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Warhammer 40K: Space Wolf howls in on Q2 2014
HeroCraft's turn-based, card-focused entry into the Warhammer series, Warhammer 40K: Space Wolf, will start constructing a deck for battle in Q2 of 2014. The launch window comes with a new trailer which, despite being light on new details, offers a glimpse at unit types and attack animations for equipped Weapon and Use cards. Space Wolf's movement grid is also displayed as a unit straps on a Jump Pack to propel himself closer to his targets. Space Wolf will be free to play on the iOS, Android and PC, though the press release noting Space Wolf's Q2 launch curiously states it will also be available on "other platforms." We've reached out to HeroCraft for clarification and will update as we learn more.
Coin eight-in-one Bluetooth credit card adds security features, boosted pre-order availability
Judging by the millions of YouTube views since it launched just last week, there's quite a bit of interest in Coin. The Bluetooth-enabled swipeable lets you add in identifying info from up to eight individual credit, debit, membership, loyalty and gift cards, and comes along with companion Android and iOS apps that boost functionality. While the applications enable you to save detailed card info for online purchases, push additional payment methods to Coin and access the Bluetooth-powered leash that will send an alert if you walk away without your card, the device works independently as well. The company is announcing some additional security features today that should serve to ease at least some fraud concerns. Coin will include an "alarm" that tracks the number of times the card is swiped and sends an app alert if it suspects unauthorized use. It can also be locked to just one card before you hand it over at a store or restaurant, so a clerk can't accidentally (or deliberately) swap cards before swiping. Reps also responded to 50 questions on a new Q&A page, addressing additional security-related and function queries, including ATM compatibility (yes, it will work), photo ID storage (uh, no) and chip and pin support (not yet, but it's in the works). The firm is also releasing additional cards for pre-order, so if you want to get in before the price jumps to $100, there's still time to hand over 50 bucks (plus $5 shipping) at the source link below.
Blizzard drops details on Hearthstone beta wipe
Blizzard Entertainment's Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft collectible card game is currently in closed beta, and those folks fortunate enough to have a beta key are about to see big changes to their accounts. Today Blizzard outlined plans to completely wipe the progress of all beta participants -- gold, experience, class levels, unlocked cards, and arcane dust quantities will all be reset. This wipe isn't unexpected. Blizzard noted at the beginning of beta that data would be reset at some point during the testing phase. The wipe coincides with what Blizz is calling a "pretty major" beta patch, the details of which will be revealed in the near future. Once the wipe goes through, testers in Hearthstone will be effectively starting the game as new players. For those that spent real money on card packs, Blizzard is reimbursing the value via in-game gold. Those players will be able to purchase the same number of packs and arena tickets without paying a second time, though replacing the exact cards is not a guarantee due to the random nature of the packs. This is the last planned reset for Hearthstone; Blizzard is aiming for a full release before the end of the year so no further progress wipes are expected through beta and launch.
Hearthstone begins closed beta testing
Shuffle the deck of your hopes and dreams because Hearthstone has just started its closed beta testing and sent out the first wave of invites from the applicant pool. To make matters more interesting, Blizzard is not holding an NDA for the duration of the beta process, so expect to hear a lot of feedback from people trying out this online card game as the beta progresses. To get into the beta, you'll need to have a Battle.net account and choose to opt in to the test from there or through the website. Blizzard will be notifying beta participants via email, but cautions players to watch out for scams. The studio said that it will invite more waves of players as needed and confirmed that it will be wiping all collections and progress partway through the beta period. Blizzard does not expect to do another wipe after this one, however.
Hearthstone preps for beta
While it's not quite beta time for Hearthstone, Blizzard's wild and crazy crew (above) announced that it has finished all of the major features that will be present for testing. However, there's still some more work to be done before the team opens the beta valve; bug fixes and infrastructure building are taking priority prior to any large-scale testing. "What that means is that we're not days away from launching the beta, but we're not months away either," the devs wrote. "At the Hearthstone announcement we committed to going into beta testing before the summer was over, and the team has been pulling out all the stops to make that happen." The upcoming beta will begin in North America, but the team assures residents of Europe, Korea, and Taiwan that their time will come shortly thereafter. While the initial influx of testers will be small, Blizzard will continually expand the testing pool until everyone can join in. The team revealed a special gold card that will be given to any testers who spend money in the beta and said that a recent test of cross-platform gaming between a PC and an iPad went smoothly.
