By now you’ve likely heard all about the ongoing litigation between Bethesda and Mojang, developers of the Elder Scrolls series and Minecraft, respectively. While there is clearly some disagreement between the two when it comes to game names, that didn’t dissuade Bethesda from including what appears to be an homage to Minecraft in the newly-released Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.
The issues between the two companies don’t actually involve Minecraft. It’s Mojang’s next game, the collectible card/board game hybrid Scrolls, that Bethesda has taken issue with, and it’s largely due to its name. Bethesda feels ‘Scrolls’ is too close to ‘The Elder Scrolls’ and wants the name changed. Persson recommended this be settled with a friendly game of Quake 3 (a game developed by id Software, which is owned by Bethesda parent company ZeniMax Media), though the issue instead went to court. An interim injunction was won by Mojang last month, with Bethesda given the option of appealing the decision.
Among the exclusives announced during Sony’s E3 press conference this year were bonuses for a handful of EA games and THQ’s Saints Row: The Third. Now that The Third is here, it seems as if that particular E3 reveal didn’t pan out.
The nature of the bonus wasn’t specified at the time; we simply knew it would include a mode centered around the game’s signature weapon. Joystiq reports there doesn’t appear to be anything exclusive to the PlayStation 3 version of the game and that THQ isn’t commenting on the situation. It’s speculated that Whored Mode could have once been the bonus, only that ended up in 360 and PC versions of the game in addition to the PS3 one. THQ wouldn’t say if that was the case one way or the other.
It was 10 years ago today that Microsoft entered the videogame console business with the release of the Xbox in North America. The system debuted at $299.99 and its release came more than a year after the PlayStation 2 had already debuted in western markets and three days before the GameCube, which will celebrate its tenth anniversary in North America on Friday. Xbox was the most powerful of the three consoles during that generation (four if you wish to include the Dreamcast), though that didn’t translate into sales — PS2 ended up dominating the console market for much of the decade, but Xbox did prove to be influential in the long run.
The Xbox name came from the original idea of creating a DirectX Box, DirectX being the name for a set of APIs used on computers. (’DirectX Box’ ended up being shortened to ‘Xbox.’) The system was, like the PS2 and unlike the Dreamcast and GameCube, capable of playing DVDs in addition to games. Dolby 5.1 support and an integrated Ethernet port were both standard, as was an 8GB hard drive, a new concept for videogame consoles at the time. The obvious benefits of a hard drive included the ability to save games without a memory card and rip music from CDs that could then be listened to as a soundtrack in certain games. Its presence later opened the door for downloadable content in games like Halo 2. (A standard hard drive was abandoned for certain models of the Xbox 360, resulting in developers avoiding mandatory installs no matter the cost.)
Halo Combat Evolved stands as a breakthrough in the history of console first-person shooters. In 2001, Combat Evolved broke the mold — establishing a unique sci-fi universe while drafting high genre standards still in effect today. It’s also responsible for drawing attention to the Xbox during Microsoft’s fledgling first steps into the console business. Sure, there were plenty of console shooters before Halo, but few titles helped establish a platform or had the same impact.
Halo Combat Evolved Anniversary Edition amasses a collection that celebrates the lauded franchise and, at the same time, gives players an opportunity to sample some of the best elements of the series. While Anniversary Edition sports the expected modes of campaign and multiplayer, they feel like separate gardens that feed into a larger whole — campaign is experienced through the original Halo engine, while multiplayer maps are designed using the engine from Halo Reach.
In this new age of fighting games, Marvel vs. Capcom 3 was easily the most anticipated fighter to be released next to Street Fighter 4 — though most will agree that it felt like an unfinished product. For everything that it did right — silky smooth gameplay, amazing graphics, and endless team combinations — over the course of a few months it became quickly apparent that there was much that needed to be fixed and adjusted.
