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The wolf is among iOS today
Telltale's The Wolf Among Us is set to launch today on iOS. The game's first episode, titled "Faith," will cost $4.99, while a pass for the game's entire season will be priced at $14.99, Touch Arcade reported. The latest trailer for the game notes that it will also arrive "soon" on PlayStation Vita. The Wolf Among Us' first episode launched in mid-October on Xbox 360 and PC. The series is based on Bill Willingham's Fables comic series, guiding the werewolf-like Sheriff Bigby through a section of New York City known as Fabletown. Our review of the episode found the game to be a "perfect beginning" to Telltale's new series, and it made us "invested in protecting these curious creatures from our storybooks."
WoW Moviewatch: Change
What's that? You'd like a moody music video with some dark music and a gothy Victorian setting? Miselain can do that. Check out Change (Remix) for all your ready-to-wolf-out growling and brooding moods. I think this video is so strong thanks to its simple concept. Instead of lavishing it with needless bells and whistles, Miselain kept the camera close to the gothic mood and somber attitude. The video isn't trying to be everything, it's just succeeding at a single thing: an entertaining genre piece. Nice job! Interested in the wide world of machinima? We have new movies every weekday here on WoW Moviewatch! Have suggestions for machinima we ought to feature? Toss us an email at moviewatch@wowinsider.com.
Zero Trace gadget bags dodge 'digital exploitation,' schadenfreude
Faraday bags? Oh, yeah. For the sleuthing shyster in your life, Escape the Wolf has a new range of gadget cases that are engineered with one primary purpose: to avoid technical surveillance, mobile phone tracking and remote digital exploitation. As it turns out, these guys have been lurking undercover for just over a month now, but it looks as if they're now on sale to the masses -- civilians included. The Zero Traces line can hold both laptops and phones alike, with each piece capable of shielding GSM / CDMA, WiFi and Bluetooth devices from being "remotely exploited." The pain? Between $24.99 and $199.99, and you can part ways with varying levels of cash right there in the source link.
The OverAchiever: Combining The Ambassador and Mountain o' Mounts
Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, we contribute to Azeroth's obesity epidemic by refusing to walk. Mounts: They get your ass from point A to point B, and if you're lucky, they'll do it as stylishly as possible. They're the most immediately visible status symbol in WoW and often give you a one-glance note on the kind of player at whom you're looking. People astride Invincible can be counted upon to be hardcore raiders from the Wrath of the Lich King era, someone riding a Violet Proto-Drake is never new to the game, and players rocking a White Stallion are seriously old school. Players who have been around for any length of time almost inevitably accrue a stable's worth of beasties to cart them around, but some folks go the extra mile for the Leading the Cavalry and Mountain o' Mounts achievements. In Cataclysm, these are a lot easier than they once were, although you should still be prepared to dump a ton of gold and time into them no matter what. Fortunately, the first part of the Mountain o' Mounts trek should also net you The Ambassador achievement and title.
All the World's a Stage: Roleplaying the wolf
Friday night was a special evening for me, as I finally got around to watching New Moon. I admit that the movie really wasn't my cup of tea, and I mostly watched it out of a sort of morbid curiousity. I felt a clear, unnatural compulsion to see what Dakota Fanning's performance was like, and I will report that she was definitely a shining point for the movie. The Volturi portions of the movie were fairly cool, but the rest of the movie really didn't work out for me. I don't know, just not my thing. Ironically, one of the biggest issues I had with New Moon was the performance of the werewolves. I'm sure there's a few dozen people who will tell me that they're not technically werewolves or whatever. But as a relatively uninitiated viewer, Jacob and his pack were indistinguishable from your general furry, toothy werewolf. But they just didn't act that way. Nothing about the pack really struck me as wolfish, and the lack of that canine behavior totally kept me from buying these guys as lupines. So, of course, I couldn't help but think about our own upcoming Worgen in Azeroth. There's already a few different avenues built into the lore for roleplaying "beasts." The longest standing option, of course, is roleplaying a druid who spends a lot of time as a cat or bear. But, even aside from that, you can assume some hunters probably spend more time with their pet wolf than other humanoids. And you always have the odd baby lost in the woods who ends up raised by the local pack. (It's amazing how many character one comes across who's raised by wolves.) So, ultimately, if we're going to roleplay canine-like characters, here's some tips on how to make it a little convincing. I think we can do better than Twilight. I'm not claiming to be a wolf expert here, I'm just talking about the literary and connotative ideas of playing a wolf-inspired character.
