Level-5's PSP entry to the White Knight Chronicles franchise has finally been revealed in the latest issue of Famitsu. Episode Portable: Dogma Wars is a prequel, set 10,000 years before the events of the PS3 games. Set in the Dogma Age, the Yshrenia and Athwan Empires are fighting for control over the world. You will command the Athwan "Train Battalion" as you fight the towering mecha Knights of the Yshrenia. As Andriasang points out, "you're going to be fighting the giants this time instead of transforming into them."
No gameplay details have been revealed, but Dogma Wars already sounds dramatically different from its PS3 counterparts. Fans of the franchise will want to keep an eye on it -- if only for the promised connectivity with the upcoming PS3 sequel.
Perhaps it isn't enough for you to know that Firefall -- Red 5 Studios' first release -- is full of guns and jetpacks? Would it help if you knew that the lead designer was also headed up Tribes? Ahhh, good! Firefall is a "team-based action shooter" featuring "hundreds of players" completing objectives and battling to the death in a "dynamic open world." And, frankly, it looks great.
The title is free-to-play and relies on an in-game marketplace for profit. We might normally balk at such a monetization system, but we were thoroughly impressed by the game's debut gameplay trailer, not to mention the pedigree behind Firefall. If you're as enticed as we are, you'll be glad to know that Red 5 is accepting applications for the game's beta starting right now.
Hey there, PlayStation faithful! It’s Scott from Creat Studios, back again like a bad vampire movie sequel. Haven’t heard about TerRover, our upcoming release from Sony Online Entertainment? Let me tell you all about it. TerRover will hit the PlayStation Network on Tuesday, September 7th for $14.99 and keep you playing for untold hours thereafter.
The TerRover is a cute little robot buggy with a big smile and warm heart in need of your help to find a new planetary home for him and his friends. You get weapons and tools and a chassis equipped with rocket launchers, magnet cables and more to assist in collecting all the mechanical parts scattered about and discovering the secret areas and hidden passages.
Now, the new stuff: TerRover features over 40 stages of puzzling arcade levels on five strange and different planets, each with its own physics and funky, eye-popping 2D art style. All pose unique threats and their own version of fun! The icy vistas of Congelata let you dig through snow and glide along stretches of ice. The all-tech surfaces of Mechanica toss you about its gears and motorized hazards. Robot-eating plants, underground rivers, and strange vegetation on the terrains of Acor and Aura will keep you and your TerRover on your toes (er… wheels?) The treacherous volcanoes and lava of Volcanus can thrust you high into the air or melt you on contact.
When you do complete a challenging level and feel the need to show the world just how you did it, you can! TerRover offers YouTube support to upload your latest escapade to the internet and crown yourself as TerRover champion. That’s not enough? Well, then you’ll have to rack up the multitude of Trophies available and make your status official to everyone.
And if you need a break from all that pressure of trying to relocate the TerRover population to safety, there’s great local multiplayer action, too! Up to four players can compete in a number of different modes and races in different locations. While the multiplayer is competitive, it occasionally takes a cooperative turn, and forces you and your opponent to briefly work together.
Our team at Creat Studios frequently gets asked about the inspiration for TerRover’s expressing emotions. To better explain it, let’s hear from TerRover’s producer, Olga Solokova:
“We discussed it at the very beginning, based on our experience of making an inanimate character come to life on previous project, Digger HD. We thought it was cool, so we set out to push it further and make TerRover smile, gasp and frown, get angry or frustrated, to make him feel and express emotion. Early into production, TerRover was alive due to the amazing work of our art director, Anastasia Vasilieva. She’s a master of perfecting small and cute things, like she did on Mushroom Wars. We laughed a lot while working on TerRover, and I hope that we’ll make the players feel that and smile at TerRover’s funny faces, too.”
Everyone at Creat Studios really hopes you enjoy our newest game, and we want to hear from you. Please drop by our website, check us out on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter, and tell us what you think. As always… thank you again to all of our fans out there. We can’t do what we love without you.
2K Games hosted a video livestream of its booth shortly after the re-announcement (or is it un-cancellation?) of Duke Nukem Forever, showing off a few fans getting their first shot at the alien-murdering sim. You can check out a couple of over-the-shoulder gameplay clips from this stream posted just after the jump.
And, yes, it is worth noting that this particular demo begins with Duke Nukem relieving himself, an action you apparently execute by pressing Right Trigger. You're going to feel tempted to press Left Trigger, but for the sweet love of God, you have to resist that urge.
PlayStation Blog has announced a February 22, 2011 North American release date for
Killzone 3, the fourth installment in Guerrilla Games' FPS series (we know, we still find that confusing too). For those of you keeping score, that's almost two years to the day after the release of Killzone 2. We guess the last week of Feburary holds some kind of secret significance to the Amsterdam-based developer.
