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Gears of War: Judgment review: Horde mentality
There is a parable at the heart of Gears of War: Judgment, a tale of many people affecting the one. Though the words "Horde mode" are not to be found on its main menu, it is this revelatory multiplayer invention of Gears of War 2 that makes Gears of War: Judgment such a success.The guiding principles and universal value of its simple proposition – you and your pals fight back against ever-encroaching waves of enemies – have been so bluntly interwoven into the campaign and multiplayer components of Gears of War: Judgment that it's impossible to miss. Horde mode helped put the Gears of War series on the map and, while the mode itself is technically absent from Gears of War: Judgment, the entire game is a learned execution of its logic.%Gallery-180989%
Former Epic prez Mike Capps leaves advisory role [update]
Former Epic Games president Mike Capps announced this evening he is no longer affiliated with the developer. Capps announced late last year that he would no longer be president at the privately held company, but would stay on in an advisory role."So what's next for me? Games have been so good to me, and I'm delighted to have the time to give back. I'm a member of several game industry boards, and I'm proud to serve as an advocate for our art in Washington," wrote Capps on Facebook this evening. "I'm considering seats on a few company and advisory boards, as well as options for teaching at one of the world-class universities in the North Carolina Triangle area. And mostly, I'm focused on being a new dad in a few short weeks."Capps' second "retirement" gives us a good opportunity to repeat all the uncomfortable events of recent memory. Let's see, there's the minority purchase of Epic by Chinese company Tencent. The exits of design director Cliff Bleszinski, director of production Rod Fergusson and leads of People Can Fly. Then there's the terribly awkward situation of Impossible Games, established out of the Big Huge Games remains, which Epic shut down last month. Epic Games' next game is Gears of War: Judgment... judgment... judgment.Update: Epic has provided an official statement: "When Mike Capps retired last year, he stayed on the board in an advisory role. As we've been mapping out the future for the new Epic Games, we decided it was best to get a fresh start with the new management. We thank Mike for his years of service at Epic and we wish him well in retirement and fatherhood."
The bow craze continues in Gears of War: Judgment
Since several of 2012's games were delayed into 2013, "the year of the bow" carries on with Tomb Raider, Crysis 3 ... and here we have Gears of War: Judgment with a fancy crossbow. (And let's not forget the wind-up fun of the original Torque Bow.)
Dark Age of Camelot launches an update and answers player questions
If you've been playing Dark Age of Camelot for a while, odds are good that you've acquired a lot of things. You've got a set of Epic Armor, you've got tons of items clogging your bank, and you've got a pair of fuzzy bunny slippers that you don't remember buying but you now refuse to remove. The game's latest patch does not improve your slipper situation, but it does improve Epic Armor, add new Epic Weapons and Accessories, allow for remote bank access, and increase the stack limits on many items. So everything else gets better. Does that satisfy you? No? You want to know more about the future of the game? Well, then, you can feast your eyes on a new set of community answers from the development team addressing the future update plans for the game as well as which areas will not be seeing much improvement (throwing weapons, for instance, are pretty much up the creek). So there's plenty for DAoC fans to enjoy. However, no one enjoys those bunny slippers. Seriously. Wear armor like everyone else. [Thanks to Etaew for the tip!]
Gears of War: Judgment leaks online, Microsoft warns of account bans
Gears of War: Judgment has reportedly leaked to torrent sites on the web a full month before the game's March 19 release date. "We are aware of isolated cases in which 'Gears of War: Judgment' content has been propped on the Web and are working closely with our security teams and law enforcement to address the situation immediately," a Microsoft spokesperson told Joystiq.It's unclear just how finished the pirated version of the game is. According to Eurogamer, the copy of the game leaked is "apparently complete.""Consumers should be aware that piracy is illegal and we take vigorous action against illegal activity related to our products and services. Playing pirated copies of games, such as 'Gears of War: Judgment,' is a violation of the Xbox LIVE Terms of Use and will result in enforcement action, such as account and console bans," Microsoft added.
