voice overs help promote their individuality and really worked for me. None of the voice overs became grating or overused, at least to my level of tolerance. For me, in these types of games, a good voice over is one that adds to the overall game without becoming to noticeable, so Awesomenauts does the job quite well in those regards.
Overall:
Simply put, this is the best MOBA game I have played outside of League of Legends. The game play is solid and is easier for me to get a handle on, the aesthetics really works well with the overall design, and the voice overs work well without becoming annoying. Sure, the game has some serious balance issues online currently, but so did League of Legends. I will give the people at Ronimo some time to get this right as they see the game play pan out. I understand that the price point for Awesomenauts is $9.99, versus free for League of Legends, but remember that the free version of League of Legends does not allow you access to every champion, while buying Awesomenauts does, you just have to unlock them as you level up. Awesomenauts is well worth the look, especially at the price point they have it on Steam.
The award-winning Star Trek game casts players for the first time ever as Kirk and Spock in a totally original co-op experience worthy of gamers and fans. Set in the new canon of director and producer J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek (2009) reboot, players will be immersed in the game’s rich story and action-packed combat. Under development by acclaimed Ontario-based developers Digital Extremes (Bioshock 2, Dark Sector, The Darkness 2), Star Trek features an original story by BAFTA award winner and God of War writer, Marianne Krawczyk, in collaboration with the writer/producers of the new Star Trek films, Bob Orci, Alex Kurtzman and Damon Lindelof.
Star Trek is in development for console and PC release in early 2013.
Today Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and DC Entertainment revealed that Catwoman, DC Comics’ feline fatale, will be featured in the upcoming superhero fighter, Injustice: Gods Among Us, an all-new game in development by NetherRealm Studios, creators of the definitive fighting game franchise Mortal Kombat.The game is scheduled for release in 2013 for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and the Wii U.
Injustice: Gods Among Us debuts as a bold new fighting game franchise that introduces a deep, original story featuring a large cast of favorite DC Comics icons such as Batman, Cyborg, Harley Quinn, Nightwing, Solomon Grundy, Superman, The Flash, Wonder Woman and many others. Set in a world where the lines between good and evil are blurred, players will experience heroes and villains engaging in epic battles on a massive scale.The game is scheduled for release in 2013 for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and the Wii U.
Capcom has released their new character pack for Street Fighter X Tekken. This new pack contains twelve new fighters, six from Street Fighter franchises and six from Tekken, that are ready to fight for Pandora’s Box. This pack, for me, has some of the best fighters in the game, unfortunately, some of these fighters break the balance that Capcom has finally achieved in Street Fighter X Tekken. However, before we get into the review, we need to address the 900 lb. E. Honda in the room, the controversy surrounding this pack.
For those of you that don’t know, this content was actually on disk at launch back in March. All twelve fighters were discovered to be on the disk by some proactive hackers out there, and this caused a huge uproar from the fan community. Games today already cost upwards of $60 for a new release, to discover that a company is going to hit us up for more money for things that are already on the disk is insulting at best. Officially, Capcom stated that this was to save hard drive space and to allow players to play with one another, regardless of who had the pack or not. Understandably, this did not appease anyone who had bought the game, who still feel that this pack is nothing more then a money grab for something that should already be on the disk. This whole dlc pack could have been handled better by Capcom. Ok, with that out of the way, let’s actually see if this pack is worth the extra money or not.
Characters:
You get twelve characters with this new download, and that is a lot of extra people to play with. This brings the total now up to fifty fighters to select from, with the Playstation 3 hitting 54 fighters. That is a huge amount of variety and selection for a fighting game. Keeping the sides even, this pack brings us six Street Fighter characters and six Tekken fighters. Representing the Street Fighter side we get Dudley, Elena, Sakura, Blanka, Cody and Guy. The Tekken side gets Jack-X, Bryan Fury, Lei Wulong, Christie Montiero, Lars Alexandersson, and Alisa Bosconovitch.