If you happen to be attending the Penny Arcade Expo at the moment, you can get your hands on the game much, much sooner -- a playable 8-on-8 multiplayer demo is currently set up at Sony's booth on the PAX show floor.
Looks like its time to throw another victim on the pile of DLC which crashes the game upon which it's intended to expand. This time around, it's Crackdown 2's recently released "Toy Box" pack, which is supposed to add the "Keys to the City" mode from the first game, as well as a handful of new weapons and items. According to a number of angry commenters on Xbox.com, the 560 Microsoft Point ($7) download doesn't add this content as much as it ... well, removes everything else.
For reasons unknown, a large number of players report that the game simply freezes up when trying to play after having downloaded the "Toy Box" pack. Some users report that clearing the system's cache and playing offline allows the game to load, but connecting to Live and downloading the game's latest update returns it to its non-functioning state. We've contacted Microsoft to find out what the problem is, and when we can expect a fix. You might want to consider keeping the "Toy Box" firmly closed for the time being.
It's finally, really, actually ... maybe going to happen at this point. The rumors are true: Gearbox Software and 2K Games have taken on the Herculean task of completing and releasing 3D Realms' unfinished Duke Nukem Forever. The project was officially unveiled today at PAX during a livestreamed presentation at the 2K Games booth and announced for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC. "It's coming out in 2011," Gearbox president Randy Pitchford said during the presentation. (Of course, we're skeptical about any release date associated with this particular title.)
Gearbox began finishing Duke Nukem Forever in late 2009, according to The Wall Street Journal. "Clearly the game hadn't been finished at 3D Realms but a lot of content had been created," Pitchford told WSJ.
"We're in the polishing phase now. This is a game where we can not make a promise we can not fulfill," Pitchford added. "We need to get past the shock and awe, and then we can go to all the retailers and first parties and work out a launch plan."
Duke Nukem Forever is a sequel to Duke Nukem 3D and will feature both a single-player campaign and multiplayer. "Aliens come and say they're going to be our friends, and Duke knows this isn't going to work out," Pitchford revealed of the plot. "Duke once again is in the pivotal spot and it's up to him to save the world."
A few details about the Move-equipped Ape Escape outing for the PS3 (which was outed for a possible North American release by GameStop) recently surfaced during the Japanese CESA Developers Conference. Ape Escape Fury! Fury! designer Takamitsu Iijima explained the game's goal is to place the player in the shoes of the series' stalwart monkey catcher, resulting in a game of on-rails, first-person net-swinging.
We find it refreshing to play an on-rails shooter without any shooting to speak of, though we'll reserve judgment until we've gotten a chance to incarcerate a few simians ourselves. Provided Ape Escape Fury! Fury! is even the game hinted at by that recent Gamestop listing, of course.
Stardock CEO Brad Wardell has spoken out again on the troubled launch of his studio's latest game, Elemental: War of Magic. Taking to Stardock's forums, Wardell (aka "Frogboy") said, "I don't think people yet fully realize the completeness of Stardock's fail on Elemental's launch. I'm going to write more about this, but not only did we think v1.05 was ready for everyone, but we felt v1.0 was too. That's the level of disconnect/poor judgment on our part we're talking about."
And while he places the blame on Stardock as a whole, he takes a full paragraph to account for his own mistakes. "EVERY competent software developer knows that the programmer must never be the one deciding whether the program is done. Yet, my love of Elemental broke my self discipline and I began coding on the game itself in vast amounts and lost any sense of objectivity on where the game's state was. I normally only program the AI on our games so I can keep a level of distance from the game itself to determine whether it's 'Ready.' On Elemental, I was in love with the world and the game and lost my impartiality."
He finishes his screed with the promise, "We'll do better," and in a separate post lists off the many changes and additions coming to the game (including free expansions and an intended v1.1 patch in September). Both pieces really are worth reading in full. You can grab them here and here.
Guerrilla Games has been hard at work making the most explosive shooter possible on the PlayStation 3 system. At E3, the development team gave you a glimpse of Killzone 3 in 3D where they walked away with Best Shooter, Best 3D graphics, and Best PS3 game to name a few of the E3 awards received.
Last month, we unveiled elements of Killzone 3’s stellar new multiplayer at gamescom and revealed new vehicles.
Today, on behalf of Guerrilla Games, we are happy to announce the official release date of Killzone 3 in North America is February 22nd, 2011!
We’re at PAX today so if you’re at the show, please stop by the Killzone booth and check out multiplayer for yourself.