Mass Effect 3 Operation Savage incoming: kill seven million goons for boxes

Somewhere deep in Alliance space, a team of high level strategists are sitting around a table coming up with names for new operations. There don’t seem to be many hard rules behind each title, but if it can easily double as a good name for a death metal band and/or a professional wrestler, it’s in. We’ve had Goliath, Raptor, Resurgence and Excorcist so far, and the trend is set to continue with the latest multiplayer weekend event, SAVAGE. We’ll just have to wait a little while longer for Operation Huggles, Operation Dreamboat and Operation Super Happy Drell Dance Funtime.

Savage invites us to collectively slay 7 MILLION enemies consisting of the lowest level enemies from each enemy army. Killing Cerberus Assault Troopers, Husks, Cannibals and Geth Troopers will contribute towards the grand 7 million goal. If that’s smashed by 4am PST on Monday / midday GMT, everybody gets a victory pack and the right to pat themselves on the back.
You can also earn a bonus Commendation Pack by forming a team of Mass Effect’s weirdest, punchiest aliens and surviving until extraction on any difficulty. The team must consist of Batarian, Vorcha and Krogan squad mates to count. These guys were added in Mass Effect 3′s free DLC packs, so you might need to open a few high level boxes before you can jump in. Mmmm, boxes.

Orcs Must Die 2 announced for July 30 release

Warm up your war-magery! The sequel to Robot Entertainment’s 3rd-person tower defense/hack and slash hit will be landing with the splat of many orc corpses on July 30th.
The dev press release proclaims: “Orcs Must Die! 2 thrusts players and their friends back into battle against a terrifying mob of orcs and other monsters. With a redesigned spellbook, players will have a broader range of options to build a deadly arsenal of defenses. Investing hard-earned skulls in an enormous new upgrade system will allow players to cater to their favorite methods of burning, grinding, tossing, or dismembering orcs.”
In addition to being able to play the entire game co-op (courtesy of the new Sorceress character, who is described as focusing more on finesse than the classic War Mage), the upgrade system has been overhauled so that you can replay the same level for skulls as many times as you want. As opposed to the original, which only awarded you skulls for performing better on a level than you had previously. We’re also promised more traps, weapons, spells, and enemies.
As a final note, the release reveals, “As a special bonus, players who own the original Orcs Must Die! on PC will unlock exclusive content in the sequel.” So if you haven’t yet checked out the original, now may be the time to immerse yourself up the the waist in goblin-based carnage.

Free stuff for your free games: Need for Speed World giveaway

Battlefield Heroes isn’t super serious and it isn’t super competitive, but I still have fun bouncing around inside there from time to time, sneaking around cartoon European towns and backstabbing Nazi knock-offs. (Or seeing how high I can jump on its absurd moon map.)
But two of those goofy vehicles in BFH just made the leap into the super serious, super competitive world of EA’s racing MMO, Need For Speed World. We’ve got codes to unlock these high-end racers, along with some starter packs of cash shop coin and beginner cars.
Winners can redeem their codes at this page. Just sign into your account (or create one) and enter your code on the right side of the page in the box that says “Redeem Code.”
To enter, simply leave a comment on this post telling us what vehicle you’d drive in NFSW if every vehicle from every video game ever made was included. The winners will be selected at random on Friday, June 29 and we’ll contact them directly at the email address used to register their account on this site.
Even if you don’t win, you can download play Need For Speed World or Battlefield Heroes for free. And EA’s been doing their own giveaway this week as well, so you can hop on over there if you want to increase your odds of winning something from somebody!

Guild Wars 2 designer on how subscriptions influence design – and the importance of fun

In a blog post on the ArenaNet website, Guild Wars 2 designer Colin Johanson has described how the studio’s design culture meshes with the game’s subscription-free payment model.
“Designers of traditional MMOs create content systems that take more time to keep people playing longer” he explains. “When your game systems are designed to achieve the prime motivation of a subscription-based MMO, you run the risk of sacrificing quality to get as much content in as possible to fill that time.”
Because Guild Wars 2 doesn’t need to attract long-term subscribers, Johanson argues, ArenaNet are able to build the game around a different set of principles – namely, building a fun game.
“Can we make something so much fun you might want to play it multiple times because it’s fun, rather than making you do it because the game says you have to?” Johanson asks. “It’s how we played games while growing up. I can’t tell you how many times I played Quest for Glory; the game didn’t give me 25 daily quests I needed to log in and do—I played it multiple times because it was fun!”
It’s a great sentiment, and it’s bizarre and telling that it’s usual to see it expressed in so many words. What makes it exciting in this case is that it’s believeable. Grounding the desire to create a fun game in the commercial reality of running an MMO reflects what ArenaNet president Mike O’Brien told me back in March – “If people value the work that we’re doing, then they’re going to pay for the work that we’re doing.”

Johanson highlights the importance of closely involving the QA team in the design process. “I’ve never heard of a game company where the QA team is so integrated into the development process, where they can enact and impact change on a daily basis in the game. They aren’t just testers, they are developers who help make every part of the game better.”
He also describes the company-wide testing sessions which ArenaNet use to gather feedback on particular parts of the game. One of these happened when I was at the studio in March, and it was disconcertingly idyllic. The people who are making Guild Wars 2, playing Guild Wars 2! I looked pretty hard, but couldn’t detect any discernable evil in the process. Of course, that’s what they wanted me to think.
“If our model was subscription based, we might be spending all this time racing to add as much filler content as possible to keep players chasing the carrot.” Johanson continues. “Instead, as content designers with the goal of creating fun, we get to spend this time refining our content and making it amazing.”
Have you been playing Guild Wars 2, readers? If so, do you think ArenaNet are rising to the challenge they’ve set for themselves?

Dishonored on PC “has its own different interface,” PC standards are “a religion”

Bad ports hurt, especially when the game getting the shoddy treatment is otherwise good. Dishonored might be quite good, so a little before E3 I asked co-designers Raphaël Colantonio and Harvey Smith — who have a great deal of PC development experience — how much attention is being paid to PC optimization. Their response wasn’t especially detailed, but it does inspire optimism.

“Our background is very PC for sure,” said Colantonio. “And now in this game we have a mix of strong console players and fans, and also hardcore PC people. So both sides are very influential, and in the end, yes, the PC has its own different interface.”
“It’s a very cool mix of culture, as Raph was saying,” continued Smith. “At either location [Lyon and Austin] you’ll have people that are like, super hardcore strong about these PC standards. Obviously with the long legacy we’ve had, it’s a religion.”
Smith went on to say that “the same is true for the PS3 and the Xbox,” and that the studio’s philosophy is to “step back” and let those who are passionate about one platform influence development there. Achievements, for example, are left to the Xbox evangelists on staff.
If PC standards are truly a “religion” at Arkane Studios, we may be served well, but we haven’t yet verified it with our eyeballs.

