The premise of The Division is, quite appropriately, rather like something out of a Tom Clancy Novel: A bioterroist attack takes place in the US on Black Friday, using money to spread the virus, turning the national currency into a weapon. Millions are infected, and the national infrastructure goes to hell faster that you can say “Well, guess this is the apocalypse”. The story trailer alludes to the fact that in merely 4 days, the nation has essentially gone into a survival state, with trade having come to a standstill and transportation having already been shut down. 

Luckily, in the scope of the game, a 2007 Presidential order had been put into play. This order, called Directive 51, sets up the main basis of The Division; Shadow Cells and Sleeper Agents have been scattered throughout the United States, and in The Division, you’ll be one of these sleeper agents, trying desperately to maintain some sense of order or law in the chaos of an apocalyptic world. The story is a great mix of spy thriller, post-apocalyptic action, and haunting modern drama, pulling on more than a few current news items and very real modern day fears.

That’s exactly why I am so excited to play The Division: There’s something very unsettling about making a world so close to a very real fear that exists in the modern world. Unsettling, but at the same time, intriguing. As if an interest-grabbing story wasn’t enough of a reason to be interested, The Division is bringing a very ambitious and exciting type of gameplay to bear: a 3rd-Person shooter, with a multiplayer open-world, and more than a few elements of scarcity and survival. DayZ plus Ghost Recon, with a dash of Don’t Starve? It’s hard to say exactly what we’ll get from The Division, since details are so scarce, but what we can draw from the seven minutes of gameplay shown at E3 is pretty spectacular.

First that you will notice is the environment: New York has fallen apart, shops are ruined and trash is piled everywhere. You’re immediately thrown into “Apocalypse Mode”, but the city isn’t so decayed that you can’t see familiar sites: A taxi here, a corner store there, even some ‘friendly’ dogs. Its unnerving, but immediately puts you on edge and thus sets the atmosphere of the game perfectly. Secondly, you’ll notice how slick the UI is. Transparent, modern labels show your health and ammo, as well as the condition of the other members of your division/party. Additionally, you’ll notice digital street signs pop up, giving you direction in a world devoid of minimaps: Yes, it seems you’ll actually have to navigate the streets of New York using a map. Granted, its a super futuristic map the integrates seamlessly with the environment in a pseudo-science fiction kind of way.  That map also seems to be a way in which you find missions or quests. After hearing gunshots, the player was able to open the map, determine where they came from and then see that a nearby police station was in trouble. 

A Firefight at the Station

While on route to the disturbance, three important things pop up. First, the two players see a women who is infected with the virus and mention they ‘don’t have the packs to spare’. I’d assume that this means players will be able to inoculate civilian NPC’s (and themselves?) and thus change the makeup of certain areas, perhaps even bringing some level of safety and stability to a neighborhood. Next, we hear a third player come in over the voice chat, showing just how seamless the party integration seems to be. The fact that she is just now popping in suggests to me that voice chat in game may be restricted to a certain distance. Just before heading to the Police Station the group finds an entrance to The Underground, suggesting that there are numerous zones or areas in the city, more than likely each having there own rewards and challenges (I doubt The Underground will have that many weapons to loot, but it might be a high risk -high reward means of traveling throughout the city.)

When gun fire breaks out, the team hurries to the police station and engages the enemy. We catch a glimpse of a few abilities including a  deployable turret, a group heal, a distraction device, a radar scan and a homing mine. There looks to be a ton of skills, and the developers have already said that they want a classless system based on flexibility and choice: 

“So in the first 15 minutes of the game, we’re not asking you to choose what you are and how you want to play The Division. You’ll discover how you want to play while playing the game,” [Game director Ryan]Barnard said.

“How your Division agent and mine work together is very important. Being open and not being class-locked will allow you to go back to your skills and talents and make adjustments.”

