Gamers Free Speech

Mass Effect 2 DLC Arrival lands March 29

Diesiob — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 17:47:04 +0000

In Mass Effect: Arrival, Commander Shepard is sent to the edge of the galaxy to rescue an undercover operative who may have evidence of an imminent Reaper invasion that has been looming since the very beginning of the series.

Mass Effect Arrival will be available for PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 on March 29.

Crysis 2 pulls Demo

Diesiob — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 16:51:43 +0000

EA’s pulled the multiplayer demo of Crysis 2 for PS3, saying it wants to have it “flawless” for the launch of the shooter next week.

Cysis2

“Though many gamers have had a great experience playing the demo, we are aware that others have been experiencing server connection delays,” said a statement on the game’s website by EA.

“We’ve identified the root cause and have decided to close the PS3 demo in the next 24 hours to ensure all issues are resolved when the game launches next week. Our priority is to ensure that the final product is flawless at launch.”

The taster was only published only two days ago by EA in Europe and three days ago in the US following past launches on 360 and PC.

The PS3 version has been under scrutiny recently, with IGN claiming recently it was “pretty underwhelming.”

Producer Nathan Camarillo said this week there was no considerable difference between the PS3 and 360 versions.

“I’ve gone on the record saying that if you stick PS3 and 360 side by side I would challenge anyone to find any meaningful difference. I don’t see it at all.”

Crysis 2 releases next Tuesday in the US and next Friday in the UK for PS3, 360 and PC.

Story from VG27

Brink, the new Team Fortress?

Diesiob — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 04:53:37 +0000

Splash Damage is it again! Their new project is “Brink“. Yet, don’t forget Bethesda Software, they are also involved!

Game Overview:

Brink is an immersive shooter that blends single-player, co-op, and multiplayer gameplay into one seamless experience, allowing you to develop your character across all modes of play. You decide the role you want to assume in the world of Brink as you fight to save yourself and mankind’s last refuge for humanity.Brink offers a compelling mix of dynamic battlefields, extensive customization options, and an innovative control system that will keep you coming back for more.

Story:

A man-made floating city called the Ark, made up of hundreds of separate floating islands, is on the brink of all-out civil war. Originally built as an experimental self-sufficient and 100% “green” habitat, the reported rapid rise of the Earth’s oceans has forced the Ark to become a refuge for humanity. Crammed with the original Ark founders, their descendants, as well as tens of thousands of refugees, the Ark exists in total isolation from the rest of the world. With 25 years of social unrest, the inhabitants of the Ark have reached their breaking point. It’s up to you to decide the future of the Ark and the human race.

Brink, The Game

I haven’t really see much outside the website videos and still shots, but just from the videos I almost can’t wait until May 17th or 20th 2011. I have found 2 release dates for this game, so not to sure when it’s out. It has just about all the elements of the Valve’s Team Fortress 2 game, but only better. It still has that Cartoon look, but polished off a lot more. You can’t customize your weapons, only I don’t know to what extend. Not only weapons, but they claim “near-limitless” character Customization. The graphics look clean, but cartoon-ish. The blood splats are not at all anything other then a water balloons exploding filed fake blood. Yet, don’t worry the environment look very nicely made. The audio however is dead on. With a reason, guns, ammo and a microphone, that’d be one hell of a job. Movement is your typical FPS, but wait it’s not. It’s has sliding capability! I know, this has been done. However, once you have sliding in a game, it should almost be the normal thing in games. Well that’s what I think, Check it out game.

http://bit.ly/f6CknO – Brink The Game.

Once a year thing.

Diesiob — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 03:33:47 +0000

A class action complaint has been filed against retailer GameStop for allegedly requesting and recording personal information from its customers.

Melissa Arechiga of Alameda County California filed the suit on Wednesday of this week claiming that a GameStop store recorded her name, credit card number, and personal identification information (PII) after purchasing items. These actions violate California Civil Code section 1747.08, which prohibits corporations from requesting credit card users to provide and record their PII.

“Defendants’ employee made no attempt to erase, strikeout, eliminate, or otherwise delete Plaintiff’s personal identification information from the electronic cash register after the Plaintiff’s credit card number was recorded,” the suit says.

Arechiga believes GameStop uses PII obtained from cardholders to obtain additional personal information, such as residential addresses. “Such conduct is performed intentionally and without the knowledge or consent of the cardholder, and is of potentially great benefit to [GameStop].”

The Class is defined as all California GameStop customers where the store requested and recorded personal identification information when using a credit card to purchase items within one year of this filing.

The suit is asking the court to enjoin GameStop from further using its policy that requests and records customer PII and award each member of the Class what he or she is entitled to under California Civil Code 1747.08.

A GameStop spokesperson told IGN the company does not comment on pending litigation.

A copy of the suit in PDF form can be found here.

Story from IGN

(25FEB2011)

Activision brings down the house.

Diesiob — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 03:30:04 +0000

Activision’s effort to have Electronic Arts added to its massive $400 million contract-breach lawsuit against former Infinity Ward heads Jason West and Vince Zampella is officially a go. The Los Angeles Times reports today that Northern California Superior Court Judge Elihu Berle dismissed all but one of EA’s objections of being added to the suit, paving the way for the trial in May.