Dota 2 in-game tournament support coming this week, more features to follow

Valve have revealed their plans to support full tournaments within the Dota 2 client. In a post on the Dota 2 blog, the team describe how players will be able to pay for access to live matches and replays that run in-engine. The money raised will be split between Valve and the tournament organiser in a similar manner to the Steam Workshop. This functionality is due to launch later in the week.
The Defence tournament will be the first to use the system, which Valve say is just the beginning of the game’s support for competitive play. “This won’t be the end of our features for tournaments, or players, but we think it’s the right first step – helping tournaments become more financially stable helps all the players participating in them.”
Valve aren’t trying to force out traditional stream-based casting, stating that “[they'll] continue to do the best we can to support them. Some customers will always prefer to use their web browser to watch matches.” They’re paying particular attention to the needs of tournament sponsors, who need a way to declare their support and display advertising.
The other major new feature will be Teams, which allows a group of players to declare their affiliation formally within the game. Dota 2 will detect when two teams are playing and make appropriate changes, such as displaying team logos and banners. Ultimately, this will be expanded to include Team vs. Team matchmaking.
Earlier in the week we rounded up a number of the Workshop items that we’d like to see added to Dota 2. Do you think Valve’s support for in-game tournaments and player-made add-ons has what it takes to give Dota 2 the advantage?

New Planetside 2 video shows Terran Republic ground assault team

In case you hadn’t heard, we’re really excited about Planetside 2. It’s looking absolutely incredible–to the point that I’ve heard Evan muttering, “How can this game exist?” to himself at least twice since E3.
A new video released today shows off a large scale assault by the militaristic Terran Republic on a New Conglomerate facility. There are mechs. There are flamethrowers. You should watch it.

Dead State developer Brian Mitsoda explains why zombies aren’t the point

DoubleBear Productions is less than $20,000 away from unleashing the zombie apocalypse. Their turn-based survival RPG Dead State is well on-track to meet its Kickstarter funding goal, with over $130,000 of $150,000 already raised and only half of the time limit for fund-raising elapsed. We had a chat with lead designer and Black Isle/Troika/Obsidian veteran Brian Mitsoda about crowd-funding the end of the world, why he thinks that explaining the undead’s origin is lame, and how Dead State isn’t “just another zombie game.”
PC Gamer: Your Kickstarter campaign has been very successful. How does the reality compare to what you expected at the start?
Brian Mitsoda: We’re kind of following the normal Kickstarter trend right now. We started really big and that was really very exciting. It’s been kind of dropping off in the middle, which it generally does. The expectations are that we’re pretty sure we’re going to get funded. Our biggest goal right now is to hit the 150 mark which, if you’ve watched any of the other Kickstarters, a lot of times that’s when a bunch of other people will be like, “Oh, it’s funded. Let’s go fund that now.” And then, of course, you’ve got a huge push at the end generally.
Really, the hardest part for us has been that there’s been a bit of Kickstarter fatigue in the press lately. For a lot of press, they’re like, “Oh, yeah, Kickstarter. That was really big… back in April.”
The other thing that’s kind of worked against us is that we have zombies in our game. And I don’t know if you’re aware, but there are a lot of games that use zombies. And so we’ve kind of tried to deal with this problem of, “Oh, look, another zombie game!” And one of the things we’ve tried to get across to people and the press is that the zombies really are not the major focus of the game. It’s really just an excuse to have an interesting combat mechanic and explain why the whole world has fallen apart: “Well, the zombies have kind of pushed it in that direction, but let’s focus on the humans.”
PCG: What would you say is the most unexpected or surprising part of this process so far?
BM: When we were getting things together for the Kickstarter build, it was a pretty insane push and we were working pretty late hours because we wanted to show as much as possible. Getting together videos and stuff like that. And we thought, “Oh, it’ll all be over soon! And we’ll get the Kickstarter out!” But it’s been pretty long hours ever since the Kickstarter launched as well, trying to get press awareness, working on the game as well, and answering e-mails from people, and answering stuff on our forums… You just get a ton of contact from all kinds of people.
Many, many e-mails from composers–and by the way, we do have a composer, everybody. And it’s pretty much become a full-time thing where my wife and I have been doing nonstop e-mails with press and other people. It’s been a lot of work.
PCG: How does this model compare to working on a game for a major publisher?
BM: Well, for a major publisher, you’re going to have times when you’re really busy, but you’re pretty much dedicated to your section of the game. Unless you’re the project lead, and then you’re probably in meetings all day. But for indie games, we have a very small team. So, many times, for things not to fall through the cracks, somebody has to take responsibility for them. And a lot of times that person is me.
When you go indie, be prepared to wear a lot of hats. You’re going to be the project lead, you’re going to be the lead designer, you’re going to be the writer, you’re going to be the scripter on this level, you’re going be the producer, you’re going to be the press person, you’re going to be the community manager… you’re going to be doing a lot of that. So be very good at budgeting your time.

If you want a bison burger after the end of the world, you'll have to contend with creepy looters in surgical masks.

