Gaming - Page 2082

I thoroughly enjoyed the original Borderlands, but to tell you the truth, I wasn't too excited about Borderlands 2. Until now. 2K Games and Gearbox Software just have announced the official launch date of Borderlands 2: September 18th, 2012. The game will be released internationally three days later on September 21st.

On top of the announcement of the game's release, is a brand new, three-minute trailer which asks you a very important question: are you ready to joy puke your face off.

CCP Games, the boys and girls behind the MMORPG that is EVE Online, have stated that they cleared more than $66 in revenue last year. EVE Online launched in 2003, with its subscriber base increasing each year, to its current total of 400,000.

Revenue has grown just as much, at a compound annual growth rate of 53-percent, bringing in a total revenue of $300 million over the game's lifetime. Profit-wise, CCP would only say that it has "very healthy margins". CCP has been experimenting with something that gets close to a free-to-play model, where it allows EVE Online's rich subscribers to essentially pay for others to play, in exchange for virtual currency, something that is used by more than 40,000 people.

CCP Games' next game is 'DUST 512', and is set to hit this summer, and will push EVE Online further, and in a new direction. CCP Games will charge people for in-game credits rather than subscriptions or playing time. There is however, and initial "cover charge".

Oh noes, piracy on PC is so strong, oh noes! Until, you release a worthy game and realise, in 48 hours it's a financial success. 48 hours. Not days, weeks or months. Alan Wake debuted as an Xbox 360-exclusive, and made its way to the PC late last week.

Remedy have since come out and announced that Alan Wake on PC was profitable within just 48 hours of release. Remedy's Aki Järvilehto commented on their forums, saying:

The latest trailer to Max Payne 3 is here, where it unveils more of Max's story. It seems as though whilst under Max's protection, Rodrigo Branco's wife, Fabiana, is kidnapped. Max then goes on a journey of slow-mo, gun-slinging, bodycount-crazy fest, where he uncovers the truth and returns her to safety.

All while dodging bullets from lawless stress gangs, ruthless paramilitary units, and of course, his own personal demons. The latest trailer is made from all in-game graphics, and I think it's actually looking worse than previous teases of the game.

I really expect this to be, sadly, a console port, without much being put into the PC version. I could be wrong, but from what I've seen, it's very console-centric, where the first two Max Payne games were PC-exclusive. However, I'll still be grabbing this game, just because it's Max Payne. Bring it on! Max Payne 3 arrives for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on May 15, 2012 in North America, and on May 18, 2012 in Europe. The PC version doesn't arrive until May 29, 2012 in North America, and June 1, in Europe.

Alan Wake was first teased as a PC-exclusive, running on Intel's first quad-core processors, but eventually found its way onto Microsoft's Xbox 360 console as an Xbox 360-exclusive. Now the time has come for the critically acclaimed, BAFTA-nominated, TIME Magazine Game of the Year, Alan Wake, to find its way through the dark, dimly lit forest, and onto the PC.

The game ships with both DLC packs, The Signal, and The Writer. It's not the usual run of the mill third-person action adventure game, Remedy have crafted this game into a grand, Hollywood-style story, with tonnes of atmosphere, and have crafted a game where the world feels real, you are Alan Wake.

The PC version does ship with some exclusive features:

Mass Effect 3 is set to be one of this years biggest titles, and with EA's new Origin digital distribution service to kick-start it, it should be a big change for the game itself. Little did I know, that a PC demo had arrived for Mass Effect 3.

So now that the excitement is building for the demo you've just found out about, how about I throw you another surprise? On the 17th of this month, the multi-player gets unlocked and lets you try it out however you want. Wait, there's more! If you have a Battlefield 3 online pass activated you can play it, well, right now!

I'm not able to test it right now, but if you're keen to try it out, comment below and let us know your thoughts on the game! Graphics! Sound! Acting, gameplay, mechanics, all of it. Remember that Mass Effect 3 launches with four-player co-operative play. Something that old-school PC gamers will enjoy.

[UPDATE] And we're good! We're good people! Amendments will be made to the Classification Act 1995 and Broadcasting Services Act 1992 and will roll through in January 2013. I cannot believe this actually happened, and this shows the power of the people, and the Internet. When they work together, they can really push through new things!

News from last month told us that the new Federal Minister for Home Affairs, Jason Clare, had announced his intentions to stick to former Federal Minster for Home Affairs, Brendan O'Connor's previous plans in regards to the introduction of an R18+ adult classification for video games in Australia.

Clare stated that he would follow O'Connor's decision to introduce the R18+ bill in the February 2012 session of parliament. Well, it's February 2012, and here we are. Clare has stayed true to his word, with news arriving today that the R18+ legislation has been cleared by the Federal Parliamentary Caucus of the Australian Labor Party in its meeting in Canberra, and is now ready to be introduced in parliament.

Next-gen consoles and next-gen graphics engines are something that I have quite close to my heart. It's something I think needs to really evolve. I see the AAA gaming market as something that is stuck inside of a bubble.

The cause of that bubble? Consoles. I've covered this a fair bit in a few of my editorials, where I've talked about smartphones and tablets getting close to, and will eventually pass the power in current-gen consoles. Once this happens, consoles will have a hard time selling, unless we see next-gen consoles.

The previous generation of consoles teased "Full HD gaming", but delivered sub-HD gaming. Most AAA titles run at a resolution lower than 1280x720 and at frame rates less than 30fps. Of course, there are some games that run at either slightly higher resolutions, or slightly higher frame rates, but never both. We don't see games like Halo, Gears of War, Uncharted or Metal Gear Solid running at 1080p with 30fps.

Valve's Steam has had quite the press lately, last year they announced Steam Guard, which featured increased security for gamers, but in November of last year, we reported that Steam confirmed they had been hacked. This was after the Steam Forums went down for "maintenance".

This year, Valve released Steam for Mobile, which was a step in a different direction, and then just a few days ago confirmed that last year's hack was actually worse than previously thought. So as you can see, they're having a hard time. Those hard times got worse over the weekend when Steam suffered a worldwide failure, leaving users unable to play games, as well as taking down the Steam user forum and various associated websites.

There were, of course, claims that Steam was under attack once again from hackers, but it turned out that it was actually a failure of their central datacenters uninterruptible power supply (UPS) system. An engineer posted on Steam's forums yesterday saying:

Tim Sweeney, Epic CEO and Technical Director spoke at the 2012 D.I.C.E. Summit, where he predicted that the number of platforms for games will shrink to three or four over time. He also added that consumer have many choices when it comes to gaming platforms with tablets, PCs, smartphones, Macs, consoles and new handhelds. He adds:

Sweeney also predicted that there would be new devices on the market, as well as new technologies for developers to tap into: