EA Online Pass Scrapped – Older Games Going Free Online is a post from: Gaming Now

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An Online Pass is a code used to gain access to the online features of games.

No More EA Online Passes for New Games

EA have included Online Passes with their games for years now. They have now said they are stopping issuing them with new copies of games and that any new game that still needs a code will have codes made available free online.

Older Games Going Free Too!

Game Informer are now reporting that even the older games will be going the same way. No more need for a pass to play FIFA or Battlefield!

Who Is Affected By Online Passes?

There’s 2 groups of people who are most affected by the Online Pass system. People who buy second-hand games and… pirates.

Pirates

If you pirate a game it comes with no online pass, for a pirate to play online they need to pay for the privilege. It means game companies make money from people who steal their games – that’s a completely understandable thing and if someone doesn’t pay for the game the least they can do is pay $10 to play it online with their friends.

Pre-Owned

The other group of people, the one’s who are negatively affected.by the Online Pass system EA uses, are those of us who buy pre-owned games. There’s a bunch of reasons why somebody would choose to go second-hand. The first one that comes to mind is money. New games are expensive, pre-owned ones cost less.

I play a lot of games, if I were to pay full price for all of them I probably wouldn’t be able to afford anything much else, so I buy second-hand. If a game requires me to make an extra purchase to play online then i won’t buy a pass. In-fact I’ve never bought an Online Pass for any game, I always just skip the online features and play the single player.

So I think getting rid of the online pass is only a good thing for gamers, but it may hurt EA in the pocket

Written by: Will for Gaming Now - We fall in that sweet spot between Awesome and Games

Anodyne Review is a post from: Gaming Now

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Anodyne is an engaging top-down dungeon crawler by the two-man team of Sean Hogan and Jonathan Kittaka. While the game bears more than a passing resemblance to older Zelda titles, there is certainly enough originality on display here to judge the game on its own merits.

Right from the start, the creators make excellent use of sound and graphics to set up the surreal, dream-like atmosphere which permeates the rest of the game. The 16-bit environments range from creepy suburban areas to lush grasslands to weird technicolour dungeons. However, the most impressive artistic element is the sound: unobtrusive but deeply atmospheric, the soundtrack is exceptionally good for an indie title.

Gameplay mechanics and level design are pretty standard but are well executed. Particularly satisfying are the puzzles towards the end of the game that need you to use the enemies in the room to trigger switches and allow you to progress. However, the small number of item upgrades throughout the game limits the variety of puzzles you will come across. This can make the dungeons a bit repetitive and there is an over-reliance on jumping puzzles later in the game. You will also find yourself backtracking a fair bit to collect the various cards (which you need to progress) scattered throughout the overworld. Thankfully, the option to fast-travel through the Nexus prevents this from becoming too tedious.

The story in Anodyne is definitely the thing that causes most difference of opinion between gamers. It is either the strongest or weakest aspect of the game, depending on who you ask. Various locations and characters seem to represent different aspects of the main character’s psyche, and your progression through these stages get interpreted as a sort of symbolic coming-of-age story. If that sounds a little high-brow or pretentious for a retro dungeon crawler, then you’re not alone. While the creepy, surreal atmosphere of the game pretty much demands some level of ambiguity to work, I prefer a story with a bit more focus.

Overall, Anodyne is a worthy attempt at a tried and tested formula. Level design and game mechanics are well implemented, and both sound and graphics are used effectively to create a thoroughly absorbing dream-like atmosphere. While the story lacked focus, some players may enjoy coming up with their own theories about what it all really means…

Written by: Will for Gaming Now - We fall in that sweet spot between Awesome and Games

10 Super Awesome Zelda Cakes is a post from: Gaming Now

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Do you love cake? I do! And even better when it’s Zelda cake.

Majora’s Mask Cake

Click to view slideshow.

Via cakecrumbs.

Zelda Birthday Cake with Cupcakes

By jescos.

