Celebrate 20 years of ‘Quake’ with a brand new game episode
Quake fans have plenty of reasons to celebrate these days. Wolfenstein: The New Order developer MachineGames is championing id Software’s classic first-person shooter’s 20th anniversary and offering fans a little something special in return: A brand new episode of the game, downloadable for free.
MachineGames is serving up the special episode for free via zipped RAR file that you’ll need to extract into a new folder named “dopa” into Quake’s main directory. To run the episode, you’ll need to start up a new single-player game and launch the executable “dopa” file in the same folder and tear it up from there!
Happy 20th to Quake @idsoftware! As a gift to the fans, we created a new episode of the game https://t.co/BTgju8tLuI pic.twitter.com/gHlxBgjcBU
— machinegames (@machinegames) June 24, 2016
If you’ve never played Quake before, now’s a great time to get into it, especially as it’s part of the Steam Summer Sale and can be nabbed for as little as $2.50. You’ll have the benefit of a whole other episode to play.
Via: IGN
Oculus stops preventing VR games from working with HTC’s Vive
In a big more for openness in the VR landscape, Oculus has stepped back from its position of blocking its games from working on the HTC Vive. The company quietly issued an update for its desktop software today which strips away the headset exclusivity check that has caused VR fans so much consternation, Ars Technica reports. That limitation pushed the developers of the Revive tool, which lets Vive owners play Oculus games, to completely crack Oculus’s DRM last month. But in response to today’s news, the Revive devs have dumped their DRM cracking technology.
“I’ve only just tested this and I’m still in disbelief, but it looks like Oculus removed the headset check from the DRM in Oculus Runtime 1.5,” a Revive developer wrote on GitHub. “As such I’ve reverted the DRM patch and removed all binaries from previous releases that contained the patch.”
While console gamers are used to games being exclusive to certain hardware, that’s new territory for PC gamers. It’s hard to blame PC fans for getting annoyed, though — even Oculus founder Palmer Luckey has said he doesn’t want to lock games to the Rift. Given that the VR landscape is so young, it makes more sense to encourage cross-compatibility. Oculus came under fire at E3 for striking deals to land exclusive games, but today’s update shows it’s actually listening to its critics.
Oculus confirmed to Ars that it removed the headset in today’s update, and it also added “we won’t use hardware checks as part of DRM on PC in the future.” Still, the company doesn’t plan to give up entirely on copy protection. “We believe protecting developer content is critical to the long-term success of the VR industry, and we’ll continue taking steps in the future to ensure that VR developers can keep investing in ground-breaking new VR content,”
Via: Ars Technica
‘Halo 5: Guardians’ is getting Warzone Firefight this July
With the Halo Wars 2 beta freshly ended, Halo fans are likely looking for something solid to sink their teeth into. Halo 5: Guardians developer 343 Industries has come forward with exactly that: The big Warzone Firefight update, which launches on July 29th. Get ready to dust off those Needlers.
Warzone Firefight is a cooperative game mode that hearkens back to the Firefight mode originally seen in Halo 3: ODST and Halo: Reach, where each round the opponents get a little tougher as you stave them off. Alongside a few new bosses and vehicles like the UNSC VTOL and AV-49 Wasp, there are new maps, REQs items, and a new Forge level to build levels upon.
In a bid to keep as many players interested as possible, 343 Industries is also making Halo 5: Guardians entirely free as well from June 29th through July 5th for all Xbox Live Gold members. If you want to purchase it and make it your own, it’s also going to be 50% off during that time too. You might want to pick it up and keep it as the original Halo 5: Guardians campaign is also getting a new Score Attack campaign where you can play with others via online co-op or go solo.
Take a look at the Warzone Firefight beta in action below.
Source: Xbox Wire
RZA teams up with Atari on a new video game-inspired album
RZA already made one big announcement this summer, and the member of the Wu-Tang Clan doesn’t appear to be done yet. The rapper/producer announced this week that he’s teaming up with Atari on a new album that takes inspiration from the audio in the company’s video games. “I’m so excited to work on these iconic games to deliver what I believe will be one of my best albums,” RZA told Billboard.
The album will feature original music “based on Atari’s iconic video game sounds and music,” according to company’s CEO Fred Chesnais. This isn’t the first time the two have collaborated either, as RZA supplied a voice over for Atari’s Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure: a game about a graffiti artist. For the new project, RZA will lead production while Chesnais and Stephen Belafonte will be in the mix as executive producers. Details are scarce for now, but at least you have another album from the artist to ease the wait. RZA is set to release his album with Interpol’s Paul Banks in August under the moniker Banks & Steelz.
