PC Game News
Mar
Valve writer Chet Faliszek appeared on the latest episode of GameTrailers TV to talk about their upcoming Left 4 Dead 2 DLC called “The Passing,” and if you want to stay completely in the dark about what twists it’ll throw your way, stop reading now — because Faliszek revealed a pretty major one.
Still with us? Then you probably won’t mind finding out why “The Passing” is called “The Passing” — and it turns out it’s a very figurative title. “Someone passed,” Faliszek explains bluntly, referring to the fact that one of the four survivors from the first Left 4 Dead — Francis, Bill, Zoey, and Louis — will no longer be a survivor in the L4D2 DLC. This is why Faliszek revealed The Passing’s tagline is “Nobody Survives Forever.”
The plan is to have the original group of survivors from the first game meet up with the new group from L4D2 in The Passing, but only three will actually still be alive by then. Faliszek of course didn’t reveal which character will die, but he did explain L4D1 players will get to find out first-hand: After The Passing is released, new DLC will also be released for the original that actually has gamers play through the events that ultimately claims the life of the doomed character — and one of the players has to literally make the sacrifice within the game.
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Mar
Dragon Age: Origins Awakening just dropped this week. Mass Effect 2 is still shy of two months old. That said, many fans are already wondering what’s next for Bioware. UGO’s Tracey John caught up with vice president Dr. Greg Zeschuk and CEO Dr. Ray Muzyka at GDC last week and picked their brains about the future of Bioware’s role-playing franchises.
“We’re planning for 17 games,” joked Dr. Ray when asked how many Dragon Age sequels to expect. “Well, both Dragon Age and Mass Effect are franchises so they have different strategies and different kinds of story arcs but we plan on continuing to make games and worlds and expanding on those worlds in both franchises,” the CEO added, continuing, “Both in different ways, but we want to continue to provide content to fans, whether that be separate games or new adventures that have very different kinds of gameplay. So we have some cool stuff for both of them that we’re exploring that’ll be fun and different for the fans, and yet in a familiar setting at the same time.
Dr. Greg tossed in his thoughts on sequels, as well. “In the case of Dragon Age, it’s exciting because there’s this whole timeline and geography,” explained the Bioware creative officer. “So with Mass Effect, we’re constantly thinking about the trilogy. But with Dragon Age, it’s more open and you can put more all over the place. Seventeen… Sixty-six? Infinite! Infinite games for the Dragon Age universe! (laughs)”
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Mar
It won’t be long be long before you get to try Mass Effect 2’s answer to the Mako for yourself. The Firewalker DLC pack will be landing next week.
The pack will feature five new missions based on the brand-new Hammerhead. It will be free to those who have the Cerberus Network.
It will be followed shortly after by Kasumi’s Stolen Memory, which is slated to launch April 6. It will introduce the thief Kasumi along with her loyalty mission, and will be the first paid DLC.
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Mar
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 has been pretty well-received by critics and fans alike, but is that positive buzz translating into sales? With more than 25 million people already invested in the competition, you may not have expected DICE’s shooter to take retailers by storm. According to EA’s internal figures, however, that hasn’t been a problem; they’re reporting over 2.3 million copies of Bad Company 2 sold in the roughly two weeks since the game launched.
Not only that, but — as seems to be the trend these days — they also threw out a handful of absurd statistics gathered from the game’s servers. EA’s stats show over 2.9 million hours of multiplayer have been racked up during the last 24 hours alone, and that players have earned a total of more than 81 billion points, unlocking over 43 million pieces of equipment in the process. The publisher tallied a peak-concurrent-users figure of around 230, 000 — a number that’s caused EA’s multiplayer servers to buckle on more than one occasion.
DICE’s Karl Magnus Troedsson chimed in to address the game’s on-again, off-again server stability issues. “In the first 48 hours we had such a tremendous rush to multiplayer gameplay that our servers experienced overwhelming demand. This is a testament to the massive response players have had worldwide for the extraordinary action experienced in the Battlefield sandbox,” explained the game’s executive producer. “DICE and EA have brought more servers online. We now have enough capacity to handle all BFBC2 connections seamlessly and we continue to monitor online play daily.”
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Mar
Been holding out for Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City on PC or PlayStation 3? You’re going to have to wait just a bit longer. Developer Rockstar Games sent word today that the newly multiplatform episodes won’t be making their originally announced release date of March 30; instead, expect The Ballad of Gay Tony and The Lost and Damned to finally hit PS3 and PC on April 13 in North America (April 16 everywhere else).
So what’s up with the delay? Apparently Rockstar opted to make some “minor content changes” to the PS3’s PAL version of the game at the request of Sony Europe. What these changes are, exactly, remains unclear, but a representative from Rockstar assured us that the alterations won’t affect players’ enjoyment of the games. They also noted that the adjustments have nothing to do with the requirements of any local ratings boards.
