Category: Game

But Godus is neither gone nor forgotten Peter Molyneux’s studio 22 Cans has launched Godus Wars on Steam Early Access —€” but the title is not meant to replace its long troubled release Godus. Instead, the real-time strategy game is a standalone title with a stronger focus on combat.
Godus Wars is available as a free download to those who already own the crowdfunded Godus, which launched in 2013. Total newcomers can purchase Godus Wars for $14.99, and will receive the original Godus as a bonus with their copy of the spinoff.
The development team clears up the differences between the two titles in an FAQ on Godus Wars’ Steam page. Molyneux envisioned Godus as two separate games from the start, the FAQ states, “one tranquil, peaceful and the other war-like with bloody battles taking place across the unique lands."
Godus Wars falls into the latter category. Players of the initial version of Godus took issue with that game’s distinct lack of fighting, amidst myriad other problems with the title, which had players assume the role of a godlike figure.
Molyneux went further in a personal letter on the Godus Wars page, which now stands as the only Godus-related store listing on Steam, having absorbed that of the earlier release.
"Why don’t we change Godus into a RTS style game with God-game capabilities and landscape modification, a RTS game with a huge amount of variation and power, the ability to approach each battle in a different way?" he wrote of the impetus behind Godus Wars.
In its Early Access build, Godus Wars features playable deitites who lead armies across transforming maps. One traversable continent is available, with another coming as paid downloadable content. Godus Wars is also expected to add multiplayer later on in its development.
The game also features Bryan Henderson, who won a contest to be made the "god of gods" in Godus, an appearance that has yet to be added to the game. Henderson is featured as a deity later in Godus Wars, according to Eurogamer, which last year profiled the seemingly forgotten teen.
Unlike Godus, which 22 Cans and partner DeNA intend to release on mobile, Godus Wars is exclusive to Windows PC, Molyneux told Eurogamer in a revealing interview. Along with a discussion of his Godus projects, Molyneux talked to Eurogamer about the 2015 incident that led to his self-imposed exile from the media.
Just last week, Molyneux’s Twitter account was hacked, sending out messages that indicated the veteran designer’s seeming intention to retire.

Explaining VR is impossible. you have to use it Valve and HTC recently showed a collection of games coming to the Vive virtual reality platform to the press, and the platform has an impressive collection of games on the way.
The press and developers gathered near the end of the event to talk about their enthusiasm for the hardware, and even people who seemed skeptical at the beginning of the event were impressed by what they had played.
Reading my own coverage of the event, however, I asked myself how many of these games would interest me had I not played them myself. The regrettable answer? Not many. It’s hard to explain why playing mini-golf in virtual reality is so much fun without actually doing so. Many of these games are based on simple ideas that become magical when paired with the Vive, but it’s tricky to explain that to people who have yet to try any modern virtual reality, much less the Vive itself.
“You sound like a crazy person when you try to explain VR to someone who has never tried it," Job Simulator developer Alex Schwartz explained. "I used to say it’s like strapping the Narnia closet to your face."
"When I explain Tilt Brush to people I use my hands a lot and I say you are using the controller and you’re painting like this across the sky," Google’s Patrick Hackett told me, gesturing expansive over his head. I had asked him to try to sell my readers on both the Tilt Brush painting program and the Vive itself. He was skeptical he could do so.

