Origin or: Why I Haven’t Played Battlefield 3… Yet

Exhibit A

So I was excited for Battlefield 3. Extremely excited. As far as I was concerned, not a single modern warfare game would rival this in the history of mankind… or until BF4 came out. But as I sat at my computer yesterday and checked for BF3 for the umpteenth time in the Steam Store I found myself looking at Modern Warfare 3. [Read more...]

Preview: A Weekend in The Old Republic

star-wars-the-old-republic

I was not excited for The Old Republic. My dreams of a Star Wars MMO that wasn’t terribly broken by a change in ownership were dashed time and time again with each consecutive video and closed beta leak I saw. My hopes sank even further after getting a short bit of hands-on time at Comic-Con in July – it felt like World of Warcraft with a dialogue wheel, and that was all. Surely, this couldn’t be the BioWare I knew and loved, the one that brought me the timeless RPGs that I had spent so much time in? Where had it all gone wrong? Why was this MMO seemingly doomed to fail?

I got an invite into the most recent Beta Weekend, and seemingly throwing all sense of sanity out the window, I installed the behemoth client and decided to give it one final damning attempt, to confirm my suspicions and prove to myself that The Old Republic wasn’t worth paying attention to. Two days later, I have to be honest: I might’ve been wrong.
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WoW: Patch 4.3 goes Live

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An open announcement to all the poor, unfortunate souls who haven’t broken free of the Grip of Azeroth just yet: Patch 4.3, titled “Hour of Twilight”, is now live on all servers and available for just about anyone with an active subscription. We’ve got the launch “trailer” (which serves as more of a schizophrenic montage) beyond the cut, but in case you want to know what the patch is bringing for us, here’s some bigger talking points:

  • Raid Finder: Hopeful raiders without a guild (or friends to raid with) can now queue up in a manner similar to the Dungeon Finder and get thrown together auto-magically. Note that this is solely for the new Dragon Soul raid that’s shipping with 4.3 – other raids will be added in eventually, Blizzard has said.
  • Dragon Soul: Kill a bunch of re-skinned bosses, and then hop on Deathwing’s back. The new 4.3 raid instance ships with 6 minor bosses and 2 phases to Deathwing’s final showdown, as well as the Tier 13 armor sets (which actually look pretty rad).
  • Fangs of the Father: Legendary daggers for Rogues, because Rogues really needed another way to do even more damage.
  • The Caverns of Time Trilogy Extravaganza: I don’t think it’s actually called that. Three new 5-man instances are available, where you and some bros travel through time to acquire the Demon Soul, save Thrall, rescue the princess, eat some cake, and kill Deathwing or something.
  • Transmogrification: Adding something in that’s entirely silly, you can now make your armor look like pieces from a similar armor class (plate can’t turn into cloth, for example). Expect to see nothing but Tier 1 and Tier 2 running around from now on.
  • Void Storage: You can throw all that novelty crap you don’t ever use into a trans-dimensional bank. It’s rather expensive, but it doesn’t clog your bank up with 52 tabards.
  • Darkmoon Faire Revamp: It’s not a bi-weekly thing anymore! The Darkmoon Faire got its own island in 4.3, with new mini-games, extra companion pets, and a whole bunch of other stuff.
All in all, this isn’t enough for me to come back to WoW. I’m pretty happy I’m done with it. Feel free to peep the trailer below, however.

ME3 Co-op Recap

Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer

 

With ”Novembergeddon” washing over the now flooded game market, it’s no wonder folks are taking their minds off of what’s yet to be.  Even though over fifteen anticipated titles were released this month, there is still much anticipation to be had.  One title to come has been deeply sought after since the second in the series was bequeathed to its loyal fans; yes, we’re talking about the one and only Mass Effect.

Although it’s not due for release until  March 6, 2012Mass Effect 3 should still be in everyone’s scope, especially being that this is the last installment of a story of epic proportions which will now include a new and exciting multiplayer feature.  Up until a few weeks ago, little to nothing was known about the contents of said multiplayer component, but thankfully BioWare was nice enough to publish some details of what can now be named a co-op mode. 

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Review: Saints Row the Third

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We live in a time where games are slowly growing more “serious” about their content and what they’re trying to portray. From the slew of military FPS titles to RPGs that deal with the ending of worlds and massive “problems”, it seems like developers are trying to turn gaming into a place for manly men who deal with manly things. If anything, it seems like we’re headed towards a world where most games are the same, trying to copy the same steady formulas. With that in mind, it’s wonderfully refreshing to see a game like Saints Row the Third come out and bring us a step or two back in a much more “fun” direction.