Now, I have always been more partial to the Street Fighter franchise then the Tekken one, so forgive me for being a little more biased here then usual. I love the Street Fighter side here and feel that this is an excellent selection of characters to add. Blanka has always been and will always be my number one fighter to choose from, and I am absolutely glad that he is here and ready to go. The game just did not feel complete without my Blanka. The tag combinations are straight forward for the most part, Sakura joins up with Blanka to find Dan, Cody and Guy continue their partnership, and Elena and Dudley join forces to hunt for Pandora’s Box. Only the last combination made me scratch my head, and I was delighted to find that Lei and Christie thought so too, during their story missions in arcade mode.
Since I know less about Tekken, I was a little less thrilled to see this list of characters. I do love to play as Christie and Lei and was happy to get my hands back on those two, and was happy to see Jack-X make an appearance, but since I never really delved deeply into Tekken 5 or 6, the addition of the others wasn’t as fantastic to me. The Tekken combinations are interesting to see as well, with Lei and Christie teaming up, Jack-X joining forces with Bryan Fury, and Lars Alexandersson working with Alisa Bosconovitch.
Gameplay:
This new pack is being released to go with the new 1.06, which focused on balancing some of the more powerful fighters, such as Ken, Ryu and Akuma. The Street Fighter group from this pack seems to be very balanced and fits in perfectly with 1.06 so as to not upset the game. However, to me, the Tekken fighters feel out of balance in comparison. Christie is a combination nightmare with just a single touch of the button, with Lei and Bryan being massive powerhouses. It will be interesting to see how this effects the online and tournament community in the future in regards to character selections.
Besides adding the new characters to the roster, this dlc pack doesn’t add anything else to the game play of Street Fighter X Tekken. Each character has their own moves list, just like the original roster, and each has their own play style. I liked Lei’s multiple fighting stance techniques, but they seemed awkward to pull off during combat, while Blanka’s new dodges seemed to really blend in well with his play style, though his rolling ball attack does seem very slow to me.
Final Thoughts:
Putting the controversy aside for a second and looking at this pack as it is, I like this addition to Street Fighter X Tekken. I feel that this pack brings new life to the game at this point with the addition of some great fighters, one just happening to be my all time favorite. I also feel that this adds some interesting combinations of tag teams that people can try out. I did love playing as Elena and Christie, both who use the Capoeira fighting style just as a fun team up. There will be some balancing issues here again, which is too bad since patch 1.06 just fixed the issues that came with the release.
The real question will come down to whether or not you want to pony up $20 for something that was on disk at release and cost you originally $60. I can tell you that I feel that this pack is worth the price tag and is full of fighters that are fun to play. For me, this would be a must have pack for a great game such as Street Fighter X Tekken. The pack is available now.
If you are young enough the “silver ball” probably doesn’t mean much to you or it is the relic in the corner of a video arcade. In years past it was the cornerstone of electronic gaming and as common as Coca-Cola. It started off humbly, slowly evolving into the game we see today. But as it becomes a relic in the arcade Zen Studios is breathing new life into it on the console.
A Brief History Lesson:
The game we know of as “pinball” dates it’s origins to the late 1700s when bored aristocrats grew tired of their table version of bowling and made the pins permanently upright sticks off which you would hit a ball and ricochet the ball into a hole in the table. So they went with the obvious name: Bagatelle! (named after the chateau it was developed in).
Over a century later a guy in Ohio added a spring launching system, the “pins” became metal and around sixty years later the proper American capitalistic touch of “coin-operated” was added. Electricity and action bumpers were soon added but it wasn’t until 1947, 15 years later that the first flippers came into play.
The rest is history until the “Golden Age” of pinball which arrived in the 1970s when microprocessors, circuit borders and electronic screens made pinball machines true electronic gaming with all the literal bells and whistles getting joined by voices and videos. The same technology that took them to their peak was their demise when “video games” came along in the 1980s.
You may ask why, who cares about all this history stuff. It is by studying the history of a subject with the latest technology in mind that leaps forward are made.
The Absence of Zen And The Entrance Of Zen Studios:
Ever since the first video game was developed, programmers and developers have tried to master the physics of the ball. A rudimentary version was developed and strangely for a long time not improved upon. That ball for Pong didn’t change much over the years and every attempt had some physics error. Video pinball games were played more for challenge than nostalgia because either the ball had a floating feeling on the table or drop like a rock. Gone was the rhythm that developed on the table as the ball shot off flippers and hit chaotically around on the bumpers until your flippers brought the ball back into an orderly path.