NCsoft using Epic's Unreal Engine 4 for two new MMOs
Multiple reports out of Korea indicate that NCsoft has partnered with Epic to develop two new MMOs using the latter firm's Unreal Engine 4. ThisIsGame says that the two projects are in addition to Lineage Eternal, which was first announced at G-Star 2011. The website also says that "people expect they are Lineage III and Aion 2" due to NCsoft's recent insistence on using its original IPs "more actively in the future."
Daily Update for February 8, 2013
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here. No Flash? Click here to listen. Subscribe via RSS
'Gears of War: Judgment' OverRun demo publicly available March 19
Gears of War: Judgment will showcase its new OverRun mode in a public demo beginning March 19. COGs who pre-order the prequel from GameStop will gain access to the demo on March 15. Those who previously pre-ordered at GameStop will also be grandfathered in.A nice bonus of playing the demo is that multiplayer XP earned will transfer over to the final game for those who purchase Judgment in the first week after launch.If you enjoy Gears on any level, you'll definitely want to try out OverRun when it's publicly available. The class-based team was a standout feature of Judgment when we played it.%Gallery-173127%
Too Human pulled from Xbox Live Marketplace
Even an electronic god is no match for Xbox Live administrators, apparently. Too Human and all related content has been removed from Xbox Live Marketplace. Though the game's Xbox.com listing is still active, containing screenshots, an overview and a trailer, all downloadable content has been removed. That includes both the full Games on Demand download of the game as well as items like themes and gamer pictures.The action is likely the result of the recent court ruling against developer Silicon Knights, demanding that all copies of its Unreal Engine 3 games be recalled and destroyed. As of this writing, however, another Silicon Knights UE3 game, X-Men: Destiny, remains available via Games on Demand. We've contacted Microsoft for official comment on the matter.
A few more Gears of War: Judgment pre-order perks
Gears of War: Judgment has a slew of retailer-specific pre-order bonuses for players around the world, covering the US, UK, Canada, Australia and the Netherlands. In the US, those who order from the Microsoft Store get the Classic Hammerburst weapon and Gears of War comic heroine Alex Brand as a playable character. In the UK, order from Shop To and get the same goodies.Order from EB Games in Canada to grab the Hammerburst, Alex Brand skin and the "Young Marcus" skin, which allows players to be Marcus Fenix as he appeared six weeks after the end of the Pendulum Wars. Australians can pre-order the Special Edition from EB Games to get the game, a steelbook case and the Alex Brand and Anya Stroud skin unlocks. Players in the Netherlands who order from Game Mania get the Hammerburst, Alex Brand and Young Marcus skins.As noted previously, pre-orders from Amazon get the Hammerburst and the "Young Dom" multiplayer skin.
Live from the Engadget CES Stage: an interview with Red Digital Cinema's Ted Schilowitz (update: video embedded)
This time last year, the folks from Red Digital Cinema dropped a few exciting goodies off at our trailer, so we're more than happy to welcome the company's co-founder (aka "Leader of the Rebellion") Ted Schilowitz to our stage, to check out the latest in high-end cinematic hardware. January 8, 2013 4:00 PM EST Check out our full CES 2013 stage schedule here! Update: video embedded
Epic clarifies lack of 'Down But Not Out' in Gears of War: Judgment multiplayer modes
Gears of War: Judgment still includes the series standard "Down But Not Out" (DBNO) mechanic in some modes, Epic Games clarified today. The Gears of War community forums went into a downward spiral after Gears Senior Producer Chris Wynn tweeted, "DBNO is not in any of the [multiplayer] modes." We knew this to be inaccurate as of last week, when we played Judgment's enjoyable OverRun multiplayer mode, so we contacted the studio for clarification."DBNO (Down, But Not Out) is featured in the Gears of War: Judgment campaign. As for competitive and co-op multiplayer, a DBNO-like feature exists in OverRun, wherein the Medic class has the ability to revive teammates who are downed with our new stim grenade. The difference is they are stationary and are not crawling around. Grenadiers on the Locust side can go DBNO and then be revived by another Grenadier or a Kantus," Epic informed Joystiq. "And for obvious reasons, our new Free-For-All mode doesn't feature any sort of DBNO. We have more modes to announce in the future, so we can only comment on the modes we've announced so far."The fact that the company won't comment on modes it hasn't officially announced yet is what is complicating this issue. During our visit last week, the company wouldn't acknowledge Horde mode was part of Judgment either. Gears fans will have to take a "wait and see" approach to what's actually going on, since Epic doesn't want to deviate from the marketing plan.
