Every so often, usually on weekends, Steam gives us an awesome sale on some of the games we love the most. I’ve picked up so many great games for $5 or less on Steam over the years. It’s a fantastic way to build your video game collection. This weekend for one day only, the Jedi Knight Collection will be only $4.99 on Steam. This is an amazing steal for everything you get! If you miss this sale, don’t worry because you can still get the package deal for only $19.99 which saves you more than $12 on all of these great games. The Jedi Knight Collection on Steam includes: Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Outcast Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy Star Wars Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith Star Wars: Dark Forces
other games
EA Claims SWTOR Did Better than WoW in First Month
In the quarterly earnings call for Electronic Arts, they announced they had 1.7 million active subscribers to SWTOR. These are some pretty huge numbers but just what do they mean? These figures count the number of players who have subscribed to the game past the first month free trial you get with purchase. This means that Star Wars: The Old Republic has gained more followers in the first month than Blizzard Entertainment’s immensely popular World Of Warcraft (WoW) did during the same period. (via Hexus) Of course, these are just early figures and in the SWTOR vs WoW arena, Blizzard has a 7-year head start. The true test of MMORPG brilliance will come when we see where SWTOR is in the long run. Where will they be after 6 months? What about a year from release? What about 7 years? The true test of success lies in whether or not…
Mass Effect 3 Voice Actors
Martin Sheen, Freddie Prinze, Jr, Seth Green and more join the ranks of Mass Effect 3 voice actors. Tricia Helfer plays EDI and there’s Jessica Chobot with a cameo as a news reporter. Check out the video below to learn more and see clips. It’s easy to see why so many people are geared up and excited for ME3. They’ve also said that it was scripted so that you don’t have to have played ME1 and ME2 to jump right into the 3rd game and know what’s going on. Pretty smart on their part, for sure. This is a great time to remember why we’re playing SWTOR and why we love it- because of the story and the voice casting. Even if you’re already a Star Wars fan, it takes a little something extra to really make a game stand out. BioWare goes that extra mile with the voice acting…
HeroEngine Technology, Critical to SWTOR’s Successful Launch Now Used by Thousands of Game Developers
The HeroEngine Technology that was so critical to the development of SWTOR and its success which follows is not helping with many other video games across the industry. Thousands of game developers are now finding a way to make use of this technology in their own games. Business Wire reports: “Developers are seeing a significantly reduced time to market. The Star Wars MMO was a major, multi-year undertaking, but other MMO games have shipped on our platform in as little as 15 months.” HeroEngine Technology was designed to help with large multiplayer scalable games like SWTOR. It has development tools that allow real time updates and that helps streamline the process of creating the game. But BioWare is not the only game developer to take advantage of this technology. More from Business Wire: There are already thousands of developers using HeroCloud and according to President and COO Neil Harris, “Developers…
Will SWTOR Steal Players from WoW and RIFT?
Millions of people are anticipating the release of SWTOR on December 20, 2011 but there many who wonder just how popular this game is going to be. Will it live up to all the hype? Will SWTOR steal players from WoW and RIFT? WoW has been around for a long time and it has many loyal players who won’t leave but many have grown bored with this style MMO and they’re searching for something fresh, which is what The Old Republic offers. Rift is a great game that is growing in popularity due to the quality of the game and its well thought-out updates. But will it lose players to SWTOR? A news story from MMOSite reports, “Blizzard admitted that they started to lose World of Warcraft users from the beginning of 2011. Specifically, they lost 600,000 WOW users in Q1 2011, 300,000 in Q2 and 800,000 in Q3.” They…
EA Makes Right the Wrong of BF3 and Battlefield 1943
