'Witcher 2' Developer And Dark Horse Comics Tease Collaboration

Witcher 2 developer CD Projekt RED and Dark Horse Comics are teaming up on a mystery project.

The Polish video game developer and publisher is best known for its Geralt of Rivia series, with the third game—The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt—set to launch next year on PC and next-gen systems.

Dark Horse publishes all sorts of comic books, ranging from Star Wars to Mass Effect to Conan the Barbarian and Hellboy.

As much as I’d love this to be a new Hellboy or Conan video game developed by CDP, I think it’s far more likely that Dark Horse is going to publish a Witcher comic book.

That sounds pretty great also, though perhaps not as cool as another video game.

Whatever this may be, we’ll learn more on October 11th at the New York Comic Con.

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'South Park' Meets 'Minecraft'

South Park is no stranger to video games. One of the best episodes in the show’s long run was Make Love Not Warcraft, a brilliant spoof of and homage to Blizzard’s popular MMO.

In last night’s episode, Matt Stone and Trey Parker spoof the latest video game craze: indie mega-hit Minecraft and the demographic split it uncovers.

Worried that their parents are watching too much “murder porn” (television shows about spouses killing one another) after one such murder takes place, the children of South Park put a parental lock on the cable channels featuring this “smut.”

The only way to get past the lock is to answer the question “How do you tame a horse in Minecraft?”

This leads to parents paying a kid to teach them the game, and pretty soon some parents are acting the game out in real life and the kids are forced to take more drastic measures.

True to the show’s best episodes, the satire touches on all sorts of subjects: the local monopoly many cable companies have especially in smaller towns; the notion that violent video games are to blame for real world violence when so many adults are consuming tons of violent television; and, of course, the cultural obsession with Minecraft, especially among younger gamers.

I said recently that I think South Park has been pretty hit and miss the past few seasons, but this is the show at its best.

In related news, the first major South Park video game is releasing this December.

South Park: The Stick of Truth riffs off of the excellent episode The Return of the Fellowship of the Ring to the Two Towers.

Written by Matt Stone and Trey Parker, and developed by RPG veteran studio Obsidian, this is one of my most anticipated games of 2013.

A full-fledged roleplaying game set in the South Park universe pitting players against wicked Gingers and Underpants Gnomes sounds almost too good to be true.

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 'LEGO Marvel Super Heroes' Bows To Player Power, Adds Venom Big Fig

Arthur Parsons, Game Director for LEGO Marvel announces Venom Big Fig transformation, defends lack of Wii version and explains why there is no three player mode utilizing Wii U game-pad.

There are many worthy causes you can put your name to online. Change.org has been the instigator of campaigns that look to make the world a better place. While a campaign to include a particular version of a Marvel comic book character in a LEGO video game may not sound that important, for those who know and love Venom this was a big deal.

Last week at the Eurogame Expo, Arthur Parsons (Game Director at TT Games) confirmed that they had not only been tracking the petition but would bow to the weight of opinion and include a “Big Fig” version of Venom in LEGO Marvel Super Heroes. This takes the standard size LEGO game character and grants him the ability to transform into a super sized, and super sized big version.

While introducing Venom and other Marvel characters like Carnage, Emma Frost, Squirrel Girl, Ms Marvel, Jean Grey, Cyclops, Dr Octopus, Magneto, Loki, Ice Man, Whiplash, Ghost Rider and Curt Connors, Parsons also confirmed that there would be an impressive 150 different characters in the game. Some of these are available in the main story mode, while others are unlocked as you complete the game.

The game builds and expands upon a set of LEGO kits based around the Marvel franchise. These offer the building blocks for the game designers to work their craft upon. These LEGO Marvel kits combine the usual building mechanic of the block based toys with characters and vehicles from the Comic Book and Films.

At a recent visit to TT Games it was interesting to hear first hand how the transformation is made from the physical toys to a video-game. At the studio I talked to Sean Dudley, Character Artist, who was responsible for bringing in the original Venom character into the game, and I suspect also was involved with getting the Venom Big Fig transformation working as well.

In fact, looking back at our interview, he mentioned that Venom was one of his own personal favorites. It made me wonder whether he had signed the petition himself to create the new character.

LEGO Marvel Super Heroes will be released on Xbox 360, Xbox One, Wii U, PS3, PS4, 3DS, DS and Vita but not on the Wii. I asked Parsons why LEGO Marvel Wii was not included this time round for the first time. This seemed like a real shame as many families may be forced to upgrade a perfectly good console to play games like this if the older format is not supported.

Parsons highlighted that with supporting the new PS4 and Xbox One versions, not to mention the handhelds, they couldn’t continue supporting all older platforms. The PS2 versions of the LEGO games have not been around for some time now. While it’s understandable in terms of development resource, it seems a missed opportunity for consumers.

