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http://auth.gamespot.com/ Gamespot's Everything Feed! News, Reviews, Videos. Exploding with content? You bet. en-us Wed, 22 Jan 2014 07:55:20 -0800 http://www.gamespot.com/articles/ea-pays-youtube-producers-to-promote-its-games/1100-6417271/ <figure data-align="center" data-size="large" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/1179/11799911/2422683-eanextgen.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2422683" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/1179/11799911/2422683-eanextgen.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2422683"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_super/1179/11799911/2422683-eanextgen.jpg"></a></figure><p style=""> </p><p dir="ltr" style="">Earlier this week it was revealed that <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/microsoft-and-machinima-say-youtube-advertising-deal-was-a-typical-partnership/1100-6417260/" data-ref-id="1100-6417260">Microsoft paid YouTube producers to create video content that promotes the Xbox One</a>, and now it's confirmed that Electronic Arts is operating a similar program. An EA representative confirmed the program, <a href="https://ronku.ea.com/?r=site/login" rel="nofollow" data-ref-id="false">called Ronku</a>, to <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2014/1/21/5332306/electronic-arts-ronku-pays-to-promote-games-on-youtube" rel="nofollow" data-ref-id="false">The Verge</a> after documents detailing its guidelines <a href="http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=755600" rel="nofollow" data-ref-id="false">leaked on noted game forum NeoGAF yesterday</a>.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">Under the terms of the program, YouTube producers were paid to publish video content for <a href="/battlefield-4/" data-ref-id="false">Battlefield 4</a> and <a href="/need-for-speed-rivals/" data-ref-id="false">Need for Speed: Rivals</a>. Each "assignment" had specific objectives, like focusing on in-game activities including taking down an entire skyscraper in Battlefield 4 or crossing the finish line in Need for Speed: Rivals. For Battlefield 4, producers were told not to make videos featuring any glitches they might encounter during gameplay.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">Participants in the program could earn $10 per thousand video views from a maximum of three videos. Other games featured in the program were <a href="/fifa-14/" data-ref-id="false">FIFA 14</a>, <a href="/madden-nfl-25/" data-ref-id="false">Madden NFL 25</a>, <a href="/nhl-14/" data-ref-id="false">NHL 14</a>, and <a href="/plants-vs-zombies-2-its-about-time/" data-ref-id="false">Plants vs. Zombies 2</a>, all of which granted payments of $10 per thousand views.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">As The Verge points out, the issue here is not EA finding a new way to promote its games, but rather the way in which the company is reportedly going about it. The Federal Trade Commission <a href="http://www.ftc.gov/sites/default/files/attachments/press-releases/ftc-publishes-final-guides-governing-endorsements-testimonials/091005revisedendorsementguides.pdf" rel="nofollow" data-ref-id="false">mandates</a> that endorsers "clearly and conspicuously" inform their audience that they are working on behalf of a company. However, the documents from NeoGAF suggest that producers of EA's Ronku program are barred from making such a disclosure.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">"You agree to keep confidential at all times all matters relating to this Agreement and any Assignment including, without limitation, the Details and Compensation listed above," the document supposedly reads.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">We have not been able to independently verify that this line from the agreement is in fact genuine, but the <a href="https://ronku.ea.com/?r=site/login" rel="nofollow" data-ref-id="false">Ronku program itself</a> is indeed real.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">"Through EA's Ronku program, some fans are compensated for the YouTube videos they create and share about our games," an EA representative told The Verge. "The program requires that participants comply with FTC guidelines and identify when content is sponsored. User-generated videos are a valuable and unique aspect of how gamers share their experiences playing the games they love, and one that EA supports."</p><p dir="ltr" style="">"We explicitly state in the Terms &amp; Conditions of the program that each video must comply with the FTC's Guidelines concerning Use of Testimonials and Endorsements in Advertising," the representative added.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">Microsoft and Machinima described their promotional partnership as <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/microsoft-and-machinima-say-youtube-advertising-deal-was-a-typical-partnership/1100-6417260/" data-ref-id="1100-6417260">nothing more than a standard agreement</a>.</p><div data-embed-type="video" data-ref-id="2300-6416394" data-width="100%" data-height="100%"><iframe src="/videos/embed/6416394/" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe></div><p dir="ltr" style=""> </p><p style=""> </p> Wed, 22 Jan 2014 07:28:00 -0800 http://www.gamespot.com/articles/ea-pays-youtube-producers-to-promote-its-games/1100-6417271/ http://www.gamespot.com/videos/fable-anniversary-graphics-comparison/2300-6416898/ Compare Fable on the original Xbox with the Fable Anniversary Edition, released on the Xbox 360. Wed, 22 Jan 2014 06:00:00 -0800 http://www.gamespot.com/videos/fable-anniversary-graphics-comparison/2300-6416898/ http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/pandora-first-contact-review/1900-6415642/ <p style="">There's a special kind of fear that aliens can tap into. They are often unknown, unreasonable, and unrelenting. Many 4X strategy games are strongly tied to real events, people, and cultures in human history, but some of the best games in the genre are set in space against powerful and hostile alien races. Pandora: First Contact is one such game, and it takes heavy cues from games like Sid Meier's <a href="/sid-meiers-alpha-centauri/" data-ref-id="false">Alpha Centauri</a>. While it is meant to be a respectful tribute, Pandora is laden with awful design choices and a confusing mishmash of old and new mechanics. The pieces that stand up are pulled directly from other, better games, and the original ideas aren't developed well enough to carry the experience.</p><p style="">Pandora: First Contact opens with a smattering of people desperate to find a new Earth after decades of environmental destruction. The most prosperous societies have each launched their own expeditions, loosely representative of several modern-day nations and ideologies. These groups form the different factions and have their own vaguely defined play styles ranging from brutal, polluting industry to hyper-religious zealotry. Unfortunately, while they are thematically distinct, none of the factions stand out. Besides how the diplomatic options are phrased, and a few starting bonuses, they are all more or less the same. In my games, playing as the super-scientific faction wasn't terribly different from playing as the environmentalists. All of the units are the same, and the victory conditions are far too limited for any of your decisions to have much of an effect. There really is only one correct play style: extreme aggression.</p><figure data-align="center" data-size="large" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2422381-combat2.