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'Carmageddon' comes to PS4 and Xbox One this year
Carmageddon enjoyed a brief (if imperfect) revival on PCs and mobile a few years ago, but what about living room gamers? Don't worry, you'll be covered soon. Stainless Games has revealed Carmageddon: Max Damage, an upcoming take on the car- and pedestrian-crushing racing game for the PS4 and Xbox One. The title promises a ton of things to do, including four online and six offline events, 30 vehicles, 10 open environments and 90 power-ups. However, the studio isn't shy about sticking to the series' core look-at-us-we're-controversial formula -- this is still about running over pedestrians in creative ways, and smashing into the occasional car while you're at it.
Magic 2014 coming soon with new campaign and cards, sealed deck play
For a long time, Wizards of the Coast would not release anything official on iOS, even though the biggest collectible card game -- Magic: The Gathering -- seemed perfect for Apple's touchscreen platforms. Then, last year, we finally got Magic 2013 on the iPad, and now Wizards of the Coast is preparing Magic 2014. When the update is released in about a month, it will offer lots of new features and content to the iPad and Android devices. That second platform may not matter much to us here at TUAW, but it's a sign that Wizards is continuing to rethink its mobile strategy. The company kindly showed us the latest version of Magic: The Gathering running on the iPad this week, and it's very impressive. It runs faster than ever, and while the campaign is similar (you undertake a series of single-player challenges, or can take on other players in multiplayer), Magic 2014 has a definite emphasis on story that the current version doesn't have. Magic 2014 was designed to attract new players, so the various missions serve as a tour of the game's lore and background, with each section culminating in a battle against a "Planeswalker," one of Magic's big heroes. In addition to the new campaign structure, there's also new content, including lots of new cards from the past year of Magic. There are even some new cards from the Magic 2014 Core Deck, which isn't set to release until after the iOS app has arrived. That means that playing with this game will be the first time some Magic players can officially sit down and play with the new cards. There will also be more of a newer card type called slivers, so even if you've played Magic 2013 completely, the new version should offer up some more twists and turns. One of the biggest problems fans have had with these Magic: The Gathering video games is that in the single-player campaign, you don't get to build your own decks. Rather, you get to unlock cards for a certain deck. While there is some choice in which cards you use, all of the cards are basically tied to specific decks, so building a custom deck is out. Wizards is aware of this concern, and has an answer in Magic 2014. Sort of. The game will introduce a new mode called Sealed Deck play, where players will get six booster packs, featuring random cards from a larger pool, and will then be allowed to build their own deck from those opened cards. It's not complete freedom, because you only get a certain number of booster packs to choose from, and you'll need to make decks from those. But it does allow for a very structured bit of deck-building, and Magic 2014 contains a whole campaign and a PvP option centered just around using these sealed decks. On the game's initial purchase, you can create two total decks in this way, and then you can buy more slots for these built decks via in-app purchase. If you want to play with a sealed deck, but don't know how to build a Magic deck, the game offers an "autobuild" option. There are plenty of tutorials and difficulty options, so no matter what your level of Magic experience, 2014 has plenty to offer. The biggest drawback might be that while there are lots of new options and content, the game itself hasn't changed. Stainless Games is the company that makes both the console and the iOS versions, and as a result, both versions use the same pacing, same graphics and same gameplay. There's no iOS-specific touchscreen moves or fun tablet-specific tricks or graphics. But that's fine. The point of this is to play Magic, and Wizards and Stainless both deserve a lot of credit for producing such a well-made game. Magic 2014 should be available on the iPad in the next few months or so. We'll keep an eye out for it, and let you know when it's finally arrived.
