Magic: the Gathering Duels of the Plainswalkers receives two new decks today for 240 MSP. The first deck is a white and red deck called “Act of War.” The second is a blue and green deck called “Sky and Scale.”
Source: Joystiq
Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and Monolith Productions have released the second installment of their video series designed to get you into fighting shape for Guardians of Middle-earth. Dubbed “MOBA Mastery,” the series takes a look at the multiplayer online battle arena genre, from a basic overview on match structure and map layout, to the progressively more complex elements of play.
Continue reading ““MOBA Mastery” aims to get you ready for Guardians of Middle-earth” »
These days, zombies are ubiquitous in video games. They’re the all-purpose enemy (and genre) that just won’t die – you’ll find them all over the place in shooters, adventure games, strategy titles, the works. Only a handful, however, have tackled the zombie apocalypse in open-world format. Undead Labs‘ upcoming State of Decay aims to diversify the portfolio of flesh-craving corpses by doing just that.
The open-world adventure offers all kinds of ways to defend yourself and your group of survivors from the walking dead – and plenty of ways to avoid confrontation altogether. Take this footage posted over at PlayXBLA, which comes from an alpha build of the game, for example. In the video, the player must make their way into a gun shop for supplies, only to find it surrounded with zombies – so they use some homemade firecrackers to lure them away and sneak in and out unnoticed. (Zombies love firecrackers, you guys. It shows off their festive side).
State of Decay is currently under development for XBLA and PC. A release window or pricing details are currently unknown.
Two more heroes were recently revealed for the upcoming Guardians of Middle-earth.
This time around, the new hero fighting on the side of good is Ori, dwarven scholar and brother to Nori and Dori, giving him a tie to the upcoming Hobbit film. As an Enchanter, Ori functions in the role of a mage, and looks designed to deal out lots of damage utilizing combinations of magical spells. One of his abilities, “As it is Written,” marks enemies, making followup spells deal even more damage. He looks to be a fun combo-based mage.
Agandaûr, Sauron’s lieutenant, fights on the side of Mordor in a similar role, despite his knight-like appearance. Agandaûr’s Overcharge ability powers up the remaining skills at his disposal, making his Shockwave a formidable strike. It is worth noting is that Agandaûr possesses a teleport — usually extremely powerful in MOBA games, since the teleport can be used for both offense and defense. He will be a hero to watch once the game releases in December. Check out the video below for the full rundown on each champion:
Continue reading “Guardians of Middle-earth character reveal: Ori and Agandaûr” »
Once upon a time, Neocore Games‘ upcoming XBLA hack-and-slash title The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing was set to star Van Helsing Jr., son of the legendary vampire hunter. Now, however, Junior’s out, and who takes his place is up to you. According to a blog post at Neocore’s website, the developer is asking for fans to vote on one of three heroes – the Mysterious Stranger, the Chevalier or the Veteran – to replace the ousted protagonist.
The change comes in response both to fan reaction to Junior as well as a sense among the dev team that the young hero was a “bit too young and inexperienced for the grand adventure we had in mind.” The team wanted to take fan feedback into account, the blog states, which not only contributed to the decision to change protagonists but will also factor into the decision on who will take up the role. Accompanying the post is an audition video – viewable at the top of this post – created by the team in which the three candidates make their case before the voting public.
The post doesn’t indicate when voting ends, but polls are open now at the dev blog, if you feel so inclined to throw in your two cents. The game also still has a ways to go – we were able to play a pre-alpha build at E3 – so no word on a launch window or any kind of pricing.
In case you haven’t yet played the popular indie masterpiece, Cave Story received an ESRB rating for the Xbox 360, hinting that some announcement of a release for the platform might be forthcoming.
Unfortunately, there are no concrete details on what will be included in the port just yet. The most likely candidate for a console port is the Steam version, which features a number of bonuses — the above title screen (taken from the Steam edition) is part of the holiday artwork for Halloween today. The Steam port also includes two alternate soundtracks for the game: a “New” option originally releasing for the WiiWare port of Cave Story, and a “Remastered” soundtrack arranged by Danny B, the composer on Canabalt and Super Meat Boy that originally premiered with the 3DS edition. Getting all of these bonuses in addition to the already brilliant base game would be a great way to bring the game to XBLA.
Again, there are no details just yet, but readers will find them here as they become available — this is a game to be excited about!
Update: Jonathan Holmes over at Destructoid has posted a whole bunch of Cave Story related information about the brand new Halloween sprites and artwork — readers interested should check out the Destructoid article in question, which includes a sweet Halloween illustration of Cave Story’s cast. Nicalis points out that they currently have no plans to port the game to either Xbox 360 or PS3. Tyrone Rodriguez, president of Nicalis, stated that they “…submitted all the consoles so that we wouldn’t have to resubmit in the future, IF we ever decided to bring to those consoles.”
Sources: ESRB and Jonathan Holmes via Destructoid
The curtain on Mediatonic Games’ Vaudevillian brawler Foul Play will raise sometime in the first quarter of 2013, Joystiq reported this week. No price point has been announced, though Joystiq’s report suggests it may be in the realm of 1200 MSP.
Mediatonic’s first XBLA title, originally announced in August, focuses on Victorian demon-hunter Baron Dashforth, who decides to share the story of his monster-killing career with the world by way of producing a high-budget play. In Foul Play, simply murdering your foes won’t cut it – in order to succeed, you’ll need to take them out with style in order to keep your audience glued to their seats. Performances will literally chew up scenery as you progress – areas will crumble and burn; new sets will be built, etc. Players can take to the stage alone or with a partner (who takes control of Dashforth’s trusty sidekick Scampwick). In two-player co-op, players can link attacks and perform special takedowns.
Source: Joystiq
The fourth and final game add-on for Dungeon Defenders released a few days ago at a price of 320 MSP. The last installment will take you on a journey to Sky City where you’ll fight tons of enemies above the clouds in quite possibly the most aesthetically pleasing environment to date in the game. This add-on contains two new campaign levels, a new challenge level and a few more enemies including two new bosses. To add The Quest for the Lost Eternia Shards Part 4 to your download queue, just click here.
For many moons, the two most recent Call of Duty titles – Modern Warfare 3 and the original Black Ops – have dominated Xbox LIVE Activity charts, never straying far (if at all) from the top two spots. The games’ psuedo-realistic and ever-popular multiplayer combat consistently draws in millions of players, even months after their release. The series’ chart dominance has been more or less unmatched – until now.
According to Major Nelson’s LIVE Activity lists from the week of Oct. 15, world-building adventure sim Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition wrested the top spot for overall Xbox LIVE user activity from Modern Warfare 3 – just one week after knocking Black Ops out of the runner-up position (it was also, unsurprisingly, number one among Arcade titles). Minecraft’s chart dominance is also notable because this is the first time in Xbox LIVE history that an Arcade title has topped the charts.
The news isn’t terribly surprising considering Minecraft has taken XBLA by storm since it released in early May, with 4 million copies sold as of the beginning of October (and, at one point, was selling at a rate of almost 20,000 copies a day). The game has become a global phenomenon due to the fact that players can create, traverse and maintain a unique, persistent world.
For the late adopters out there, the game is available now for 1600 MSP – and if you’re still on the fence, check out two differing opinions: our original, positive review and a recent editorial on why one of our editors doesn’t “get” the phenomenon.