Face the trials of the Arena in Hearthstone
If you've played a lot of the Hearthstone beta, odds are you think you're pretty good at the game. If you've read up on it, you might still think you have a solid grasp of the strategy. So maybe you'll want to test your skills in a format that requires a different sort of strategy, something that will put your ability to build a deck on the line. If that's like your sort of game, perhaps you'll look forward to paying the entry fee and stepping into the Arena, a draft-style format that forces players to construct decks on the fly and pit them against similar constructions. After paying the entry fee, either through in-game gold or real cash, players will be presented with three random heroes. Picking one will set you to work building a deck of 30 random cards out of several selections, with each choice being final. Once you start in the arena, you'll try to accumulate as many wins as possible before hitting three losses, earning a more powerful key for better rewards each time you win. The game isn't released yet, but this mode is all the more reason for beta players to keep practicing and aspirants to keep their eyes peeled once it's available for everyone.
AMD intros Radeon HD 7790 graphics card for $149, promises cooler and quieter 1080p gaming
We were half expecting AMD's next graphics card to be some sort of supercomputing colossus, given all the buzz around NVIDIA's GTX Titan. As it turns out, though, we're looking at something more subtle and just slightly more affordable: the new Radeon HD 7790. It slots into a cosy niche between the 7770 and the 7850, targeting gamers who want a good helping of 28nm silicon and potential for CrossFire expansion but who don't want to stretch beyond $149. Efficiency tweaks allow the 7790 to offer almost 50 percent more processing power than the 7770 while only demanding a smidgen of extra wattage (85 W instead of 80 W), which bodes well for cooling and decibels. Relative to the 7850, which can now be had for under $200, you'd be getting a card with half the power consumption, half the memory (1GB GDDR5), half the memory bandwidth (128-bit) and around 30 percent less processing power. Compare it to the closest rival from NVIDIA, the GTX 650 Ti, which currently fetches upwards of $140, and AMD claims the Radeon HD 7790 offers an average 20 percent advantage in frame rates at 1080p -- enough that you shouldn't need to worry about games like Tomb Raider or Hitman: Absolution at that resolution. Check out the slide deck for further details and official frame-rate charts, and expect to see the card reach retailers starting April 2nd.%Gallery-183505%
Daily iPad App: Penny Arcade The Game: Gamers vs. Evil is simple but excellent deck-building action
Playdek is a developer that's caught my eye recently. They're the folks behind what I think are the best card games on the App Store, including the great Ascension (which Gary Games, now called StoneBlade Entertainment, actually designed but Playdek brought to iOS), as well as the excellent Nightfall and Summoner Wars. Their latest title is an adaptation of Cryptozoic's deck-building card game based on the Penny Arcade webcomic, and just like the other titles, it's a full-featured, well-made game that feels right at home on the iPad. The game is not the best deck-building game I've ever played. The process, if you've never seen it before, is that you spend some currency cards to buy other cards, which then add in to your deck and unlock various actions and extra currency for you every turn. It's essentially a board game, though you're moving cards around, and Playdek more or less just sticks to digital versions of the analog cards rather than adding a lot of extra digital fluff to the game. But this company is now so familiar with these types of games that the tutorial is great and all of the movement is very intuitive as you play. The added theme of Penny Arcade can be a little off-putting if you don't like the comic or its dark and often gross humor, but the core game itself is solid and fun. Just like all of Playdek's other games, there are multiple options for playing the game itself, and you can play with any number of AI players at various difficulties, or go online to play against other humans. I would like to see a few more cards in the mix, but just like the real-life card game, the proceedings are very expandable, and so you can expect to see some more packs added in the future, probably via in-app purchase. Even with just the included content (available for US$4.99 on the App Store), this is probably one of the most accessible games of this type out there. Try this to see what you think, and if you like it as much as I do, you can move on to a more complicated game like Nightfall, or the very impressive SolForge, set for a release later on this year.
