By Anonymous on Mar 31, 2015 12:25 am
In an interview with Games Industry International, Oddworld creator Lorne Lanning is wary of how capitalism encourages constant, exponential growth and massive game budgets. Instead, developers should cater to niche audiences, making games for smaller, dedicated communities. "As craftsmen, " Lanning said,"our opportunity lies in finding the niches where we know our audience, we focus on it, we listen to it, we respect it, we treat it with some grace." Publishers, Lanning says, have become much more risk averse because of the sheer size of the investments they are dumping into new games. As games get more expensive, developers need more money from publishers, and that puts developers in a position of weakness when negotiating business deals. "So the budget's going up, and now [publishers are] saying, 'Now we're spending $20 million on a title and not $5 million, and at $20 million, we need better terms. You're going to do 10 times the work, but you're going to get a fifth of the backside because we're risking all this money.' Depending on how savvy they would be with the deals, usually they never made money... They were able to stay in the business. But the way the deals were structured, they were basically dead." 
Refocusing development on smaller games for smaller audiences will help keep studios sustainable, and avoid the kinds of massive layoffs and closings that have wracked the industry over the past few years. Lanning also thinks that this will give developers more creative opportunity and gamers more interesting games to play. "So the indie possibility is they can actually find their audience. The cheaper they can make their product, the more creative opportunity they have. So you can take more risks the cheaper you are." Lanning's games have always been critical of capitalism, and recently he's been focused on remaking them for new platforms. Oddworld: New 'n' Tasty , a remake of the first game in the Oddworld series--Abe's Oddysee--launched for PC last year and the Xbox One on March 27. The game has been well received by critics. Playstation Vita and Wii U versions should see a release by the end of the year.
By Anonymous on Mar 31, 2015 12:14 am
 Today's best deal comes from Amazon, which has perhaps the top PS4 bundle to date: $400 get you the system, Bloodborne, The Last of Us Remastered, and a $20 gift card. Target has a buy one, get one 50 percent off deal going on for many of its games across all systems, and includes recent releases like Battlefield Hardline and Final Fantasy: Type-0. Walmart is offering a New 3DS XL bundle with Super Smash Bros. for 3DS and your choice of select Amiibo figurines for $220. Alternatively, the retailer has a New 3DS XL bundle with your choice of select games for $219. Eligible games include Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate, Code Name: Steam, and quite a few more. Battlefield Hardline, released only two weeks ago, is $40 on all platforms at both Amazon and Best Buy. Below you'll find the rest of today's best deals divided by platform: PlayStation 4GameStop's excellent PS4 trade-in offer, which gives $175 for certain Xbox 360 or PS3 models, is available until April 5. The store's spring sale event is also ongoing. A standalone PlayStation 4 system is currently $350 on eBay. You can effectively get the system for the same price at Target, which is offering a $50 gift card with the $400 Last of Us Remastered bundle. Walmart is offering The Last of Us Remastered PS4 bundle for $399 with a bonus controller and either Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, Watch Dogs, or Need for Speed: Rivals. Best Buy is throwing in a free PlayStation Camera with the purchase of the $400 Last of Us PS4 bundle. The fourth week of Sony's Spring Fever event is still on, and focuses on God of War, with God of War and God of War II's HD remasters costing $6 each for PlayStation Plus members. You can find the full lineup of the PSN games included in Spring Fever here. Other PS4 game deals: PlayStation Plus' free games for March include Oddworld: New 'N' Tasty on PS4, CounterSpy on PS3, and OlliOlli 2 on Vita and PS4. These will be replaced with April's games soon, so act fast if you haven't claimed them already. Xbox OneThe Xbox One Master Chief Collection bundle is $350 from the Microsoft Store with a bonus copy of Titanfall. Walmart continues to offer the Xbox One Master Chief Collection bundle with an extra controller for $349. And Best Buy is giving away a free, no-contract AT&T Lumia 635 with the purchase of the $350 Master Chief