Articles by mixvio
I wrote a review of this FPS/RTS hybrid MMOG back in September; a short month later Battleswarm has gone from open beta to full release yesterday as the free-to-play title opens its doors to any and all interested players.
Battleswarm is an innovative title that pits a team of human players fighting an alien horde controlled by another player on competitive maps. The humans play from typical first person perspective while the aliens march towards their opponents' base via an overhead, tactical perspective. Players can earn points in game that can be used to purchase upgrades, or fork over actual cash for credits to accomplish the same thing. Microtransactions are the business model for the title and in my time playing they're accomplished to a respectable degree.
People who play during its opening weekend will have the chance to win an Alienware m15x laptop as well as two thousand in-game prizes. If you're a fan of quick competitive games and interested in an MMOG outside the normal WoW mold then this is definitely worth checking out. At the very least its price of free, free, free means there's nothing to lose if it's not your tastes.
While this isn't related to gaming, I wanted to take a second to post something about an issue that might have missed the radar for some of the readers here. This story has only recently begun to receive mainstream attention.
So if you're interested in reading a bit of topical news that has absolutely nothing to do with gaming but everything to do with young gay men, read on.
There have been a lot of recent releases in the FPS and RPG genres, but one category of games that's been sadly underrepresented in recent memory would be that strategy staple known as RTSes. However, aside from Starcraft 2, strategy aficionados now have something else to look forward to as the sequel to Gas Powered Games' Supreme Commander gets an official release date of spring 2010 from its publisher, Square Enix.
Supreme Commander 2 takes place twenty five years after the original game and will continue the story through an extensive single-player campaign as well as its compelling multiplayer modes. This is also the first time Square Enix is publishing a Western title within the Western market, as a result of its partnership with Gas Powered Games.
Personally I'm quite excited: both Supreme Commander and its expansion, Forged Alliance, have places of joy inside my heart, and I've played the game's multiplayer maps to death on top of that. The game will be released on both PC and the Xbox 360 at the same time. This should be considered an improvement towards console fans as the first title's port lagged behind the PC release by several months.
Update: After saying this, Square Enix went ahead and issued a press release dating the PC version as March 2, with the Xbox 360 version coming out on March 16.
Ars Technica has an amazing interview up right now with the CEO of Square Enix, Yoichi Wada. This prolific studio is responsible for such incredible franchises like Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, or their JRPG opus Chrono Trigger which is the recipient of more accolades and love than I can possibly get into here.
In the interview, Wada discusses his views on various issues affecting Japanese developers in the gaming industry right now; specifically speaking towards his company's move to diversify and appeal more towards a Western audience, for example, he made this comment that's likely to appeal to many of the company's Western fans who don't speak Japanese and hate waiting for English ports of their titles-- discussing their release dates on titles like FFXIII, he said the company was committed towards achieving parity between the Western and Japanese dates with future titles:
"For the last three years, we have worked very hard to close the gap between Japanese release timing and North American and European release timing," Wada said. "We tried to go for the global, simultaneous release [of FFXII] but that was something that was inconceivable, in a sense. But we have been able to close that release window gap to three months. For us, it was a very big step forward."
In the future, Wada says that these kinds of games, which are released so close to one another, will actually be held back in Japan to make way for a simultaneous worldwide release.
Wada also commented on the difficulties in bringing traditional Western titles to a Japanese audience that has generally been averse to them.
"The Japanese community tends to be closed," he told Ars. "In the past, Japanese retailers have said that Japanese gamers have their own idiosyncrasies and tastes, and that that is the reason why the audience is not accepting of overseas titles. But I believe that is not the case, it was just a matter of poorly executed marketing."
All in all it was a fascinating read from a developer that is arguably a powerhouse in the gaming industry.
Dig in survivors of the zombie apocalypse, the sequel to Valve's highly regarded 2008 undead co-op shooter went live a couple hours ago. Both preorders and people buying it fresh off the website have their copies unlocked, giving those with a thirst for zombie carnage free reign over the game's five campaigns.
