Monthly Archives: February 2015
Ubisoft Restoring Deactivated Games
Ubisoft is restoring games to players who had their copies of Far Cry 4 and a few other titles deactivated due to an ongoing fraud investigation.
After finding that several keys for Ubisoft games were fraudulently purchased with stolen credit cards, and then allegedly resold to third-party digital retailers, Ubisoft began deactivating games on customers' Uplay accounts.
This lead to disappointment among players who felt unfairly punished. In response, Ubisoft has decided to reactivate the games for select people.
You can read Ubisoft's statement on the matter below:
Citizens of Earth Review
Stop me if you've heard this one: The vice president, his mom, his brother, and a conspiracy theorist walk into a forest. They get into a random encounter with a deer with a telephone attached to its antlers. The entire group gets hit with roaming charges.
Badumtiss.
Welcome to most of your time in Citizens of Earth, where state-of-the-art bad puns, visual gags, and Colbert Report-lite political jabs are the glue holding together a fun, accessible, ‘90s-throwback RPG. This is a delightful game about the newly elected and clueless vice president of Earth finding himself and his random collection of constituents fighting the evil, caffeinated influence of the Moonbucks Corporation all over the streets and underground lairs of Crystal City.
Citizens of Earth wears its influences proudly. The obvious joke to make is that the game's title stops just short of calling itself Citizens of Earthbound, which would be appropriate, but also not necessarily an insult, considering that the game shows an enormous amount of respect for its inspiration; and really, Earthbound's a game that doesn't get ripped off enough. The reality, however, is that there are equal parts Suikoden and Pokemon running through the game's DNA as well, spiked with a dose of sharp but good-natured Western snark. The game runs a master class on puns alone (personal favorite being a scene where you face down an enemy called the Puppet President, who’s controlled by a literal Seat of Power), but it's not above the well-executed pop-culture reference (e.g., the ersatz Orkin lady who says “Exterminate!” in a Dalek voice) or taking a few gentle bites at politics in general. Citizens of Earth's commentary isn't exactly as scathing as your average Stewart/Colbert/Oliver diatribe, but it definitely takes its shots carefully and amusingly through its 20-odd hours. This is a game in which the VP, despite being the main character, never fights his own battles: with each fight, he literally hides behind omnipresent bushes, providing commentary and fretting over his perfect hair and teeth while the eponymous citizens do his dirty work. The dialogue is also solid, though the game gets strangely stingy with the voice acting after the first couple of hours, and seeing so many great one-liners float by as text-- as opposed to the great voice acting we get when each citizen is introduced--is a disappointment.
The game has far more reverence towards gameplay, however, and as mentioned, its influences are clear. From Suikoden, you get the sense of community, the concept of talking random characters from every corner of town;, and after performing a specific task--which could be anything from defeating a specific number of baddies, to completing some surprisingly frustrating Mario Party-esque minigames--you can invite these random characters to fight the good fight with you. There are about 40 of them to collect along the VP's journey, running the gamut from your own dear, sweet mother, who fights enemies with spankings and stat-lowering guilt trips, to computer programmers whose attacks hit (confusingly) in binary numbers. While some are much more useful than others, virtually any random job you might find in a small town is represented here, along with some sprinkles of pure wacky, like Conspiracy Guy and the local Ninja, and the sheer variety, the fun characterization, and lack of repetition among the wacky menagerie is fantastic, and addictive if only to mine all the new jokes out of the game.
Welcome to most of your time in Citizens of Earth, where state-of-the-art bad puns, visual gags, and Colbert Report-lite political jabs are the glue holding together a fun, accessible, ‘90s-throwback RPG.
The Pokemon comparisons come because, after recruitment, each character has to be trained up in order to take full use of their talents, some of which are useful both in and out of combat--like the Pilot, who can fly your party anywhere in the game world in seconds, or the Baker, who can make you delicious items without having to visit a store. As with Pokemon, all training requires is that characters be present during combat and they'll reap the XP benefits. It leads to the typical Pokemon situation of having to feed XP to underleveled characters to get them where they need to be. And afterward, you occasionally have situations like the Yoga Instructor or School Mascot, who provide such insane stat boosts per level that it almost feels like a cheat--but this is simply the double-edged sword that comes with being able to play the game in so many different ways.
From Earthbound, we get virtually everything else. CoE's graphics are much higher res and better drawn than Earthbound's 8-bit stylings, but the simplicity of CoE's Crystal City, how each area connects to the other, and the small-town feel of the place are familiar and functional. From merely walking down Main Street, to getting lost on Mount Pom Pom, it's simply a fun place just to wander in. And this is a feeling that doesn't go away the further you go, and the weirder the game gets. If there's a downside here, it's that the game's soundtrack is too nondescript for a game with so much character in every other respect.