I also asked him whether they had looked at a three player version for the Wii U, with two players on split screen and one more on the game-pad. “I’m not quite sure how we’d do that. Technically it’s really difficult to get the two player bang on… We don’t want to do anything more than what we know really works and engages people.”

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  First Impressions Of 'GTA Online'

Twelve years later, I’m a mute again. Rockstar has walked a long way down the story road since Grand Theft Auto 3, giving its protagonists backstories, personalities, demons and barrels of monkeys on their backs, but “GTA Online” brings us back to an older idea. Once again, we’re nothing but silent avatars of anarchy in an absurd world breaking apart at the seams — albeit a world more richly realized than we ever thought possible back in 2001. There’s something very satisfying about letting the best stories happen as they may.

After a slew of continuing server problems, I got to spend a few hours in “GTA Online,” Rockstar’s quasi-MMO built off of the bones of “GTA 5′s” Los Santos. You start off with a strange version of character creation — you don’t determine your facial structure, like in other games, but rather you pick from a list of grandparents, and your heritage determines what you look like. It’s a neat idea, though I sort of wished I could just make a character that looks the way I want it to. After that, it cuts to your player flying into Los Santos to meet our old friend Lamar at the airport. With its own set of opening credits and a full-scale cinematic to start us off, Rockstar is making one thing very clear — this is its own game.

After that, it’s on to a few tutorial missions. We start with a race, move to a drug pick-up, and then buy some clothes, customize and rob a convenience store.  I had a few other players along with Lamar in my race, and when he gave us the next mission afterwards, they came along too. Someone else drove, I rode along. After that, we went our separate ways (briefly, one of them shot me immediately afterwards). It all feels a little more alive than the offline version. It’s also the sort of involved co-op that would be much better with people you actually know. Making it work with strangers is a little more difficult.

Property feels more tangible in this mode than it ever has before. For one thing, your car is your own — you buy insurance on it, and it spawns near you. It’s a little thing that gives you a bit of permanence in the world. You unlock better guns, clothes. car mods and even haircuts, meaning that you can sort of flaunt your appearance as you get more reputation points. I haven’t bought an apartment yet, but I want one badly. It just makes more sense to buy nicer clothes and make your character look the way you want when it actually feels like your character — dressing up Trevor was only ever going to be dressing up Trevor.

I found myself getting shot by other players a whole lot. Rockstar’s answer to this is “passive mode,” where you can just drive around while shutting off all interaction with other players, but I’m not sure that’s the best way to handle things. Every successful MMO has a PvE mode, where you can do pretty much everything you could normally do with another player short of killing them, and I’d recommend giving players the old choice between PvP and PvE in this game, too. I rarely prefer competitive multiplayer, and I’d like as many options as possible to work with other players against a computer.

Those are the smaller details — in a grand way, I like the way this game feels. GTA 4 and 5 moved away from the empire-building that characterized the older games, preferring instead to focus on character development and story with varying degrees of success. Those newer stories have never quite sat right with me. ‘GTA Online’ allows for a more pure experience of the sandbox crime sim. You do missions, race cars, get better stuff –period.  The game guides you along the story, but the best stories are the ones that just emerge naturally. This developer has always been a world-builder, and exploring that world feels somehow more present than ever before. The story mode shunts this rich world onto a set of rails, but here, the pressure is off. By not trying to make the world feel so real, it ends up an easier place to live in.

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'Half-Life 3' Trademark Registered By Valve In Europe (Update)

Because optimism is like death by a thousand paper-cuts.

A trademark application for Valve’s long-slumbering, almost theoretical-at-this-point Half-Life 3 has been filed in Europe.

According to Polygon, no similar HL3 trademark currently is registered in the United States.

Whether this is an indication of a game teetering on the brink of actually being developed, or whether it’s just Valve securing the trademark and ruffling some feathers while they’re at it remains to be seen.

On the one hand, the company did just announce a new Steam-based operating system, a still rather vague Steam Machine PC-console hybrid, and a slick new gamepad.

It wouldn’t hurt to fan the hype by hinting at an actual video game to accompany these oddities—maybe not an exclusive, but perhaps a special SteamOS version with extras. The Very Best Half-Life 3 Edition, only on SteamOS.

On the other hand, we all know that Half-Life 3 is just a story mothers tell their children at night, to give them hope and teach them important lessons about crushing disappointment. Like the tooth fairy, or a satisfying and timely conclusion to George R. R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire saga.

It’s not real, children. All the real Valve games sailed away long ago.

Of course, there is that Half-Life movie in the pipes, with JJ Abrams involved in some capacity—assuming he can find time between the latest Star Trek film and the new Star Wars trilogy, not to mention whatever other sacred geek cow he wrangles up.

Not that any fan of Half-Life would prefer a movie over a new game, of course, but that’s neither here nor there. Half-Life 3 is a nice pipe dream, and maybe that’s enough.

