Nexon has acquired the worldwide publishing rights for the first born video game of First Strike, which may lead to some MMO Fallout readers asking “well what’s the game?” Patience, my children, as the game hasn’t been announced yet. Formed last year, First Strike is a new on the scene developer composed of developers from 343 Industries, EA, and more.
More details will be announced later this year.
“We are super focused on competitive multiplayer games at First Strike,” said Kevin Franklin, CEO, First Strike Games. “In Nexon, we found a partner who has truly understood the gameplay we are exploring, has embraced our company vision and has contributed great ideas and expertise. We are looking forward to making amazing games together.”
(Editor’s Note: All screenshots from Playstation 4)
The date, March 15 2032. The place, my apartment. I am Morgan, waking up to start my first day at a new job at the TranStar Testing Facility. After fiddling around with a few things in the apartment, I grab my suit and head to the roof where a helicopter awaits. As the pilot takes off, the game transitions into a vehicle for smooth synth music. Just for giggles, I decide to see if I can jump into the helicopter’s blades. I can, they kill me instantly.
You start off Prey as Morgan Yu, gender-neutrally named protagonist going through a series of confusing and likely annoying personality questions at the TranStar Testing Facility. As you might expect being that this is a science fiction game, you’re walled off from the other characters initially, something goes wrong and all hell breaks loose in the facility. You’ll see this “twist” coming the moment you step into the first room, so I don’t feel like I’m spoiling anything of importance. To go further with the story after this point would be a major spoiler, so play the demo at your own risk.
First impressions with Prey make me feel like I’m playing a game developed by the Deus Ex folks at Eidos Montreal for the Mirror’s Edge universe with some System Shock thrown in for good measure. Rather than throw you into a sandbox and have you play with the encounters placed around the map, Prey follows the vein of Deus Ex, throwing around enough toys to play to most preferences. Want to be an awesome hacker? There are turrets, locked doors, etc aplenty. Want to go in guns blazing? You have that option. Sneak around using stealth? Absolutely. You very quickly come upon items like the wrench, GLOO gun (freezes enemies in place) and oddities like a foam crossbow that fires bolts that don’t do damage but are probably helpful for distractions.
Mimics are the primary antagonist of the game so far. The more populous group you’ll come across are capable of scurrying off and changing into objects in the scenery. Larger enemies roam around the map, and at this early stage it is clearly best to leave them alone. Your GLOO Gun doesn’t do a whole lot to help and they are capable of taking your out from afar.
Skill upgrades are handled by neuro mods both in plain sight and hidden around the map, giving the game more of an emphasis on exploration and less so on killing everything in sight to maximize your experience gain. Neuro mods can be used to customize Morgan to your play style, emphasizing stealth, weapon proficiency, or healing, among other things. Players of Deus Ex will be familiar with using the system for minor upgrades like lifting heavy objects or allowing Morgan to extract more resources from downed foes. Weapons are similarly upgraded through weapon upgrade mods (go figure) that are found separate from the neuro mods and again encourages deep exploration.
Prey is best played at a slow, methodical pace. Explore the map too fast and you’ll likely miss the crafting materials and notes scattered around, sticky notes with pass codes and important information. I also enjoy that mimics will show up in rooms that you’ve already cleared, rather than guiding the player through an all-too-predictable shuffle of entering a room, triggering the traps, and then having it be safe forever.
I walked out of the Prey demo with a few issues, most pressing being that controlling Morgan feels like pushing a wheelchair up a hill made of pudding. Slow and sluggish, both in movement and in turning, with some serious input delays on the Playstation 4. It’s like someone put Morgan into one of those padded training suits that you see the police use with training dogs, and you’re expected to keep up with said dogs who are now on rocket powered skates. None of these problems appear to be present on the Xbox One version, so if you have both systems, you’re probably better off on Xbox. There is no knowing how the PC version will run, Bethesda hasn’t released a demo.
Following Overwatch’s rather simplistic Halloween event, it was only a matter of time before the game received another cooperative game mode. This new mode has two separate versions, but for the sake of starting out I’ll focus on the story mode. Story mode takes place seven years in the past and sets you up with a team of four made up of Mercy, Reinhardt, Torbjorn, and the rookie Tracer. Your team is given orders by Commander Jack Morrison (Soldier 76) to take on an extremist faction of omnics called the Null Sector that have taken over a portion of London.
