Robotics researcher Steve LaValle and Valve VR veteran Tom Forsyth have collaborated with Oculus on the Rift before. Now Oculus announces both have joined its development team in an official capacity. …
Ex-Valve VR expert, robotics specialist join Oculus Rift team
May 22, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Relocate your team in Madden 25′s franchise owners mode
May 21, 2013 by Leave a Comment
EA Sports lifted the curtains today on one of its core additions to Madden 25 this year, Connected Franchise owners mode. In it, players take on the role of team owner, setting prices for tickets and concessions as well as having the option to relocate teams to both domestic and international cities. Owners also handle the hiring of team personnel, such as scouts, trainers and coaches, and they answer questions from the media. Players will manage stadium upgrades and market their superstar athletes so fans will buy their jerseys, increasing their teams’ yearly profit.
The options to import draft classes from EA’s NCAA Football series and take control of all 32 teams in the Connected Careers mode were woefully absent from last year’s game, but will return to Madden 25. Additionally, the game’s primary career mode will receive a face-lift thanks to an improved user interface that includes a transaction log to follow the movement of players from team to team. The mode’s UI includes a new Trade Center, allowing users to see what other teams are offering for players and draft picks so they can top their opponents’ bids.
Lastly, Madden 25 will feature more media personalities for the career mode’s in-game Twitter feed, such as ESPN fantasy analyst Matthew Berry and Fox Sports NFL writer Peter Schrager. It will also receive new legendary players and coaches, including Mike Ditka and William “The Refrigerator” Perry.
Gallery: Madden NFL 25 (Connected Franchise)
Relocate your team in Madden 25′s franchise owners mode originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 20 May 2013 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Team Fortress 2′s Electric Boogaloo Update Created Entirely By Community
May 18, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The latest update to Team Fortress 2, titled Electric Boogaloo, includes 57 new items, and has been created entirely by the community. Every new item is completely original and created by a community member, and even things like theupdates animated teaser trailer, the website, the comic book, and even the update's page on the Steam store have all been created by creative Team Fortress 2 fans.
You can find out more about the update by heading here, and checking out the animated short below.
(Please visit the site to view this media)
[Source: Team Fortress 2]
Team Fortress 2 ‘Robotic Boogaloo’ update tangos with Steam
May 18, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The first community-created updated for Team Fortress 2 has rolled out: ‘Robotic Boogaloo.’ Continuing the robot theme of previous Team Fortress 2 updates, Robotic Boogaloo adds 57 new artisanal hats, helmets, bonnets, turbans, crowns, toppers and other headgear – all created by the community.
Robotic Boogaloo isn’t all hats but, naturally, it’s mostly hats. Each new Team Fortress 2 item can be found within RoboCrates – rare drops after June 3 – that can be opened with a key from the Mann Co. store, each costing $ 2.50. The revenue from these items will then be shared amongst all creators responsible for Robotic Boogaloo content.
Team Fortress 2 ‘Robotic Boogaloo’ update tangos with Steam originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 17 May 2013 23:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
New Team Fortress 2 update is completely user-made
May 18, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The newest free content update for Valve’s Team Fortress 2, Robotic Boogaloo, is entirely the creation of the game’s fans, with more than 50 modders contributing to the project. …
EA product manager Kevin Flynn defects, joins Call of Duty team
May 17, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Kevin Flynn, who’s worked for the last two years as a senior product manager for EA’s UK arm, has left to join Activision’s UK side as a senior brand manager on Call of Duty. Flynn’s previous efforts for EA include launching Battlefield 3 and its subsequent Premium DLC campaigns in the region.
Flynn enlisted with the Call of Duty squad this month, which we imagine must be the busiest time to sign on for an Activision paycheck. With Call of Duty: Ghosts launching on November 5 and next week’s next-generation engine reveal during the Xbox event on May 21, we just hope Mr. Flynn is finding adequate time for his lunch break every day. A hungry worker is not a happy worker!
EA product manager Kevin Flynn defects, joins Call of Duty team originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 17 May 2013 16:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Animal Crossing: New Leaf Developer Diary Introduces The Localization Team
May 16, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The unsung heroes of Animal Crossing development, the folks who translate the absurd amount of text featured in the Animal Crossing games, finally get their moment in the spotlight.
The developer diary interviews the team that have been working on bringing the games to North America since the beginning. Work on New Leaf began as early as 2010, and they talk about how they are the ones who need to come up with the names for every item in the game. If you've played Animal Crossing, you will know that that is a whole lot of object naming.
Animal Crossing: New Leaf is coming to 3DS on June 9, and you can head here to see the latest trailer for the game.
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NCAA 14 Preview: Ultimate Team Joins The Fold
May 15, 2013 by Leave a Comment
EA Sports' Ultimate Team mode is finally coming to NCAA, and
thankfully your deck won't be filled with QB #6 and HB #23, but with real-life
football players.
