Gamesland News: Yogscast, Sony, Twitch and More

Another week, another week of gaming news. Gamesland News features the latest news in one, easy-to-read format.

News:

– Youtube personalities Yogscast have been under fire recently because of their failed Kickstarter to create their own videogame. After the game went belly-up, Yogscast refused to issue refunds to the backers (even though it states that they must in the Kickstarter terms and conditions)., instead issuing backers with a different game. Also being called into question is the money issue; and while there are theories, not all details have been confirmed.

– Sony Online Entertainment had an issue with some of its site earlier in the week, due to the fact that they sent their payment information to the wrong address. The sites are currently back up and running.

– The speedrun times for both Metroid Prime and The Legend of Zelda: Orcarina of Time have been beaten. Metroid Prime was beaten in 0:55 and Orcarina of Time was beaten in 0:18:10.

– The ‘dark editions’ of the Skylanders franchise, previously exclusive to GameStop, is now no longer exclusive for Trap Team.

– In the US, TV channel ESPN2 surprised just about everyone when they aired a preview for the DOTA 2 World CHampionships.

– The Uncharted movie is coming out on June 10, 2016. Mark it in your calendars, folks.

– Disney Infinity 2.0 will feature a Guardians of the Galaxy playset and characters.

– Google is apparently buying twitch for $1 Billion.

– Sony, after several lawsuits, is finally going to give compensation to gamers for the 2011 hack. The choices will be, depending on whether or not you claimed a game back in 2011, either a free PS3 or PSP game (although the actual games are unknown), 3 months of PS+, or some free PS3 themes. The offer is a first-come, first-served basis however, and after $6 million worth of items have been redeemed, the offer will be over.

Questions? Queries? If there’s any questions that you have about anything in the Gaming World, leave a comment, and I’ll answer it as best I can!

That concludes the news for this week, but there’ll be another news article next Friday (1/08/14), so come back then for more news from the Land of Gaming!

Gamesland News: 22.11.13 – 29.11.13

News
– The PS4 was released today in Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. It is coming to Japan sometime in February in 2014.
– We held the Gamesland awards for the first time over the past week. Bastion won the mobile game of the year, Pokémon X/Y won the Portable game of the year, and Disney Infinity won the Game of the Year. You can currently vote for your favourite game of the year here.
– The Sega Dreamcast celebrated it’s 15th birthday on Wednesday (well, it was originally released on that date in Japan). It seems that November is the month of console releases!

What I’m playing
– The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past came out on Saturday, so I got it. Probably my favourite game right now.
– Bit Trip Saga on my 3DS, and I’ve mainly been playing Runner.

***Notice***
I go on holiday on Wednesday, and won’t be back until the start of the new year. So this site will not have any new content until a few days into the start of 2014. We’ll have a news update on Tuesday, and then we’ll have an update once I get back.
***End of Notice***

Tune in next Tuesday (3.12.13, the last 2013 update) for more news from the land of gaming.

Game of the Year – Winner

The winner of Gamesland’s Game of the Year award for 2013 is…Disney Infinity!

What? I hear you cry. Tomb Raider‘s on that list! Why doesn’t it get the award? Well, to be honest, I haven’t found To,b Raider all that good. It’s great, and enjoyable, but there’s just moments of frustration there that aren’t in Disney Infinity.

Disney Infinity is great because it works. It’s taken a bunch of formulas from other games and suited them to it’s own needs. There’s a Grand Theft Auto-esque Incredibles campaign, a Splinter Cell stealth-like Monsters University campaign, and a an original Pirates of the Carribean campaign, which had a great canon mechanic. The game lets you experience these movies in a unique way; although the game has several mechanics from other games, the stories, locations, and ideas are original, and have that patented Disney magic. The game wasn’t without its flaws, but sometimes they make the game more enjoyable. For example, in the final big boss battle in the Pirates campaign, the reticule didn’t appear for me to shoot the ships, so I had to guess. It was weird, unexpected and unintentional, but it was enjoyable because I still managed to beat the boss.

I once saw (in a forum) that someone had bought nearly every character for their kids in Skylanders, but didn’t want to spend money on Infinity because it gave you levels with the characters; that the game was charging for content. There’s a few things wrong with that sentence. One, the fact that the larent was content to buy nearly every character for a game where nearly every character is identical if they belong to the same type. Two, Disney Infinity is complete. The campaign time is about six hours for each world (depending what level of completion you want), meaning that the total singleplayer campaign length is about 18 hours. For comparison, the latest Call of Duty game, Ghosts, has a total singleplayer campaign length of six hours, and the first Skylanders game had 22 levels, with each level taking approximately half an hour, so the game was about 11 hours in length. So playing all of Call of Duty: Ghosts and Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure would tale the approximate time to finish Infinity.