The Queue: Cats rule, dogs drool
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.Today's edition of The Queue will be pretty short and sweet. Many of the questions that were asked yesterday have since been answered in other places around the site, so I just went ahead and skimmed over those ones to answer what hasn't been addressed already. Ready? Set? Let's go!Becky asked..."I may be wrong but it seems to me of all the in-game non-combat pets, there are no dogs but plenty of cats. What's with the lack of dogs? My mage wants a puppy."
Is Leading the Cavalry possible?
I mentioned the Leading the Cavalry achievement earlier, the achievement that requires 75 mounts to... well, achieve. The big question is, is that actually possible? Let's find out!Let's use a Forsaken for our example, since they have no factors working against them like racial boundries on mounts. Keep in mind that some races will have a harder time, like Tauren can't use two of the five Horde mounts, and Gnomes don't allow anybody but Gnomes and Dwarves to use mechachickens.The Horde has Peacocks, Raptors, Wolves, Skeletal Horses, and Kodo. From a glance at Wowhead, there seems to be...
Scattered Shots: Pet talent trees in the Wrath Beta
Welcome to another edition of Scattered Shots, the other WoW Insider weekly Hunter column. Daniel Whitcomb is your guest host again this week. So, we theorized about talented pets a bit quite a few installments of Scattered Shots ago, but now we have the actual trees live and testable on the Wrath Beta, and they seem to be firming up nicely. There's a few promised changes yet to come, such as the removal or lowering of focus costs on many major abilities and talents, and it's still very possible that Blizzard may make changes here and there before live, but I think they're solid enough at this point that we can look at each tree and make some solid predictions about how people will use them and how various talent builds might look.
Oh, to have Apple's cash problems
Not unlike this guy, Apple is going to need avalanche insurance for the mountain of cash that it's sitting on. According to BusinessWeek, Apple has amassed $20.8 billion in cash and short-term investments, adding nearly $1 billion each and every quarter. It's not necessarily odd for a company to have a lot of cash (Microsoft, for example, has $23 billion socked away), but it's beginning to irk the investors. If Apple's stock price continues to rise, everyone's happy. But if it starts to dip, experts say Apple should consider investments like acquisitions (possibly in the music business) or raw materials and components. Matt Asay of Cnet is suggesting something probably unpopular with the Cupertino crowd: tax it. Since Apple's profit margins (as a percentage of sales) are higher than Exxon's, Apple might fall prey to Congress' plan to tax windfall profits, if it becomes law. Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer said earlier this year that "Our preference is to maintain a strong balance sheet in order to preserve our flexibility." Charles Wolf of Needham & Co. says the company doesn't need more than $5 billion on hand, but he'd be more worried "if this was a sleepy company with no growth." "That's not Apple," Wolf said.
Be a sheep or a wolf in Secondhand Lands
Little Bo Peep and Little Red Riding Hood have had a score to settle for decades, and now you get the chance to help them do it in Callipygian Games's Secondhand Lands. Choose to play as either a sheep for Bo Peep or a wolf for Little Red in this casual MMO designed for "the disillusioned 'Mega-MMO' veteran who wants more interaction with the developers in their gaming experience."This game is in closed beta and is being distributed by Pixel Mine, with a release date of Fall of this year. Check out the site; there's a little webtoy that lets you trick out your wolf or sheep with stylin' gear. That should be enough to tide anyone over until the actual game hits.
Mabinogi introduces furry friends
Just when we thought Mabinogi couldn't get any cuter, the latest update has us reaching for our diabeetis medicine. So what's new? Pets! Players now can choose between one of five animals: 2 types of cats, a dog, a fox, and a wolf, with more types to come. These pets will follow you around, fight alongside you, and even level up like you do.Each pet is distinctive, with its own set of unique skills, whether melée or magic-based. Available to every player through the Nexon Cash Shop, no one is barred from gaining a constant companion for life. You can check out the pets trailer after the jump, and watch for the next big Mabinogi content update, due June 25th, featuring more pets, a new dungeon, new boss monster, and a new spell for players to learn![Thanks, Robert!]
What WoW should learn from certain quests in and around The Barrens
So I've been thinking a bit about questing lately as I traverse Outlands on my latest project, a level 61 Blood Elf Paladin, working on the Outlands quests. I think my favorite part of playing a lowbie hordeling is how many quests there are to "stumble upon" in the oft-maligned Barrens. Technically, they're all very basic "find and kill these dudes" quests, but the presentation is such that I always get a big rush from doing them. They really do make me feel like a mighty hunter.
