Welcome to the first weekly games news syndication from GamersBeyond. This is the one stop PC centric need to know news for those that have better things to do than scour the net for info on your games. It may be weekly but I try to narrow the info to what is needed to make your PC gaming experience pristine. And if any of you would like to contribute or if you find my information inaccurate and would like to help me out, please let me know; my only scrutiny when choosing writing staff is if they are able to post regularly, the rest will come.
This week in PC gaming news we have some interesting tidbits, some huge tidbits, and some not so huge… well you get the idea. From Battlefield Heroes having only two maps, to eventual PC-game Prototype ditching multiplayer, and Ubisoft joining forces w/ steam this week had some ups and downs and hopefully we can get it all figured out below.
The NPD top ten PC games for the week of March 22nd.
- The Sims: FreeTime - Electronic Arts
- The Sims 2 Deluxe - Electronic Arts
- Sins Of A Solar Empire - Ironclad Games/Stardock
- Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare - Activision
- Warhammer 40,000: Dawn Of War Soulstorm - THQ
- World Of Warcraft - Blizzard
- World Of Warcraft: Battle Chest - Blizzard
- Cake Mania - Big Fish
- World Of Warcraft: Burning Crusade - Blizzard
- Diner Dash 2 - Playfirst
Nothing too amazing here, we all know that Sims and WOW are the top dowgs, I’m a little curious how Cake mania and Diner dash got up there… though I don’t see that game being pirated much so maybe as a side effect of not being pirated as much they are actually selling copies. Someone that makes good games should take advantage of that market, you know, the market that pays for stuff.
Now to the news.
From a recent interview by Gamasutra, Ben Cousins shares the state of DICE’s newest PC free-to-play shooter, one thing in particular that caught the interviewing party off guard, was that their new game Battlefield Heroes is planned to ship (digitally) with only 2 maps.
We bust our asses making 50 maps, and then within six months of the game being released, everyone’s playing two maps. The two best maps. So, we just decided to make just the two best maps, and not the other kind of maps.
He goes on to explain that one of the maps will be vehicle focused and the other will be infantry focused and says how they will make new maps of whichever game type that is most appealing to their players.
While it seems completely obvious that they would provide extra maps after the fact, I can’t help but wonder how fun two maps will be. Unless they have different play styles on the same map, or an incredibly tactile shooting experience, I can’t see this game winning an audience that will stick with it long enough for content, without the base content being there. Otherwise I am optimistic about the directions they are going with the micro-transaction based game-play, and even though it looks incredibly like TF2 that isn’t a bad thing.
In some other PC related news,Prototype developers have decided to trash the multiplayer and CO-OP modes and opt for a stronger single-player only experience.
We’ve been looking at this potential multiplayer idea much more closely as PROTOTYPE’s development has been progressing, and while it’s a great concept and game-play bonus, our conclusion is that we won’t be able to pull it off with the same level of quality and polish that we’re aiming for with the original single player story.
Firstly, this game, from the hype and the videos, is a most anticipated of 2008 for me. But I have to say that even though I was more interested to play through it on single-player, the fact that they had to drop the multiplayer on such a great IP hurts me inside a little; I say let the game be late and/or patch a CO-OP mode in after the fact but dont just trash it. This leads to only one question, can they survive with a single-player only experience on the PC? Not only does it take away from the replay-ability and thus the lasting fun of the game but also it is more enticing for pirates; that is unless they release it via steam, which is always an option.
To wrap up the stories this week we come to my most favorite tidbit of news: Ubisoft coming to steam. This news, released on April first, made me a little suspicious that I might have been duped. And if I have been duped, then shame on Valve and Ubisoft. On the other hand, if this is the story that I am hoping it is, I am totally buying Assasin’s Creed as soon as someone can purchase it as a gift and send it to me(I’m in Korea).
It seems that Ubisoft has moved a library of 40 titles to the digital distributer Steam. This deal brings the much anticipated Assassin’s Creed among other poplar games in the Tom Clancy and Far Cry franchises to a claimed 15 million users.
But this story isn’t just flowers and cheese puffs, this partnership unfortunately leaves those outside the USA or Canada S.O.L. But for those of you that wish to pre-order Assassin’s creed you may do so now, or so I would guess as I am in Korea. Someone should check it out and get back to me.
This leads me to my off-topic topic of the week, for this week and possibly many weeks to come: The State of PC Gaming. Just from the news that I wrote about here I can see that some studios understand that PC gaming is an online experience and that to keep gaming alive an online component is necessary. Whether it be, digital distribution, to online stats, CO-OP, MMO, or straight up multiplayer death-match, authenticating servers are the key to slowing PC piracy. Think about it, people like to socialize, and if every game has social aspects that give people a reason to purchase the game, more games would be bought rather than downloaded and played alone. hopefully the big game studios and the gaming alliance will figure this out and PC gaming will loose a lot of the bad rep it has gained in the past 6 months.
That is all for this week, please leave comments, suggestions or opinions below or in the forum. For links and other articles PC game related check out the Further reading section below.
See you next week
-Shegs
I hate to say it but as a of late I find myself losing interest in upcoming games in general. This is most likely due to two things 1. My stone age pc being unable to run the visually stimulating graphics of todays games and 2. Nothing super revolutionary has been released… granted I still havnt played bio shock due to reason number 1 but from what i have heard and read it is just an above average fps. On the other hand one game I am eagerly anticipating is left 4 dead, if this game lives of to the co-op hype it will be awesome.
Shegs this gives me an idea for your site. The average PC gamer (not me) I would guess upgrades ones PC every 6 months to 2 years. This being the case a lot can happen in the hardware market between upgrades. I think it would be really cool if you did a monthly, or as hardware changes deem necessary, PC build post or section. In this section you could have the eleet dream computer, the average gamer PC, and the poor mans build. Include links to hw reviews to why you chose xyz components ect…. This will save your readers a lot of time and trouble when it comes time to upgrade
just an idea
Peace,
ReplyJosh
damn my formating got owned
the post was 2 paragraphs
the preview button does not do shit
during the 15 min when you are able to edit the post it doesnt show the permanent format
in short LAME
Replysorry about that… I had only edited the website while logged in as admin and so the classes were different… it should be better now, though I will have to look into why the preview doesn’t work… probably something to do with the update I made 2 days ago
oh and yea that was my initial plan I just havent had time to research any good systems and the previous “write” function of the blog sucked at tables… so hopefully I am comfortable enough with it now to make something that looks ok.
if you have time and would like to post a system/specs I can make you an author… otherwise I plan on doing a cheapo rig this friday.
Reply