Link and Zelda Wedding Cake

By groomstand.

Nintendo 64 Zelda Cake

Made by Tracey with Black Cherry Cake Company.

Windwaker Island Cake

By Quirky Confectioner.

Two Tier Zelda Cake

By DeviantArtist see-through-silence.

Link Cupcake

By Reddit user upvotes-to-the-left

Forest Shrine Cake

By notoriouscupcakes.

Overworld Cake

Click to view slideshow.

Photos courtesy of Aaron Walker, who brought destruction to the Cake Land of Hyrule.

Written by: Will for Gaming Now - We fall in that sweet spot between Awesome and Games

Game Dev Story Guide is a post from: Gaming Now

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About Kairosoft

Kairosoft is a Japanese game developer who make games for Android, iOS and PC. Their games are generally simulator type games based on building villages or businesses up from nothing to dominate the in-game world. Sadly their entire site is in Japanese and built with lots of text in images so Google Translate doesn’t work well on it but all I know is when they release a new game I’ll be playing it lol.

Kairosoft Games

I’ve played most of the Kairosoft games but the 2 of them that I played the most were Game Dev Story and Beastie Bay. One focuses on creating games and consoles at a Game Development company, training staff up and making as much money as possible. The other is a village sim where you spend your days trying to entice new heroes to live in your village so you can send them on missions, getting tourists to spend money in your shops and generally build as big of an island village as you can.

Game Dev Story Guide

This is the story of a fledgling development studio trying to make their way in the games industry. To do that you need to make sure you have the right staff, train them and set them to work. The game has an in-game time system based on weeks, months and years. Each year you need to pay wages, get a visit from the traveling salesman, go to a games convention and see the awards show.  The whole game is a bit tongue-in-cheek with the naming conventions.

At first you won’t be able to afford to build a console or game so you’ll need to do some contract work to get the capital.

The workflow revolves around 4 main game traits: Fun, Creativity, Graphics and Music. When you start a job you’ll need to get a certain amount of points in a specific game trait within the allotted time scale. At first you might miss the deadline (which means no money) so pick ones that have low point requirements or hire more skilled staff members.

Hiring, Training and Leveling-Up

Your employees are the ones that make you the money so it’s only natural for you to want the best.

• You can advertise and get some better new employees. Maximum of 4 to start with.
• You can train the ones you already have at a cost.
• Or you can level up the ones you already have which ups their yearly wages and costs research data.

Hiring good employees with low wages is the best start to the game, then you can train them in whichever skills you want them to specialize in and level them up using research. When they reach level 5 you can change their jobs.

Job Classes

There are a few basic job classes to start with. Coder, Writer, Designer and Sound Engineer. Beyond that is other specializations like Director and Producer. You can hire people at that level or you can level up the 4 basic classes to max to unlock them. Someone leveled up from the basic classes will be much more skilled at everything that someone hired at that class.

The Elusive Hardware Engineer

Hardware Engineers are needed to develop consoles and have very high skill points in Coding and Writing but medium-low in Graphics and Sound. Having more Hardware Engineers means you can use better hardware when developing your consoles.

Hacker

Hackers are the top-level employee you can have, they can only be turned into Hackers from Hardware Engineers. They have HUGE skill points in all traits but their wages are also huge. You can hire these later in the game but someone trained up from the bottom level will have much more skill points (and cost more in wages). The only downside to training Hackers is that you must turn a Hardware Engineer into one and lose the Engineer.

Developing A Game

Once you have enough cash you’re going to start building your first game. It will be a PC game as that requires no licence fee to start out with. Other company consoles (such as the Phony consoles lol!) need you to pay a licence fee up-front before you can develop for their console but you won’t be able to afford that till later on. Cost of developing a game is depending on the type, genre and if you choose any upgrades such as Speed+ or Quality+.

