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EA's upcoming Dragon Age game won't feature multiplayer after all
The next Dragon Age game will no longer have any multiplayer components as originally planned.
Tetris is now a daily game show with cash prizes
N3TWORK's mobile 'Tetris' app gets a game show mode and more.
MMO Burnout: Engineers in spaaace
I missed the whole Minecraft craze. I was stupidly grinding my virtual life away in various MMORPGs, plus I couldn't get past Minecraft's so-fugly-it's-hip aesthetic. No matter, though, because Space Engineers takes Minecraft's core concepts and dolls them up with pleasing visuals, a nifty near future sci-fi setting, and addictive gameplay that's much more than the sum of its parts.
Smash Bros. 3DS gets a few more single-player hooks
Nintendo has previously discussed single-player content for Super Smash Bros. on the 3DS, including the replacement for Adventure Mode, Smash Run, a battle for powerups that concludes with stat-boosted brawls. Savvy fans might have caught every detail between Smash director Masahiro Sakurai's updates and the news avalanche that is E3, but today's batch of details offer a tidied, accumulative look of what fans can take a swing at while alone and on the go.
12 minutes of upholding the law in Battlefield: Hardline's single-player
EA showed 12 minutes of Battlefield: Hardline's single player campaign at its Gamescom 2014 presentation, but you can watch the same demonstration in the above video. EA's snippet follows protagonist Nick Mendoza as he hunts down someone from his past, a motivation that aligns with story details we heard previously from San-Diego Comic Con. Since Hardline stars a cop, players don't have to default to shredding enemies and environments to bits with bullets and explosions: in the demo, Mendoza subdues threats with a taser and a "Freeze" mechanic, brandishing his badge and conducting proper arrests to eliminate the threat posed by some criminals.
SimCity offline update launching today, some server downtime
Update 10, which brings offline play to SimCity for the first time, is launching today after successfully coming through final testing. An announcement on the EA forums reads, "Today at 6AM PT we will be releasing Update 10 with Offline play. This involves server down time and the game servers will be unavailable for a few hours." EA unveiled Update 10 and the new single-player mode back in January, after a 2013 in which the publisher came under severe criticism for implementing an "always-on" system for the city-building sim. That system backfired when servers buckled under the weight. EA has already said players can access their previously downloaded content in the single-player mode, and they can save their files locally. A new FAQ reveals players still have to sign into Origin to launch the game, but Origin can be put into an offline mode while the single-player mode is being played. [Image: EA]
Report: Some Assassin's Creed 4 single-player content gated by Uplay passport
Those that pick up a brand new copy of Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag will notice that the game comes with a Uplay Passport, Ubisoft's version of an online pass. While the passport typically grants access to online sections in the game, in the case of Assassin's Creed 4 it also unlocks small pieces of social content. Game Informer reports that the online pass locks away the game's fleet management system, in which players add vessels they board in the game to their fleet and send the ships out on missions to earn additional money. Players with second-hand copies of the game that don't plunk down $10 for a Uplay Passport are unable to manage their fleet, and since real-life friends are able to provide assistance to fleets, the management system is not an offline-only aspect of the game, even though it falls into the single-player campaign. We've contacted Ubisoft for comment on the game's Passport and will update as we learn more.
Next-gen upgrades won't include single-player saves
With the variety of upgrade programs offered for players to switch from current-generation to next-gen systems in the coming months, one thing they won't be able to bring to their new Xbox One or PS4 systems is their single-player save files. Representatives for EA, Ubisoft and Activision confirmed to Kotaku that each respective publisher does not have a method for porting single-player campaign save files for Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag, Battlefield 4 and Call of Duty: Ghosts to PS4 and Xbox One. In the case of Battlefield 4 and Call of Duty: Ghosts, both games will see multiplayer progress carried over to next-gen systems. EA also announced an upgrade program for Madden NFL 25 in July that not only ports your Madden Ultimate Team cards to next-gen systems, but also offers six free card packs to Anniversary Edition owners. Best Buy, Amazon, GameStop and Sony have their own $10 game upgrade programs, but none seem to save your single-player campaigns for you. Whether that impacts upgrade or current-gen purchasing plans for players remains to be seen.