According to the LA Times, Judge Berle cited EA’s alleged pursuit of confidential information from West and Zampella as cause for not granting the publisher’s motion to dismiss. EA lawyer Robert Klieger reportedly argued during the hearing that Activision had not produced any evidence of said pursuit, calling the claim a “conclusionary allegation.”

Activision had not responded to GameSpot’s request for comment as of press time. However, EA spokesperson Jeff Brown had, telling GameSpot, “Activision’s attempt to drag others into the suit is subterfuge. This has always been a simple case of two artists trying to get paid for their work. We’re confident that the jury will side with Jason and Vince and order Activision to pay them the hundreds of millions they are owed.”

The battle between EA, Activision, Jason West, and Vince Zampella began in March 2010, when the Call of Duty publisher fired its star Infinity Ward leaders, claiming insubordination. Those terminations led to an ongoing saga that saw mass defections from developer Infinity Ward, the creation of West and Zampella’s new studio Respawn Entertainment under EA’s auspices, and a volley of litigation between the pair, Activision, and current and former Infinity Ward employees.

As for that last bit of litigation, the LA Times also reports that the group of 40 former Infinity Ward employees have once again amended their complaint over unpaid royalties against Activision. The new complaint reportedly adds half a dozen more claims against Activision, including fraud.

Of these new claims, the group of 40 alleges that Activision engaged in direct and indirect fraud through promises of “enhanced bonuses” for the completion of Modern Warfare 2.

“All of these promises to Infinity Ward employees were in significant part the product of Activision’s intense determination in early 2008 to close a proposed merger with another videogame company, Vivendi Blizzard,” reads a copy of the complaint obtained by GameSpot. “For Activision and its top executives to reap the rewards of that merger required the ability to promise its merger partner that Infinity Ward would remain intact and would develop, produce, and deliver on schedule a new Modern Warfare 2 game.”

“To achieve that goal, Activision greatly increased the value and attractiveness of the bonuses, royalties, and creative authority promises it made to West, Zampella, and the plaintiffs,” it continued. “But Activision had no intention of actually honoring the very favorable promises it made, including but not limited to the promises to pay plaintiffs enhanced bonus payments.”

The group of 40 is seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in compensatory damages.

Story from Gamestop.

(16MAR2011)

Sega, Valve. Valve meet Sega.

Diesiob — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 06:06:44 +0000

LONDON AND SAN FRANCISCO (March 10th, 2011) – SEGA Europe Ltd. and SEGA of America, Inc. today announced that in cooperation with Valve they will release eight in-game items for Valve’ online action game, Team Fortress 2 (TF2). The new items will bring Total War Shogun 2’s unique Japanese flavor to Valve’s TF2.

Story from Sega.com

(11MAR2011)

URL? That’s right, we’ve got one.

Diesiob — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 03:59:55 +0000

Gamers,

Due to timing, it took us a few days to get the URL purchased and here for you. We’re currently trying to figure out really what were about. We will be continue to bring you as much news as we can. If you have any idea, or things you’d like to see, let us know. Thank you all for taking the time to wait for us to take our baby steps into this business.

Diesiob.

Can’t Get enough of Diesiob & The Fool?

Tim the Tech Ninja — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 16:28:26 +0000

Diesiob and The Fool from Gamers Free Speech join Foxy Kazoo from Red Zone Fandom in Dice & D-Pads. D&DP is a podcast about Games with a healthy side order of geekery. They will, of course, discuss video games; but, the knowledge of your hosts covers a broad swath of gaming, from dice and paper RPGs such as D&D to CCGs like Magic: the Gathering and they’ll touch on all areas as the series progresses to keep things fresh, because nothing is worse than a stale podcast.

Well, there are worse things, but they are nasty and we don’t want to go there.

The production staff found the content to be the best in a first podcast to date and our test listeners agreed that D&DP was an excellent mix of voices and personalities and we hope you agree, and leave us feedback! What do you think? What would you like to hear? GFS is about gamers speaking freely, so speak up!

Currently D&DP is available here (click the link below or episodes listed on the GFS page, you can also hear them through Red Zone Fandom or through the Red Zone Fancast feed through iTunes, when we have 3 podcasts we can apply for a seperate feed for Dice & D-Pads, stay tuned we’ll let you know when that happens!

Here’s a taste of what they covered in Episode #1, Post hoc ergo propter hoc (Click the play arrow on the icon below to listen!)

Episode 1

Among the Games Discussed:

Magic: the Gathering including the difference between casual and competitive players, format changes and card costs and the results of our live poll in progress.

And the upcoming releases of: Rage, Homefront (200k in pre-orders), LA Noir, Pokemon Black & White, Duke Nukem Forever, Dragon Age 2

They discuss M:tG on Playstation Network and Major League Baseball 2K11, player superstitions & Gaming shortcuts, Game Stop is being sued again.

Forget Y2K, The Internet ran out of IP Addresses!

And some observations on the phenomena of Transformers, Star Trek and Star Wars.

We apologize for a few rough patches, among all of our other changes we upgraded hardware and this led to a few hiccups in the recording buffer. As this is the first episode we’d really like to hear your opinions!

This Red Zone Audio Fancast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at Red Zone Fandom

Coming Soon!

Tim the Tech Ninja — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 18:06:38 +0000

There’s a lot of construction dust in the air right now, and more coming as Diesiob and The Fool work out how they want the site to look, so stay tunes, there’s a lot of cool stuff coming!