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Quick take on Sony's Gamescom 2014 press conference
Joystiq's Ludwig Kietzmann and Sinan Kubba reflect on Sony's Gamescom 2014 press event held today in Cologne, Germany. The event featured new game announcements from Rayman creator Michel Ancel (Wild) and Heavenly Sword developer Ninja Theory (Hellblade) among many other bits of news covered in our recap of the event. Did the PlayStation press conference resonate with you, or were there announcements you wished you heard that weren't part of the event? Share your own reactions in the comments.
Quick take on Microsoft's Gamescom 2014 press conference
Joystiq's Jess Conditt and Sinan Kubba react to the news from Microsoft's Gamescom 2014 press conference in Cologne, Germany. If you missed the event, get caught up quickly with our recap of the news, then give us your analysis in the comments. Was it a strong showing or was there something you wanted to hear, but didn't?
Crytek's Arena of Fate aims to change the MOBA as we know it
Crytek's new MOBA Arena of Fate is best described by our sister site Joystiq as a MOBA for people frustrated by MOBAs. Sitting down with Crytek Producer David Bowman at E3 this week, the Joystiq interview focuses on what makes AoF different from every other MOBA out there by removing the "toxic elements that exist in [...] some of the other products." How is this done, exactly? "The store is gone, getting the last hit on a minion doesn't matter, matches operate on a 20-minute countdown, and the first team to 10 points wins," according to the interview. Be sure to check out more on Arena of Fate as the game approaches beta later this summer.
Watch Dogs: The Joystiq Review
The advanced technology in Watch Dogs is not just indistinguishable from magic – it IS magic. The game would have you believe you're the world's most powerful hacker, bending surveillance cameras, traffic control and all manner of personal electronics to your one-touch whims. But in this paranoid vision of the future, in which every mundane device is grafted to the same computerized skeleton, the right software might as well be an all-powerful wand. Wouldn't you like to be the wizard? Click here for more
Win an iPad Mini and SteelSeries headphones in Massively's Gameloft giveaway
What better way to celebrate Memorial Day than with free stuff? Massively has teamed up with mobile developer Gameloft this week to give away both an iPad Mini with Retina Display and a set of SteelSeries Siberia V2 Heat Orange Edition headphones to one lucky reader of Massively or our sister sites, Joystiq and WoW Insider. Gameloft is the company behind Order and Chaos Online, a multi-platform mobile MMO featuring questing, PvP, mounts, and guilds. It's currently free on the iOS App Store for a limited time. Here's how you can enter to win: Download Order and Chaos Online on iPhone or iPad (it's free!). Create a character within the game with this symbol included in the name: ^^^ Post that character's name in the comments of this article and enter via the Rafflecopter widget below. a Rafflecopter giveaway You can also enter directly on Joystiq and WoW Insider. Good luck, everyone!
Joystiq Weekly: Nintendo foibles, LGBT gaming cons and crash-prone dirtbikes
Welcome to the Joystiq Weekly wrap-up where we present some of the best stories and biggest gaming news from our sister-publication.
PAX East 2014 panels bring you joy(stiq)
If you're one of the few that managed to pick up tickets to PAX East 2014 in the narrow window they were available, then your schedule of events is now available to view. The Joystiq staff will be at PAX East this year in full force, and they're even headlining the event's list of fascinating panels. If you're looking to maximize your odds at high-fiving folks like Joystiq's Managing Editor Susan Arendt, News Content Director Alexander Sliwinski or Reviews Content Director Richard Mitchell, you'll want to attend panels such as "Was I Wrong? Revisiting Controversial Reviews," "We didn't start the DLC fire, but we fed the monster. Now what?" and "Keep Your Opinion to Yourself: The Myth of the 'Objective' Game Review." We promise that not every panel will take multiple tweets to tell your friends about. When you're not attending every one of Joystiq's panels, the PAX East Indie Showcase appears to be a good destination for PAX-goers, as six mobile indie games will be on display this year. PAX East 2014 will be held in Boston on April 11 through April 13. [Image: PAX East]
Greetings, from Joystiq
My Dearest Friends at Engadget, With this letter I have enclosed a large, slightly frayed chunk of styrofoam that we all thought resembled the prominent "t" in the Engadget logo – you know, the one wearing the cute Wi-Fi hat. We have no use for this item here at Joystiq, so we thought you might hoist it above your reeking desk-beds, or use it in another story about 3D printers.
