If you bought a World of Warcraft Annual Pass, you’re getting into the Mists of Pandaria beta. Soon(ish).
Blizzard said this week on the developer’s official forums that it’s in the process of dishing out 100,000 beta keys to Annual Pass holders, and that all Annual Pass holders are getting keys to the beta test of the game’s latest expansion before anyone who has “opted-in” to be a beta tester. The trouble, however, is technological.
You can’t just flood a fledgling system with users, and a big point in the Pandaria beta is stress-testing that system in order to make sure it can handle the full World of Warcraft crowd. To that end, Blizzard says it’s adding people slowly. It sent out a wave of Pandaria invites earlier this week, and the forum post recommends users keep an eye on inboxes and Battle.net accounts in order to make sure they’re ready when their beta keys eventually arrive.
Beta keys are coming, Annual Pass holders. Blizzard says it’s in the process of sending out those 100,000 keys, although it didn’t give a timetable as to when all those passes would be distributed.
Bioware’s classic is coming to iOS and PC as an enhanced edition later this year… The AppStore is not exactly short of RPG’s, but none quite have the gravitas, or indeed legacy, as Baldur’s Gate. The game was originally released in 1998, and now – after 14 years – it’s getting a revamp/remake as an [...]
Baldur’s Gate coming to iPad is a post from: TouchGen
For more of this article, visit http://www.touchgen.com or click on the story headline
Something is brewing in the world of Uncharted, and we’ll find out what, exactly, tomorrow.
PlayStation Norway’s Facebook account posted a picture (above) of Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen, with the word “uutforsket” across his face. The word translates to “unexplored.”
According to Wikipedia, Nansen explored Greenland and participated in an expedition that took him to the North Pole between 1893 and 1896.
Visiting the website uutforsket.no leads to a PlayStation splash page featuring an old-timey map and music reminiscent of the Uncharted series, with the following time stamp: March 22, 20:59.
Apparently, a similar stunt was pulled in Denmark before the release of Uncharted 3. A social campaign had fans solving riddles and following clues in pursuit of a fictional Danish treasure hunter, ultimately leading to a treasure hidden in Copenhagen.
Could the reveal be Uncharted 4? Another DLC? We’ll learn more tomorrow.
Way back in 1984, English teacher-turned-game developer Mike Singleton released a vast and innovative adventure gamed for the ZX Spectrum home computer called The Lords of Midnight. The game was extremely well received and garnered high praise for its gameplay, the expansive world in which it is set, and its use of a clever graphical technique known as “landscaping” to render the scene with pre-scaled sprites. The Lords of Midnight turned out to be Singleton’s most well respected title and is considered by many to be one of the best video games ever created.
Versions of The Lords of Midnight were soon released on a few other (mainly European) platforms of the day, and in 1991 DOS PC versions of the game and its sequel, Doomdark’s Revenge, were released, originally developed as reverse engineered fan conversions by Christopher Wild. (Singleton gave his stamp of approval to Wild’s conversions — see Wild’s 2004 Retro Gamer two-piece article / interview with Singleton.) Not long after, Wild began thinking about doing Windows versions of the games and thus began his work on The Midnight Engine, a system that would allow the Midnight games to run under modern operating systems and, thanks to data abstraction, would also allow new games to be created under the same framework.
At this point, the astute reader has probably figured out that I am not just waxing nostalgic for the simple fun of it. No, I am happy to say that there is reason for my taking a few moments to bring the uninitiated up to speed, here, and that reason is a project that has been underway for over year now to bring The Lords of Midnight to iOS.
In January of 2011, original author Mike Singleton reached out to Christopher Wild, suggesting a collaboration to get his 27 year old classic in the hands of a new audience. Since that time, at a varying pace, the project has been underway.
Wild has been posting progress updates to his blog throughout the year, and indicates that it is definitely the intention of both he and Singleton to do this conversion just right.
Let me firstly assure you that we are not developing a freeform, realtime, 3d game. We are not developing [the less well-received sequel to Doomdark's Revenge] the Citadel. We are not going to f*** it up!
