PC Games To Watch For In 2013

An anonymous reader writes "PC Gamer has put together a huge list of PC games that are due to come out in 2013. They've broken out the lists by genre, and each list is pretty long. It looks like a good starting point for finding the games you want to keep an eye on. Here are some highlights: Star Wars 1313: 'Early glimpses suggest the game will ignore lightsabers and force powers in favor of gadgetry and guns, and the claims are for a more grounded and gritty fiction, instead of the fruity pan-galactic melodrama to which we are accustomed.' The Elder Scrolls Online: 'The real reason to watch The Elder Scrolls Online is the talent behind it – the ex-Mythic developers responsible for the innovative Warhammer: Age of Reckoning and, before that, Dark Age of Camelot. Don't write off the old-school MMO just yet.' Mars: War Logs: 'Say it with me: a cyberpunk RPG set on Mars. That's all you need to know.' Ring Runner: 'Missions challenge you to escape exploding trenches, battle bosses bigger than your screen, race against NPC pilots and engage in spectacular space skirmishes in an engine modeled on the laws of Newtonian physics.' There will also be new installments of Dragon Age, SimCity, Grand Theft Auto, StarCraft, Command & Conquer, and Everquest."

Comments

PC gaming is dying.

[MindlessAutomata]

But still, PC gaming is dying. I know this because I have a game coming out on the XBox360 that I'd like you to buy.

Re:PC gaming is dying.

[RogueyWon]

Oh come on, you're 2 years out of whack here. The current mantra is "console gaming is dying at the hands of tablets/phones/handhelds/PCs/free-to-play/lego (delete as appropriate). We might have missed it at the end of the PS2 era, but that's actually the traditional chorus of the latter part of a console cycle.

If you want to sing a rousing chorus of "PC gaming is dying" then wait until after the launch of the next Sony and MS consoles - everybody else will join in at that point.

And it will be no truer then than it was when we heard it at the start of the PS3/360 era, or the PS2/Xbox era, or the PS1/N64 era, or the SNES/Genesis era.

Re:PC gaming is dying.

[travbrad]

..but wait, I thought the "death of the PC" had already come? How are people gaming on something that doesn't exist?

Re:PC gaming is dying.

[RaceProUK]

[zoidberg]Whoosh maybe?[/zoidberg]

Re:PC gaming is dying.

[crazyjj]

PC gaming died just after the Year of the Linux Desktop

Re:PC gaming is dying.

[tepples]

Somehow I'm not grokking your joke. How did you come to meet the qualifications to develop a game for Xbox 360 without first developing a game for PC?

Re:PC gaming is dying.

[Sandra D]

Congrats! But I don't think PC gaming is dying. That's because I mainly play PC games.

Mars MMO

[MindlessAutomata]

"'Say it with me: a cyberpunk RPG set on Mars. That's all you need to know.'"

Oh boy, playing as Adam Jensen in a spacesuit in the Badlands in WoW sounds super fun!

Re:Mars MMO

[bfandreas]

We already have a steampunk game set on Mars. Had it for a long time, too. It's even free on GOG.
Tho I preferred the installment with those dinosaurs in that valley which was forgoten by time. That one is free on GOG, too.

The Ultima series sure took you places. It all went downhill when they focussed on online gameplay and the accessible to the masses(ie cashgrab).

Ranting aside, the thought of Agatha Heterodyne on Mars appeals to me. It could be a mixture of The Incredible Machine and Mass Effect. With nice hats.

MMOs are done

[GeneralTurgidson]

TESO is too late to the party. Gamers have grown beyond MMOs and the constant grindfest.

Re:MMOs are done

[McGuirk]

See, that's the fun part. MMOs being only a grindfest is WoW-crap. DAoC was legit stuff. Though, reading about TES:O has not given me too high of hopes, and WoWhammer blew ass.

Re:MMOs are done

[ahabswhale]

I'm done with the standard issue MMO. Personally, I'd like something like Shadowbane but with good graphics and an engine that can actually handle having hundreds of players in the same area for wars. That game was seriously fucking fun except for all the technical issues it had. There was leveling involved but it was fast and primarily just to acquaint you with your powers and build some cash.

Re:MMOs are done

[Cinder6]

My worry about TESO is that it won't be possible to mod. For me, a huge amount of the fun of the TES games is the modding community. There's also a lot of fun in abusing the console once you beat the game legitimately.

But most of all--bleh. I'm tired of MMOs at this point. I wasted enough months on WoW, and then another few on SWTOR. I had a lot of fun in both, but any new MMO would have to be radically different from the formula for me to be interested at all, especially if I'm expected to put up with recurring payments (either via subscription or microtransactions).

Re:MMOs are done

[mlow82]

Yep, that's why FFXI is still running after all these years.

Re:MMOs are done

[Alexandra Erenhart]

My personal worry about it is that they'll stop making single-player TES games after going MMO. Like WoW. Because WoW continued the lore line of War3 and beyond, there's no need and no point in making another RTS. Why would Bethesda make single-player games if they can include everything in their MMO through expansions?

Sometimes I want to play in peace, instead of waiting for people.

Re:MMOs are done

[VortexCortex]

Perhaps 'tis not the MMO but the "grindfest" ye hath outgrown? What of "massively", "multiplayer" or "online" requires said grind?

I can remember my first MMOs: Offspring of the venerable MUD, the first MMOs were text based; The growth from "multiplayer" to "massively multiplayer" was simply due to the Internet's existence. Though the term MMO (MMORPG) hadn't yet been coined, they did exist and were played via Internet and its BBS portals even before the web came with it's standardized rich text and graphics capabilities. Many such games were evolved versions of (custom) MUDs. Many early MMOs had far less grind than many of todays' MMOs -- There was far less visual stimulus to distract you from boredom while you killed the statistically same foes over and over. Even the combat systems back then had to be more advanced and playful, incorporating full language parsing capabilities: "Blast the bastard!" and "Equip ranged weapon, then attack the Cyberknight." were both equivalent commands. Imagine what I could do today now that we have voice recognition... Having evolved over the years from my BBSs custom MUD, and text descriptions being cheaper and faster to make than graphics and audio, my own online RPG had "3D" worlds that eclipsed World of Warcraft in terms of size, narrative, and lore. My player power balance system relied more on combining effects of various weapons, items and modular upgrades (for cyborgs) or spells (mages) than the length of time you spent earning them. This along with planetary phases and attributes of the very locations added enough variety that even novices had a chance against seasoned players. You had to be smarter about using your stuff to win. There was no level cap needed, you can only carry so much stuff, and it's the combinations of stuff, not the price that gave power. The overarching gameplay was more about exploring an evolving world, and discovering the new untold stories, and also the roots of legends. I tried to make it like a good book, but where a book ends leaving you wanting more story, an MMO can continue: A digital text-based world can be so quickly and simply crafted and re-shaped and distributed.

The point is: "Grind" wasn't in my vocabulary... "Hack" and "Slash" were. Think about it: MMORGPs came from MORPGs (graphical MUDs) the latter of which came from RPGs -- Having ran many a dice & paper RPG campaign I knew that it was the new and compelling story which unpredictably changed due to interactivity that made such games magical -- Not hacking or slashing.

Nowhere is it writ that Grind be integral to MMOs. Indeed, much like in D&D, in my text based worlds charisma, zeal, and niceness of the players would often yield the fastest path to power vs grinding through quests. Eventually I will resurrect those gone but not forgotten worlds, but not today. It's the many comments like yours that reinforce my hunch that the world isn't quite ready yet -- Folks are already focusing less on the gimmick of graphical fidelity, even enjoying "pixel art" again. The subscription extending act of grinding is becoming tiresome to many. Now I'm waiting for folks to remember how to have fun, and expect it from games -- to remember how to play instead of grind, and not shun entire genres due to prevailing, yet fleeting, gameplay designs.

Re:MMOs are done

[Greyfox]

That's why Blizzard's next game will be an MMORGY! Level cap: 69, armor choices: Leather, Latex, None, no quests, only grinding! It is expected to make ONE BILLION DOLLARS in the first month alone!

Re:MMOs are done

[JaredOfEuropa]

Radically different? Personally I'd like to see the return of "sandbox" style MMOs like UO or SWG. Mythic did ok but I'd be more hopeful for TESO if they had gotten Raph Koster on board (he was involved in both UO and SWG, having designed most of the crafting system in the latter amongst other stuff). A good sandbox game is a "complete" game that caters to a wide variety of play styles: grinding, exploring, building, inventing, or just plain messing about. Besides interesting combat and questing, such a game has a strong crafting system but also things like player housing (and the ability to decorate them, a popular pastime in past sandbox games), a viable player-run economy (in SWG pretty much everything was player-made) and elements that make the game conducive to role-playing. Most players will want to engage in one of any of these play styles depending on their mood, and catering to all of them means your MMO becomes a place to hang out rather than just log on to for the next raid.

Good point about mods, though. Any game will go stale even to the most hardy fan, but you can prolongue their business (or get some fans to return) by adding new content. The problem is: it is rather expensive to develop such content. The company that manages to drive down the cost of developing new content while maintaining quality has the potential to create a winner, and player-generated content / mods could be part of that.

Re:MMOs are done

[bfandreas]

Warhammer was huge fun at lower levels. I only leveled via PvP which was actually quite nice both in the closed battlegrounds and the open PvP lakes.
The PvE content simply didn't captivate me even tho I am a Warhammer junkie.
The MMO that was most like WoW but not WoW was actually Rift. It did a couple of things correctly and a couple of things like WoW. I had huge fun with it for about half a year.

The thing with MMOs is that 3-6 months is the max you can have fun with them. After that you will become ultimately bored with it. And you stay either because you want to raid all raids, collect all stuff and stick around your friends. But not because you like the game.
I raided heavily in vanilla WoW(cleared most of Naxxramas back then) and in WotLK. Problem was, the trash-boss-distribute loot-trash-ad nauseam will become boring after a time. And if you have a choice of being competitive but with a tightly run outfit or with friendly nice people but not competitive then you are between a rock and a hard place. If you want to be competitive then The Raid has to come first. And that means treating people in a way you propably wouldn't want to otherwise. The other alternative is to run with people you actually like and you look out for. But you will find that they may not be as competitive as you'd like which also leads to frustration. Did my fair share of raid leading and that has to be the single most frustrating experience you will ever come upon in computer gaming.

WoW-style MMOs are dying out because of that. Their endgame relies on you finding enough people of the right MMO-archetype role to cooperate. MMOs shine when they simply let you jump in and participate in some madness that's going on. The first time I saw that working to some extent was in Warhammer Online with the open quests or whatever they called it.I saw it with Rifts in Rift. You could have huge fun, but that too will become repetitive. But the pure MMO experience is you see a lot of people running into one directio. And out of curiosity you follow them just to find yourself in the thick of it for the next hour.

Here's my highly simplistic and inaccurate MMO rule number one double fine happy star.:
If you have to queue for something meaningful or prepare and coordinate for couple of days to get something done then you are playing a bad game.

Re:MMOs are done

[bfandreas]

Or like Ultima tanked after they focussed on their wood-chopping simulator.

Re:MMOs are done

[bfandreas]

...that rather sounds like Skyrim with every nude mod installed. With the naughty-boy-needs-chastizing animation pack. The dildos are pinker and bigger than in Saint's Row.
Writing dirty Elder Scrolls fanfic is like farting next to a cow. Utterly pointless since you have already been outdone even before you started.

Re:MMOs are done

[Tridus]

Try launching a new one these days. It's a bloodbath. Like say... FF XIV.

