Joystiq has been reporting on video game news for the ten years. It’ll be sad to see them go.
Godspeed Joystiq.
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Reports are surfacing around the web that AOL’s gaming news site, Joystiq, will soon get shut down as part of a house-cleaning initiative to cut underperforming content from their services. News outlets such as Polygon, Recode, and even Joystiq itself have mentioned the closing. Though it seems nothing is known for certain as of yet, Joystiq states, “We’re still working until we can’t”.
Joystiq has been reporting on video game news for the ten years. It’ll be sad to see them go. Godspeed Joystiq.
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Gee, no one saw this coming. Gearbox software has officially announced Borderlands: The Handsome Collection for PS4 and Xbox One. The trailer shows us that the collection will include HD versions of Borderlands 2 and Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel. Oddly, there was no mention of the original Borderlands being included in the package. The collection will release in North America on March 24, 2015, and internationally shortly after, on March 27th. Gamespot reports that the game will accept save files from the PS3 and XBOX 360 versions. Split-screen multiplayer will also be introduced in this version, allowing up to 4 players to play on the same TV. Gearbox also announced the “Claptrap-in-a-box” edition of the collection, “with 5,000 units to be made available worldwide. The Claptrap-in-a-Box Edition includes a copy of The Handsome Collection, a remote controlled Claptrap steward, steel case, and 12 lithographs.” Check out the trailer below. -- Source --
As the year draws to a close, I feel obligated to write some sort of "Year in Review" article for the site here. 2014 gave us a lot of great titles, and I have enjoyed playing them just as much as I have enjoyed reporting about them to all of you. Unfortunately, I haven’t played a lot of the newest titles this year. This happened for two reasons: Reason # 1 – I’m what you’d call a “budget gamer”. I rarely have enough extra cash to throw down on a brand new $60 title, and because of this, I usually wait a month or two for the price to drop before I can justify the purchase. Another (unfortunate) reason for waiting on a title is to give the developers time to patch and fix any bugs that might have shipped with launch. (See Assassins Creed: Unity, Driveclub, and Halo: The Master Chief Collection as examples.) Reason # 2 – I lack time. My real (paying) job kept me quite busy this year, and with that and volunteering at my church, my gaming time was severely limited in 2014. Even with these setbacks, I was able to play a number of stellar titles this past year. Here are my three favorite games for 2014 Titanfall was on my watch list ever since E3 showcased it for the Xbox One back in summer. I played the crap out of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 when it first came out, but I sort of fell off the COD wagon after Black Ops. I felt that each new game in the franchise just felt like a $60 expansion pack, so I stopped playing. And then, Titanfall happened. To me, it looked like COD with mechs, and you know what? That was enough to pique my interest. Jumping in to the fray, I found myself loving the new mobility mechanics. Double jumping and wall running made it a blast just getting from point A to point B. Drop in titans half way through the match, that’s when things got awesome. Titans felt powerful, but not invincible, and the maps were designed so that, even in a titan, you never felt safe, and as a pilot, you were still able to dole out a good deal of damage to the big boys. I believe Sledgehammer games had a solid hit on their hands with Titanfall. It may have lacked a single-player campaign, but I don’t feel it was really needed. I still find myself going back every now and then for another game. A lot of folks have stopped playing the game, but even so, I never have trouble finding a match. Titanfall is available on PC and Xbox One. Destiny Where do I begin? I’ve currently logged 155 hours in this game, and I still go back for more every day. Destiny seems to have polarized a lot of gamers out there. It was advertised as the next great space epic, yet when it was released, it’s most notable disappointment was the story. Mountains of funds were thrown into the development of this game (half a BILLION DOLLARS from Activison to be exact). Bungie plans to work on this franchise and ONLY this franchise for the next 10 years. It was a project that had never before been attempted by anyone in the game industry. All of this, however, was hype. One of Bungie’s greatest strengths is being able to build up hype for their games. Unfortunately, building hype is also their downfall. It was almost impossible for Destiny to live up to the standard that fans had built up in their heads. Does this mean that the game itself is a failure? Certainly not. The combat mechanics are spot on, and the game is just downright fun to play. Every day there are new challenges and bounties to take on, and this makes it so that you never feel bored playing. Their first DLC came out just this month, and there will be a lot more where that came from. Destiny has eaten far too much of my time, and for that reason, it makes the list here. If you haven’t picked up and played Destiny yet, I’m not sure what you’re waiting for. Destiny is available for Xbox One, Xbox 360, PS4, and PS3. Hearthstone is so different from what I normally play. I’m usually a shooter, RPG, or racing kind of guy. So the fact that a free-to-play card game made this list should definitely make you sit up and pay attention.