A few days ago I brought you the story of EA being sued by disgruntled gamers over their BF3 fiasco. It seems they are taking the issue seriously and have decided to remedy the problem. They have issued a statement on their website that all owners of Battlefield 3 on the PS3 will get a free copy of Battlefield 1943 starting this month. Full details on who is eligible and how to get your copy is available from their site. Do you think this is a good enough response to the whole debacle? Has EA taken the right steps to resolve the matter and smooth things over with gamers everywhere by correcting their mistake and quickly making the game available to those who originally thought they would get it via a promotion? It’s a nice little bonus to anyone who just bought BF3 and might not have even known about…
Analyst Downgrades Blizzard Stock in Anticipation of SWTOR Launch
Could Blizzard lose more fans as the SWTOR launch date approaches? It’s been called a WoW-killer before but one analyst believes Blizzard stock might take a hit as SWTOR launches. Earlier this month, Activision Blizzard revealed that WOW subscriptions had fallen by 10 percent since March, dropping to 10.3 million worldwide. Now Gamespot reports that age and increased competition for the MMOG market can cause Blizzard to lose more stock. This article explains: In an investor note today, Lazard Capital Markets analyst Atul Bagga expressed pessimism over WOW’s ability to reverse its negative trend. In the process, Bagga downgraded Activision Blizzard’s stock from “buy” to “neutral.” Bagga’s move was primarily motivated by a Lazard Capital Markets survey of online players, which was conducted in conjunction with Peanut Labs earlier this month and polled 381 online gamers. The study found that WOW’s age, as well as increased competition,…
EA Being Sued for Battlefield 1943 Broken Promises
Gamers don’t take kindly to being let down. Broken promises over Battlefield 1943 have landed EA in the middle of a lawsuit. US law firm Edelson McGuire has filed a class action suit against EA on behalf of unhappy PlayStation gamers in a bid to get them the free copy of Battlefield 1943 they were originally assured they would receive, Kotaku reports. The promise was made at E3, where Sony executives promised to bundle Battlefield 3 with copies of the new Battlefield 1943. Gamers who bought the game expecting to get Battlefield 3 were highly disappointed. The suit alleges that EA “misled and profited from thousands of their customers by making a promise that [it] could not, and never intended, to keep”. However, the lawsuit is about more than just the broken promise. It also cites the late announcement of the matter, which was made after many customers had already…
Leaderboard: SWTOR vs. GW2 cinematic cutscenes
Justin Olivetti from over at Massively had a few things to say about SWTOR cutscenes- a huge part of what TOR is all about. Star Wars is all about the storyline and in SWTOR, this is one of the things that we see which sets in apart from other games, namely other MMORPGs. But they are not completely alone in this as GW2 has some cutscene action of their own. Olivetti decided to explore this area of the game in a Leaderboard column for the popular gaming website, Massively. He says: “OK, you knew that sooner or later there’d be a face-off between Star Wars: The Old Republic and Guild Wars 2 in this column, although today’s poll might not be what you were expecting. Instead of getting into “Which game that hasn’t released is better than the other game that hasn’t released?” let us examine each title’s approach to…
World of Warcraft Loses 2 Million Subscribers in a Year
If you are interested in getting into the game, Here is a world of warcraft digital download price comparison tool. Another great resource is WoW-Strategy.com that helps you find WoW guides that can show you how to level 3x faster and make more gold. Gamasutra Reports WoW subscriptions are down and despite plans to turn things around and a new upcoming expansion, is it too late for Blizzard? Sure, there will always be WoW fans but part of the appeal is starting to wear out for a lot of people. Add to this the buzz and excitement for SWTOR and you can see where the SWTOR vs. WoW wars came from. Gamasutra says: “As of September 30, the game stood at 10.3 million players, Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime revealed Tuesday in a Gamasutra-attended conference call. This is down nearly a million from the 11.1 million reported three months prior, and significantly less than a…
Can AoC survive The Old Republic?
