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The MMO Report: BlizzCon Special
Casey Schreiner emerged from behind his desk this week to head to Anaheim for BlizzCon. This is a good thing for those of us who didn't make it out there, because Casey brought us a little souvenir: The MMO Report BlizzCon Special. This week's MMO Report brings crowd shots (including some pretty fantastic cosplay) from inside and outside BlizzCon, before-and-after Cataclysm game footage, chats with fans, and the icing on the cake: an interview with Blizzard's Lead Game Designer Greg Street. Take a look at Blizzcon through the eyes of G4 by following along after the cut for this week's MMO Report, and don't forget you can also watch every week over at G4TV.
Vindictus announces official launch date
Vindictus, Nexon's upcoming free-to-play title, gained a lot of attention from the very beginning. The gritty gameplay is as far from Nexon's sugary-sweet MapleStory as you can possibly get, the opening story and look of the game are pretty good, and it's free. Players have been enjoying the beta testing process, but as with any upcoming game, the big question has been "When?" G4TV provided that answer last night along with a brand-new (and ominous) trailer. The trailer contains both new and familiar footage, and it's gorgeous, but the exciting news is that we have exactly two weeks until launch. Yep, Vindictus will officially launch on October 27th. The game is still in open beta for now, but if you're like most of us at Massively, the 27th is circled in red on your calendar. Follow along after the jump for the latest trailer!
This week on the MMO Report -- Rift: Planes of Telara special
The MMO Report shakes up the formula this week as host Casey Schreiner devotes his entire show to a special look at Trion's upcoming Rift: Planes of Telara MMORPG. Featuring gameplay footage and interview snippets with producer Adam Gershowitz, the segment fills viewers in on Rift's unique backstory as well as various dynamic gameplay features including, of course, the titular planar rifts. Gershowitz also goes into detail regarding the game's classes, including the ability to "take a variety of different classes and mix them together [using] the ascended soul system." Check out all the Rift footage after the cut or at G4TV.com.
Jumpgate Evolution reveals playable Octavius faction
Jumpgate Evolution appears to finally be moving forward, as evidenced by the forum post from Lance Robertson, the game's Executive Producer. A new trailer depicting one of three playable factions has surfaced today as well, and our friends at G4TV got the exclusive. The trailer introduces us to the militaristic Octavius faction. They've been around for at least 200 years, overcoming death, disease and the near-end of the faction, rising "from the depths of despair to the pinnacle of empire." The trailer is an interesting look at a fleet of Octavius ships from construction to deployment, ending with the battle cry, "We are Octavius!" Follow along after the jump to take a firsthand look.
Avatar movie producer interested in Avatar MMO
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/pc_games/Avatar_movie_producer_interested_in_Avatar_MMO'; It probably shouldn't come as much of a surprise. James Cameron's Avatar caught the attention of gamers from the moment the first trailer was released. Its appearance alone was extremely familiar to anyone who's spent more than a few minutes in any number of fantasy MMOs, and the movie's plot centered around what could be called the most immersive MMO ever. The movie has already been turned into a single player game, and now our friends at G4TV report that Producer Jon Landau says he's "very interested" in the creation of an Avatar MMO. Before you groan in despair, hear him out. The focus doesn't seem to be on shoving something out the door right away while the money machine is still running at full speed: "it's something we'd want to do, would be very interested in doing, but we'd have to do it right. To create those worlds is sometimes a long time endeavor." Landau continues by exploring the concept of 3-D gaming -- a feature that would be almost a given in an Avatar MMO: "I think that the addition of 3-D in gaming tends to be more transformative than 3-D is to movies. [...] I think we're starting to see the start of 3-D becoming commonplace in gaming." Follow along after the jump to see the full video of Landau's talk with G4TV.
Massively and G4TV's The MMO Report
If you're a fan of G4TV's The MMO Report, you may have noticed a mention of a certain favorite MMO news site on the last two episodes. Why is that? We've teamed up with G4TV to provide the best MMO news to a wider audience. In this week's episode, host Casey Schreiner discusses The Secret World's viral marketing campaign, Global Agenda's upcoming launch and the obvious connection between Star Trek Online's newly-announced Cardassians and E!'s Kardashians. Look for the complete episode embedded below, and new episodes every Thursday night on G4TV's The Feed and X-Play.
Ten spoiler-ific minutes of Heavy Rain
It's not often we tell you not to click after the break. But this time around, you're going to have to make a choice: will you watch the ten minutes of unedited gameplay footage of Heavy Rain from G4TV, or will you restrain yourself? Let's not forget that David Cage believes multiple playthroughs of the game "kill the magic of it." This scene, which takes place in the Blue Lagoon nightclub, has some revealing moments you may want to enjoy during your own playthrough. Should you refrain from taking a look, we'll reassure you that the game looks absolutely gorgeous. Heck, even the load screen is beautiful!
