Added: 18.05.2015 13:00 | 16 views | 0 comments

Video games have offered us some compelling visions of the future of human habitation. Some seem idyllic, like the glistening arcologies of . Where the cost of policies and the fact that only a few policy trees were mutually exclusive often discouraged switching them mid-game, traits are meant to be managed more actively. Like policies, they will come with unique perks and benefits for your civilization, but they will also fuel different kinds of diplomatic interactions. The development team wants to extend your diplomatic dealing beyond war, peace, and trade agreements, and having complementary traits will be a big factor in determining your options with a given leader. What these traits might be, how you manage them, what kind of benefits you'll see, and how they will interact with each other all remain to be seen.

The Rising Tide will also herald the arrival of four new factions; the only leader announced thus far is Arshia Kishk, head of the Al Falah (pictured at right). As Beyond Earth's story tells it, the Middle East was mostly depopulated after The Great Mistake. In the years that followed, a tenacious group of resilient survivors held on and refused to desert their homeland. When they finally managed to fund a spaceship send forth colonists, it wasn't the cryogenic variety that most other civilizations sent. It was a generation ship, meaning that those who boarded it knew they would never see their destination, and those who touch down at the end of the journey have never set foot on a planet before. The three other factions will apparently have similarly fraught origin stories, and each one of them will bring disruptive new strategies into play.

There are a few other changes that The Rising Tide is bringing to Beyond Earth, though details on them are fairly scant at this point. In order to further enrich and incentivize the exploration processes, you will now be able to find artifacts through resource pods, expeditions, and other means. Whether it's alien in origin or a relic from Old Earth, each artifact will have its own story and its own possibilities. You could keep it as is or combine it into a set, provided you find the others needed, and the rewards might include new perks or new buildings.

Along with the new units developed to accomodate aquatic and amphibious gameplay will be new hybrid units that require a blend of different affinity levels to unlock. Spreading your affinity points around may keep you from unlocking the highest level perks and units until very late in the game, but if these new hybrids are powerful in the mid-game, perhaps it'll be a more viable strategy to play the field. And finally, two new biomes are on their way, including the primordial world pictured above. With so much volcanic activity, I asked McDonough if the environment was going to pose a threat beyond that of native aliens and miasma clouds. He said only that they are "in the process of making each biome more unique, and will share more soon."

There are certainly more questions to be resolved, but even what's been shared so far seems to portend a serious shift in the Beyond Earth landscape. In a panel during the Game Developer's Conference in San Francisco this year, McDonough and the other Co-Lead Designer, Will Miller, lamented that they hadn't been bolder in their divergence from the core Civilization formula. The oceanic gameplay of The Rising Tide holds the promise of radically changing the way Beyond Earth plays when it is released in fall of this year, and hopefully we'll get a clearer sense of how it all works in a few weeks at E3.

Added: 18.05.2015 12:21 | 2 views | 0 comments


The Goggle Inc. is in hot pursuit for Cole and his stolen proton engine fitted to his car. You must race down the road for as long as you can while coming under attack by enemies throwing bombs from the back of trucks, shooting from motorbikes and even firing mortars while flying with jetpacks! Earn money by destroying the bandits that try to run you off the road and unlock more cars with a variety of defensive mechanisms to join your convoy. The distance you go and the number of enemies killed determines your score, so be sure to upgrade your vehicle and build a good team of vehicles around you to help you win more points! Will you be able to destroy the Valkyrie prototype 3 and escape?

Added: 17.05.2015 22:17 | 3 views | 0 comments


NZGamer: Call of Duty has had downloadable content for the longest time going as far back as the second game in the series. Typically, that content has boiled down to additional maps, cementing the idea that people come to Activisions profit-powerhouse for the multiplayer alone. Now, 2014s Advanced Warfare continues that trend, offering up two content packs: Havoc, and Ascendance. Each comes with four maps, one weapon, and a chapter in the new Exo Zombies mode. Havocs four maps (Sideshow, Core, Urban, and Drift) are the most consistent, in terms of quality.

Added: 17.05.2015 14:16 | 1 views | 0 comments


GR: Inside My Radio is an indie platformer that tasks players with falling in rhythm to the soundtrack that accompanies each level. The brief journey takes three separate characters through multiple levels in mostly left-to-right fashion. Each character features their own general sound, from disco to electronic and reggae/dub. Now, theres a tune to each level too, and that can be fiddled with in certain segments. Generally speaking, this whole tale of action within a boombox is affected by the sound players hear when they play.

Added: 17.05.2015 13:16 | 37 views | 0 comments


Push Square: "It's not often that we flag down video game composers for interviews, but we were recently presented with the opportunity at North Carolina's East Coast Game Conference to speak with Jason Graves, who's behind the soundtracks for the Dead Space franchise, Tomb Raider, Evolve, The Order: 1886, and more. To our surprise, we were able to chat for almost an hour about his interesting career and the deeper aspects of his music, and we've transcribed all of the highlights beneath."