Tag Archives: PC gaming

Train2Game News: Mid-week round up

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Blizzard Entertainment released Mists Of Pandaria yesterday. The latest expansion for World Of Warcraft. Blizzard have also said that they have no fear of Windows 8 and will release games for any platform their players are on.

Avenged Sevenfold have released a new track that will feature on Call Of Duty: Black Ops 2. The song, Carry On, is the second song the band have released for a Call Of Duty game. They previously released Not Ready To Die with one of the Call Of Duty: Black Ops DLC packs.

Telltale’s five Walking Dead episodic games will be put on disc in December for Xbox360 and PS3. The game is based on the graphic novel turned TV show and through playing them myself I can say, if you are a fan of the series, play this game. You won’t be disappointed.

Nvidia’s head of cloud gaming, Phil Eisler, believes that cloud gaming could take over from consoles. He believes that consoles have one final generation in them before they die out, leaving the world of gaming in the hands of the cloud.

Ubisoft have announced that Assassins Creed 3 will not play on Windows XP. The company has released the specifications needed to play the game. There is a version for Windows 8 in the pipeline though.

Bethesda have released an animated prequel to its upcoming Dishonored. The webseries is called Tales of Dunwall and the gorgeous animated shorts are being released in three parts. The videos can be found on YouTube and they show the downfall of the in game city.

Sony Xdev are giving a small studio the opportunity to win £25,000. This new initiative, called Playstation Pioneers, will reward developers for a PlayStation Mobile game concept and will also offer successful candidates the opportunity to work alongside XDev. Further details can be found here.

An extra four titles have been added to the Humble Bundle 6. The titles are: Bit.Trip Runner, Gratuitous Space Battles, Jamestown, and Wizorb. If you have already purchased the bundle, you will get the new games added at no extra cost.

If you are attending Eurogamer this weekend you can get a special surprise when you play Company Of Heroes 2. Everyone that plays the game or attends the developer session at the event will get a code to access a future beta for the game.

Finally Train2Game will be at Eurogamer this weekend. If you are attending go and say hello, it is always nice to meet these people. I will be attending on the Saturday so if you see me feel free to talk to me. I hope everyone that attends has a brilliant time.

Train2Game News: Another student in his local paper

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Train2Game Student, Joao Soares, has been featured in his local paper following the World record Game Jam.

The article can be read in the link below:

Games_Wickford_Today__Walthamstow_September_2012

Train2Game News: Students featured in local papers

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Train2Game Students Dan Hawkins, Richard Scott-Jones and Jason Teefey have been featured in their local papers. The students talk about their time at the World record breaking Game Jam.

You can read the articles in the links below:

Games Sudbury Mercury September 2012

Redhill games industry student

The Surrey Comet September 2012

Train2Game News: Dishonored developer diary 1

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At Eurogamer this year you will be able to play the highly anticipated Dishonored.

The new game from Bethesda looks to be a Half Life meets Assassins Creed style game.

This is the first of four developer diaries about the game. I will upload one a day leading up to Eurogamer.

Viewers must be over 18

Train2Game News: Mass effect of Bioware ‘fathers’ on the move

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Bioware has announced its plans for the future following the departure of their founding members.

Earlier in the week Dr Ray Muzyka and Dr Greg Zeschuk, the founding fathers of Bioware, left the company.

To reassure the world, the company announced what’s next in line for development. The biggest announcement was that of a new IP for the next generation of consoles.

Aaryn Flynn, General Manager of Bioware Edmonton and Montreal, said “Casey [Hudson, Mass Effect series boss] and his leads are putting together their vision for an all-new game set in a fictional universe, built from the bottom-up with all new gaming technology.”

Their next project to launch will be more DLC for the highly popular Mass Effect 3. They have said they will develop more multiplayer and single player content. The single player content is strongly rumoured to be set on the Mass Effect 2 location, Omega. The add-on should see players team up with angry asari Aria T’loak to retake her crime-laden home from long time antagonists Cerberus.

Bioware are currently looking in to how they can expand the Mass Effect series in to another game for the series.

The company have also been working on their other highly popular series, Dragon Age. The third instalment was announced a few days ago named Dragon Age 3: Inquisition. No more details have been released about the game to date.

Mr Flynn said about the departure of the Doctors “I know this might be concerning for some of you but the leaders at BioWare have had some time to think about it – to think about how the games, the fans, and the creative teams would move on without the two guys who started this organization back in 1995.

