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Oculus and 'Ratchet and Clank' studio reveal two more VR games
Insomniac Games and Oculus Studios have partnered to create Feral Rites, a 3D brawler set on a mystical island, and The Unspoken, a player-vs-player spellcasting game, both exclusively for the Oculus Rift VR headset. They're based in disparate realms of fantasy, from lush jungle temples to the mysterious shadows of big-city alleyways.
The owner of music's most influential sample is finally getting paid
The "Amen break" is arguably the most important 6 seconds of music ever recorded. With the popularization of sampling, the 4-bar drum solo (originally from The Winstons' 1969 track "Amen, Brother") become a mainstay of early hip hop, before being sped up and chopped to become the breakbeat that defined jungle, drum 'n' bass and techno music. Despite it featuring in many, many successful tracks, The Winstons never received any royalties for use of the sample, something that a new crowdfunding campaign is hoping to fix. A GoFundMe page tilted "The Winstons Amen Breakbeat Gesture" is looking to raise as much money as possible for Richard L. Spencer, The Winstons' lead vocalist and "Amen, Brother" copyright holder.
World of Warcraft previews the Tanaan Jungle
The first two zone previews for World of Warcraft's next expansion focused on the areas that will lie at the heart of each faction, but Warlords of Draenor doesn't start in either of those areas. No, players will begin by setting foot (or hoof) into the Tanaan Jungle, a lush land filled with warriors of the Iron Horde as well as no shortage of vicious beasts. Yes, it's dangerous even without the orcs, that's kind of a running theme here. Players using characters boosted to level 90 will be learning their classes for the first time in the jungle, meeting orc luminaries such as Grom Hellscream and Khadgar Bladefist. (They're with the Iron Horde; they won't be happy to see you.) Players are also teased that they might need to make a deal with the warlock Gul'dan to get out in one piece, which is an activity that has never worked out well for anyone. Check out the full preview and all the lore it implies on the official site.
The Summoner's Guidebook: Two years and I'm still playing LoL
It's the time of the year when I get to sit down and reflect a bit on how I've grown as a League of Legends player. Last year I had made some pretty big jumps in skill, especially in the realm of Dominion skill. This year I've kind of shifted my focus to SR. Also, I got a little more involved in the community, but not enough. That, I hope to change. Playing more stuff that you play Disappointingly for a lot of Dominion players who read these articles, I haven't been talking about it much lately. The big reason is I've been playing it a lot less, and unfortunately it's because the game mode isn't very popular. My solo queue time in Dominion is kind of long, for starters. Once you get to any sort of respectable level in that game mode, queue times start to get obscene. I end up having to wait 5-6 minutes for games on CS, and that's not so good.
The Summoner's Guidebook: Wards win League of Legends
A lot of you have noticed that I've been talking a lot about wards over the past several months. This is for a good reason: Wards win League of Legends! I think that every one of my past wins on Summoner's Rift has been either due to wards or a complete blowout laning phase. Of those two things, there's one you have almost zero control over, even as a jungler. You can outlane the person you're against, but there's no telling when your opponent is just better than you. If you're a jungler, sometimes the enemy lanes don't give you any openings or your lanes just throw kills away to the enemy jungler. No matter how good you are, someone can always be better than you -- or your allies can be horrible. However, in Season 4, if you place down a ward, in probably 90% of circumstances you're getting vision for the full duration of the ward. No matter how good the enemy team is, if it moves through that area, you get intel. If it doesn't, you also get intel.
The Summoner's Guidebook: Evelynn, League of Legends' new top jungler
It shouldn't be a surprise that Evelynn is one of my favorite characters in League of Legends. Before the 3.14 patch, she was one of my go-to picks in the jungle. Now, I have not yet played a normal or ranked game in 3.14 that was on a character other than Evelynn save for one game where I was stuck playing mid (and lost horribly). I probably could have played Eve there too. Every game thus far I've gone 5/1 or better in the laning phase. She's just that good now. While there are a few other junglers that are considered to be very strong, I feel that Evelynn is the best of the best right now. She clears fast, deals tons of damage, and scales well with items. But more importantly, she can do what few other junglers do well: gank.