Collection Xbox One bundle. The Kollector's Edition of Mortal Kombat X is $135 if you preorder through Newegg and use the promo code EMCAPNT78. Forza Horizon 2's Fast & Furious spinoff is available now for free until April 10. Cowboom is offering used Xbox Ones for as little as $230 with promo code XONE4215. Microsoft's latest Deals With Gold offers are nearly gone. Xbox Live Gold members can get Forza Horizon 2 or Evolve on Xbox One for $48 each, Threes for $3.50, or XCOM: Enemy Within on Xbox 360 for $10. Find the full list of this week's deals here. Other Xbox One game deals: The free Games with Gold titles for March include #IDARB on Xbox One and BioShock Infinite on Xbox 360. April's games have also been announced (but are not yet available for free). Wii UThe Super Mario 3D World/Nintendo Land Wii U bundle is available for $260 on eBay. If you don't mind a refurbished system, Nintendo's online store has a bundle with Nintendo Land for $200, or Nintendo Land and Super Mario 3D World for $225. Target is taking 25% off the price of Amiibo figures, dropping them all in price to under $10. Additionally, Toys R Us has a buy one, get one 40 percent off deal on Amiibo figures. Best Buy is selling eShop cards, good for buying digital games and content on Wii U and 3DS, for 10 percent off. 3DSThe Mario Kart 7 2DS bundle is $100 at Best Buy in both red and blue. Get Pokemon Omega Ruby or Alpha Sapphire and your choice of Groudon or Kyogre collectible figurine for $31 at Walmart. PCThe Humble Store has a 2K game sale going on and is offering a free copy of Spec Ops: The Line with the purchase of any game in the sale. That includes Evolve for $45, Civilization V: The Complete Edition or XCOM: Enemy Unknown - The Complete Edition for $12.49 each, Civilization: Beyond Earth for $25, and the BioShock Triple Pack for $11.89. Green Man Gaming is currently offering discounts on orders for some of the year's biggest releases. You can get Grand Theft Auto V for $46.79, Batman: Arkham Knight for $43.79, Wolfenstein: The Old Blood for $15.59, Battlefield Hardline for $50, Magicka 2 for $11.24, Offworld Trading Company for $30, and Mortal Kombat X for $43.79. You can find all the discounts in Green Man Gaming's VIP page, for which you can sign up for free. You can get 20 percent off at Green Man Gaming with the code: JBTBG5-7GVTE8-W2YXRV The original Syndicate is free on Origin. Other PC game deals: PS VitaAmazon is selling the Wi-Fi version of PlayStation Vita for $170. HardwareAmazon prices are accurate as of publishing, but can fluctuate occasionally throughout the day. GameSpot's gaming deals posts always highlight the best deals we can find regardless of retailer. We also occasionally use retailer affiliate links, which means that purchasing goods through those links helps support all the great content (including the deals posts) you find for free here on the site.
By Anonymous on Mar 30, 2015 10:26 pm
Dragon Age: Inquisition's first major expansion, Jaws of Hakkon, will be released for PlayStation 4--as well as PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360--sometime in May, developer BioWare announced today on Twitter.  "CONFIRMED: Dragon Age: Inquisition--Jaws of Hakkon comes to all other platforms in May!" the developer wrote. Jaws of Hakkon released for Xbox One and PC last week by way of an exclusivity arrangement between BioWare owner Electronic Arts and Microsoft. Terms of that deal blocked BioWare from even talking about when the DLC would come to other platforms. This clause drew some amount of controversy among players. BioWare on Friday said it hoped players on other platforms would not boycott the expansion due to the company's relationship with Microsoft adding that it would have news to share about a PS4 release shortly. In Jaws of Hakkon, players will "discover the fate of the last Inquisitor and the powerful dragon he hunted," according to the content's original announcement. Set in an overgrown wilderness populated by the Avvar hunter people, the content sees players exploring an "ancient Tevinter fortress that hides a dangerous secret." Gamers can also expect to face off against new enemies, and amass new legendary armor and weapons. Jaws of Hakkon concludes with a battle against an "ancient god of war bent on destroying the world." For more on Jaws of Hakkon, check out GameSpot's review and some images in the gallery below.               
By Anonymous on Mar 30, 2015 09:30 pm
 Chris Watters shows off the new airplane map and unique operator loadouts as he schemes and shoots his way through the closed alpha.