L.A. Noire still coming, 'innovative' says Take-Two boss
Team Bondi's long-in-development, film noire inspired L.A. Noire is still in development, despite a now years-long absence from the public eye. Last we heard, the developer was still staffing up for the Rockstar-published game; today, Take-Two CEO Ben Feder provided a little more hope that it'll eventually come out. During Take-Two's financials call earlier, Feder said that, although there was "nothing to announce," the company is "continuing to develop [the game]." As reported by G4, the CEO also said that the title is viewed internally as "pretty exciting and innovative," but that any new info will come "when we have more to share." How about sharing what makes it so exciting and innovative with us, for starters?
Star Wars: The Old Republic lead writer Daniel Erickson on scope of the project
If you've been following along with our coverage of Star Wars: The Old Republic you'll know that BioWare has placed incredible emphasis on writing for SWTOR. As the game is fully voiced, the complete script is roughly 40 novels in length. G4tv's The Feed has a GamesCom 2009 video interview with SWTOR Lead Writer Daniel Erickson that explains more about what a huge undertaking the game has been from a writing perspective. Erickson explains that BioWare's challenges aren't necessarily about having the ability to pull this off, it's more a matter of scale, particularly with the French and German localizations. He tells G4, "We think we've got the biggest voice over project in entertainment history."
G4TV gets hands on Behemoth's 'Game 3' platformer
If your pure, pure love of Castle Crashers and Alien Hominid has left you starving for more info regarding The Behemoth's next title -- a multiplayer platformer tentatively titled "Game 3" -- then you should check out G4's recent hands-on with the title, in video form after the break. Adam Sessler got a chance to check out the idiosyncratic game while Dan Paladin rides shotgun, explaining a couple of the game's modes, as well as the overarching story for the title. In a nutshell, said plot features a schizophrenic madman who's managed to kidnap your friends, whom you must rescue. Sounds appropriately bizarre. The video shows four players slugging it out in "Whale mode," and also gives a brief demo of the co-op mode. We can't wait to check it out -- sadly, with a nondescript launch window of "2010," it seems we'll be doing a great deal of waiting before we can do checking.
Techland's Dead Island still shambling about
You know Techland, right? No no, not that weird Discovery Zone ripoff your Dad used to take you to when you were a little kid -- the Polish developer! You know, the comany that makes Call of Juarez and ... ummm ... not much else. Anyway, while speaking recently with G4TV, the company's international brand manager, Blazej Krakowiak, confirmed a second title from the developer, albeit one announced way back in 2007, named Dead Island. Unfortunately, the game's website tells us little to nothing about the game's current status. So, we emailed Techland this afternoon and Krakowiak told us, "As far as Dead Island goes, nothing has changed regarding our media silence .... the game's worldwide publisher is still waiting for their best moment to strike and reveal the awesome stuff we're preparing for zombie fans and gamers." He also confirmed to us the game's still in-development status, saying, "The game's still alive (or better yet, still Dead) and doing great." As G4TV rightly points out, when the game was shown last it was without a publisher, so if anything, this means good things for Techland's zombie game. After all, we're still wondering what happened to the company's open-world FPS game, Warhound ...
Reminder: G4 airing the GDCAs tonight
Sure, it can't compare with the excitement of our liveblog of the event, but we figured you might like to know that G4 will be broadcasting highlights from the Game Developers Choice Awards tonight at 6:30 Pacific / Eastern time with a rebroadcast at 8:00. The highlights will be shown as a special episode of X-Play, meaning you'll also get your daily dose of vitamin Sessler.Sure, it's over two weeks after the fact, but how many times do you get to see Tim Schafer cracking wise in a tuxedo? Not enough, that's how many.
Thanks to Vin Diesel, Dark Athena has multiplayer
At least that's what Mr. Diesel, owner of Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena co-developer Tigon Studios, told G4TV's X-Play this week. When asked if his studio's upcoming remake of 2004's Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay will feature online multiplayer, he had this to say: "Big props to the whole team working on this because we were well into production in the game and I begged for some multiplayer component on this and everyone rose to the occasion and created something really compelling."And we must say, between the recently released Riddick demo on Xbox Live and Diesel's starring role in Wheelman, the actor turned development studio owner has been making quite a name for himself in the video game industry. Now all we need is a Vin Diesel/50 Cent mashup full of ulaks and exploding ramps. We can dream, can't we?%Gallery-38368%
Free Realms video preview focuses on character creation and gameplay
There are so many massively multiplayer online titles on the horizon that it would be hard to pick a staff favorite among the Massively writers, but one game that consistently draws 'oohs' and 'aahs' from us is Free Realms from Sony Online Entertainment. We're not alone in wanting to know more about the game. Adam Sessler from G4's X-Play recently got some screen time with Free Realms associate art director Sebastian Strzalkowski.Strzalkowski walks the viewer through character creation, which is done via the Free Realms website before the game itself actually launches. As the interview progresses, he mentions that a storyline runs through the game's quests, but players aren't locked into following along with it. A wide variety of mini-games will be on offer, as the accompanying footage shows off. SOE's hope is that the mix of various types of activities in the game (plus pets and social networking) will hold appeal for its younger target audience as well as the parents of those gamers. We've got the video embed of X-Play's Hands On: Free Realms Game Preview after the jump.