The Summoner's Guidebook: Selecting a League of Legends jungler
As sometimes happens in The Summoner's Guidebook, one of you asks for a more in-depth article on a particular subject. This time I was asked to look more at character selection for junglers. As we've already discussed, the jungler is frequently the leader of a League of Legends team, but as the reader mentioned, the character you choose makes a big difference in what you can or can't do. If you're thinking of getting into jungling, the first character you buy for the job is important. Who you pick determines a lot about how you go into the job, what types of skills you develop, and how you think about the entire jungle concept. If your first jungler is a speed-clearer like Shyvana or Master Yi, you're going to look at things differently than if you choose a powerful ganker like Nautilus. Regardless of the character you select, the jungler is a playmaker. If he's not making plays that get his team ahead, he is going to hurt his team if the enemy jungler is.
The Summoner's Guidebook: Team leaders roam League of Legends' jungle
Leader. Shot caller. Playmaker. The jungler is the heart of a League of Legends team. On both Summoner's Rift and Twisted Treeline, the jungler is the leader of the pack. More than any other role, the jungler is called upon and expected to swing the game in his favor. He's expected to be everywhere at once. If a laning player dies to an enemy jungle gank, it is her jungler's fault for not being there. If a laning player fails to make a kill happen, it's also her jungler's fault. It is any jungler's personal experience that if lost game is not lost in the laning phase or blame cannot be pinned on a specific person, the jungler is always to blame. With this responsibility comes great power, however. The jungler has the ability to influence a match in numerous covert and overt ways. He can steal enemy creeps to disrupt the opposing jungler or even influence lanes by stealing the enemy blue buff. He can make his presence known via ganks and directly impact the outcome of lane confrontations. Perhaps most notably, the jungler can place wards to warn his teammates of enemy incursions and/or allow them to make better strategic decisions. While the support can be a team leader as well, the role defaults to the man in the jungle. When he comes from the cover of the trees to strike at his foes, they quake in terror.
The Summoner's Guidebook: The little stories League of Legends creates
Recently, one of you guys asked to see more personal stories showcasing my experiences in League of Legends. Normally I'm not as fond of doing that sort of thing unless there's a moral in the story somewhere. I like teaching, so that is what the Guidebook does a lot of. The column's name is the Summoner's Guidebook for that reason, after all! However, I was thinking about it when I was playing last week, and I ended up playing a really great unranked, blind pick game. The outcome was very close, and the overall dynamics of the game were a firm reminder of why I play League of Legends. There was no "mid or feed." It began with good communication by our team and good sportsmanship by both teams at the end. In my mind, that makes this story one worth sharing with you.
The Summoner's Guidebook: LoL melts special snowflakes
Never let it be said that I don't listen to feedback. Recently, one of you readers suggested that I write about following the metagame, and I thought, "Hey, why not?" This was largely spawned by the Penny Arcade comic suggesting that somehow, a player should pick the champion he wants without regard for what his team needs. Who actually believes that this is a good thing to do? League of Legends is a team game. Characters in LoL are designed with strengths and weaknesses. It is not only important but natural to pick characters that fit together. The natural evolution of this thought process is the metagame: a series of standard roles that characters can fill on a team. I've talked about meta before, and you guys seem to have differing opinions than I do. "Meta is for the sheep," you say. I don't think that picking the right man for the job makes you a sheep. I think of it more like running with the pack rather than being a lone wolf.
The Summoner's Guidebook: The perfect LoL gank
We've talked a lot about teamfighting lately, but that's not the only kind of engagement in League of Legends. In truth, a large number of kills in most non-professional games occur long before teams ever group up to take an objective. Even in a teamfight-focused gametype like Dominion, smaller skirmishes are frequent. The most successful skirmishes are those where one team outnumbers the other. In cases where the numbers advantage is only apparent after it's already too late, it's called a gank. Ganking is a critical part of LoL. You can put an enemy team out of commission long before the midgame starts by having many successful ganks. While it's common in Summoner's Rift to have the jungler be the ganking linchpin of a team, ganking is not confined to junglers. Roaming supports and mages are also quite effective, and in a gametype like Dominion, anyone who can approach undetected and deliver burst damage or CC can make an effective ganker. This week in the Summoner's Guidebook, we'll talk about setting up for ganks and some ways to make them pay off more effectively.