Making games works differently to contract work. You pick the type of game and genre and then you have a certain amount of time to make the game, Your employees simply clock up points till your out of time. The more points a game has the better it is and will sell more copies.

Games have a 5th trait to them, bugs. You don’t want to release a buggy game so the last stage of game development is debugging but you can choose to release it before all the bugs are worked out if you want. There are also a few other things to consider such as the ‘hype’ of the game. advertising it and having big names working on it will build hype.

There are 4 main points in the development of a game:

1. Writing
2. Graphics
3. Sound
4. Bug Testing

Each stage involves picking an expert from your studio (or outsourcing it to a specialist) to do the task. The first one is Writing the game and it’s done before any other development work. An employee will get to work right away to get you some points to start the game out with. Then everyone will start work collecting points. At 30% though development is time to start thinking about Graphics, it works the same a Writing, pick the person with the highest Graphics ability to do it. Then is sound, again get the person with the highest musical ability to do this.

The last stage is debugging, the game is finished as soon as debugging is started and you can release it but if you release a buggy game it probably won’t sell very well or get bad reviews.

Developing a Console

Console development is a very long, very expensive process and it requires you to have at least 1 hardware engineer. You can’t hire hardware engineers, the only way to get one is through leveling up your staff enough to change their job category.

Building a console is separated into 2 stages where you need to earn a certain amount of points in the traits before you can move to the next stage.

Once you release a console you will earn money for the sale of it forever, or until it stops selling. It also doesn’t cost a licence fee to develop a game for your own console and selling good games for it will boost the console’s sales figures, keeping people buying it even when other companies release better consoles than yours.

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Written by: Will for Gaming Now - We fall in that sweet spot between Awesome and Games

Adventure, Fun, And Excitement With Zombie Games is a post from: Gaming Now

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Zombies are your common enemies on many video games. Zombie games never fail to excite you. This craze was inspired by the flesh and brain eating monsters from the horror films of the past decades. The Classic movie Night of the Living Dead started it all and since then, zombies evolved to become your favorite opponent.

Nothing can ever stop people from playing adventurous zombie games. The influx of these games is uncontrollable. The undead are stronger than ever. Here are some of the finest zombie games:

Resident Evil

The popularity of this game reached unexpected heights that it was even adapted to several movie versions. The setting is a haunted house. Claire is an average college girl searching for her missing brother. The streets were flooded with zombies.  You have to be careful as the ammos are very limited.

Left for Dead

You survived a zombie outbreak together with three others. You need to fulfill different missions and battle scenarios to get away from the city. This online game requires teamwork to be able to accomplish your tasks. The zombies here are swift and eager to eat you out. You need a strategy to beat the zombies. There is Smoker, one with a long tongue, Hunter is another zombie who can leap and claw you to death. Boomer releases goo to attract fellow zombies when killed. Tank is capable to give you some punishment.

House of the Dead

This game has been critically acclaimed for years. Thomas Rogan is an AMS agent who answers a phone call from his distressed fiancée, Sophie. The lady is a worker at the house of geneticist and biochemist Dr. Curien.

Rogan and G, his partner rushes to the scene only to realize that zombies and other creatures had infested the place. The challenge of game is how to get more lives. You are only given three lives on the start. You can easily lose these lives by an attack from the enemy and if you shoot a civilian. Lost lives are regained by rescuing civilians and through lives hidden in boxes.

Dead Island

There are four characters in the island of Banoi. One of them is you. All four are resistant to the zombie virus. There are fast zombies everywhere. Your duty is to help other survivors take shelter from the horde of zombies. You are asked to hunt lost loved ones and repair generators to keep electricity going.

The zombies are fast but nothing beats booting them in the face.  There are boat oar, driving knives, claw hammers, and crowbars to help you deal with your enemies.

Zombie games are here to stay.  They are fun and exciting. You have to be careful though. The zombies are out there waiting to devour your brain.