PCG: How many people do you have working full-time on the game right now?
BM: Right now, it’s just me, my lead artist Oscar, lead programmer Nick, and then our lead animator. Those are the only people working full-time. We have a lot of contributors and other team memebers that are working on it pretty much every day, part-time. And we’re hoping to get most of those guys up to full-time after we’ve got the Kickstarter done.
PCG: You’ve talked about Dead State being a very open-ended game. Is there an endgame? Or do you just keep playing forever or until you die?
BM: We definitely didn’t want to do something where you just continually play, because we have a lot of story/narrative progression. And a very open narrative, not like a heavy-handed, linear narrative. A lot of stuff opens up as you play. We do have multiple endings. There are a lot of different ways that you can end the game, and some of those are failure states. We do have ways that you can end the game prematurely just because you played so poorly. Which I find refreshing, because you don’t see that anymore. But we’re not going to punish the player too much. I really don’t want to get people into the, “Oh, hey, you messed up once: You’re dead!” kind of situation.
Depending on who you meet, depending on your relationship with other groups, depending on where you go and at what time–we open up a lot of possibilities as the game goes on. There will definitely be ways to get a little bit more of a heroic ending or a selfish ending. There are going to be a lot of options. It really depends on how you play. I know there are always going to be people who are like, “Well, I killed off all of the allies at the shelter. I win!” But really, our focus has been having every player have their own narrative of what they did at their shelter. What is their story?
PCG: Can all of your allies die? What happens if, say, all of your co-leaders are dead and it’s just you?
BM: Assuming you didn’t piss people off enough to get ejected from the shelter yourself, you can still play it. I assume it would be a very different experience. I haven’t personally tried that path. I’m sure I’m going to assign somebody to do that. But what we want to emphasize in the game is, you kind of need other people to get by. I’m guessing that at a certain point, it’s going to be a little bit too difficult to just be on your own. Although that sounds like an “Iron Man” mode waiting for someone to make it themselves, and go, “I got through by myself! I’m the best!” The first person that does that in the game, I want to hear how they did it.
PCG: How long do you intend a typical game of Dead State to last, assuming it doesn’t end early with everyone dying horribly.
BM: Right now our estimate is about 50+ hours, at least. And there are so many optional things you can do in the game that can be padded out. It really depends on how many people you have [at your shelter], what your interactions are, how often you like to get into combat. We don’t encourage people to get into combat for experience, so some people are probably going to try to be a little more quiet. There are definitely ways to work things out in dialogue. I’d wager on your first playthrough it’s going to be a little bit longer.
PCG: Are the NPC co-leaders the same every time you play?
BM: Right now, yeah. There are dozens of allies, but as far as co-leaders go, they are all the same for every playthrough assuming you get them. But there are different ways that you can approach them. Basically, with any ally, the way that you interact with them can change their personality a lot. That also depends on your skills and who else you have in the shelter.
I don’t think everyone’s going to get all the allies every time. You’re not going to find them all your first time through. As far as the co-leaders go, the reason they’re always the same is because the crisis events they participate in are an awful lot of dialogue and script checks. And if we had it so that you could pick anybody [as a co-leader], we would have to write dozens of people into each crisis event, which would be a phenomenal amount of work. But we do plan on doing post-release for Dead State, and one of the things we’d like to do is add more characters and more options.
PCG: You mentioned post-release content. What are your plans for that?
BM: We definitely want to add options for things that the community really wants. For example, modifiers for new games. So, antibiotics is one of those things we might make a modifier for. So if you don’t want to play the hardcore mode, you just want to turn off antibiotics in the normal mode. Or things like how much food you need per day.
One thing we’ve been talking about is, so many people have wanted full control of their party. And that’s something we won’t be doing for the normal game. But if there’s enough demand for that post-release, we might do something like, “This isn’t really how the game is supposed to be played, but if you really want this, we’ve added this modifier.” We’re looking at new allies, new content. And of course we’d like to work on some full-fledged expansions as well.

PCG: How do you plan to fund and price post-release content?
BM: For any of the post-release stuff, we won’t be doing Kickstarter. We don’t really want to nickel and dime people with DLC. We’re not big fans of that, and we don’t really like having everybody play different games with different items that are probably breaking the game in horrible ways. So what we’d like to do is put out content that is for everybody that has the core game [free.] And if we do have an expansion that’s stand-alone, that would cost $5-10. Which would be a significant new game with 20 or 30 hours or something. Rather than something where you paid five bucks for two more hours of content.

Dead State focuses on the humans more than the zombies. But a lot of the humans seem to want to kill you as well.

PCG: In terms of story, are you going with a more unknowable apocalypse? Or will it be possible through gameplay to discover what happened, where all the zombies came from, etc.?
BM: I’m a big believer in the unknowable. Because it’s always hokey, right? Whenever they try to explain where the zombies came from, or where vampires came from, or whatever. It always ends up being something really ludicrous. And how many people would even know [in the game world] about what’s really going on? It’s one of those things where we throw out a lot of theories. Everybody seems to have their own theory, and everybody has kind of heard something. But communication has broken down, and now it’s like a game of telephone where everybody has heard something, but you never really know.
PCG: Do you plan to make the game moddable?
BM: Dedicated modding tools tend to be something that you almost need a separate team to develop. It’s not even our own engine, we’re licensing it, so I’m not even sure what our ability to put out mod tools are. We know there are a lot of modders that will come up with something anyhow. And we’ll keep an eye on that. And if people have come up with something better than we could have done ourselves, we’ll probably just ask if we can use that. But as far as modding out of the box, that’s kind of out of our scope right now. It’s also something that we could do post-release, but we’ll have to see just how many people it’s going to take.
Thanks to Brian for taking the time to talk to us! You still have a couple weeks to fund Dead State if you haven’t already.

Watch 20 minutes of Dead Space 3 gameplay footage with commentary

Executive Producer Steve Papoutsis is all about “pulping” with a “giant freaking drill,” and other things that are “super awesome.” The impression I get is that Dead Space 3 is very much about things that are giant: giant drills, giant bosses, giant trailers, and “taking it up a notch” in general. See 20 minutes of Isaac’s new, gianter, co-op space adventure inside.

The Secret World’s Darkness War pits players, Native Americans, and Vikings against Mayans

Remember that story from history class where five guys with machine guns, a Norseman in a bearskin cloak wielding King Arthur’s sword, and some Native Americans had to fight off an evil, Mayan dragon monster? Yeah, neither do I. But The Secret World‘s new five-player dungeon, The Darkness War, reveals that this totally epic event was deliberately stripped from your social studies curriculum by the global conspiracy to hide the supernatural. I got to see it first hand.
The action starts when a quest-giver of the Wabanaki tribe—Native Americans who have been defending the Blue Mountain near Kingsmouth, Maine for centuries—instructs our party of mixed company from all three secret societies (Templars, Dragon and Illuminati) to use a nearby sleeping bag. Don’t worry, it gets more exciting.
Through a dream state, we witness events that took place 1,000 years ago right where we currently slumber. And what I see doesn’t exactly line up with what the history books have told us.
We land in the middle of a huge battle between the Wabanaki and invading Mayans, who seem determined to release a supposed “serpent” caged within the Blue Mountain. Corpses litter the ground, and the sounds of battle echo around us. That’s already pretty disorienting, and then the Vikings show up. It turns out that those Vikings that really did land in North America in the 11th Century weren’t there for a picnic. In The Secret World, they were actually coming to the aid of the Wabanaki, brandishing the sword known to the English as Excalibur. The scenario is made even more awesome by knowing how many university professors in Western Civilization will be getting nosebleeds over it.

The final boss of The Secret World's latest dungeon is not very secretive at all.