Many people are talking about SWTOR and the impact it will have on other similar games in the industry. It’s been called a WoW-clone and a WoW-killer and there have been comparisons made to Rift and other MMOs. Just in time for another MMO comparison, Massively brought us an article that asks Can AoC survive The Old Republic? Massively says: Even if you’re heavily invested in other games, chances are good that you’ll at least try SWTOR, amirite? I myself will be moonlighting in a galaxy far, far away at some point, and while I don’t plan on making a permanent home there, it will likely take a chunk of my gaming time for a month or two. Truer words could not be spoken. Just about every MMO player I know wants to at least try SWTOR. Some if for no other reason than to stubbornly prove it’s not going…
SWTOR Not a Threat to WAR
BioWare Mythic says WAR is not in any danger from SWTOR but will not be going free to play. With SWTOR bringing in some amazing numbers just before its arrival, it threatens to knock many other games out of the way as it approaches. But we also have to remember that this is not the first time EA has worked on an MMORPG. Warhammer: Age of Reckoning is still there and BioWare Mythic VP Eugene Evans confirms it is not going anywhere anytime soon. He said “All of these games appeal to different people for different reasons. I’m very proud to be able to say that I’m running the studio that’s run Ultima Online for as long as it has – 14 years. Dark Age of Camelot just celebrated 10 years. We hope we can run these games for as long as there is player interest.” So it’s a definite…
Analyst Says World of Warcraft Will Regain TOR Subscribers
Game industry analyst Michael Pachter had some new words to say about SWTOR once again. You may remember him from Pach Attack and Wedbush Securities. He recently appeared on MSNBC’s In-Game to talk about Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ and World of Warcraft™. As if the comparisons have not gotten old already, it’s now time for an industry analyst to weigh in on the topic. While he sticks to his early report that SWTOR will have 2 million or more subscribers at launch, he says that only 1 in 3 of those will come from active WoW players. He also adds that most of them will return to WoW once the initial appeal and interest in SWTOR fades. It certainly won’t be the first time that WoW has gone head-to-head with other proposed giants in the MMO field and they still came out victorious. It’s not likely that any one…
WoW Number One Due to Lack of Competition
For the past seven years, World of Warcraft has ruled the MMORPG scene. I know as I have played off and on since beta. I took “WoW breaks” and it seemed I would return again and again when I grew bored of whatever MMO I was playing at the time. It’s a great game despite what some haters will say but even I, a longtime fan, grew bored of it. I wanted something new, something different, something more… but I still loved many of the things that made WoW so great. Some people believe that WoW has survived for so long because it has not had any real competition. Although I love many things about the game, I have to agree on this. I’ve tried many other MMOs, including nearly every free-to-play MMORPG I could find to download to my computer and none of them had the total package that…
GDC Online: Taking Your Game Everywhere
GDC Online officially kicked of yesterday in Austin but today was the first day at the industry conference where Bioware developers were scheduled for sessions. One session that was especially interesting was “Taking Your Game Everywhere”. This panel featured BioWare’s Erik Olsen, Curse’s Donovan Duncan, ZAM’s Cody Bye and Red 5′s Mark Kern and was led by former BioWare Austin Co-Studio Manager and current Playdom exec Gordon Walton. This session addressed the idea that gamers want to be able to take their online games with them, outside of the game itself. Make sense, right? I mean it’s like a handheld but where you can still check in to your online game. It combines the appeal of games and apps for our smartphones, iPads and other mobile devices. This popular trend is something that game studios will want to get in on. Gamasutra has a summary of the panel which gives…
How SWG Will Be Won
The last days of Star Wars: Galaxies are drawing near and the game plans to close off “with a gigantic PvP throwdown for dominance” that will tell us all who runs the galaxy- Empire or Rebels. Of course some fans are saying that this is not the end and that SWG will live on- even if unofficially- but for the sake of technicalities, the end is coming. So how will this official end of it all battle be scored? How will SWG be won? Winning the Galactic Civil War explains in detail: “Meanwhile, let’s say Region Two is worth 3%, and that in this same period of time three Imperials earn 50 GCW [Galactic Civil War] points in the region and no Rebels show up at all. Region Two would give the Imperials a full 3% in the galaxy score for next to no effort compared to Region One. All…
BioWare Hinted the Possibility of a Mass Effect MMO
How great would it be to have a Mass Effect MMO? There are certainly a lot of fans out there rooting for this very thing right as we speak. While BioWare is busy cranking out SWTOR to have it ready to ship by the promised date in December, we hear rumors that there could be more online titles in the future. It would be a win-win for BioWare and gamers alike if SWTOR was a huge success that led to more MMO titles in the future… possibly even a Mass Effect MMO. BioWare heads Dr. Ray Muzyka and Dr. Greg Zeschuk seem open to the potential idea and even hint around that it might be considered in the future. “You never know,” Zeschuk replied to the Mass Effect MMO query by Industry Gamers. . “”I think once The Old Republic is done, we’ll take a fresh look at the market….
BioWare Talks Future of RPGs and Narrative Maturation
What does the future hold for Bioware? They have made a name for themselves in the world of RPGs with titles like Dragon Age, Mass Effect, and Star Wars. What might the future hold for them and the genre? The game environments are changing dramatically and companies that want to keep up will need to be able to move with the progression. Can BioWare continue their trend of successful RPGs? In speaking to Sarcastic Gamer during the Eurogamer 2011 Expo, BioWare boss Ray Muzyka said they intend to “broaden the genre.” These days, there are different approaches to take and more options available. “The vision for us is a broadening of the genre. We see a lot of other genres incorporating features of RPGs and in turn RPGs are incorporating features of other genres. There are more action elements, there’s different ways to tell a story, there’s different ways to…
Blizzard Revealing Project Titan Next Month? – Gloves are off!
