23 April 2012 | |
iTZKooPA
Penny Arcade has entered the general pop culture realm of popularity and overall success. The mainstream may not be entirely aware of it yet, but it’s the truth. The formerly small following of video game nerds has exploded to cover all sorts of geeky media, from card to board and casual games. The two-man operation is now one of the most powerful, pervasive and certainly the most accessible in the industry.
It’s become so omnipresent that the comic has spawned its own line of entertainment products, encompassing video games and board games. iTZKooPA got to check out the latest from Cryptozoic, Penny Arcade: The Game – Rumble in R’lyeh. Christina Sims showed off the basic deck-building gameplay, explained what R’lyeh, a stand-alone expansion, adds to the franchise and a few of her personal favorite comic strips that have become cards.
Nipplecrabs. Need we say more?
Hit the jump for the full dose of ridiculousness. Continue Reading
22 April 2012 | |
iTZKooPA
The Penny Arcade Expo is a celebration of all things gamer (and nerd). From music to video games to board and card games, there’s something for everyone. That’s as long as you’re one of those people who enjoys FUN.
iTZKooPA trudged over to the Cryptozoic booth to see what the growing analog company had on offer this pass. It didn’t take long before he sucked AnnaMaria into a demo session of The Walking Dead, getting all the details, strategy and gameplay mechanics locked down.
It sounds like he’s preparing to troll his first game by sacrificing to become a zombie to undo the rest of the group. What a jerk!
Hit the jump for the full interview.
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20 April 2012 | |
iTZKooPA
In the non-MMOG space, we had one goal; get a release date out of Runic Games for Torchlight II. Once upon a time, Max Schaefer, Runic’s CEO, jokingly said Torchlight III – that’d be a game that technically isn’t announced yet – would be released before Diablo III. Since the statement, Runic has turtled its own development for final polish. Lots of it.
A release date of “Soon TM” has been applied to the title since. However, that doesn’t stop our correspondent and community from wanting answer to difficult questions, including the presence of DirextX 11 support, system requirements and coverage, co-op play, including quest sharing, and access to the source code.
Hit the jump for the full disclosure.
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20 April 2012 | |
iTZKooPA
In the only embargoed interview of the year to date, iTZKooPA stood up with Aaron Campbell, Senior Producer of LotRO, to discuss the title’s unprecedented festival. Created to celebrate the MMORPG’s amazing five-year anniversary, the gather is the largest celebration in LotRO’s history. Developer Turbine Entertainment took the issue to heart and created the largest event for an anniversary in its history.
Fireworks, unique mounts and costumes are just some of the additions. Most interesting is the veteran’s reward system, granting those that have been in it for the long haul much more grandiose rewards than a player that joined when the title went free-to-play.
Festival gifts, activities, rewards and more are discussed and shown below the cut.
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19 April 2012 | |
Mike
We’re back with another interview, this time with Stefan Ramirez of En Masse, who’s the Associate Producer of TERA. iTZKooPA talks to Stefan about “true action” combat, Argon creatures, BAMs, the upcoming open beta and much more.
During the interview, we learned that TERA does utilize the “Holy Trinity” of healing, tanking and DPS, but puts a little spin on it by offering classes that can accomplish the same roles in different manners. The guys also discuss TERA’s political system and how it will affect other players gameplay experience.
More discussion on the open PvP system and Guild vs Guild wars, which can be as large as 300 vs 300 battles. As well as the Nexus system, which are large scale PvE invasions.
Check out the full TERA interview below.
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17 April 2012 | |
Mike
We’re back with round two of our interview from Pax East 2012 with Tor Egil Andersen, the Jr. Communications Manager, and Erling Ellingsen, the Director of Communications for Funcom’s, The Secret World.
This time iTZKooPA grills them on crafting, character customization and the possibility of real-world puzzles out-side of the game.
Let’s start with crafting, where we learned that TSW has no recipes or levels for crafting, which allows players to craft anything they want as long as they have the resources for it. We also found out that all items in the game can be broken down into crafting materials, so if you find gear or a weapon you don’t need, you can still get materials from it. It seems crafting will be a guessing game and players will have to experiment to figure out what material combinations make the best items.
For character customization, there will be none past the character creation screen at the time of launch. So no barber shops or other cosmetic stores, but possibly later on they might be added.
Check out the full The Secret World interview below.
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16 April 2012 | |
Mike
Today we have another interview from Pax East 2012, this time with Tor Egil Andersen, the Jr. Communications Manager, and Erling Ellingsen, the Director of Communications for Funcom’s newest MMORPG, The Secret World.
iTZKooPA discusses TWS’s skill system and the gear manager, which allows players to save their character builds and to swap them around depending on the combat situation.
The Secret World launches on June 19th, however players that pre-ordered the game can begin to participate in beta weekends starting May 11th and just about every weekend until launch.
Check out The Secret World Pax East interview below.
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16 April 2012 | |
Mike
We’re back with another interview from Pax East 2012, this time with Chris Rippy of Robot Entertainment, as iTZKooPA talks to him about the recently announced Orcs Must Die 2.
For those of you unfamiliar with it, Orcs Must Die is single-play tower-defense game where the player must stop the advancing orcs from reaching the fortress. The sequel features a new co-op mode allowing players to team up and work together to save the kingdom.
So why are we covering a tower-defense game on a MMO site? Well, because it our site and we really liked the original game. So if you’re also a fan of the original, then you’ll definitively want to checkout our interview which shows lots of gameplay footage.
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