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2422381" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2422381-combat2.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2422381"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_super/416/4161502/2422381-combat2.jpg"></a><figcaption>Pandora borrows heavily from the works of Sid Meier, but it's missing too many pieces.</figcaption></figure><p style="">Civilization has often been lauded for allowing you to seek scientific, cultural, military, or even diplomatic victory, and each of these routes is supported by an entire system of mechanics that help support that path. These systems connect with one another and can be attached or separated, giving you an enormous amount of freedom in how you play. Those choices are meaningful because they are symbolic; they represent different and distinct ideologies. Pandora, too, has "different" victory conditions, but none of them are well developed. There is a scientific victory that amounts to having 75 percent of all possible research items complete. To achieve military victory, you have to take control of over 75 percent of the planet's populace. Unfortunately, the mechanisms by which you accomplish these conditions are nearly identical, and there's virtually no way to stop a player who's nearing victory. The element of choice and the ability to consistently have any efficacy or agency in the game is totally subverted by this design.</p><p style="">The planet of Pandora is crawling with aliens when you first touch down, and it takes only a few turns for those forces to turn aggressive; unlike the barbarians from Civilization, these creatures are absolutely everywhere and are much, much stronger than any of your starting units. For example, a unit of marines has a starting combat strength of 2, while aliens range from 1 to 18, with 2 and 8 being the most common. How well you handle these early foes determines how much land and resources you have to work with in the mid to late game.</p><blockquote data-size="large" data-align="left"><p style="">While it is meant to be a respectful tribute, Pandora is laden with awful design choices and a confusing mishmash of old and new mechanics.</p></blockquote><p style="">Sadly, ignoring them isn't an option. Even if you never attack the aliens or show any sign of aggression, at a certain point they begin attacking you. Expanding and fortifying your armies, and then raiding alien hives for their massive cash reserves is the only way to play. Any land you don't grab for yourself is land a future opponent will use against you, and any aliens you don't kill feed the resources and experience of your rivals. This design choice forces the game into a two-stage system. The first stage is rapid expansion and extreme brutality against the indigenous aliens, and the second stage is focused more on developing the land you've claimed and steadily pushing back against enemies. While the first stage might be frustratingly limited, the second is fundamentally broken.</p><p style="">In better-designed 4X games, much of the mid- to late-game conflict stems from resource scarcity. You need a specific plot of land that an opponent has; this causes conflict, which then buttresses the final stages of a match. In Pandora, land is certainly important, but expansion is agonizingly slow. Even on the fastest setting, with the exception of a handful of rare tiles, there's absolutely no scarcity. Aside from mountains, just about every tile can be converted into every other kind, and they don't carry the bottlenecking effect that's common in other games. Without scarcity, there's very little to fight over, and the monotony of expansion across hundreds of same-y tiles wears down to tedium very quickly.</p><figure data-align="center" data-size="large" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2422383-techtree.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2422383" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2422383-techtree.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2422383"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_super/416/4161502/2422383-techtree.jpg"></a><figcaption>Classic sci-fi homage.</figcaption></figure><p style="">In place of a varied and interesting landscape, Pandora has a fairly robust unit upgrade and operations system. As you progress technologically, you have access to a wider variety of weapons and equipment for your various units. For example, initially your legions of marines only have access to their basic machine guns, but once you develop the flamethrower, you can bring marines back to a city to refit them with the latest gadgets. This is typically done for a significant cost, though, and can become overwhelmingly expensive when upgrading masses of units. Additionally, at each new stage of technological development, you also gain access to advanced versions of every unit. The colonial marine, your bread and butter, later becomes the assault trooper. After you've unlocked the next stage, it's often more practical to simply send your old units to their death at the hands of a foe and just start production on the next batch of souped-up soldiers</p><p style="">To cut down on some of the banality of this cycle of production-upgrade-sacrifice, you can set your cities to crank out new units with the upgraded tech. This costs extra production time, but typically that's much easier to manage than trying to purchase all of the upgrades outright. Unfortunately, there's no system or mechanic allowing for the retrofitting of old units with new gear via production capacity, nor is there any way to take an old unit and make it into one of the newer variety. This is probably intended to be balanced by the experience system, which can dramatically enhance the combat effectiveness of older troops, but that loses relevance in the mid to late game because of operations.</p><blockquote data-size="large" data-align="right"><p style="">Without scarcity, there's very little to fight over.</p></blockquote><p style="">Operations can range from nuclear strikes and satellite scans to field training missions. They are produced much like standard units but are immediately consumed upon use. These field training missions are ridiculously cheap, particularly in the late game, and I often had one city of mine constantly producing them. After I finished a new batch of troops, I'd march them all to my most forward base, dump 10 field training missions on them to max out their level, and then let them heal up for two or three turns before marching out my legions of tanks, airplanes, and marines to conquer whatever stood in their way. It's much faster and less risky than trying to naturally level up fresh recruits, and it always ensured that my warriors would be at the top of their game.</p><p style="">At the end of the day, unit management is bogged down by a plethora of underutilized mechanics. Instead of adding to the gameplay, they simply encourage you to abuse other systems to circumvent the poorly designed interface. That seems to be par for the course for Pandora. There are a lot of neat ideas here, but none of them pan out. The game's creators clearly adore 4X strategy games in general, and Alpha Centauri specifically, is clear here, but Pandora: First Contact is not a proper tribute. I want to love Pandora, I really do, but nostalgia can't fix a game that doesn't work even at the most basic level.</p> Tue, 21 Jan 2014 18:59:00 -0800 http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/pandora-first-contact-review/1900-6415642/