Video footage released of unique MMO "Love"
When you think of the sheer amount of work that a development team puts into an MMO, it's no wonder that we're talking about years of effort needed to produce a solid title. Now, imagine what it would take for one person to do it all on his own, while incorporating innovative concepts into the gameplay. That's exactly what Eskil Steenberg is doing. He's the one man army behind Love, an in-development MMO that boasts a unique art style, and is heavily geared towards gamers who enjoy exploration and world building. G4TV's X-Play has an excellent video preview of Love, which explains the basic concepts of the game. It gives us a look at the environments and hints at the world shaping possibilities that players will be able to harness. Each of Love's worlds (which should support up to 200 players) is distinct from others, being in a near-constant state of flux. There's still no word on when Love will be released, but you can be certain we'll be keeping an eye on this title. If you'd like to see what Love is like, you can check out X-Play's video footage below the cut.
Didn't see the X-Play inFamous footage? Catch up now
Miss the inFamous footage on X-Play last night? You can watch the full 12 minute video after the break and see Sucker Punch's Nate Fox talk through a section of the game. The video actually raises our excitement for the game, though there's still a lot of the game that's a real unknown quantity and it seems that they're saving a lot of stuff for us to discover as we play. Though Fox does start talking a little more about morality choices and power upgrades in this video. We're looking forward to more upcoming information that is revealed between now and the game's release in Spring.
Fable 2 wins top honors in X-Play's 'Best of 2008'
The moment you've all been anxiously anticipating is finally here! The winners of X-Play's "Best of 2008" awards have finally been announced -- though perhaps a bit prematurely, as Calvin Tucker's Redneck Jamboree won't be hitting store shelves 'til next week. Fable 2 took the gold in the "Game of the Year" category, beating out Gears of War 2, Fallout 3, Metal Gear Solid 4, Grand Theft Auto IV, Left 4 Dead and Resistance 2.X-Play made some solid choices for the winners of other categories -- The World Ends With You took home "Best Handheld Game", Rock Band 2 clinched the "Best Music/Rhythm Game" category, MGS4 won "Best Action/Adventure Game", and Fallout 3 beat out Fable 2 in the "Best RPG" category. So, for those playing along at home, Fable 2 is the best game that came out this year -- but not the best RPG. Can someone whip up a Venn diagram to try and explain this one to us?
Hands on video footage of superhero MMO Champions Online
Gamers in that sweet spot where massively multiplayer online games and comic books intersect have long enjoyed playing City of Heroes, and are likely to well into the future... but clearly there's more room in the superhero game genre. Some MMO players are looking forward to a superhero-themed game with a different take on the genre than what's been done before. For them, the upcoming game Champions Online has some appeal. G4tv's X-Play recently took notice of this and interviewed Bill Roper, the Cryptic Studios Design Director, about what Champions Online has to offer gamers. The video interview, "Hands On: Champions Online", is in two parts. First Roper speaks with Adam Sessler, introducing the game concept, its setting, and creating your own personal nemesis in Champions Online as you progress. Afterwards Morgan Webb delves a bit more into the core game mechanics of Champions Online, such as how loot will augment your avatar, and the incentives to play in groups with other people -- one of the key reasons gamers jump into MMOs in the first place. Roper goes on to address the possibilities of gameplay on both PC and consoles. In fact, the gameplay shown throughout the videos is done with an Xbox 360 controller. Roper also reiterates the Champions Online release date, which he says is still slated for Spring 2009. If you'd like to see what all the fuss about this new superhero MMO is about, we've got both videos embedded for you below the cut.
Felicia Day talks WoW addiction, characters, oldschool PC gaming
G4TV's X-Play interviewed the lovely Felicia Day on video about her soon-to-return web video series The Guild and her past gaming experience. Fans of Ms. Day and her show will eat it up no matter what we say, of course, but we will note that she reveals what her main World of Warcraft character was and what games she played when she was a kid.Be sure and watch the video after the break, but if you just want the information (we'd think you'd be more interested in seeing Felicia Day's delightful personality than raw data, but here goes): her main was a Warlock (who apparently did some Alchemy on the side), and she had Priest and Mage alts. She grew up playing everything from Zork to Wizardry to Nethack, and has mostly been a PC gamer rather than a console one. We buy it -- she's got cred!Day is doing these appearances to promote The Guild's second season, which debuts exclusively on Xbox Live today.
G4 moving to HD in December?
It was inevitable, really. G4 clearly targets the young male, and young males clearly prefer their TV to be aired in high-def. After a recent falloff in viewership during Q3 of this year, G4 President Neil Tiles is looking to make moves to get those numbers back up. In fact, he outrightly stated that "as of December, we'll be moving towards an HD offering that will allow us to bridge that gap." Unfortunately, no more details beyond that were given, but suffice it to say, we'll be pretty dismayed if December comes and goes without nary a mention of G4HD. Look, if Spike can go HD, you guys can to. Game on![Thanks, longhairbilly]Update: Seems G4HD is expected by Comcast on December 8th. Thanks, Jeremy!
