Monthly Archives: December 2014

Train2Game News Tales from the Borderlands Episode One Review

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Tales from the BorderlandsTelltale gave me the absolute pleasure to review Tales from the Borderlands for them and it was a fantastic first episode for the series.

As you may or may not know Telltale have made a name for themselves over the last couple of years by releasing episodic games based on The Walking Dead and the Fables graphic novel. These games had incredible stories with difficult, soul torturing decisions to be made which would affect your entire game.

Now with Tales from the Borderlands they have taken a slightly different approach. As the subject matter is a lot more light hearted the decisions you make aren’t quite as heart wrenching as previously seen from Telltale. The story and characters however more than make up for this.

You play this game as two different main characters, one a disgruntled Hyperion business man and the other a Con woman. Both characters are highly entertaining in there own ways and both have a great side character to go with them.

I would highly recommend this amusingly, entertaining first episode whether you have played a Borderlands game before or not. Obviously you will enjoy it more if you have played Borderlands 1 and 2 but it is not necessary as there is a quick catch up at the beginning of the game.

I am incredibly interested and excited to see where this new Tales from the Borderlands is going to go and how it will evolve. I can see good times ahead!

Train2Game News WeWanaPlay Charity Live Stream

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WewanaPlay are supporting Birmingham Children’s Hospital this Christmas with a unique event. 

What started as just a small project to help the children at this festive time has spiralled into something much bigger with companies such as Microsoft, Jagex and Tripwire Interactive already committing their support.

Deepak Pathak, WewanaPlay CEO explained “WewanaPlay has a history of working with the local Children’s Hospital, so when they approached us to help with their £25,000 ‘Let us Play’ room, we knew we had to get involved. I’d seen first-hand with my nephew this year just how much they needed a decent games room and set the challenge to the team to do something special”

The simple idea to do a 24 hour Twitch live stream somehow spiralled into an event which will bring together many well-known gaming companies and personalities. The 24 hour live stream will be split into 30 minutes slots with each going to one of the events partners and collectively creating a highly entertaining event.

Deepak added: “WewanaPlay aims to bring gamers together, so It’s fantastic that companies such as Jagex (who make Runescape) and Microsoft jumped right in and saw the value of bringing their community together for crazy event.  We still have a lot of hard work left to do with filling the final slots with exciting companies and making sure the message of our event reaches many more people. If anyone out there can help, or know people who could help us, please get in touch!”

The event will run from:

Tuesday 9th December   3pm  (GMT:  UK time)
Until  Wednesday 10th December  3pm
On WewanaPlay’s Twitch channel: http://www.twitch.tv/wewanaplay

Full details including the JustGiving Donation Page can be found here:
http://www.blog.wewanaplay.com/events/

Please make sure you tune in and if you can help out in any way for this great cause lease get in touch via twitter:  @Wewana_Play or via their website.

Train2Game News Queen of Code Funding

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Female game developers and creators from across England have launched individual Crowdfunder projects to gain funding to make their great ideas a reality as part of Creative England’s Queen of Code campaign.

Jaspal Sohal, Head of Games & Digital at Creative England, said: “England’s creative industries are some of the best in the world, and we work to nurture this exciting home grown talent. Our partnership with Crowdfunder reflects this with initiatives such as Queen of Code taking centre stage.

“A widely reported 49% of gamers in the UK are women but only 12% of people making games are female. With this partnership we aim to put the spotlight on the creative talent of the female counterpart of the industry.

“We are incredibly impressed with the breadth of expertise shown by the Queen of Code campaigns, and this is really exciting for the games industry as a whole.”

Phil Geraghty, MD of Crowdfunder said: “We are delighted with the response Queen Of Code has received and the wealth of talent that has emerged from female game developers in England.

“Creative England has shown real innovation by embracing crowdfunding to distribute funds and reach out to new audiences. Queen of Code is a great example of how Crowdfunder is revolutionising fund allocation across the UK.”

The five projects to gain the most pledges and backers via their Crowdfunder campaigns will each receive £3k match funding from Creative England, a not-for-profit organisation investing and nurturing the country’s richly diverse games, TV, film and digital media industries.

It’s excellent to see deserving games designers get the recognition they deserve.

Train2Game News OlliOlli being ported

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Notorious street thugs Curve Digital and the pushers of intense digital experiences over at Roll7 are pleased to announce a collaboration that sends finger-skate-em-up OlliOlli kick-flipping over gamers’ couches and grinding all up on their Xbox One, Nintendo Wii U and Nintendo 3DS consoles in early 2015!