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Saints Row the Third Season Pass Detailed

SR3_NyteBlayde_Pack

If there was ever a question that needed to be asked, that question would be, “Why am I not playing Saints Row the Third yet?” For a game that I was initially only sort’ve interested in (the PC port of SR2 was kinda disappointing), SR3 has very quickly become my most anticipated title this year. From the hurricane of ridiculous gameplay footage to the giant purple dildo bats, Volition seems to have made a game that truly doesn’t care about anything other than being a non-stop, over the top thrill ride.

We’ve received news today that sheds quite a bit of light on the Season Pass that’s going to be available for the game, which will run you $20 and let you save just around 15% on quite a bit of add-on content. If you’re interested in finding out what those things are, hit that “Read More” button! Do it for glorious catman Professor Genki!

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The Legend of Zelda Gets a Concert Tour

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I’m honestly not sure how this one slipped by me the other day, but it’s definitely worth reporting on.

I didn’t get a chance to fly all the way out to Los Angeles for the 25th Anniversary of the Legend of Zelda Concert Extravaganza Hullaballoo Supremo, which is a shame – everything I’ve heard about it makes it sound like a truly magical evening. Luckily, I might get a chance to see something similar later this year. A few days ago, Nintendo announced a “2012 concert series” for The Legend of Zelda, entitled “Symphony of the Goddesses”. They’re planning to make it some sort of hybrid concert/video/sensory overload experience, with footage from the games that will play while the musicians…well, they’ll also be playing.

The concert tour is starting in Dallas on January 10th, and it’s also the only date they’ve announced so far. For those of you interested, you can pick up a ticket at the following link. From the looks of things tickets are going for around $60 right now, but in an interesting twist, Club Nintendo members can save 15% off their ticket price by using the code “MOLDORM” as long as they act before the end of the month. I really hope this tour comes remotely close to Wisconsin – I wouldn’t mind driving a few hours out of my way to see a Zelda-themed concert.

Here’s What I’m Thinking: Skyrim

Skyrim-Questions-and-Answers

We’re going to try something dangerous and new here, folks: a regular column! Yes, you read that right. Due to the fact that we’re trying to have a site worth coming back to, it made sense that some form of reliable posting would be a good incentive to do just that. Skip forward about 15 minutes, and here you are, reading the words I have so carefully pressed keys down to make.

The first of the several new columns we’re going to be bringing you deals with games that currently aren’t out yet. Despite the fact that they have yet to be released, people are able to freely make complete assumptions and baseless speculation about what will happen in them. Rather than spend all my time on the various networks like Reddit, 4chan or…NeoGAF (he said, shuddering slightly), I’m just going to spew words all over my own website, thank you very much.

So, let’s get started with The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Note that there might be some spoilers for Oblivion contained within. Deal with it.

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Arkham City Delayed on the PC. Again.

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Oh, how unfortunate it must be to be the Batman today. While his alternate-reality console versions are freely able to run about and foil the Joker’s plans on the consoles and have been for nearly a month now, he has yet to spread his wings and take crime to the curb on the PC. His second outing, Arkham City, was supposed to be released just a mere 10 days from now, but it seems that won’t be happening. Instead, it looks like people will be waiting just one more week, taking up the mantle of the Caped Crusader on the 25th instead.
 
The good news there is multi-faceted, even if it is an unfortunate and currently unexplained delay. For starters, it’ll be safely poised after all three of November’s big-hitters on the PC: Skyrim, Modern Brown-and-Bloom 3, and Saints Row the Third. This could also be a delay to make sure all the fancy doodads and shiny things that NVIDIA is promising with the PC version, like PhysX support and DirectX 11 tesselation (which you can read about over here on their site) actually work. Lord knows it wouldn’t be the first time a game shipped with graphical issues if that wasn’t the reasoning, however. Perhaps we’ll never find out, and this will just be another riddle left unsolved.

[via RPS]

Call of Duty: ELITE Now Available on Xbox Live

call_of_duty_elite

Despite the fact that I think it’s complete bollocks and just furthers the idea that Activision is out for your money even less subtly than they have been in the past, it can’t be denied that they’re at least trying to do something a little more in-depth with the Call of Duty Elite service that’s being provided for MW3. Offering all sorts of metrics and stat tracking, both cross-platform and otherwise, it’s now live on the 360 and can be accessed as soon as you’re willing to throw down the price of an entire second game. So if you’re really that interested in changing your load-out from your phone, or paying far in advance for an indeterminate amount of DLC, feel free to go ahead and drop that dosh. It’ll take up about 100 MB on your hard drive.

No word on when it’ll be available on the PSN. I’d guess sometime tomorrow, though.

[via Destructoid]