Arcane Brilliance: Challenge mode tips for mages part 2
Every other week, WoW Insider brings you Arcane Brilliance for arcane, fire and frost mages. Stacey Landry is the resident mage here, bender of space and time, conjurer of delicious confectioneries and expert at dressing well while setting things on fire. This is part two of three challenge mode tips for mages articles. Click here to go back and read part one. This week we're going to look at getting your gear ready to dive into challenge modes! First, a few loose ends. I neglected to mention another reward for finishing gold CMs: Challenger's Path. This is a teleport on an 8 hour cooldown that will take you straight to the entrance of a CM you achieved a gold rating in! Once you complete any CM, the teleport cooldown resets. They're very handy for getting around Pandaria. Some mages left comments about doing gold CMs as arcane. That's great! If you have any CM-specific arcane questions, I'm sure they'd be happy to share some of their strategy in the comments this week. I'll still be assuming you are probably frost. Frost is the most accessible and easiest option for the average mage, but I didn't say it couldn't be done by another spec. The reason for this is that frost scales better than the other two specs at lower item levels. It will perform well for you and can put out some serious AoE damage. Most mages doing CMs use it. Finally, Adam Koebel posted an introductory challenge mode guide this week. It also includes links to recommended strat videos. HamletEJ's were the ones I used.
Arcane Brilliance: Challenge mode tips for mages part 1
Every other week, WoW Insider brings you Arcane Brilliance for arcane, fire and frost mages. Stacey Landry is the resident mage here, bender of space and time, conjurer of delicious confectioneries and expert at dressing well while setting things on fire. Happy new year! Welcome to 2014. This week I'm going to talk about something we haven't looked at yet: challenge modes. Every column I've posted, someone has asked about or remarked on my current transmog. (Thank you for that. It warms my heart that you're also fashion-conscious). I'll admit, I haven't been able to change my transmog since I got the CM one. It's such a perfect combination of unique, exclusive, and also it's a credential. It says, "Trust me, I know what I'm doing here." But the best thing about it is that you don't need a raid group to get it. Why would you want to do challenge modes as a mage? Read on to find out.
GTA V makes $1 billion in three days, may be fastest selling entertainment product in history
Calling Grand Theft Auto V one of 2013's most anticipated video game releases would be a massive understatement, but if you wanted some sort of monetary proof of the claim, Take-Two interactive has it. According to a press release issued today, GTA V has cleared over $1 billion in sales in its first three days on the market; crunch the numbers, and that adds up to more than 16.5 million units sold. Take-Two says that it believes this makes it the fastest selling entertainment property in history -- the last major release to make that claim, Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, took 15 days to reach the milestone. It's an impressive accomplishment, but it's potentially only the tip of the iceberg: GTA V is rumored to be ported to PC and next generation consoles, and has a literal product lifetime to hold down its sales record.
Grand Theft Auto V arrives tomorrow, read Joystiq's review right now!
Despite some early leaks, the vast majority of humans can't pick up Grand Theft Auto V until tomorrow, September 17th. Fortunately for our friends at Joystiq, though, they got to do a dive deep on the latest Rockstar Games flagship in an early review. In traditional GTA fashion, "You can run the streets of a fully-realized world, steal cars, cause chaos and attempt to flee from an extraordinarily irritable police force," Joystiq's Xav de Matos writes. New to the series this time around is heist missions, which task the game's three main characters (all playable) with, well, heisting valuables from a target (think: banks, jewelry stores, et cetera). Though De Matos generally found the game worth his time, it sounds like the narrative beats are once again hampered by poor pacing and underdeveloped, over-the-top characters. "Since GTA V features three main characters with vastly different personalities, your time is split, and the narrative isn't given enough room to resonate," he says. There is of course much, much more to discuss, which you'll find in the Joystiq review, right here. We've also dropped five minutes of gameplay video after the break, should your fires not be stoked enough already.
Gamescom 2013: a recap of the week's news
It's true -- we already gave Gamescom 2013 a quick wrap up, but now that the sun has finally set on the show's public days, it's time to look back on the past week and sift through the madness. Upon closing the Koelnmesse's doors, Gamescom announced the show's final numbers: over the course of five days 340,000 visitors from from 88 countries marched across 140,000 square meters of exhibition space. That's a 23 percent leap in attendance over the previous year, and it's hardly a surprise: the event was host to over 400 world premier announcements and gave many attendees their first look at Microsoft and Sony's next generation consoles. Combined with the more humble announcements that came out of GDC Europe, it turned out to be a pretty fantastic week for gaming. Read on for a breakdown of our time in Cologne, a look at the Gamescom 2013 show floor and a group chat between Joystiq and Engadget editors on the show's biggest announcements.