Re:MMOs are done

[drinkypoo]

The first modern-ish MMO I can remember was BTechMUSE, which drew you hexmaps of your view. And there were clients that would read an alternate interface and draw you a GUI, I used one on the Amiga. They couldn't handle the load though. I was in a battle with over 100 players, it was aaaaagony. I did manage to take out something big (mauler? atlas?) by repeated DFA with a spider though, glorious.

Re:MMOs are done

[Nostromo21]

You clearly haven't played GW2. Your loss (of reasoning) ;-p.

Re:MMOs are done

[ByOhTek]

There's always going to be some kind of grindfest when you compete against other players in terms of in-game character development. The only games that would lack that, are ones that don't have character's grow and develop, or have a very small growth range. Otherwise you'll always be grinding to beat that guy who's slightly better than you.

There are a lot of people who like that range of growth, and find the grindfest a worthwhile penalty for it.

That being said, given the nature of the character setup in The Elder Scrolls, I think a developer from Turbine who worked on AC1 would be a better for the development of TES:O.

Re:MMOs are done

[crazyjj]

Raiding is like a very hard job, but where your boss expects YOU to pay HIM.

Re:MMOs are done

[crazyjj]

My personal worry about it is that they'll stop making single-player TES games after going MMO.

Once you go MMO, you never go back. Right now Bethesda has gold fever. And that gold is WoW money. And like every other wannabe WoW, they're going to chase that dream with everything they have, even if it bankrupts them. And they will waste not a dime on another single-player franchise that isn't already in the pipe.

There will never be another single-player TES game again (not for the PC or console, anyway).

Re:MMOs are done

[CastrTroy]

Well, there's a way to do it without grinding. Grinding, at least as I define it, is walking back and forth in the same area, with no particular quest, looking for demons to slay, so as to build up your levels. This is common in a game like the original Final Fantasy, or the original Dragon Warrior (sorry, don't play RPGs much anymore). The other way to do it is to have quests of increasing difficulty such that at then end of one quest, you have everything you need to do the next quest. No walking back and for just for the sake of building up experience points, but always on a quest with some (seemingly) more worthwhile goal. The more quests you complete, the better your character gets. Games that accomplish this are Zelda (some would claim not an RPG) and Diablo, because once an enemy was dead, they were dead forever, there is no ability to "grind" because you couldn't just sit in the forest killing boars for 2 months straight.

Re:MMOs are done

[Sperbels]

And yet that wood-chopping simulator is still running and profitable today using 15 year old graphics.

Re:MMOs are done

[kannibal_klown]

I mostly agree, after some months the MMO really loses its shine.

But... it IS sometimes fun again after a while. I grew tired of City of Heroes, left for a couple of years, and was quite surprised how much fun I was having when I came back. The new powersets and expansions were nice, and I'd forgotten what a super hero MMO with actual CONTENT and STORY felt like (glares at DCUO and CO).

But... we all know how the City of Heroes story ended... with the game getting taken down.

But perhaps going back to an older MMO might give you something to do.

Re:MMOs are done

[Anonymous Coward]

MMOs being only a grindfest is WoW-crap. DAoC was legit stuff.

WTF are you smoking? Camelot was 90% grind, 10% quest/PvP/whatever else. WoW is 10% grind, 90% quest/PvP/dungeons/raids/whatever else.

Seriously: you got 10% of the XP required to level from questing in Camelot, and the remaining 90% was just randomly killing like-leveled mobs somewhere. It *sucked*. And don't even get me started on crafting, which was as bad (or worse) than the actual leveling.

Re:MMOs are done

[ByOhTek]

After playing Eve, and then taking a look at other MMORPGs/RPGS, I've come to the conclusion there are only a couple quests, and it's just a paint job that makes them appear different.

1) Go somewhere
- Optional: bring something there
- Optional: alter something there
- Optional: come back
-- Optional: bring something back
2) Kill some set of creatures
- Optional: Bring something back or to another location

Most games I've played (including WoW) you can go through without grinding, by going around and finding quests... but most people don't want to spend the time searching for every little quest (and grinding can actually be less of a headache).

You can grind in Zelda games, but it has the (a) low character progression range, and (b) most advancements are only from 'quests'.
As for Diablo, you can grind that (I had to, to beat it the first time) - you restart the game with your character, and it regenerates the world, but you have your level and items from the 'old' game. Basically grinding, but the world changed a bit.

Of course, a combination - the character advancement range of a Diablo type game, but where the experience/advancements are from quests only... That's a good idea.

Re:MMOs are done

[Hatta]

The point is: "Grind" wasn't in my vocabulary... "Hack" and "Slash" were. Think about it: MMORGPs came from MORPGs (graphical MUDs) the latter of which came from RPGs -- Having ran many a dice & paper RPG campaign I knew that it was the new and compelling story which unpredictably changed due to interactivity that made such games magical -- Not hacking or slashing.

The problem is you can't have a new and compelling story where each and every inhabitant of a massively multiplayer world plays a critical role. The more people you add to a game, the more generic you must make the experience. It's either that, or you present each player with his own story where he is the protagonist. But at that point, how "multiplayer" is the game?

Re:MMOs are done

[theslof]

This might have been an issue if TESO was a sequel to the single player games, developed by the same studio. However, the game is set in an earlier era, the one that ends with Tiber Septim conquering Tamriel, and the game is developed by ZeniMax Online Studios. Basically, it's a spin-off that's backed by the same publisher. There's no reason for Bethesda Game Studios to stop churning out more TES single player games.

Re:MMOs are done

[crazyjj]

Bethesda and Zenimax Online are both owned by the same company (Zenimax). You think said parent company is going to waste resources developing both a MMO and single-player game? Not gonna happen.

Re:MMOs are done

[flimflammer]

FF XIV is a bad example. It was so bad in almost every single possible way aside from graphics that Square Enix had to stop sale, publicly apologize that they let such a train wreck go on sale, and put it back into deep development with a bunch of new developers. I don't even think it has relaunched yet, and that was like a year ago?

Re:MMOs are done

[CronoCloud]

True, but FFXI didn't have much competition (on the PS2 only EQOA) did it. It also helped that it's a Japanese game designed for crazy Japanese conformist "the nail that sticks out gets hammered down and there is only ONE way to play a class with this specific equipment at these specific levels" min-maxers.

Re:MMOs are done

[Kelbear]

Skyrim sold millions of copies on consoles, and millions more on PC, plus DLC sales(which have lower volume, but huge profit margins). It was an incredibly popular game. It made them lots of money. Of course they'd want to milk that.

Square-Enix also made an MMO, but they didn't stop making the single-player FF. Basically it comes down to capital availability, profit projection, and sales cannibalism. I don't see those factors pre-empting a single-player TES game being developed concurrently, particularly since these are separate studios. What do you think Bethesda would be working on while Zenimax Online Studios is working on the MMO? While I'd sure like for them to work on new IP, I'm betting they're already hard at work on their sequel.

Re:MMOs are done

[sandytaru]

It just finished alpha testing and is going into beta testing next month. Alpha testers are under NDA still but the leaked info has been positive - namely, the underlying game engine problems are fixed and the graphics are running on proper DX11 now. The official test videos SE has released show as much. Relaunch is expected in late spring or early summer - they're giving themselves upwards of four to five months for a multi-phase beta test this go round, with a month between phases to fix any reported bugs.

Re:MMOs are done

[lgw]

Not all MMOs are a grindfest - only those lacking actual content. For example, in D&D Online you can get to max level without ever repeating a quest, or farming outdoor kills (and there are very few "kill 10 X" quests, though there are a couple that are more satire than anythig else). Sure, no matter the MMO, whatever you're doing will begin to get "samey" after a while, but there's simply no reason to settle for repetition standing in for content!

What makes an MMO work for me is a new map and new objectives for every quest, and those do exist today, if you look beyond the old school.

Re:MMOs are done

[lgw]

No one, ever will set out to "make a new game like SWG". Thank goodness. UO had some neat stuff going for it that later MMOs didn't pick up on for some reason.

Re:MMOs are done

[TheLink]

Quest repetition is not a problem as long as it is fun. Grind is when the repetitive thing is actually boring.

Look at those people still playing Counter-strike and clones. They are playing the same thing over and over again, it's not a grind to them. Heck they often play the exact same maps over and over! Most are not doing it so that weeks later they get some reward. They find their reward in doing the repetitive thing itself.

FWIW I play Guild Wars 1 and in PvE you can play an entire squad, not just one person. You can have up to 7 heroes (semicontrollable customizable NPCs) in your team so even though the mission or quest is the same, you could try to complete it with a different team configuration. Or come up with one that works in as many cases as possible. Here's some guy's team: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZI-d7ZVuYm4

Re:MMOs are done

[TheLink]

The other way is to make the repetitive thing fun.

People play the same maps in FPS games over and over all the time sometimes even using very similar tactics.

People play bejewelled, temple run, fruit ninja, etc and it's the same thing over and over.

It's tricky though... Sometimes having a big reward at the end makes it less fun and more like work, psychology and all that :).

Re:MMOs are done

[TheLink]

Check out tennis, chess, golf, counterstrike, bejewelled, etc.

Doing the same quest over and over is not what makes it grind.

Re:MMOs are done

[ByOhTek]

What makes a grind is different to everyone.

All of those feel like a grind to me.

Dragon Age

[GrBear]

Oh gawd, how awful is next installment going to be after the abortion the second one was. Frankly, 2012 is going to be a tough year to beat, so many spectacular titles came out. The first real year that I was looking to so many releases.

Re:Dragon Age

[MachDelta]

Frankly, 2012 is going to be a tough year to beat, so many spectacular titles came out.

I'm not sure if this is sarcasm or not. Personally, I felt that 2012 was one of the worst years for gaming in recent memory. So i'll just ask the question that was begged: Care to name a few of these spectacular titles? Maybe I missed some of them.

Re:Dragon Age

[Fallingcow]

Where have you been? PC gaming is in the middle of a renaissance.

Rock Paper Shotgun's Advent Calendar for 2012 is a good place to start.

I disliked a couple of those, and a few more I didn't play, but the rest are awesome. Add to that list Stealth Bastard, To the Moon, and a handful of decent console ports, twenty other games I'm forgetting right now, and it's been a hell of a year to be a (PC) gamer.

IMO, a real contender for GOTY for 2012 would be a free flash game (no, wait, it doesn't suck! Really!) called Frog Fractions. It may very well represent the end of gaming, the Platonic form of the video game made real. That sentence was only sort-of tongue in cheek. It's great.

Re:Dragon Age

[MareLooke]

BioWare is dead (also Westwood Studios says "Hi!"), it's EAWare now, with everything that implies. We had better get used to it. I have rather low expectations for their games now (good production quality but generic gameplay, I rather have the other way around if I can't have both). Didn't know Wasteland 2 was coming out this year though, and a new isometric Divinity game. Maybe we'll get some good RPGs this year for a change...

Re:Dragon Age

[bfandreas]

2012 wasn't too shabby if you stayed clear of the AAA titles.
On the indie side of things you got the likes of Torchlight, Yet another Orks must Die, The Walking Dead, lots of puzzle plattformers...
On the AAA side of the equation only Dishonored and XCom spring to mind.
Oh, and Diablo 3 also started releasing its first betas this year.

With the current sales going on I find that I am still catching up with 2010. If you are on PC then you'd need to be stark raving mad to buy a game right after release. Just go to Steam, GOG or whatever and browse at best sellers at or below 5 bucks. That should keep you occupied for a decade or two. Pick up the newer stuff when it is dirt cheap.
The only AAA game I bought at full price without any buyers remorse was XCom. And only because I loved the first two games. Funnily I wasn't dissapointed one bit having just replayed the original to get rid of the rose-tinted beer goggles.