Via: Pitchfork
Source: Billboard
New Gordon Ramsay mobile game brings the heat and profanity
Ever dream of working in a kitchen with Gordon Ramsay breathing down your neck? With the new Gordon Ramsay Dash game, which lands on iOS and Android next week, you can get a taste of cooking in a stressful environment under the chef’s watchful eye. I had a chance to speak about the game with Ramsay himself — who, by the way, is unnervingly calm in person.
“The game is about how I started,” he said. You begin with a small neighborhood restaurant, simple ingredients and basic decor. Under game-Ramsay’s tutelage, you’ll grow your business into a global empire by serving dishes to customers in a limited time.
Gordon Ramsay Dash was made in partnership with Glu Mobile, the same company behind Kim Kardashian: Hollywood. Indeed, based on screenshots, Dash’s main gameplay looks remarkably similar to Glu’s other restaurant game, Cooking Dash 2016, which I’ve been addicted to for a year. Even Ramsay’s description of his app sounds familiar. “This is a very competitive, highly energized scenario and it will give you an essence of what it’s really like in the restaurant world,” he said. You’ll likely have to prepare and serve food to a number of guests in timed rounds, and it can get stressful.
But there are unique aspects to Gordon Ramsay Dash chef duels: You challenge friends and other players to a cook-off; there’s a “Farm Market” feature for bartering ingredients with other chefs; and a “Wichelin” star system that Ramsay came up with mirrors his experience with earning Michelin stars.
Those stars are important, too. “Whilst you sleep, I’ll be monitoring your progress and the standard of the restaurant,” Ramsay said. And if your restaurant loses stars or falls in quality, you can expect an earful.
Indeed, that may be the game’s biggest draw. Ramsay spent weeks in a voiceover booth recording hundreds of pages of scripts to make the app feel more personal. You’ll hear him say (or shout), “Overcooked!” or “Overseasoned!” And if you’ve (gasp!) done well, you’ll also be praised in true Ramsay fashion: A game trailer shows him saying “Fucking brilliant” and “That’s how it’s done.”
Ramsay fans will probably enjoy Dash — but it’s a different story for his 16-year-old daughter, Holly. Ramsay said she told him, ” ‘Dad, love the game, just not too sure if I want you shouting at me in the morning when I turn my phone on saying that your restaurant’s gone under.’ “
As for those who have lofty dreams of starting their own restaurants, try the app first. “I’m going to send them an app with a phone free of charge, because that would be a lot cheaper than it would be to put hundreds of thousands of pounds into a restaurant that would last for six months,” said Ramsay.
It might not be all that cheap to play, though. While the app is free, its in-app purchases (at least in this beta) range from $1.49 for a handful of gold or coins to $14.99 for a bucket of currency. “I didn’t realize how much [Holly’s] spent on it already,” Ramsay said. “Thankfully, she’s using her mother’s credit card.”
That said, the cash-strapped could still enjoy the experience without any investment. In all my time playing Cooking Dash, I’ve not spent a single cent on in-app purchases, so it should be relatively easy to avoid spending money to enjoy Ramsay’s game.
The game will be available next week, on June 30th. You can pre-register on the Google Play Store, and those who do so by June 27th will receive an exclusive in-game chef’s coat to dress up their avatar.
Oculus claims exclusive games are good for the VR industry
Many have argued — including our own Sean Buckley — that the steady stream of platform-exclusive virtual reality games is a bad thing. Oculus has been by the far the most aggressive in pursuing such deals, but its head of content Jason Rubin claims that this is a good thing for the industry.
In an interview with gamesindustry.biz, Rubin made an argument focused on the growth of the industry. He compared the VR industry to PC gaming in the ’80s, noting that the market is similar in size. The problem, he asserted, is one of expectation. “The average gamer is now aware of $100 million games. And while we certainly cannot build a $100 million game that takes four years, in the year we’ve had dev kits, we can try to get closer to that by funding significant leaps beyond the financial certainty that a developer would need to have to do it on their own.”
VR needs these big-budget games now, not in two years when there’s the market to sustain them. By investing heavily in big games with larger budgets, Oculus is likely to make a loss on its gamble in the immediate future, but that investment will attract more people to virtual reality. Luckily, Oculus is owned by Facebook, which can definitely afford to pump money in on a gamble. With the industry growing, when it comes to the second or third game they create for VR, developers will be able to put in the money required without worrying about whether they’ll see a return, Rubin said.
This is apparently a short-term policy for the long-term health of the industry. “In no case are we asking to have control of the intellectual property in the long-term,” Rubin added. Exclusive games like Crytek’s The Climb, might only come to Oculus, but Crytek still owns that title, and its sequel, and any other games it makes, can “come out on any console, any PC, any anything, anywhere. We don’t own that.”