This article was written by Artchee Mendoza exclusively for this site. Artchee also writes for www.freegamesinc.com, where you can play free online zombie games.

Written by: Will for Gaming Now - We fall in that sweet spot between Awesome and Games

How to Get Perma Jugg in Black Ops 2 Zombies is a post from: Gaming Now

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Along with the recent Zombies DLC pack, Revolution, Trearch have unlocked 2 new permanent perks, added Die Rise and the new Turned mode. The new perma perks are Perma Jugg and Red Instakill.

How to Unlock Perma Jugg

Unlocking Perma Jugg is as easy as getting downed twice. The only problem with getting it is that you need to revive yourself with a Quick Revive so you have to be doing it solo. That being said sometimes you can get it while your playing online if everyone quits and you’re the host. I have yet to confirm if you can do it during multiplayer using the brand new Who’s Who perk machine that allows you to become a ghost and revive yourself but it seems to me that it’s likely you could do it that way too.

Easiest confirmed way of getting it is as follows.

1. Get a solo match on Tranzit.
2. Buy the Quick Revive (which is on right away and only costs 500 in solo mode).
3. Get downed by the last Zombie in round 1.
4. Revive yourself with the Quick Revive.
5. Get downed again.

When you get downed the second time you’ll see a green flash and then you’ll be able to take 4 hits at the beginning of every game, without buying Juggernog.

Alternate Method to Unlock Juggernog Perma Perk

You simply have to fall a great distance. This looks like it may only work on Die Rise and you might have to try it a few times before it does. Simply find a spot at the top of the tower and jump off it right out the building. You’ll fall to your death but the green mist will appear indicating you’ve unlocked the perk. Check this video to see what I mean.

Juggernog Pro

Juggernog Pro is when you unlock Perma Jugg and buy a Juggernog from the perk machine. When you do that you can take 6 hits before going down. It’s a crazy advantage to have and when you couple that with some of the other perma perks 4 that you can buy (6 with the Tombstone glitch) and 3 Pack a Punched weapons (yes 3 of them if you use the new Mule Kick perk) you can easily make it to much higher waves than normal. When I have the perks it’s not unusual for me to casually reach wave 20 or higher before I even get my first down.

Video Guide to unlock Permanent Juggernog

So do you know any other methods of unlocking any of the perma perks or do you have any theories on what the others might be if there are any? Leave a comment and let me know.

This guide is part of what has started to become the Black Ops 2 Mega Guide. There are guides for all the perma perks, how to turn the power on and get out the white room in Green Run and build the Pack-a-Punch machine and the secret locations in Zombies.

Written by: Will for Gaming Now - We fall in that sweet spot between Awesome and Games

What is the Red Skull Instakill in Black Ops 2 Zombies is a post from: Gaming Now

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Title update adds red skull instakill in Black Ops 2 Zombies. Die Rise Zombies and Turned modes also came with that title update along with Instakill Pro and some other perma perks like Perma-Jugg.

Unlocking Instakill Pro and What It Does.

You know you have it if you see a smaller red skull when you get instakill. Some people are calling it Insakill Pro or Upgraded Instakill and

You can unlock it in both Tranzit and Die Rise.

What the Ungraded Red Skull Instakill Does

This is the smaller red skull instakill you can unlock

It kills zombies that you touch!

When the red skull is there you simply need to touch a zombie for it to die. You don’t have to shoot, slash, punch or anything.

The red skull disappears shortly after you pickup instakill but the ordinary effect lasts until the white skill disappears.

As soon as you touch the zombie its head will explode however it’s still subject to the same rules as headshots. Namely that the zombie can continue to move and swing at you for a few seconds. It doesn’t always happen but when it does it’s enough to get you killed.

Each zombie kill with the red skull gives you 50 points.

How to unlock Red Skull Instakill

To get it you need to last an entire instakill pickup WITHOUT killing a zombie.

You’ll see the green poof and hear your character say something. Next time you pick one up it will be a red skull instakill and be able to simply run around exploding heads.