The second version of the game is the same concept, but there are no character restrictions.
Effectively, your goal is to take over three locations in a row, escort a payload, and finally kill a boss robot, all while a bunch of other robots stand in your way. The mode itself feels like Overwatch’s take on Valve’s Left 4 Dead, except with robots instead of zombies. It’s also a nice change from the Halloween event, placing the players on the attack rather than defending a single point. Lore and collection enthusiasts will also find something to enjoy with the new skins and dialog discussing the characters as they existed those years past. The concept gives Blizzard a virtual wealth of lore that can be spun into its own story, focusing on specific characters and events in the game’s timeline.
Taken as the story mode, Uprising gets pretty difficult above easy mode. The free hero mode is much less difficult as open access to heroes makes way for less balanced, virtually broken encounters. Regardless, the event is far less static than the Junkenstein Halloween event, is more relevant to the overall story, and overall has gameplay that is more inviting for multiple playthroughs.
Hopefully this leads to more permanent cooperative modes, or even something similar to Valve’s Mann Up mode with a set of loosely connected campaigns
Duke Nukem 20th Anniversary Edition is the latest re-release of the popular 1996 first person shooter, released by Gearbox Software with a new episode, audio commentary, and a new weapon. If you consider that the game peaked at a whole 320 users on Steam (estimated 15,000 owners total) and immediately plummeted down to just a few dozen in the following month, plus the estimated 140,000 copies sold between the Xbox and Playstation, it’s hard to imagine that Gearbox saw much of a return on their work.
But in considering that the 20th Anniversary Edition replaced the Megaton Edition, making it impossible to buy, and how just about every Duke Nukem related product since Gearbox took over the license (Forever, removing Megaton, pre-order DLC on Bulletstorm) seems to be met with disappointment, I had to have an answer to the question that has plagued me since the game’s launch: Would Gearbox put in the most basic of support and fix the game’s end boss?
The answer is no: They haven’t.
The 20th Anniversary edition of Duke Nukem 3D has numerous issues, but the one that stood out from the rest during my play time was the boss encounter in the new episode. The final boss of the game is the Cycloid Incinerator, who makes use of flamethrowers, spawns firefly troopers, and can shoot napalm that remains on the floor and causes environmental hazards. He’s also completely broken, as the boss is not just only capable of very close to low-distance combat, but he stands still and fires his weapon every time the player shoots him with something.
For all but the least competent or most daring of gamers, you are guaranteed to win the fight without ever taking a single hit. The game also doesn’t play to the boss’ strengths by placing you in a small confined space, but rather gives an open field to fight on, a reminder that this fight is equally poor game design as it is substandard programming. You can run a whole lot faster than the Cycloid boss can, and since he’ll willingly stand still from a hundred feet away and uselessly fire his flamethrower at you, there isn’t any danger at all in the fight. In fact, he’s more of a danger to the flying pig cops who fly into his line of fire and are, in turn, more of an actual threat to the player.
But don’t take my word for it, check out the clip below.
Gearbox has had the Duke Nukem license for seven years, during which they’ve managed to release Duke Nukem Forever, the work on which was mostly completed by 3D Realms, and Duke Nukem 3D: 20th Anniversary Edition, a re-release of a game with most of the work done by 3D Realms. The company confirmed in 2015 that a new Duke Nukem title was in development, noting that it was in early concept and may not ever see release.
The Cycloid Incinerator is a direct model rip of the Cycloid Emperor, a color-swapped, lazily programmed, barely functioning recreation of an entity that was mostly the work of 3D Realms, that appears to have been rushed to market with no intent on fixing down the line. In a way, he nearly perfectly represents Gearbox’s handling of the Duke Nukem IP. Perhaps Gearbox should hire this guy, who evidently managed to code a better functioning boss than Duke’s own veteran programmers.