Blizzard has crafted an absolutely superb game in Hearthstone. The best part about it is that they figured out a way to make sure that no matter how much you’ve spent on the game, you can still enjoy it. As of now, I haven’t spent a dime, (it’s kind of a rule of mine for free-to-play titles) and I’m still having a blast playing. They’ve offered a number of different modes for single-player and multiplayer, and they have a balanced reward system that ensures that you always feel rewarded, no matter how badly you feel you’re playing. Everything that can be purchased with real cash can also be acquired with in-game currency if you have the patience for it, and every character is free from the get go. Hearthstone came out of nowhere this year, and set a new standard for the quality of a free-to-play game. It even merited a game of the year nomination at the Game Awards. It is currently available for free on PC, iOS, and Android tablets. Click here to go get it NOW. You have nothing to lose but time, and you’ll enjoy losing it. Those are my picks for the year. The list was short, but man was it sweet. What games did I miss that you feel deserve an honorable mention? Samsung Gear, the $200 VR unit powered by Oculus technology, just got a whole lot of creepy monkeys. The next iteration of Temple Run is now available on the Oculus Store. Now, thanks to the developers over at Imangi Studios, you can run from the monkeys in first-person! Just like real life!
Temple Run for Samsung Gear is free. Happy running! -- Source -- Well, this is intriguing. Telltale is taking on Minecraft. We don’t have much information on the project just yet, but we do know it will have the episodic style we’ve all come to expect from Telltale, and it will be stand-alone, not an add-on for the current Minecraft. Majong has this to say about the project: Minecraft: Story Mode will be an all-new narrative-driven game series developed by Telltale in collaboration with Mojang. Set in the world of Minecraft, the series will feature an original story, driven by player choice. It will not be an add-on for Minecraft, but rather a separate stand-alone product that will premiere in 2015 on consoles, computers and mobile devices. Today, Humble Bundle announced that they have surpassed $50 in charitable donations since they began in 2010. Since their beginning, Humble Bundle has grown from simply selling game bundles. They now sell comic book bundles, e-book and audiobook bundles, and they have their own store (currently holding a Holiday Sale) where 10% of every purchase goes to a charitable organization. When you purchase one of our bundles, you choose where your money goes — between content creators, charity, and Humble Bundle. In four short years, the Humble Bundle community has already donated more than $50 million to charity, and we’re continually impressed by your generosity. -- Source --
Blizzard’s Free-to-Play card game, Hearthstone, has officially made its way to Android tablets in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. The game is expected to be available on Android tablets worldwide in the coming days.
You may recall that Hearthstone received a Game of the Year nomination at the Game Awards earlier this month. To my knowledge, it’s the first time a Free-to-Play model game has been nominated for Game of the Year, so that tells you something about the game’s quality. Folks who download the Android version will receive a classic card pack on the house from Blizzard. Polygon tells us that you should be running Android 4.0, and have at least 1 GB of RAM with a 6” screen. They also listed the compatible devices. Amazon Kindle Fire HD 6 (2014) Amazon Kindle Fire HD 7 (2014) Amazon Kindle Fire HDX 7 (2013) Amazon Kindle Fire HDX 7 (2014) Amazon Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 (2014) Asus Google Nexus 7 (2013) Huawei MediaPad X1 NVIDIA SHIELD Tablet Samsung Galaxy Mega 6.3 I9200 Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 Samsung Galaxy Note LTE 10.1 N8020 Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 (2014) Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro 8.4 Sony Xperia Z2 Tablet LTE -- Source -- Square Enix has graced us with a whole bunch of screenshots from Just Cause 3. Just over 20 of them to be exact. The open-world/action series’ third installment will land on PS4, XBOX One, and PC sometime in 2015. Check out the screens below. The Game Awards aired this past weekend on multiple sites across the web. Xbox LIVE, PSN, YouTube, Steam, and a many others aired the show live for millions to watch if they wanted to. The show aimed to raise the bar for video game award programs, and though it had some high points, it had some not-so-great moments as well.