Red Skull Instakill Video Guide

There’s a bunch of video guides on YouTube of how to unlock Instakill Pro but they all show the same thing so here’s a completely random guide on how to get Red Skull Instakill.

This is the Red Skull Instakill Pro entry of my Black Ops 2 Zombies guide.

Written by: Will for Gaming Now - We fall in that sweet spot between Awesome and Games

Pokemon X and Y Starters for You to Choose is a post from: Gaming Now

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The Pokemon X and Y starters follow the same – fire, grass, water – format as the other 5 generations of games. The only exception being Pokemon yellow where the only choice was the electric type Pikachu.

We also know some info about the Legendary Pokemon in X and Y – Yveltal and Xerneas.

The 3 Pokemon X and Y Starters

Chespin – Grass

Chespin is the grass starter in Pokemon X and Y. Chespin looks like a chipmunk who, for some reason, has a green hat.

Chespin is the grass type Pokemon X and Y starter. He looks like he’s got on a strange green hat lol

Fennekin

Fennekin is the fire type of the Pokemon X and Y starters. It looks like a majestic fire feline.

Fennekin is the fire starter in Pokemon X and Y. Reminds me of Vilpix

Froakie

The Pokemon X and Y starter Froakie is a water type. Obviously with a name like Froakie the water starter had to look like a frog – and it does, only blue.

Forakie is the water type starter for X and Y. It looks like a blue frog.

Pokemon X and Y Legendaries

Interesting thing to note: Yveltal is a flying pokemon as Y is the up and down axis in a grid. Xerneas is a ground Pokemon as X is the flat axis of a grid.

Pokemon X and Y is out October 2013 on Nintendo 3DS. It will be the first Pokemon 3DS game the company have released (Black and White 2 is for NDS) and one of this years highest anticipated titles already.

New 3D Battle Camera

X and Y has a brand new 3D battle camera. You’ll not simply be staring at the back of your Pokemon during fights anymore. The camera moves around the field of battle. There are multiple angles. It switches dramatically.

And the attack animations are much more intricate than they were in any other previous Pokemon game.

Release date

Released in October 2013 you’ll be picking the starter you want to play the game with soon. Let me know in the comments which of the Pokemon X and Y starters you’ll be picking.

Some of the images used are from IGN’s Everything We Know About Pokemon X and Y article.

Written by: Will for Gaming Now - We fall in that sweet spot between Awesome and Games

Majora’s Mask 3D for Wii U or 3DS – Is It Real? is a post from: Gaming Now

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Following the announcement of Wind Waker HD for Wii U there has been fresh speculation surrounding Majora’s Mask Wii U or Majora’s Mask 3D. I’d like the remake, if one were made, on the 3DS. It’d site nicely next to my Ocarina of Time 3D.

The fact that they have announced Wind Waker Wii U instead of a MM or A Link to the Past came as a surprise to me, considering Shigeru Miyamoto said in June it was Majora’s Mask VS A Link to the Past.

I’d just like to point out that the images in this post are fan made. Nothing official has been announced by Nintendo and no Majora’s Mask remake in development as far as anyone knows.

Majora’s Mask 3DS

There was an image that I’d seen floating around the internet a while ago hinting at Majora’s Mask 3D on 3DS. The image was of a limited edition purple Majora’s Mask edition 3DS and it looked even better than the other limited edition 3DS consoles!

Here’s Sharindan’s mock-up of what a Majora’s Mask 3DS could look like

This was never claimed as an official release however people all over the internet started to think it was. There was even an advert created that supported the MM 3DS release.

This is the advert that was created to support the release of Majora’s Mask 3D

Both of these are entirely fan made. Nintendo have not confirmed Majora’s Mask for 3DS.

Majora’s Mask Wii U

The Moofall Edition of the Wii U

Same goes for a Wii U remake of Majora’s Mask. Nintendo have not confirmed anything. This image is also fan made by the same artist who done the Majora’s Mask 3DS.