"They say OK, but I tell them no, it exists and you can walk around it, and occasionally people are like ‘Wow, that’s neat,’ but it still takes using it," he continued. People are naturally skeptical when you try to describe the act of drawing in the air using a virtual reality platform before walking around your creation. "You just have to try it," he repeated.
Joel Green is the producer and audio director The Gallery, a virtual reality adventure game. He said it would have been impossible to make the game without virtual reality. The ability to physically get lost inside the environments and directly interact with the objects in the world isn’t a bonus, it’s the entire point of the experience.
"We could have made some kind of version of it, for sure," he said. "But in terms of what’s in the heart of the game, the idea of letting the player have an adventure in another world in a way they’ve never been able to do before, and really be in another place? That part couldn’t be done with a screen."
It’s not about solving puzzles, although that’s a part of it. It’s about the act of literally going somewhere else. "We want people to come home, get the headset, and go to another world," he explained. "That’s what we’re trying to give them."
But that’s hard to sell via text or even video, and that’s a major problem with technology that’s going require a high-end PC and a significant amount of space, and that’s before you factor in the cost of the Vive itself. So how do you sell someone on taking the jump?
Almost every developer I spoke to was honest about the fact you can’t. "I think most people are going to get into it by seeing other people playing it, and seeing them enjoy it, so I think that’s the way to go," Joachim Holmér, founder of Budget Cuts developer Neat Corporation told Polygon. "It’s very hard to just convince someone by words how it works. That would be my suggestion, get people to find friends who have VR and try it out."
You sound like a crazy person when you try to explain VR to someone who has never tried it
That act of inviting people over to try VR if you buy the hardware is something many developers are including, and social VR is already taking off in the development community and among those with dev kits.
"I focused on how to play with multiple people in the room," Dylan Fitterer, developer of Audio Surf and Audio Shield, said. "I picture people buying this and showing their friends so you want to have a party mode or a hot seat way to enable party competitions." But trying to explain the experience has proven impossible for him.
"It’s one of the really difficult things right now," he said. "And the best way is, of course, to try it. So hopefully you can find somewhere to go ahead and play it."
No one has a good answer for how more people are going to try the technology, outside of the early adopters inviting friends and family over for demos and gaming. Until that happens, however? Convincing people who have yet to try the technology that it’s as good as it is remains an impossible challenge.

Throw yourself a Mario Party-themed birthday party at the arcade Mario Party is heading to Japanese arcades this summer, and Capcom is hosting. The developer launched a website for Mario Party: Mysterious Challenge World today, which will make its official debut at the Japanese Amusement Expo on Feb. 19.
Mario Party’s arcade iteration will allow six friends or strangers to become sworn enemies across a set of minigames. It will also feature boss events and the option to play as a variety of Mario characters, similar to its console counterpart.
The key difference with the arcade version is its housing: Capcom has conceived of a circular, roulette table-style set-up, with six touch panel-bearing cabinets convening around a projector.
More will be detailed later this month, including a firm release date for Mysterious Challenge World. No Western launch is said to be in the works yet, however; Mario Party fans must stick to Mario Party 10 on Wii U for now, a game we had some fun with back in 2015.
While this is Mario Party’s debut romp in the arcade, Mario himself is familiar with the space; Mario Bros. started out as an arcade game, and other spinoff franchises like Mario Kart have also received dedicated cabinets. Namco’s Mario Kart Arcade GP DX even made it into venues overseas in 2013.

The CW star drops by CBS The Flash will make an appearance in an upcoming episode of Supergirl, CBS announced today. Grant Gustin, who plays Barry Allen and his titular alter ego, will appear on a March 28 episode of CBS’ series, but the network neglected to elaborate on further plot details.
The Flash airs on The CW, alongside other DC Comics series such as Arrow and Legends of Tomorrow. Supergirl is CBS’ lone superhero-centric program, although the two shows — along with Arrow, which had a crossover with The Flash of its own in December — share executive producers.
We recap both The Flash and Supergirl weekly. Supergirl aired its latest episode Monday, while The Flash runs new episodes every Tuesday.

EVE’s PS3 FPS goes dark on May 30 Dust 514 will bite the dust on May 30.
Servers for the free-to-play shooter spun off of the EVE Online continuity will close down after three years in play, developer and publisher CCP games announced today. That’s because a development team has been working on another prototype FPS for the PC “using Unreal Engine 4 while harnessing all our learnings from Dust 514."
CCP said it would give an update on this new project on April 21 at an EVE Online fan convention.
"We consider Dust 514 one of the best free-to-play offerings on the platform, but the years have caught up with us," CCP wrote. The shutdown means that a planned 1.3 update to the game will not be released. Players may still play for free until then, but all premium items have been removed for sale. Those who have in-game currency remaining will still be able to use it until the shutdown date.
Dust 514 was a PlayStation 3 exclusive that launched in 2013, and events in it had influence in the larger world of EVE Online.