For the seriously out-of-touch, OlliOlli is a 2D side-scrolling skateboard game crafted by Roll7 from a solid block of pure raditude. This ain’t your grandpa’s skating game  – OlliOlli throws you feet first into high-risk, high-reward skate lines where ‘just one more trick’ can mean the difference between pulling off a gnarly combo and becoming just a smear on the concrete.

Fresh from its critically acclaimed debut on the PC and PlayStation consoles, players will be tearing up over 250 challenges across 100 levels, utilizing the 120+ tricks at their disposal as they compete for the highest score amongst their peers and other skater strangers.

All of the wild features return in full for the new versions, such as all four game modes, including the nails-hard RAD mode and the Daily Grind, which sees players worldwide competing on the same line for the highest score possible.

The game’s release is scheduled for early 2015, when you can finally pop shove-it into your console of preference.

Train2Game News Roll7 require testers for OlliOlli 2

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roll7Roll7 are looking for some people to test the sequel to the hit game OlliOlli.

Roll7 require someone who would be available to test the game at their offices in New Cross in London over the next couple of weeks from 10am to 5pm. They are willing to pay up to £30 travel expenses with food and drink provided for the day.

This is an excellent opportunity to get some experience at an established studio. You also never know what will happen as Train2Game student who previously tested games for the studio is still working for the company to this day and has had his contract extended in to next year.

If you want to get some hands on experience with some very talented lovely people then drop an email to Tom to book a time in at Tom@Roll7.co.uk

Good luck to all those that attend.

Train2Game News My blog is your blog

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Train2GameIt is coming up to the Christmas holidays and I am giving you the chance to voice your opinions on what you like to be heard on the Train2Game blog!

Some of you may remember that last year we had some students do some fantastic blogs that went out over the Christmas period and they were so popular we are going to do it again! You get to have your opinions heard and get your name out there in the gaming world.

You can write your blog on anything games related you like from reviews to opinions to advertisements for your upcoming games and studios, the choice is yours!

If you are interested in writing a blog to be seen on Train2Game News all you need to do is email me at Mark@train2game.com with the blog and a related image.

Get creative and have fun!

Train2Game News UK Top 20 Games – 01.12.14

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Call of Duty Advanced WarfighterThe charts are out and Christmas sales are certainly taking a hold with Call of Duty Advanced Warfare returning to number one and Fifa 15 in number two. Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire enter the charts at number six and seven respectively with Driveclub just behind that at number eight. LittleBigPlanet 3 just managed to make it to the top twenty hitting number eighteen with its debut.

All formats

Week ending 29 November 2014

POS.  TITLE  PUBLISHER  LAST
WEEK 
1 CALL OF DUTY: ADVANCED WARFARE ACTIVISION 3
2 FIFA 15 EA SPORTS 4
3 GRAND THEFT AUTO V ROCKSTAR 1
4 FAR CRY 4 UBISOFT 2
5 ASSASSIN’S CREED: UNITY UBISOFT 6
6 POKEMON OMEGA RUBY NINTENDO –
7 POKEMON ALPHA SAPPHIRE NINTENDO –
8 DRIVECLUB SONY COMPUTER ENT. –
9 ASSASSIN’S CREED IV: BLACK FLAG UBISOFT 18
10 MINECRAFT: XBOX EDITION MICROSOFT 14
11 – MIDDLE EARTH: SHADOW OF MORDOR WARNER BROS. INTERACTIVE 11
12 MINECRAFT: PLAYSTATION EDITION SONY COMPUTER ENT. 9
13 SUPER SMASH BROS. NINTENDO 17
14 DISNEY INFINITY 2.0 DISNEY INFINITY 15
15 SKYLANDERS TRAP TEAM SKYLANDERS 16
16 DRAGON AGE: INQUISITION EA GAMES 5
17 DESTINY ACTIVISION 13
18 LITTLEBIGPLANET 3 SONY COMPUTER ENT. –
19 LEGO BATMAN 3: BEYOND GOTHAM WARNER BROS. INTERACTIVE 8
20 WWE 2K15 2K SPORTS 7
< previous week
Leisure software charts compiled by Chart Track, (C)2014 UKIE Ltd

These charts cannot be reproduced either in print or online without obtaining permission from Ukie. If you wish to reproduce the charts in print or online, please contact david.smith@ukie.org.uk for the appropriate license.