Wrapping up Gamescom 2013 with Engadget and Joystiq (video)
There are still a few more days of Gamescom 2013 coverage coming to you from both us and our sister site Joystiq, but we're out of the thick of it and almost into the public days. Those are the days when nearly 300,000 people descend on quaint and historic Cologne, Germany for the largest public gaming event on the planet. It's pretty serious business! There's a campground and everything. Anyway, we've gathered up a quartet of editors to tackle the past few days of big news: the PlayStation 4's launch date, Microsoft's Xbox One indie push, and EA's love for all things FIFA. Join us below for a casual look into the the latest major game industry event in video form.
In which I manage to stop editing
Attentive byline watchers may have noticed my name appearing a lot less frequently. Non-byline watchers: hi, I'm JC, and I'm managing editor of this site. Or I was, until very recently. I've stepped down from my full-time position to devote myself to the completely different challenge of being a full-time stay at home dad to my new twins, who were born on May 2.
Engadget and Joystiq's Sony PlayStation pre-event broadcast: live from E3
Been aching to find out what Sony's PlayStation 4 actually looks like? So have we. Fortunately, Engadget's Ben Gilbert and Joystiq's Alexander Sliwinski are right outside of the company's E3 press event, happily speculating on the box's potential shape -- not to mention what games we might see for it today. Head past the break to hear the pair's predictions for the show -- and of course, you can always follow along on our liveblog when they're finished. Update: You can find an archived video of the stream after the break!
PAX 2013: Hands-on with Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft
Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft is a brand-spankin'-new online collectible card game from Blizzard, announced just yesterday here at PAX East 2013. And since I love you guys soooo much, I took the time to stand in line to take a look for myself. It certainly had nothing to do with the fact that I flock to CCGs like a moth to flame. No sirree. Of course, this isn't your traditional MMO, so it's difficult to write a traditional review, especially considering I was able to play only a single match (which I won by a landslide, thank you very much), so instead I'm just going to give y'all a rundown of how the game plays and let you draw your own conclusions. Shuffle your cards, cut your decks, and read on for the skinny on Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft.
Twitch introduces ad-free Turbo subscription service
Popular video streaming site Twitch has announced a new service called Twitch Turbo. For $8.99 a month you can turn off all the ads on the site, get priority customer support, and unlock a special badge, chat colors, and custom emoticons that only Twitch Turbo subscribers can use. Twitch also streams lots of eSports events and other videos that would otherwise be interrupted by commercials.If you subscribe to knock the ads off completely, eligible Twitch broadcasters will still be paid for their views. Twitch says this is "just the beginning of what we hope to offer through Twitch Turbo," and that more "benefits and enhancements" for both viewers and broadcasters (including the official Joystiq Twitch channel) are likely coming soon.
Massively's comment system gets an upgrade: Yes, you can has edit button [Updated]
As several of you have noticed, the Joystiq network's tech team has just pushed through the latest version of the Livefyre comments system. The update comes with a comment edit option with a timeout, meaning that yes, you can finally edit your posts (if you're quick -- it's apparently six minutes). Woot! The new features also include formatting tools like bullet points, bolding, italics, and embeds for links, images, and videos. There's also a little floaty widget to help you stay on top of the busiest threads. We're still digging through the update and chronicling the cool stuff and the bugs ourselves. Let us know what you like and don't like so we can pass it on to the tech guys and gals! [Update 12/21/2012: Readers have alerted us to the fact that the comment system is not functioning for users of older versions of Internet Explorer -- specifically, 8 and 9. Chrome and Firefox appear to be working well. Upgrade to IE 10 if you can! Tech is aware of the problem and investigating a fix, but we have no ETA.]
SOE Live 2012: PlanetSide 2 launching November 20th, 2012
Already alerted to the fact that tonight would be the night, PlanetSide 2 fans have been waiting with bated breath for the official launch date announcement at SOE Live. And now, the magic words have been uttered: PS2 will go live on November 20th, 2012. The beta, which began in July, is held up by devs as a real and honest beta in which systems are tested, rather than a soft launch. But some players wondered whether it'd be finished in time. During a press conference before the announcement, Creative Director Matt Higby addressed this concern by reminding players that an MMO will never be "finished" as in completed or done. As he put it, the game is "not finished because it's finished; it's finished when it's at a level [SOE] think[s] it should be." He further outlined the state of beta now, saying that the development team has turned the corner, moving from just implementing mechanics that were planned to reacting to beta players' feedback to improve and adjust the game. He emphasized, "Now we know what works better and what doesn't." Stay tuned as Massively brings you more details about PS2's beta, launch, and upcoming plans. What happens in Vegas doesn't stay in Vegas, at least where SOE Live is concerned! Massively sent intrepid reporters MJ Guthrie and Karen Bryan to this year's SOE Live, from which they'll be transmitting all the best fan news on PlanetSide 2, EverQuest II, DC Universe Online, and the other MMOs on SOE's world-class roster.