San Andreas team reunites to make more buildings crumble The big screen adaptation of Bally Midway’s classic giant monster arcade game Rampage has a pair of new writers, according to a report from Variety. Colony co-creators Carlton Cuse and Ryan Condal have been tasked with rewriting the film, which is set to star Dwayne “The Rock" Johnson.
Cuse is best known for his work on Lost, on which he was showrunner and frequent co-writer. His other television work includes Nash Bridges, The Strain and Colony, which is currently in its first season on the USA Network. He also wrote the screenplay for San Andreas, which also starred Dwayne Johnson. Cuse’s Colony co-creator, Condal, wrote another Johnson-led action movie, 2014’s Hercules.
The writing duo are taking over for Ryan Engle (Non-Stop), who wrote an earlier draft of Rampage. Brad Peyton, who also directed Johnson in San Andreas and Journey 2: The Mysterious Island, is set to direct Rampage.
Rampage is being developed for New Line. The project has been in the works since 2011. Midway published the original Rampage in 1986; the company went bankrupt in 2009, and Warner Bros. (which also owns New Line) acquired most of its assets.
The original Rampage gave players control of three giant monsters — George the gorilla, Lizzie the lizard and Ralph the werewolf — bent on urban destruction. Johnson is reportedly playing a character who opposes that type of wanton rubble-creation.

Get ready for your fingers to bleed all over again Activision launched a special event in Guitar Hero Live today, and with it comes the return of the franchise’s most notorious track: “Through the Fire and the Flames" by Dragonforce. From now until Feb. 8 at 7 a.m. PT, players can check out the Shred-a-Thon channel on Guitar Hero TV, Live’s online streaming mode, to play five intense songs on a constant loop.
The most familiar of these tracks —€” which include songs by Lamb of God and Megadeth — is "Through the Fire and the Flames." After its introduction to the series in Guitar Hero 3, the song quickly gained notoriety as Guitar Hero’s most intense track.
"Through the Fire and the Flames" became a mainstay on YouTube at the height of Guitar Hero’s populartiy, as players uploaded clips of themselves surviving the nearly 8-minute song; you can check one of YouTube’s most viewed (and not work-safe) videos in that genre below.

"Through the Fire and the Flames" even made it into the Guinness Book of World Records in 2009, after one dedicated guitarist played a near-perfect rendition of the song to the tune of 973,954 points. In his journey to the record books, the Guitar Hero fan claimed to have broken 80 plastic controllers while attempting to conquer the song.
Currently, "Through the Fire and the Flames" and the other Shred-a-Thon tracks are only available to play on Guitar Hero TV. Following the event’s conclusion, however, the Dragonforce song will be available as part of the regular Guitar Hero Live game.
Guitar Hero Live is out on PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One and Wii U. A version of the game is also available for iOS platforms. For more on the game and its TV mode, check out our review.

Get ready to explore the zone of Arcterra and get a bunch of new loot and rewards Sci-fi massively multiplayer online role-playing game Wildstar went free-to-play late last year, but since then players have been left waiting for new content, while developer Carbine Studios has focused on special timed events and holiday celebrations. That will change soon, though. Carbine is preparing a major new update for the game, along with another move to open it up to an even wider audience.
Speaking to Polygon last month, Carbine Studios creative director Chad Moore said the new update will launch in the first quarter of this year, though an exact date is still being pinned down. It will include a new zone called Arcterra, which will be filled with bosses, unique loot and a zone-wide mechanic that’s never been seen in Wildstar before.
As players fight through Arcterra, they’ll run into a series of two-man bosses. Defeating those bosses will slowly fill a bar, which will then summon five-man bosses, and defeating those will summon in massive 20-man bosses. Rewards for participants will improve with each tier, and the faction that does the most each day will open up a special instances dungeon underneath the zone.

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Moore says these “snowballing boss encounters" are a way to encourage group content without making it mandatory.
"You don’t have to do this stuff," he said. "But so many of our players now are at max level, because we’ve had a really loyal group of players that have followed us from the very beginning. Once Arcterra releases, there’s going to be a ton of people in there. Giving them something that they can work on together daily — I think we’re going to see players engage and enjoy this content for a lot longer than we would otherwise."
In addition to the bosses and traditional story quests, the new zone will feature a reward bar that fills up, granting special loot, mounts and costumes. Moore said the idea is for players to be "constantly rewarded for engaging in content."
Another mechanic being added to Wildstar with the update is a new item upgrade system. Players will be able to take armor and weapons that they don’t need, salvage them into special components and use those components to upgrade their currently equipped items.
"It creates a whole new economy around the existing weapons in the game," Moore explained. "If you’re out doing boss encounters in Arcterra and getting a lot of drops, those weapons will probably be high-level. Now you can choose to salvage those for trade skills, runecrafting or item upgrade components. Then you can use those components to make yourself more powerful."