The other big feature we see during the demo is the appearance of a drone, maned by a player on a tablet. An integration with mobile devices seems like far more that gimmick in The Division, and Ryan Barnard elaborated on this in a VG24/7 interview: 

“You have your own persistence within the drone and have progression and skills and talents, a lot like the main game. So it’s not just a fluffy armory or an application. It’s a real game client that you can use to interact with the game itself.”

A View of What is to Come?

After the fight outside of the police station, we see players gathering food and water, unlocking an armory and collecting what looks to be randomized loot and dropping the ever-so-cryptic line “You better get that gunout before you loose it”, no doubt suggesting that if you die with a new weapon, you loose that new weapon. Finally, heading outside to fire off a flare, undoubtably to call in an air extraction, we then get the killer line of the entire gameplay teaser: “Wow, its another group of players. Brace for PvP!”

A Post-Apocalyptic open world, with non-linear character progression, elements of the MMO genre, mobile integration, a slick modern design and world PvP? As if I needed more reasons to love this game. 

Tom Clancy’s The Division is slated for 2014 on the PS4 and The Xbox One. 

The post The Division: Everything We Know appeared first on RaidWarning.

Last Thrusday, I attended an Injustice Tournament being held by the Maine Fighting Gamers Alliance in honor of the premeir of Man of Steel I had the opportunity to interview Steven Santerre and Antonio Williams, two of the organizers at the event, who provided some insight into the drive behind this group, and talked about some of the issues associated with it, as well as nerding out over DC and video games.

Tell me about the MFGA, how did it get started and how did you get involved?

Antonio: It pretty much all started off as a Facebook Group Experiment. We were all in Facebook Chat and how we wish that there was more of a scene. We constantly read about it outside of Maine, and wondered why, I mean, you know, We game. We are gamers, I’ve been playing fighting games since I started playing games, and I wondered why there wasn’t more. So, we thought why not do something on Facebook and see where it goes. Then, it just kind of snowballed. I was like ‘ Well, we got to throw and event!’ and we tried putting together a tournament. I just took references from every tournament that I’ve ever been to that I didn’t like, and said “Lets just do the opposite of that.”

Steven: For me, Tony contacted me on Facebook the day after he came up with the idea, and he knew I played games a lot, didn’t know how much I liked fighting games, but he had seen that I played Mortal Kombat recently, so he was like “Hey! You want to help me with this community?’ I’m always down for helping out communities, so I jumped on board day one.

What are the challenges you run into while running this kind of group or tournament?

Antonio: The challenge is that a lot of people up here are not aware of fighting game culture and due to the immediate gratification often provided in other genres, and how there aren’t very many gaming recreational centers here where groups can form, people don’t necessarily want to put in the work for something they’re not sure that they can be a part of, more than just meeting up with somebody once a month. Fighting games, more than any other genre, take a level of dedication that a lot of people either don’t understand, don’t want or they are completely intimidated by. So, what we try to do is find other ways to make it acceptable. Yes if you put in the time and work, you won’t be as good, but at least you know how much time you want to put, and at least come to our events, have fun as possible, and root on those people who do put in the time. We have a lot of high level players who have put in a lot of time and are traveling. After this interview and this even tonight, we’re going to be traveling to The Games Underground Tournament in Massachusetts. That’s going to be a big event. We were at the first one, and now we’ve got more members from Maine going to the second one. We know the community can only grow so big, and so what we’ve done is taken the people that have played with us from the beginning and made it a traveling team, making sure that we can push them as far as we can get them.

A Shot Mid-Tournament

Maine isn’t exactly what we might call a bustling urban center. It’s pretty remote at times. How has this helped the MFGA?:

Antonio: We have players in Southern Maine that have a similar problem. In the beginning we didn’t even get along with each other. We we’re purely on a rival standpoint: who was better Northern Maine versus Southern Maine. While that rivalry still exists to a degree it doesn’t have to be there to drive us now. We are now, a lot closer together. It’s more like a group of friends and family. We’ll fight against each other in Maine when we are against each other, but as soon as we leave Maine, we’re Mainers. It doesn’t matter; If you’re from Maine, your with us. I’ve tried to offer something that didn’t exist when I first started [the MFGA].