By Anonymous on Mar 30, 2015 09:30 pm
As I comb through raw gameplay footage of Rainbow Six Siege, I keep remembering the thought I had almost every time I finished a match: I could do better. I should've known they'd breach that wall, should've fortified that trap door, should've jammed their electronics, should've rappelled up to that window, should've leaned around that corner, and on and on and on. Even when I won, there was always something I could have done better. But rarely was that thing as simple as "aim faster and shoot more accurately." At a recent press event, I got to play a closed alpha version of Rainbow Six Siege, the same version that will be made available for a limited group of players sometime in the coming weeks. Siege is a first-person shooter in which a team of five players holds a hostage in a small structure and a team of five other players tries to extract the hostage. The teams are also trying to kill each other, naturally, but actual gunplay is usually the last thing that happens in a match, and firefights are usually over very quickly. The core of the game, then, and the part that makes Siege so compelling, is what happens before the bullets start flying. Let's say you're holed up in the cargo area of a plane with your hostage. You have 45 seconds to set up fortifications to help you survive and keep custody of the hostage during a three minute assault. Where do you start? This is an Air Force One-size jet, so there's a lot of interior space to cover. Barricading doors to slow enemy progress is a good first step, but you also want your allies to be free to set up their own defenses, and closing off doorways limits their mobility. The walls in the room are thin, so it'll be no problem for invaders to shoot or breach their way through. Better get some reinforcing panels up, unless your plan is to shoot out through the walls when the enemy shows up. There are too many points of entry to reinforce them all, so set some deployable cover and gas traps to cover their most likely point of entry, provided your team can agree on where that is. Oh, and by the way, your foes have been scouting your defenses this entire time with remote-controlled drones. Maybe you should've set up that electronic signal jammer before you did any of this? At any given moment, there are multiple things you could be doing to improve your situation, and that's just the preparation stage. Once the three-minute timer begins and the infiltrators start coming, you have to stand firm behind your defenses or scramble to cover some new contingency that is developing before your eyes. Likewise, the attackers can formulate a plan based on the intel they gather from their drone phase, but who knows where the defenders will actually be waiting? No need to get the door, I'll make my own.Siege is as much a battle of knowledge as it is a battle of reflexes. Crouching in a corner to check the security camera feed on your tablet can be as valuable as laying down suppressing fire, and both are crucial to victory. Taking time for recon can leave you vulnerable to attack, but the knowledge you gain can give you a significant edge. Deciding when to focus on what is one of the central challenges of Siege matches.  There have been two maps revealed thus far: the house from the E3 demo and the aforementioned airplane (which, by the way, is parked on the tarmac, not mid-flight). Each has three main levels surrounded by exterior and rooftop areas that allow you to reach different entry points. Knowing the map gives you an edge in any competitive shooter, but because of Siege's extensive environmental destructibility, it's absolutely paramount. It's not enough to know where a wall (or a ceiling or a floor) is and what's on the other side. You have to know if it can be shot through, and what the firing lines from the other side might be. If the ceiling starts exploding, you need to know if enemies will be dropping into the room with you or simply shooting through the floorboards. And even when you know the surfaces well, the layout of the map evolves differently in every match as gunfire and explosions obliterate cover and open up new sightlines. The other big variable from match to match is the individual operators. The final version of Rainbow Six Siege will have 20 unique characters to choose from; the closed alpha version I played only had 10. While the standard choices of primary weapon, secondary weapon, and gadget are available to all, each operator has a specific skill that only they can perform. The attacking characters I saw could breach reinforced walls, smash normal walls with a sledgehammer, disrupt electronics with a grenade, fire a breach charge to destroy walls from a distance, and scout with a small drone armed with a shock weapon. On the defending side, I used an electronic jammer to block the remote activation of breach charges and drones, placed toxic gas traps, used reinforced barricades, laid down extra armor vests for the team, and used a heartbeat sensor to detect enemies through walls and floors. Know your gas maks.Each of the abilities can tip the scales when applied properly, and each can be countered, if you're prepared. You won't know which of the 10 attackers your five foes have chosen until you or a teammate spots them. The character designs appear to be generic, armored police at first glance, but a closer look reveals quickly recognizable attributes that will allow experienced players to identify their foes on sight (helmets, gas masks, hair, glasses, etcetera). Icons at the top of the screen also signal which operators are in play, once you've scouted them, so you can be on the lookout for, say, a quick hammer breach when you know Sledge has taken the field. With ten choices per side, there are going to be abilities that get left out of each match, making adapting your plan to account your enemies' strengths even more important. The fast, heated gun battles of Siege are often over as soon as they start because one player has scouted the situation better and is more prepared. Fights are won and lost by intel, and during my first few hours playing the game, I felt like I was slowly filling up a mental almanac of possible tactics and countertactics. With each round, my knowledge base improved as I regularly encountered new situations or new enemy maneuvers. Between each match, my teammates and I quickly shared our stories, identifying where we had gone wrong and scheming about what we could do next round. It was exciting to discover and test out new strategies, and regardless of whether I won or lost, I entered each new match feeling more poised and prepared than before. Rainbow Six Siege is shaping up to be a shooter in which knowledge is as powerful as a quick trigger finger, and perhaps even more rewarding.
