With the recent release of Blizzard’s latest cash cow, Diablo 3, BioWare hopes to rekindle gamers’ interest in their Star Wars MMORPG, The Old Republic by announcing another free pass weekend. The move is designed to bolster their subscriptions, following a sharp decline in users from 1.7 million to 1.3 in the last two months alone. Needless to say, that news alone doesn’t bode too well for the fledgling title. That said, EA has suggested in the past that the game could remain profitable with as low as 500,000 subscribers, and seem convinced that the recent declines consist primarily of casual gamers, and not their hardcore MMO base. I’m not as easily convinced — but then again, I don’t play MMORPGs either, so I’m not sure I can offer an informed opinion on the matter. That said, the numbers alone don’t lie. If you want to try The Old Republic for free this weekend, I’ve included details after the jump.
Posted by Tim Sheehy on May 15, 2012 in Videogames
Square Enix has released a preview trailer for their upcoming Final Fantasy XIII-2 Lightning Prologue DLC Requiem of the Goddess. If you’re on the fence about whether or not it’s worth your time, you’ll probably want to watch the clip and decide for yourself. On the other hand, it might be a bit spoileriffic for others — fortunately, the dialog you’ll hear during this trailer is in Japanese, without English subtitles. Other than that, the most it might spoil is an actual in-game battle sequence between Lightning and Caius, complete with cut-scenes. Personally, I think it looks pretty awesome. Let’s just hope the new chapter actually provide more answers than questions. At this point, I think fans deserve a proper ending. I’ve included some screens from the trailer after the break.
Instant kills are a common thing in games, and they’re blast when you’re the one executing them. However when you’re on the receiving end, they can be pretty frustrating. Corridor Digital combined many of the most well-known insta-kill attacks into one silly video, excellent for your weekend entertainment. Everyone from Master Chief, to the Spy, to a Combine officer hop into the battle and Corridor Digital does a great job re-creating them in live-action. Great work!
The Minecraft money train keeps on rolling: on Wednesday, Minecraft released for the Xbox 360. Pretty cool, right? Especially for Notch and Microsoft as the game has already sold more than any other digital game on Xbox Live Arcade, in just the first 24 hours. Notch reported that the game has already become profitable, which is no surprise. It isn’t even updated to the same version as the PC game (it’s based on a year-old update of Minecraft and will be getting the other content later in updates), which just goes to show how popular Minecraft still is. 400,000 players popular, that is. Read more…
I’m not a huge Assassin’s Creed fan – I always had a hard time getting into the series. This trailer for Assassin’s Creed III, though, has me intrigued. The new animation engine for the game looks great as the main character, Connor, dashes about enemies and skewers them with ease. I’m also interested in escaping through buildings and ditching pursuers, as shown in the trailer. Can you do this with almost any house, or are they specific events? Oh, and fix some of those tree branches, Ubisoft: they’re much too straight.
Square Enix’s latest set of downloadable content for Final Fantasy XIII-2 is set for release on May 15th. The long awaited Lightening chapter is said to be included, along with a 16 piece costume set for your moogle, Serah’s stylish White Mage outfit, as well as Noel’s matching Black Mage set. They’ll also be releasing the Snow & Valfodr arena battle on the same day. Like with the previous arena battles, gamers will have a chance to capture and use Snow or Valfodr as in place of their usual monster slot during battles. Although the news was leaked by Playstation Taiwan along with price points for each item, the North American prices will likely differ slightly, so I didn’t bother listing them for you. That said, I imagine the prices will be on par with the previous DLC sets that’ve been released thus far.
I love how papercraft has been really picking up steam and becoming popular. It’s really incredible to see some of the things people make, and not all of it is the traditional boxy models. Cameron Garland has made a “papersculpt,” which is layers of paper laid on top of one another to give a dimensional feel to the creation. This Zelda: Twilight Princess set of weapons and items he created are super-detailed – they almost looked like drawings to me at first. It was on sale for $300, but it looks like someone has already gotten to it. Now this is giving me the urge to get out my X-acto knife and try doing it myself! Read more…
Here’s a great weekend-capper: Rickonami on YouTube has recreated the Star Fox intro using CGI. Yup, the whole thing, and he’s done an excellent job with it! This single video has made me more nostalgic for Star Fox than the recent Star Fox 64 3DS remake, so that’s saying something. I do like that he included the slightly-creepy-but-still-endearing puppets of the Star Fox crew as the profile images – it adds to the awesome factor. I hope to see more fantastic work from Rickonami in the future… he’s got talent!
After much guessing, Game Informer’s exclusive cover story for their upcoming issue is none other than the heavily-rumored Elder Scrolls Online, a new MMO set in the expansive Elder Scrolls world. The MMO will encompass all of Tamriel, such as Elsweyr, Skyrim, and beyond. The setting, however, is a millenium before the events of the last Elder Scrolls game, Skyrim, allowing for plenty of new and different settings. I’m interested in how this will play out, as I’m not sure an Elder Scrolls MMO is necessarily the next step. The game is set for 2013 on both PC and Mac. Read more…
It should come as no surprise at this point, but Bioware and Dark Horse have announced an upcoming digital comic based on the hit title, Dragon Age: Origins. Titled Dragon Age: Those Who Speak, the three part series will focus on the characters of Alistair, Verric and Isabella, as they investigate the death of Alistair’s father. As a bit of a spoiler for anyone who has yet to play the game, Alistair is apparently crowned King at the end of the game, with the comic taking place during his reign. The first issue of the digital comic will be available on August 22nd.
