Getting in on the action tonight, Electronic Arts have released a pair of screenshots from their upcoming The Sims 3: World Adventures expansion pack. These latest shots feature an Egyptian digsite and snake charmer. Check 'em out:
World Adventures is scheduled for release on November 16th.
Spreading the good news today, Atari and Cryptic Studios have announced their upcoming superhero-themed MMORPG, Champions Online, has officially gone gold and will begin shipping to stores on September 1st. Unfamiliar with the game? No worries! Here's a brief description from the press released:
Cryptic Studios -- creators of the award-winning City of Heroes and City of Villains MMOs -- has taken the massively multiplayer role-playing game genre to new heights with Champions Online. The experience begins with Champions' immensely powerful character creation and customization tool, which enables players to fashion truly unique superheroes by choosing from thousands of costume pieces, body types, powers, and character appearances. Players can then modify their choices with an array of configurable sliders and color options, resulting in a completely individualized hero.
No superhero, however unique, can be complete without a super villainous Nemesis or two. With Champions Online's powerful21a9 customization tools, players can also design the perfect Nemesis to oppose their superheroes. These ultimate adversaries appear throughout a hero's career, sometimes issuing challenges, other times ambushing their heroic foe. Champions Online brings epic superheroism to the MMORPG genre with depth that challenges the most experienced online gamers, while its fast-paced action promises to engage new entrants to the online superhero universe.
The wait is allllmost over! ;)
Beta sign-ups for the upcoming PC MMO APB have begun. You can sign up here.
Be warned though: this beta sign-up demands a great deal more information than a typical beta sign-up. Though Realtime Worlds states they will will not sell the information, they sure seem to be a curious bunch. Asking stuff such as how many kids you have, whether your are white or black or something else, if you own a home, and how much money you make. Not sure how that helps make the game, but hey, they are Scottish, so who knows how they do stuff over there.
APB is the brain-child of designer Davy Jones, famous for Lemmings, and the inception of that whole Grand Theft Auto flash-in-the-pan.
APB is a persistent world TPS (third-person shooter). Though it seems MMO-TPS games have been all the rage recently, with CrimeCraft, Huxely, and others recently completed or almost finished, APB looks like it shaping it up to be the strongest entry to the genre.
You'll be able to play as a cop or a criminal. Game worlds will be instanced. And you'll be able to customize your look and car to a great extent. A lot of folks have been referring to this game as "GTA-Online."
Update: Looks like the web page is down -- perhaps because they've been flooded with applications? This doesn't bode well for my chances.
Just in time for the weekend, Valve Software has released the much-hyped 'Classless Update' for their hit multiplayer shooter, Team Fortress 2. In addition to the usual laundry list of bug fixes and gameplay tweaks, this latest update features a new gameplay mode (King of the Hill), eighteen hats and a handful of new maps. You can check out the full changelog right here or just relaunch you Steam client to start downloading. See you on the battlefield! :D
Creating a little buzz this afternoon, IDEA Games and Bohemia Interactive have officially announced the development of ArmA II: Operation Arrowhead, the first standalone expansion pack for their hit tactical shooter. Details are pretty sparse at the moment, but what we do know is that the expansion is set in central Asia and that you'll be able to take on various roles within the US Army, from basic infantry to special ops, pilots and tank crew. No word on a release date, but they do promise to reveal more info at next week's Gamescom.
Anyways, here's the scoop:
Prague, Czech Republic, August 13th 2009 – IDEA Games and award winning independent development studio Bohemia Interactive announced tod218bay the development of ARMA II Operation Arrowhead; the standalone expansion pack to ARMA II, one of the most anticipated sandbox PC military simulator of 2009.
Three years after the conflict in Chernarus, portrayed in the original ARMA II, a new flashpoint in the Green Sea region heats up and coalition forces led by the US Army are sent to Takistan to quickly restore peace and prevent further civilian casualties.