The Summoner's Guidebook: Roaming the jungle in League of Legends Dominion
Although players often consider jungling to be a role exclusive to League of Legends' Classic gametypes, proper exploitation of the jungle is vitally important to success in Dominion as well. At the lower levels of play, players often feed too much information to the enemy and allow their foes to move through jungle areas unmolested. Never do this! When you're ahead, the most important thing you can do in Dominion is secure your lead further by limiting the enemy's movements. The only way to do this is to control the jungle. If you're familiar with the idea of warding the enemy jungle to limit enemy movements on Summoner's Rift, controlling the jungle on Dominion will likely be familiar to you.
The Summoner's Guidebook: It's time to get serious!
One of the things that was baffling for me as a League of Legends noob was the overall tempo of PvP games. In bot matches, I got used to staying in my lane, and I was never sure when it was a good time to meet up with my team or go for objectives. I actually didn't really understand what "mid game" and "late game" actually meant. However, on Summoner's Rift, those terms actually have real meaning. You have different goals in the early, mid, and late game, and if you try to continue laning when you're in the midgame, you're going to run into huge problems, as the entire enemy team is probably ganging up to come and kill you. This week, we're going to talk about the flow of the game on Summoner's Rift, and when you should be switching up your game to accomplish different things.
League of Legends discusses jungling changes in patch preview
If you've been following the recent updates on League of Legends, you know that the Riot Games staff has been working to diversify the current metagame with updates to the mastery tree and a complete overhaul of the dodge mechanic. The Riot team is now looking to continue the trend toward improving jungling with the Volibear patch. A whole slew of changes aimed at lowering the skill and rune requirements for jungling and making jungling decisions more complex are slated for the next patch. In addition, the dev team is planning a total rework of Sivir (probably at least partially because of the planned dodge changes). Check out the video after the jump for more specifics!
Panasonic cancels Jungle gaming device production
If you don't remember Panasonic's Jungle, you're not alone. A glance at the online-enabled, portable gaming device's official Twitter feed shows that Panasonic forgot about it, too. There's not been a single update since the device was first unveiled in early October, pining for the affections of MMO players seeking to take titles like Stellar Dawn, Battlestar Galactica and RuneScape on the go. Surprising no one, Reuters is now reporting that the ill-advised device is officially canceled. "Panasonic decided to suspend further development due to changes in the market and in our own strategic direction," the company said. That "strategic direction," apparently, is to not make a device so few would have wanted. Of course, some folks already told you so: "This looks like a non-starter." –Billy Pidegon, M2 Research "I just don't think Panasonic has the right pieces to compete in this space." –David Cole, DFC Intelligence "The absence of strong third-party support will most certainly end in failure." –Jesse Divnich, EEDAR
Panasonic abandons Jungle portable gaming project, probably scared off by the NGP
Panasonic has decided to discontinue development of its audacious Jungle portable gaming console, citing "changes in the market and in our own strategic direction" as the reasons. If we had to guess, we'd say those market changes mostly relate to Sony announcing the utterly spectacular NGP, whose release probably coincided too closely with what Panasonic had on its Jungle roadmap, and so the latter company decided to cut its losses and run home. Panasonic also engaged in some early testing with US consumers late last year, which now seems likely to have born unsatisfactory results. It's a shame, we were sincerely looking forward to another competitor in the portable gaming arena, but we suppose it's better for a bad product to never see the light of day than to depress us all with its woefulness.
