Things have gone from bad to worst and then to even worse than that for Rhode Island-based 38 Studios, the game studio owned by former pitcher Curt Schilling. After over a week of negativity surrounding the studio and its outstanding loans to the tune of $75 million, yesterday the studio laid off the entire staff of nearly 400–288 of them based in Rhode Island and another hundred at the Maryland-based subsidiary Big Huge Games.

If that’s not bad enough, it turns out that several employees of the now-staff-less studio were told that they may be stuck with second mortgages from the houses they thought the company sold for them when they relocated to Rhode Island.

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Over the weekend, I spent approximately three hours farming the materials and the 150,000 gold required to enter the secret level in Diablo III. It was kind of a pain, but it was completely worth it to be able to send three of my friends in utterly free of charge, and enjoy it with them before most of it was sufficiently spoiled.

Because most of the guides I’ve found aren’t particularly concise in their directions, and provide spoilers to boot, I’m going to make a completely spoiler-free guide on how to access the secret level itself. Read more… »

Remember Hawken? That indie mech game that went free to play? While we’re still quite a bit away from it’s December 12th release, the PC cloud streaming service Gaikai has locked up a deal to demo the game in the near future. If you’re not familiar with Gaiaki, it’s basically a demo service similar to OnLive, in that it streams the game to your browser/PC with hardly any hardware requirements.

Of course, it’s not a good way to test and see if the full game can viably run on your machine, but at least it’s something. Keep your eyes peeled for PlayHawken.com.

[Update - I experienced this part of the game myself, and can safely say that as long as the Templar is your follower officially, you should be ok on this one. I personally waited until my companion was level 13 before testing this just to be sure, in case there was a certain low level range this could trigger in]

Without resorting to any spoilers, this PSA is fairly simple. Whenever you obtain a Templar follower in Diablo III, do not equip him with a new shield. In fact, don’t equip him with anything just to be sure.

Eurogamer is reporting that this issue apparently is restricted to the Demon Hunter class (wouldn’t you know it, my favorite class), but just in case, I wouldn’t recommend trying it with any class if you value your playtime.

If you engage the glitch, you’ll not only be booted out of D3′s servers, but you’ll be unable to re-enter them until Blizzard pushes a fix. An absurd workaround is noted by some users, consisting of creating a new Power User Windows account, and attempting to log in that way. Read more… »

Amazon is reporting today that Diablo III is their most successful PC game ever in terms of pre-order sales — which is quite a big deal for both Blizzard and Amazon. Even though various parties across the internet are claiming to boycott the game due to contentions with Blizzards “always on”  single player DRM, and issues with “dumbed down gameplay” compared to Diablo II, it looks like Blizzard is going to be fine.

Even though the above reasons are certainly a valid excuse to abstain from a purchase, there are also a number of people who don’t plan on playing the game just because it’s “Activision”. Here’s a message for everyone who’s going to ignore Diablo III, even if it turns out to be a good game, in favor of Torchlight II because it’s “indie”: why not try both?

[Joystiq]

PixelJunk fans, unite! As of yesterday, PJ Racer, PJ Monsters, PJ Eden, and PJ Shooter are all on sale for $1 on the PSN. If I had to choose one game for you to buy out of the lot, I’d easily say Monsters, but you can’t really go wrong with any of them (particularly Eden, which I think is extremely overlooked).

In addition to their classic line, two of their newer games are on sale as well: PJ Shooter 2 and PJ Sidescroller are $5. All of this lasts until May 18th, when their brand new PixelJunk 4am launches. This sale doesn’t personally effect me, as I already have all of their games. They’re just that good!

According to a source that spoke to Siliconera, “Sony Computer Entertainment is recording a teaser for a future Killzone game” that apparently will take place after the events of Killzone 3. The rumor hints that Visari’s daughter–seen briefly in Killzone 3‘s opening cinematic–will be a feature character in the future game.

Siliconera’s source also revealed the dialogue for what appears to be the game’s opening political diatribe, a staple of the Killzone series.

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Another year, another humongous list of MMOs to sift through. Right on the heels of Blizzard’s own Diablo III, worldwide Korean MMO TERA is on a mission: to tear you away from whatever MMO you’re playing now, and earn the right to collect your subscription fee at the end of every month.

At first glance, TERA‘s main selling points are beautiful landscapes, controller support, and action oriented gameplay that forces you to manually aim your attacks, as well as block and dodge enemy assaults. But how well does it work? Is action-adventure gameplay viable for an open world MMO? Read more… »

Bethesda finally let the cat of the bag: an Elder Scrolls MMO is in the works.  The game is set to center in on the story of Molag Bal and his quest to overtake Tamriel. Lead developer Matt Firor has stated that they are on track to create “the best MMO ever made — and one that is worthy of The Elder Scrolls franchise.”

Personally, I’m pretty excited to see what they can do with Tamriel, because outside of Arena, this could potentially be the first time we’ll ever see the world of TES in it’s entirety. I’m really excited to see the Summerset Isles, and all of Morrowind, not just the portion of it they featured in the third Elder Scrolls game.

The game will be developed by Zenimax Online Studios, meaning Bethesda will still be perfectly free to keep working on Fallout 4 and another Elder Scrolls game down the line. Bethesda has also announced the game will be compatible with both PC and Mac platforms.

The latest Korean MMO has just dropped in the US — TERA Online. Combat is done in an action oriented manner, forcing players to dodge enemy attacks while launching attacks of their own. To supplement this action approach, the game has support for traditional controllers in addition the typical keyboard and mouse setup. Standard MMO tropes like the healer, tank, and DPS trinity exist,  as well as the inclusion of a traditional quest system, world encounters (BAMs), and instances.

In addition to the aforementioned gameplay elements, the developers have also adapted a version of Eve’s PLEX system, which allows for a currency called Chronoscrolls to be purchased by players for real cash. Chronoscrolls can be subsequently sold or bought on the action house, as dictated by the player economy — using them will net you extra game-time. In case you’re interested,  expect more TERA coverage from Gamer Limit in the coming weeks.

Yesterday we reported that DTP Entertainment AG was filing for insolvency, placing Ronimo Games’ Awesomenauts in potential jeopardy. Fear not! Today, despite the publisher’s financial situation, Ronimo Games announced that Awesomenauts will launch as planned on PSN and XBLA.

Tomorrow the game will be available for free for PlayStation Plus subscribers while everyone else will have to wait until Wednesday, May 2nd. Awesomenauts is a 2D MOBA-style game that has an “80s cartoon” aesthetic. It’s a May miracle!

It looks like the cat is out of the bag: Nintendo is perched to release the “Midnight Purple” version of the 3DS on May 2oth, alongside of Mario Tennis 3D.

This is the fifth new color for the 3DS. The unit will retail for $170, and sadly will not ship with the Ambassador games. In what seems like a missed opportunity, I wish this iteration was called “Eggplant”, and shipped alongside of Kid Icarus: Uprising.

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