Carmageddon for iOS out now, free for a day
Carmageddon is an old PC title from the company now called Stainless Games, and earlier this year, they held a Kickstarter to update the game and release it out on iOS. The Kickstarter got funded, and Stainless has now delivered on its promise, and released the title on Apple's App Store. The new version works pretty much the same way the old version worked: It's a racing game where your goal is often to simply cause as much carnage as possible, hitting opponent cars and drilling pedestrians for more points and time on the clock. The graphics haven't been completely updated (the cars are basically still just standard polygons), but the UI is cleaner, a physics engine has been added in with power-ups and other goodies, and there is a really robust replay system, which lets players save their best shots and stunts on video, and edit and upload those to YouTube and other video sharing services. And here's the best part: As a reward to the game's Kickstarter backers, Carmageddon is completely free to download today. Definitely go pick it up right now, whether you're interested or not, because there's no reason not to. After today, it'll go back up to the standard price of US$1.99 -- still cheap, but not quite as cheap as free. It's good to see a promised Kickstarter project come all the way out to fruition, and good on Stainless for keeping all of their promises. No doubt we'll see them back on Kickstarter with another project soon.
Carmageddon will be free (for a day) on iOS
Carmageddon is an old PC game that recently got the Kickstarter treatment, as developer Stainless Games is planning to build a sequel. Not only did the project get completely funded, but the company hit its "stretch goal," so as a result, the game will also come out for iOS when it arrives later on this year. And that's not all. It will be free on launch day as well. Yes, instead of messing around with UDIDs or special versions, Stainless has just decided to make the game free for a day at launch. That way you'll be able to see the fruits of the company's work, whether you've backed the Kickstarter project or not. There's a trailer out as well, and it sure does look like Carmageddon. The game should be a lot of fun, especially at the price of zero dollars.
Wizards partners with Carmageddon devs for downloadable game
Crazy rich card game, role-playing, and now social networking company Wizards of the Coast has announced that it is venturing into the downloadable games space with a partnership with UK developer Stainless Games. Both parties remain tight lipped as to the nature of the project, though Stainless CEO Patrick Buckland teases us by calling the game "one of the most treasured IP's in the games field." While we wait for more information to come in early 2008, it's anyone's guess what will come of this digital love in, especially given Stainless Games' eclectic development history. The studio's recent efforts have been focused on recreating Atari classics for XBLA, though its roots are much less tame, having been responsible for the "racing game for the chemically imbalanced," Carmageddon, as well as its road stained sequel.
New Vehicles and Tracks for Novadrome
For the low, low price of 250 MS Points you can get your hands on eight new vehicles and six new arenas for the Xbox Live Arcade title Novadrome. Not only can you take this online in the multiplayer mode, but they are featured in a new Career mode as well. So, while the game didn't receive the best of reviews, it still had some merit, if only to remind us of Re-Volt, the Dreamcast title and Xbox Live Beta game of choice. Will you be picking this up, given that you actually have Novadrome?
Novadrome: how not to make a trial game
There are two ways to make a trial version of a game. The first way is to give players a healthy chunk of gameplay that gives a sense of the fun and variety that a game has to offer. The idea here is to get a player genuinely excited to own the game. Some good examples of this are the Prey and Lost Planet demos, which allowed players to experience several levels, play online, and gave them access to lots of cool weapons. The other way to make a trial game is to give players a very narrow view of the overall game, hoping that players will buy the full version just to see what they are missing. Unfortunately, this method can backfire and make players assume that the entire game is limited and not enjoyable. Such is the case with Stainless Games' latest Arcade offering, Novadrome.
Novadrome battles onto XBLA this week [update 1]
Update: Reader, DJ Dunk, has unearthed 8 screenshots of Novadrome. Check them out here.We love it when rumors pan out (it makes us look so cool). Last week's rumor that Novadrome was this week's Arcade release have come to fruition. A car combat game from the makers of Carmageddon, Novadrome could bring an entirely new experience to Xbox Live Arcade. The title promises 8-player Live play(!), more than 20 vehicles, 15 arenas, and loads of different weapons. Strangely, there is hardly any media available for the title whatsoever, so right now we're stuck hoping for the best. We're just going to put on our hoping hats and assume that Novadrome will be Live Arcade's answer to Twisted Metal. For 800 points, it had better be the answer to one of the good Twisted Metal games, too.Full press release after the break.