Steven: Because it’s so tight knit, its’s pretty much a brotherhood. We all root for each other when its needed. Another part of this, another example is that Southern Maine, for a while, we’re or straight up rivals, where as now, we’re finally part of the same organization. When we play in tournaments [in Maine], we’re of course still rivals with Southern Maine, but when we leave Maine, we are team mates. We are all the MFGA.

What is it about the fighting game genre that you like so much?

Antonio: I like how there’s different reasons for entering the genre. You can get into a game because you saw an anime of Ken and Ryu once and thought ‘those characters are cool and I want to play the game.’ You can play another fighting game because you read a comic book and thought ‘Wow, I want to fight on a team fight Spiderman, Wolverine and Thor.’

Steven: Or, because you heard about how controversial the gore was in Mortal Kombat…

Antonio: Yeah, or what actually, I’m really proud to say, that happens quite a bit is, I love the fact that a lot of people have joined our organization because they have seen what we do and are interested. We have a lot of supporters who don’t even play, but they love what we do so much, that they will come and cheer on those who play anyway.

Steven: We’ve had people come and pay the venue fee just to watch!

One Thing I Did Learn: Aquaman Seems OP

What is it that you like in particular about Injustice?

Antonio: I like Injustice because it stood up to kind of the snobbery side of the gaming community. The older, more veteran side. The people who have been instrumental in its growth but slow to change. They are the kind of people that write a game like this off because its not like the normal game they play. The thing they did well with injustice is that they didn’t dumb it down, they made in accessible. Fighting games, up until recently, and still now, do a piss poor job of telling you how to play the game. Arcades are dead. We can’t teach each other the way we did 10 or 15 years ago. These games have to do a better job of instructing people how to play or the genre will suffer for it. [Injustice] got it and they made the game cater to all different degrees of skill level.

Steven: I actually reviewed Injustice when it first came out, and like Antonio said, everything about the game, the game has good depth but it also has a lot of new elements. Like the intractable elements. I mean it’s not necessarily new, but it is a new take on it. Its where it opens the door to those players that can’t pull of the gnarliest combo but if someone pulls one off on them, they can come back form it by hitting them through a wall and doing extra damage, and opening up a new stage. Like Antonio said, its very accessible. When you go into the menu, it shows details that veterans would understand and it give a way for those non-veteran players to see it before they have to understand it.

Antonio: It honors the genre, while not bending over backwards to please a small group of elite players.

When you’re not training for a fighting game, what other games are you playing?

Steven: I was literally playing Animal Crossing right before this interview!

Antonio: I play a good number of action games, the Batman Arkham games especially, when I get one of those, I’m gone. I also dabble in some RPG’s, I got Ni No Kuni started, then I had a bunch of tournaments, so I’m excited to return to it. I’ve pre-ordered my PS$ and I’m looking forward to The Order: 1886. That looks pretty sweet…

Steven: My favorite game series, as of right now are, well, will always be, The Legend of Zelda, as well as the Souls series; Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls. Love ‘em!

So, to wrap this up, and since we are at a DC Comics premier, Who would win in a fight? Batman or Superman?

Antonio: I think, I’m a bigger Batman fan, not gonna lie, and unfortunately one of the things in the mythology of the Batman character is that he plans a lot, its made him kind of a running Chuck Norris joke. That being said, given preparations and the right scenario, Batman could pull it off, but in a direct 1v1 conflict, Superman wins that fight. On a personal level, I will always side with Batman…

Steven: Batman takes it. WE’VE SEEN IT! We’ve seen it before!!

I’d like to thank Antonio and Steven for sitting down and taking about there time in the MFGA and Injustice. As someone who doesn’t really play fighting games all that much, it was eye-opening to see them played from a competitive side of things, and I was impressed with the level of dedication and finesses each competitor brought to there match.