Re:Dragon Age

[Slalomsk8er]

I like playing Torchlight 2 and Rocksmith an my PC

Re:Dragon Age

[RogueyWon]

I did a big journal post on my favorite (and least favorite) games of 2012 here. Obviously, not all of the games I liked will be everybody's cup of tea, but there were a couple of absolute stand-out titles, such as Borderlands 2, Farcry 3 and XCom.

Also some crushing disappointments, of course, particularly Mass Effect 3, but that's true of any year.

Re:Dragon Age

[bfandreas]

The PC resurge is due to cheap and easy distribution with no cash barrier to get your stuff on services. AAA quality stuff gets released for 20 bucks. Steam shovels games by the metric crap ton. Then march over to GOG and marvel at their prices for the newish stuff they have. 3 bucks for the original Witcher? Yes, please. Then return to Steam and grab a couple of Jensens and Batmen for the price of a nice evening at the movies. Or read RPS for whatever tickles your fancy and swing over right to the developers homepage and grab the game for the cost of a packet of cigarettes. I've just finished LA Noire picked up at a bargain price and enjoyed every bit of it(except the driving sequences, skipped those).

Gabe "The Gabe" Newell said that game piracy was a service problem and boy did he show them. Next thing will be free money hats in TF2. For everybody.

"PC gaming is dead", by Simon Cowell's codpiece, nothing could be wronger.

Here's a real cracker: Digital sales still aren't included in all game sales statistics. So by applying Hollywood logic, all non-boxed instances of played games flow nicely into the piracy statistic. And therefore piracy is rampant on PC, so we need more DRM. Except most indies don't have that. Which is why the indie devs must have starved yonks ago. And it must be their dessicated corpses who made the also massively pirated sequels to their massively pirated first installments. Zombie indies want your brains! Fight the Zombie indies! Buy Activision, EA, UBI! For the children!

Re:Dragon Age

[RogueyWon]

Actually, I'm vaguely optimistic for Dragon Age 3. Some of the early preview stuff and developer interviews make me suspect that they've learned some hard lessons from their last couple of games.

Dragon Age 2 was undeniably a mistake. There was actually some interesting stuff in there (the story had a lot of potential), but it lacked a clear direction guiding the gameplay mechanics and it blatantly needed another 6 months at least of development time to get some additional content (particularly environments) in there.

Then there was Mass Effect 3 - some brilliant moments, but a distinctly underwhelming whole, due to a combination of bad writing at the moments where it really matters and shooter mechanics that aren't robust enough to survive the weight that's placed upon them.

I think and hope that EA realise that they're very close to killing any power left in the Bioware brand. 1 bad game can (and does) happen to any company. 2 bad games in a row starts to look like a trend and makes people nervous. 3 bad games in a row would be fatal. Early indications are that they know they've got to get this one right.

Fingers crossed.

Re:Dragon Age

[dreamchaser]

So far Dishonored hasn't disappointed me, but I also got it at half price on Steam as a Christmas promotion.

Re:Dragon Age

[bfandreas]

Yep. If you are sane then you will pick up games a year after they were released with all DLC at half the price and most of the bugs ironed out.
In that respect I was severely bitten by HOMMVI, Bats: ACity and Diablo3. Preordered those. Should have known better since all 3 franchises have had a troubled history. And Diablo3 his the worst offender since it has fallen into the hands of people who thought that Diablo was about competitive gameplay. Which it never was. Design bugs never get ironed out. HOMM6 just crashed on me and will propably join HOMM4 in never being played through by me. And I got bored with Arkham City despite being a Batman nutter.
funny thing is all of those are on sale now. Apart from Diablo3 which will never go on sale. Ever. There'll be the odd battle chest but that's it. Blizzard exists in a different universe. Our rules don't apply to them.

The only games I bought at full price without regret were Kingdoms of Amalur and XCom. Even bought the DLC at full price with little regret.

Re:Dragon Age

[TFAFalcon]

Dragon Age 2 had some funny moments. Like when you found a random skeleton in a random dungeon and got a quest to take it to a random person. You gave him the bones and he thanked you and gave you some gold. And that's what 50% of the quests in the game were like. Was it done just to inflate the 'quest count'? They could have just given the gold to a random monster, but instead they created a pointless 'quest' just to show off how generic their game is.

Re:Dragon Age

[RogueyWon]

Quite possibly a side effect of the rushed development. As in, they might have intended to add a load of plot and dialogue about finding that skeleton and taking it to the NPC and might have put the basic triggers for the quest in place, but never actually had the time to put the flesh on the bones (no pun intended).

Right back to their earliest days, there have been odd little signposts here and there in Bioware games where you can see where they'd planned at one point to add more content. In most Bioware games, when you come across these, you treat it as a fun kind of Easter Egg, speculate briefly about what might have been intended to go there and move on.

But yes, in DA2, it feels like half the game is missing. Only KOTOR2 (which wasn't Bioware anyway) comes even close to that.

Re:Dragon Age

[TFAFalcon]

Oh yeah, kotor was funny. 90% of the last planet was missing, with just some random scenes left in the game to make you wonder what the hell they were thinking of doing. Completely ruined the game, since all that buildup just went to waste on a couple of easy boss fights.

Re:Dragon Age

[PrimalChrome]

I'm not sure if this is sarcasm or not..

I'm not sure if this is trolling or not.

X-Com : Enemy Unknown
The Walking Dead
Dishonored
Farcry 3
Mass Effect 3
Fez
Torchlight II
Journey
That's just off the top of my head.

Re:Dragon Age

[Pointed Stick]

I actually enjoyed these games quite a lot. No doubt DA2 was rushed through production (the reuse of maps was particularly annoying), and everyone can agree that the ending of ME3 was a complete failure. Even still, I enjoyed these games immensely. Bioware's character writing is fantastic. I became deeply involved in the storyline of both games. Where there parts of both games that disappointed me? For sure; but my overall experience was overwhelming positive.

Skyrim might have been a better game overall, but I couldn't be bothered to even finish playing it. Same goes for any of the Fallout games. I just couldn't get involved in the story.

I know most people have strong feelings about the latest Bioware games. I'm really not trying to change anyone's mind. I just wanted to speak up for some of the people who did enjoy the games.

Online Action RPG PSO2 - F2P, Not Pay to Win

[PrinceBrightstar]

Sega has seen a ton of success with the latest itteration of the Phantasy Star series (currently celebrating its 25th anniversary) called Phantasy Star Online 2. It is slated to be localized some time in 2013. I've been playing the japanese version with an partial english patch and have enjoyed every moment of it.

Re:Online Action RPG PSO2 - F2P, Not Pay to Win

[bfandreas]

Isn't that the SEGA which has caused some fraudulent DMCA takedown bruhaha a couple of weeks ago? They haven't done anything to personally endear them of late and made them selves at home with the likes of UBI, EA and Activision.
Anybody who trebuchets lawyers at their own fanbois must have gone off the deep end. I wouldn't trust them with my time and my money.

Re:Online Action RPG PSO2 - F2P, Not Pay to Win

[loufoque]

I played PSO2 in japanese too.
It's pretty, but it pretty much empty. Gameplay is very limited and essentially based on leveling up very slowly.

Sweet!

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

> Star Wars 1313: 'Early glimpses suggest the game will ignore lightsabers and force powers in favor of gadgetry and guns

Christ! I'm calling a lawyer. That "woosh!" was so violent it gave me a concussion.

Re:Sweet!

[spikestabber]

I can't be the only one that thought Shadows of the Empire on N64 was a good game, surely they can bring out more like this with todays graphics... I don't care much about strict canon as long as its fun.

Re:Sweet!

[Fallingcow]

Like most every other good game on the N64, SotE deserves a re-release on a system with two analog sticks and a somewhat higher resolution.

Re:Sweet!

[RogueyWon]

My big problem with the way they've taken Star Wars from the moment the prequels started to come out is that it stopped being a franchise about a neat dark-ish sci-fi fantasy world and became a story about magical space wizards.

Some of the best Star Wars games ever made (the X-Wing and TIE Fighter games and the original Dark Forces) didn't feature a single lightsabre. Returning to those roots feels like a step in the right direction.

Re:Sweet!

[SScorpio]

If you haven't played it you might enjoy Star Wars: Republic Commando. It's a squad based FPS where you play a clone trooper and it has a squad command system like Rainbow 6 or SWAT. My only complaint is the ending was left open to allow a sequel that I doubt will ever be released.

Re:Sweet!

[RogueyWon]

Yes, I remember that and it was pretty good. Kind of slipped through the cracks for a lot of people because it appeared for consoles that were just about to be retired and the Xbox version wasn't on the initial back-compatibility list for the 360 (which was a staggering omission).

MCPIXEL!!!! TWO!

[storkus]

The only game worth waiting for this year! :P

Elite: Dangerous.

[kfsone]

Braben's back, Look who's back.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1461411552/elite-dangerous

Re:Elite: Dangerous.

[bfandreas]

I'm torn about that. I'm not entirely convinced that David Braben is to be trusted with something as precious as the Elite series.
Davids are not to be trusted with games. It has been proven time and again that smart Dereks are better suited to the task of tackling starships. In space!

All snark aside I have been suckered out of my money the very instance Braben popped up next to Elite on Kickstarter. If anything then the drama value alone is worth the price of admittance.

Dust 514

[joelleo]

I'm REALLY looking forward to the release of this game. I've been in the beta for months and its pretty addictive. CCP has been pretty good about rectifying grossly out of balance weapons etc so far. No more swarm launcher spam =)

Re:Dust 514

[GloomE]

It's a shame it's only a console game.
At least I get to nuke you guys from orbit.

Re:Dust 514

[joelleo]

Same =) Long-time Eve player as well...

Re:Dust 514

[N!k0N]

Yeah, definitely a shame that it's console-only, but it's (IME, anyway) much more "balanced" than the Cod/MW franchises -- I'm terrible at FPS games, but rather quickly got "useful" with better shield/armour/GTFO skills with a token amount of SP in guns. I'll be taking up station in orbit though (long-time EvE player as well).

Re:Dust 514

[CronoCloud]

They....well I mean we... but I only play casually, can shoot back you know.

Hey! What you could do is hire some mercenaries, then bribe the other side to intentionally lose, so you you can have the Dusters shoot their surface to orbit weapon at your enemy corp's ships.

You can also bankroll upgrades for your own merc teams with your own ISK.

Re: serious question about SimCity

[Black Parrot]

do the cartoon people fuck yet? and if not what do they do?

They're modelled on you, so you can probably figure it out.

What is this new SimCity?

[damn_registrars]

I saw a "preorder" thing for it at the local Target but it had pretty well no useful information on it.

And more importantly why on earth did they reuse the original name?

Re:What is this new SimCity?

[Anonymous Coward]

imagine simcity that you can't play after the publisher shuts down their servers. If you lose your internet connection, you lose the game.

NO THX

Re:What is this new SimCity?

[drinkypoo]

's SimCity, but partially on the cloud. The design seems to be heavily multiplayer-centric, although it's possible to play solo, and you cannot play the game offline.

So it's entirely on the cloud, and the game disc only contains a client? Thanks for clearing that up.

It's to be seen if the co-op elements and novelty make it worth the purchase, or if the lack of offline play and multiplayer-centric design turns off too much of the player base for the co-op to make up for it.

No, no it isn't. If you can't play offline it's not worth buying. I am still playing my old SimCity games even though they are, well, old. I am not about to pay for a game like this. I would play on a free-to-play basis, but I am not dumb enough or rich enough to throw my money away on something I don't actually own. Not again, anyway, after buying HL2 on disc in the store. I still have (slim) hopes that laws will come along that force that purchase to have real meaning one day.

