Killzone 3 Multiplayer Going Free-to-Play With Level Cap

Free-to-play (F2P) has become a huge thing in the gaming industry. Games like League of Legends and the Lord of the Rings Online adopted a F2P model with microtransactions to support the company and it was a massive success. The industry quickly took note and several F2P games, as well as MMOs relaunching as F2P, have come out in the last year or so.

F2P isn't something we see on consoles because these consoles weren't really designed for such a thing. Sony isn't letting that stop them. Killzone 3's multiplayer has started to taper off, according to developer Guerrilla Games, and they think they know how to fix that. In just a few days, full access to the multiplayer component of Killzone 3 will be free to all Playstation 3 owners.

Of course, there's a small catch to this: you can't level past 10. If you want more progression, you just have to pay $15 for the rest of the content. Aside from the leveling, everything is free from the original content to the DLC map packs. Even so, the developers hope that this will create a resurgence in one of the most popular PS3 online shooters.

This is a great idea and I fully endorse Guerilla for deciding to do it. Pulling more people into your multiplayer game is always a good idea and I wouldn't be surprised if they end up making a ton more money off of the game this way. If so, it would give good support to the idea of selling the single-player and the multiplayer in a game as separate experiences for those who want one or the other and not both.

Mass Effect 3 to Feature Reversible Cover With FemShep

Trailers and screenshots of Mass Effect games have never really hyped me up that much for one major reason - they all tend to feature the male Shepard instead of the female Shepard. I firmly believe that the series is a much better experience when you get to see a woman kicking ass and leading such a powerful team. Being voiced by Jennifer Hale certainly doesn't hurt either (especially since the male's voice is so awful!).

As a small nod to the fans of FemShep , the cover of (at least the X360 version) will be reversible, allowing gamers to have FemShep on the front of their game. This isn't really a big deal in the least but kudos to Bioware for acknowledging the subset of gamers that love FemShep.

Now, I just need to see if the PC version has the same cover. Fingers crossed!

Learn to Code by Playing a Game?

Everyone who plays games thinks about what it would be like to make them. Several look up coding programs and start to dive in. Only a small fraction ever make it very far. Coding can be a rather intense mixture of problem solving and high-level mathematics and it can be very intimidating. A small game development team called Primer Labs have decided to take the Guitar Hero tact of learning something and making a game that also teaches you how to code called Code Hero.

It seems to be a tool that teaches you by integrating important coding types and techniques into a bit of gameplay, allowing the player to learn what each thing does to the environment. Code Hero teaches players the Unity game engine, an established free-to-download engine. The team's Kickstarter page says the game has elements of Minecraft (with the different pieces to assemble) and Portal (with your gun that shoots code) that should be familiar to game fans.

This sounds like a very interesting idea. I am a big fan of the concept of learning something by doing it and think this could be a good starting point for gamers interested in a possible future in coding. If the game is easy enough to understand while also teaching in a way that doesn't just make sense in the actual game, it could be a fantastic way to learn coding.

I'm including a link to the team's Kickstarter page where you can pledge to help make the game a reality. $1 gives you access to the beta so you can try it yourself (something I need to do as well). They are currently approaching $45,000 of their $100,000 goal with only 4 days left to hit the goal. If you are interested, make sure to pledge!

Code Hero Kickstarter

Mass Effect 3's Final Month Looking A Bit Shaky

Mass Effect 3 is coming out in less than a month and I'm still fairly excited. Of course, my excitement has started to wane a bit with the story leaks (didn't read them but heard skepticism about the quality) and the decision to include a tacked-on multiplayer mode. I still have a bit of faith in Bioware but I can't help but be a little worried.

It doesn't really help that ME3 has been in the news so much lately, usually in a negative light. First was the team's decision to not include gamepad support on the PC version. I do play the PC version but I feel the M+KB controls are optimal. It still seems a little weird that they didn't go ahead and put the feature in, seeing as everything (even indie games) nowadays at least has the support. The developers arguments that it plays better on the M+KB anyways may be true but everyone likes options.

And today, EA has done something else a bit sketchy. They were offering a promotion deal of a free copy of Battlefield 3 if you pre-ordered Mass Effect 3 on Origin. This was a fantastic deal - too fantastic, it seems. Today, they pulled the deal and have changed the terms of receiving the free copy of Battlefield 3, for the worse. It seems they didn't foresee how damn popular such a deal would be (duh, EA) and were hemorrhaging money way to fast.

All this bad press, plus my own dreadful feelings about the game itself, is making me really start to worry. Bioware is one of the most consistently awesome developers out there but even they can make mistakes, like the heavily-flawed Dragon Age 2. None of us will know until March 8th if the game turned out all right, something that shows just how far our faith in Bioware has dropped off since the amazing quality of ME2.

Mass Effect 3 Demo Impressions

The Mass Effect 3 demo came out today and, although I really should have not bothered, I went ahead and played through it anyways. Just thought I'd give my basic impressions.

The first thing I noticed upon playing the demo was how much more cinematic the game is, especially during active gameplay. The Mass Effect games have always had a film-like quality to the but that was mostly in cutscenes. Now, they are doing things in-game that remind me of a Call of Duty game.

I'm not quite sure how I feel about this. I may just need to get used to it but it barely seems to resemble a Mass Effect game anymore. That special VGA trailer where all that happened was running from one side of the area to another comes to mind and makes me slightly worried.