For smaller titles, such as Superhot, Oculus has helped fund porting to VR, and has often managed to secure a timed exclusive in return. Rubin said there are also indie games the company has put money into that are sold through Steam and not the Oculus store, “so the idea that we’re not doing good for the industry I find completely failing.”
Rubin’s arguments, whether you agree with them or not, are nuanced, and difficult to disregard offhand. There will still be, of course, those that feel that exclusives are never good for gamers, especially in a nascent industry.
The full interview with Rubin — which covers a lot more than exclusive games — is available at gamesindustry.biz.
Source: GamesIndustry.biz
‘CivilizationEDU’ takes the strategy franchise to school
Minecraft isn’t the only game headed to the classroom these days. Next fall, CivilizationEDU takes the storied strategy franchise to schools, too. The game “will provide students with the opportunity to think critically and create historical events, consider and evaluate the geographical ramifications of their economic and technological decisions, and to engage in systems thinking and experiment with the causal/correlative relationships between military, technology, political and socioeconomic development,” according to a press release.
More than just defeating the Huns instead of reading about them, the game will offer stat tracking and measure students’ proficiency at problem solving. Teachers will have access to an online portal replete with ways of tracking student progress that equate their play with their mastery of the concepts presented. That’s in addition to lesson plans “aligned to academic and 21st century standards.” So no, this won’t just be pillaging the fields of your enemies while you’re supposed to be learning about the Ming Dynasty. That’s for after the final bell rings.
We’re partnering with @GlassLabGames to bring #CivilizationEDU to high schools in North America next year! pic.twitter.com/MPzpYQ56Pg
— Civilization VI (@CivGame) June 23, 2016
Source: Business Wire
‘Banner Saga 2’ gets bigger and badder with Survival Mode
The Banner Saga 2 builds upon Stoic’s brilliant Viking-fantasy universe, and it’s about to get a little bit bigger. Survival Mode is available today as a free update to Banner Saga 2, allowing players to assemble teams from a large swath of existing heroes and then pit them against enemies in 40 back-to-back, turn-based strategy matches. Once a hero dies, he or she is gone for good, but each victory grants players a form of in-game currency called Renown, allowing them to add fresh fighters to their teams. Items drop during combat and there’s a 30-second timer keeping the matches moving quickly.
Banner Saga 2’s Survival Mode features the game’s three difficulty levels and it supports leaderboards.
“Survival Mode is something we’ve been working on behind the scenes for a while now,” Stoic technical director John Watson said in a press release. “This is an entirely new experience within Banner Saga 2. Our goal was to create a fun, tactical game mode where fans can play from a different perspective which focuses on strategy and the hard cost of death in combat. We modified how the combat worked from the core game based on feedback from our community and put it through a closed beta to make sure that it was fun.”
Banner Saga 2 hit PC and Mac on April 19th, and it’s scheduled to land on Xbox One and PlayStation 4 on July 26th. It’s due to hit mobile this summer, as well. The original Banner Saga landed in 2014 and it was a breath of fresh Nordic air.
Steam summer sale is poised to make a dent in your wallet
Are you ready to snap up a ton of PC games to add to your ever-growing backlog? Steam’s summer sale has begun, and as always, it offers big discounts — some bigger than others — on over 12,000 titles. They include everything from popular franchises, such as Assassin’s Creed and GTA, to new virtual reality experiences. And in case you want everyone to know you’re a sucker for Steam sales, you’ll get a “Summer Picnic Sale” trading card for every $10 you spend that you can display on your profile. The event will go on for 11 days until 1PM Eastern on July 4th. Since Steam won’t be holding flash sales or adding any more titles to the list, you can start scouring all the available deals right now.
Source: Steam
Does the world need another first-person, team-based shooter?
“I’m not the only asshole who had this idea a few years ago,” Cliff Bleszinski says in between sips of a sugar-free Red Bull. He’s perched in the lounge area of his studio’s E3 meeting space, on the other side of a thin wall where a dozen journalists and internet influencers are playing his latest game, a team-based shooter called LawBreakers. Every now and then, the players beyond the wall suddenly wail and clap as a game comes to a dramatic close.
Bleszinski is talking about the market for online, first-person, team-based shooters — a niche genre that, in mid 2016, is on the verge of oversaturation. Overwatch just came out, and it’s been a monstrous hit for Activision Blizzard. It dominates the front page of Twitch, and there are already plans to transform it into a truly competitive, esports-focused title. Other similar games, such as Gearbox’s Battleborn or Epic Games’ Paragon, are also on the market, but they can’t compare in terms of player numbers or hype.