MMO Burnout: State of Decay
With an all-star dev team steering the ship, Undead Labs' State of Decay is topping sales charts and impressing fans, but it's certainly not done yet. The single-player zombie survival game for the Xbox 360 was created by several ArenaNet alumni (including ANet co-founder Jeff Strain) and aims to one day release an MMO version titled Class4. But in the meantime, it's breaking XBL sales records and showing us all how a decaying game premise like zombie survival can gain new life. I grabbed the game at launch to give me an idea of what to eventually expect from Class4, but I was quite surprised at what I found. A console game with a living world? A single-player action RPG with purpose and incentive? That's just what you get when you interrupt traditional console game development with a few designers from this crazy new genre known as MMORPG.
The Think Tank: Do you play single-player games as well as MMOs?
As gamers, most of us enjoy a wide variety of game genres. The social interaction of an MMO is great, but sometimes you just want to hide in the corner of a single-player game and forget that the healer in that raid PUG today didn't heal or that XxXGrImReApErYoLo420XxX is better at PlanetSide 2 than you are. Since everyone on the Massively staff is obviously an expert in the field of MMOs, I thought it might be interesting to pick the writers' brains and find out what single-player games (and features of those games) they also enjoy.
Heavy Gear Assault adds single-player, Oculus Rift to Kickstarter
Heavy Gear Assault has swapped out its parts and announced new goals for its fundraising project, including single-player episodes and Oculus Rift support. Stompy Bot Productions is looking to raise $800,000 on Kickstarter and has donation options on its own site. Currently the game has generated $26,000 with 33 days to go on Kickstarter. At $800,000, Heavy Gear Assault will now get episode one of an offline, single-player campaign. Episode two is a stretch goal of $900,000, episode three is at $950,000, and at $1 million, Stompy Bot will throw together a single-player/co-op mission generator. This weekend, Stompy Bot announced Heavy Gear Assault will support Oculus Rift, but has yet to divulge information regarding a development schedule or how that affects fundraising.
MMO Burnout: Yucking it up with Saints Row The Third
So how would you feel about running around in an open-world action title smacking enemies with a giant dildo? The answer to that question will go a long way toward determining whether or not you'll dig Saints Row The Third, which is, naturally, the third installment of Volition's sordid sandbox saga. If that question made you laugh, utter some version of "hell yeah," or type "Saints Row 3 dildo" into your Google image search box, you and SRTT will get along famously. If you shifted uncomfortably in your seat, grumbled about kids these days, or fired off a how-dare-you email in the general vicinity of the Massively tip box, well, you can probably skip the rest of this week's MMO Burnout.
MMO Burnout: Do yourself a favor and play Sleeping Dogs
This week I thought I'd travel to Hong Kong as an undercover cop, infiltrate the Triads, enter a few street races, sing some karaoke, and generally kung fu fight my way through another jewel of an open-world sandbox actioner. You're welcome to come with me, but you'll need a copy of Sleeping Dogs to make it happen. Square's 2012 gangster opus got a new DLC injection this week, but it'll be a while before I can report on it since the rest of game is so large and involving.
Shroud of the Avatar promises offline mode with no DRM
As Richard Garriott's Shroud of the Avatar Kickstarter campaign continues, the team has posted an update on a few topics that in no way have to do with the recent SimCity kerfuffle. The post states that the team is creating an offline version of the game for those who prefer that style (or find it more convenient). While players won't be able to take their offline character into the online version, there may be the possibility of doing the reverse. Other words of comfort include the promise that Shroud of the Avatar "will not use any form of DRM" for its offline mode and that the single-player version won't be littered with microtransactions. [Thanks to Don for the tip!]
MMO Burnout: Second time's the charm for L.A. Noire
I don't know about you, but I really wanted to like L.A. Noire at release. I mean, come on. It was Rockstar. It was also a gigantic open playfield based on the 1947 incarnation of a real-life town that's spilling over with sordid, sultry characters all looking to make their mark on post-World War II America. Alas, something about the title just didn't jell with me at launch. In fact, I didn't even finish the original campaign on my Xbox 360, which is rare when it comes to personal gaming habits. Equally rare is the occasion when I repurchase a game that I didn't really like on a different platform, but that's what I did thanks to yet another ridiculous Steam sale this past December. My second tour of duty as hard-boiled detective Cole Phelps has been decidedly more enjoyable than my first, and while L.A. Noire is still a flawed video game in some respects, it makes for an engaging vacation from massively multiplayer convention while riffing on some of the genre's new-school charms.