Fraudster:
2a: a person who is not what he or she pretends to be :impostor;
Meet the Sinclair ZX Spectrum Vega+, a handheld device designed with the backing of Sir Clive Sinclair himself, and a modern representation of everyone’s favorite 80’s computer system designed by Sir Clive Sinclair. The Vega+ was crowdfunded on Indiegogo back in March 2016 to the tune of over half a million pounds, exceeding the goal at 367% with a scheduled delivery date of September 2016. As you’ve probably guessed by this article’s existence, it hasn’t shipped yet. As nature seems to demand in these stories, the actions of Retro Computers Limited and those involved are a much more interesting crapshoot than the actual product itself, which again hasn’t shipped yet.
(Full disclosure: I backed the Vega+ to the tune of £110, I fully expect this fact to be used against me but in the interest of disclosure and because my name and contribution are public, I will say it again here.)
A lot of this story dates back to the origin of the hardware’s funding, with the departure of directors Paul Andrews and Chris Smith, their exit due to irreconcilable differences, with both maintaining a 25% share in the company despite doing everything possible to distance themselves from it. If that doesn’t make sense, keep reading, I promise it doesn’t get any clearer. As someone who still eats at the McDonald’s that I’ve tried to burn down, I can completely understand the logic.
The agreement between Retro Computers Ltd and Cornerstone Media International Ltd went sour over unpaid bills and RCL headed up a lawsuit over breach of contract allegations. When asked if RCL would be able to ship the Spectrum on time, managing director Suzanne Martin had the following to say:
“The team at Retro Computers Limited and our partners are fully committed to delivering the Vega+ in accordance with our IndieGogo campaign, and with the added bonus of some new features created by the new technical director and his team,”
Evidently not, because in September the RCL crew went on Indiegogo to announce that the product was on schedule to hit its October launch. Wait, October launch? Well, on one hand it’s just a month delay and they’re having a launch party. Who has a launch party without a launch product? And the notice did say that the product would be available on select online retailers for the holiday season, so that’s something to go off of, right?
A launch event, for selected backers, supporters and media, is planned to take place at SMS Electronics Limited , in Beeston Nottinghamshire. SMS are the manufacturer of both the original Vega and the new Vega+ products, on behalf of Retro Computers Limited. Andrew Maddock, CEO of SMS said “We are excited that the project is going ahead and will soon be in volume manufacture.”
The next announcement told backers to make sure that their contact and delivery details were up to date, and that they’d be in contact over the following week to discuss delivery schedules. Now that we’re in November/December territory in our story, it’s probably a good time to tell the backers what’s been going on. As it turns out, that play test that RCL did with the first Vega+ systems identified a problem that simply needed to be fixed. There’s a light on one side that won’t light, so they’re taking it back to the factory to fix it up there and bring it back here.
“Assembling and playing with these first units we identified an improvement we believed was essential to the Vega+ gaming experience. An improvement that would make the feel of the product far better, including a correction in the design of one of the buttons making it more robust and able to withstand the rigours of extended game-play.”
Well since we missed the September, then October release dates, what do you have for us now, Jack? After thanking backers for their patience, RCL announced the new, new, new release date:
“This change has caused a brief delay and we are truly sorry about that, but we needed this time to improve the product and we have now completed the necessary revisions and we are delighted to announce that we will ship the first units in February 2017.”
Very good, now hopefully this won’t be overridden by the next quoted announcement.
“First Vega + units will ship after the 20th February 2017”
It’s like I knew it was coming. Yes, the schedule had once again changed to a tentative “sometime in the future,” let’s play it by ear and see where nature takes us. You see up until this point the talks of delays have been pretty much all about technical designs, making the device as cool as it can be, normal stuff that happens with hardware manufacturing. We got the child’s view of the parent’s impending divorce with all the nastiness cut out. Now all of a sudden RCL starts talking about lawsuits. We learned from the world of petty business tactics that Andrews and Smith had not just left the company, they threw the baby out with the bathwater, then stole the baby and the water.
Seriously, after promising that the duo would hand over all assets, they didn’t, meaning RCL was now on the hook piece of Vega+ hardware and no firmware to back it up. To top off matters, this is the point where Cornerstone Media could no longer figure out who owned the rights to the Vega and subsequently stopped paying royalties, hence the lawsuit.
Unfortunately the handover did not include any technical assets, and specifically excluded the software for the Vega+ which had already, in December 2015, been developed to the point of having working prototypes available in time for the January 2016 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. We therefore had to create the Vega+ technology completely from scratch, starting in May, and the development work had to be carried out by a small team who did not have any of the specific Vega knowledge and experience of Chris Smith who led the development of both the Vega and the company’s Vega+ prototypes.