Set into the new, visually attractive environment of hilly central Asia, Operation Arrowhead will offer realistic combat simulation experience in a modern day setting with unprecedented freedom of movement, actions and tactics. Players will enlist into various roles within the US Army, from basic infantrymen, through special operatives, to pilots and tank crew in this new installment in the award winning line up of military simulators for PC from Bohemia Interactive.
ARMA II Operation Arrowhead will be presented during the Gamescom; trade fair for interactive games and entertainment in Cologne, Germany 19th – 23rd August 2009. Visit us at our stand in hall 4.2, stand no. L034.
"Bohemia Interactive is fully committed to supporting the existing ARMA II user base whilst also working on the expansion pack, this will not only allow us to introduce a new and original theater of war to the simulation series, but also improve numerous areas of the core game, for both the original game and the expansion, where we can go even further with adding completely new features" said Marek Spanel, Bohemia’s CEO.
Join the duty in ARMA II, this ultimate military simulator, and get a taste of what it takes to be a soldier in a modern warfare conflict! Visit www.arma2.com or youtube channel ARMA2official for more information!
ARMA II Operation Arrowhead has not yet been rated by ESRB and PEGI.
Great news for fans of the series! :D
Have you ever day-dreamed about being deep in a mine, in a spaceship, on an asteroid? Probably not. But hey, it could be fun.
Miner Wars is coming to the PC and the Xbox Live Arcade this Autumn. In it, you play as a dude in a spaceship who mines space-stuff, and gets into wars. Miner wars!
You can play Miner Wars as a MMO or instead, el solo. The types of missions you'll come across while flying around the solar system include "rescue, exploration, revenge, base defense, theft, transportation, stealth, search and destroy, pure harvesting, racing or just flying around and destroying everything you see."
The game will feature fully destructable environments (asteroids) as well.
It is tough to make a MMORPG that stands out from the new crop of YAMFRIES (Yet Another MMORPG Featuring Rangers, Imps, Elves or Sorcerers) but Mortal Online, by Swedish developer Star Vault does manage to stick out.
Action-based MMORPG shooters based on the Unreal Engine have been popular recently, with games like Huxley and Crimecraft finally finishing production. Mortal Online seems much more MMORPG than most of the other first-person based, real-time action MMORPGs though.
Here is a couple of the key facts about the game: the entire game is played in first person. PVP is possible through out the entire game world -- you can also steal other player's stuff. The game has no experience levels; it's great to see a developer try out such a different idea-- so this means that all content is accessible from the get-go, and there is no grinding. There are no classes either -- instead, your character is determined by some primary attributes, a skillset, and guild affiliations.
Mortal Online sort of looks like an online version of Bethesda's Oblivion.
The game is in a (reportedly) rough beta state rate now. Star Vault put up 10,000 copies of the game for sale -- each sale guarantying you access to the beta. It appears these 10,000 copies have sold out. Supposedly, Mortal Online will be released in the next few months (Q4).
Some gameplay clips have turned up on YouTube. Check'em out. The first is of mining and archery. Remember: recording game footage is going to slow down your computer a lot, so you can expect more frames-per-second if you play the game (presumably). The second video is of the character creation screen. Apparently that white censored area was done by the user recording the video, in order to make the clip YouTube-friendly -- so that means there is some limited nudity in the game it seems. Which is a bit odd.
The third clip is some PvE action. Some dudes are fighting some minotaur folk.
Minimum configuration (1024x768, detail reduced)
OS: Windows XP Service Pack 2 or Windows VistaProcessor: Intel Pentium 4 3Ghz or equivalentRAM: 1GBVideo card: ATI Radeon 9800/nVidia GeForce 6600Video memory 256MBHard drive space: 5-25GB Recommended configuration (1680x1050) OS: Windows XP Service Pack 2 or Windows Vista Service Pack 1Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz or equivalentRAM: 2048MB Dual Channel DDR2Video card: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT or equivalentVideo memory: 512MBHard drive space: 30GB