http://auth.gamespot.com/ Gamespot's Everything Feed! News, Reviews, Videos. Exploding with content? You bet. en-us Wed, 22 Jan 2014 07:55:20 -0800 http://www.gamespot.com/articles/ea-pays-youtube-producers-to-promote-its-games/1100-6417271/ <figure data-align="center" data-size="large" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/1179/11799911/2422683-eanextgen.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2422683" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/1179/11799911/2422683-eanextgen.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2422683"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_super/1179/11799911/2422683-eanextgen.jpg"></a></figure><p style=""> </p><p dir="ltr" style="">Earlier this week it was revealed that <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/microsoft-and-machinima-say-youtube-advertising-deal-was-a-typical-partnership/1100-6417260/" data-ref-id="1100-6417260">Microsoft paid YouTube producers to create video content that promotes the Xbox One</a>, and now it's confirmed that Electronic Arts is operating a similar program. An EA representative confirmed the program, <a href="https://ronku.ea.com/?r=site/login" rel="nofollow" data-ref-id="false">called Ronku</a>, to <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2014/1/21/5332306/electronic-arts-ronku-pays-to-promote-games-on-youtube" rel="nofollow" data-ref-id="false">The Verge</a> after documents detailing its guidelines <a href="http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=755600" rel="nofollow" data-ref-id="false">leaked on noted game forum NeoGAF yesterday</a>.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">Under the terms of the program, YouTube producers were paid to publish video content for <a href="/battlefield-4/" data-ref-id="false">Battlefield 4</a> and <a href="/need-for-speed-rivals/" data-ref-id="false">Need for Speed: Rivals</a>. Each "assignment" had specific objectives, like focusing on in-game activities including taking down an entire skyscraper in Battlefield 4 or crossing the finish line in Need for Speed: Rivals. For Battlefield 4, producers were told not to make videos featuring any glitches they might encounter during gameplay.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">Participants in the program could earn $10 per thousand video views from a maximum of three videos. Other games featured in the program were <a href="/fifa-14/" data-ref-id="false">FIFA 14</a>, <a href="/madden-nfl-25/" data-ref-id="false">Madden NFL 25</a>, <a href="/nhl-14/" data-ref-id="false">NHL 14</a>, and <a href="/plants-vs-zombies-2-its-about-time/" data-ref-id="false">Plants vs. Zombies 2</a>, all of which granted payments of $10 per thousand views.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">As The Verge points out, the issue here is not EA finding a new way to promote its games, but rather the way in which the company is reportedly going about it. The Federal Trade Commission <a href="http://www.ftc.gov/sites/default/files/attachments/press-releases/ftc-publishes-final-guides-governing-endorsements-testimonials/091005revisedendorsementguides.pdf" rel="nofollow" data-ref-id="false">mandates</a> that endorsers "clearly and conspicuously" inform their audience that they are working on behalf of a company. However, the documents from NeoGAF suggest that producers of EA's Ronku program are barred from making such a disclosure.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">"You agree to keep confidential at all times all matters relating to this Agreement and any Assignment including, without limitation, the Details and Compensation listed above," the document supposedly reads.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">We have not been able to independently verify that this line from the agreement is in fact genuine, but the <a href="https://ronku.ea.com/?r=site/login" rel="nofollow" data-ref-id="false">Ronku program itself</a> is indeed real.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">"Through EA's Ronku program, some fans are compensated for the YouTube videos they create and share about our games," an EA representative told The Verge. "The program requires that participants comply with FTC guidelines and identify when content is sponsored. User-generated videos are a valuable and unique aspect of how gamers share their experiences playing the games they love, and one that EA supports."</p><p dir="ltr" style="">"We explicitly state in the Terms &amp; Conditions of the program that each video must comply with the FTC's Guidelines concerning Use of Testimonials and Endorsements in Advertising," the representative added.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">Microsoft and Machinima described their promotional partnership as <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/microsoft-and-machinima-say-youtube-advertising-deal-was-a-typical-partnership/1100-6417260/" data-ref-id="1100-6417260">nothing more than a standard agreement</a>.</p><div data-embed-type="video" data-ref-id="2300-6416394" data-width="100%" data-height="100%"><iframe src="/videos/embed/6416394/" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe></div><p dir="ltr" style=""> </p><p style=""> </p> Wed, 22 Jan 2014 07:28:00 -0800 http://www.gamespot.com/articles/ea-pays-youtube-producers-to-promote-its-games/1100-6417271/ http://www.gamespot.com/videos/fable-anniversary-graphics-comparison/2300-6416898/ Compare Fable on the original Xbox with the Fable Anniversary Edition, released on the Xbox 360. Wed, 22 Jan 2014 06:00:00 -0800 http://www.gamespot.com/videos/fable-anniversary-graphics-comparison/2300-6416898/ http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/pandora-first-contact-review/1900-6415642/ <p style="">There's a special kind of fear that aliens can tap into. They are often unknown, unreasonable, and unrelenting. Many 4X strategy games are strongly tied to real events, people, and cultures in human history, but some of the best games in the genre are set in space against powerful and hostile alien races. Pandora: First Contact is one such game, and it takes heavy cues from games like Sid Meier's <a href="/sid-meiers-alpha-centauri/" data-ref-id="false">Alpha Centauri</a>. While it is meant to be a respectful tribute, Pandora is laden with awful design choices and a confusing mishmash of old and new mechanics. The pieces that stand up are pulled directly from other, better games, and the original ideas aren't developed well enough to carry the experience.</p><p style="">Pandora: First Contact opens with a smattering of people desperate to find a new Earth after decades of environmental destruction. The most prosperous societies have each launched their own expeditions, loosely representative of several modern-day nations and ideologies. These groups form the different factions and have their own vaguely defined play styles ranging from brutal, polluting industry to hyper-religious zealotry. Unfortunately, while they are thematically distinct, none of the factions stand out. Besides how the diplomatic options are phrased, and a few starting bonuses, they are all more or less the same. In my games, playing as the super-scientific faction wasn't terribly different from playing as the environmentalists. All of the units are the same, and the victory conditions are far too limited for any of your decisions to have much of an effect. There really is only one correct play style: extreme aggression.</p><figure data-align="center" data-size="large" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2422381-combat2.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2422381" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2422381-combat2.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2422381"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_super/416/4161502/2422381-combat2.jpg"></a><figcaption>Pandora borrows heavily from the works of Sid Meier, but it's missing too many pieces.</figcaption></figure><p style="">Civilization has often been lauded for allowing you to seek scientific, cultural, military, or even diplomatic victory, and each of these routes is supported by an entire system of mechanics that help support that path. These systems connect with one another and can be attached or separated, giving you an enormous amount of freedom in how you play. Those choices are meaningful because they are symbolic; they represent different and distinct ideologies. Pandora, too, has "different" victory conditions, but none of them are well developed. There is a scientific victory that amounts to having 75 percent of all possible research items complete. To achieve military victory, you have to take control of over 75 percent of the planet's populace. Unfortunately, the mechanisms by which you accomplish these conditions are nearly identical, and there's virtually no way to stop a player who's nearing victory. The element of choice and the ability to consistently have any efficacy or agency in the game is totally subverted by this design.</p><p style="">The planet of Pandora is crawling with aliens when you first touch down, and it takes only a few turns for those forces to turn aggressive; unlike the barbarians from Civilization, these creatures are absolutely everywhere and are much, much stronger than any of your starting units. For example, a unit of marines has a starting combat strength of 2, while aliens range from 1 to 18, with 2 and 8 being the most common. How well you handle these early foes determines how much land and resources you have to work with in the mid to late game.</p><blockquote data-size="large" data-align="left"><p style="">While it is meant to be a respectful tribute, Pandora is laden with awful design choices and a confusing mishmash of old and new mechanics.</p></blockquote><p style="">Sadly, ignoring them isn't an option. Even if you never attack the aliens or show any sign of aggression, at a certain point they begin attacking you. Expanding and fortifying your armies, and then raiding alien hives for their massive cash reserves is the only way to play. Any land you don't grab for yourself is land a future opponent will use against you, and any aliens you don't kill feed the resources and experience of your rivals. This design choice forces the game into a two-stage system. The first stage is rapid expansion and extreme brutality against the indigenous aliens, and the second stage is focused more on developing the land you've claimed and steadily pushing back against enemies. While the first stage might be frustratingly limited, the second is fundamentally broken.</p><p style="">In better-designed 4X games, much of the mid- to late-game conflict stems from resource scarcity. You need a specific plot of land that an opponent has; this causes conflict, which then buttresses the final stages of a match. In Pandora, land is certainly important, but expansion is agonizingly slow. Even on the fastest setting, with the exception of a handful of rare tiles, there's absolutely no scarcity. Aside from mountains, just about every tile can be converted into every other kind, and they don't carry the bottlenecking effect that's common in other games. Without scarcity, there's very little to fight over, and the monotony of expansion across hundreds of same-y tiles wears down to tedium very quickly.</p><figure data-align="center" data-size="large" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2422383-techtree.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2422383" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2422383-techtree.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2422383"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_super/416/4161502/2422383-techtree.jpg"></a><figcaption>Classic sci-fi homage.</figcaption></figure><p style="">In place of a varied and interesting landscape, Pandora has a fairly robust unit upgrade and operations system. As you progress technologically, you have access to a wider variety of weapons and equipment for your various units. For example, initially your legions of marines only have access to their basic machine guns, but once you develop the flamethrower, you can bring marines back to a city to refit them with the latest gadgets. This is typically done for a significant cost, though, and can become overwhelmingly expensive when upgrading masses of units. Additionally, at each new stage of technological development, you also gain access to advanced versions of every unit. The colonial marine, your bread and butter, later becomes the assault trooper. After you've unlocked the next stage, it's often more practical to simply send your old units to their death at the hands of a foe and just start production on the next batch of souped-up soldiers</p><p style="">To cut down on some of the banality of this cycle of production-upgrade-sacrifice, you can set your cities to crank out new units with the upgraded tech. This costs extra production time, but typically that's much easier to manage than trying to purchase all of the upgrades outright. Unfortunately, there's no system or mechanic allowing for the retrofitting of old units with new gear via production capacity, nor is there any way to take an old unit and make it into one of the newer variety. This is probably intended to be balanced by the experience system, which can dramatically enhance the combat effectiveness of older troops, but that loses relevance in the mid to late game because of operations.</p><blockquote data-size="large" data-align="right"><p style="">Without scarcity, there's very little to fight over.</p></blockquote><p style="">Operations can range from nuclear strikes and satellite scans to field training missions. They are produced much like standard units but are immediately consumed upon use. These field training missions are ridiculously cheap, particularly in the late game, and I often had one city of mine constantly producing them. After I finished a new batch of troops, I'd march them all to my most forward base, dump 10 field training missions on them to max out their level, and then let them heal up for two or three turns before marching out my legions of tanks, airplanes, and marines to conquer whatever stood in their way. It's much faster and less risky than trying to naturally level up fresh recruits, and it always ensured that my warriors would be at the top of their game.</p><p style="">At the end of the day, unit management is bogged down by a plethora of underutilized mechanics. Instead of adding to the gameplay, they simply encourage you to abuse other systems to circumvent the poorly designed interface. That seems to be par for the course for Pandora. There are a lot of neat ideas here, but none of them pan out. The game's creators clearly adore 4X strategy games in general, and Alpha Centauri specifically, is clear here, but Pandora: First Contact is not a proper tribute. I want to love Pandora, I really do, but nostalgia can't fix a game that doesn't work even at the most basic level.</p> Tue, 21 Jan 2014 18:59:00 -0800 http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/pandora-first-contact-review/1900-6415642/