Bleszinski thinks there’s still an audience for multiple character-based shooters; he’s confident there’s room for LawBreakers. His studio, Boss Key, revealed LawBreakers in Aug. 2015, and it just closed the alpha on June 18th. When we spoke, a handful of streamers already had their hands on it and the first round of feedback was rolling in. Bleszinski reads the game’s forums religiously, but after decades as a high-profile figure in the industry (he was the lead designer on Gears of War), he’s learned that not every comment is created equal.
“The internet is an echo chamber that always leads to stupidity,” he says.
LawBreakers, Battleborn and Overwatch may run in the same circles, but they aren’t the same game. Both Overwatch and Battleborn use cartoony art styles and character designs while LawBreakers is slightly more gritty. The characters curse every now and then — not too often, Bleszinski notes — and they’re designed to be slightly more realistic, seemingly inspired more by anime than Looney Tunes.
LawBreakers is violent but not grotesque. When characters are shot with rockets, they explode into tiny bits, blood splattering around the map’s zero-gravity areas in (kind of adorable) floating globules. It’s a delicate balance of realism and fantasy.
Bleszinski doesn’t want LawBreakers to go full Mortal Kombat, for example.
“It’s too much for me, to be frank,” he says. “When I was in my 20s and 30s I could see all that stuff, but now it’s like, I don’t need to see somebody’s spleen explode in 4K. I’m OK without seeing that. No offense to Ed Boon.”
LawBreakers is firmly a sci-fi shooter, which is how Bleszinski envisioned it. He’d rather leave the realistic weapons and violence to Call of Duty.
“I will never make a game with AR-15s and glocks and all that,” he says. “I respect guns; I’ve fired more than my share of them, but my games stay in the sci-fi realm. And it’s not a political statement in regards to being sci-fi, it’s just that I have so many freakin’ wacky ideas that if I was stuck making something in 2016 I wouldn’t be able to do the full thing I wanted to do. I couldn’t have a character use futuristic drugs to double in size and shoot lightning out of their hands.”
A patch released on June 17th completely removed aim-down sights from LawBreakers. This is a further attempt to separate the game from existing first-person-shooter franchises.
“When you give them the ability to play a game like Call of Duty, they’re going to play it like Call of Duty,” Bleszinski says.
Instead, he gets excited about fresh features like blind fire, a one-button ability that allows players to quickly shoot behind them, even when they’re flying through the air in a low-gravity zone. I had the chance to play LawBreakers on the other side of that thin wall, and I can confirm that blind fire is insanely cool, when you remember it exists. Thirteen years of habits from Call of Duty are hard to break.
As new players try out LawBreakers for the first time, Bleszinski is glad to have years of experience under his belt. He started Boss Key alongside Arjan Brussee, a co-founder of Guerilla Games and a creator of Killzone. Brussee has the skills to balance out Bleszinski’s creative background; he’s seen the full cycle of a studio starting up and selling off. Plus, Brussee comes from a coding background, which Bleszinski says is a wonderful asset.
“A programmer can bullshit me,” he says. “They can’t bullshit him. A programmer tells him, ‘This is impossible,’ and he’s like, ‘Screw you, I’ll code it myself.’”
With a solid foundation on the creative and operational fronts, a large part of Bleszinski’s job is cultivating a passionate, friendly culture at Boss Key. He tries to learn every employee’s name and even the names of their significant others or family members. He keeps a cheat sheet on his desk complete with photos of new employees, so he doesn’t accidentally call someone by the wrong name.
“I want to be at a company that’s 65 or so people, where I know everybody, I know their significant others, they bring their dogs in and even sometimes their kids,” Bleszinski says. “It sounds cheesy, but really the vibe that I want to go for is it feels like you’re a big family. Yes, we’re a business of course, and we’re in this to try and make money and keep the damn lights on, but I genuinely like everybody we have at the studio and I know most of them fairly well.”
This means he wants employees to lean on his experience when necessary. If someone at Boss Key reads a negative comment online and then comes running into Bleszinski’s office “like their pants are on fire,” for example, he offers simple, calming advice:
“First off, breathe. Second off, this is the start of a very long cycle of feedback, so you guys need to figure out how to sort through it and get used to it. Look at the data, read the forums, hear the feedback and then trust your gut. Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.”
Part of the reason Boss Key exists is because the bubble around AAA studios — big-name companies like Call of Duty publisher Activision — is popping, Bleszinski says.
“You look at AAA and the $60 price point, it’s bursting at the seams,” he adds.
That’s why Bleszinski believes Boss Key has a chance to thrive alongside other teams crafting online multiplayer experiences like Battleborn, Vainglory, Duelyst, Overwatch and Paragon. And, of course, LawBreakers.
AIVAnet 