Update: In a comment to IGN, a Blizzard representative stated that its ‘unannounced MMO’ will not be talked about at this year’s BlizzCon The rumor mill is out and it looks like the long awaited “casual MMO” from Blizzard code named Titan may be revealed next month at BlizzCon 2011. Pressures from the release date announcement of SWTOR and the delay of Diablo 3 may have led Blizzard to push up the release of news about their new secret project. At least one analyst believes the news might be coming sooner than we thought. “If they are holding any juicy details, it’s going to be announced at BlizzCon,” M2 Research senior analyst Billy Pidgeon said. “”The big news is probably going to be a Diablo 3 date and a possible new announcement about one or more new properties.”” Previous reports have revealed rumors about this potential project. They tell us…
Did EA Capitalize On the Diablo III Delay by Announcing the Release Date of Star Wars: The Old Republic?
The guys over at DualShockers.com had a really interesting theory on the announcement of SWTOR coming after the Diablo III delay. The piece they wrote on the day after the SWTOR announcement describes a possible connection between the news about Diablo III and the release date announcement: “Yesterday Blizzard announced the delay of Diablo III to early 2012, today Electronic Arts announced the release date for Star Wars: The Old Republic for December the 20th, on a Saturday. Extremely convenient. Even a bit too convenient, maybe.” I’m not usually the conspiracy theory type but it’s a pretty good point they make here with the linkage of the two announcements. Did EA/Bioware see this as their ideal time to jump on the announcement of the official release date? Sounds like a good theory to me… The article gives some pretty compelling ideas about why this theory might be true: “Thirdly, by…
LucasArts Post Job Openings for New Open World RPG
It’s been awhile since we’ve heard anything about a new game from LucasArts but it appears that could be about to change. Metro.co.uk talks about a job listing that indicates there is a new “open world” RPG in the making. This is exciting news but it also raises a lot of questions and peaks the curiosity of all types of gamers. The last title released by LucasArts was “Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II”, which seemed to leave a lot to be desired for many gamers. The idea of a new game is exciting for many. There’s no way to know if this will be something related to Star Wars, Indiana Jones or something completely different. Job ads are the most dependable source when it comes to leaning about new games but they’re very vague about the information they provide. It simply states that LucasArts is looking for more people…
You Control the Story in the Next Generation of Video Games
A story on NPR yesterday talks about the next generation of video games where story is of the utmost importance and gamers get to take the reins. This isn’t really a new concept, especially to game companies like BioWare who have been doing this already for decades, however, it’s nice to see mainstream media bringing attention to the matter. Like most media pieces written by non-gamers, this article had some flaws, but nevertheless it was an informative piece that brings attention to the fact that games are just child’s play. There is a serious market for good games and video game developers know this which is why companies like BioWare are putting out great story-based games like the highly anticipated SWTOR. Speaking of TOR and BioWare, the article makes a reference to it: “Daniel Erickson, the lead writer of the “Star Wars” game, said the amount of…
SWG Shutdown Recap Video
FTW Broadcasting compiled a pretty cool recap video about the SWG shutdown and several of our articles are featured in the lineup. It’s a full 10 minutes recapping the issue of Star Wars closing down from the initial date the news was released through the petition, Sony shutting down the petitions and the eventual class action suit along with some comedy and parody and of course, the Goofygirl video that we brought you ourselves. The video is a great way to catch yourself up on the full story about Star Wars Galaxies that has the community in an uproar. When it comes to the gaming community a as a whole, the population seems pretty split. Some people agree with the reactions regarding the shutdown and feel like SWG players are entitled to something more for a game they purchased and have invested so much into. On the other side of…
Blizzard lights a fire under Bioware with D3 beta?
Diablo fans might be in for some interesting news. Apparently, they recently sent out some invitations to press and fansties for a July 27th visit to try out their latest Diablo 3 beta build. The lucky few selected will be able to try out the beta early and no visit to Blizzard headquarters is complete without checking out some cool stuff that no one else gets to see. They will also get to see the functionality of Battle.net 2.0, sit in on a developer Q&A and get information about the new features in Diablo 3. It’s a Diablo fan’s dream come true! Could Blizzard’s timing be just what is needed to light a fire under BioWare’s behind to push SWTOR to stay on schedule for a release before the close of 2011? The anticipated MMORPG of the year, Star Wars: The Old Republic is already set to be the major…