Re:What is this new SimCity?

[Trilkin]

Preorder bonuses typically.

Re:What is this new SimCity?

[Anonymous Coward]

So it's entirely on the cloud, and the game disc only contains a client? Thanks for clearing that up.

No. When you're playing, simulation will happen on your client. It would be infeasible to maintain the level of detail that they plan to have, as well as a reasonable level of latency, and have everything live on the cloud as you play. The cloud maintains your connection to other cities, and when you log off your city's simulation gets offset to it. That's why I said "partially". The game is completely unplayable without a connection to their servers, though.

No, no it isn't. If you can't play offline it's not worth buying.

It's not worth it to you. If I get at least a good 20 or 30 enjoyable hours out of the game in total, even if the thing gets sunset eventually, I'd consider that worth the $50 or $60 they want for it. I paid a little over $20 to go to a movie at the theatre the other day, and I don't own that movie. You aren't everyone. Hell, considering how many people bought Diablo 3, it looks like you're not even the vast majority of people.

I'm honestly more concerned about the design changes that this is meant to facilitate than anything. I want to manage a city, I don't want to play a networked farmville or some such bullshit. I'll wait to see how it turns out before buying.

Re:What is this new SimCity?

[tompaulco]

you cannot play the game offline.
Oh, that is a shame. I have been a constant fan of Simcity and have had and played many many hours on every version to date. Unfortunately, I guess I won't be playing this one. I have no interest in playing online with other people and no interest in a piece of software that I have bought and paid for that is not payable because they choose to shut down a server.

Re:What is this new SimCity?

[EnsilZah]

You really should watch the videos they have on Youtube.
They show how the simulation engine works by sending out agents to communicate the various needs and resources of the city.

I guess using the original name means they consider it a reboot of the franchise or something, trying to disassociate themselves with SimCity Societies?

I'm quite interested in the game, but apparently it's also going to use quite aggressive always-online DRM.

PC has open source games and steam games

[Joe_Dragon]

PC has open source games and steam games.

And you will not see most of them on Xbox or play station.

And both the PS3 and Xbox 360 are real old next to to days pc's.

Re:PC has open source games and steam games

[mjwx]

And both the PS3 and Xbox 360 are real old next to to days pc's.

What do you mean "todays PC"?

They were real old compared to PC's on their release day.

Re:PC has open source games and steam games

[drinkypoo]

And both the PS3 and Xbox 360 are real old next to to days pc's.

What do you mean "todays PC"?

They were real old compared to PC's on their release day.

They didn't have the CPU power, maybe, but they had competitive graphics, unlike the PS2 and the Xbox.

Re:PC has open source games and steam games

[tepples]

PC has open source games

Which of these games are worthwhile and not violent first-person shooters? And by "open source" do you refer to only the engine or both the engine and the data files? Several older Id games have had the engine released under a free software license but not the data files.

Re:PC has open source games and steam games

[CronoCloud]

They had the CPU power too, Folding@home proved that, in the PS3's case anyway.

Re:PC has open source games and steam games

[CronoCloud]

Depends on what kind of PC.

The PS3 has a 3.2GHz single core multi-threaded CPU with an Altivec unit and 7 SPU's. The Xbox's CPU is based on the Cell's core, but has 3 of them. (but no multi-threading IIRC, and no SPU's)

Single cores were still fairly common in 2006. And even in 2010 there were budget boxes shipping with low end dual-core CPU's (I even saw a few single cores) and integrated 6150's or Intel X3100's (or whatever that thing is) No match for a PS3 or 360.

So for gaming purposes, they'd outperform most general purpose household PC's of 2006, easy. Yes, some gamer rigs could top them, but they'd cost a LOT more money.

Even today there are still lots of people with older PC's. Do you think "everyone" has a hex-core Dream machine rig with TWO SLI'd GTX 690's?

Re:PC has open source games and steam games

[mjwx]

And both the PS3 and Xbox 360 are real old next to to days pc's.

What do you mean "todays PC"?

They were real old compared to PC's on their release day.

They didn't have the CPU power, maybe, but they had competitive graphics, unlike the PS2 and the Xbox.

Might want to check that one.

The PS3 had a Geforce 7800 based GPU, the 7000 series went from 2005 to 2006. By the release of the PS3 2006 the Geforce 8000 series was out. The PS3's "Reality Synthesiser" chip was based on the earliest model of the 7000 series the G70 (NV47) chip. Its the same with the Xbox360's Xenos GPU.

As well as weak CPU and GPU power, the consoles had a serious dearth of RAM. Thats why PC games that get consolised need to have their levels cut up into pieces (DX:IW is a good example).

Re:PC has open source games and steam games

[mjwx]

Depends on what kind of PC.

I compare it to a gaming rig at the time of it's release.

In November 2007 I could have built a Athlon X2 (brisbane) or Core 2 Duo (Conroe) machine with a Geforce 8800. In fact I did have a Athlon X2 (Brisbane) rig with a Geforce 8800, 2 GB of RAM and a 320GB 7200 RPM HDD, in 2008 I upgraded to 4 GB RAM.

So in November 2007, the PS3 was not equal to the PC of the day, let alone to a PC of modern times (i7, Geforece 6 series, 16 and 32 GB RAM systems, SSD's). No need to compare it to SLI systems, it was quite inferior to single GPU systems.

Re:PC has open source games and steam games

[drinkypoo]

The PS3 had a Geforce 7800 based GPU, the 7000 series went from 2005 to 2006. By the release of the PS3 2006 the Geforce 8000 series was out. The PS3's "Reality Synthesiser" chip was based on the earliest model of the 7000 series the G70 (NV47) chip. Its the same with the Xbox360's Xenos GPU.

My 240GT is faster than some 5xxGT cards (hell, even some 6xxGT cards which are really rebadged 5xxGT) and yet it's based on the prior-generation's core. So that proves nothing. If it's a good core it's a good core.

As well as weak CPU and GPU power, the consoles had a serious dearth of RAM.

Yes, that's a real problem. But the CPU is less problem than you'd think because they don't run any OS worth mentioning and the RAM is less of a problem than you'd think for the same reason. The consoles were still quite cramped in the 32 bit era but they're not so bad now with 512MB, except for the PS3 where it's split half and half unlike the 360, where the split can be customized per-title.

What about Duke Nukem Forever?

[Dracos]

Dammit, nevermind...

Re:What about Duke Nukem Forever?

[ArsonSmith]

Can we unrelease that, both to bring back these jokes and to remove that horrid game from my memory?

Re:What about Duke Nukem Forever?

[RyoShin]

Don't worry, we'll always have Half Life (Episode) 3 now. Gabe will make sure of that.

Yeah, it doesn't have the "Forever" in the title, but we get new jokes like how afraid Gabe is of the number 3.

Most games are multiplatform these days...

[blahplusplus]

... so platform is rarely a concern anymore.

What everyone should most be concerned about is the lack of PC focused design in games. All the games we're getting are designed for the lowest common denominator, while there may be a lot of games being released their generic design leaves a lot to be desired.

Re:Most games are multiplatform these days...

[epyT-R]

in this case 'multiplatform' means 'dumbed down to Lowest Common Formfactor'. It doesn't matter how powerful one platform is when the game is targeted at hardware designed in 2004.

SimCity, a DRM game to stay away from

[Paska]

I don't play games, like ever. Last game I played was Age of Empires (original) and the Sim City's on my Apple.

I was excited for the new Sim City, and was going to buy a few copies for myself and my girlfriend. But after following the Reddit AMAA from the Maxis developers and their complete dodge of answering any questions regarding the totally stupid online only DRM that's being built into the game.

I'm no longer excited for the game and will not be buying it.

How many of these games on this list are purely online DRM playable only?

Re:SimCity, a DRM game to stay away from

[Mantrid42]

When's the last time you were off line for any significant amount of time?

Re:SimCity, a DRM game to stay away from

[bertok]

Often. Recently.

I travel for work, just like millions of other business people.

I would like to play games on airplanes. I'd like to while away the spare hours in a hotel room with games.

Unfortunately, few planes have WiFi, and even if they do it's usually too unreliable for online DRM. Worse are hotels, which charge exorbitant fees for internet access, often on the order of $10 per hour, particularly in some countries like New Zealand where there are ZERO free access points, and hotels seem to make their profit entirely from overcharging for access.

Game publishers basically tell people like me: don't buy our games -- even our single player games -- because you can't check in with us every 5 seconds, so you must be some sort of dirty pirate.

Fine. I won't buy their games then.

Re:SimCity, a DRM game to stay away from

[rsmith-mac]

To be fair, that's not DRM so much as it is a completely server-side gama (ala Diablo 3). To be sure it makes for an effective DRM scheme, but the seamless MP direction they are going for with SC required a server-side game anyhow.

Re:SimCity, a DRM game to stay away from

[Tagged_84]

Exactly what I told myself when I pre-ordered Diablo 3...

Re:SimCity, a DRM game to stay away from

[Tagged_84]

I call bull on requiring server side! As a game programmer and a SimCity fanatic I saw nothing in any of the promo videos to suggest it, and I was looking out for it to determine for myself.

Re:SimCity, a DRM game to stay away from

[Anonymous Coward]

When's the last time you were off line for any significant amount of time?

That's not really the issue, and just FYI the parent is being a little bit of a troll by calling it "DRM". The issue is that even when you play in single player mode, your city is still influenced (to a certain degree) by the Global Economy comprised of all cities, everywhere. The Global System is actually run by Maxis on their servers, so even when playing by yourself you need to be able to reach their servers. Think about that statement carefully- if you are offline, you're screwed. If Maxis goes offline, you're screwed. If they take the servers down, you're screwed. Not only is it no offline play, but even "solo" play is not truly 100% solo.

Now it is true that it's perfectly possible for Maxis to allow an offline mode where the Global Economy is simulated locally, but they seem to have decided that's not a viable option. It also looks like there will be no God Mode Terrain editing prior to starting a city or region, and also no ability to make custom maps and scenarios won't exist either. My suspicion is that they are doing things this way in order to prevent people from being able to manipulate the global marketplace unfairly, for example by editing a new city full of nothing but power plants, which would depress the prices for power across the Global Economy due to the sudden increase in production. But again, they could have given us options to make and play cities completely solo- but they did not.

Since Maxis keeps ignoring the concerns of the fanbase (their forums are a major mess) I think I'm going to have to take a pass on this one, at least until someone puts out software to simulate the Maxis servers, etc.

Re:SimCity, a DRM game to stay away from

[Tridus]

When's the last time a server went down?

Pretty recently, and frequently. Diablo 3 says hello, as does everything on uplay.

Re:SimCity, a DRM game to stay away from

[drinkypoo]

the seamless MP direction they are going for with SC required a server-side game anyhow.

No, it doesn't. It's called replication, and databases have been doing it for a long time now.

Re:SimCity, a DRM game to stay away from

[Alioth]

There are plenty of games about that don't require internet access. They might not be the big blockbuster stuff, but they are *good* games nonetheless.

On the entirely separate problem of rip-off hotel WiFi, this is the reason I tend to stay in B&Bs run as small family businesses rather than chain hotels like Travelodge. Firstly, the "low price" chain hotels are only low price for a vanishing minority of customers, most the time you book the £19 offer isn't actually on. The "low price" hotels are often times more expensive than a B&B. Virtually all the B&Bs that I've stayed at have free wi-fi. With hotel finders online like booking.com it's very easy to find and book with the non-chain hotels and B&Bs now, and just as easy to book as one of the big so-called "low cost" chain hotels. Whether the situation is the same in NZ, I don't know but it wouldn't surprise me. (Only in the United States have I found that chain hotels have free wi-fi).