Gears of War: Judgment's new hotness: OverRun mode
I do enjoy a nice surprise and Gears of War: Judgment's 'OverRun' mode was the highlight of my recent visit to Epic Games. The mode combines Gears of War 3's team-defense Horde mode and team-offense Beast mode, with a dash of Battlefield's objective-destroying Rush variant, to create another compelling team experience within the Gears universe.Although Epic still isn't talking about the changes to the cooperative defense-focused Horde mode for Judgment, OverRun feels more like an evolution of Beast mode. Here's the basics: two class-based teams of five, one side COG and the other Locust, face off with the COGs defending and the locust destroying a sequence of objectives. The team with the most points after playing both roles wins.The maps for OverRun are custom made for the mode, with each objective in the chain becoming more difficult for the Locust to destroy. I played the Junkyard map for about two hours and, much like Horde, you're going to need to play this mode with a group of friends. Without proper communication, it will be nearly impossible to win against a team that's using basic coordination.
Gears of War: Judgment grinds out new controls, keeps score for unlocks
Gears of War: Judgment comes from a good "'F' it, what we wanna do?" place. With Epic having concluded the core Gears of War trilogy last year (and this console generation concluding next), People Can Fly's Judgment embraces its Bravo team status of having something to prove, playing with franchise formulas, but staying true to the franchise's established rules.Despite being a prequel to the events of the trilogy, Judgment works off the Gears 3 playbook of stronger storytelling and gender recognition. The levels of bro-tosity are tolerable with the soldiers of Kilo Squad, Judgment's protagonists. Kilo is lead by series favorites Baird and Cole, who are joined by a former UIR (enemy of the COG during the Pendulum Wars) major Garron Paduk and the book smart, but not yet battle hardened, Sofia Hendrick.Judgment's story opens with the members of Kilo Squad brought in chains to a military tribunal of one, led by Colonel Ezra Loomis. Kilo must testify to and defend their actions that are played out through the game. Loomis is sleazy to the point of being a caricature, an old Pendulum Wars vet injected into a new type of war. With the game taking place a mere 30 days after Emergence Day, the implication is that Kilo Squad did something super bad to convene a trial as the planet Sera is overrun.%Gallery-173127%
Gears of War: Judgment VGA trialer, er, trailer
Having survived Emergence Day on Sera, the COGs have apparently decided bureaucracy must live on! Here's the VGA trailer for Gears of War: Judgment, which finds Damon Baird and Kilo Squad put on trial by an evil Tony Stark.
MMO Blender: Eliot ponders a fantastical fantasy
Fantasy, at this point, is almost tragically boring. That seems like a contradiction in terms. A fantasy setting is supposed to be fantastic by its very definition; you should be surrounded by neat and astonishing things at every term, immersed in a rich and baffling setting where magic is a valid explanation for almost everything. Unfortunately, we've seen so many versions of the same old fantasy setting that it's become boring. It's another round of the same elements with slightly different names, and while you can give them floppy ears and call them Asurans, they're still just gnomes with better public relations. So let's stick a fork in it and say we're done... or maybe not. There's some fantasy out there that could be collected into an interesting state, I think, something a bit further afield of the bog-standard elves and humans and dwarves dealing with dragons and whatever else. So let's mash this stuff up in a blender and see if we can't come up with some fantastic fantasy again.