“We – including Ray and Greg – think the studio is solid and the team here is ready to embark on a whole new era of games.”

Train2Game News: Students talking about the Game Jam

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This is a video of students talking about Train2Game and the Game Jam from the weekend!

 

Train2Game News: Mid-week Round up

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Train2Game student Fiona Stewart has been featured in The Sun. She talks about how she moved from traditional art to digital art and how it has affected her life. The Sun also featured an article about Daniel Gent, a disabled student of Train2Game who uses a voice activated computer.

Microsoft are bringing Atari’s extensive back catalogue to tablets and browsers. The new portal is called Atari Arcade and it’s opening with eight titles: Asteroids, Combat, Centipede, Lunar Lander, Missile Command, Pong, Super Breakout and Yar’s Revenge. The rest of the games are set to be released over the next few months.

343 Industries and Microsoft are releasing eight different pre-order incentives for Halo 4. Depending on where you order the game from you get a different in game item. The in game items include: Different Armour sets, Avatar Items and multi-player Emblems.

Humble Bundle Six has been released. The Humble Bundles are great for picking up some of the top indie games whilst helping charity at the same time. You pay what you want for the bundle but need to pay a minimum amount to get the game Dustforce. Other games included are: Rochard, Shatter, S.P.A.Z, Torchlight and Vessel.

Sony are releasing two new thinner PlayStation 3s. These new consoles are 25% slimmer than the current models and one boasts a 500GB hard drive the other is a 12GB flash memory model but a 250GB hard drive will be available.

Sony are also launching PlayStation Mobile in October. It is a new store for games to be released for mobile devices. An SDK for the store will be released in November opening up a new market for games developers.

Nintendo has come to an agreement with Unity. Developers can use the engine to create games for the Wii U. Unity users will have to pay for a license to develop for the Wii U, just like with the other platforms.

EA will support the very first GaymerCon. The convention is for the LGBT community to come together through their love of gaming. Their website says its purpose is to educate and inform “the gaming community of the presence of sexuality in our digital lives and promoting acceptance and social change through gaming.”

Finally a big congratulations to the winning team at the weekends world record winning Game Jam. RetroMetro won with their game, Royal Rush. I hope you enjoy your prizes and I hope everyone who attended the Game Jam had an excellent time!

Train2Game students on top of the world

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THEY trained, they gamed and they conquered the world!

More than 295 students stayed awake for 48 hours over the weekend in a bid to create video games from scratch with a pledge from one of the world’s biggest software company, Microsoft, to publish them.

Microsoft has teamed up with the UK’s leading distance-learning college in an attempt to get into the Guinness Book of World Records with the biggest Games Jam held at the University of Bedfordshire in Luton.

Dr Jan Telensky, majority owner of Train2Game, said: “It’s a gruelling 48 hours for the students, most of them stay awake but if they need to sleep they catch a nap at their desks or even under them.

“But the dedication and determination they show at creating brand new and exciting games from nothing is impressive – they work as teams under tremendous pressure often with team-mates they’ve never met before. For a student it is an incredible experience they have and it stands them in good stead for getting jobs in the industry in the future.”

Microsoft came up with the theme for the Games – Pride of London after the success of the 2012 Olympic Games and Paralympics in the UK.

The teams had a field-day creating games using cartoons of Boris Johnson, London buses and all sorts of iconic images from the capital.

As the gamers worked through the night local MPs Gavin Shuker and Kelvin Hopkins paid a visit.

Mr Hopkins said: “Going for a world record attempt in Luton, particularly when it is to do with the burgeoning games industry, it will really help to put the area on the map.”

Mr Shuker agreed with him saying that “Train2Game was making a major contribution in the battle to get Britain back to work.”

And work was the name of the game as the students huddled in classrooms and labs at the university to create their games which ultimately could be released as apps world-wide by Microsoft.

Craig Moore, aged 30, from Milton Keynes, a member of team 32, said: “This was a massive learning curve but we hit the floor running. It’s been a fantastic experience.”

Chris Ledger, in his mid-twenties, from Cheltenham, said: “I was getting texts from my family and girlfriend – and my mates – in the middle of the night, it was great to have their support. I’m a wreck now but it was all worth it.”

Microsoft representatives at the ‘jam’ were impressed by the dedication shown by the gamers. Scott Henson, Senior director of Microsoft studios said “These students are going to be the heart beat of the industry in a few years. Events like this are incredibly helpful for young developers to flex their creative muscles.”