If I'm forced to stay in a hotel with no free wifi, I just tether my phone. Most of the time 3G access works just as well. (Same goes for over priced WiFi access in airports).

Re:SimCity, a DRM game to stay away from

[Hatta]

That's not really the issue, and just FYI the parent is being a little bit of a troll by calling it "DRM".

No, that's the honest way to put it.

The issue is that even when you play in single player mode, your city is still influenced (to a certain degree) by the Global Economy comprised of all cities, everywhere

Then it's not a single player game. They should provide an actual single player mode, but they haven't. Why do you think they wouldn't?

The Global System is actually run by Maxis on their servers, so even when playing by yourself you need to be able to reach their servers.

And why would they do that?

Now it is true that it's perfectly possible for Maxis to allow an offline mode where the Global Economy is simulated locally, but they seem to have decided that's not a viable option

Again, what possible reason could they have to do that? Set all the parameters of the global economy to sane defaults, or let the player set them, and you're good.

But again, they could have given us options to make and play cities completely solo- but they did not.

Right, they could have but didn't, and they've offered no satisfactory reasons why they didn't. It's not possible to simply ascribe this to incompetence. They know what their players want and they are deliberately not delivering on it. The Sim City "Global Economy" is nothing but a DRM scheme. Period.

Re:SimCity, a DRM game to stay away from

[trdrstv]

When's the last time you were off line for any significant amount of time?

Every time I travel for work on an Airplane. I'm generally in the air for a few hours alone, offline and with my laptop. I personally won't buy a game that doesn't have an offline mode for this reason.

Re:SimCity, a DRM game to stay away from

[tepples]

When's the last time you were off line for any significant amount of time?

This morning while riding the bus to work.

Re:SimCity, a DRM game to stay away from

[tompaulco]

When's the last time you were off line for any significant amount of time?
When playing a game? That's easy. I'm never online when playing a game.

Re:SimCity, a DRM game to stay away from

[sheehaje]

I haven't used it recently, but doesn't Steam Offline Mode allow for games to be played while offline?

Re:SimCity, a DRM game to stay away from

[lgw]

Often, yes, though it seems to bite you more than it should. Sadly, however, a great many games sold on Steam use their own "always connected" DRM instead of Steam's own (usually) non-intrusive DRM. It's a shame, really.

they should drop per sim stuff and have bigger map

[Joe_Dragon]

they should drop per sim stuff and have bigger maps.

There new engine is cool but they should cut some stuff and have bigger maps or least down the road as cpus get more power.

I'm betting on Valve being sneaky here...

[MetricT]

I suspect Valve will surprise us this year. We know they have their Steam console coming out this year. But the XBox 720 and Playstation 4 are also coming out.

So Valve has to be running right out of the gate. My hunch is that they have Half-Life 3, Left 4 Dead 3, Team Fortress 3, perhaps even Portal 3 either sitting on the shelf, or close enough that they could ship within a few months. Those title are to Valve what Mario is to Nintendo, or Halo is to XBox. Drop them all at once, and I suspect you'l sell a fark-ton of Valve boxes overnight.

Re:I'm betting on Valve being sneaky here...

[BigZee]

Whilst I share your hope that we will see a new Half Life game soon (either HL2 Ep 3 or HL3) and a new Portal, I don't think that we will be seeing a new Xbox or PS any time soon. I don't think I'm alone in thinking that Sony have been giving serious consideration to leaving the games market. The PS3 was a huge investment that I'm not sure that present Sony can afford. It's worth remembering that when launched, Sony had hopes that the PS3 would have a seriously long lifespan (in excess of 10 years) and this certainly hasn't been reached yet. Additionally, I'm really not sure if a new console is needed yet. Granted a new console allows you to get new features out there as standard (Move and eye for example could be standard equipment) but I'm not convinced that there is so severe a shortcoming in power or graphical ability that warrants a new console. If you look at the WiiU as an example, sure it's a lot more powerful than the Wii. But it's not really much more powerful than the PS3 or Xbox360. I think the simple reason for this is that it doesn't need to be. Right now it can play all the games that the designers throw at it and I think the same still goes for PS3 and Xbox. Xbox is different. MS is still rich. However, I think that with the combination of a well regarded online service and the kinect device, again I don't see any rush to replace the console with something new. Let's not forget after all, the console is 'just' the platform. Whether your console is a loss leader or not, I've no doubt that the biggest element of profit will come from selling games and services, not from console sales.

Re:I'm betting on Valve being sneaky here...

[cbhacking]

The Wii U doesn't have a particularly impressive CPU compared to the 360 or PS3, but its GPU is notably better (which is sort of an embarrassing position for the "hardcore gaming" consoles to be in) and - possibly most critically - it has vastly more RAM. In 2005, 512MB of RAM was an acceptable amount for a gaming system. Today, it's a low-end smartphone... or a "serious" gaming console. Consoles could do *so* much with more RAM. Even if it's not used for anything more than heavy background pre-caching to eliminate load screen and so forth once and for all, that would be major progress. More realistically, though, it could but used for everything from bigger maps with more in-depth environments to vastly more advanced AIs to much better-quality textures and models and possibly even things like custom sound packs, serious character customization options, and all the other little tricks that PC gaming has had for at least half a decade and is gimped if present at all on the console.

Re:I'm betting on Valve being sneaky here...

[spikestabber]

Valve would actually be saving the PC gaming market, as all those games will typically be on PC Steam as well! Todays typical console business model from the big 3 is growing old, and frankly I'm tired of getting gouged. Valve will bring a breath of fresh air! Put a lot of those cheap Steam specials on a Valve console, and they will come, in droves... allow you to play games elsewhere at friends based on steam login, and uh, you get the idea.... Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft would have to change their pathetic gouging business model completely in order to compete with Steam... I'm sure people would buy the Steam console just to get brand new games on release without having to leave their couch...

Re:I'm betting on Valve being sneaky here...

[spikestabber]

Also, Sony and Microsoft won't even be ready with their new consoles for at least another year, its quite a long time to wait when their hardware is the limiting factor in todays games.... everything has to be watered down for the PS3/360... and that disease spreads to todays PC games... its consolitis at its finest.

Re:I'm betting on Valve being sneaky here...

[spikestabber]

Adding onto that, you can bet your existing Steam library will have some sort of nice bearing on what games come with your Steam console...

Re:I'm betting on Valve being sneaky here...

[CronoCloud]

You do know that the PSN store, the Xbox marketplace, and the Wiii shop, have cheap games and sales as we That sort of thing wasn't invented by Steam. Where have you been the last 6 years?

SimCity? Command and Conquer?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm going to save you all a lot of time and frustration here.

If you want to play either of these games, go fire up DOSBox and play the originals. Yes, the originals. In DOS. At 320x480 or 640x480 resolution.

If you're not open minded enough to take a nice retro trip into the past and enjoy yourself, fine- go play the next CoD game, I'm sure they're looking for fresh meat. If you're sick and tired of all this modern shit like I am, then DOSBox (or Boxer if you're on Mac OS X) is a wonderful vacation from the horrific nature of modern day grindfests.

SimCity 2000 may be simple, but it's clean and efficient and rewarding to play. There's no random bullshit like "atmospheric quality" driving down the cost of your land or stupid in-game region restrictions preventing the construction of skyscrapers.

And C&C... Man, the original is a work of art. The music, sound effects, graphics, and full-motion videos- amazing. Even the game installer is awesome (it's all animated and stuff if you've never seen it before- the first sound I ever heard a computer make was EVA saying "Sound hardware initialized" during the installation after I bought my first PC and a copy of what would later be renamed C&C Tiberium Dawn).

This modern day shit that EA has their hands over is all poo. SimCity 5 is an online-based game, and you can't escape the online features (some of which influence your game). Command and Conquer has never been the same since Red Alert 3 and C&C 3 (don't even talk to me about C&C 4- that game was such a bastardization of the franchise it deserves to be filed on the same shelf as Renegade).

So, seriously, if you're looking at the list of games we're getting in 2013 and thinking "What is this mindless clusterfuck of dead franchises and crippled games for people who don't appreciate a proper challenge", then take a trip back in time and play the originals. You'll enjoy them more then this cookie cutter bullshit EA is busy grunting out.

Re:SimCity? Command and Conquer?

[bemymonkey]

Depends what you're looking for, I suppose.

I quite enjoyed the CoD Modern Warfare games, and was enthralled by the fact that they play more like a movie than a game. On higher difficulty levels they were hard enough to be challenging, and had better plots than many games I've played (because let's be honest: Video game storylines nearly always suck, and the ones that were extremely good for video games pale in comparison to books or movies/TV).

Re:SimCity? Command and Conquer?

[RogueyWon]

Actually, disagree a bit on C&C. The original is a hugely important game. In many ways, it's more the "true" father of the modern RTS than Dune 2. While Dune 2 gets the credit in most accounts, what people forget is that it lacked two absolutely key, defining features of every RTS made since Command & Conquer - drag-click unit selection and multiplayer. Without drag-click selection, Dune 2 became a nightmare to play once your army grew in size beyond a dozen or so units.

However, despite its importance, I don't think C&C has aged all that well. Its left-click interface feels clumsy, unit design and balance are crude and the resource gathering mechanics are poor. It's an interesting historical artifact, but if you want to play an old-school RTS, then Starcraft and Total Annihilation are both better propositions.

Also worth bearing in mind that Westwood weren't exactly innocent victims in the C&C story. They did just as much as EA, if not more, to drive the franchise into the ground. C&C was revolutionary, Red Alert was fun but felt like treading water, while C&C2 and Red Alert 2 were both dreadful games. Their technology and game mechanics were both utterly obsolete by the time they launched, while the production values of the famous cutscenes had actually fallen since the first generation titles.

Also worth remembering that the (superb) C&C3 was an EA game. C&C4 may have been a train-wreck, but they really managed to do a very successful updating of the franchise with 3.

Re:SimCity? Command and Conquer?

[sa1lnr]

Plus you can get them free.

http://www.fileplanet.com/107766/0/section/Game-Clients/

http://www.fileplanet.com/197426/190000/fileinfo/Command-&-Conquer:-Red-Alert-(Full-Game---Allied)

http://www.fileplanet.com/210105/210000/fileinfo/Command-&-Conquer:-Tiberian-Sun-(Full-Game)

Re:SimCity? Command and Conquer?

[drinkypoo]

If you really want to experience the dawn of RTSs you shouldn't play C&C anyway, you should play Dune 2. The interface is no worse.

Re:SimCity? Command and Conquer?

[RogueyWon]

Except as I said before, there's no drag-clicking (or any other form of multiple unit selection). So if you want to send a large group of units across the map, you have to tell each one to move individually. Co-ordinated attacks in the later missions become all but impossible. The AI labours under no such restriction. Dune 2 was a stepping stone towards the modern RTS, C&C was the first true modern RTS.

It's amazing how many people swear blind that Dune 2 had drag-clicking - I suspect most of them are basing their memories on the later remake, Dune 2000, which updated Dune 2 onto the C&C interface (and added multiplayer). But if you look out the original, you'll find the truth - no multiple unit selection and no multiplayer.

Re:SimCity? Command and Conquer?

[drinkypoo]

Well, now you're making me want to bring my Amiga 1200 out of the suitcase and see if that's true over there, too. But I'm not actually going to. I wonder if I have a udf though

Re:SimCity? Command and Conquer?