And then, to top off the cake, according to Retro Computers Ltd, they used their powers (likely as shareholders) to try and stop RCL from suing Cornerstone over the breach of contract. Paul Andrews then, allegedly, began contacting developers who had pledged their games to the Vega+ and tried to convince them to withdraw their support from the system. Again, I can understand. This takes me back to the days when I sent in my college application and then penned a letter writing campaign to tell the applications board that I wasn’t college material. I’m just looking out for my own well being.
I’m going to reiterate because I feel like this is important enough to again be summarized and hammered down: 25% shareholders are allegedly calling business partners and trying to convince them not to do business with their business. Perhaps these guys should get into automobile accident fraud law, they seem really skilled at throwing each other under buses. The great thing about text is that you don’t hear the frustrated vulgarities of the editor trying to wrap his head around this whole ordeal. I’ll leave it up to RCL to once again ask why the hell the shareholders are damaging their own business.
Once again, the question needs to be asked of Mr Andrews and Mr Smith, as to why they would wish to damage Retro by attempting to prevent the recovery of a significant amount of money owed to the company. The recovery of this money would enable Retro to make additional royalty payments to all the games rights owners whose games are in the Vega, and to make an additional donation to our chosen charity, Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity.
But it gets better. It always gets better. This is where we need to introduce a new player, Darren Melbourne. Melbourne is the director of a company that is not a Chinese knockoff of Retro Computers Ltd, even though it is named suspiciously close, Retro Games Ltd, and was founded less than two years after RCL, and it also has a few of RCL’s ex-directors. Retro Games Ltd has four equal shareholders, including Melbourne and coincidentally enough Paul Andrews and Chris Smith. What are the odds? By virtue of happenstance, Retro Games Ltd launched an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign in April 2016, a point that oddly coincides with Smith and Andrews deciding that they couldn’t stand it anymore at RCL.
What were they crowdfunding, you ask? Well it just happened to be a different modern version of a different old computer system, in this case the Commodore 64 which is in fact not the Spectrum. The campaign, which the trio had been working on going back to March, constituted a conflict of interest according to RCL director David Levy. Chris Smith retained ownership of the firmware for the Vega and Vega+ which he allegedly offered to sell to RCL for twenty grand. According to reports, they refused and in April appointed Janko Mrsic-Flogel and Suzanne Martin without Smith and Andrew’s approval, and made their own firmware.
At one point in this whole debacle, the two parties went to court over attempts to remove Smith and Andrews as shareholders, if for anything for the crime of being the worse hype men in the history of business. In November, the Chancery Division court ruled against RCL.
Nicholas Cooper, 99% owner of Cornerstone Media International Ltd (said defendant) put his company into liquidation at the end of January this year. Cooper, thanks to Chief Master Marsh, has been named a defendant and will be held personally liable along with his company to the tune of over one hundred fifty thousand pounds in funds that RCL hopes to recover from the botched business deal. RCL’s deal with Cornerstone Media happened after the company stopped paying royalties for the Vega, which were suspended (according to Cooper) due to the dispute over ownership of the Vega firmware.
But let’s go back to Darren Melbourne, who in a correspondence with RCL’s lawyers, had the following to say:
“I’ve been in the games industry for over thirty years and I personally know at least three quarters of all of the rights holders of games on the Vega. I will write to each rights holder encouraging them to approach RCL [Retro Computers Ltd] for the royalties that are owed in respect of their titles. I will also encourage them to withdraw permission for their games to be used on the Vega.”
According to RCL, Melbourne has gone further by not just contacting a children’s hospital charity (that RCL had made a donation to) to slander the team, but showing up at the home of Sir Clive Sinclair himself, of which he was apparently immediately booted out.
The Unsubstantiated Threat of Violence
But where would a campaign such as this be without threatening the press? According to a BBC report published earlier this month, when the news agency contacted RCL in December to ask about the status of the Vega+, they were threatened with legal action. Evidently, according to RCL’s lawyer Michelmores LLP, the BBC has it out for RCL:
“Our clients are concerned that the BBC is in fact supporting and participating in a malicious campaign intended to denigrate our clients’ reputation,” wrote lawyers Michelmores LLP in a letter to the broadcaster.