By Anonymous on Mar 30, 2015 06:30 pm
 Check out 14 different X-Ray moves from the likes of Scorpion, Kitana, Kung Lao, Raiden, Quan Chi and more in Mortal Kombat X.
By Anonymous on Mar 30, 2015 06:30 pm
 Get a glimpse of 13 fatalities including some from Johnny Cage, Kitana, Raiden, Ermac, Quan Chi and more in Mortal Kombat X.
By Anonymous on Mar 30, 2015 05:30 pm
At some point in your life, you wake up in an unexpected place. You open your eyes, and for a split second, confusion takes over. You may be on your couch after a sleepy night of watching bad television, or, you may find yourself in bed next to a stranger in a room you don't recognize. But, what are the odds that you'll ever wake up in a different world? Axiom Verge is your chace. Following an experiment on Earth gone horribly wrong, you wake up in a strange place known as Sudra. It's a world unlike Earth, where strange biological formations meld with mechanical contraptions to form massive structures. Being inexplicably transported to such a place would rock most people's psyche, but the protagonist, Trace, barely bats an eye. It's weird that he doesn't collapse in shock, honestly, but this misstep doesn't detract from the fact that Axiom Verge's plot is so good at drawing you in with heavy doses of mystery and intrigue. These moments kick off when large mechanical beings known as the Rusulka enter the picture. They act as guides, providing directions in exchange for repairs (something has left them in disarray), and insight into Sudra's troubled history. I'd love to go into greater detail, but to describe the relationship between you and the Rusulka any further would spoil one of the best aspects of Axiom Verge's world. It's a world that emphasizes exploration in the same vein that Super Metroid or Castlevania: Symphony of the Night do, but it's also a quest for knowledge that keeps you guessing until the very end. As you make your way through Sudra's foreboding world at the behest of the Rusulka, you encounter numerous types of imposing wildlife. The only bad thing that can be said of the enemies in the game is that you occasionally find one that feels out of place, and this small inconsistency is one of a mere couple issues with the game, neither of which are important enough to detract from your enjoyment in a significant way. Big or small, Axiom Verge's enemies command your attention with wildly varying behavior and impressive displays of force. Some let out ear piercing battle cries while slashing at you with great speed, while others use more creative means to attack, such as spewing swarms of energy leeching bugs that are difficult to shake. It takes time and practice to learn how to deal with the trickier enemies, but you quickly gain new weapons as you explore, and thus new methods to defend yourself become available. The drill is one of the first tools that you find, and it's an invaluable aid when digging for Sudra's most elusive items and secret areas.Your primary weapon, the Axiom Disruptor, fires simple energy-bullets, but you quickly rack up augmentations that make it capable of delivering shotgun-like blasts of electricity, or a beam of current not unlike what you might see in a Ghostbusters movie, for example. With more than a dozen weapons to find, you have to spend a lot of time searching for each and every one. While you don't need every weapon to be efficient at blasting away enemies that stand in your path, you learn to love many of the weapons over time, and who doesn't like having options? There are other tools to discover that make navigating Sudra manageable, let alone possible. A laser drill lets you plow through rock (and some tough-skinned enemies), revealing new pathways and potential secrets. You eventually find a grappling hook that turns you into a veritable Bionic Commando, allowing you to bridge large gaps and swing across ceilings. Like in Metroid, you can sneak through small tunnels that you find, but not by morphing into a ball. Rather, you find a drone that can do the exploring for you. It has its own life bar and some modest firepower, and while it's out and about, you get to rest inside an impenetrable force field. A quick press of a button, and the drone dismantles itself before zipping back to your location. Eventually, it becomes a remote teleportation device, allowing you to warp to its location. One tool stands out as the most special of the lot: the Address Disruptor. This device can corrupt enemies or repair garbled matter, which has many implications and uses during your adventure. Sometimes, firing it at glitchy matter will yield a new platform that will help you get to a new location, while other times it can clear a path. The most interesting application, however, is using it to transform enemies. Every enemy has a different reaction to the Address Disruptor, and it's critical to pay attention to the particulars therein. An enemy that spawns laser firing bugs may suddenly spawn life energy once you've corrupted it, while another may start to gnaw away at rock, which you can use to your advantage when trying to access hard to reach areas. There are dozens of different