Warp Zoned Presents
All Articles: PC
PopCap goes experimental with 4th & Battery label
As if Plants vs Zombies wasn’t weird enough, PopCap Games has announced 4th & Battery, a new label for “smaller, simpler, and sometimes edgier games.”
“4th & Battery is a pressure valve intended to keep our heads from exploding,” explained Ed Allard, Executive Vice President of Studios at PopCap. “The PopCap brand has become closely associated with ultra-high quality, polish and attention to detail – which is a great thing. But our standard game development process is therefore long and involved, and doesn’t really accommodate all of the creativity pumping through our collective veins. 4th & Battery gives us a way to quickly try really strange or marginal ideas, and to give our designers a safe area to hone their chops.”
“Expect weirdness,” Jason Kapalka, Chief Creative Officer at PopCap, added.
To that end, 4th & Battery has announced their first game, Unpleasant Horse. The iPhone title will be added to the App Store later this month and it definitely brings the crazy:
Players take on the role of – wait for it! – a strikingly unpleasant horse that sports wings and advances through the game by destroying small birds and landing on more pleasant horses from above. Landing atop other horses enables the player to force them earthward into a perpetual meat grinder for extra points and special bonuses.
Call of Duty: Black Ops – Zombies Soundtrack available now
Say what you want about Call of Duty: Black Ops, but the game has a great soundtrack. So great that Activision has released a soundtrack of songs from the Zombies Mode on Amazon, iTunes,the Zune Marketplace and other digital retailers.
Titled Call of Duty: Black Ops – Zombies Soundtrack, the album includes 17 tracks of undead-themed tunes. Each track can be downloaded separately for 99 cents each with the whole album priced at $11.99.
Thirty-second samples of each track are available at Amazon.
Disney Interactive cuts jobs
Disney Interactive is currently downsizing, apparently in a pretty substantial way, as nearly half of its 700 member staff may be getting the boot. Disney calls the layoffs a “restructuring process” in its statement. Variety reports that many were anticipating the layoffs as many key players left the division last year, including Graham Hopper, who spent the last eight years building the studio into a formidable entity in the gaming industry. New talent is coming in to upper management, including John Pleasants, CEO of Playdom, which Disney acquired last year. Disney’s current CEO Bob Iger said Pleasants would “focus on turning those businesses into profitability” and “diversifying our presence in the business, so we’re not reliant on one platform that’s obviously facing challenges.”
While terms can have multiple connotations in the business context, he may be referring to last year’s Epic Mickey, which released exclusively for the Nintendo Wii, a console that is notoriously difficult for third party developers to find success on. Epic Mickey was panned critically, but is apparently the fastest selling game in Disney Interactive’s history, pushing 1.3 million copies last December.
Activision wants to close Bizarre Creations
Activision has spent the last three months looking for a buyer for British development team Bizarre Creations. Yesterday, with no buyer in sight, the publisher told Develop that they’ve recommended the studio for closure. And Bizarre has responded that they’ve accepted this decision.
The future of the Bizarre team is rather murky at this point, but Coddy Johnson, Activision Worldwide Studios’ chief operating officer said, “We’re offering the studio as many resources as possible, including counselling, external placement services and external career fairs.”
Bizarre released two games in 2010 that underperformed their rather lofty expectations. Blur was pitched as “Mario Kart for adults,” but most adults indicated that they’d rather play Mario Kart. And November’s James Bond 007: Blood Stone was overshadowed by last year’s other Bond game, a remake of GoldenEye 007.
Everyone here at Warp Zoned hopes the people at Bizarre land on their feet soon.
Red Dead Redemption, Enslaved, God of War III lead 2011 AIAS nominees
The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences (AIAS) has announced the nominees for the 14th annual Interactive Achievement Awards (IAAs). As expected, Red Dead Redemption lead the way with nine nominations including Outstanding Innovation in Gaming, Outstanding Achievement in Sound Design and Game of the Year.
God of War III and Enslaved: Odyssey to the West (a title that is already being considered one of the best games you’ve never played) shared the second-most nominations with six apiece. Other games up for multiple awards include Call of Duty: Black Ops, Heavy Rain, Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood and Mass Effect 2 (five nominations apiece) along with Dance Central, Limbo and Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty (four apiece).