For those of you interested, you can find the Maine Fighting Games Alliance on Facebook, and might also consider looking into 207 Gaming, a Maine-based community group run by Steven Santerre.

P.S. Man of Steel is really good. Story may lack, but any movie that has a fight like the one that goes down in Smallville is worthy of your time!

The post Interview with the Maine Fighting Gamers Alliance appeared first on RaidWarning.

That’s sarcasm btw.

Take a look at the following screenshots of Tank, Attack Helicopter and Boat BF4 Customizations in the works.

BF4 Tank Proximity Scanner

BF4 Heli Hydra Rocket Pods

BF4 Heli Zuni Rocket Pods

BF4 Heli Heat Seekers

BF4 Heli IR Flares

BF4 Heli Stealth

BF4 Heli Zoom Optics

BF4 Heli IRNV Optics

BF4 Heli Autoloader

BF4 Heli High Explosive Shell

BF4 Heli Burst Shell

BF4 Boat Anti Tank Missile

BF4 Boat Anti Air Missile

BF4 Boat IR Smoke

BF4 Boat Zoom Optics

BF4 Boat Maintenance

BF4 Boat Paint Jobs

The post 17 New Battlefield 4 Vehicle Customization Screenshots Surface appeared first on RaidWarning.

As I noted, this was a catch-up conference. Carbine showed a trailer that was released way back in March, except now with Korean subtitles. The combat was a high-level dev Spellslinger with awesome effects, but again, we’ve seen this class and its spells before. The questions from several of the media audience members of about 60 or 70 of us were the type that you’d probably groan about (“What is ‘Wild” about the game and how does it make you a ‘Star’?”)

However, this press conference wasn’t all catch up: we learned one very interesting bit of information about housing: It has the potential to give you experience. No, I’m not talking rest XP.

While most of what was said was stuff we’d heard before, Gaffney did say something interesting that was somewhat subsumed under all the PAX news by all but the hardest-core fans: Players can gain experience points from their house decorations. Now, for brevity’s sake, this couldn’t be shown, and he didn’t go into detail, but I did ask for an explanation. As some of you know, you go to your house in order to gain rest experience. However, certain house decorations, such as if you have a garden or mine, can give you experience daily.

Ther’es a lot of potential here, and I’d love to see it worked into Plugs and Sockets: Make us choose: Do we get to have our own private workbench with a crafting buff, or do we choose to get that statue that gives us X amount of XP each day? We won’t know for a while, but it is interesting food for thought, particularly with all the info we already have about housing in Wildstar.

The post WILDSTAR E3 Press Briefing mentions Housing appeared first on RaidWarning.

Check out the trailers and be sure to bring a napkin.

The post Assassin’s Creed 4: The Trailers of E3 appeared first on RaidWarning.

Firefall’s open beta client is already available online for download, and as usual, it might be a good idea to download now before the servers get stressed prior to Open Beta going live.

The post Firefall Moves Into Open Beta July 9th appeared first on RaidWarning.

In a recent interview with Joystiq, Supergiant’s Greg Kasavin goes on to state that Transistor will not be limited to just the simultaneous launch on PC and PS4, but may see further platforms in the future:

Bastion‘s success was not made on any one platform. That being said, our focus is absolutely on a successful PS4 launch and also our Steam PC launch, because if that does not go well, there will not be other versions of the game, most likely and so forth.

The post Supergiant’s Transistor To Make Console Debut On PS4 appeared first on RaidWarning.

Here’s a bit of Gameplay as well:

The post E3: Garden Warfare Trailer and Gameplay appeared first on RaidWarning.

And yes, it plays the same games… we’re still just a little bitter about the Xbox One

Check out Joystiq’s gallery for images of the new Xbox 360

The post Xbox 360 Gets A Makeover, Still Allows Play of Used Games appeared first on RaidWarning.

It’s not yet known if PC/Mac and Console players will inhabit the same servers.

The post E3: Elder Scrolls Online Announced for PS4 and Xbox One appeared first on RaidWarning.