[RogueyWon]

It's true for the Amiga version as well. And for the (little remembered) Genesis version. The game's whole UI and menu-bar system is designed around single unit control.

The other odd thing about Dune 2, compared to more modern RTSes, is that the fog of war doesn't get re-covered after being explored once. This was also true for C&C - the modern idea of RTS fog of war didn't get introduced until Warcraft 2, although the much earlier proto-RTS Battletech 2 did something similar, where the player could see all terrain, but could only see enemy units that were in line of sight or sensor range of one of his own.

In C&C multiplayer, of course, dashing a fast unit into the enemy's base early on so that you could see what he was building for the rest of the game was an essential strategy - as was working out which areas around your own base your opponent couldn't see yet. Alternatively, as all of my C&C1 multiplayer was done via LAN or serial cable, you could substitute a sneaky glance over your shoulder at your opponent's screen.

Re:SimCity? Command and Conquer?

[CastrTroy]

And then Starcraft took a step back and only let you select 12 units at a time. Moving frrom C&C where you could select as many units as you wanted to, and move them across the map, to Starcraft, where you could only select 12 units at a time, was quite painful.

Re:SimCity? Command and Conquer?

[eth1]

Just stay away from AAA titles completely, is what I'm learning (especially if it has "EA" anywhere on the box). You have to deal with DRM, always-online requirements, being unplayable without community bugfix mods, etc. Not to mention the stunted PC interfaces due to console cross-development (Bethesda, I'm looking at you).

I've had way more fun with the little indie games like Minecraft and Kerbal Space Program than any of the bigger titles (although Minecraft isn't so little any more).

Re:SimCity? Command and Conquer?

[RogueyWon]

Yes, that was deeply odd in Starcraft (and is one of the reasons why I never warmed to the game). See, I can understand why you might not need to be able to select many units in some RTSes - the likes of Mech Commander or Dawn of War 2, where the emphasis is on making best use of a small number of units. In fact, if you're playing Dawn of War 2 on anything above Easy difficulty and you find yourself drag-clicking multiple units, you're doing something wrong.

But Starcraft is a "big army" game, particularly if you're playing as Zerg. Now, I know that at the top-tier competitive level, players are using insane amounts of micromanagement. But for your average player working through the singleplayer campaign, having to break armies up into 12 unit parcels in order to move them just felt odd and unnatural.

Re:SimCity? Command and Conquer?

[jandrese]

The thing that killed C&C3, and especially RA3 for me was that they were heavily focused on online multiplayer, but were still using hacked up network code from 1995 that didn't play well with NAT. It boggled my mind that you couldn't just set up a simple port forward for the game and make it work, especially for RA3 where the whole shtick was the co-op campaign.

Re:SimCity? Command and Conquer?

[CronoCloud]

Not to mention the stunted PC interfaces due to console cross-development (Bethesda, I'm looking at you).

It's not entirely the console's fault, but what the console "might" be using for display. Bethesda designed their UI on their recent games to be as usable as possible even on SD displays which is why it is wha it is.

I once took my PS3 over to a friends house to show him Oblivion and he only had an SD set. Was surprised how legible the UI was. (I've seen issues with UI that didn't work well on SD displays even dating back the PSone which could only be connected to an SD set...Darkstone I'm looking at you.)

But that does mean that the UI is a touch larger than necessary on HD displays and high resolution PC monitors. Personally I wouldn't have minded a scaled UI even on the PS3 version.

As for playability... find that Fallout 3's UI was my favorite, Oblivion and Skyrim...not so much.

Re:SimCity? Command and Conquer?

[EvanED]

I've been a SimCity fan for ages (well, since SC2K), and occasionally go back and play old versions, mostly SC2K and SC4. And I sort of agree, but... sort of disagree.

I'm not going to be buying the new one until it comes down rather a lot in price (because of the DRM), but that is a painful decision: I admit to drooling a bit at the things like nice curved roads that can help give you cities that... well, actually look more like real cities. Not to mention a lot of the other things that you see in the videos that EA has released. From what I've seen, I think it the new one looks like it has an enormous potential to be fantastic.

I agree that the originals are also great and that we shouldn't forget them... but I also think that you shouldn't dismiss the new iterations, because they look great too.

Re:SimCity? Command and Conquer?

[TranquilVoid]

Red Alert was fun but felt like treading water, while C&C2 and Red Alert 2 were both dreadful games. Their technology and game mechanics were both utterly obsolete by the time they launched

Good analysis but have to disagree on RA2. To my mind it is the best of the franchise. The game engine was dated* but it had the fun aspect in spades and a fine balance that was kept even with the introduction of the Yuri side in the expansion. RA3 kept a good part of the fun and campy cut scenes but suffered from balance problems (Shogun being the prime culprit)**

* Interestingly my very casual-gaming brother commented the other day that the 3D of RA3 was more confusing. I've similarly felt that it tends to add eye candy with a bit of a cost to the big-picture, and warzone control is what an RTS is all about.

** Part of this is that our LAN games tend to feature a gentleman's agreement that nobody attacks until the first superweapon is built, allowing ample time for everyone to create large armies of the top technology. We find this creates more epic and interesting battles. I know online battles would never even get to shoguns, but they tend to be 10-minute frantic clickfests and not as much fun.

DayZ Standalone

[ArsonSmith]

been playing the Mod for a while and I'm running a server now. This was a fresh change to gaming in general. I really like the no scripted scenes "make your own story" style of the game.

Translation from market speech

[Anonymous Coward]

Star Wars 1313: 'Early glimpses suggest the game will ignore lightsabers and force powers in favor of gadgetry and guns, and the claims are for a more grounded and gritty fiction, instead of the fruity pan-galactic melodrama to which we are accustomed.'

A linear shooter.

The Elder Scrolls Online: 'The real reason to watch The Elder Scrolls Online is the talent behind it – the ex-Mythic developers responsible for the innovative Warhammer: Age of Reckoning and, before that, Dark Age of Camelot.

Another MMO brought to you by the guys that had NPCs standing 100% still, not moving at all, with no aggro range when they released Warhammer Online. Also, the quests were completely linear too. Considering the quality of their past efforts I think I'll pass.

Mars: War Logs: 'Say it with me: a cyberpunk RPG set on Mars. That's all you need to know.'

Impossible to judge anything about this game with this description. Since its all I need to know then apparently I don't need to figure out if its worth playing..

Ring Runner: 'Missions challenge you to escape exploding trenches, battle bosses bigger than your screen, race against NPC pilots and engage in spectacular space skirmishes in an engine modeled on the laws of Newtonian physics.'

Pretty much every collision library (and thus almost all 3D games) out there are based on Newtonian physics. However the quote does at least give *some* hope that this game could have something interesting game-play. The rest of the description doesn't really give me any idea what kind of game to expect though.

There will also be new installments of Dragon Age, SimCity, Grand Theft Auto, StarCraft, Command & Conquer, and Everquest.

Yay. More rehashed sequels.

Color me bored.

Re:Translation from market speech

[globalist]

LOL, exactly! And I thought I was the only one completely turned off by this summary,

Re:Translation from market speech

[zlives]

brought to you by another effing advertising website /.

CoH and Rome 2

[happyhamster]

Company of Heroes 2 [http://www.companyofheroes.com/]

Total War Rome 2 [http://www.totalwar.com/en_us/rome2]

Re:CoH and Rome 2

[Dexter Herbivore]

If they ever get released, THQ filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on December 19th. Presumably they'll try to monetize whatever developed IP is left, so we may yet get a release but I'm not holding my breath.

Re:CoH and Rome 2

[bfandreas]

They are not dead yet. 'Tis but a flesh wound.

Re:CoH and Rome 2

[bigstrat2003]

Well, Rome Total War 2 isn't a THQ game, so no need to worry there. And CoH 2 is so far along in development that even if THQ tanks, it's all but guaranteed that whoever buys the rights will pay Relic the (relatively) small amount that it will take to finish the game, and reap the profits. I have no doubt that we will see CoH 2, regardless of what happens with THQ.

Re:CoH and Rome 2

[desdinova 216]

why is when I saw CoH I thought something completely different.

Star Wars the Old Republic

[Billly Gates]

The rise of the HUTS expansion is coming out! I know those who played it just for 24 hours dumped it because it didn't have 7 years of updates like Wow, but it has improved and I actually like it and consider it a success regardless of everyone trying to make it a failure.

I look forward to playing it. FYI I have flashpoints, dungeon finders, and other things to do after I cap now. I think it got shafted by Wow users and management at EA before it hit the light of day.

Re:Star Wars the Old Republic

[desdinova 216]

I think it got shafted by users and management at EA before it hit the light of day.

Fixed

Re:Star Wars the Old Republic

[Billly Gates]

EA totally ruined it and forced free to play. They could have made the expansion bigger and let more money come in as now it is turning into a loss. The update is digital only which sucks.

Re:Star Wars the Old Republic

[lgw]

Better to say "EA mishandled free-to-play badly". FTP isn't necessarily bad for an MMO - there are examples of it done well, but SWTOR doesn't seem to be one of them. The designers have to be quite careful about avoiding the appearance of "pay to win", and SWTOR just wasn't; presumably EA at work.

Re:Dead Space 3

[EricTheMad]

It's second on the list of Action games.

Re:GTA V - No PC version

[Anonymous Coward]

You're better off without it. GTA IV required like four logins and nine kinds of DRM to even get to the point where it would crash.

Re:GTA V - No PC version

[cgt]

I wish I hadn't spent my last modpoint on something else. I hope this pseudo-modpoint is adequate.

Warhammer Online Devs making TES Online?

[Anonymous Coward]

'The real reason to watch The Elder Scrolls Online is the talent behind it – the ex-Mythic developers responsible for the innovative Warhammer: Age of Reckoning"

That isn't exactly the sort of thing to fill one with any sort of confidence about The Elder Scrolls Online.

Makes me worry that the game might suck. And that the subscription fee might end up being charged to my card a bajillion times when the billing system suddenly becomes self-aware or possessed by daedra and goes haywire.

Starwars 1313

[MimeticLie]

As promising as the one sentence description in the summary sounds, keep in mind that its being directed by Dominic Robilliard, the man behind The Force Unleashed 2. TFU2, you might remember, was a mediocre action game with a story that was ridiculous even by the standards of the Star Wars franchise, which already has more than its fair share of bad writing. It was rightly critically panned, and as far as I know sales weren't that hot either.

If the guy behind a game that Joystiq called "glorified fan fiction" about a character named "Starkiller" is capable of producing a "grounded and gritty fiction", I'll be quite surprised.

Ooh, ~Mythic~

[Bieeanda]

Dark Age of Camelot managed to survive for years and multiple expansions, despite Mythic's relentless inability to tune the game's main draw, massive realm-vs-realm PVP conflict. Warhammer Online's population more than halved in less than a year for the exact same reason. EA kept them on to develop content for Ultima Online, which has become what the Sims Online wishes it could have been, and virtually nothing came of that either. Seeing them attached to a big, risky project like this makes me wince.

Space Opera!

[Saint Dharma]

I think this might just be a return of some really good games to the fore and a nostalgic trip for many with titles like Rise of the Triad, Shadowrun: Online and Carmageddon coming out. Mistborn: Birthright, Shadownrun Returns and Nuclear Union look promising. And I just have to say this about Star Wars 1313: Fruity pan-galactic melodrama is no substitution for having a blaster by your side, kid. Too much emphasis has been on the Jedi and not enough on the scoundrels and other things that operate in the between spaces. Let's just hope that it breaks the suck cycle for Star Wars games. Now could someone PLEASE re-release Star Wars X-Wing, TIE Fighter and X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter on GOG please?