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http://auth.gamespot.com/ Gamespot's Everything Feed! News, Reviews, Videos. Exploding with content? You bet. en-us Wed, 15 Jan 2014 07:39:52 -0800 http://www.gamespot.com/articles/car-game-with-impressive-damage-physics-hits-steam-early-access/1100-6417142/ <p style=""> </p><p dir="ltr" style=""><a href="/flatout/" data-ref-id="false">Flatout</a> creator Bugbear Entertainment today released its new racing game, currently titled "<a href="/next-car-game/" data-ref-id="false">Next Car Game</a>," through Steam Early Access. You can <a href="http://store.steampowered.com/app/228380/" rel="nofollow" data-ref-id="false">download the game today for $25</a>. A special $35 Digital Deluxe version featuring a soundtrack, exclusive in-game race, and wallpapers is also available.</p><figure data-align="left" data-size="medium" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/1179/11799911/2418872-ncg.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2418872" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/1179/11799911/2418872-ncg.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2418872"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_medium/1179/11799911/2418872-ncg.jpg"></a></figure><p dir="ltr" style=""> </p><p dir="ltr" style="">Next Car Game, like all other Early Access titles, is incomplete. The game is missing features and contains "nasty bugs," Bugbear said. But releasing the game in this state is an exciting proposition, the developer said, because it allows for the studio to incorporate fan feedback.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">The game's arrival on Steam Early Access comes after Bugbear <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/flatout-dev-cancels-kickstarter-for-destruction-themed-car-game/1100-6416335/" data-ref-id="1100-6416335">canceled the title's initial Kickstarter campaign in November</a>, after it gathered just <a href="http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1470493497/next-car-game-a-motorsport-with-attitude?ref=live" rel="nofollow" data-ref-id="false">$81,000 of its $350,000 target</a>.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">One of the most compelling components of Next Car Game is its "true-to-life" damage physics system, which allow vehicles to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmQbUJiEax8" rel="nofollow" data-ref-id="false">break down in real-time and with great detail</a>. In addition to demolition derbies, Next Car Game will feature traditional track races.</p><p style="">For more on Next Car Game, check out <a href="/next-car-game/" data-ref-id="false">GameSpot's previous coverage</a>.</p><div data-embed-type="video" data-ref-id="2300-6404432" data-width="100%" data-height="100%"><iframe src="/videos/embed/6404432/" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe></div><p style=""> </p> Wed, 15 Jan 2014 07:16:00 -0800 http://www.gamespot.com/articles/car-game-with-impressive-damage-physics-hits-steam-early-access/1100-6417142/ http://www.gamespot.com/videos/dark-souls-ii-curse-trailer/2300-6416821/ Check out the curse trailer for Dark Souls II. Tue, 14 Jan 2014 20:00:00 -0800 http://www.gamespot.com/videos/dark-souls-ii-curse-trailer/2300-6416821/ http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/dementium-ii-hd-review/1900-6415625/ <p style="">Dementium: The Ward was a flawed first-person frightener for the Nintendo DS whose shortcomings were generally overshadowed by the fact that it offered a full-fledged survival horror experience on a portable platform. Retaining its predecessor's most appealing elements, while fixing most of its problems, 2010's Dementium II cemented the series as a cult favorite among those who wanted to be scared on the go. Recently rereleased on the PC as Dementium II HD, the sequel has stepped up its visual presentation, but otherwise represents a shuffling zombie step backward for the franchise.</p><p style="">To be fair, Dementium II HD isn't just another mindless undead shooting gallery. While its disturbing asylum setting is populated by its share of <a href="/resident-evil/" data-ref-id="false">Resident Evil</a> rejects, it borrows more from Silent Hill 2 than recent so-called "survival horror" fragfests like <a href="/resident-evil-6/" data-ref-id="false">RE6</a> and <a href="/dead-space-3/" data-ref-id="false">Dead Space 3</a>. As a mental hospital patient barely recovered from brain surgery, you must navigate the institution's appropriately creepy, creature-inhabited halls. From its bloodied walls and dilapidated medical equipment to the unsettling cackles and cries traveling down its dank corridors, the setting's sights and sounds are too familiar but still manage to create a milieu in which <a href="/bioshock/" data-ref-id="false">BioShock</a>'s Dr. Steinman would feel comfortable performing human experiments.</p><figure data-align="center" data-size="large" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2418481-0004.png" data-ref-id="1300-2418481" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2418481-0004.png" data-ref-id="1300-2418481"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_super/416/4161502/2418481-0004.png"></a><figcaption>New Olympic event: synchronized dying.</figcaption></figure><p style="">Enemy encounters are similarly tired but serviceable. While a handful of foes--mostly of the boss variety--may sow the seeds of your future nightmares, the majority possess the kind of unnatural movements, misplaced limbs, and fang-filled maws we've come to expect from the genre's hell-spawn and virally infected freaks. Behind a well-balanced, varied arsenal that includes sledgehammers and sticks of dynamite among its choices, combat is satisfying, albeit not specifically fine-tuned for a gamepad; where the first-person mechanics offered some welcome novelty when using a DS stylus, they're merely competent on the PC.</p><p style="">When not emptying ammo clips or engaging in up-close melees with the game's oozing cast of monsters, you tackle light puzzles and explore parallel worlds; the former activity is uninspired, tedious filler, while the latter sees you alternating between a twisted world of nightmarish monsters and a more realistic realm populated by baton-wielding hospital guards. The parallel-world concept is cool--even packing the occasional surprise and genuine goose-bumps-inducing scare--but without any interesting character interactions or strong narrative support to speak of, it comes off a bit like a forgettable B movie.</p><blockquote data-align="center" data-size="large"><p style="">The core adventuring, comfortably freakish foes, and trite story and setting are pleasantly familiar at best, and dated and unmemorable at worst.</p></blockquote><figure data-align="left" data-size="medium" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2418482-0001.png" data-ref-id="1300-2418482" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2418482-0001.png" data-ref-id="1300-2418482"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_medium/416/4161502/2418482-0001.png"></a><figcaption>There's no shame in backstabbing a brainless mutant of nature!</figcaption></figure><p style="">That same sentiment sums up most of the Dementium II HD experience. It's by no means a bad game; it's just a painfully subpar one. The core adventuring, comfortably freakish foes, and trite story and setting are pleasantly familiar at best, and dated and unmemorable at worst. As promised in the title, the visuals have received a makeover; slicker lighting and smoother textures, however, aren't enough to make this high-res facelift look particularly up to date.</p><p style="">The game's portable roots also reveal themselves in its brevity. Originally crafted for the handheld, its four- to six-hour campaign felt right for mobile players craving bite-size play sessions; on the PC, though, its length serves as yet another reminder that this was a game meant to be played on the subway or in the dentist's office. More specifically--at least for this longtime fan--the Dementium series was one to be relished in the wee hours, preferably under the covers on a cold night with the lights out, earbuds securely inserted.</p><p style="">Three years ago, splashed across the DS's dual screens, Dementium II--and even the game that spawned it three years prior--was a novelty, a dedicated first-person survival horror experience exclusive to a platform that didn't offer anything else like it. Brought to the current gen and blown up on the big screen, though, this cult classic is left gasping for air in a sea swimming with bigger, better competition, both classic (<a href="/call-of-cthulhu-dark-corners-of-the-earth/" data-ref-id="false">Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth</a>) and contemporary (<a href="/outlast/" data-ref-id="false">Outlast</a>) If you've exhausted Steam's survival horror library, Dementium II HD will scratch your genre itch. Unfortunately, that itch has already been rubbed raw by much better games.</p> Tue, 14 Jan 2014 14:08:00 -0800 http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/dementium-ii-hd-review/1900-6415625/