The awards will be handed out by Jay Mohr at the 2011 D.I.C.E. (Design, Innovate, Communicate, Entertain) Summit on Thursday, February 10. The hour-long show will be broadcast on G4 two days later, February 12, at 4:00 PM (Eastern Time) with a webcast scheduled for 7:30 PM (Eastern Time) at G4tv.com/DICE.
A complete list of nominees can be on the AIAS website, but the “Game of the Year” will come from this list of five: Angry Birds HD, Call of Duty: Black Ops, God of War III, Mass Effect 2 and Red Dead Redemption.
The Secret World MMO to be co-published by Funcom and EA
EA has teamed up with independent developer Funcom to release their new MMO, The Secret World. This upcoming MMO on the PC is set in the modern days, and allows players to become members of one of three secret societies – the Illuminati, the Dragon, and the Templar. The struggle for power will cross many locations, including Egypt, London, Seoul, and New York, and will include monster battles. Sounds like National Treasure meets World of Warcraft, if you ask me.
Funcom has previously developed more than 20 games, including MMOs Anarchy Online and Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures. There’s no release date yet on The Secret World, but the community currently has hundreds of thousands of beta players, according to a new press release. Seems like a smart move for all parties involved.
Posted in News
Tagged PC, The Secret World
New Releases: Kingdom Hearts Re:Coded, DC Universe Online, Ghost Trick, More
Do you love RPGs? If you said yes, then you’ll definitely want to head to your favorite retailer this week.
On the DS, Square Enix plans to release the latest entry in the Kingdom Hearts series, Kingdom Hearts Re:Coded. And over on the PS3, Sony’s MMORPG DC Universe Online will cross over into stores (its coming to the PC as well).
Also available this week is Venetica (PS3, Xbox 360), an RPG where the Grim Reaper’s daughter hunts down a necromancer. And finally, there’s Prinny 2, the latest Disgaea spin-off from Atlus.
If RPGs aren’t your thing, Capcom will be releasing the latest game from the Phoenix Wright team, Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective on the DS
The full list of the rest of this week’s new releases can be found below. (more…)
Posted in News
Tagged DC Universe Online, DS, Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective, Kingdom Hearts Re:Coded, PC, PS3, PSP, Wii, Xbox 360
Amnesia saves Frictional Games from a Dark Descent
Though it’s been done time and again, it’s hard to go wrong with the classic Cinderella story of an underdog standing up to the big guy and coming out on top. This certainly isn’t the premise of Amnesia: The Dark Descent, but it is for its indie game developer Frictional Games. These underdogs released their fourth PC game in their fourth year of business, and it has proven to be a game that won’t be forgotten.
Before releasing their most recent game, Frictional’s “dream estimates” of sales hovered around 100,000 units. In reality, that figure has doubled, with Amnesia selling almost 200,000 units after four months. The average daily unit sales for the game have not dropped below 200 units, which is impressive for an indie game in an age where anything can be found for free if a user knows where to look. Frictional has stated that they know these sales aren’t typical, and they may be right, especially considering their marketing plan.
“While we tried to make as much noise as possible at the release of the game, our marketing efforts have been far from big,” explained Frictional on their blog. The indie company released movie clips of the game, made demo versions available and sent out review copies for feedback, but the real marketing magic seems to have come from the users themselves.
Players spread their tales of playing one of the scariest games of all time, inspiring reaction videos to be made, one of which received about 775,000 views. And really, what better promotion is there for a horror game than a video titled “Holy shit, Amnesia WHAT THE [F—]”?
The most encouraging part of Frictional’s story is their new-found financial confidence.
“We are now completely financially stable and have enough money to complete our next game without any problems,” read Frictional’s blog on Friday. Because a publisher was not hired for Amnesia, Frictional was able to keep all the royalties earned from their game without having to first pay back an advance and subsequent royalties due to a third party. Most independent developers and artists in the creative world won’t see a penny of their royalties from just one album or term of contract for years. Frictional did it in four months.
Becoming a financially sound company may mean more risks taken by Frictional in the future, ranging from more frequent game releases to experimentation on console platforms.
Posted in News
Tagged Amnesia: The Dark Descent, PC