In the Ultimate Team mode, you get a starter pack of player
cards with which you play real games with in order to earn coins to buy more
packs. By buying packs and competing in auctions to win specific player cards,
you build up your roster with better and better players to compete against
others online.
The NCAA franchise as a whole is unable to feature real
college players (hence the anonymous player numbers that are used), but NCAA
14's Ultimate Team mode has found a way around this and features real-life
football players. Using its existing NFLPA license, developer EA Tiburon is
creating Ultimate Team cards for all active NFL players on their college teams – that's over 1,400 players at the game's launch. It's like the worlds biggest college all-star alumni
game featuring everybody from current NFL players like Russell Wilson to former
college greats not currently in the pros such as Andre Ware. There is also a
multitude of guys in between – those whom you may recognize because they
were your school's campus heroes even though they haven't made it big in the
NFL.
Following the mode's card-collecting philosophy, there will
be multiple versions of some players if they've transferred schools in their
college career, played multiple positions, or different cards for a player's
junior and senior seasons. Like the Ultimate Team mode in other games, NCAA 14
will also encourage collecting as many cards as you can with bonuses for
getting all the cards in a particular collection set, such as all the Heisman
Trophy winners, for example. EA says that it hopes to ultimately have over 2,500 player cards in the mode.
You can play games by either taking on solo, offline
challenges (perhaps based on events such as a top game in the current season, a
bowl game last year, etc.) as well as online via Head-to-Head Seasons. This
mode, started by the FIFA soccer franchise, creates 10-game seasons and eight
tiered divisions of play. You start out at the bottom division and work you way
up via promotion while trying to avoid getting knocked down a division through
relegation. NCAA 14 adds a four-round playoff structure that requires you to
win at least five games in order to qualify (eight victories gets you a first
round bye).
Unlike some of the other Ultimate Team modes in EA Sports
titles, NCAA 14's version does not feature chemistry between players, coaches, mobile/browser
support, or consumable cards related to stat increases. There will, however, be
customary "contract" extensions that let you continue to use a card and unspecified player items (no mention of
whether these are earned or will cost money) that can be used to help out your
team. The coin cost for different levels of card packs and any info on EA
Tickets (which can be bought with real money and put towards card packs) has
not been revealed yet.
NCAA 14's version of Ultimate Team doesn't feature all the
bells and whistles the mode has enjoyed in other EA Sports titles, but college
football fans should find no problem getting excited about this addictive mode.
For more on NCAA 14, check out this preview on the game's gameplay and this one on its presentation.
Note: The original version of this preview mentioned 2,500+ players in the mode. EA Sports has since clarified that the mode will have over 1,400 players at launch, and that 2,500+ is the goal going forward. The text has been modified to reflect this distinction.
NCAA 14′s Ultimate Team mode to include season tournaments, former greats
May 15, 2013 by Leave a Comment
While we learned in April that NCAA Football 14 will include its own Ultimate Team mode this year, EA Sports announced details on how it will operate today. The mode will include more than 1,400 former college football players at the game’s launch, as well as both solo and special head-to-head challenges. Ultimate Team is the long-running mode that spans most of EA Sports’ properties, which combines standard on-field gameplay with a card-collecting system for building and managing your team.
NCAA 14‘s version of Ultimate Team will also include a head-to-head season mode, in which players match up against one another with their specially crafted teams in a 10-game season, before entering an end-of-the-season tournament. Players can earn rewards along the way for toppling challenges that increase in difficulty, such as coins for procuring more card packs.
The game will receive similar treatment in the mode that other EA Sports games got in the past, with challenges and card collections being added throughout the real-life football season. NCAA 14 is slated to launch July 9 on PS3 and Xbox 360.
Continue reading NCAA 14′s Ultimate Team mode to include season tournaments, former greats
NCAA 14′s Ultimate Team mode to include season tournaments, former greats originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 15 May 2013 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Defiance team plans five DLC releases, first adds the Castithan race and more
May 10, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Now that the MMO-slash-TV show Defiance has been launched, says executive producer Nathan Richardsson, things are about to really get good, in the form of five DLC releases later this year. He admits that fan response to the game has it pegged as “about as deep as a bag of chips but great fun,” but adds that he’d “like to get to the two-bag of chip depth category or at least, add some salsas for various textures.”
Most of those spices will come in the form of DLC, and Richardsson has outlined what the game’s first addon, tentatively titled “Enter the Castithan,” will look like. There will be three elements to it: Those who buy the downloadable content for $ 10 will get access to the Castithan playable race, along with a new outfit and vehicle, and a new story mission line and game mode. There will also be free content, including new weapons, a new PvP map called Military Academy, and some other game improvements. And then there will be new items in the store, including weapon mods, more vehicle versions, and the ability to change your character’s customizations.
Richardsson says all future add-ons will have these paid, free, and store components, and the team’s goal is to keep the updates and content flowing and focused on what players want. The first DLC release is expected to hit the game after a patch later on this month.
Defiance team plans five DLC releases, first adds the Castithan race and more originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 10 May 2013 10:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.