I’ve never understood the collector’s editions for World of Warcraft. I really enjoy the game, but there are so many easily attainable pets (which is the only thing that really entices me out of the feature list) that I can’t really understand dropping the extra cash on it. People spend money on weirder stuff, and I guess there’s enough involved to keep the crazy lore freaks happy.
Here’s what you get:
CATACLYSM EXCLUSIVE BEHIND-THE-SCENES DVD:
• Over an hour of developer interviews and commentaries, discussing the game’s development from early design through finished gameplay.
• The Cataclysm intro cinematic and major content patch trailers complete with Director’s Commentary.
• A special Warcraft retrospective examining the rich gaming history of the Warcraft universe.
COLLECTOR’S EDITION SOUNDTRACK:
• Seventeen epic tracks from Cataclysm.
THE ART OF CATACLYSM:
• 176 pages of art, featuring never-before-seen images from the archives of the Blizzard Film Department and the World of Warcraft development team.
• Progressive visuals from every stage of development – from early concepts through to finished, detailed art.
WORLD OF WARCRAFT®: CATACLYSM™ PC/MAC GAME:
• The full World of Warcraft expansion set on CD-ROM and DVD-ROM.
WORLD OF WARCRAFT TRADING CARD GAME STARTER PACKS AND EXCLUSIVE CARDS:
• One 60-card deck from the new Wrathgate series featuring two extended art cards and visuals from several of fantasy’s top creators.
• Two exclusive hero cards, marking the first appearance of goblin and worgen heroes in the WOW:TCG.
• One full-sized rule book to teach you how to play.
EXCLUSIVE IN-GAME PET:
• He may not be a breaker of worlds… at least not yet… but Lil’ Deathwing will still aid you in your titanic struggle to save Azeroth from his much, much larger counterpart.
CATACLYSM MOUSEPAD:
• A special-edition mouse pad depicting Deathwing menacing the ravaged continents of Azeroth.
Riot posted the Xin Zhao Spotlight early this go round, giving you time to think about whether or not you’ll be picking him up at the Season One launch this Tuesday. The video gives some much needed clarification on his skillset, though I don’t think it does a good job displaying Xin Zhao’s specific skillset.
Did anyone else feel like this was more of a tutorial on the basics than a display of the potential behind Xin Zhao. That first kill on Guinsoo looked like a damn bot (I’m guessing Guinsoo was typing?) and most of the teamfights played out such that I didn’t see Xin Zhao doing a whole lot – it was mostly his fed teammates dishing out the damage and pulling down triple kills. It’s kinda tough to get a good look at any champion when you have a power combo like Alistar/Annie for teamfights. The one helpful tip was the Malzahar kill top for which Phreak used Audacious Charge. That’s about all I learned. Use it like Kat/Akali to get close to people but with a bonus AOE slow.
Back in April, an Italian company called Siliconera announced “Wii Relax,” a product complete with web pages and press info. That info has since disappeared, and Nintendo has now officially trademarked the name, though it removes the space to form WiiRelax, in Europe.
As Destructoid reports, the trademark is good for PAL territories. I hate to say I think this will be a real game, but I do. The question remains, why? Is Nintendo trying to encourage the already pervasive drug culture that comes along with a lot of games. And how do you determine who wins? Will it always be the guy with the Volcano?
My curiosity pretty much stops with theory, though. I have absolutely zero interest in playing a game associated with the Vitality Sensor. Sure, motion control is fun, but even then it’s more of a mental exercise in timing, control, and trouncing the competition. I don’t need a video game to help me fall asleep.
Good to its word, Bungie showed off the last game will make under the Halo franchise at the VGAs last night, a game we all know as Halo: Reach. The trailer was a mashup of pre-battle scenes. A warthog driving across some open terrain. A bunch of Spartans back at barracks. A bunch more Spartans at their barracks. A bunch of Spartans leaving their barracks.
Sounds kinda boring, doesn’t it? Well that’s because it is. I embedded the video below so you can see just how boring for yourself. Granted, this all about setting up the conflict that started Halo, so there’s a lot of dialogue. It’s strange, though, that Bungie is investing so much in establishing stock characters in a short trailer. You have the chick trying to prove herself in command. The psycho sharpening a knife with a skull painted on his visor. The dutiful lieutenant reporting for duty. I’m not sure what about this was supposed to excite me, and there was virtually nothing to make me say, “yeah, this will be the biggest game of 2010,” other than the word Halo in the title.
