So E3 2014 (that’s Electronic Entertainment Expo…) is in full swing right now (well, perhaps not, depending on when you’re reading this, but it is a-swingin’ as I type).
I shan’t be covering everything, because a) I’m not in LA, 2) I’m not yet writing about games for a living so going there can’t be justified as a business expense, III) I don’t have a sponsor to send me there (see points a and 2), and four) I have a day job not related to gaming so I can’t very well be sitting around watching live-streams all day (night, actually, because America Time). But all that said, there are some really cool things coming out of that gaming super-convention, so keep an eye out for moar posts (!) about the things coming out of E3 that catch my eye.
Use this here link (AKA the E32014 tag) to see all the things I end up posting that have something to do with E3 2014: r4mzy.co.za/tag/e32014
Also, today should mark the first day I make more than one actual, genuine, no just BS or testing post! Go progress!
I really need to quit using that line… Origin’s doing the cheap games thing, with a “Player Appreciation Sale,” “games you would actually play” campaign (poking a little fun at Steam’s “there’s always something on sale” thing which for many just ends up being library filler).
There are some great specials on, with the games being 70% off which is a pretty decent discount. Personally, I’m picking up Dead Space 2, Need for Speed Shift, Bulletstorm, and probably Syndicate too. I’m on the fence about Syndicate, since most reviews I see praise the co-op as its best aspect but I’m usually late to the party with co-op titles and end up hardly playing the co-op bits ’cause everyone’s done with ’em already (nudge nudge, wink wink).
Oh, and here’s something unprecedented: I didn’t find out about this from NAG Online! It came right from the source! Isn’t that something?
And now to go contemplate how terrible I am for starting to actually like EA’s Origin while I wait for the downloads…
Or: Battlefield 3 is free! On Origin! Until 03 June 2014!
Continuing with the trend of blatantly copying what I report here from NAG Online, anyone (with an Origin account) can now get Battlefield 3 on PC for the high, high cost of absolutely nothing (unless you count data for the 19GB (!) download…)! Not only that, but right now you can totally still get the thing-I-forgot-to-report for mere clicks too, which is Plants vs. Zombies GOTY Edition (PC and Mac)! Until 16 June 2014! Huzzah! More freeness and things!
Get Battlefield 3 here and Plants vs. Zombies here, and the low-down on why Origin is throwing free stuff around here. Quick, before they realise what they’ve done!
Of course, you’ll still need to get yourself Battlefield 3’s Premium pack if you want ALL the (Battlefield 3) things, but, at least locally, the vanilla base game is pretty much all that’s being played online now anyway so one might as well wait until that’s on sale/free.
Thanks, NAG Online!
Or: rAge 2014’s date changes and a local Bitcoin ATM is a thing that is happening. Basically, some stuff wot I saw upon my Feedly today.
This just in: rAge, a really Awesome gaming expo that takes place in South Africa every year and is basically the bestest single LAN and gaming event in the everywhere [citation needed], has had its usual first-weekend-of-October date changed. It’s now taking place a week later, from 10 October to 12 October, to leverage the power of school holidays or something.
And then, because I saw the article right after the rAge one and something needs to be done with this site/blog/blahg/wat/thing, South Africa’s getting a Bitcoin ATM! In Sandton somewhere (that’s kinda our tech and business capital type place, and also where wealthy business and trendy types live, or some such)! I don’t do much with Bitcoins, besides leaving miners running on PCs of mine that’d be powered-on anyway, but I think us getting our first Bitcoin ATM is a pretty sweet thing and I look forward to the day where I actually have a Bitcoin to use (pooled mining is slow stuff, what with only little desktops running here and there)! Or some other cryptocurrency… R4mCoins, anyone? :D
Read more about both of these of things at their/my sources, here and here!
So, there’s a movie in the works based on Deus Ex: Human Revolution (which I reviewed so I guess I should keep tabs on this kind of thing…). It’s being directed by Scott Derrickson who, in a recent interview with IGN, confirmed the still living status of the film and his continued involvement with it as director. Apparently, the film’s script is “tricky” and it’s “going through some more rewrites right now.” That doesn’t sound terribly positive to me (sounds like development hell… Or is that scripting hell? Eh…), but hey I’m no movie maker so what do I know?
The movie’s set to focus on giving us more Adam Jensen as a character, which I’m all for, with the story centered around the events of Human Revolution. There’s some bleed-through from the story progression of the upcoming games, notably Deus Ex Universe, “but not a lot.” Also, Robert Cargill is the guy with the writing duties and he’s previously said some stuff about the good writing of the game, and that they’re approaching the movie not as a video game movie but rather as a cyberpunk movie. He’s also played the game, multiple times, which is just damn wonderful (srsly).
This all sounds pretty good to me, so now I’m just hoping they get their script penned soon and they make Adam sound right.
Well, the title about says it all…
EA has decided to no longer sell physical/boxed copies of games through the Origin store. News to me was that you could actually buy physical copies on the Origin store. They claim that only 1% of their customers actually bought physical copies through Origin, though it seems likely to me that’s ’cause people weren’t really aware they could buy physical copies there. Though chances are it’d be cheaper to buy your physicals (heh) through a retailer anyway.
There seems to be some confusion about whether EA/Origin games will now no longer be available as physical copies at all, and the announcement doesn’t exactly deal with that point explicitly, but rest assured that’s not the case. This is not an end to physical copies for Origin entirely, you just can’t buy them directly off the Origin store. This guys says so pretty clearly, and he seems legit.
Source: Origin News
Via: GamesIndustry International
So, Dead Space is free (like free beer), until 8 May 2014. Hit the jump for more sweet, sweet info.