On a real pinball machine you could judge where the ball would go depending on the flippers angle, speed of flip and speed of ball. All that was lost in the video game era unless you happened to find that rare arcade that had what was usually a movie or television show themed pinball machine tucked in the corner yelling out challenges and clanking it’s flippers and bumpers. Then along came Zen Studios.
I’ll freely admit I didn’t pay attention to them at first. I sighed sadly and made plans to visit the pinball history museum in Vegas where I could get my hands on dozens of machines, some being the early prototypes of the electronic ones but all amazing and playable. It wasn’t until my editor sent me some tables to try out that I discovered Pinball FX. The physics for the first time were right spot on. You got so lost in the game you forgot you weren’t hitting real flippers and wearing out the muscles in your hands. If you calculated a shot at a ramp like it was real life or guessed about how the ball would trigger on the bumper you found yourself right.
Crossing The Generation Gap:
Getting the physics right might be enough to win over an old school gamer like me but would today’s gamer, who might get bored just watching a ball bounce around, they crossed it with modern video game technology. The animatronic figures that would click open their mouths or swing from side to side in the old days have been replaced with 3D figures moving naturally around the tables. On the Marvel tables there are heroes and villains that battle across the board all while maintaining a realistic game table and realistic ball physics.
The difficulty and complexity of the table vary as well so not only is there a hero or villain from the Marvel Universe for you to root on, the tables all have their own touches.The Spiderman one has weblike rails for the balls to ride on all over the table for example.
One of my favorite tables is Paranormal, I am kinda fascinated with such things anyways so this tongue in cheek take on the X-Files has you investigating, with your ball, such phenomena as the turnpike (ramp) looking for the Jersey Devil, out on a Loch with Nessie mewing like a llama and my personal favorite and hardest part: the haunted house full of doors, one that leads to another dimension.
The table I have the most mixed feelings about Ms. Splosion Man, where you are supposed to save Splosion Man by fighting your enemy on a board so pink and baby blue that Hello Kitty would squint and run away! It is a fun, action packed table but so much pink and blue!!
Last Call:
This was an unorthodox review because I felt to truly appreciate what Zen Studios has done you had to know a bit of the history of pinball and how its rich history has been bastardized in video gaming until Zen Studios came along. I’ve seen fully electronic tables in arcades that cost a few bucks a play that aren’t as good as these tables which once you buy, you own. Add to this that they are constantly coming out with new tables and you can bet pinball is back and not leaving again anytime soon.
Ok let’s face it: for a lot of people the zombie parts of the COD franchise are a favorite if not the favorite part of the game. Originally an unlockable level at the end of the game, COD zombies was so popular a themed map set came out called Call of The Dead allowing for you to play iconic characters from horror and supernatural genres was released and an iPhone port of COD zombies came out a couple years back which allowed players to satiate their zombie shooting need on the move. Now they have come along with Call Of Duty: Black Ops Zombies for the iOS and Android and the questions arises, did they bring the zombie killing love again?
Storyline:
Wait… you need a storyline? With few exceptions the storyline of zombie hunting is simple: kill them before they eat you. Sure there can be a love story or the tragedy of lost loved ones, but this is the simple facts: kill them before they eat you. If you are fine with finding yourself in a room with a gun and zombies coming at you and just knowing you need to survive you should be fine with most zombie games, this one included.
Graphics and Sound:
To survive and be a solid player in the COD franchise, graphics require a minimum of quality and sound has to enhance the experience and seriously draw you in. This game does both and takes it up a notch. It really felt like a console title rather than a portable port and the sound works great. Do yourself a real favor and play this in a dark room. During my review time I was in a cabin in the woods with the lights out and the front door unlocked in the middle of the night. The atmosphere in game and out of game matched so much I was jumping at every noise and not being near conservative enough with my ammo.