No Majora’s Mask 3D

As of yet there has been no official announcement about a Majora’s Mask HD remake so I believe this to be wishful thinking on the part of Zelda fans but you never know. They could be working on this too but with the 2 new games: Wind Waker HD and Zelda Wii U I doubt they’d have time to work on this as well.

Majora’s Mask Wii U and 3DS Concepts

There is a few other designs that Sharindan-Dragon has posted. Here’s a gallery of everything Majora’s Mask 3D he’s done.

Written by: Will for Gaming Now - We fall in that sweet spot between Awesome and Games

Dead Space 3 Microtransactions and Ration Seals – John Calhoun Explains How They Work is a post from: Gaming Now

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Update: A lot of people are arriving at this post about the Dead Space 3 Microtransactions while searching for info on the Ration Seals. More specifically you want find out how to use ration seals in Dead Space 3 so I’m adding a section at the top about how to use them.

How to use Ration Seals

A lot of people are having trouble figuring out how to spend their collected Ration Seals. I have to admit I was one of them but I soon figured it out. To spend your ration seals you need to go into the workbench and select the DLC menu in there. You can also just press ‘Y’ (on Xbox anyway) when you go to craft an item you don’t have enough resources for. You can see the latter option in the screenshot below.

When in the DLC menu you will be able to pay for resource packs with your ration seals instead of using real money or Microsoft Points to get them.

Why Dead Space 3 has Microtransactions… but you can get the paid items for free with Ration Seals!

A sharp-eyed member of the press spotted that Dead Space 3 microtransactions are available right there in the upgrade bench. They allow you to use real world money to buy in-game upgrades. You can reach your goal with a bit of work but you can get there much faster by paying to unlock. There’s a rather unaffectionate name I like to give to this way of playing and that is ‘pay-to-progress’ or ‘pay-to-unlock’.

Why Dead Space has Microtransactions for Resources

With the Dead Space 3 microtransactions you can buy packs of resources to use in the hundreds of upgrade combinations you can do. They feel that gamers coming over from the mobile and casual market are more likely to enjoy the experience if they get the feeling of a similar gaming environment. They’re used to seeing something they want they going ahead and getting it – without needing to go out and work for it.

Some players need that “instant gratification”.

Dead Space 3 Upgrade bench showing the ability to buy resources

He also goes on to detail that everything you can buy with real world money you can also get by using Ration Seals collected throughout the game.

“So, your scavenger bot will go out, and sometimes when he comes back he’ll deliver ration seals. You’ll start to accumulate ration seals at a pretty steady clip throughout the game, and everything that can be purchased with real world dollars can also be purchased with ration seals.”

So no need to worry that people will have an advantage if they buy the packs, they won’t. Upgrades will still be locked until the same point in the game as they are for you, the only benefit of buying is getting the resources quickly.

No more Credits

Dead Space 3 has done away with the credits system entirely and instead you now use combinations of the resources you find to build and upgrade everything. There are hundreds, maybe thousands, of different combinations you could use to build the greatest tool of Necromorph destruction you can.

Plasma Cutter with a Force Gun underneath? Sure! A Javelin Flamethrower? Yes, of course!

Microtransaction Gamers.

The microtransaction gamers have become more widespread in recent months and years. I first noticed a push towards this with Zynga when their games were rising to popularity but it’s been around since before then – in the form of weapon packs in shooters and car packs in racing games etc.

It’s common in MMO type games for a player to use real world money to buy in-game upgrades. Sometimes those purchased items are better than anything you can earn in the game world.

Dead Space 3 Screenshots

As has become customary in recent weeks I’m including some bonus screenshots for you to enjoy.

So will you be buying any of the resource packs in Dead Space 3?

Written by: Will for Gaming Now - We fall in that sweet spot between Awesome and Games