http://auth.gamespot.com/ Gamespot's Everything Feed! News, Reviews, Videos. Exploding with content? You bet. en-us Wed, 15 Jan 2014 07:39:52 -0800 http://www.gamespot.com/articles/car-game-with-impressive-damage-physics-hits-steam-early-access/1100-6417142/ <p style=""> </p><p dir="ltr" style=""><a href="/flatout/" data-ref-id="false">Flatout</a> creator Bugbear Entertainment today released its new racing game, currently titled "<a href="/next-car-game/" data-ref-id="false">Next Car Game</a>," through Steam Early Access. You can <a href="http://store.steampowered.com/app/228380/" rel="nofollow" data-ref-id="false">download the game today for $25</a>. A special $35 Digital Deluxe version featuring a soundtrack, exclusive in-game race, and wallpapers is also available.</p><figure data-align="left" data-size="medium" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/1179/11799911/2418872-ncg.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2418872" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/1179/11799911/2418872-ncg.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2418872"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_medium/1179/11799911/2418872-ncg.jpg"></a></figure><p dir="ltr" style=""> </p><p dir="ltr" style="">Next Car Game, like all other Early Access titles, is incomplete. The game is missing features and contains "nasty bugs," Bugbear said. But releasing the game in this state is an exciting proposition, the developer said, because it allows for the studio to incorporate fan feedback.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">The game's arrival on Steam Early Access comes after Bugbear <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/flatout-dev-cancels-kickstarter-for-destruction-themed-car-game/1100-6416335/" data-ref-id="1100-6416335">canceled the title's initial Kickstarter campaign in November</a>, after it gathered just <a href="http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1470493497/next-car-game-a-motorsport-with-attitude?ref=live" rel="nofollow" data-ref-id="false">$81,000 of its $350,000 target</a>.</p><p dir="ltr" style="">One of the most compelling components of Next Car Game is its "true-to-life" damage physics system, which allow vehicles to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmQbUJiEax8" rel="nofollow" data-ref-id="false">break down in real-time and with great detail</a>. In addition to demolition derbies, Next Car Game will feature traditional track races.</p><p style="">For more on Next Car Game, check out <a href="/next-car-game/" data-ref-id="false">GameSpot's previous coverage</a>.</p><div data-embed-type="video" data-ref-id="2300-6404432" data-width="100%" data-height="100%"><iframe src="/videos/embed/6404432/" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe></div><p style=""> </p> Wed, 15 Jan 2014 07:16:00 -0800 http://www.gamespot.com/articles/car-game-with-impressive-damage-physics-hits-steam-early-access/1100-6417142/ http://www.gamespot.com/videos/dark-souls-ii-curse-trailer/2300-6416821/ Check out the curse trailer for Dark Souls II. Tue, 14 Jan 2014 20:00:00 -0800 http://www.gamespot.com/videos/dark-souls-ii-curse-trailer/2300-6416821/ http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/dementium-ii-hd-review/1900-6415625/ <p style="">Dementium: The Ward was a flawed first-person frightener for the Nintendo DS whose shortcomings were generally overshadowed by the fact that it offered a full-fledged survival horror experience on a portable platform. Retaining its predecessor's most appealing elements, while fixing most of its problems, 2010's Dementium II cemented the series as a cult favorite among those who wanted to be scared on the go. Recently rereleased on the PC as Dementium II HD, the sequel has stepped up its visual presentation, but otherwise represents a shuffling zombie step backward for the franchise.</p><p style="">To be fair, Dementium II HD isn't just another mindless undead shooting gallery. While its disturbing asylum setting is populated by its share of <a href="/resident-evil/" data-ref-id="false">Resident Evil</a> rejects, it borrows more from Silent Hill 2 than recent so-called "survival horror" fragfests like <a href="/resident-evil-6/" data-ref-id="false">RE6</a> and <a href="/dead-space-3/" data-ref-id="false">Dead Space 3</a>. As a mental hospital patient barely recovered from brain surgery, you must navigate the institution's appropriately creepy, creature-inhabited halls. From its bloodied walls and dilapidated medical equipment to the unsettling cackles and cries traveling down its dank corridors, the setting's sights and sounds are too familiar but still manage to create a milieu in which <a href="/bioshock/" data-ref-id="false">BioShock</a>'s Dr. Steinman would feel comfortable performing human experiments.</p><figure data-align="center" data-size="large" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2418481-0004.png" data-ref-id="1300-2418481" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2418481-0004.png" data-ref-id="1300-2418481"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_super/416/4161502/2418481-0004.png"></a><figcaption>New Olympic event: synchronized dying.</figcaption></figure><p style="">Enemy encounters are similarly tired but serviceable. While a handful of foes--mostly of the boss variety--may sow the seeds of your future nightmares, the majority possess the kind of unnatural movements, misplaced limbs, and fang-filled maws we've come to expect from the genre's hell-spawn and virally infected freaks. Behind a well-balanced, varied arsenal that includes sledgehammers and sticks of dynamite among its choices, combat is satisfying, albeit not specifically fine-tuned for a gamepad; where the first-person mechanics offered some welcome novelty when using a DS stylus, they're merely competent on the PC.</p><p style="">When not emptying ammo clips or engaging in up-close melees with the game's oozing cast of monsters, you tackle light puzzles and explore parallel worlds; the former activity is uninspired, tedious filler, while the latter sees you alternating between a twisted world of nightmarish monsters and a more realistic realm populated by baton-wielding hospital guards. The parallel-world concept is cool--even packing the occasional surprise and genuine goose-bumps-inducing scare--but without any interesting character interactions or strong narrative support to speak of, it comes off a bit like a forgettable B movie.</p><blockquote data-align="center" data-size="large"><p style="">The core adventuring, comfortably freakish foes, and trite story and setting are pleasantly familiar at best, and dated and unmemorable at worst.</p></blockquote><figure data-align="left" data-size="medium" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2418482-0001.png" data-ref-id="1300-2418482" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2418482-0001.png" data-ref-id="1300-2418482"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_medium/416/4161502/2418482-0001.png"></a><figcaption>There's no shame in backstabbing a brainless mutant of nature!</figcaption></figure><p style="">That same sentiment sums up most of the Dementium II HD experience. It's by no means a bad game; it's just a painfully subpar one. The core adventuring, comfortably freakish foes, and trite story and setting are pleasantly familiar at best, and dated and unmemorable at worst. As promised in the title, the visuals have received a makeover; slicker lighting and smoother textures, however, aren't enough to make this high-res facelift look particularly up to date.</p><p style="">The game's portable roots also reveal themselves in its brevity. Originally crafted for the handheld, its four- to six-hour campaign felt right for mobile players craving bite-size play sessions; on the PC, though, its length serves as yet another reminder that this was a game meant to be played on the subway or in the dentist's office. More specifically--at least for this longtime fan--the Dementium series was one to be relished in the wee hours, preferably under the covers on a cold night with the lights out, earbuds securely inserted.</p><p style="">Three years ago, splashed across the DS's dual screens, Dementium II--and even the game that spawned it three years prior--was a novelty, a dedicated first-person survival horror experience exclusive to a platform that didn't offer anything else like it. Brought to the current gen and blown up on the big screen, though, this cult classic is left gasping for air in a sea swimming with bigger, better competition, both classic (<a href="/call-of-cthulhu-dark-corners-of-the-earth/" data-ref-id="false">Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth</a>) and contemporary (<a href="/outlast/" data-ref-id="false">Outlast</a>) If you've exhausted Steam's survival horror library, Dementium II HD will scratch your genre itch. Unfortunately, that itch has already been rubbed raw by much better games.</p> Tue, 14 Jan 2014 14:08:00 -0800 http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/dementium-ii-hd-review/1900-6415625/