Mechanically, the fights in this five-player dungeon were pretty frantic and interesting, requiring more movement and quick decision-making than you see in most other MMOs outside of top-tier raid content. Combat wasn’t quite as active as TERA (TSW requires targets for most of its attacks), and it ended up feeling more like Guild Wars 2′s combat style. However, the seven abilities given to my character didn’t provide the same breadth of utility I’m able to provide in the group content of Guild Wars 2 and other MMOs.
It seems pretty clear that even the game’s mid-level instances like this will not be holding your hand. Our group of intrepid journalists were geared and specced for damage, while our GM guide filled a hybrid tank/healer role. I found the rhythm of my rotation after a couple of fights, but the lack of utility I mentioned kept my rotation pretty straightforward.
In one of the first fights in The Darkness War, we’re required to stay close to a Mayan sorcerer boss, in the eye of a storm he’s casting around the entire battlefield. But we can’t stand still–we run in circles around him as we attack to avoid a spinning knockback that would put us in the most dangerous part of the storm.
After battling our way through Mayan zealots and warriors, we run into the unfriendly creature pictured above and his minions. We need to take them down before our Excalibur-wielding Viking comrade’s health runs out, so he can seal the pathway that the Mayans opened. After a difficult struggle, we kill the beast. It drops loot, but the real reward at the end of the instance is a major clue toward unraveling the New England storyline that, by the time you reach The Darkness War, you’ve likely been puzzling at for many hours.

Draculess is More

And this is the one of the "good" neighborhoods

I also got a quick tour of Transylvania, The Secret World’s endgame questing zone. It revolves around an order of vampire hunters called the Draculescti, doing what vampire hunters are wont to do. Funcom was hesitant to go into specifics on their ties to the legendary Dracula himself, but hinted that perhaps he’ll turn out to be one of the good guys. At least, so far as there are any “good guys” in a multi-way shadow war over things man is not meant to know.
The more I see of The Secret World, the more promising it looks. While the combat and a lot of the quests seem like the same-old, same-old we’ve seen in MMOs before, the large arcing stories that players get to unravel and be a part of are some of the most compelling I’ve come across in a long while. I look forward to peeling back the darkness further when the game is officially released on July 3.

Win a year’s subscription to EVE Online

EVE Online is a crazy place. People get suicide-bombed for being rich. Other players throw competitive tournaments for in-game bribes. The developers are just as insane: driving boats, hanging out with the President of Iceland, and launching replica EVE pods into space.
It’s one of the most interesting communities in PC gaming today, but it’s also intimidating. So we’re going to help you get started.
We’ve got 52 codes to give away this week. 50 of them are box codes that unlock the game give you 30 days of playtime. These can only be used on new accounts. We also have 2 mega-codes that grant a year’s worth of playtime on any already-existing account.
Both codes can be redeemed at this website.
To enter, simply leave a comment on this post telling us a particularly memorable moment you’ve experienced in a multiplayer game. Also say whether or not you have an existing EVE account. The winners will be selected at random on Friday, June 22 and we’ll contact them directly at the email address used to register their account on this site.
Even if you don’t win, you can try out EVE Online’s 14-day trial. Once you’re in-game, I highly recommend looking up the EVE University corporation, who’ve been dedicated to helping new players learn the game for years. Oh, and don’t trust anyone.

Diablo 3 patch 1.0.3 launching, downtime in USA today and Europe/Asia tomorrow

Diablo 3 is currently down in the USA while patch 1.0.3 – which adjusts loot drop rates at high difficulties and overhauls the cost of crafting – launches. It’s due back up at 1pm PDT/4pm EDT.
The patch doesn’t launch in Europe and Asia until tomorrow. The game will be down from 2am GMT/3am CEST on the 20th until noon GMT/1pm CEST – so if you’ve got urgent business with the Lords of Hell, get it all sorted out this evening. By ‘get it all sorted out’, I mean ‘click on them until they die’. Check out our run-down for more on patch 1.0.3.

Listen to beautiful player-made music at LOTRO’s Weatherstock music event today

Once a year, Lord of the Rings Online players gather for a day of music and dancing at the player-run Weatherstock event, and it’s happening right now on the Landroval server.
LOTRO has a full musical system that let you “play” the wide variety of instruments in the game live by using the buttons on your keyboard, composing music on the fly. You can also pre-record or script music to play, and there will be a mix of pre-recorded music and live playing at today’s Weatherstock event.
It starts at 1 PM PST, but bands are already warming up. You can watch it live on MMOReporter’s stream all day long.
If you’d rather attend in person, it’s easy to do. Lord of the Rings Online is a free-to-play game, so just download the client if you haven’t already and create a character on the Landroval server. To find the festivities in-game, head to The Lone Lands and climb to the top of Weathertop there.
If you get lost, just ask for directions–I’ve found LOTRO players to be quite friendly. Don’t forget to turn off ambient music and other audio frills that might clash with the music.
If you want to pick out the live bands from those that’ve pre-recorded, just watch the notes that float above their heads. If the notes are not filled in, then that person is using a pre-made song–filled-in notes mean they’re playing on the fly.
We covered last year’s Weatherstock event in the magazine last year, and I’ve included last year’s article below, which explains the music system really well.

Crowd-surfing has yet to catch on at Weatherstock, but maybe this year...

Play that funky music

By Chris Perry
Wanna-be rockers have been playing with the music system in Lord of the Rings Online since the game launched in 2007. It’s a fully ABC music player, meaning that it uses a complete musical notation system like we’re used to seeing, which allows inspired players to create musical creations as complex as they can imagine. This has sparked a sub-community of musicians within the game that host community events that can brighten even the darkest day in Middle-earth.
There are ten instruments in the game, however—Clarinet, Flute, Harp, Horn, Lute, Drum, Theorbo (bass), Bagpipes and Cowbell—and only Minstrels can master them all. Other classes are able to learn the Lute plus one other instrument, which depends on your class. Bards will train your musical skills and also help you choose which traits to equip. Once you’re trained and have your instrument in-hand, you can choose to either play freestyle, or to use the built-in ABC system to perform pre-composed songs.
Freebyrd!
Now bear with me. We’re going to get a little technical for this next part. All instruments are in concert pitch, with no transposition, and there are just over two octaves that prospective music savants can play with.
Using the 1 through 0 keys on their keyboards, players can play each of the notes in the C major scale (think Do-Re-Mi from The Sound of Music), use the Shift key to swift octaves, and the Ctrl key to drop the pitch one half step. Want to play a blues scale? 1, CTRL-3, 4, CTRL-5, 5, CTRL-7, 8. With that, you’ll be strummin’ the blues in no time.

Snobby music critic notices every time you hit Shift when you should've hit Ctrl.

