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Cyber Monday app sales: Tom Tom USA, Age of Zombies, a few more
Did you buy anything good this weekend? It's now Cyber Monday, and the App Store sales continue. I have to say, these aren't quite as good as what we saw last week (though some of those are still going on), but there are still a few solid purchases here if you're looking to load up a new iOS device. Halfbrick's original Age of Zombies dual-stick shooter is down to just 99 cents. Double puzzle game Cohabit is on sale for the low price of free. Overhead racing game Tiny Cars is free today as well. Tom Tom USA is offering its usually very expensive software for a relatively generous price: $31.99. Cordy is an "exploratory platformer" that's free to download, with an in-app price that's been lowered to 99 cents for iPhone and $2.99 for the iPad. As mentioned this morning, Hothead's Sea Stars is free for the next few days. And freemium puzzle title Monster Island is offering a sale on in-app purchases. Slim pickings on new sales today, but some of those older sales are still on. And don't worry -- the biggest sales of the year on the App Store tend to show up around Christmas, which is when all of those new iPhones and iPads purchased this past weekend actually show up in consumers' hands, and start filling up with all of these apps. Stay tuned.
Irrational introduces 'Monster Island' ... which we'll never play
We think Bioshock Infinite looks great and all, but after seeing developer Irrational Games' decade-old pitch for a game about Godzilla-style monsters versus the humans trying to destroy them, we can't help but look at Infinite with a bit of contempt. Sure, it's irrational to think this pitch is what the team would be making if they weren't making the next BioShock -- but we are talking about Irrational Games here! "The pitch promised some 20 monsters, a living city, heavily destructible environments, and a dynamic civil defense network," Irrational's Chris Remo recounted in the studio's latest "From the Vault" feature. The game would have let players control either a monster or the defending forces. To twist the knife, Irrational artist Jorce Lacera went back and illustrated some concept art for the unmade game, including the image above and a reimagining of the classic movie monster Anguirus. Check out the article and spend the rest of the day dreaming about what will never happen.
Champions Online updated: A rough upgrade
Capping off the first month for Champions Online, a fresh update this-morning has brought in quite a number of changes, fixes and enhancements, but more than a few teething problems. The patch ran a half-hour overtime, and seemed initially fine. Unfortunately within a half-hour of going live, the character selection service stopped responding, and players were abruptly disconnected from the game servers. At 6:40AM Pacific, a notice went up indicating that Cryptic hoped to have the servers back up in approximately one hour. That didn't happen, and things blew out another hour, and while servers were reported to have been restored by 8:30AM Pacific, the live servers crashed again almost immediately.
Happy New Years video from Champions Online
Many of the Massively crew have been hoping for more Champions Online updates, waiting with bated breath. Of course, Cryptic loves to tease us with little tidbits of information - and this video is certainly no exception. Starting out with a news reporter on the scene, the video gives us a quick peek at Monster Island and Force Station Steelhead, then winds up in Millennium City (Champions Online's eventual Atlas Park?) where a countdown to midnight is captured and celebrated. While it's certainly not the most in-depth piece we've seen, it does give some tantalizing flyover views for those hungry for more. For those curious, you can check out the low-res version behind the cut, or download the higher-res version from the Champions Online site. In either case, Happy New Year, future heroes!
Behind the Curtain: Too much information
So, just the other day I hit level 30 on my latest World of Warcraft alt – a Dwarf Priest. I hopped on the nearest Gryphon to Ironforge to train up some skills, and noticed that I had unread mail. Skipping gaily towards the nearest mailbox, I was most surprised to find a letter from Ultham Ironhorn, the Dwarven Riding Trainer, letting me know that I was now eligible to purchase a mount from his fine establishment. For those of you unfamiliar, originally in WoW, you had to wait until you'd hit level 40 before you could buy a mount. Patch 2.4.3 changed that, and lowered the level requirement for a standard mount to level 30. I hadn't read anywhere though, that, upon reaching level 30, your character would be told about it. Back in-game, I checked with my guildies to see if they knew anything about the mail. They didn't, none of them having levelled up an alt in some time, so it was news to all of us. We all agreed that Blizzard must have implemented it to point players in the direction of a mount, when they might otherwise have missed out on the early availability. It got me thinking about information and the availability of it in game.
Big Download's Monster Island impressions
Monster Island is a place in Champions Online where all the monsters of the world are stored, if you couldn't have guessed that by the name. Obviousness aside, it's the perfect MMO zone for all sorts of over-the-top mayhem and Big Download got to check it out for themselves. It sounds like "The Big D" -- as we like to call them -- were pretty impressed by what Cryptic Studios had to show off. Of course, we're not surprised as we've been long convinced that Champions Online is going to be a very cool experience for superhero fans and MMO players in general.If you haven't checked up on the game in a while, we've got some recent screenshots you may be interested in checking out in our gallery. While sadly there aren't any giant monsters (we did consider photoshopping ourselves into the shots while making scary faces) there are plenty of actions shots to check out.%Gallery-17946%
The Daily Grind: Would you play a giant monster MMO?
One of the things we really like here at Massively are giant monsters. Hence our love for Champions Online's Monster Island zone. As we thought about the coolness of giant monsters battling it out across cityscapes and countrysides, we suddenly realized that making an MMO-style giant monster game would be a very cool thing to do. Who wouldn't want to design, name and play their very own giant multi-headed monster? In fact, we could see there being two factions in the game: giant monsters and giant robots. That way you've got a PvP element and even more classic film campyness to draw from. Oh, how we would swoon for such a thing!So would you be interested in playing something like that and if so, what would your giant monster and the game it's in be like?
Take a peek at Champions Online's Monster Island
Over at the official Champions Online website you can find an excerpt from the upcoming Monster Island sourcebook for the Champions tabletop game. The cool thing of course is that this relates entirely to the digital world of Champions Online, which makes it a lore piece as well. The island itself is very much an homage to the Godzilla movies as it's located just off the coast of Japan. It's not all text, however, as Cryptic has seen fit to release three new screens featuring the Monster Island locale and we've gotta say the zone looks pretty awesome. There's plenty of lush jungle-scape and you just know that a giant dinosaur or an 800lb flaming gorilla is just around the corner.We've added all three of the screens to our Champions Online gallery, so feel free to check them out at your leisure.%Gallery-17946%