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Player vs Gamer Episode 3 Teaser

GameSpot takes pro-athletes and puts them head-to-head with their teammates and pro-gamers to battle it out on the Xbox One. Who's going to come out on top? Tune in to find out.

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Ballpoint Universe Infinite Review

I often imagine a game designer's most vital tools are those capable of distilling human imagination into a series of 1s and 0s--the software and hardware that assist in creation. Even as a writer of words and a composer of music, I've long abandoned pencils, protractors, and manuscript pads in favor of word processing and electronic musicianship. In such a world, what is the value of simple paper and pen?

The creators of Ballpoint Universe Infinite have found great value in those basic tools, crafting a surreal and striking world out of ballpoint ink strokes. Stepping into this universe is like waking in a Monty Python animation by way of Edwin Abbott Abbott's novella Flatland. You first interact with the game in the fashion of a 2D platformer, your own character depicted as a long-beaked creature in a smock--or, perhaps, a radish atop a tortilla chip atop two toothpicks. Or more specifically, a cutout of a doodle of a radish atop a tortilla chip atop two toothpicks. You move left and right with the kind of awkwardness you imagine such a being would move: loosely and haphazardly. The clumsiness is amplified by Ballpoint Universe's default mouse-only control scheme, which makes it all but impossible to perform precise jumps.

Fortunately, the game supports a controller, which makes it somewhat easier to navigate this weird and wonderful place. And Ballpoint Universe usually requires precision only as you near its close, though the scarcity of extended jumping sequences doesn't make those that exist any less untoward. You explore the campaign's overworld in this fashion, interacting with a cigar-chomping boot, a television wearing a ball cap who invites you to stare at him for a few hours, a floating cyclopic cephalopod, and a nerdy gatekeeper with a curious resemblance to comic strip character Dilbert.

These eccentrics live in a land that looks like the mad, marvelous ravings of a frustrated student manically scribbling the contents of his imagination during a particularly boring lecture. Columns, trees, and mechanical contraptions of unknown purpose have been scrawled on notebook paper and pasted onto the screen. Layered squares with drawings of skulls and skeletons depict the putrid soil underfoot. Thin lines snaking their way across ramps and walls recall the way ivy sprawls across brick facades. I wouldn't call this place beautiful, exactly, but it demands that you pay attention to it. I couldn't avert my eyes.

Like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel.

A universe is more than a planet, of course, and you spend most of your time playing Ballpoint Universe as a side-scrolling shooter, though Ballpoint Universe never approaches the kind of bullet hell associated with the genre. The imprecision of the platforming is evident in the shooting; it's hard to tell just how closely your asymmetrical craft can approach an enemy before colliding, or even when an object is a dangerous obstacle or a harmless bit of background. But just as the overworld rarely requires exactness, the space missions don't often test your twitch skills. Instead, they are more like raucous laboratories where you can try out different ship configurations to discover the most efficient ways of downing your foes.

Your ship's four customizable slots allow you to outfit all sorts of upgradable guns, shields, and swords. Indeed, your craft supports melee weapons that slice up nearby attackers automatically when they draw near. Melee weapons have different attack ranges and arcs, and much of the fun comes from discovering just how closely you can approach peril before your space-sword swipes it away. The blobs of ink that annihilated foes leave behind further prompt you to fly directly into danger: this is Ballpoint Universe's currency, and most of it evaporates away if you don't swoop in and suck it up. The variety of weapons is one of the game's best assets; there's enough diversity among the various weapons in terms of range, power, and behavior that missions rarely feel stale, even if you're facing enemies you've seen a few times before.

Those enemies are where Ballpoint Universe goes for broke. In one boss battle, an Elizabethan dandy with a ruffled collar and a pointy hat swings his sword and deflects your bullets, but this is no normal Elizabethan dandy with a ruffled collar and a pointy hat. No, this is a bizarre Shakespearean monster with its mirror image attached at the torso, as if someone had cut the figure of a king from a playing card and given him a massive shield and accordion arms. Your first encounters with this behemoth and others aren't that difficult, but they can become tedious; before you bedeck your ship with upper-tier weapons, Shakespeare and friends are predictable bullet sponges that take forever to give up the ghost.

These eccentrics live in a land that looks like the mad, marvelous ravings of a frustrated student manically scribbling the contents of his imagination.

Just what are those things, anyway?

The resulting multi-minute slog isn't very fun, but such tedium is limited to the early bosses, when you can afford only the dinkiest weapons. Even so, the initial stretches are still entertaining, with you weaving around enemy fire and swooping in close to intricately drawn angels of death so that your chainsword can soften their stings. Ultimately, you earn enough ink to power quite a ways through Infinite mode and its ceaseless waves of drifting deviants, and while Ballpoint Universe doesn't feature the tightly controlled battles that characterize the finest shoot-'em-ups, its imaginative visuals and satisfying customization options are compelling driving forces.

I'd never visited a universe quite like this one, where polygonal beings called logicians resemble geometry problems snipped from a mathematics textbook. There's a consistency to Ballpoint Universe's inconsistent style: you wouldn't suspect that walking rubbish bins and sentient isosceles triangles would occupy the same lands, yet the hand-drawn squiggles are the ties that bind, keeping the game from devolving into an unappealing mess of random images and ideas. Its action isn't as sharp as its artfulness, yet Ballpoint Universe Infinite is too exuberant to ignore.

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Sony: PlayStation 4's early lead over Xbox One is not a big deal

The PlayStation 4 has the early lead over the Xbox One in terms of worldwide sales, but Sony isn't focused on any advantage it may have today in these early stages of the new console cycle. PlayStation marketing VP John Koller said told CVG in a new interview that the PS4's early lead over the Xbox One is "really not" that important.

Sony sold 4.2 million PS4s in 2013, compared to 3.0 million Xbox Ones.

"We look at it really just introspectively. The '4.2 million' number is important because it gets us further towards our goal," Koller said. "And that goal is the largest install base we can possibly get--to encourage publishers and developers to continue to make great game experiences for PS4."

As you would expect from any competitive business, Koller acknowledged that Sony examines PS4 sales data relative to the Xbox One. But this isn't Sony's focus, he argued.

"I mean, sure, we all look at the competition and see where people are, but for us we've got to keep growing, getting bigger and bigger," Koller said. "I think we've got a great opportunity specifically because we've got a great product."

Also in the interview, Koller said just because Sony is rolling out the fully digital PlayStation Now service does not mean the company is any less enthusiastic about the state of physical consoles.

"We've been very open and bullish on physical consoles. So I don't think PS Now necessarily disenfranchises future consoles in any way," Koller said. "But it does, I think, show our willingness to try and focus on content as primary."

Filed under:

PlayStation 4

Sony Computer Entertainment America LLC

Microsoft

Xbox One

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Halo for Xbox One is Halo 5, Xbox Australia says [UPDATE]

[UPDATE] A Microsoft representative told GameSpot, "This post was made in error, and we will be updating it shortly. We have made no announcements regarding the name of Halo on Xbox One. As we have stated previously, the award-winning franchise continues on Xbox One, beginning in 2014. We have no further details to share at this time."

The original story is below.

The all-new Halo game Microsoft announced for Xbox One at E3 2013 in June is Halo 5, not a spinoff, according to a Facebook post today from Xbox Australia.

As part of an ongoing series of reasons to buy an Xbox One in 2014, Microsoft said, "Reason #14 - The Prometheans and Covenant just won't give John-117 a break! Master Chief returns for the thrilling continuation of the Reclaimer Saga in Halo 5."