This time the setting is the deep South of the United States, letting up to four players fight from Savannah, Georgia to New Orleans, Louisiana. The sequel includes an updated "AI Director 2.0," an improved version of the system they introduced in the first game which procedurally generates the difficulty of monsters you fight depending on your progression through the campaign and what you're all doing:
Advanced technology dubbed "The AI Director" drove L4D's unique gameplay - customizing enemy population, effects, and music, based upon the players' performance. L4D 2 features "The AI Director 2.0" which expands the Director's ability to customize level layout, world objects, weather, and lighting to reflect different times of day.
It also features four new survivor characters, three new types of "Special Infected" and five new "uncommon" variants.
Those of us in Australia and Germany are unfortunately saddled with the "low violence" versions of the game, but look on the bright side-- apparently we'll get better FPS because of it!
It's Weekend Recovery, your Monday morning, 9 AM intellectual gaming discussion fix. Have a suggestion for a Weekend Recovery topic? Send your ideas to mixvio@gaygamer.net and you might see your name on the grand marquee!
----
Hot in the news this weekend is a comment out of Activision headquarters that gamers should "expect" more premium (as in, you pay extra for it) offerings in titles like their Call of Duty franchise in order to monetize the online multiplayer component of the game. Whether this takes the form of improvements to player profiles with features that are only available to players who fork out extra cash, or downloadable content that you pay real money to access, it's not difficult to look down the road and see this is the future of gaming.
Titles that have multiplayer components require hefty fees to keep running; those servers you fight other players on don't pay for themselves, and as more and more titles log onto the internet companies will inevitably be looking for ways to cover these fees. Activision (by way of that Blizzard half of the company) has a lot of experience with ongoing subscriptions through World of Warcraft, and even non-MMOG developers are looking at ways to capitalize on these recurring income potentials. Back in August, Sony got a lot of flack for their introduction of video advertising in WipEout HD-- although they removed the offending ads after the outcry it's all but a guarantee that they will make their way back into the title at some point, in some modified form.
So, to the readers; how do you guys feel about this encroachment of ads on the turf of what used to be ad free? Do you feel like if you've paid for the game once already you should be entitled to an experience without advertising, or do you think it's fair for the companies involved to recoup their costs by monetizing the multiplayer components? How far is too far-- hundreds of GameStop ads spoiling the Manhattan skyline in Prototype seemed absurd to me, but I hardly heard much outcry over it personally. Does this sort of thing annoy you, or have you resigned yourself towards the inevitable?
In the wake of news out of Electronic Arts that the company would be laying off 1500 employees by April 2010, including rumors that Mythic in particular was hit hard by this, an executive with the studio has come forward to assure customers of their MMOGs that the company would continue to support their titles as before.
EA Mythic currently supports three titles: Ultima Online, Dark Age of Camelot and Warhammer Online. In the case of Warhammer particularly, layoff rumors have suggested that the game would essentially be relegated to "maintenance mode" with no further content being produced.
Nevertheless, Jeff Hickman has released a public response to the concern, promising that all three titles would continue as usual and both future content and patches would be developed as originally planned.
Warhammer has certainly had a rocky launch, failing to be the World of Warcraft killer it set out to be initially. While the development team has made attempts to fix up a lot of the issues that affected the game at its start, it remains to be seen if their latest attempts towards recapturing players with things like their new unlimited free trial will improve their subscriber numbers.
BioWare is a developer with an extensive history in roleplaying games. One of their earliest titles, Baldur's Gate, is often lauded as revitalizing the computer RPG genre entirely as well as introducing the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons ruleset to an audience that had never been exposed to it. When their 2007 sci-fi RPG Mass Effect was released on the Xbox 360, it had amassed a million in worldwide sales in its first three weeks. Their engines (Infinity, Aurora, Odyssey, Eclipse etc) have been the backbones of their own games as well as titles developed by other companies. From titles like these to Jade Empire, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and Neverwinter Nights, BioWare has consistently shown that they have a steady grasp on immersive storytelling and character development.
