By John Walker on April 25th, 2013.
EA Partners is to close down, it seems. Which seems fairly huge news if it proves to be accurate. The publisher, a portion of EA that was designed to publish games with a more hands-off approach than the mothercorp from developers not owned by themselves, is reported by some American magazine to be done.
By John Walker on February 6th, 2013.
Here’s what’s great about reality: people are great at breaking stupid stuff. So as Dead Space 3 launched yesterday in the Americas, people smarter than I had already figured out a glitch in the game to acquire all the items EA had hoped you’d pay for. Game Front have posted a video explaining how, which I’ve diligently included below.
By John Walker on January 31st, 2013.
I do hope you hold an opinion about Battlefield 3. It’d be awful to found without one. If you’re lacking, can I suggest: “I really think they made it fall too graphicy since Battlefield 2,” or, “While the tanks may roll more impressively, it’s hard to forgive the angle of the helicopter blades.” Those should get you by. Or you could see if there’s something new you can pick up in this End Game trailer, March’s final expansion to the series that’ll reintroduce flag capturing, and dirty bikes.
By John Walker on January 31st, 2013.
Dead Space 3 is assaulting us with news we don’t want to hear of late. Out in just over a week, we’ve recently learned that it’s going to offer microtransactions for in-game items, and that the PC build is to be a dead-straight port with no frills. Oh, and dear sweet Horace, it’s used a Phil Collins song. And now it’s saying it’s got a story.
By John Walker on November 21st, 2012.
As the decidedly not very good Medal Of Honor: WARFACEFIGHTER received its critical pannings, one refrain was repeated again and again: they’re the games EA puts out on the year’s DICE don’t have a new Battlefield ready. That may well be true, but EA are now at pains to point out (not necessarily in reaction, I should say) that DICE are not “a Battlefield factory”. (Imagine a non-gamer reading those words. “Dice are not battlefield factories? And you say FPS games HELP your minds?”) There’s more to the Swedish team, they insist to OXM today. And in response rumours that Mirror’s Edge 2 is in development have once more bubbled to the surface.
By John Walker on August 1st, 2012.
One of the hoary old jokes we lazy gaming hacks like to do is dismissively refer to “ManShooter VIII” or “Gears Of Duty MCVIIXI”, sneering at the homogenisation of the mainstream industry. But really, the sarcasm is going to be undetectable if games keep calling themselves Warface and Warfighter. The latter is, of course, the moniker of the second Medal Of Honor game in the rebooted series. And there’s another trailer of its single player (sort of) below.
By Nathan Grayson on June 15th, 2012.
No, BioWare hasn’t suddenly made a lightspeed jump to F2P, but – speaking with GamesTM – it changed its tune quite a bit from “subscription-based forever.” So then, the obvious (in almost every situation ever in the whole of human history) question: why? Well, it’s certainly hard to ignore SWTOR‘s 400,000-person slide into the subscriber Sarlacc Pit, but BioWare contends that there’s more to it than that.
By Alec Meer on June 5th, 2012.
Here is a controversial statement: aubergines are horrible.
Here is another controversial statement: I don’t think there’s an upcoming videogame I’m less interested in than Danger Close’s Medal of Honor: Wharf-fighter. It’s not really its fault, or its developers’ fault. They’re taking advantage of commercial realities, and even if said commercial realities are deeply disappointing to any gamer with more than six brain cells to rub together it only makes sense for a large corporation to pander to them, I suppose. I personally am just so past caring about pretending to be a semi-contemporary soldier who repeatedly shoots men from other countries. Don’t mind me being all bitter-pants over here though. Have a look at the shootybangbang shoot shoot bang bang shoot bang shoot bang bang bang shoot shoot shoot bang bang shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot bang footage that came out of E3 below, if you must.
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By John Walker on February 15th, 2012.
There’s a demo of Mass Effect 3 out. And I don’t want to play it. The culmination of a years-long series, heavily focused on the story of Shepard versus the Reapers, is something I want to approach fresh and clean, not over-burdened by hints and experience. But that’s me – you may want to dive head first into the demo that offers two missions from the game, and lets you create a unique Shepard for the experience, I think. There’s also a glimpse of the multiplayer co-op doodah, but that’s not unlocking until the 17th – er, unless you have a Battlefield 3 online pass activated, and then it works today? Good grief, really? To get the demo you’ll need to head here, and then log in via Origin.
By John Walker on January 9th, 2012.
For all the grumbles you may have read, Star Wars: The Old Republic is undoubtedly one of the most remarkably complete and solid MMO releases we’ve seen so far. It’s where most MMOs get in about six months. And this patch adds more content. But there are still things to fix, and the first major patch (ie. one that doesn’t just remove an exploit) is due very soon. In fact, as Eurogamer point out it’s been released on the test servers, which means we know what’s in it.
By John Walker on January 4th, 2012.
Anyone who’s not looking forward to the conclusion of the Mass Effect trilogy is an idiot. That’s the official word given via the parliamentary press secretary for David Cameron, speaking to a field of bees this morning. And if you needed any more proof, there are five new screenshots of the game out today, each emblazoned by BioWare’s ludicrously pointless logos, and one of them showing a big fat alien monster. Like you can resist clicking onward.
