EA Games have revealed their plans for Battlefield Heroes, a cartoon shooter with Battlefield style gameplay, which will be completely free to download and play later this year. >
The Team Fortress-esque cartoon style of the game will lend itself toward quick and easy access for a mass audience. A built in matchmaking system will ensure the fairest experience possible when dealing with such large numbers.
It’s one of those rarer occassions where we can congratulate EA Games on giving gamers what they want, at a reasonable price. We’ll pay good money for a game with a bit of depth, but if we’re after some quick fun, its still pretty unreasonable to fork over a few bucks. By revenue earned through advertising and microtransactions, EA are able to distribute this game to everyone, which is a win-win situation for all.
Battlefield Heroes will be hitting the web for PC downloads in summer 2008.
Quarterly financial statements are not exactly the kind of place where you would drop big news like this, but that’s how Ubisoft chooses to roll. According to said statement, fiscal year 2008 - 2009 will see the arrival of a new Prince of Persia title.
But that’s pretty much the extent of the details. Ubisoft are unwilling to divulge any information as to which platforms will be getting it, or who they’ve got working on the project
The Brazilian government has banned the sale of Counter-Strike and EverQuest. Though originally banned in October as ordered by the Brazilian federal court, only now are the bans being enforced. Judge Carlos Alberto Simoes found the games to be “the subversion of public order” and “an attack against the democratic state and the law and against public security.” … Yeah, not really sure how he came to that conclusion either.
Currently we aren’t sure if the bans pertain to only the original titles or if CS: Source and EverQuest 2 are also affected. Being that the ban is only on the sale and not on possession of the games, there is still plenty of opportunity for sweaty nerds to pwn n00bs and create female elf characters.
We all know that guy who gets into MMOs a little too hard, but you would never think of him taking his online brunts into the real world. However this is exactly what has happened in Russia, when a Lineage II player from a rival clan beat another to death.
The altercation started on December 31st when an online battle between the victim and the killer’s clan resulted in the killer’s clan being wiped out. The situation escalated from there, with a real life confrontation forming and the 33 year old man being beaten to death. The killer has been identified as a 22 year old student who reportedly shows no remorse for the victim and lives by his clan rule:
“Beat everything that moves, and everything that doesn’t move - move and beat!”
Unfortunately the rival gang don’t not seem to be able to differentiate real life from online as pointed out when the victim’s sister talked to Russia Today:
“I think [the rival clan] have confused the game and reality. And after we buried him on December 31, they continued to threaten us.”
While this may seem a one-off freak incident, it is tragically Russia’s second Lineage II related murder in a year.
You may love or hate them, but news of a Penny Arcade game sure did stir up some hope – could gamers themselves help create a truly great game? Thankfully the quiet spell has been broken, and we have a couple of new in-game videos to show you. I have to say, the game is looking quite pretty with the straight-out-of-the-comic style. Check after the jump for a few more videos of the game in action.
News is in the NASA are considering making their own MMO. Unfortunately the title will allow players to “simulate real NASA engineering and science missions” and not fake lunar landings or keep the world safe from alien warlords.
Maybe I’m wrong on this one but does this seem like it could be the most boring game ever conceived. I’ve got visions of endless “you forgot to uncouple the fuel line, respawn in 30 seconds” screens. Okay, in reality the game will be used as an educational resource, but I still think NASA needs to learn that launching a rocket virtually is inversely boring as it is fun in real life. Your tax dollars at work people.
If you can’t get enough of teaser trailers that show nothing but CG animation, then the first video from Command and Conquer’s first foray into the FPS world will be right up your ally. With today’s graphical horsepower, let’s hope what we see here isn’t too far from what the game will really look like.
Got a dark sense of humor and a hate for the mockery that is made of “scientific research” by the Japanese whaling body – maybe it’s time you were introduced to Harpooned. Harpooned is a game where you take on the roll of a Japanese Whaling boat hell bent on researching the lovable creatures.
The games creator Conor O’Kane developed the game to make people more aware of the current situation. When questioned about the controversy the game is stirring up Conor says:
“If people [are] offended by the game they should be even more offended by real whaling. I hope people make the next logical step and realise that reality is much worse than a video game. The more people tell their friends about how disgusting it is, the better … it puts more pressures on the whalers.”
If you are keen to see how many cans of pet food and whale burgers you can rack up in the name of science you can download Harpooned here.
The arcade smash Street Fighter II: Champion Edition and the neglected Xbox game Psychonauts are currently free to play at Gametap - although unfortunately for Mac heads, the latter won’t work in the OS X client.
It’s that time of the week again where our favorite reviewer rips into some poor developer’s sleepless nights with laced compliments and downright vitriol. However in this week’s review of Crysis, our beloved Yahtzee seems to bestow some degree of praise upon the game. Come again?