In June, former Xbox boss Don Mattrick referred to the new Halo game as Halo 5.

However, Microsoft Game Studios corporate vice president Phil Spencer declined to say if this game was Halo 5 when approached by GameSpot earlier this year. He only described the game as "legitimate."

We've reached out to Microsoft for comment on today's report, but were unable to reach a company representative at press time.

Microsoft has released only one trailer for the next Halo game, showing off Master Chief in the desert. The all-new Halo game launches in 2014 on Xbox One, following Halo: Spartan Assault, which launched for the new system just this week.

Filed under:

Halo

Xbox One

343 Industries

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Violett Review

In ways both fantastical and familiar, Violett weaves a yarn that snakes around you and pulls you in. This point-and-click adventure shoves its surreality and challenge to the forefront, announcing its intention to lure you into its twisted world and twist your brain into knots from the get-go. As the story grows, the game's mechanics wane, touching on possibilities Violett never fully exploits. Yet where the lead character's magical abilities never wholly blossom, the journey casts its own kind of spells on you. Push past the frustrating initial moments and prepare for a lovely and unusual tale.

The basic setup is one we've all heard before. A young, rebellious teen moves away from her school and her life in the city to an old haunted house in the middle of nowhere. It's a bit hackneyed, but it works as a solid foundation for the game's real draw: a mind-bending nightmare world filled with tough puzzles and inventive visuals.

Channeling some unholy fusion between all of the great surrealist artists as well as a healthy dose of Lewis Carroll, Violett opens with the eponymous teen looking around her room for something--anything--to do. She spots a glint through a hole in the baseboard and reaches in to find herself quickly transported to a visually stunning alternate world. The story is pretty bare-bones and is almost exclusively without words, instead relying on pictures, symbols, and facial expressions to communicate. Unfortunately, while that approach helps the already stellar visual presentation, Violett's first few moments are marred by a dedication to that minimalism.

After her transportation to this alternate dimension, Violett finds herself trapped inside a cage, and you, as the player, have some small degree of control over her surroundings. At first, she can't do much besides rock her cage back and forth, by means of you clicking and dragging the mouse to and fro. Unfortunately that requires some strange timing, and it took me about 10 minutes to get the hang of it. On the flip side, that awkward motion shows up only once more at the very end of the game. Coarse first impressions aside, this first scene is fantastic as a vertical slice of everything you need to learn to progress.

This pond is more representative of the late-game stages and lacks the strangeness of earlier stages, instead looking very grounded, albeit quite somber.

Once you've rattled your cage sufficiently, you briefly grab the hands of a fairy, also imprisoned, which grants you some basic telekinetic powers. From there, you can manipulate objects throughout the room, either by simply clicking on them or by clicking and dragging them in a specific direction to achieve a specific effect. If you're trying to manipulate an object in the wrong way or at the wrong time, Violett shakes her head and mumbles disapprovingly.

Scattered around the room are a few colored orbs that you can collect by clicking on them. They are hidden, though, and very carefully disguised by the environment. These are orbs of elemental power, and they act as a constant sort of Easter-egg hunt. Often there are four or five on any given screen, but figuring out exactly where they sit is a running puzzle that helps guide you to look around the room for clues as to your next objective. With this knowledge in hand, you have all you need to move on.

Not everything in Violett's world looks like it comes from the land of nightmares...sometimes there are colorful party balloons!

From there, things start to get really strange. The first room you come to after the introductory area features a demonic-looking teapot that never takes its one eye off of you. It's distinctly unnerving, but works well to set the creepy, absurdist tone. This room also tests the lessons you learned in the first room to make sure that you've got the hang of them. From there, you find an M.C. Escher-inspired hub of sorts that leads off to several other places, and the game proper begins. This is also the toughest part of the game, since you have several rooms that you must tackle with relatively little to guide you. The strangeness of the world and the obtuse rules it follows highlight Violett's nature as an outsider to this world. You don't understand it, because she doesn't, at least not yet. Regardless, this first hub and its connected rooms amount to the first few hours of gameplay, and they are stunningly hard. While some of that difficulty continues, after you start to get a decent grasp on the world, it isn't quite as alien or as hostile.

There's an overarching theme of escapism that steadily transitions to homesickness, much in the way that Alice's trip through the rabbit hole first seems like a fun romp before becoming more and more hostile. Here, though, the first few environments are remarkably unfriendly, whereas the later ones are wistful and lonely. Because there are no words or real cutscenes to help communicate the game's message, and there's a strong implication that this is Violett's escapist fantasy, it's hard to shake the feeling that this trip through the rabbit hole is reflective of Violett's own emotional state. Helping that interpretation along is the absolutely fantastic musical score. The music changes from room to room, helping to contextualize each major location in the game. Some rooms rely on pizzicato strings to imply that Violett is in danger; others shift into G minor chords to imply sadness and loneliness.

A few orb locations are obvious, but some aren't so easy. There are quite a few in this shot alone. Can you find them all?

While the meat and potatoes of such simple games are the environments and the puzzles, Violett does have a few odd problems. First, while the colored orbs I mentioned earlier are useful in that they help encourage you to look around and closely examine the rooms, they don't have much utility beyond that. Later, Violett gains some other powers in addition to her telekinesis. It's sort of implied that the strength of those powers is related to how many orbs you've collected, but they don't change at all over time. Even if they did, those other powers are rarely used. Violett's ability to float, make plants grow, and finally encapsulate herself in a shield all seem like they'd be fantastically useful for navigating such a strange land, but they never come up in a story-critical context until the last few seconds of the game. Instead, they're used only to help collect pages of a diary left by an unknown stranger. These pages aren't critical, nor do they provide any hints to help the game along. They are entirely optional, though you often have to go to rather extreme lengths to collect them. I was left feeling that the game is unfinished, because these skills aren't used for anything interesting or vital.

Despite the oddly incomplete utilization of otherworldly psychic powers, and an insane difficulty curve, the emotional context goes a long way to helping Violett along. The steep curve is representative of Violett's own confusion, and the powers are her growing determination to escape this alternate world and return home. Violett is quiet and unassuming, but it steadily weaves a tale about childhood fears and desires with which we are all too familiar. Despite its surreal setting, it has a very personal touch that grounds it.

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2013 Year In Review - PlayStation

This generation has turned completely around. And it all started in 2009. 360 ruled until then, but after that, the exclusives started to disappear on the 360, many going multiplatform, while the PS3 library just kept on growing and growing. I went with PS3 this generation as usual, and will do again with PS4, and I'm glad I didn't get a 360, since so far no exclusive has ever come out that I had interest in. I did miss the best version of Bayonetta.. But hey, no matter how much I love it, it wasn't worth a whole new console just for it.

Hopefully this generation Nintendo and MS step up their game, create new interesting IP's, so that this time around I get all consoles.

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X Rebirth Review

Einstein taught us that space is both homogeneous and isotropic--that is, on a large scale, the universe is smooth and uniform in all directions. It's empty out there. Like many space games before it, X Rebirth depicts an unrealistically vibrant universe bursting with color and texture, and that's as it should be. A near-vacuum makes a dreary backdrop for a video game, at least for a human observer.

It isn't X Rebirth's inauthentic view of space that should anger you; it's that this sequel is a galactic collision of unparalleled scale, an interstellar parade of bad ideas badly executed. Just as the observable universe has no center, neither does space exploration game X Rebirth find a foundation from which to grow outward, and I am unsure how to begin describing its failures. I can only begin at the quantum level, pulling out each particle and analyzing its deficiencies. And so I start in the cockpit, where most galactic adventures begin.