Trick taming in Shadowmoon Village
Pretty funny-- Mania's Arcania issued a challenge to Alliance Hunters a few days ago to do something that might be impossible: tame the Shadowmoon Village stablemaster's pet wolf, Detrafila. The wolf is level 60, and according to Beast Lore, is actually tameable. But he's also surrounded by level 70 Horde, of course, so taming is not easy. Plus, some "pets" of NPCs are actually summoned pets, and therefore not tameable.But two Hunters were able to pull it off. Dezar on Black Dragonflight and Gettokiwi on Stormreaver were both able to kite the stablemaster away from Shadowmoon Village, take him out, and then tame the wolf after he'd dropped. Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, the wolf doesn't have a special, identifiable look, and he doesn't actually come with any abilities, so there's not much reason to do it except for the experience.But it would be exceedingly cool for Blizzard to "hide" special tameable pets like this for expert Hunters to go after. I know there are a few other "special" tames around-- Spot in Menethil Harbor is one, as is Stanley, the dog the Horde poisons in Hillsbrad. But it would be cool to see a few more secret, more select tames for Hunters in Northrend. What d'ya say, Blizz?
Today's wildest video: Wolf Quest
In what could be the greatest game trailer of all time, this Wolf Quest video introduces the December, 2007 simulation title. You play a wolf capable of forming a pack with other players online, where you do wolfy things, like hunting, peeing on stuff, and howling. The game, being released through the Minnesota Zoo, will be a free Mac/PC download.The trailer strikes an uncanny balance of mediocre (read: hilarious) production values and game content that genuinely looks fun. While the educational game may skew towards a younger audience, any animal fan might enjoy the title.Screw Okami and Twilight Princess. See the new alpha dog after the break.
Around Azeroth: How'd that get in here?
I suppose I already know the answer to the question I asked in the post title. It's kiting 101, after all! So the real question is... why drag a lone wolf into an empty house? I'm thinking that makes this pre-meditated! Amberrockof Stormrage (EU) sent us this shot, which I think amounts to a confession!Do you have a unique shot of Azeroth or Outland that you'd like to show off to the rest of the world? Tell us about it by e-mailing aroundazeroth@gmail.com! Or perhaps you'd just like to see more of your pics from Around Azeroth. %Gallery-1816%
NC State preps Lotus Elise for 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge
If the Cardinal (or Tartans) think that the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge will be a gimme, they may want to sneak a peek at the looming competition. Students from NC State's College of Engineering are readying a highly modified Lotus Elise for next year's autonomous vehicle contest, and are working with Insight Technologies as well as Lotus' own engineering group to craft what's likely to be the sexiest unmanned vehicle on the track. Dubbed the Insight Racing team, the crew is loading the whip with "sensors and onboard computers that have been programmed to autonomously maneuver it through an urban setting complete with traffic, intersections and traffic circles." Moreover, the highly-coveted machine will be able to handle its own parking duties (and pose for glamour shots) when the day's done. After finishing 12th overall with just a Chevrolet Suburban in the 2005 Challenge, the Pack hopes its newfangled toy (and subsequent cornering abilities) can propel them to the top come next November.
Okami: before and after cel-shading
Notably the only upcoming PS2 game to feature magical wolves, aggressive painting and beautiful cel-shaded surroundings, Okami has come a long way since its original inception. Dubbed Ohkami, the early version presents quite a different experience to the one currently preparing to hit US shores. A comparison clip over at GameVideos (embedded in the second part of the post) puts the more realistic art style of the old version in stark contrast to the cel-shaded update. It seems that the PS2 was simply not deemed powerful enough to render Clover Studios' original vision and so the shift was made to a different and more feasible art style. It's interesting that the decision marks one of the few occasions where technical limitations actually (and arguably) lead to a more visually striking game. If you had a choice in the matter, would you rather have the realistic (erm, as far as magical wolves go) Okami or the cel-shaded one? Comments from the "Zelda more like Celda" crowd are welcomed, of course. [Thanks Demian!]
Starfox Command screens and info
In their ongoing coverage of Starfox Command, Famitsu has revealed some interesting tidbits about the game as well as unveiled several new screenshots and game art. Turns out Fox is all alone now, with his comrades having gone on to greener pastures. With Falco off exploring the vast regions of space, Peppy taking up the role of a general, and Slippy having found the toad of his dreams, Fox continues to fight the good fight alone. This game also marks the return of Star Wolf.Gameplay will be handled via two distinctly different modes. In the map mode, you're charged with using the stylus to trace out a route to your designation, encountering enemies along the way, which then takes you into the adventure mode where you can fly your plane and take out said enemies.