Daily iPhone App: Summoner Wars is a complicated mix of virtual board and card game
I took a trip down to Tampa Bay, Fla., for my sister's wedding last week, and before I headed for the airport, I loaded up my iPhone and iPad with a few new apps to check out on the way. Honestly, Fieldrunners 2 HD ended up taking most of my gaming time, but Summoner Wars was a very impressive choice as well. Summoner Wars is a complicated, intriguing game that combines tactical strategy, good old fashioned dice rolling and even some deckbuilding card game elements. You're fighting on a board pushing around cards as units. With each turn, you can either use your cards (as spells or actual heroes) in the battle, or save them as mana to summon more units on your next turn. There are plenty of deep strategical choices here that fans of complicated board games will find satisfying. Unfortunately, all of that complexity makes the game tricky to pick up. There is a tutorial, but even it only explains the mechanics of the game, and leaves you to figure out strategies completely on your own. But I appreciated that, especially on a long plane ride where I needed plenty of distraction from the crying baby behind me and the talkative gent across the aisle to my left. Summoner Wars is completely free-to-play, too, so if you want to check it out, you've got no excuses not to. If you like it, you can unlock everything in the game for US$7.99, or pick up individual card decks or card packs individually.
Kingston Digital SDXC cards arrive with lower price, larger capacities
Kingston's unveiled two new SDXC cards for anyone looking to upgrade the capacity (or performance speed) of their current removable storage of choice without denting the bank balance too much. The SDXC Class 10 cards arrive in 64GB and 128GB sizes, and Kingston reckons they'd go great with your new digital camera -- as long as it's compatible with the SDXC format, naturally. Both are available to buy now, direct from the storage manufacturer, alongside smaller capacities, with the 128GB card priced at $182 and the 64GB setting you back $80. The full press release is after the break.
iPhone app and debit card from Simple aim to streamline consumer finance
Considering the amount of time your wallet and your iPhone spend sitting right next to each other, is it any wonder that banks and payment services are making iOS job #1 for their mobile strategies? Big banks like Citi and Chase have capable iPhone apps for handling your money on the go, with features like photo check deposit and quick payments. There are also pure mobile payment plays like Dwolla, Venmo and PayPal with sophisticated iPhone apps to handle sending money to friends and businesses. (PayPal recently acquired Card.io which makes an API for app developers to capture credit cards via the iPhone camera, rather than with a dongle or hardware sled.) The latest entry in the race to replace your traditional banking experience with something new and better comes from Simple, which puts a sophisticated web front end and sleek app atop a traditional debit card. Simple has just come out of beta for public account invitations, after several months of private testing. Founding CTO Alex Payne (formerly of Twitter) has also announced that he's stepping away from Simple to focus on other technology interests. Simple aims to provide a (wait for it...) simpler take on managing your money, whether it's from your computer or on the go. It's not a bank, exactly; it's a customer service firm that works with wholesale banks to provide a checking account and matching Visa debit card. You use the card just like any debit card, and you can get cash (fee-free) from any ATM in the Allpoint network. Unlike Mint, it doesn't aggregate your fiscal data from lots of accounts; it shows you just the one account, but with greater detail and responsiveness. %Gallery-161332% With a debit card, unlike credit cards, you can't spend more than you've got -- which makes them a great choice for tight budgets. Traditional debit cards still leave a window for you to get overdrawn, however, if you've got pending transactions that haven't hit your account yet. Simple helps your fiscal transparency by showing your "Safe to Spend" funds number, which incorporates your unreconciled transactions and docks your available cash as appropriate. The integrated Simple iPhone app provides immediate feedback and approval on your transactions as they're made; in fact, you can't sign up for a Simple account if you don't have an iOS device. You can use an iPad or iPod touch, as long as you also have a cellphone that accepts SMS text messages. The app is protected by a simple PIN code, rather than the username/password pair common for banking apps. Since your card transactions are immediately reflected in the app, you can do a lot of easy tracking and tagging to keep track of your money. The app and the website offer powerful search tools so you can figure out where and when you did your spending; the site also includes Gmail-style keyboard shortcuts for power users. One feature that's not ready at launch is check depositing via the iPhone camera. Right now, to add funds to your account you use direct deposit, EFT from your current bank, or mailed deposits. As for sending money out, you can direct payments to companies or individuals right from the iPhone app, but you'll need their full mailing address as Simple defaults to sending a check if it can't do an electronic transfer. I've only had my Simple account for a few days (card unboxing gallery above -- it's very nicely packaged, in a linen bag) and I'm not sure how much utility I'll get out of it. For anyone with a moderately complicated financial life, such as a joint account with a spouse or multiple sources of income, Simple may be too simple to gain much traction. For basic banking and debit transactions, however, it might be just the ticket. I'm going to try using my Simple card instead of cash for daily spending so I can get a better sense of how much money is going into coffee and sundries (and how much I could be saving for a new MacBook Air instead).