Earthbound's combat system is almost copy-pasted here, right down to the trippy Hypnotoad backgrounds when fights start. You get a set of attacks--some basic, some costing energy orbs that replenish after a successful attack, and a few basic elemental strengths/weaknesses thrown in for good measure--and wail on enemies till they drop. The game has a nasty habit of making fights go on longer than they have to, because enemies will have transformations or defense moves that take multiple turns to compensate for, like the low-level walking java bean that transforms into a rabid, high-defense plant at the worst possible times. Citizens of Earth is a lot more forgiving, however, in that if your current character configuration isn't doing the trick fast enough, you can restart combat and swap out characters you don't need for that fight. Even if you die, you restart from the same spot on the map.
The game's biggest issue is that while the enemies are at least visible, they are legion, they start fights if they touch any of your characters onscreen, and they respawn the second you leave a room, even for a second. There's a neat trick where you can charge your characters at an enemy on the map who's got their back turned and kill them without even needing to fight, but the game gets finicky as to where some characters' backs are. It's frustrating at times, for sure, but there are so many ways to compensate that it's a wash.
Ultimately, the game is such an infinite fountain of charming and funny, that even when you've started rolling your eyes at how often you've had to wait for one of the traffic cone/hermit crab enemies to come out of defense, you end up getting into a conversation with an NPC and forgetting it ever happened. It's a fine slice of the ‘90s that developer Eden Industries has delivered here, and it's just too good being the Veep to let a few minor issues bring it down.
Borderlands 1 Multiplayer Restored on PlayStation 3
Previously unavailable for some time, multiplayer has been restored for the original Borderlands on PlayStation 3.
Ever since the shutdown of GameSpy's servers that initially interrupted multiplayer, developer Gearbox has been working on a solution to allow PlayStation 3 owners to once again access Borderlands' 4-player co-op. Now, players in North America and Europe - Japan will hopefully be restored soon as well - can once again connect online and take to the dunes of Pandora with friends.
Superman Is Getting a New Power, Costume This Week
In this Wednesday's Superman #38 by writer Geoff Johns and artist John Romita, Jr., Superman will be getting both a new power and a new costume. USA Today debuted a piece of art, giving us our first hint of what the power will be like.
With some exceptions, Superman's powers have been established as flight, super speed, super strength, invulnerability, super senses, X-ray vision, heat vision, and ice breath. As you can see, this one is in a league of its own.
Carrie-Anne Moss Joins AKA Jessica Jones
The casting is now pouring in for Marvel's AKA Jessica Jones, with Carrie-Anne Moss the latest to join the upcoming Marvel/Netflix series.
Moss, best known for her role as Trinity in The Matrix trilogy, is playing a character who pointedly is not being named yet by Marvel. Instead, she's simply described as, "A no-nonsense woman who could prove a powerful ally to Jessica… if Jessica (Krysten Ritter) doesn’t completely alienate her first."
Carrie-Anne Moss as Trinity in The Matrix trilogy.
Out This Week: February 2, 2015
With so many new games and movies coming out, it can be hard to keep up. Lucky for you, IGN is here to help with a weekly round-up of the biggest releases each and every week. Check out the latest releases for this week, and be sure to come back next Monday for a new update.
Note: The prices and deals compiled below are accurate at the time we published this story, but all are subject to change.
Top 10 Super Bowl XLIX Commercials
Unlike last year's blowout, this Super Bowl XLIX took things right down to the wire. Then all it took was a big mistake by the Seahawks with twenty seconds on the clock and the Patriots took the game.
Check Out All the Super Bowl XLIX Movie Trailers Here
Speaking of big mistakes, Nationwide decided to gut-punch viewers with a strange, off-putting ad about a kid who died because of a random household accident. We certainly hope they were going for an "Even if everyone hates this, they'll be talking about Nationwide" approach. Check it out...
Battlefield Hardline Could ‘Perhaps’ Have Jets
The smaller-scale setup of Battlefield Hardline's cops-and-robbers premise might seem like an odd fit for airplanes, but the developers at Visceral Games aren't completely opposed to the idea of eventually putting them in.
"No jets or tanks in this one," the developer said on Twitter in response to a fan question about vehicles in Hardline. They later partially rescinded the statement when asked about whether or not airplanes would one day make it in, saying "In the initial release no, but if it fits the themes of any additional content, perhaps."
Hot Comics to Buy This Week: 2/2/2015
We all want the best of the best, so let us point out the hottest comics and collectibles released each week. We spotlight our favorite comics that we know are money-well-spent, new books that look cool, and any toys we can't wait to play with.
Check out our picks, then take to the comments to let us know what looks good to you!
Written by Scott Snyder & Drawn by Rafael Albuquerque | DC Comics
Evo 2015 Registration Now Open
Passes for this year's Evolution Championship Series in Las Vegas are now on sale with a few different tiers to choose from.
Those who plan to attend all three days of the tournament have their pick of two passes. The first three-day pass costs $78 and comes with a guaranteed seat at the tournament finals on Sunday. The second option costs $58 and instead comes with a seat to watch a live broadcast of the finals in the Exhibit hall. Two-day passes for Friday and Saturday are also available for $48.
The official Evo site notes that three-day passes are expected to sell out quickly, so be sure to get yours soon.