Dragon Age: Origins is BioWare's latest release, returning to their roots as fantasy aficionados after their forays into science fiction. In this expansive RPG you play as a Grey Warden, a guardian of Thedas who dedicates his or her life to protecting the populous from the return of the Darkspawn and their horrible Blights.
Sad news out of Electronic Arts, with Gamasutra reporting that from now until April 2010, EA will be laying off 1500 employees. Unconfirmed rumors say that this will hit Mythic the hardest with "80 people [at Mythic] today, which is about 40% of the company and responsible for 90% of the content". The same source has also indicated that Mythic's under-performing MMOG Warhammer Online will be going into "maintenance mode," so only time will tell if that's the case.
Other rumors about this are running rampant, including one that the majority of the staff on Command and Conquer 4 will be laid off after the title is released.
Electronic Arts hasn't said anything specific about what will be affected other than their press release confirming the 1500 number, but other rumors are suggesting that several in-development titles have been canceled as part of "a plan to narrow its product portfolio to provide greater focus on titles with higher margin opportunities." Sadly, this will affect consumer choice as well, as going forward EA only intends to publish games that they expect to push a lot of sales, and, further, 2010 will only have a total of 30 releases, which is a 50% reduction from the number of titles they were responsible for in 2008.
The announcement comes just as Electronic Arts announced that they spent $300 million to buy social gaming startup Playfish.
While big layoffs are always tragic at any company, 2009 has been particularly difficult due to the economic hardships affecting the rest of the world. We at GayGamer send best wishes to everyone hit by this latest restructuring.
As I've discussed in the past, Australia has the fine distinction of being a country without any classification for games above the 15+ age range; unlike the US's ESRB which allows for a mature rating for games that shouldn't be sold to minors, no such classification exists in Australia, meaning these titles are effectively forbidden from being sold in the country. Games are either forced to modify some elements, like with Fallout 3 and Left 4 Dead 2, or not allowed at all.
This is commonly (and incorrectly) attributed as being a moral judgment on the part of the Australian population; however, while most Australians are for such an 18+ classification for games, the sole opponent in government to this is South Australia's Attorney-General Michael Atkinson who remains the only hold-out over legislation that would allow such a rating. As this unfortunately requires unanimous approval, Atkinson has effectively not only vetoed a vote but consistently opposes the government even looking into whether or not Australians want the classification-- outside polls have consistently shown they do, but he stands in the way of it.
Now, a new party is on its way to being formed seeking to take on Atkinson's stance; as GamePolitics reports, David Doe has taken the first steps towards founding his Gamers4Croydon party, which hopes to get such an 18+ rating introduced for Australian gamers. In Atkinson's typical evangelizing and hyperbolic way, this is his quote about the matter:
The voters of Croydon will now be asked directly whether they want interactive games in which gamers score points by raping a mother and daughter, blowing themselves up, torturing human figures . . . killing people and taking drugs to improve their sporting prowess.
I certainly hope that Gamers4Croydon is successful in this endeavor, it's absolutely appalling that the governmental process can be hijacked by one unelected official with an agenda to push, irrespective of the wishes of the majority of the country.
It's Weekend Recovery, your Monday morning, 9 AM intellectual gaming discussion fix. Have a suggestion for a Weekend Recovery topic? Send your ideas to mixvio@gaygamer.net and you might see your name on the grand marquee!
----
In the past I've discussed the habit game developers seem to have when it comes to releasing new titles with lots of bonuses to entice people to pre-order the game. Today I have something similar in mind: the subject of new games and downloadable content after release.
Dragon Age: Origins was rather unique in the fact that at its launch not only one but two pieces of downloadable content were available; The Stone Prisoner and Warden's Keep were two addons that added extra quests and content to the base game. While The Stone Prisoner was available to everyone who bought the game, Warden's Keep was only included with the digital deluxe version of the title. Anyone else wanting to play it has to purchase it for an additional seven dollars.