behaviors associated with the Address Disruptor, and it's easily one of the most interesting weapons or tools that I've ever seen in a game. An experiment this dramatic is bound to go wrong.One enemy's reaction in particular leads me to talk about the game's password system. Within the inventory and map menu lies a place to input passwords. Passwords can trigger different things, such as changing your outfit or allowing you to read previously indecipherable texts. All of the info in the documents you find are supplements to the story, but they also stoke your curiosity to dig deeper into the mysterious events of the past and present. Passwords aren't just given out, you need to work to find them. In one case, a hard to reach document contains a translation string, another reveals itself when you use the Address Disruptor on a glitchy area of the map. My favorite, and the basis of this segue, is the enemy that reveals a code, letter by letter, after it's been corrupted. This particular enemy is only in one room, and even though there are others like it to be found on the map, it only provides a password in this particular instance. Moments like this are when you realize that you must use every tool at your disposal if you hope to uncover all of the secrets that lie within Axiom Verge. It takes a lot of work to find some items, but you get a real sense of accomplishment when you overcome difficult situations by combining your skills in clever ways. Part of the reason you want to find secrets and secret areas is because you may gain a new weapon or ability, but also because your speed, map coverage, and item percentage have an impact on the game's ending. No matter what, Axiom Verge's final third will satisfy your curiosity and surprise you, but you learn more about Trace if you get through the game with efficiency and an attention to detail. The Address Disruptor is Axiom Verge's defining tool. It can transform enemies into allies and reveal hidden objects, to name just a couple of its effects.Accomplishing everything it takes to get the absolute best ending isn't easy, especially your first time through. It took me the better part of 14 hours to get through to the end, and even with all of that time, I only uncovered 92% of the map and found 70% of the items. It's not an impressive run by any measure, but it would have been far worse if Axiom Verge punished you for every death, which I experienced dozens of during the course of my journey. Thankfully, dying only sends you back to the last save point on the map with all of your progress kept intact. While this may mean that you're teleported back a significant distance across Sudra, any milestones you've hit are preserved, meaning you don't need to waste precious time repeating previous efforts. Speaking of repeating previous efforts, once the credits finished rolling, I couldn't wait to jump back in and start Trace's journey all over again. Some games conclude and I'm happy to walk away, but Axiom Verge is such a joy to play, with dozens of tools to play with, and too many secrets to find. The skills and rules you learn inform your expectations and plans, and my second trip through became more about the gameplay than the story, which isn't entirely a bad thing. After all, the better I play, the better the payoff in the end. I'm still working through Sudra for the second time, occasionally going back to my first save to identify things I may have missed so that I'm prepared when I encounter them again. Axiom Verge is a game that's easy to fall in love with because it hits so many high notes. It takes the Metroidvania model and adds layers of ingenuity that are in a league all of their own, the most notable being the Address Disruptor. Yes it's occasionally drab looking, and some enemies may not fit in with the rest of the world, but when a game is this good, these blemishes quickly fade into the back of your mind. The chilling sci-fi setting, mysterious plot, and a seemingly endless number of abilities keep your mind busy, and your curiosity at fever pitch. It's not a stretch to say that Axiom Verge is better than the games that inspired it, because it's so inventive and thoughtfully crafted. There's no excuse to hold onto the past when the present is this amazing.
By Anonymous on Mar 30, 2015 05:30 pm
 Check out the early stages of Axiom Verge including the first boss fight in the game.
By Anonymous on Mar 30, 2015 05:30 pm
 Gameplay showing the second boss fight in Axiom Verge featuring a large cannon boss.
By Anonymous on Mar 30, 2015 10:44 am
 There are 2 sides to every story. Check out this trailer to see things from Master Chief's side.
By Anonymous on Mar 30, 2015 10:40 am
 There are 2 sides to every story. Check out this trailer to see things from Spartan Locke's side.
By Anonymous on Mar 30, 2015 05:00 am
 Three "Swatting" incidents attributed to teenage Minecraft player, 13-year-old boy scheduled to appear in juvenile court next month.
By Anonymous on Mar 30, 2015 04:00 am
 PC Graphics Benchmarking for Battlefield Hardline has revealed DRM limitations of EA's Origin store platform
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