Lords of Midnight is about the landscaping. It’s about those 2d panoramic views. It’s about moving some characters and pressing night and the end of the turn and waiting for the dawn to break to find out what happened.
So, the landscaping stays. Yes it will get an update. Graphically we will try a few things to help us justify bringing a 27 year old game back to the future. If you’ve followed the history of [The Midnight Engine] with the Lords of Midnight and more importantly Doomdark’s Revenge, you’ll have an idea of some of the things that means.
We’re going to make a few changes to the AI. Nothing drastic. This is not about turning Lords of Midnight into the style of RPG/Adventure games that are currently available. The AI in lords of midnight works – it’s a little simplistic, but it’s perfect for the style of game. However, there are a few little things that no longer sit comfortably, and to be fair, probably didn’t when Mike originally coded them. So there will be a couple of tweaks and additions.
The affect of these additions is that the game will not play like it used to. In spirit it will be the same, but don’t expect to be able to fire up the emulators and watch the old spectrum game play exactly like the new one. There will likely be some surprises, but I think everyone will enjoy.
Wild also indicates that certain AI changes will be made to facilitate multi-user gameplay and that it will remain turn-based like the original — not real-time. The picture that he paints of the conversion goals should appeal to those iOS gamers who loved the title in decades past.
The iOS conversion of The Lords of Midnight is being developed under the Marmalade SDK (née Airplay SDK), will run natively on both the iPhone and the iPad, and should make its way to various other platforms, as well. Doomdark’s Revenge will also be brought over, some time after The Lords of Midnight arrives.
The team has just posted a demonstration video, albeit preliminary and somewhat rough, of the game running on iPad hardware.
That a whole new generation of gamers will have easy access to such a rich classic is wonderful news, and rest assured we will keep readers apprised as progress on The Lords of Midnight for iOS marches on.
( Embedded screenshots are from the ZX Spectrum original and graphics in the demo video are placeholder — not final versions. )
Engine Software is porting the classic arcade laserdisc game Mad Dog McCree to 3DS, for release on eShop. That merits at least a reserved “Yee-haw.” Engine’s VP of development Ruud van de Moosdijk told Nintendo World Report that the downloadable six-shooter shooter will be released “very soon.” Engine tracked down publisher Digital Leisure and asked for the rights to create a 3DS version.
You might be thinking that it seems prohibitively expensive to remaster a random arcade game like that, full of real recorded video, in 3D. You’re probably right. Whatever the reason, Engine is opting not to use stereoscopic 3D for the port. ” “There’s really no 3D in the 3DS version,” van de Moosdijk said, “because how were you gonna do that?”
Big news in Amalur, today: the first downloadable content pack for Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, “The Legend of Dead Kel”, will be arriving on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Steam and Origin on March 20.
The expansion will add a new continent for players to explore, the island of Gallows End, which constitutes a 15% expansion of the game‘s world, complete with a new story arc that takes place there. In addition, the pack promises numerous sidequests and a new player residence, an estate consisting of multiple buildings.
If you’ve been using tricks like the easy 100% experience bonus, then odds are you’ve long-since finished the game and have been waiting for new content.
Cut the Rope made some waves the other week with a crazy list of new licensing partners that’ll see the physics-based puzzler morphed into all sorts of physical toys. Not to be left out on a slice of that action, Halfbrick has announced its own list of new partners that will see to the production of a billion and one different Fruit Ninja [$ .99 / HD] things, like plush toys, card and board games, key chains, underwear, phone cases, and fruit snacks “starting this week through 2012 and beyond.” Yes, underwear.
This is an impressive line-up of stuff being produced by an equally impressive list of consumer products companies including Mattel, Jazwares, Nanco, and Hybrid. We’re especially stoked about the prospect of Fruit Ninja 2013 calendars. We never remember what day it is unless a piece of fruit is there to remind us.
At this point, the astute reader has probably figured out that I am not just waxing nostalgic for the simple fun of it. No, I am happy to say that there is reason for my taking a few moments to bring the uninitiated up to speed, here, and that reason is a project that has been underway for over year now to bring The Lords of Midnight to iOS.
Cut the Rope made some waves the other week 