Epic prez. Mike Capps leaving position, will remain on board in advisory role
Epic Games president Mike Capps declared his "retirement" today from the position he's held for nearly ten years, noting he's been asked to stay on the privately held company's board in an advisory role."I'll continue to be available as a resource to Epic, to provide context or advice where I can. Whatever I can do to help in Epic's success, I'm in! I've got great confidence in our executive team," Capps wrote in his farewell on the company's site. "VP of Development Paul Meegan is new to our Raleigh HQ, but we've worked with him for years, and I can only contemplate this retirement knowing that he and VP of Operations John Farnsworth can manage development better than I ever did."Capps' retirement is the latest shake-up for the company this year, which has seen (wow, really, all of this?): the departure of design director and totem Cliff Bleszinski, the departure of director of production Rod Fergusson, the purchase of People Can Fly (which also saw the departure of key people), establishment of Impossible Games out of Big Huge Games' remains and that big question mark that exists about Chinese company Tencent's minority purchase.
Paul Meegan's 'Epic' return as VP of product development
Paul Meegan has returned to the Epic Games fold as its new vice president of product development. He'll work out of the Epic headquarters in Cary, North Carolina, not far from where his career started at Sinister Games.After Sinister was bought by Ubisoft in 2000, Meegan went on to Ubisoft Montreal as Executive VP of production, then bouncing around behind the scenes until he helped establish Epic Games China in 2006. He held that job for four years, before bouncing in and out of LucasArts."Epic's business has evolved incredibly over the past two decades, and throughout that time, our hiring philosophy has remained constant: 'hire the best and the brightest,'" said Epic president Mike Capps.Epic Games has been making a ton of high-profile game development moves over the past year. Most recently it found a lead for its Seattle Studio, fully bought People Can Fly, set up Impossible Games out of the ashes of Big Huge Games, and then there's that whole relationship with China's Tencent.
X-Men: Destiny destined for unsure lifespan on Games on Demand
X-Men: Destiny is available from today on Xbox Live Marketplace as part of the Games on Demand program, priced at $39.99. That's despite Silicon Knights being ordered by the US court to recall and destroy all unsold copies of its products using Unreal Engine 3, of which X-Men: Destiny is one. The company was also ordered to cease producing and distributing games using Epic's technology.So what exactly's going on here? Well, the ruling in the Silicon Knights vs. Epic Games case dictates Silicon Knights notifies the US court by December 21 of its compliance with the injunctions ordered. This is presumably to give Silicon Knights adequate time to carry out the required actions; recalling and destroying every unsold copy of X-Men: Destiny and Too Human.So the game newly appearing on XBLM might not contravene the injunctions, at least for now. It should also be noted that Too Human is also currently available on XBLM, while GameStop, Target, and Best Buy all have new copies of X-Men: Destiny listed as available.
Intel launches 8-core Itanium 9500, teases Xeon E7-linked Kittson
Intel's Itanium processor launches are few and far between given that only so many need its specialized grunt, but that just makes any refresh so much larger -- and its new Itanium 9500 certainly exemplifies that kind of jump. The chip centers around much more up-to-date, 32-nanometer Poulson architecture that doubles the cores to eight, hikes the interconnect speeds and supports as much as 2TB of RAM for very (very, very) large tasks. With the help of an error-resistant buffer, Intel sees the 9500 being as much as 2.4 times faster as the Tukwila-era design it's replacing. The new Itanium also ramps the clock speeds to a relatively brisk 1.73GHz to 2.53GHz, although there will be definite costs for server builders wanting to move up: the shipping roster starts at $1,350 per chip in bulk and climbs to an eye-watering $4,650 for the fastest example. Anyone worried that Poulson might be the end of the road for Intel's EPIC-based platform will also be glad to get a brief reminder that Itanium will soldier on. The next iteration, nicknamed Kittson, will be framed around a modular design that shares traces of silicon and the processor socket with the more familiar Xeon E7. Intel casts it as a pragmatic step that narrows its server-oriented processors down to a common motherboard and should be cheaper to make. It's likely that we'll have to be very patient for more details on Kittson knowing the long intervals between Itanium revamps, but fence-sitting IT pros may just be glad that they won't have to consider jumping ship for awhile yet.