Microsoft had a great November. The Modern Warfare 2 launch pushed through 4.2 million units, nearly a million more than Halo 3 did at launch. Among other things, the 360 outsold the PS3, even though overall sales were down year on year. Microsoft’s product management director, Aaron Greenberg, had a lot to say on the matter, but the most notable was his prediction for Halo: Reach.
“I feel confident that there’s nothing that will compare in size. Halo: Reach will be the biggest game of 2010.”
So what else releases in 2010? Here’s a short list:
-StarCraft II
-Mass Effect 2
-God of War III
-Final Fantasy XIII
-Gran Turismo 5
Greenberg thinks the Master Chief can beat every one of those. A few on the list, sure, but GT5? Final Fantasy XIII for the West? I have my doubts.
I know the Japanese release date set some of the GT5 fans out there to drooling. And why not? March is just around the corner. Unfortunately, the western release date for the game isn’t set, and the only approximation is “Summer 2010.” As you know all too well, that could mean virtually anything.
If you think you’ll get the game in June, think again. Chris Hinojosa-Miranda told Destructoid that Polyphony Digital hasn’t even started thinking about DLC yet. That might not seem like a big deal, but that’s one of the primary ways developers have been monetizing games today. The fact that Sony isn’t even talking about it yet says to me that they have to focus 100% on just getting the game out the door.
The good news is that when the game finally releases there will be plenty to do. The roster includes something on the order of 1000 cars. Then again, it’s tough to look at that number without wondering just how long until we get to see any of them.
There’s another firmware update coming to the PS3, build 3.15, that will allow the system to finally play those PSP Minis. Yes, at long last you can make just one purchase of those overpriced little one-hitters and play them on your console.
It looks like the update works with titles you’ve already purchased as well. Just head to your download list and you can pick up the game on your console. The update also makes it a little easier to transfer data from one PS3 to another, a nice little bonus for those of you who picked up the PS3 Slim. The new data transfer is a simple LAN connection that dumps everything over to your new rig.
The BioWare forums have been a treasure trove of Mass Effect 2 information over the weekend. This latest tidbit concerns the ubiquitous elevator loading sequence we saw in the original game. That’s going away, replaced by a classic loading screen with extra information and visuals. Oh boy!
The elevators were made in ME1 so we didn’t have to show boring loading screens. However there were a lot of complaints, so we’ve gone back to loading screens and movies. We still have elevators in ME2, but you don’t wait inside them. We’ll cut to a loading screen instead.
We’ve tried to make the loading screen more interesting this time by adding interesting visuals and information.
The elevator conversations had some funny moments, but hopefully people will enjoy this new system better than the old one!
Any way you slice it, loading screens are lame, but I think I prefer games that don’t try to mask the fact that there’s some behind the scenes work going on with occasionally funny moments.
More Mass Effect 2 news today, and who can complain? It’s a game I’ve been looking forward to for a while, even if it’s missing that MMO feature I would really love. I still think it’s going to be awesome, and so does Bioware community coordinator Chris Priestly, who said one the Bioware forums, “You cannot fit this much awesome on one disc.”
Yes, sadly Mass Effect 2 will span discs. That’s a great stat for content hounds, but kind of annoying for everyone. Priestly promises it won’t mess up your mojo, though. He claims the disc swap happens at an appropriate time so as not to ruin your experience.
“Even though there is a disc swap, it occurs at a carefully planned place in the game (that does not interfere with gameplay) and is done once. You do not swap back and forth. 1 swap and then done.”
I’m not sure how they managed to pull that one off, other than duplicating serious amounts of content on each disc. Maybe it’s just that we get the opening credits, cinematics, and the first few quests on a shorter disc, and everything else is packed onto that second one. In any case, I’ll be interested to see if this really doesn’t interfere. I mean, really, who wants to get up from the couch?
Mass Effect 2 producer Adrien Cho thinks games have gotten too easy, requiring less problem solving skills than ability to best a game’s cheap mechanics.
“Just recently, a game like Demon’s Souls is fantastic because when you die, and you fail, it’s not because the game was cheap it’s usually because you didn’t do something properly,” Cho told Video Games Daily.
“It goes back to that learning mechanism of ‘Well, I tried this – it didn’t work. I’m going to try something different.’ And I think that’s going to be something in Mass Effect 2, we don’t want it to be a cakewalk, you want a challenge.”
I like the attitude, and if anyone can pull off a decent challenge it’s Bioware, but I’ll definitely wait to see the game before singing Cho’s praises.