In the past, whenever someone talked about an award show for video games, the first (and only) thing that came to mind was Spike TV’s VGA’s, a show that was almost as bad as the network that aired it. The program tried its best to be “The Oscars of Video Games” but instead, was rather poorly done, and only served to solidify the immature stereotype the entertainment industry already might have held for the gaming community. Geoff Keighley, the brainchild behind this year’s program, hoped to provide a much classier program, and for the most part, succeeded. For starters, Keighley got some big names involved in the event. Marty O’Donnell wrote the opening fanfare, Koji Kondo played the grand piano, Nintendo CEO Reggie Fils-Aimé popped up a few times during the program, Kiefer Sutherland presented an award, and Imagine Dragons performed live. Never did these appearances seem superficial, and everyone showed genuine excitement for being there. As for Keighley, who hosted the event, I felt that he is a better interviewer than host. A host of an award show needs a certain charm and confidence about them. Keighley, however, was lacking in these areas, and never actually took the stage. He stayed at his designated spot on the auditorium floor, next to his flat screen display, much like a news anchor would. One of the choices that I thought was questionable was the decision to have a “standing room only” section, full of fans, directly in front of the stage. My guess is they were going for a club vibe, considering that whenever they had a bumper for commercial, they showed a DJ on stage playing remixed versions of chip tunes while a few the audience members danced. Because of this space for the fans, the people accepting the rewards had to sit further back, and therefore had an exceptionally long walk to get up on stage. This led to awkward pauses in the flow, and demonstrated a small hiccup in planning. There were a few other hiccups here and there. During the opening piano piece, Koji Kondo seemed confused as to when he was supposed to begin his number. Not the best start there. The show also had a few microphones that refused to work properly, stage hands and technicians that were viewable from time to time, fans screaming praises at the folks on stage, interrupting them, etc. All of this led to a show that felt clunky, and thrown together. As time went on, however, the problems became much less noticeable, and the show really started to feel like the classy award ceremony it was meant to be. The Game Awards show had a second main focus this year, besides the awards themselves: “World Premiers”. Many times throughout the show, the viewers were given glimpses into what the developers have in store for us over the next year. These included new Zelda Wii U gameplay footage, a new trailer for No Man’s Sky, and a new King’s Quest title, as well as other announcements for upcoming projects. Unfortunately, they used the term “World Premier” a little loosely. Apparently, their definition of a “World Premier” is “a trailer that no one has seen before” and not “a game that no one has seen before”. Most of the trailers we saw were for games that we have seen before in some manner, however, there were a few games that made their debut at the awards. King’s Quest, Before, and Tacoma were a few of the new titles no one had heard about before. One critique that I would have would be a more even award/trailer ratio. Over the course of the three-hour run-time (no real commercial breaks, by the way) only three or four actual awards were presented on stage, while there were over fifteen trailers for new titles. If you’re going to title your program, “The Game Awards” you better be giving out a lot of awards. Otherwise, it’s an E3 presentation with trophies thrown in. All in all, even though the program had a few disagreeable moments here and there, I felt it was a successful, and well done first attempt. Keighley definitely got his wish for a show that celebrated both the gamer and the developer, and I feel he did a good job on it. Hopefully, all the small bugs will be worked out in time for next year’s show, and we will have a much smoother experience overall. I’ll definitely be watching. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you missed The Game Awards this past weekend, you can watch the full program here. It seems no one in the entertainment industry can keep anything a secret. The Avengers: Age of Ultron trailer was leaked online a week before it was supposed to be seen, The new Assassin’s Creed title hit the web before it was intended to, and now, a teaser trailer for Street Fighter V was posted to Capcom’s Youtube channel, and has been quickly removed.
Looks like Capcom may have dropped the ball on this one. The announcement of the new title was probably supposed to happen during the Playstation Experience this weekend. Oh well. Luckily, Gamespot was able to catch the above screen grab from the video before it was taken down. They are reporting that the game will be exclusive to the PC and PS4, and that the title will be skipping the XBOX One. -- Source -- |