While DLCs aren't new in the least (or even unique to Dragon Age), one of the criticisms here has been that Bioware has been making content originally intended for the full game and cut last minute into cash-grabs after the fact to bilk players from real money. While this isn't a viewpoint I really agree with, DLC addons are becoming more and more prevalent and it is starting to feel like unless you buy all the addons, you're not really getting the full game. The Stone Prisoner isn't just a quest, for example, but also gives you an additional party member that can be picked up rather early if you so choose, while Warden's Keep provides a very handy base of operations from which to launch your travels through the main game. In both cases these things are optional, but without them it feels like you're not getting the whole experience.
We all remember, I'm sure, Oblivion and the complaints with the horse armor; at least here it feels like Bioware has provided some extensive and fleshed-out content that, for me, seems worthy of the cost.
Long gone are the days where the launch of a game represents the end of a company's costs towards it; now games have to sustain everything from multiplayer servers for online play or even social networks devoted to the title, so ongoing DLC releases represent not just an enticement for players to buy your game but a method for developers to get some cash even after their game is on shelves.
The biggest complaint with Dragon Age seems to rest that the two DLCs were available on day one. I'm not sure what difference it would have mattered if they came out next month, but apparently there was one! All the same, it's all but likely that future games will continue this pattern of leaving some content to be downloadable addons after release, and it's also likely that some of these DLCs will be made available on the zero hour as well.
Personally, I bought the deluxe edition of Dragon Age and I've definitely thought it was worth the cost. But what about you guys? Do you think this stuff results in a segregation between game versions, leaving you feeling like you bought something half finished if you don't cough up the dough for the collectors' edition? Or do you think it's a lot of meaningless complaining over something optional in the first place?
In a surprising move, online game distributor Direct2Drive has come out saying they don't intend to carry the Activision and Infinity Ward title Modern Warfare 2 when it's released next week. Though the game has been the source of controversy from everything like stunted PC playability compared to the console version, unsettling sequences of the game requiring you to gun down civilian NPCs, and even the recent public service announcement, this new development appears to be because Modern Warfare 2 requires the use of Steam to be installed.
On the one hand I'm not surprised that Direct2Drive chooses not to stock a product which requires the software of a direct competitor to use. However, I think their rationality for this is more than a little disingenuous:
At Direct2Drive, we believe strongly that when you buy a game from us, you shouldn't be forced to install and run a 3rd party software client to be able to play the game you purchased. Because COD MW 2 requires you, the consumer, to do that, we aren't able to offer the game via Direct2Drive at this time.
I can point to any number of titles on Direct2Drive that require additional third party software to run (from Games for Windows Live to PhysX to even DirectX), to say nothing of the fact that the majority of titles on their store also include invasive and annoying DRM like SecuROM which persists on a customer's computer long after the product has been uninstalled. There's never been an issue with this before, so I personally have a hard time swallowing this "We're just thinking of you guys!" line. Customers looking to purchase the game are helpfully provided an Amazon link to a boxed copy-- though I suspect most people who are looking for it at a digital-only place like Direct2Drive would probably benefit more from being sent to that other place that's stocking it, hmm.
To make up for any inconvenience, they've provided a $5 coupon for any select Activision title from now through November.
Update: Since originally writing this entry, both Impulse and GamersGate have come out saying they will also not stock the title because of the same concerns as Direct2Drive.
And girls who like girls who like rumble packs!
Gay Gamer of the Week
Recent Comments
GGP Mailing List
Are you gay and working in the games industry? If you are interested in networking with other folks like you within the industry, try joining the Gay Game-Industry Professionals mailing list.
Links
The GayGamer Store
- Help support GayGamer by purchasing your items through our store!
All rights reserved © 2006-2008 FAD Media, Inc.