Absolutely, keep up the narrative that it’s a campaign of hate, it puts you in the same crowd as Digital Homicide and every egotistical independent creator for whom threats are a convenient excuse for not doing the job they’re paid for. In addition to the legal threats, RCL wanted the ability to view BBC coverage 48 hours before it went live so they could point out any “false information.” The BBC refused, and if you haven’t noticed it’s given rise to a huge amount of other press taking an extra close look at Retro Computers Ltd. Us not exempt, and I did indeed give RCL plenty of time to add any comments. They ignored my email.
I do want to point out that I’m not casting doubt or making light on whether or not people have made death threats against Retro Computers Ltd. This is the internet, I am guaranteed to get a death threat for writing this article, because this is the internet and there are a lot of psychopaths who are on here. I’ve received death threats over covering the death threats reported by other people. It does not take a lot to invoke the wrath of the internet’s mentally unstable underground, let alone when you’re a public facing company.
No Refund Requests Received = No Refund Requests Denied
Suzanne Martin boldly told Eurogamer that “we have never refused a backer a refund,” a statement that stands at odds with the Vega+ Indiegogo page which is currently saturated with comments of people reporting numerous, if not a few dozen, refund attempts going unanswered. I suppose if you never check the page, your email, or any other forms of contact that people have used to get in touch with you, you technically never say no.
“RCL, I have emailed you for a refund request on two different sources, the comment section being third source in the last 30min, I know how forgetful you can be at getting back to people and posting online manuals etc so I posted here now can I please get my refund?”
“Just for clarity I will once again post my refund request of £105 for the Clive (Black). Probably kicking into mid 20’s now in terms of refund requests. Eagerly awaiting any new info or footage which may change my opinion on this but currently I still want off this ride until that is forthcoming.”
“Still waiting for even a reply on refund request. It seems RCL doesn’t deny refund requests by way of ignoring them.”
I would point out that the RCL Facebook page is similarly plastered, but it isn’t. Those users are banned and their posts deleted, talks of refunds are against the rules there. It isn’t uncommon for me to check my phone and see that six people have posted things on the RCL Facebook page only to click the link and find nothing there.
You People Need To Get Over Yourself
As if to compound the bad PR, over at the Vega’s ironically named “DEMOCRACY!” page, a closed Facebook group where for the past week MMO Fallout has quietly observed regular bans for skepticism, loyalty to the product is fervent if not fanatical. News postings covering the Indiegogo campaign are immediately labeled fake news, in spite of either the inability or unwillingness of those pointing fingers to notate any actual inaccuracies. Claims of upcoming fact checking of articles never seem to come to fruition, and paranoia is also high over fake accounts, and the group seems to have deep contempt for another Vega+ group seemingly made up of those banned from the official group, to the point where RCL people are regularly seen calling it a “hate group.”
Just read this following passage to skeptics and try not to forget that we’re still talking about a piece of consumer hardware, specifically complaints over a video being delayed.
RCL’s inability to meet basic deadlines for what should otherwise be pretty mundane stuff doesn’t go far to help their image either. This week, the company promised photos, videos, and footage of the system booting up, which were posted late because taking shots with a smart phone is a monumental task in 2017. They did release this shot of the units which looks pretty fancy if I do say so myself, but not until after acting as though having an employee take a few snapshots on his phone during lunch might push the launch date back to October.
I actually delayed this piece by a week to give Retro Computers Ltd time to put out these shots and videos that they were purportedly making, because I didn’t want to call them incompetent or question that the product actually existed only to be shot down by the end of the week. They delivered, with the photo above and most recently the video below.
RCL doesn’t have to go far to find haters, but the public face of the company sure puts a lot of effort towards taking disgruntled backers and turning them into pissed off jilted lovers thanks to comment deletion and banning. They do have their work cut out for them as the “public” (closed group) discussion page on Facebook, where the mood regularly swings between healthy skepticism and paranoid delusion, has put together the most skilled assortment of expert digital photographers to ever haul freight and set them on the task of using forensic analysis (read: pixelated photos) to determine (read: confirm their already made conclusion) that the pixels look all wrong and therefore it’s all a giant conspiracy. It’s only a matter of time before we find out that the materials used in the Vega+ models are from the faked moon landing.