Something seems a little off about the shooting. The demo is short and I am used to playing on the PC but something just felt stiff about it. You walk extremely slowly when not running and everything seems to move just a bit too slowly. I couldn't quite tell if it was just me or if the game was actually that stiff in my brief time with it.

The dialogue choices seemed a little stripped of options but I'm guessing that's just because it's a demo; those options probably exist in the full game.

The upgrade system seemed interesting. At first glance, it looks EXACTLY like the screen from the first Mass Effect, but you can expand each ability for more option. Each tick of progress down the tree seems to have a choice of two upgrades, usually a power versus cooldown type thing, with the final values clearly shown at the bottom. It seems like a nice mix of the first game and the second game's upgrade systems.

I didn't bother with the multiplayer and probably won't in the main game. That doesn't interest me much at all. I don't play Mass Effect for the combat, I play it for the story.

There really isn't much more to say about it. You get the basic idea of the story from the demo (recruit all the other species to fight back against the Reapers) but don't see any of it really play out. There isn't much character interaction, which I feel is the main point of these games. I guess we will have to wait and see in a few weeks how the final product has turned out.

Atlus Printing Another Run of Radiant Historia

Good news for all you JRPG fans! If you missed out on the critically-acclaimed Radiant Historia last year, Atlus is going to print another run and release it near the end of March. People who tried to procure a copy of this game in the last few months (like me) saw just how damn scarce it has become.

Radiant Historia is a DS RPG with an interesting combat system that matches some tactical grid-based elements with standard JRPG combat. It pairs this with a time travel story that is one of the best out there, according to critics. I personally can't wait to get my hands on a copy of this game. And for a decent price!

New Adventure Game Coming From Double Fine, Funded Overnight on Kickstarter

Kickstarter has been around for awhile. It allows companies to tell people about a pitch or an idea they have for a product and ask individuals for donations to help meet a given monetary goal. If they meet the goal, they make the product. In addition, people who hit certain tiers of donations get certain rewards like a mention in the credits or getting to meet the developers.

After the interesting Notch and Tim Schafer meeting a few days ago, Double Fine announced yesterday that they were starting a Kickstarter project for a new adventure game. This was likely an idea they had at some point in the past but couldn't secure funding for. They hoped to get $400,000 for starting funds.

They hit $400,000 last night. As of this writing, they are up to almost $940,000, easily the most money a Kickstarter project has ever made in this amount of time.

This is an interesting thing to see happen. Double Fine's belovedness obviously had an impact on how quickly this goal was met but it is still quite impressive. It shows game developers just how much support they could get from fans if their fans liked them enough.

We might just be on the cusp of a new trend for some independent games that would have otherwise fallen through the cracks. Of course, how many indie developers have the clout that Double Fine does?

Sony Strikes Again: UMD Transfer Program Not Coming to US

You may have heard something about Sony offering a transfer program in Japan for PSP owners to obtain digital copies of their UMD games for transfer to the Vita for a fee. Most people assumed a similar program would be coming to the U.S. and Europe, seeing really no reason to do the same. According to reports today on various sites, Sony has come out and said they will not be offering such a program here.

This is not a very good way to inspire people to buy a Vita. While the potential audience for such a feature would probably have been minimal, it is still a large enough percentage not to ignore. The only way to obtain PSP games on a Vita now will be if you own a digital copy of one already or buy a new copy off PSN in the future. Either way, no one wanting to play their old UMD's can get rid of their PSP now.

I think Sony made a huge mistake not offering this program in the U.S. While the prices for this feature in Japan were controversially skewed by game and by publisher, it still would have been nice to have the option to transfer instead of just being forced to buy a new copy of a game.

Unique Funder for Psychonauts 2?

I check Giant Bomb several times a day. Usually, it's the first thing I go to when I get up and look at my sites. Today, a particularly interesting headline caught my eye on the front page. It read 'Minecraft's Creator Offers to Fund Psychonauts 2' and made me laugh with just how odd, yet perfect an idea it really was.

This exchange happened via a series of tweets between Notch, the face of Minecraft, and Double Fine's Tim Schafer. Seeing as how Notch lives across the ocean in Europe, he posted these tweets very late at night for us U.S. residents. Tim Schafer noticed the tweets this morning and the two have supposedly gotten in contact with one another.

This is a fairly odd occurrence but it could happen. Notch has made millions off the success of Minecraft and seems like a fairly laid-back lifestyle kind of guy. There isn't anything strange legally about an investor funding a project like this. If the two came to agreeable terms, this might actually happen.

A sequel to Psychonauts has been talked about for years but the first one never did well. A private funder like Notch may be the only way this game can get made. I guess we'll hear more about this in the near future.

Modders Rejoice! Skyrim Creation Kit Releases Tuesday

Yippee! The Skyrim Creation Kit will be out next Tuesday. Expect to see tons of great mods taking advantage of it in the next few weeks.

What about the mods already out, you ask? Well, those mods are interesting but lacking in scope, not because of any shortsightedness by the designers but because there isn't much you can do without the mod tools. Modders have been able to replace textures with different ones or change models into other models but they can't get at the code that makes it all work.

With the Creation Kit, modders will be able to do things like design entirely new quests or make weapons that have interesting new properties. Take a look at the scope of some of the greatest Oblivion mods and you can see part of what's coming. The rest, I'm sure, will surprise all of us.

Bethesda is apparently teasing some kind of surprise when the Creation Kit does launch. Most people are guessing that it will be the mod browser that Bethesda talked about during development, a central place to find a bunch of neat mods. Could be interesting, if it manages to be easier to use or more convenient than the already-great Skyrim Nexus website.