The update will progress Wildstar’s world story forward with chapter two of the game’s Nexus Saga. Titled "Vault of the Archon," this new story instance will be the first in the game to allow a full party of five players, though it can also be soloed like previous story-driven instances if you’d prefer.
Moore promised that Carbine is also far along in prepping the next tier of 20-person raid content, an area called Redmoon Terror. This won’t be ready when the Vault of the Archon update launches, but it will hit test servers around the same time. Wildstar has not received a new tier of raiding content since the game launched in June 2014, so the most hardcore members of the community have been antsy for something new.
"most of the PC games I play, I’ll only play if I can run them through Steam"Finally, Moore revealed that Wildstar will come to Steam, the popular game download service from Valve, this spring. An exact date will be announced soon.
"I’m actually one of those people where most of the PC games I play, I’ll only play if I can run them through Steam," admitted Moore. "I think it’s going to be a really great thing for the game to bring a bunch of new players in."
Speaking to the general reaction to Wildstar’s free-to-play transition, Moore said it has been largely positive thus far.
"Free-to-play has been very successful in terms of getting tons of new players into the game," he said. "But I think the other part of it that’s been really cool for us to see is that pretty much everyone that’s played the game before and now has tried it as a free-to-play game, or even new players, they all feel like our free-to-play model is really fair. We see a lot of comments with people saying it doesn’t feel like a typical free-to-play game, because they’re not constantly being reminded about where they should spend money and how to spend money."
Wildstar can be downloaded and played for no cost from the game’s official website. For more information, you can check out our review from just after launch.

A little earlier than ‘mid-February’ The closed beta for Overwatch will re-open Feb. 9, Blizzard announced today on the Battle.net blog. The beta, which was taken offline in December, was recently bumped from January to a “mid-February" return date.
When it comes back, the build will sport two new maps, a new game mode, a new progression system as well as updates to both private games and character balancing. Blizzard noted that these were key areas it would tweak during the beta’s downtime back in December.
Players can continue to sign up for the Overwatch beta, and those who participated in it previously will again have access. The full game will be available to PlayStation 4, Windows PC and Xbox One owners later this spring, and will have additional content offered to players for free post-launch.

Debut title Knights and Bikes is Earthbound meets The Goonies Foam Sword Games, the studio co-led by former LittleBigPlanet, Tearaway and Ratchet and Clank designers, has launched a crowdfunding campaign for its first project: a co-op action adventure game called Knights and Bikes. Check out the debut video for the Kickstarter above, which shows off the title’s unique, colorful art style.
The two-person team behind Foam Sword is asking for $142,577 from backers for Knights and Bikes. Various campaign rewards include a digital copy of the game plus a mention in the credits at the most tier; access to the planned alpha and beta; a card game inspired by the release; and even “handcrafted plushes" of the two main characters. There’s also an art book up for grabs, which grants a deeper look into the game’s abstract, Media Molecule-esque designs.
While the designers’ pedigrees bear an obvious influence, they name other titles as stronger influences. Key inspirations for the 1980s-set project are fan favorite releases from that era, including EarthBound, E.T. and The Goonies. Foam Sword heads Moo Yu and Rex Crowle also mentioned Secret of Mana as an influence on Knights and Bikes, which stars a pair of young girls biking across their island home to uncover its medieval — and possibly evil — past.
A release for Linux, Mac and Windows PC on Steam is planned, with Foam Sword circling spring 2017 as a launch window; Kickstarter rewards are expected to be delivered by April 2017. Knights and Bikes is also accepting votes on Steam Greenlight, while its crowdfunding period is set to end in one month’s time.
See more of Knights and Bikes’ stylish art in the gallery below.