The player piano of middle earth
Using the /play *songtitle* command (see below for more info on the ABC music system) allow players to perform prepared music solo or in groups. Want to know if that awesome lute players is playing the notes freestyle or ABC? Just look at the notes flowing above their heads. If they’re hollow, then you’re looking at someone who’s found a great tune on The Fat Lute. If they’re solid, then you’ve got a real virtuoso on your hands.
Community beat
The community events in LOTRO add to the already stunning culture that exists in LOTRO’s rich environments and lore. According to Goldenstar from A Casual Stroll to Mordor, a podcast and blog about Lord of the Rings Online, “[the music system] can set the perfect mood for themed events and creates a wonderful atmosphere for parties.” Two such parties are Weatherstock and Ales & Tales.
Weatherstock is the biggest of the two. This day-long festival of music and camaraderie takes place at the summit of Weathertop, encircled by the ruins where Frodo and his friends were attacked by the Nazgul. A series of competitive events (including a people’s-choice category) has bands from across the server competing atop an impromptu stage for the adulation of the crowd.
Not as large, but more regular, is the Monday night Ales & Tales event that take place in various locations, once again on the Landroval server. This gathering of scribes, poets and musicians has each of them taking turns entertaining the audience with original creations.
Both events take place on the Landroval server and are hosted by The Lonely Mountain Band, whose leader Harperella, a musician in real life, has released an album of Middle-earth themed music called Beyond the Western Seas. Real life talent apparently transfers to in-game inspiration.

So do cowboy outfits.

Epic Songs for Epic Times
Interested in playing some music of your own? The best resource for getting tunes into the game is definitely The Fat Lute. For group jam sessions, there are often separate instrument parts available.
Just find the song that you want, copy/paste the text into notepad, and save the file as *songname*.txt. Make sure you keep the title simple, to make it easier to remember when you’re in game.

• Need a fellowship? Try out the Beatles’ “A little help from my friends” to entice potential group mates. http://bit.ly/qldixM
• Checking out your new Moar Cowbell? What else but Blue Oyster Cult’s “Don’t fear the reaper” will work? http://bit.ly/qyMq62
• Want to get your group pumped up before a raid? AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck” will get them riled up and ready to go. http://bit.ly/obZluN
• You’re about to face the Balrog in the depths of Moria and need a morale boost. Pull out Dragonforce’s “Through the Fire and Flames” to inspire your fellow adventurers. http://bit.ly/oW8Nfs

Faking it with the best of ‘em
The ABC (an ASCII based music notation system) allows you to use one of the thousands of pre-written songs available on the internet for your musical pleasure. Just find your favorite song and put the .txt file in your My Documents > Lord of the Rings Online > Music directory.
Boot up the game and type the “/music” command, then type “/play songtitle” (insert the name of the song file that you created) and you’ll be playing. To play with friends, use the “/play songtitle sync” while in a fellowship, and use the “/playstart” command to start the entire group!

Crysis 3 preview

This preview originally appeared in PC Gamer UK Issue 240
Rasmus Hojengaard, director of creative development at Crytek, on the genesis of the idea for Crysis 3: “We wanted to do something with some kind of dome, over some kind of city.”
Well, this is Crysis, so the dome had better be a nanodome. And they just made all of New York for the last game, so that might as well be the city.
It’s 20 years after you shot all the aliens invading NYC in Crysis 2. Everyone’s given up trying to work out whether or not you’re Prophet, whose memories and voice you mysteriously took on after his death in the last game, so you are. And instead of having his voice in your ear for guidance, as you did in Crysis 1, you have the cockney lilt of Psycho, who you played in Crysis Warhead. It’s such a jumble of stuff from the previous games that it almost feels like a remix. The good news is that when you remix New York City with a densely jungled island, the result looks awesome.

Crytek want the vegetation to be more than ‘painted on’.

Technically the Crysis games always have, but this time the appeal isn’t just technical: this is a cool, visually imaginative place.
The (cough) nanodome the evil Cell corporation have built over (sigh) New York artificially accelerates plant growth, in order to (er) ‘cleanse’ the alien ‘pollution’. Look, I’m not Cell Public Relations, I don’t have to justify their science. I just have to tell you that Chinatown is a swamp now, and six other districts of New York have been spliced with six other natural environments to make this a more interesting place.
The mission I’ve seen starts in a Chinaswamp subway, lousy with creepers and glistening wet. It’s night. Outside, Crysis 2-era aliens are finishing off injured Cell troops, and prowling the waterlogged streets. Argon lights blare from a nearby Cell tower, one of the completely scientifically logical devices that sprinkle a dash of Crysis 1’s jungles in Crysis 2’s cities.

20 years after the invasion, everything is broken...

It’s a tight environment: Prophet has a little space to stalk his prey before attacking, but in minutes the mech-like aliens show up in overwhelming force and he resorts to a straight firefight. After the plasma’s cleared, Rasmus tells me there are more open levels than this: it’s not as sandboxy as Crysis 1, but not as tightly directed as Crysis 2. Like some kind of remix. Their plan is to alternate between the two styles, for pacing. The seven visually distinct zones of their overgrown New York make a good excuse to do that.
Rasmus explains that linear play is more popular in the mainsteam, while sandbox is a hardcore thing. That’s not much comfort to those of us who live entirely in the hardcore camp, and were half hoping for a return to Crysis 1 expansivity.
One addition does suggest some playfulness, though: the nanosuit can now hack alien gun emplacements to attack enemies. It’s a simple click-to-subvert interaction, but it opens a few more doors.
The main new weapon, a bow, is also promising. It’s a backwards step in technology, of course, but Crytek are keen to feed the hunter fantasy that made Crysis 1 exciting. And it does have a practical advantage: because of science, and nano, you can fire it while cloaked without revealing your location. If it’s ever bothered you that your enemies sometimes have the chance to fight back when you invisibly kill their friends, this is an appreciated boost to your already ridiculous power. It’s limited only by the scarcity of arrows, and a new enemy: Half-Life 2-style scanner bots, whose inquisitive beams can pull you out of cloak and zap all your suit energy. You’re safe if you kill them first, but when they show up in large numbers, that tactic clashes badly with arrow economy.

...but very pretty.

The bow also fires exploding arrows, but you’re rarely short of a weapon that can make things explode. Prophet’s nanosuit has been modified to use alien weaponry, but it’s not exactly exotic to the experienced shooter player: two of the weapons I saw lobbed exploding projectiles, the third had two fire modes: assault rifle, or shotgun. Crazy aliens.
I ask Rasmus if they even considered doing away with the aliens entirely, given that players overwhelmingly prefer human opponents. An immediate “no”. He couldn’t estimate a proportion of human combat versus alien fights, but says the city is crawling with both.
I think Crysis 3 is going to be great to explore, in a way that Crysis 2 wasn’t. I’m not convinced it’ll be any more fun to play. Whether you call it consistency of vision or self-destructive stubbornness, Crytek are never going to stop trying to make a mainstream sci-fi blockbuster in favour of the freeform predator sim they’re capable of. They’re good at making weapons feel nice, and their shaders look shiny, but you can always see that more ambitious, more interesting game struggling to escape the Halo straitjacket they shove it in.
If you enjoyed Crysis 2, this is bound to be better. If you’re still pining for the first game, though, Crysis 3 is only willing to meet you half way.