Stuff 2013, tell me about 2011

[MrL0G1C]

The games are not particularly improving in any way and the 2011 games are going cheap and have been bug-fixed and the DLCs are often all thrown in for free, So, what are the best 20 games of 2011, that is honestly what I'd prefer to know.

Re:Stuff 2013, tell me about 2011

[Narot23]

Isn't that the truth. I spent maybe $60 on Steam & The Humble THQ bundle combined. I've got enough backlog to put me through 2014 at this point. The games of 2013 will be exciting once they've got GoTY editions, been fully patched, and liquidated on a Steam sale.

Re:Stuff 2013, tell me about 2011

[trdrstv]

Yup. To me 2012 was a great year in Retro-Gaming; I've been buying older games for cheap and having a great time. I got something like 15 "new to me" games off the last steam sales and didn't crack the $60 (for all of them combined). If it was a good game 2-3 years ago, it's probably still a good game and all patched up.

Re:Stuff 2013, tell me about 2011

[CronoCloud]

Now I'm all for buying budget games and whatnot, but playing devil's advocate here...

Considering you say you spent $60 on Steam and the THQ bundle combined....that all those games weren't worth more than a few bucks apiece?

You know why publishers and dev houses think PC gamers are bunch of cheapskates and pirates......THAT. What was the average price set for the bundle 6 bucks? When Saints row the Third is still on the shelves for as a budget title for 19.99?

Re:Stuff 2013, tell me about 2011

[maestroX]

hm-m-m, on top of my head:

• Halo
• Max Payne
• Age of Empires 2 age of kings
• Red Faction
• diablo 2
• Serious Sam
• Black & White
• Civ 3
• IL-2

2001, m-most excellent choice, m'am.

So many games

[physburn]

Thats is indeed a long compressive list, more games than i can remember, and more than made my feed

---

3D Shooter Games Feed @ Feed Distiiler

Re:I don't see anything yet....

[MareLooke]

Westwood is dead and BioWare is going the same way. In the "best" case the name will stick around for a while as a front for EA, of all the actual talent nobody still works at BioWare and hasn't for a while (which I personally think should be pretty obvious if you look at their latest releases).

MMOwise I only have some faith in World of Darkness as far as mainstream releases go, it's the only game developed by a company known for successfully running a not-a-dime-a-dozen-MMO game for years (EVE is turning 10 this year). Then again it seems they want to crack open the casual market with Dust (sucking up to Sony, that can't end well) and WoD, so we'll have to see how many of their "greed is good" attitude stuck around, they might just be trying to decrease their dependance on EVE so they can force unpopular decisions through without risking the company, but maybe I'm just cynical...(I'm also digressing horribly) But at least they know (from experience with EVE) that politics (and economics) can make for really interesting gameplay elements, most mainstream MMO lack proper politics or a proper player market.

Re: serious question about SimCity

[bfandreas]

Buy Skyrim and mod it accordingly if you need fornicating polygons. They got lizard people on cat action, too. And dead people doing the nasty.

On the first day there was the Dragonborn. And Bethesda saw that it was good.
On the second day there was The Construction kit. And Bethesda was pleased.
On the third day there were hordes of naked people shouting at dragons and clubbing them to death with giant purple dildos. And Bethesda recieved all Game of the Year awards known to man.

Re:I don't see anything yet....

[C0R1D4N]

Ha! Elder Scrolls online only has the potential to fall and fall hard, just like Pathfinder Online. Everquest Next is going to crush everything in its way. It also wont be out until late 2014 at the earliest though.

TH13.5

[ikaruga]

Just got the demo CD. Hopeless Masquerade is going to be the best 2D fighter this year.
BTW if anyone is interested in future PC games I highly recommend this blog. May not be perfect but it is light years ahead the (mostly)disgusting list in the summary.

Surface Pro

[Barryke]

I hope Command & Conquer plays nice on a Surface Pro! (regarding touch and low end GPU)

I only yesterday found out there is a C&C Red Alert game by EA for iPad..

TESO is going to never make back its budget

[Tridus]

It's a high-budget theme park MMO in a world where launching those successfully is extremely difficult and the failure rate is very high. See: Pretty much every MMO that tried to launch in 2012. Particularly the subscription ones.

The market for these games stopped growing a while ago, and the players that are still around are so entrenched in their chosen game that prying them away is also pretty hard to do. If they were making a fairly modest budget game, it might have a shot. As it stands now, I just hope it doesn't destroy the series or sink Bethesda entirely.

Re:TESO is going to never make back its budget

[MachineShedFred]

I would mostly agree with you, except that the incumbent competition just released an expansion filled with beer crazed pandas, where you can literally farm vegetables every day.

If there was ever a time to launch a competitor to WoW in order to siphon off people still interested in the MMO format, now is that time.

boring remakes from big advertisers

[vlm]

Looks like boring FPS remakes from big advertisers. In the "real world" untainted by advertising dollars, the PC game outlook in 2013 looks like this:

Spiderweb software is working on two Avadon 2 games. There goes about 50 hours of my life for each.

Goblinworks will probably release something WRT pathfinder online. Coming from "real RPG people" there better not be any "bring me 5 bear skins" grindgarbage quests.

Will xplane release version 11 or will the patent troll who started attacking this year, successfully destroy the company?

Minecraft will probably do something, although I donno what.

(ok ok heres some fps news) I'm hoping the install process for dayz will be streamlined as it was a huge PITA about six months ago. Just put it on steam... linux steam please.

In the tired but not quite dead yet MMO arena, the spreadsheet with a 3-d screen saver masquerading as a MMORPG, EVE, will have some inter group drama and more stuff will be released into the game for (asteroid) grinding purposes, just like the last decade or so. Ditto WoW. I haven't been on EVE since 2005, when I spent about a month grinding to get up to the level of a mining barge, have I missed anything since then?

In the console arena, I was recently shocked coming from the ITMS and google play that the xbox "app store" only has something like ten apps, all of which were paid subscription portal "apps" (hulu plus, amazon prime, all that kind of paid stuff). I'm predicting they'll release a couple more, maybe bringing it up to the fertile level of the original 90s Palm ecosystem in another decade or so. Maybe they'll even have an app that doesn't involve giving someone else money, first.

Re:boring remakes from big advertisers

[ArsonSmith]

DayZ Commander (link from dayzmod.com) it can't be much more streamlined then point click install.

Re:boring remakes from big advertisers

[JDAustin]

". I haven't been on EVE since 2005, when I spent about a month grinding to get up to the level of a mining barge, have I missed anything since then?"

You have missed everything since. Since you decided to do the most boring thing their is in EVE, I understand why you played only a month.

SimCity is going to suffer for it's choice of DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

Since it will need an internet connection to start. Even in singleplayer mode.

Re:I don't see anything yet....

[N!k0N]

...the casual market with Dust (sucking up to Sony, that can't end well) and WoD

"Sucking up to Sony" with Dust because Msoft wouldn't let them run their own servers (TQ) and not push updates as often as they want (also, IIRC Msoft would've charged for the patches/updates). WOD got backburnered (for the time being) when CCP went off the deep end with EVE/greed is good/etc. Though they seemed to have learned their lesson with not making a bad decision (Incarna) and the last few patches have been pretty good...

Re:GTA V - No PC version

[dave562]

Thanks for the update. According to Rockstar's website you cannot pre-order the PC version. Also, the linked article mentions that it was not going to be available for the PC.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:I don't see anything yet....

[MareLooke]

Yeah, I just don't have much faith in Sony, they've run enough games into the ground not to mention how they tend to treat their community (been on the receiving end of SOE, they haven't seen a cent of me since).

Wish CCP had just made it a PC game so they didn't have to make concessions to these kinds of companies. Then again funding etc. Can't win 'em all I guess :( I would've bought a monocle if it had kept Sony away though ;-)

And yup, last patches have been really good as has their interaction with their players (CCP devs are awesome!). I really wish more developers participated in their player community like this.

I guess I've just grown really really cynical about upper management motivations for the stuff they do. Certain companies plain lying to their customers of course didn't help any (just to make it clear I am *not* referring to CCP here).

Anyway, didn't mean to sound so negative, CCP is doing awesome and we'll see what they do when they do it, if they stick to the road they're on then I'm more than happy to cruise along.

Realistic release predictions

[dywolf]

Games that won't be released and/or will be delayed into next year or the year after:

the next piece of StarCraft 2
HalfLife 2: Episode 3 and/or HalfLife 3
Diablo 3: Expansion

Games that will be released:
Medal of Honor 2013
Call of Duty 2013
Call of Duty Modern Warfare 4, 5, and 6
Call of Duty Spec Ops 3
Call of Duty Spinoff Number 6 2013
Madden 2013
NCAA Basketball 2013
FIFA Soccer 2013
Anything EA has ever made or bought 2013

Being able to feel the buttons

[tepples]

The current mantra is "console gaming is dying at the hands of tablets/phones/handhelds/PCs/free-to-play/lego (delete as appropriate).

Some games involve picking or placing objects at a given position on the screen; these are ideal for a phone or tablet. Other games involve controlling a character that moves around; these are a bit harder to adapt. I understand how to simulate the directional pad or left stick with touch: find the direction between the initial point of contact and the current touch point. But I don't understand how to provide more than one fire button. In my tests on a Nexus 7 tablet, I couldn't reliably press multiple on-screen buttons without looking at them: I'd end up either pressing the inactive area between the buttons or pressing a button adjacent to the button I wanted to press. The cause is that on a console or a dedicated handheld gaming system, the player's thumb can feel the edge of each button. A phone or tablet, on the other hand, has a completely flat sheet of glass that provides no such feedback.

Re:Being able to feel the buttons

[Chubby_C]

agreed, I find it much harder to play FPS on my tablet versus PC or Xbox

Animal Crossing

[tepples]

Apart from the exploring, perhaps what you want is Animal Crossing.

woop de do

[sdnoob]

more always on internet, single use serials, dlc that should be part of the original game, and shitty game endings...... just what we always wanted.

the drm being employed these days in games like the new simcity sucks. in this case, they actually went so far as to design the game to require ea servers to run (claiming the game needs the power of their servers, a single pc isn't good enough.. which is total bullshit), even in single player mode.. even if they did strip the drm part out. so in 2-3 years when ea gets tired of paying the upkeep on the servers, you're shit out of luck and your simcity flat-out won't work any more.

Re:woop de do

[trdrstv]

Yup. Which is why the we should refuse to buy these types of games, otherwise more get made. The ONLY always online games that make any sense is MMOs, everything else should at least have an offline mode for single player.

Re:Having a PC doesnt make you a gamer.

[PhxBlue]

I can see why you posted this anonymously; it's not likely to be a popular opinion. But I think you're introducing some hyperbole here.

No. 1, the online experiences are a lot better. PC users, in my admittedly limited experience, are more mature than their counterparts on XBox and PS3.

No. 2, a good gaming PC doesn't have to cost you $1,200. Buy a decently powerful CPU, an Asus motherboard and a $150 video card, and you'll have better graphics on your PC than console gamers have presently, for a lot less than $1,200. The only reason a gaming rig should cost you that much is if you buy a laptop or an Alienware PC.

Third, "To run a larger monitor you need a more powerful PC"? Um, no. If you want better screen resolutions, you'll want a more capable video card, but any video card in the $150 price range or above is going to give you far better graphics than you'll get from a console.

I'll concede the point on trading in console games, but I suspect the gaming industry will close that down as soon as they find a legal way to do it. But to say "the PC would be dead for gaming" if not for MMOs is to overlook the success of Steam and GOG.com.