Daily iPhone App: Brawl
Ben Brode is a game designer at Blizzard Entertainment who has created an iOS card game called Brawl (we're still waiting for iOS games from Blizzard, by the way). Brawl is actually based on a real card game, and unlike most turn-based card games, this one's played in real time (similar to Spoons, if you've ever played that one, in that you simply lay down cards as fast as you can). The basic idea is that you pile up cards of a certain color as you pull them off of a bigger deck, and then you can claim or cancel "bases" laid out on a field. The game can be a little tough to get the hang of (though there's a pretty solid tutorial to play through), but after you get it, it's pretty simple to play. It's also tough to master, however. There are a few different decks to play with, and while they may seem similar at first, there's actually a lot of strategy in choosing to either block a base or clear it out at the right time. It's a fun mix of cards and fighting games, and of course playing the game on iOS makes for a nice representation of the action. There's local and online Game Center multiplayer support, and while the game comes with three decks, you can buy more via an in-app purchase. The art's 2D and simple, but it looks great, and the game runs well -- just as solid as you'd expect from someone with Blizzard experience. Brawl's available right now as a universal version for free, and the other decks in the game can be picked up for $1.99 each.
Cards app for iPhone sends snail mail best wishes, for a price
We've got at least one completely unexpected announcement from Apple's Let's Talk iPhone Event: a new app that sends out greeting cards. For $2.99 within the US and $4.99 internationally, sending a greeting card the old fashioned way is just one click away on your mobile, complete with notifications when your card is mailed. Taking shots at PC makers and Android's apps are a given, but a bomb dropped on Hallmark? Welcome to the Tim Cook era. Check the liveblog and gallery below for more details. %Gallery-135715% Follow along in our ongoing liveblog right here!
iPhone 4 gets upgraded for NFC payments the hard way
Softbank customers in Japan can simply get an NFC sticker to add some contact-less payments to their iPhone 4, but most folks don't have it quite so easy just yet. There are some alternatives while you wait for Apple to hop on the NFC bandwagon, however, like this solution from Unplggd's Vivian Kim. It uses one of the smaller NFC-equipped credit cards now available from some banks, which is apparently just small enough to fit under the back cover of an iPhone 4 (a clear one, in this case, to show off your cleverness). And, yes, it apparently still works just fine under there -- even if you add a case on top of it.
Last-minute Mother's Day gift idea brought to you by Activision, the makers of Prototype 2
Surprise! It's Mother's Day. You forgot -- didn't you? No worries. Activision has you covered. Just zip this, uh, prototype card over to ma and get back to enjoying your Sunday.
iPad, iPad 2 get unofficial CF card compatibility (video)
Given the impressive knockoffs and official camera kits we've seen, we'd say the iPad's definitely got the stuff to help out most shutterbugs, but up until now, uploading content from a CF card wasn't exactly easy. Well, our friends over at MIC Gadget recently showed off an iPad / iPad 2-compatible card reader that fixes that on the cheap. Simply called the CF card reader for iPad and iPad 2, the thing slips right into the slate's dock connector port and, as you can see from the video below, it transfers HD video and high-res images in a snap -- it also sports USB connectivity. Like its predecessor, the reader's available from MIC for $29.90, but you'll have to wait at least a month to get your hands on one. Oh, and a word of warning, you might want to make sure the iPad supports your camera's video format before shelling out the dough, as MIC found the slab couldn't playback video from a Canon EOS 5D Mark II.