Saturday Crapshoot: Designasaurus

Every week, Richard Cobbett rolls the dice to bring you an obscure slice of gaming history, from lost gems to weapons grade atrocities. This week, a game two hundred million years in the making. No, wait. Sorry. A few months, maybe. One year tops. Is it kinda neat though? You bet Jurassic is!
Dinosaurs! Next to fluffy, sleepy kittens, officially the greatest animals of all time. Big! Dangerous! Much more intimidating before we found out about the feathers, but thought raptors were actually like the ones in Jurassic Park! Designasaurus – technically Designasaurus II – is your chance to put your stamp on history, and be the 5,000,000 person to do the ‘Doyouthinkhesaurus’ joke. What luck!

Even if you're a T-Rex, other dinos will mob your nest. They were pulled to extinction by the weight of their huge balls.

Designasaurus is what happens when idiots get hold of time-travel technology. It’s an edutainment game – one sec while I blow the dust off the standard image, it’s been a while since we saw it…

The last dinosaur was called 'Denver'. He showed us a world we never saw before.

…an edutainment game designed for kids. They’re not the idiots. The idiots are the scientists at the Designasaurus Research Foundation, who have accidentally lost the genetic code for the Gigantadon to the evil Max von Fusion. While he’s been arrested, saving everyone the trouble of tracking him down, it’s apparently deemed inappropriate to stick piano reeds under his fingernails until he just tells you where the hell he put them. Cue an epic chase through time, through the Jurassic, Cretaceous and Triassic periods to find the sixteen pieces of the code and… wait, what exactly are the stakes here?
…to save the world? Hmm. Not sure how this matters in the great scheme of things. I’m not sure that one dinosaur is going to make as much of a “political and military” difference as the DRF thinks, especially in the year 2500-and-a-bit. Yes, it can survive in multiple climates, but we have time machines and genetic engineering and guns. I think we can handle our enemies getting their hands on reptiles.
…to help science? Well, it seems like a simpler approach would be to just use the time machine and just go pick one up if it’s ever existed before. Or maybe just send a raptor back to eat von Fusion before he scatters the pieces into the timestream. Paradoxes? Pffft. It’s not as if the butterfly effect is going to make much difference in the actual plan for sorting out this situation.
…to teach kids about dinosaurs and shut up, it’s just a framing device for a silly edutainment game and you can’t expect too much from those for goodnesss sake? Well, kindof. I guess. To a point.

No, I refuse to accept this guy as my nemesis. New villain, please!

Rather than sending a hunter though, the DRF instead decides it’s a much better option to genetically modify its own dinosaur to both contaminate the time-stream and quite probably confuse them at some point in the future. While it can’t die, thanks to an emergency beam-out system, your custom atrocity can have kids, and nobody gives a damn if you eat every other dinosaur and poop out their bones.
Creating your own dinosaur is obviously the best bit. You can pick an existing one like the Allosaurus, Deinonychus or Triceratops if you want, but it’s far more fun to just rip all of those losers to pieces and create your own from the best bits. Here for example we have the tail of a Stegosaurus, the body and arms of an Iguanodon, and the wig of an esteemed barrister. Go, Dinosaur Lawyer!

The verdict is guilty. The sentence... extinction!

Alternatively, you can look elsewhere for inspiration. Here for instance is an attempt to recreate ancestors of Mass Effect’s Krogan. Meet Urdnot Rex. Who exists solely for that pun.

'Rex?' 'Agrarian biped yet to evolve, never mind have a specific social role?'

Sent back in time, your dinosaur has to survive 16 increasingly dangerous time periods. The goal is simple – find the genetic plans that have been dropped somewhere on the map, and get back to the teleporter. Why you have to do this last bit when your dinosaur can be beamed out at a whim, or why you only send one dinosaur instead of a whole herd of Dontfuckwithusaurses, I have no idea, but that’s why I’m not some genetic engineer from the future. Amongst other, more pragmatic reasons, obviously.

My carpark! You can't have it!

Survival isn’t desperately complicated. You have to keep your dinosaur fed, watered, and not crushed by herds or eaten by carnivores. The parts you chose determine whether it’s a herbivore, eating trees and vegetation, a carnivore who’ll have to hunt for dinner, or an omnivore who’ll technically eat anything and can therefore fully appreciate the joy of a good plate of steak and chips. Go, evolution!

T-Rex hits Allosaurus for 100 points of BEING A GODDAMNED T-REX.

It’s not exactly a hardcore simulation. Dinosaurs that would hunt in packs, like Coelophysis, will happily take a solo pop at a much larger predator, cannibalism is perfectly acceptable, and the typically fish-eating Pteranodon really want to put the ‘sore arse’ in ‘saurus’. Fighting consists of entering combat mode and spamming the attack key. This being edutainment, there’s very little gore or detail, but here’s an authentic simulation of what one of those epic battles might have looked like.

Graphics were rubbish in the Jurassic era.

One minor issue with the genetics side of the game is that while you’d think there’d be some challenge in balancing different pieces for a dinosaur with strengths and weaknesses… well, to hell with that. Every piece updates a straight rating with a value like “Excellent” and it takes about five seconds to come out with history’s ultimate arse-kicker. This is another piece of evidence in favour of just writing the Gigantadon off until von Fusion gets bored of solitary confinement. As edutainment villains go, Carmen Sandiego he is not. I bet he doesn’t even have his own catchy theme song or anything.
As ever with edutainment, the first thing to test is whether or not it’s taken any steps to avoid things every kid will try, and how funny it is when it inevitably fails. In this case, it’s not that hard, especially when it’s reporting your failure to do something like protect a nest.

Hey, no need to be so angry about it!

Unlike many edutainment games, Designasaurus does at least offer a solid amount of ‘tainment’ with its ‘edu’, and it’s fun to mess around with. It has a few nice features, like being able to print out your dinosaurs, and the added hilarity of later levels developing into almost bullet-hell levels of crap to wade through. Here’s a Let’s Play covering the whole thing, up to and including the reveal of the Gigantodon – which turns out to be the crazed drawing of a teenage boy, more or less. In the distant past, it would be a force to be reckoned with. Now, I just wonder what it would taste like after being shot with a sniper rifle and served up with a generous helping of chips. Victory, I assume. Victory, and probably chicken.