Re:HOMM6

[DocSavage64109]

I bought HOMM6 on sale from steam and was also having crashes until I reverted to an older Nvidia video driver. From what I've read on the forums, anything 301.42 or older should work.

Re:GTA V - No PC version

[Zantetsuken]

It'd be funny if it weren't true.

I bought GTA4 on DVD, and had to make a "Games for Windows LIVE" account and "Rockstar Social Club" account and sign into both of those just to launch the game. At that point in time I hadn't gotten into Steam very much, but I remember thinking "Wow, it must really suck for the people that bought on Steam, that makes a 3rd account to sign into just to launch GTA4"

I don't know which was worse, that or buying non-Valve games on CD/DVD in store only to go home and it has to download 4GB from Steam...

Which all makes perfect sense now that I pretty much only buy games on Steam.

Re:GTA V - No PC version

[Your.Master]

No, it says that it isn't announced yet, but they expect it for PC nonetheless.

"Multi-platform" means Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3

[tepples]

Subject: Most games are multiplatform these days...

... so platform is rarely a concern anymore.

Except for first-party games of course. And for a lot of other games, especially those based on local multiplayer such as fighters and cooperative platformers, "multi-platform" means Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. What's the PC counterpart to a game like Power Stone (Dreamcast, PSP) or Super Smash Bros. (Nintendo first-party) or PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale (Sony first-party) or Mortal Kombat (2011) (Xbox 360, PS3)?

Loss of consistency

[tepples]

It's called replication, and databases have been doing it for a long time now.

Google "CAP theorem". As you tolerate a disconnected node (or a "partition"), you start to lose consistency. Loss of consistency implies ability to cheat at a multiplayer game.

Re:Loss of consistency

[drinkypoo]

As you tolerate a disconnected node (or a "partition"), you start to lose consistency. Loss of consistency implies ability to cheat at a multiplayer game.

There are lots of strategies for synchronizing databases after disconnection, but the most obvious is to use some type of remote verification. Or if they can't handle that, then you simply need an offline mode where you create a city you can only use in private games. Either way I'm not buying anything online-only, especially not a long-running game like Simcity. Especially since Simcity games have always been some of the crashiest titles in my library, and I live in bumfuck where the networks are slow. Steam is a problem for me for the same reason.

Re:I agree but..

[MetricT]

I don't think those games will be "exclusive", not in the traditional sense.

Microsoft/Sony seem to be aiming for a Christmas 2013 release for their new consoles.

If Valve were to release their Steam box in, say, July, with HL3/L4D3/TF3/P3 as launch titles, they would have 6 months of exclusivity simply because the competing platforms haven't been released yet. And that 6 months would be enough to let them steal a *lot* of potential Xbox 720/PS4 customers away. I know I'd buy one in a split second.

Re:I don't see anything yet....

[CronoCloud]

Then again it seems they want to crack open the casual market with Dust (sucking up to Sony, that can't end well)

Dust514 isn't a "casual" shooter like "Call of the Honor of the Medal of the Battlefield of Duty Calls", it is VERY complex.

The things going to need a godlike tutorial in order to explain even the basics.

Re:I don't see anything yet....

[CronoCloud]

Yeah, I just don't have much faith in Sony, they've run enough games into the ground not to mention how they tend to treat their community (been on the receiving end of SOE, they haven't seen a cent of me since).

Sony doesn't run Dust514, CCP does. It's only published "on" the PS3, CCP is still the developer and publisher of it.

Re: serious question about SimCity

[maestroX]

Sorry, award in the pixel category is taken. WARNING NSFW

Re:Having a PC doesnt make you a gamer.

[CronoCloud]

No. 1, the online experiences are a lot better. PC users, in my admittedly limited experience, are more mature than their counterparts on XBox and PS3.

Depends on the game actually. you're probably referring to the "call of the Duty of honor on the Battlefied of Ops" crowd. those games are heavily marketed to the 15-25 year old homophobic epithet spewing "dudebro gamer" market.

Play games other than "Call of the Medal of Battlefield Honor" and it's better.

Buy a decently powerful CPU, an Asus motherboard and a $150 video card, and you'll have better graphics on your PC than console gamers have presently, for a lot less than $1,200

How much less? That videocard alone is half the price of a PS3 and the rest of the machine would probably make it about double the price of a PS3. I see it this way:

1. My gaming budget is finite.

2. Sure I could use Windows (shudder, I run Fedora) and do PC gaming I do have a minecraft install and STO that I run via WINE), but.

3. I can get the same experience for less money on a PS3...and have more money left over for more games.

4. Sure a PC I spent more money on might give me a somewhat better graphical experience, but in my personal experience is not "that much" better as to justify the price premium. (I've done some testing with a few cross platform titles over the years)

Besides, there are some in the PC gaming community who would consider someone gaming on even your "budget" rig to not be a "real enthusiast". Check out Maximum PC...they recommend a Baseline Rig....and it costs $1.148! (In fact they has to downgrade the rig because prices jumped a bit on the hardware they had in it to keep it at the budget they set for their "Baseline budget rig"

But to say "the PC would be dead for gaming" if not for MMOs is to overlook the success of Steam and GOG.com.

Steam and GOG are recent developments. It was MMO's and RTS's that kept PC gaming alive from the late PSone period to the beginning of the PS3. Look at the magazines of that time...MMO and RTS centric. (besides the usual shooters) Now tthat there's a large shooter audience on the PS3 and 360, it's still RTS, MMO and MOBA keeping PC gaming alive alongside Counter-Strike and Team Fortress.
yeah, sure, there's other games but those are niche markets, compared to the big market games.

And like Steam and GOG, PSN Store, Xbox marketplace and Wii shop also have "indie games", older games, sales and discounts.

Re:ESO

[desdinova 216]

and IIRC most of what went wrong with Tabula Rasa was NcSoft committing forgery to kill it.

Re:Planetary Annihilation, offspring of Total Anni

[Flere Imsaho]

Cool, TA was a kick-ass game. Thanks for the heads-up

Re:SWG and DAOC

[Phrogman]

If they could combine the sandbox elements of a game like SWG with the combat and Realm vs Realm of Dark Age of Camelot, they might have a real winner on their hands. This game is being developed by folks that worked on DAOC so its a good start - but it might be merely a third attempt to revive the popularity and loyalty of that title, which they failed to do with Warhammer Online.
With WAR they failed because they over-engineered it I think, and their design relied too much on PvP at all levels, when players progress up in levels and leave the lower levels behind. If you don't have a steady stream of new players coming in, its going to start falling apart. WAR had a few faults that drove me and my friends away from it, but this TESO looks like they are directly trying to recreate the same sort of design as DAOC.

As for Sandbox games it would be great to see that sort of design return to the MMO world. Everyone focusing on trying to out-WOW WOW meant the industry gave up on Sandbox designs entirely. They lost a lot of dedicated players that way I think. When you play a game that is highly immersive, you gain an attachment to characters that is much more pronounced than when you just rollup "Gunnar FuckYuUp", picking his class based on what is the easiest to level and most overpowered in the endgame, pick his equipment based on what is the nastiest stuff you can get, and then go do an endless series of quests/raids etc just to get all the accolades required to make you as overpowered as possible so you never face a challenge.

Star Wars Galaxies was a great game in its first itteration, with a tremendous ambition behind its design. It had a lot of strengths and although not without fault, it was generally a great example of the MMO - until subsequent developers got ahold of it and driven headlong by the beancounters screaming "why don't we have WOW like subscription numbers?", changed the game to make it worse, then changed it further to make it the worse design possible.
(As an aside, if you still have your install disks for SWG, check out http://www.swgemu.com/ - you can play the old game as of patch 14.1, legally. Its still in development, and a lot of things are not working yet but it is playable).

DAOC had the best online community I have ever seen in an MMO. I played on the RP PvP servers (mostly Percival in Midgard Realm but also on the other 2 servers in Albion and Hibernia). The design let you pick whether or not you wanted to be engaging in PvP (visit the frontier zones) or strictly PvE (stay in your realm zones). It had a decent quest system - although typical of the repetitive design of that generation, it had decent raids (although again limited by the level of typical development at the time. Things have changed since).
It had the best PvP in the form of Realm Versus Realm combat - and I recall many very memorable events - sieges that lasted days, Relic raids that were planned 2 weeks in advance and then carried out with lightening precision, real pride in being part of one's realm etc.

I doubt you can ever go back truly but it will be interesting to see them try. I am sure I will give it a shot when it comes out. I miss Midgard immensely, and Ebonheart looks very close in a lot of ways :P

Re:I don't see anything yet....

[JDAustin]

One thing that was left unsaid about EQNext is Smedley is a heavy EVE Online player. Unlike EQ, WOW, etc, EVE is a sandbox. If they threw out what was done before and restarted, then I think some of EVEs influences will be seen in EQNext.

Re:I don't see anything yet....

[C0R1D4N]

More interesting is to look at the tech they are demoing. EQemote which can match your facial movements to your characters. Combine with voice chat expectations. I believe our chars will be talking with our voices. LARP the MMO

State of Decay

[Sigg3.net]

Open-world survival game. The guys behind GTA has taken on the zombie apocalypse and given us a third person shooter, with AI survivors joining your self-built stronghold.

Also, the world continues to move when you're not playing.

Unfortunately, so far it's Xbox only. I won't buy another console.

Re:I don't see anything yet....

[EvanED]

Simcity - No. they fucked up the last one. It's going to be the sims online again. Bet. Maxis is dead. EAized. Shit.

Actually looks like this isn't true... I didn't play Societies (assuming that's what you mean by "the last one"), but the new one looks a lot more like an improved SC4 (which I consider a "true" SimCity).

It's got crap attached -- in particular always-online DRM -- which means I won't buy it until it comes way down in price, but as a big fan of the earlier games (2K, 3K, and 4; got into it too late for much experience with the original) I think it looks fantastic.

It's worth a look at least.

Re:Having a PC doesnt make you a gamer.

[EvanED]

The only advantage pc gaming has is that online experinces are better, the graphics are better and you can do mods.

And you have mouse and keyboard. Even I will admit that for some games controllers are better, but for others it's a matter of preference (e.g. FPS, where I much prefer keyboard/mouse) and for others controllers are a complete non-starter (the N64 Starcraft notwithstanding, things like hardcore RTS just won't work).

Also you have at least an opportunity for DRM-free games even if it only tends to be the occasional indie game that meets that criteria. (The fact that, with semi-rare exceptions, a game for $CONSOLE will run only on $CONSOLE and nothing else even later revisions of that line, acts somewhat as a form of DRM.)

I have better speakers on my tv because I also watch movies on it and tv.

I hooked my computer up to an actual receiver with multi-hundred-dollar speakers. Why didn't you?

(I also used to keep my gaming computer plugged into a 50-ish inch TV when I lived with my friend who owns it. Why didn't you?)

I mean sure pc has some interesting games you cant find anywhere else

In terms of recent and upcoming games:
- Civilization series
- Starcraft
- SimCity series
- Baldur's Gate enhanced edition [iOS & Android too]
- Frozen Synapse
- SpaceChem [iOS & Android too]
- Lots of other games I haven't played

And on top of this there are oodles of excellent old games which don't have console ports and are still worth playing. (Actually these comprise a fairly large percentage of what I play.)

Great!

[Sandra D]

Great! I have found some that I'm interested in.

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Re:SWG and DAOC

[servognome]

I applaud SWG for trying to be innovative. It had such a huge scope and social elements. The problem was it tried to be too smart, and made poor decisions on tried-and-true aspects. The worst culprit was instead of Health/Energy resource pools that have been the staple of RPGs for over a decade - they went with HAMS.