The Albion Skunk is the aptly named vessel that carries you on this journey. Unless you're peering out of a space port's window or piloting one of the game's different drones, you always see space through the Skunk's front window, and overlooking the aesthetically dull control panel that tells you the ship's condition. In fact, you look at most of X Rebirth's menus in the cockpit, each list pulling up on a digital display viewable by both you the player and protagonist pilot Ren Otani.

This menu integration might have been a sensible way to draw you further into this universe, but no amount of immersion would have been enough to veil the system's grave deficiencies. Pulling up so much as a simple galactic map requires a ridiculous number of keystrokes, with each submenu buffered by just enough input lag and unnecessary animation to cause impatience. Furthermore, the menu doesn't always take up a sensible portion of the screen, making it hard to read intricate mission objectives--and even harder to read them when a particularly garish spacescape shines from behind the Skunk's menu screen.

For a near-vacuum, it sure is busy in space!

Garish spacescapes are common in X Rebirth, though there are sights of real beauty. Ships feature a remarkable amount of detail, and space stations and capital ships catch the eye with their intricate industrial designs. Rushing between systems via the game's space highways can be a visual delight, particularly as you watch ships and structures approach and then race by. When the color scheme embraces tranquil blues and developer Egosoft exercises visual restraint, the hazy background nebulae and tumbling asteroids are a treat. All too often, however, the view erupts with harsh orange and turquoise hues, making you wonder if you shouldn't stock the Albion Skunk with sunscreen. A vibrant vision of space is typically pleasing enough, but X Rebirth's depiction occasionally surpasses "meticulous" and surges straight into "gaudy."

Buy low and sell high. It's a solid economic policy, and it forms the backbone of X Rebirth's explore-fight-collect-build gameplay loop. It's an inviting loop, and I found myself pushing onward to collect enough funds, hiring enough ships to join my squad, and building enough structures in the hope of calling the result a true empire.

Sometimes, doing so means shooting spacecraft piloted by members of the slave-trading Plutarch Mining Corporation. Combat is functional, but ship controls are loose, though I never felt as though I wasn't properly directing the action. Regardless, the Skunk is your only ride for the duration, so get used to the way it looks and feels, though you can improve its performance with enhanced weaponry, shields, and so forth. Fortunately, you will build up an entire squad of vessels that perform various vital actions on your behalf, assisting you in combat, erecting structures, and ferrying goods about the sector. Massive battles are visually explosive, momentarily interrupting the slow-paced trading with fiery combat.

This sequel is a galactic collision of unparalleled scale, an interstellar parade of bad ideas badly executed.

Oh God. Just... Oh God.

And boy is trading slow-paced. Buying and selling goods isn't an immediate process, or even an efficient one. Instead, you must wait for many minutes on end as your sluggish trading ship edges ever closer to the trade port, giving you an opportunity to poke around the sector, or more likely, to go grab a glass of wine and peruse the latest issue of Science Magazine from cover to cover. You also must maintain fuel reserves, which can come as a shock the first time a hired pilot informs you of his fuel shortage over the comm and has you scrambling to figure out how to rectify the situation, given how ordering your ship to fuel up is not an option you can find in the game's menus.

Building up a fleet takes time and money, and you don't find capable crew members free-floating in space, but rather within space stations, which you explore on foot after docking. First-person exploration could have been a grand addition, taking the X series that much closer to the everything-and-the-kitchen-sink games developer Derek Smart wanted his Battlecruiser series to be, but never was. It soon becomes obvious, however, that traversing cookie-cutter stations sucks the mystery out of space travel, leaving behind horrifying human visages that spout absolute drivel in the most excruciating tone of voice imaginable. You see the same grotesquely scarred faces over and over again, and engaging one of these unblinking ghouls results in absolute nonsense. Any given conversation is utterly devoid of logic. Characters are routinely rude when you approach them, then become delighted, and then lapse into obnoxiousness again. In the meanwhile, female characters frequently whine "Ew! Slimy green lizard things are everywhere!" in the shrillest possible manner, as if they are 1950s housewives from classic cartoons, crying atop the kitchen table and swatting at pesky mice.

Colorful is one thing, but X Rebirth's artists really should have turned things down a notch.

That line is shrieked in regard to the reptilian Teladi race, whose existence in the X universe is well established. Perhaps Egosoft wanted to use first-person exploration to further develop the game's tone and deepen its lore. Sadly, a universe full of rude, moronic space travelers barely capable of communicating normal thoughts in a logical order is not a compelling place to be.

Instead, having to dock at a station and walk around looking for the right merchants becomes a chore. My first foray into a station delighted me; I could loot lockers and crates for marketable items, leading me to believe that X Rebirth might spill into role-playing territory. Alas, clicking on lockers becomes monotonous busywork, as does roaming the cut-and-paste hallways looking for vendors and crew members for hire. These places are as lifeless as a white dwarf, even in their underpopulated lounges, each living statue stiffly waiting for you to click on it. Characters speak of their own accord only when prompting you to take part in a ridiculous-beyond-measure minigame in which you engage in surreal small talk to earn a few discounts. It wasn't long before I avoided this minigame altogether, however: no matter how deep the discount, I couldn't stomach the stupid dialogue, which made me question how such imbeciles could have devised any form of space travel.

It isn't just in the space stations where you go hunting for discounts. Out in the black beyond, you glimpse icons that urge you to investigate the objects they identify; examine enough of them, and you unlock discounts and side missions. Little lowercase i's are splattered all over the place, but you have to be close enough to see them, and you must have line of sight. And thus your adventure turns into a vapid Easter egg hunt in which you float around satellite arrays seeking icons, and then soar close enough to them to interact with them. It isn't uncommon to briefly see an icon identifying a side mission only to have it flicker away in a flash, forcing you to maneuver carefully around the starbase hoping to catch another glimpse.

According to the theory of special relativity, X Rebirth stinks.

Don't expect those missions to work properly once you graciously accept them from your sneering contacts, however. Each X game has suffered from a certain number of rough edges at launch, and you could be forgiven for assuming that like those games, X Rebirth would be superficially glitchy but eminently playable. Yet no matter how low your expectations might be for the newest X's stability, the game still manages to sink lower. Only a few hours in, and a mission proved impossible to complete, leading me to commiserate with other players suffering from the same game-ending bug in Internet forums. After downloading a saved game file from a helpful comrade, I continued my journey, only to have a side mission task me with destroying a story-critical capital ship, leaving me to wander for hours wondering why I couldn't find my mission objective.

A universe full of rude, moronic space travelers barely capable of communicating normal thoughts in a logical order is not a compelling place to be.

Listing all of the bugs I encountered would take up inordinate amounts of space, and so I offer here a random array. Crashes too numerous to count. Poor frame rates that had me wondering why I'd spent so much money on modern computer hardware. Suddenly unresponsive dialogue that left me stuck mid-conversation. Enemy ships flying around in the middle of space station geometry, keeping me from completing missions. Trading ships that simply wouldn't conduct the assigned transaction. That last one was particularly aggravating, considering how much time you must wait for functional transactions to complete. All too often, X Rebirth had me asking the age-old question: "Is it a bug or a feature?"

The fact that it's too difficult to tell the difference tells you all you must know about X Rebirth. You might assume a bright future for the game, given Egosoft's solid history of supporting its games after release--and given the community's dedication to crafting fixes and modifications that further improve these starry treks. X Rebirth's failings are rooted too deeply to simply be patched away, however. No matter what your level of enthusiasm for the X series is, do your best to escape the pull of Rebirth's gravity. It's only bound to cause a fatal crash.

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The Waiting Game - Best Games for Christmas

Waiting for that game you really want to play can be a painful experience, but it doesn't have to be one! The Waiting Game cherry-picks the best games to play, films to watch and even books to read while you wait for launch day, helping you prepare for th

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