Ready Up – StarCraft 2, LoL, and Dota 2 pros head to DreamHack Summer

Did last week’s MLG Spring Championship leave you thirsting for more eSports? Then DreamHack Summer 2012 has you covered. With well-attended tournaments for StarCraft 2, League of Legends, and Dota 2, DreamHack should keep you busy throughout the weekend and into the work-week. It starts tomorrow at 11 AM Eastern, and continues through Monday, with the StarCraft 2 Grand Final scheduled for 5:15 PM Eastern.
A lot of big names are there this weekend, too: HerO, Stephano, Ret, PuMa, NaNiwa, SaSe, ThorZaIN, and HuK will be attending, among others. While the list is missing some of the most notable players who were at the MLG Spring Championship last weekend, it also looks like a good chance to see some of the players on the European StarCraft circuit that don’t often make appearances at MLG events. Personally, I like Stephano for the win, but maybe ThorZaIN can repeat.
DreamHack will also play host to the MSI Beat IT League of Legends Tournament, and the Corsair Vengeance Dota 2 Cup. The LoL tournament will feature Moscow Five along with Fnatic, Curse.eu, and Absolute Legends.
Dota 2 has an even stronger lineup set to compete this weekend. Natus Vincere, CLG, Evil Geniuses, Mousesports, Quantic… look, you get the idea. Everyone is there. Dota 2 competition begins at 8 AM Eastern on Saturday. The Finals begin at 3:30 PM Eastern on Monday. You can view the schedule here.
You can catch all the DreamHack streams on DreamHack.tv, including a Heroes of Newerth tournament and some other events. As with MLG last week, the biggest challenge is going to be choosing what to watch.

Dead Space needs “around five million” fans to survive, according to EA

EA president Frank Gibeau says that Dead Space needs a number of players roughly equivalent to the entire population of Norway to justify its continued existence. “In general, we’re thinking about how we make this a more broadly appealing franchise, because ultimately you need to get to audience sizes of around five million to really continue to invest in an IP like Dead Space,” he told CVG in a recent interview.
“Anything less than that and it becomes quite difficult financially given how expensive it is to make games and market them,” he continued. While firm sales numbers are not readily available, EA did say back in February that Dead Space 2 was selling about twice as well as the franchise’s first entry had. Yet, even given that, they feel that Dead Space 3 needs to be more “broadly appealing” without alienating current fans of the series.
Dead Space 3 is set for a 2013 release, and sounds to be leaning toward more toward the action genre than its predecessors. Only time will tell if, and to what extent, that shift compromises the horror elements that current fans of the series enjoy.

Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs trailer features dead pigs, angry pigs, outdoor environments

The countdown on nextfrictionalgame.com has ended, treating us to an unsurprisingly eerie first trailer for Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs. Check it out below, if you dare.

A Machine for Pigs is the follow-up to 2011′s Amnesia: the Dark Descent—which is, for my money, the scariest horror game ever released on the PC. The trailer shows off a similar art style to Dark Descent, but in a notably different setting. We get a glimpse of some outdoor areas, for example, which were all but absent from the claustrophobic Castle Brennenburg.
“Initially we planned to do a teaser release if we reached a certain total payments goal,” Frictional Games says on their YouTube page, in reference to the Humble Indie Bundle V. “But before we had everything in place to do the event, any goal we had in mind was long passed!”
A Machine for Pigs is slated for a Q4 2012 release. That should give all of us plenty of time to prepare the dankest and darkest possible place to play it in. For now, skip to 0:29 in the trailer for maximum NOPE.

The 8 best player-made items in Dota 2

One of the smartest things Valve’s done with Dota 2 is hook it up to Steam Workshop–the curated platform provided by Valve for players to create and submit mods for the game. The community can vote for the ones they like and, if Valve agrees, it’ll get added to the game.
Once added, players can either earn the items by leveling up and playing games through the matchmaking system, trade for them with other players, or just flat-out buy them for cash from Valve.
Dota 2′s community has only just begun to scratch the surface of the potential hero skins, ability mods, announcer voice packs, and courier upgrades. Here are my favorites of what’s out there so far.

1. The Forgemaster’s Tools Bundle

Category: Item bundle  |  For: Axe  |  Price: $2.99
This equipment bundle isn’t the most spectacular looking or the most dread-inducing, but it’s the best of the cheap low-priced bundles. It doesn’t take a dramatic twist or a whimsical flair that morphs his namesake into a bundle of flowers or something. Axe is still about the axe with this bundle–but is portrayed as a humble blacksmith who wasn’t trained for battle but picked up his weapon in a moment of desperation to fight for something he holds dear–family, home, or something else. I like the narrative this bundle creates more than the standard “one-man army grunt soldier” that’s Axe’s official backstory.

2. Morok’s Mechanical Mediary

Category: Courier  |  For: All heroes  |  Price: $7.99
The official description may claim this wonderful mechanical spider-bot was born from frugality and laziness, but you’re only going to need one of those traits to pick up this little guy. $8 isn’t pocket change, but for the price of a large burrito you can bring this lovable robot butler into every match (as long as you’re the one buying couriers for your team). Sure beats having that jackass courier follow you around.

3. Healing Ward of the Kuur-Ashiminari

Category: Ability mod  |  For: Juggenaut  |  Price: $5.99
This one’s pretty niche: if you like Juggernaut, use his W ability frequently, and prefer the look of this marble lion over the floating banner-torch that comes as the default, then this is something you might be interested in picking up. If you like trolling by chasing enemy players with the ward (Juggernaut’s W ability summons a healing ward that you can move independently of your character), it’s even more entertaining with this item mod.

4. Wuldastron the Twin-Blade of Giants

Category: Weapon  |  For: Sven  |  Price: $4.99
Sven is one lucky knight-gone-rogue. He has a ton of awesome weapon options available in the Workshop, but this one definitely trumps the rest. Nothing says “Get out of my way, you fool!” like a massive red sword with a wicked blade on top. It’s a bit pricier than the other options available to him but, unlike a lot of the rare items in the store, this one’s worth it.

5. A la carte pirate

Category: Equipment  |  For: Kunkka  |  Price: $3.74
It’s a shame there’s no scurvy scallywag bundle for Kunkka. He’s got some terrific pirate equipment mods, but until Valve bundles them with a discount, you’ll have to pick up the pieces separately. Thankfully, they’re all pretty cheap. This PCG-approved custom bundle includes the Captain’s Hook ($0.75), Pride of the Crew bandana ($1.49), Pegleg of the Cursed Pirate ($0.75), and Sword of the Seventy-Seven Seas ($0.75). Kunkka makes the most convincing pirate in the hero lineup, with the possible exception of this silly/scary Tidehunter bundle.