Plagued with sub-par online modes and netcode; extremely overpowered characters such as Phoenix, Wolverine, and Akuma ; and not to mention glitches that allowed players to kill their opponent’s character in a single combo — most couldn’t help but feel a bit cheated when they learned an Ultimate version of the game was right around the corner. I think I’m not alone in saying that after 10 years of waiting for a new entry into the series after Marvel vs. Capcom 2, having to wait an extra six to nine months for a “complete” version of the game would be totally bearable for most.
Playing through Batman: Arkham City from the start after you’ve already done so doesn’t sound all that bad. Having to do so because your save game suddenly disappeared, however, could be downright infuriating. It’s one thing if it was a more linear game, but with all the side missions, countless Riddler trophies, and so on for players to complete and collect, this isn’t the type of game you’d want to lose a save game for.
Yet that’s a scenario being faced by a number of people playing the Xbox 360 version of the game. A lengthy thread on the official forums has been growing over the course of several weeks. Save files apparently aren’t deleted from the system, but the game doesn’t detect a file is there to be loaded. And this isn’t just happening early in the game — players with huge chunks of the overall game completed are suddenly finding themselves unable to access their save.
Mike Wilson. Harry Miller, and Rick Stults had done this before.
Wilson came from stints at id Software and Ion Storm, while Miller had served as CEO of Ritual Entertainment, and all three were founders of Gathering of Developers, a.k.a. God Games, publisher of a host of primarily PC titles in the ’90s, ranging from Max Payne and Mafia to Serious Sam and Stronghold. Between them they had amassed an impressive track record, green-lighting and funding eight original PC games that sold over a million units each, in the span of two years. In 2000, God Games sold to Take-Two for $30 million in stock, and subsequently folded into the 2K Games label.
The Tanooki suit’s comeback in Super Mario 3D Land was exciting news for fans of the old Super Mario Bros. 3 power-up, of which there are many. Not everyone is pleased with its return, and it’s not due to it being less powerful in 3D Land. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is concerned the Tanooki suit is encouraging the wearing of furs, something the group obviously isn’t too pleased about.
“When on a mission to rescue the princess, Mario has been known to use any means necessary to defeat his enemy — even wearing the skin of a raccoon dog to give him special powers,” reads a message on a new PETA website (via Kotaku) launched to bring awareness to that cold-hearted Mario.
The first time I saw Assassin’s Creed, it was about stabbing a man from behind. Then, Ubisoft showed off how they layered parkour and stealth mechanics onto that core premise. Then the game comes out, and on top of an innovative take on assassination, navigation, and stealth, the game revealed its labyrinthine story: About a man named Desmond in 2012 caught in a struggle between the descendents of the original Templar and Assassin orders, and how he uses a machine to access his genetic memories of his 12th-century ancestor, Altair ibn-La’Ahad. Things get even crazier when Assassin’s Creed II switches perspectives from Desmond reliving Altair’s memories to instead reliving the memories of Ezio Auditore da Firenze — a minor Italian noble who undergoes his own personal version of the Batman origin story and matures into an Assassin whose ultimate target becomes the Pope himself.
While AC2 came out two years after the original, and addressed practically every one of its predecessor’s flaw to become an significant and innovative leap forward (and an example of a great sequel), Ubisoft has since adopted the annualized sequel method popularized by sports games and Call of Duty. So just one year later, rather than Assassin’s Creed III, we saw Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood. That title layered on mechanics such as the management of the guild, tweaks to combat and navigation, and on top of those: the bold addition of multiplayer. For what was assumed to be a quick cash-in, Brotherhood ended up being a pretty hefty game. And now we have Assassin’s Creed: Revelations.
Skyrim! In the past week, we’ve reviewed it. We’ve live streamed it. I’ve posted vacation photos of it. And it seems like just about everyone in the 1UP/IGN offices has been playing it. So, to cap it off, I spent an hour in the podcast studio with Thierry Nguyen and Ryan Winterhalter to discuss it in the latest episode of our weekly podcast, Games, Dammit!