Gameplay:
Since it has to be designed to work without control buttons or a keyboard setting up the control system of such a complex shooter can be troublesome if not downright frustrating both to the developer and the player. This is where the developers were really smart on how they worked with it. After trying the control system and finding myself frustrated I went to look into the control options and found that there were three ways to set them, all very different and all catering to a different style of game play that phone users have become accustom to. With the choices of joystick, tilt or swap modes I found myself using my thumbs over virtual joysticks and improving my game immensely. It is to each their own as are many of the gameplay options. I found myself using the autolock on enemies when shooting even though traditionally I am a one shot, one kill, put a bullet in the zombie’s brain kinda guy. The iron sights are pretty clunky at first, with more practice it gets better and that really is the best way to conserve ammo but it quickly became a tradeoff between staying alive and saving ammo and the staying alive won out. Go hardcore and just do iron sights and you will progress, but it is a bit of a learning curve. Weapons can also be upgraded so that you don’t have to sweat iron sights when blasting with a shotgun or tossing an explosive so just pick your upgrades to match your playstyle and you should be golden.
But Wait… There’s More:
Fans of the old school looking and playing COD Arcade will be happy to know that it is unlockable pretty quickly and easily with just a little time investment. In no time you will be blasting in all directions in the top down shooter which makes me all nostalgic for games like Smash TV. Since the controls are pretty straight forward for this game they translate extremely well and you will find yourself blasting away everything in sight.
Last Call:
Fans of the Call Of Duty franchise and fans of zombie games will both find this a great game, those who like both will find their two great tastes that taste great together on the road. It’s graphics and quality live up to the franchise name and though the controls may be a little difficult to get used to at first once you find the style you like and the weapons that suit you, you will find yourself killing long into the night wherever your life and phone take you.
After the Back To The Future trilogy everybody wanted a hoverboard. There were even hoaxes that the hoverboard was was real and in a lab somewhere or that in just a few more years prototypes the film had based their boards off of would be available to consumers. I still want my hoverboard. Where is my hoverboard? How come NASA or MENSA or some other group of daydreaming geeks didn’t get me my dang hoverboard??? Ok now by the time they do come out with the hoverboard I am likely to break my hip the first time I ride it. So I have to settle for the next best thing: Axon Runners.
Storyline:
What do you think this is Back To The Future? Who needs a story… wait, there is one, kinda. In the future there is this air stream thingy that suicidal hoverboarders ride through. One of these hoverboarders loses his friends and asks you to help find them. You don’t, so instead you find yourself cruising the air streams and representing, kinda like early skateboarders did in pools.
Graphics And Audio:
The graphics head toward the comic book/concept art style with a touch of Tron and Blade Runner thrown in. By Blade Runner I mean the architecture and by Tron I mean the light outlining element. Otherwise it really is it’s own beast. It is fairly well detailed for areas you aren’t supposed to see clearly even, so that if you find yourself out of bounds you won’t see plain blank areas but details you might have missed had you done better. This is probably partially due to the fact that this game was sponsored (co-created by Coca-Cola) and could afford to go deeper into detail or maybe it is because of the learning curve when you start and how as a result you find yourself flying off course and around or through the side sections of the course so they figured a lot of people would see them. Either way the detail is nice and not only draws you in but makes you feel better about wipeouts since you get to sometimes see a nice section you would have normally missed.
Gameplay:
You might have noticed in the previous section I mentioned “the course” and that is because at the end of the day this is a race against time game. It is well done, nicely themed and has the hoverboards I have always dreamed of and never gotten (still bitter), but it is a course racing game with great controls tailored especially to the iOS. The controls all make sense, aren’t at all clunky and have a use and design that, though could be tailored to another system, fit this one perfectly. To jump you push up from your guy, the more you jump the faster you go. You move your finger around the screen where you want to go and since you are in tunnels with holes in them you can ride the sides and top by just sliding your finger there.
When upside down if you do a double jump just right you land at the bottom of the tube right side up. You get weapons from your hoverboard to destroy some obstacles and you even get bonuses and points for taking some out (particularly the blue bottle shaped objects which are Coca-Cola bottles without the label). The main goal though is to go through as fast as possible, dying as few times as possible (unlimited lives) while collecting as many yellow balls of light (orbs) as possible. Shooting slows you down but can also clear your path for jumping and speeding up so there is a degree of strategy to it.
Last Call:
This game is challenging and addictive and is a great way to pass time on the go, standing in line, long road trips, etc. There is a free version with the first few levels if you really aren’t sure about it but at $2.99 you might as well just pick up the whole game. It plays better on the iPad than on the iPhone, bigger screen to move on, but it is great on the iPhone too. And for a brief moment in time, you finally get that hoverboard you always wanted.