6. Naval Mine

Category: Weapon  |  For: Tidehunter  |  Price: $0.75
Cheap and effective. For less than a buck you can replace that gross half-eaten fish Tidehunter drags around with this much more dangerous it-might-explode-at-any-second naval mine. It’s not flashy, it’s not particularly clever, but it’s not seven bucks and it adds a fun twist without breaking the game’s lore. If you like breaking lore, and see ol’ Tidehunter as a big softie, you cold toss a cuddly squid plushy in that off-hand slot instead. Tidehunter easily has the best arsenal of items so far–if you play him regularly, you really need to check out all of his item mods.

7. Flower Staff of the Peace-Bringer (aka Hippy Stick)

Category: Weapon  |  For: Nature’s Prophet  |  Price: $1.49
Confession time: I hate the Nature Prophet’s head–his boring, weird face is absolutely offensive to my eyeballs. And since there are no item mods to completely cover up his face (although beards and large horns help hide it), the next best thing to do is distract from it. Enter the giant flower larger than half the heroes in the game. I dig the hippy vibe this powerful flower gives to the tree-huggingest hero around, and, as a bonus, it’ll troll any particularly uptight players that want everything Dota 2 to be gritty and serious.

8. Fearless Badger

Category: Courier  |  For: All heroes  |  Price: $7.99
Logan would never forgive me if I didn’t include this in the list. I’m pretty sure I don’t need to convince you on this one. I’ll let the official description of this particularly brave badger speak for itself: “Of all the creatures of the forest, the badger makes perhaps the finest courier. Fearless and quick, it bends its will to none save those who have earned its trust.”
Have you received or purchased any items in Dota 2 yet? What are your favorites?

Namco on the challenges of porting Dark Souls: “we don’t really have that strong PC experience”

There were some worrying noises from the Dark Souls camp during E3 last week. Dark Souls producer Daisuke Uchiyama told Eurogamer that From Software “haven’t been able to step up into doing any specific optimisation for PC,” admitting that the framerate problems present in the console versions will likely persist. “It’s more strictly a port from the console version,” he said.
Later in the show, Graham asked Nobu Taguchi of Namco Bandai America about the challenges of bringing Dark Souls to PC. Taguchi painted a picture of a studio surprised by the sudden demand for a PC version, struggling to meet the expectations of a new audience. He admits that “from an experience background From Software and Namco Bandai ourselves, we don’t really have that strong PC experience.”

The project started when a petition showing support for a PC version of Dark Souls gained tens of thousands of signatures within a month. That spurred Namco Bandai into action. “At that point that’s when we brought it over to From Software to discuss the concept of ‘are you able to create this PC version of the game that everybody is asking for?’” Saguchi explained. “From Software being very community orientated said that “We’ll try out best” but one of the concepts they were fearing was that just bringing out a straight port wouldn’t suffice at all.”
From Software decided to expand the game to “alleviate” the optimisation drawbacks, in Taguchi’s words, “to create a brand new location and a strong extension which really expands what the game was originally about.” That extension takes includes the extra bosses and a new PvP mode being slotted into the Prepare to Die edition.
Will it be worth putting up with poor performance to access the new areas? Saguchi suggests that the severity of the port problems will vary depending on the power of the player’s machine. “While the game hasn’t been tweaked itself, because it’s very difficult to tweak, but for people who play on the PC, which is arguably a lot more stronger format to work off of, it does improve the framerate issues,” he said.
“I think it’s really inherent on the person’s setup in terms of what kind of power the game can use. So it’s a little bit more difficult to determine, it really kind of shifts along with the processor that you’re selling.”
“It’s definitely going to be better than the console version,” he added later. “It’s just that in terms of what PC gamers are maybe looking at in terms of what they usually play, it may not match up.”

PopCap and Wooga abandon Google+

Google+ was designed to bring down Facebook. Thanks to backing from the likes of Wooga and PopCap, it even launched with its own suite of games to challenge Facebook giants like Farmville. Things haven’t quite turned out that way, though. Gamasutra report that PopCap and Wooga are taking their games off the service less than a year after it launched. Ouch.
Gamasutra realised that something was up when they approached the two companies asking for Google+ success stories. A PopCap rep responded by saying “we’re not really up for a conversation on that topic, I’m afraid.” Ouch.

Wooga are set to pull their most successful games, Monster World, Diamond Dash, and Bubble Island from Google+ on July 1 according to a report on Social Games Observer, while Inside Social Games say that PopCap are withdrawing Bejewelled Blitz next week. PopCap told Gama that they’re preparing to “redeploy our resources” to support other, presumably more successful versions of Bejeweled.
Bejeweled franchise director Giordano Contestabile told ISG that PopCap “chose to scale back the Google+ offerings because, like most game teams, we want to spend our resources improving games to have the biggest impact on the most customers. Shifting some of our resources from Google+ onto higher-impact efforts was a pretty straightforward decision.” Which is a polite way of suggesting that nobody plays Bejeweled on Google+.
It’s not over between PopCap and Google, though. “Google is a valuable gaming partner for PopCap and EA, and we’ll continue to develop for Google platforms,” said EA of the move. Google+ seems to be ailing, but Chrome’s gaming capabilities are on the up. The Chrome app store will let you you try a bit of in-browser Bastion for free. PopCap’s Plants vs. Zombies and Bejeweled are also available there.
Is anybody out there using Google+? Can you foresee a future in which it brings down Facebook?

Tony Hawk devs working on Call of Duty

The studio behind the Tony Hawk series and Guitar Hero have started working on Call of Duty. Evil Avatar note that their website has been updated with a message saying “we have molded our team into a crack squad of eager developers ready to push the First Person Action genre in support of Activision’s Call of Duty franchise.”
Working “in support” suggests they might be handling ongoing DLC content for an upcoming Call of Duty, in the same way that Sledgehammer are supporting Modern Warfare 3 with Call of Duty Elite content. Alternatively, they could be working on a new CoD title entirely, but will it have skateboards?

It’s impossible to tell at this early stage, but judging from the cycling mocap studio shots and the job listings on the site, it won’t be a small spin-off. The job ads require “experience designing top notch levels or gameplay experiences in shipped AAA titles” So there we are, Neversoft are the latest members of Activision’s Call of Duty tag team, consisting of Treyarch, Infinity Ward, Sledgehammer and Raven.
Treyarch are busy putting together Call of Duty: Black Ops for release later this year. Based on previous form, Infinity Ward will be making Modern Warfare 4 for 2013, but a Neversoft project could give one of Activision’s other studios an extra year or two to move CoD into an upgraded engine, though that may be wishful thinking. Frostbite 2 will start pushing 64-bit OS systems next year, with the release of Battlefield 3 and Medal of Honor, Call of Duty is in danger of looking increasingly dated.