Disney Infinity also has four-player online co-op, the ability to download worlds made by other people, and more RLC (Real Life Content, well, at least that’s what I call it) coming in the future. That means a lot of play time.

Congratulations, Disney Infinity. You are Gamesland’s Game of the Year for 2013.

Game of the Year – Nominees

This genre defines the console games, which are PC, PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, and WiiU (Since the PS4 and Xbox One have just come out, I’m not counting them). Console games are judged on story, gameplay, genre-defining mechanics, and art. Sound, multiplayer, and design (how the game is layed out) are pluses. The nominees for the Game of the Year Award for 2013 are:

– Tomb Raider

– Disney Infinity

– Kingdom Hearts HD-1.5 Re:Mix

– Mass Effect

Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag – Preview

So today was Supanova (think a scaled-down version of comicon), and I got to test out Assassin’s Creed IV: Pirates for 10 minutes (on the Xbox 360, and not the One, sadly).

The demo I got to play involved a pirate battle, a cutscene, swimming, then freerunning on an island. The free running mechanics are mainly the same as the other games, holding down RT to run, climb, swim faster, etc. What really stood out was how slow you walk, but maybe that’s been in all the games, and I just never noticed. The movement also feels somewhat clunky, and running just seemed too fast to do nitty-gritty controlling movements, and I found myself accidently running back towards where I started. The pirate battles work well, and reminded me of the battles in the Disney Infinity Pirates campaign. You hold down LT to bring up the aiming reticules, aim with the right analogue stick, and then fire with the RT. While doing this, you can’t view the front of the ship, but can still move with the Left Analogue Stick. This means that you can employ some good strategies, like moving behind the enemy ship, or head on, where they can’t aim their canons, or move up onto a high wave so they can’t aim at you. I really liked the mechanic in Infinity, so it’s good to see it again, if by a different publisher.

Unfortunately, the graphics weren’t great; in fact I’d go as far to say they were average. I don’t know whether that’s just the demo, the TV, or the 360 (having never owned one myself). It’s OK, but there are pixelated bits, and it just doesn’t look that good during those particular moments, but that could be different in the consumer version. Apart from that, I really liked what I saw, and can’t wait to play it on PS4. Until then, I guess I better play the previous games…

Gamesland News: 28/09/13 – 04/10/13

News
– It was my birthday during the week, and I got a few new games, namely: Tomb Raider, Mass Effect 2, Mass Effect 3, and Assassin’s Creed: Revelations. And no, my cake was not a lie.
– Grand Theft Auto Online released to a very rocky start, with many users reporting that they were not able to connect to the servers
– Steam’s final announcement was the controller to their “Steam Machines”, called, rather imaginatively, the Steam Controller
– Tom Clancy died yesterday, age 66. Many videogames were based on his work, the most recent one being Splinter Cell: Blacklist. My condolences go to his family.

What I’m playing
– I finished Flower, but I’m planning to do a Journey: Collectors Edition review, with reviews with all the games included.
– I’ve been playing Tomb Raider as well.

What I’m excited about
– Pokémon X and Pokémon Y

Questions? Feedback?
Q: How do I get free energy in Deer Hunter 2014?
A: You can’t. Sorry, but it’s impossible. You have to use the premium currency to get more energy.

Q: How do I get unlimited energy in Deer Hunter 2014?
A: Like the above question, that’s impossible as well. Sometimes I wish that there would be a one-time in-app purchase, and the energy bar disappears. Sadly, it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen any time soon.

Q: How do I get to the deserted island in the Incredibles campaign in Disney Infinity?
A: Equip your hoverboard, grab the mayor, and move around for a bit to gather up speed (you need to gather speed to saty above the water for a long enough time) and then go off the pier and hust follow the small islands to the big deserted island. Then, to get back, just go around the island, gather up speed, then come back to the pier. Alternatively (I haven’t tried this yet, by I assume it’s possible), later on in the campaign, when you get the incredicopter, you can pick up the president and just fly to the island (like I said, that might not work. The first option was the way it was meant to be done).

Q: How many regions are in Deer Hunter 2014?
A: There’s three four. I thought there was three, buy I just checked and there’s another one that my game didn’t initially pick up. The regions are: Pacific Northwest, North Africa, British Columbia, and South Africa.

Any other questions or feedback? Leave them in the comments and I’ll do my best to answer them!

Tune In Next Friday (11/10/13) for more news from the land of gaming!

Update: the Half-Life 3 trademark turned out to be fake. I have removed the corresponding news article to avoid confusion. Sorry for the inconvenience, as now we all know that Half-Life 3 is not confirmed.