In Conclusion
This is the longest Crowdfunding Fraudsters I have ever written and definitely the longest from start to finish, because the story is ridiculous and I felt that some of the pieces needed to be put together. I also had some serious doubts about publishing this piece at all, because the more I dove into it the more apparent it became that this wasn’t the case of an incompetent crew receiving a lot of money and getting in over their heads with promises that they never conceivably could make, as it usually is, but the case of what would have been a well oiled machine seemingly sabotaged from the inside. To put it in another analogy, by most accounts the train was running fine until one of the conductors broke the steering wheel off and jumped ship. Train. The train should reach the station any day now, but having that steering wheel would have been nice.
So as much as a certain Facebook group probably relishes in the thought of people like Suzanne Martin and David Levy sitting in the RCL offices every day, sipping tea out of cups made of backer money and laughing maniacally, I have my doubts. If the crew at RCL is guilty of anything, it is of talking too much about the wrong topics. Focus less on giving intricate details about the aspects that people care less about, like the lawsuits, and put that time into talking about the things that people do want to hear, like game lists, like acknowledging delays. More importantly, acknowledge delays. Stop promising that you’ll put something out “tomorrow,” only to say nothing when it’s several days later and you haven’t produced anything. In fact, stop using the term “tomorrow” entirely, just boot it from your vocabulary.
Barring some crazy shift, I think it’s likely that backers will eventually receive their products, myself included. A six or seven month delay, assuming it does launch this month or in April, isn’t crazy for hardware. It is unfortunate, but not entirely out of this world. I expect by that point most of the drama going on at both Facebook pages will mostly cease, but who says you can’t enjoy it while it lasts, or until they figure out my Facebook profile and I get banned.
Best of Greenlight is a space where I’d like to talk about games that are deserving of your attention, rather than focus entirely on shady independent developers and their shady asset flips and shady copyright takedown notices. The best part about the current spotlight game is that you can play it right now: It is currently in the middle of a free weekend.
Streets of Rogue looks a lot like The Escapists, is developed by Matt Dabrowski, and is currently in early access on Steam. I know what you’re thinking, ‘another retro-inspired hardcore rogue-lite?’ I’m not deaf to your complaints, in fact I’m willing to admit that if it weren’t for the free weekend that I probably wouldn’t have given this a shot myself. What this package contains is a rather charming game, with tight controls, a variety of systems, and more. In short, it actually makes an effort to set itself apart.
The core of all dungeon crawling rogue-lites is pretty much the same: You go through a dungeon, you kill the things, you get loot, and you level up. Ultimately your character dies and you start it all over again, albeit with some sort of overarching progression system that gives you a little more to go on with each passing session. Streets of Rogue is more than just that, rather than populating the level with a host of angry creatures and letting you have at it, the game actually encourages some level of diplomacy, provided you’re willing to go along with it. If you’d rather just go through each level and massacre the whole map, more power to you.
First thing you’ll do before being thrown into the fray is choose your class for that session, each one with their own strengths, weaknesses, and starting items. The soldier for instance starts with a machine gun and regenerates health when it is under 20. The gorilla, meanwhile, has a very powerful attack but his stupid gorilla brain can’t talk English, and therefore can’t interact with characters, his stupid gorilla hands can’t use guns, scientists hate him and will attack on sight, and bartenders don’t want him in their bar (have you ever seen a gorilla pay his bar tab? Point made). A number of factions populate the world, from cops to the ongoing feud between the blahd and the crepe gangs, scientists, and all kinds of strange bedfellows.
But what makes the game pretty unique is that you’re not just going through a dungeon while fighting off a range of NPCs, rather each map is a procedurally generated zone consisting of a random assortment of characters, an assortment of tasks, and you are given pretty free reign to take on those tasks as you see fit. For example, you have to terminate a character who is hiding behind a locked door. You can knock on the door and see if they’ll come answer it, beat the door down with your fists (provided you’re strong enough), blow it open with a weapon, go outside and shatter the window so the NPC comes to investigate, use a lockpick on the door, use a charge on the door, or go to the outside ventilation system (if the building has one) and inject something into it to either kill or force out the inhabitants.