We’ll let you know as soon as we know anything more about whatever it is Sony wanted cut from (or added to?) Episodes from Liberty City.
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Owners of the Steam version of Battlefield: Bad Company 2 have a nice surprise coming with the release of the newest patch: Removal of the game’s SecuROM DRM. That update is in addition to a number of other fixes and changes included in the patch, version 522175, which range from better notifications when failing to join a multiplayer server to the server browser now sorting by lowest ping by default.
The patch for Steam users will come slightly later than it will for those with a retail copy, as it has to go through additional QA testing. It may be wise to hold off on updating for the time being, as there have been reports on the EA forums of crashing and freezing issues for some users. As the patch is only applied on the client side, and not to the servers, you’ll be able to play with others who have successfully patched their game without patching yourself.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen SecuROM patched out of an EA game; last year, we saw it removed from Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3. In other instances, we’ve seen the harsh restrictions SecuROM can impose be lifted (to an extent): Both BioShock and BioShock 2 had their activation limits removed, thanks no doubt to the outcry from gamers who didn’t want to be treated so poorly simply because they reinstalled their game more times than 2K decided to allot them.
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Owners of the Steam version of Battlefield: Bad Company 2 have a nice surprise coming with the release of the newest patch: Removal of the game’s SecuROM DRM. That update is in addition to a number of other fixes and changes included in the patch, version 522175, which range from better notifications when failing to join a multiplayer server to the server browser now sorting by lowest ping by default.
The patch for Steam users will come slightly later than it will for those with a retail copy, as it has to go through additional QA testing. It may be wise to hold off on updating for the time being, as there have been reports on the EA forums of crashing and freezing issues for some users. As the patch is only applied on the client side, and not to the servers, you’ll be able to play with others who have successfully patched their game without patching yourself.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen SecuROM patched out of an EA game; last year, we saw it removed from Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3. In other instances, we’ve seen the harsh restrictions SecuROM can impose be lifted (to an extent): Both BioShock and BioShock 2 had their activation limits removed, thanks no doubt to the outcry from gamers who didn’t want to be treated so poorly simply because they reinstalled their game more times than 2K decided to allot them.
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Mar
In addition to releasing yet another ridiculous stunt video for Just Cause 2, publisher Square Enix has also revealed a bunch of statistics about the Just Cause 2 demo that’s been making the rounds over the last two weeks or so. Included on the demo’s stats sheet: over 2 million downloads.
Impressive as that number may be, the rest of the data Square cataloged is even more stupefying. Did you know, for instance, that demo players have exterminated a cumulative 30 million people on Just Cause 2’s Panau Island? Or that they’ve also done enough base jumping to add up to the length of two Earths stacked end-to-end? That’s more free-falling than even the most insufferable Tom Petty cover band could muster.
Look for Just Cause 2 on store shelves on March 23.
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Mar
Though they differ wildly in tone, art style, and price tag, Battlefield: Bad Company 2 and Battlefield Heroes now have a lot more in common than just their namesake. Developer DICE has announced a handful of premium unlocks for Battlefield Heroes that are styled after equipment from Bad Company 2.
The latest update to EA’s free-to-play shooter includes six new weapons, a health boost item, and two outfits designed to look like characters from Bad Company 2. All this comes at a price, but anyone who bought a new copy of Bad Company 2 can tie the included VIP code to their accounts and get a free gift of 700 Battlefunds ($5) on the Battlefield Heroes Store.
Of course, why you’d spend your time with Battlefield Heroes after investing in Bad Company 2 is a total mystery. At least there’s some incentive there should you ever choose to go back.
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Mar
It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that Gears of War 3 is in development at Epic Games. The first two games were tremendously successful and the story in Gears 2 (pictured above) was clearly set up for a third game. But until now, we had no idea when we could expect it to come. According to Edge, a “trusted US publishing source” has told them that Gears 3 is expected to be released in April 2011, with a debut trailer set to hit next month, on April 8. Edge also claims that we’ll then see a full reveal of the game at this year’s E3 in June. Epic VP Mark Rein confirmed at last week’s Game Developers Conference that Epic wouldn’t be releasing any games this year, which helps to corroborate what Edge’s source is claiming.
The source explained Microsoft’s reason for abandoning the traditional November release that the first two games followed: “Microsoft’s keen to avoid a clash with Halo: Reach and wants Natal to own Christmas. That’s why we won’t be seeing Gears of War 3 until next year, but expect a major marketing push ahead of its release.”
We’ve heard that the next Killzone game, Killzone 3, is scheduled for a release in the same time frame as Gears of War 3 next year, so it looks like the two heavy hitters will be going head-to-head in about a year from now. Last time around, Killzone 2’s release trailed Gears 2’s by about four months.
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