DIY business card displays your info via persistence of vision, fails to impress Patrick Bateman (video)
Still fancy the age-old business card and enjoy outrageous DIY projects that may or may not make you look foolish? Continue on then, dear reader. The peeps over at Instructables have provided a lengthy and seemingly difficult set of directions on how to craft a persistence of vision business card. POV allows your eyes to see text or images generated by light waving back and forth -- in other words, your name is displayed by swinging your arm in a giant circle. If you're cool with this, hit the source link, build your own and be sure to let us know how many contacts you make.
Kingston's Class 10 microSD family gets bigger, stays tiny
Kingston is putting an extra boost the smallest of its tiny memory cards. The popular provider of flash storage is upping its 4GB and 8GB microSDHC cards from Class 4 specifications (up to a 4 MB/s transfer rate) to a whopping Class 10 spec and all of its 10 MB/s goodness. The newly announced models join a 16GB version that has been available for several months. By completing the family tree of Class 10 cards, Kingston is offering faster all-round performance for file transfers on smartphones, quicker write times for microSD-wielding cameras and basically a few seconds of your life back -- at lower prices than before, though you'll still be paying a premium compared to slower cards. Our microSDHC-accepting devices are itching to hop aboard this speedier train of data storage, and luckily we won't have to wait long. The two memory cards start shipping at the end of March and are being offered with an available Mobility Kit, which includes an SD adapter and a USB card reader. But, if you want a full-fat 32GB model, you'll have to wait for Q2 of 2011 like the rest of us. Pricing starts at $22 for a 4GB model up to $138 for the 16GB model -- check after the break for full breakdown of prices and more in the PR.
Windows Phone 7's microSD mess: the full story (and how Nokia can help you out of it)
There are many reasons to be excited about Windows Phone 7, but a bleak spot has been Microsoft's message -- or lack thereof -- on user-expandable storage, and the situation finally came to a head last week when AT&T told Samsung Focus owners to hold off on buying microSD cards altogether until Microsoft had a chance to certify some for use with the platform. How did it get to this point? Why wasn't it communicated to users that this was such a problem before the phones ever went on sale? And if it really is such a problem, why did Samsung dare to make the microSD slot user-accessible in the Focus the first place? All good questions -- and in talking with a number of sources the past few days, we've pieced together some of the answers. Read on.
An early look into CardMon Hero
For those who have ever enjoyed collectible card games, the idea of an MMO that features collectible and playable cards might be intriguing. Well, if you're in the market for a new game, Redbana, T3fun and Hanbitsoft have a treat for you. Their newest free-to-play game, CardMon Hero, offers a system that is heavily based on building up certain cards and playing them in the world against mobs and other players. Not only will players get cards for skills, but adventuring through the world will net special monster cards known as mercenary cards, which are picked up via questing, crafting, and drops. As of this evening, the game is entering closed beta as well. We had a chance to take a look at CardMon Hero with Redbana's Project Manager, Damien Moreno, who gave us an early peek at some of the things players can expect within the game. Many of the systems present will be fairly familiar to veteran MMO players. Movement is handled through either click-to-move or WASD. Also present are familiar UI options like action bars, maps, a quest journal, character sheet (with a cosmetic pane) and the like. Eventually, a cash shop will also be implemented, although Moreno informed us that it is being worked on to provide a plethora of cosmetic and helpful options, as opposed to gear or weapons that will create game-breaking imbalances between paid players and free-to-play gamers -- a very important thing to many Western gamers. For more on this free-to-play game, join me after the break, or check out the gallery of concept art and in-game screenshots below! %Gallery-107151%