To give another angle to how the AI reacts to events, in another mission I was tasked with killing a scientist in his home, which had a big mean looking bouncer standing right outside the door. I blew a charge on the door bringing the bouncer down to very low health, which was enough for him to decide the job wasn’t worth it and quit right there on the spot. In another instance, I had to terminate a character being held prisoner in the local jail. After taking out the guard and using the computer to unlock the cell doors, I found my target in a fight with another prisoner. Apparently I wasn’t the only one who wanted this guy dead.
I find the fighting to be extremely satisfying in Streets of Rogue, every punch and whack met with a sickening crunch as your target gets knocked back, even more so when you manage to punch them so hard that they crash through a wall. With the AI system in place, it’s very easy in certain areas for small fights to break out into riots, with buildings exploding and people beating each other to death as the police show up and start blasting indiscriminately, resulting in some bystanders getting shot and either joining in or freaking out and running off. Companies love using the buzzword “the game is different every time you play!” and I think this may be one of the few times that that promise actually comes true.
Your currency for meta progression is chicken nuggets, which you’ll receive for completing missions which are required in order to progress to further levels. Chicken nuggets can be used to unlock traits, rewards, and more.
Since Streets of Rogue still has a day and change left on its free weekend, I highly suggest you give the game a try. Otherwise it sells for $14.99. If you do give Streets of Rogue a try, let us know what you think in the comments below.
Treasure Hunter is one of the more divisive aspects of present day RuneScape 3, it serves as both an interesting feature of the game as well as a perfect example of how disgustingly greedy Jagex can be when they feel like being disgusting and greedy. Case in point, the elite skill equipment. Rolled out over the past couple of years, the elite skill outfits not only offered substantial bonuses to players who collected the four-piece outfits, they were mostly available for a very limited time. We’re talking three days to collect three sets of four piece suits tied to random lockboxes.
Players were understandably angry, since the promotions were rather blatant attempts at fishing in whales as the event would require substantial sums of money over a short period of time in order to potentially never gain all twelve pieces. As part of an initiative launched last October to balance revenue with long term game health, Jagex still plans on releasing said skilling outfits via Treasure Hunter. After a period of exclusivity they will be obtainable in-game as a high level reward.
Once you meet the 70 Mining or Runecrafting requirement, you’ll be able to collect fragments of the rune ethereal and gemstone golem outfits while training the corresponding skill through any regular method. Success chance increases with your skill level, and fragments will be automatically stored in your currency pouch.
In addition, many of the skilling outfits have been made fully available on Treasure Hunter itself, so there is still the chance of obtaining them through daily key stipends while you’re grinding out the materials. The good news is that Jagex seems to be placing less emphasis on making game-altering equipment exclusive to Treasure Hunter, which is sure to be a relief to players tired of being asked to pull out their wallets every few weeks.
Today’s snapshot comes to us from RuneScape. Today’s update to the ever-expanding MMO finally healed the scar in Lumbridge, where players assisted in a battle between gods Saradomin and Zamorak going on four years ago. Since then the battle-scarred land has been used for everything from holiday events to summer beach parties. With today’s update, a bit of life returns to the region with all sorts of rabbits and imps walking around.
Also part of today’s update is a major overhaul to the game’s wardrobe system.
STICLI Games is the developer of Airport Master on Steam, a $15 airport simulator that by all accounts seems to be a decent game that merely suffers from a bad user interface. The developer, however, seems intent on driving their reputation directly into the river by coming right off the starting line with toxic behavior, an illegitimate end user license agreement, and enforcing trademarks that it very likely does not own.
Since we live in a world where shady, toxic indie Steam developers waste no time perjuring themselves (because filing a false DMCA is committing perjury, a very real crime) by striking critical videos, banning people who post critical reviews, and threatening critics with everything from legal action to revoking their access to the game because they had the gall to complain on or off of the forums.
But STICLI Games has taken it a step further. Imagine, as a non-business owner, what you would do to stop criticism of your game. You write it into the rules, right? While rules are fine and dandy, you need a set that has implied legal backing behind it, and that leads us to our next topic: The end user license agreement. It’s a tool that, for many small business, would never hold up in court because it wasn’t drafted by a lawyer (a competent lawyer), contains bad sections that could invalidate the whole agreement, and the owner assumes that anything written is legally binding because why not, the customer agreed to it.