Panasonic welcoming crash test consumers to the handheld gaming Jungle
In an interesting move for a major console launch, Panasonic is reaching outside of the fold and looking to some select US consumers to test out its upcoming Jungle gaming handheld. No details on the testing program were given, and it's not much in the way of news, but it's the most we've heard out of Panasonic since it announced the online gaming-centric handheld in October -- we still don't know when the Jungle will land or how much it will cost. At least Panasonic isn't short on self-assessment: "We know other companies out there have traditional hand- held gaming covered... We're doing something very different." You can't argue with that, we'll just have to wait and see if Panasonic can pull it off.
Analysts weigh in on Panasonic's Jungle
New tech does not always equal gimme gimme -- according to several prominent analysts, Panasonic is set to engage in quite the uphill battle with its new handheld, The Jungle. Both Bill Pidgeon of M2 Research and David Cole of DFC Intelligence told IndustryGamers they believe the unit is "a non-starter." Colin Sebastian of Lazard Capital Markets said it looks like "an uphill challenge to launch a new portable gaming device unless there is some meaningful differentiation or access to proprietary content," while EEDAR's Jesse Divnich offered that its success hinges on third-party support, saying that, "with any hardware platform regardless of its quality, the absence of strong third-party support will most certainly end in failure." All valid points, but should these guys be giving the device the benefit of the doubt? As it stands right now, we don't know much about the system other than what it aims to do: give MMO players a dedicated piece of hardware so they can take their games on the go. Given how popular MMOs are (and, in turn, how much of the cash money they generate), from a business standpoint it would seem win-win; nobody else is offering something to MMO players who may want a bit of portability. But, on the other hand, the problem is -- at least according to these analysts -- that the handheld doesn't particularly fill a void that can't be filled by a netbook or laptop.
MMO to go: Panasonic designing a handheld online gaming machine
While game studios are slowly forging a path to bringing MMOs to established handheld devices like the iPhone, Panasonic is looking to flip that paradigm on its head. Eurogamer reports that the company has been developing a handheld device specifically for MMOs and is poised for a major reveal. Called "The Jungle," this clamshell unit boasts a high-resolution screen, keyboard, touchpad, directional pad and several input ports. It is rumored to run the Linux OS and could work with MMO titles such as Battlestar Galactica Online and RuneScape, according to the company. The Jungle's website is scarce on content at the moment, but on its Manifesto page the developers state: "Our mission: Create an ecosystem around online gaming. At the core is a new mobile device concept designed specifically for online gamers. We're also working with leading online game developers to create some exciting new content." Whether there is a significant demand for such a product is up in the air, but this is intriguing enough to follow for the time being.
Panasonic's Jungle portable gaming system emerges, gets shown off on video (update: makes appearance on Rob Dyrdek's MTV show)
Apparently Panasonic has been working itself into a frenzy over a new handheld video game console designed solely around the concept of taking MMORPGs with you everywhere you go -- like you weren't already wasting too much of your life. The makers of the ill-fated 3DO are returning to the gaming world with a portable system dubbed "The Jungle." The clamshell device will allegedly sport a super high-resolution display, features a full QWERTY keyboard along with what looks like a touch sensitive d-pad and button arrangement, and may run atop a custom Linux build. The Jungle will also apparently sport a mini HDMI port, a micro USB port, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. To our eyes, the system looks a little on the clunky side, with a definite air of something out of Nokia's N-Gage line -- not a good thing for a 2010 device. Alongside the system itself, Panasonic will launch a Battlestar Galactica title for the device, and a web show called Online Underground. We're digging up more details right now, but the company (actually an offshoot of Panasonic called Panasonic Cloud Entertainment) has already set up shop with a site and a few teaser videos. Check out the mysterious new handheld in another pic and some videos after the break (including a look at the Battlestar Galactica title), and stay tuned as we unearth the full story on the Jungle. Update: Well that didn't take long. We'd heard rumblings that the console would make its way to an MTV show, and sure enough, the Jungle has shown up on Rob Dyrdek's Fantasy Factory. Rob apparently is making a "jingle" for the unreleased device, which looks rather huge in the hands of the skateboarder. Obviously Panasonic is desperately trying to create some viral hype around the device (leaks to a few blogs and this MTV appearance), but we're pretty unimpressed thus far. Maybe the jingle will convince us. If you've got video -- send it our way!