MMO Burnout: Skyrim's shortcut to mushrooms
"This is Morrowind, not Skyrim," said a stern-faced Dunmer named Adril Arano as he greeted my ship at the Solstheim docks. And just like that, I felt a flood of 2002-ish nostalgia despite the fact that this is actually Skyrim. More precisely, it's Dragonborn, the new (to the PC) DLC pack that expands Bethesda's already sprawling sandbox opus beyond its Nord roots. I'm guessing that a fair few of you have played at least a portion of the game by this point, and the rest of you are probably wondering why it's being written about on an MMO site. Well, that's not a short answer, but as I'm in the habit of looking at non-MMOs that might appeal to MMO players in this column, it would be woefully incomplete without a few deep dives into The Elder Scrolls.
MMO Burnout: Two weeks in the valley with Multi Theft Auto
OK, you know that guy who's always going on about how bloody awesome it would be if someone ever made a working multiplayer mod for Skyrim? If you don't know him, well, you do now, because he's me. Back before I was bitten in earnest by the MMO bug, I spent quite a lot of time messing with private servers of both the Jedi Academy and Neverwinter Nights persuasions. And when I say "messing with," I don't mean I logged into them, I mean I hosted them, made mods and skins for them, and generally wasted significant portions of my youth serving as a GM. Needless to say, it was a blast, and the thought of having that experience again in a larger game world is just short of orgasmic. Alas, no one has made much of a multiplayer Skyrim mod yet, and while private servers for NWN and Neverwinter Nights 2 are still running and serving their niche communities quite capably, those are topics for another edition of MMO Burnout. I'd like to tell you about something similar that I've been playing lately, though. It's called Multi Theft Auto. %Gallery-177696%
MMO Burnout: A week with id Software's Rage
So I've been dabbing in id Software's RAGE over the last little while. Actually, I'm not sure whether the late-2011 shooter is called RAGE or simply Rage, but either way, it has the worst (or perhaps least descriptive) video game name of all time. Also, yes, I know it's not an MMO. This is MMO Burnout and I thought we were past that already. Anyhow, I'm afraid I'm going to have to recommend the title to burned-out MMO gamers for several reasons. It's quite beautiful, quite fun, and it's the perfect getaway from the typical massively multiplayer grind.%Gallery-176557%
The Guild Counsel: Can guilds and lone wolves coexist?
There are some things in life that naturally go together. Peanut butter and chocolate, peas and carrots, peaches and cream, the Captain and Tennille. But two groups that tend to not mix are guilds and shy players. I was inspired to write this column after seeing the comments in last week's column by reader McGuffin, who pointed out that not everyone wants to socialize in guild chat and share stories about life outside the game. He's right, but it raises the question of why such a someone would want to join a guild, since guilds are usually thought of as a social network of sorts. Many MMOs now have looking-for-group tools (and some even have raid finders), so in theory, there would be no need to join a guild at all if you aren't into the social side of it. But there actually are good reasons for guilds and shy players to team up, and in this week's Guild Counsel, we'll look at a few or those plus some ways for both groups to co-exist happily.
MMO Burnout: A weekend with Just Cause 2 multiplayer
Wait, what the heck is this? MMO Burnout? On an MMO site? Yes, kids, this is the scary part of the story where Massively strays from the straight and narrow, beating a path through the tangled underbrush of pseudo-MMOs and single-player games that are nonetheless related to MMOs by way of a crucial feature or two. If you've been following the site for a while now, you've probably noticed us reaching into the realm of MOBAs, shooters, and mobile/browser titles. MMO Burnout, then, is our latest branching opinion column, and as the title suggests, it's largely concerned with what to play when you tire of gear resets, rep grinds, and being your shard's 3,721st incarnation of "the One." Don't worry, though; we're not delving into Call of Duty or Angry Birds. Burnout will turn its all-seeing eye on RPGs and open-world action games primarily, and we'll do our due diligence when it comes to the PC modding community, too. Speaking of, won't you join us after the cut for a look at the crazy fun to be had on Just Cause 2's multiplayer server? %Gallery-168562%