Update: Just to add some fuel to the fires of speculation, and to add a bit more weight to the trademark registration, a NeoGAF user stumbled on to ‘Half-Life 3′ and ‘Half-Life 3 Core’ groups in Valve’s bug tracker. That’s now offline, but the screencap can be seen here.

Of course, as with any HL3 news, take this with grain upon grain of salt. Nonetheless, it’s interesting that both these breadcrumbs should turn up on the same day. Coincidence?

The real question is: Do you believe in coincidences?

'Grand Theft Auto V' Could Earn Over $200M From Digital Sales In 12 Months

The ‘GTA V’ money-train shows no signs of stopping.

Grand Theft Auto V and its online component could earn over $200M in the first 12 months off of DLC and micro-transactions.

That’s according to research firm SuperData.

“Assuming a couple add-on releases, and based on what we know about digital revenues from other console games, Take-Two will see $165M from DLC in the first year of the game,” the firm predicts.

Micro-transactions will earn less, accounting for another $41M over the next year.

“Take-Two is testing the microtransaction waters with a playerbase that may be largely unfamiliar with them,” according to the firm. “It’s also introducing it in a game environment that, unlike an MMO, does not require in-game items to progress. GTA’s microtransactions will merely let players acquire items faster, so the conversion rate will be lower than free-to-play games.”

They continue: “Over the game’s five-year lifetime, we estimate total digital content revenues to ring in at $93M for microtransactions, and $344M for DLC.”

This, of course, is on top of retail sales which topped $1B in just three days.

Another $400M in continued digital revenue over the next five years is an impressive figure, and a way to extend the revenue stream of a franchise that has historically been single-player, with most sales accounted for in the first few weeks at retail.

To put it into perspective, SuperData says thatBorderlands 2, another Take-Two property, sold just $10M in digital sales in its first year, though it had a much smaller player base.

The success of Take-Two in the microtransaction business on consoles will be “an important barometer for the future of the revenue model” the firm contends. This is especially true with next-gen just around the corner, with both Sony and Microsoft promising greener pastures for non-traditional revenue models.

For my part, I remain dubious.

It’s not that free-to-play or a hybrid model can’t work, it’s that it can also create a very precarious playing field, where even the smallest nudge can throw out game balance. Video games require a level playing field, and I can’t help but wonder how microtransactions might affect play in a game like Grand Theft Auto Online.

Even acquiring items faster through real money transactions can be, in a broader sense, paying to win—even if those items are available to non-paying gamers.

DLC, on the other hand, is easier to get right. Especially in a content-rich game like GTA V, DLC can be a great way to give players more game without giving off the impression that any of that material was simply withheld from the original game.

'EverQuest Next Landmark' Is Much More Than A World Builder

 

“It IS a MMO. It’s just a very different MMO than EverQuest Next,” says Georgeson.

The dragon’s out of the bag – Sony SNE -0.93% Online Entertainment’sEverQuest Next Landmark is going to have combat.  Actually, things go a good deal beyond that  - EverQuest Next Landmark is a full-blown standalone MMORPG.  We had a chance to chat with Director of Development Dave Georgeson about EverQuest Next Landmark andEverQuest Next.

Initially announced as “just” an exploration and creation/building title,EverQuest Next Landmark is confirmed to feature all the trappings of a major MMORPG.  Weapons, item drops, monsters, and combat.  It’s even going to use the same emergent AI system that’s being touted as one of the major innovations in EverQuest Next.

It’s about the element of risk.  There are passive threats in the world such as water and lava, but the combat system and associated monsters will likely draw other players – traditional MMORPG players – into the creative world ofEverQuest Next Landmark.

“We’ve always intended to have combat in Landmark.  We weren’t announcing it because we weren’t certain whether we could get it in right away… We’ve done some homework and determined we can get in it soon – maybe not right at launch, but pretty close afterwards,” says Georgeson.  “Landmark will have a wide range of combat experiences, and it’s going to use the same emergent AI system found in EverQuest Next – but possibly not in the exact same way. As far as actual combat AI goes, it will be the same model.”

How deep will the combat be? We’re not looking at the simple hack-and-slash mechanics you’d expect to find in a game with a creation/building theme – They are the same style as the combat in EverQuest Next, and will include group encounters and experiences designed for more than one player.

“As far as you actually play in the game in combat, we want to embrace a bunch of different gameplay styles. If you want to be able to be ranged, you’ll be able to. Spells and melee, you’ll be able to.  The same mechanisms that will be found in EverQuest Next… You’ll be able to swap out different tools or weapons to mix and match character abilities.”

So, how is this going to work exactly?  With the focus on building, crafting, and creation, won’t all these monsters get in the way?  They’re still working the details out, but players will have the option to choose what kind of gameplay they’d like to participate in.