STICLI Games has decided to bake justification for toxic, anti-consumer practices directly into their EULA, starting with the recognition that STICLI owns the trademarks on all properties and you are not allowed to produce content without prior written permission:
The End User recognizes that all of the rights associated with the Software as well as the rights related to the trademarks, royalties and copyrights, are the property of STICLI Games and are protected by international laws and treaties. Any use of Copyright Holder’s trademarks, imagery content, videos, graphical elements, names, plot in any activity (including but not limited to: producing 3d party video content, electronic and on-paper publishing, creation of promotional content etc.) is only possible with prior written permission of Copyright Holder.
Incidentally, we can learn a lesson from Digital Homicide’s James Romine on this subject: As he stated in his lawsuit against Jim Sterling about the use of the ECC Games name, he isn’t violating any law because ECC Games doesn’t own the trademark in the United States. And after a cursory search of the US Trademark Office, it looks like STICLI Games doesn’t own a US trademark on Airport Master. Trademark, unlike copyright, does not protect works automatically. You have to file, pay the fees, and have your application approved.
But let’s go further, because the EULA just gets better from here out.
4. TRADEMARKS AND RIGHTS TO THE SOFTWARE
The End User recognizes that all of the rights associated with the Software as well as the rights related to the trademarks, royalties and copyrights, are the property of STICLI Games and are protected by international laws and treaties. Any use of Copyright Holder’s trademarks, imagery content, videos, graphical elements, names, plot in any activity (including but not limited to: producing 3d party video content, electronic and on-paper publishing, creation of promotional content etc.) is only possible with prior written permission of Copyright Holder.
A large portion of the threatening emails I receive from developers follow this pattern, people who think they the legal authority to decide who covers their products and want to know why I didn’t ask for permission before publishing my review/editorial. Here’s the thing about copyright law: You don’t have to ask for the creator’s permission in order to cover it. I don’t need STICLI’s permission to use a screenshot as part of this publishing, I don’t need their permission to write this article about how they’d want permission from me to write this article, and I don’t need permission to review their products.
EULAs don’t magically grant companies special privileges, there have boundaries you can’t go outside of when it comes to agreeing on what can and can’t be done.
9. NO REFUNDS
Except when required by law, the Licensor shall be under no obligation to issue refunds under any circumstances. The Licensor may issue refunds basing on Licensor’s own judgement and solely as a gesture of good will.
I have seen some discussion about this clause and it isn’t technically ‘illegal’ in the basic sense because the writer was smart enough to add ‘except when required by law.’ It doesn’t make sense otherwise because STICLI doesn’t get to decide who receives a refund, that’s Valve. None of STICLI’s judgement comes into effect when it comes to Valve’s refund policy.
That means you MUST obtain prior written permission from us before uploading any videos to YouTube. Otherwise, you are breaching the EULA and we can terminate your software license without refund and fire a copyright strike on YouTube.
Also, is this a challenge? Because it sounds like a challenge, and I love a good challenge. So, in testing whether Steam would enforce Airport Master’s ‘under any circumstance’ EULA, I decided to purchase Airport Master for $14.99. I quickly came across some performance issues, including the following illegible text on most menus. It made the game, in my humble opinion, impossible to play on my system and therefore a qualifying circumstance to ask for a refund, I think most will agree.
So I asked for a refund, to which Valve said “yea sure whatever” and promptly handed it over after about two hours.
Turns out that STICLI Games’ EULA isn’t so binding after all.
One more thing: The whole argument about trademark is useless as trademark and copyright are two wholly separate entities. Trademark is all about market confusion, owning a brand and identity and being able to protect it. It is what would prevent someone from, say, starting up a business called STICKLI Games and producing a game called Airport Masters and selling it on Steam, because that is confusing the market. It stops sleazy furniture stores from advertising the “Ultimate Super Bowl Couch,” because it implies official affiliation. It does not give you full control over the use of the words.
It looks like STICLI Games is in Cyprus, and doesn’t own the trademark there either.
MMO Fallout 