DIABLO III AUCTION HOUSE FEES, GLOBAL PLAY REVEALED

Blizzard today offered new details on Diablo III's controversial real-money auction house. The service will launch "approximately one week" after the role-playing game ships on May 15, and Blizzard will enact surcharges on all commodities sold and for those wishing to cash out.

Blizzard will take a substantial cut from auction house sales.
Blizzard said it will take $1 from every piece of equipment (weapons and armor) successfully sold. For commodities like crafting materials, gems, gold, and what Blizzard described as "stackable" items, the company will enact a 15 percent transaction fee. On top of that, Blizzard will take another 15 percent if gamers elect to move funds to a third-party service like PayPal.

Gamers can avoid that fee (and PayPal's own surcharge) by dumping the cash into their Battle.net account, but there, the funds can be used only to purchase Blizzard games, subscriptions, and merchandise. For more on fees associated with Diablo III's auction house, check out Blizzard's comprehensive FAQ.
The company also today announced that Diablo III will make use of Battle.net's new Global Play feature. This allows players to create new characters and friends lists in regions outside of their home territory.
Diablo III's servers will be located in three major regions: The Americas (United States, Canada, Latin America, Australia, New Zealand, and Southeast Asia), Europe (European Union, Eastern Europe, Russia, Africa, Israel, and the United Arab Emirates), and Asia (South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau).

When players first create a character, it will be tagged for play in their home region, which is determined by the country registered to their Battle.net account. The Global Play option allows players to jump into any other game region before or after they log in to Diablo III.

The Global Play offering is not without its restrictions. Players will not be able to migrate characters, items, and friends lists between regions. Further, players will be blocked from accessing the real-money auction house when playing outside their "home" region.

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Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm hands-on at MLG event

Major League Gaming dropped a pair of announcements for its Pro Circuit Spring Championship today, announcing that the June event will give attendees a chance to play the next Starcraft II installment and see the MLG debut of competitive League of Legends play.

Fun fact: This is not the silhouette of NBA legend Jerry West.

The Spring Championship will be held June 8-10 at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, California. Organizers have said that "a large number" of demo stations at the event will be running multiplayer betas of Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm, the follow-up to Blizzard's 2010 sci-fi real-time strategy game Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty. The event will also host a pair of Starcraft II tournaments with more than $100,000 in prize money at stake. One of the tournaments will be MLG's own competition, while the other will be Blizzard's own North America continental finals, with the winners going on to the Battle.net World Championships in Asia later this year.

As for League of Legends, MLG said it will feature the Riot Games multiplayer online battle arena title for the rest of its 2012 pro circuit, starting with the Spring Championship. The tournament should feature 20 teams competing for $40,000 in prizes.

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INTRODUCING: AGENT 47 – HITMAN

Completely unarmed, Agent 47 seeks refuge in an abandoned Chicago library… The original assassin has returned in Hitman Absolution, Agent 47, a cold-blooded assassin, who takes on his most dangerous contract to date. Betrayed by those he once trusted – and now hunted by the police – he suddenly finds himself at the center of a dark conspiracy and must embark on a personal journey through a corrupt and twisted world.

Showcasing IO Interactive’s new proprietary Glacier 2 technology. Hitman Absolution combines the much loved classic gameplay with completely new and exciting features for the Hitman franchise.


Hitman: Absolution – “Introducing Agent 47” Gameplay Trailer:

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CRYSIS DEV BACKTRACKS ON BLOCKING USED GAMES COMMENT

A Crytek developer courted fan outrage last week by saying that next-gen consoles that wouldn't play used games would be "absolutely awesome" from a business perspective. He has since changed his tune, asCVG today reports that the Crysis developer's director of creative development Rasmus Hojengaard is backtracking from those remarks.

It's amazing what a person will recant at gunpoint.

"My comment made in the interview released on the 24th of April, touching upon 'blocking sales of used games,' was not intended to be taken seriously nor representative of the opinion of Crytek," Hojengaard told the site.

Rumors have been swirling concerning Microsoft and Sony implementing anti-used-game measures in their respective future-generation consoles. Specifics are not available, and news of next-generation consoles from the two companies is not expected this year.

The used-game market has been a contentious issue, with several noted developers making clear their stance against secondhand sales. Those who spoke out against used sales recently include ex-THQ executive Richard Browne, Elite creator David Braben, Volition design director Jameson Durall, and Silicon Knights founder Denis Dyack.

Not all voices are against used games. Saber Interactive CEO Matthew Karch said in February that blocking used games is unfair. Also during that month, Witcher developer CD Projekt Red's managing director, Adam Badowski, took a populist gamer stance, saying systems that block used games "can be a bad thing."

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A beautiful, twisted fairytale

Ubisoft
If you see a princess in a video game, chances are that she's the reason some hero with a giant sword is fighting his way through hordes of monsters -- to save her and the kingdom from some dreadful fate.
Ethereal Princess Aurora is not in another castle, but another world -- and she's the one with the giant sword. This was the first clue that the game was going to be something special: a glowing girl with dainty wings wielding a sword as large as her body.
The story is based on fairytale, and has several elements we recognise well -- a wicked stepmother, a perilous journey, and a sleeping princess. In this case, rather than waiting to be awoken, the sleeping princess is the hero. Aurora falls into a deep sleep on the wedding day of her father, an Austrian duke, in the year 1895. Instead of dying, Aurora awakens into the mysterious land of Lemuria, where the sun, moon, and stars have been stolen by the Black Queen.
The game itself is a mix of several different styles: a side-scrolling platform puzzler; an exploration adventure game; a turn-based combat RPG. Each of these elements has, like the story, a special twist that makes it all the game's own.
Ubisoft
You start the game grounded, where you meet the first of your companions and the only one who shares the screen outside of battle: Igniculus, a small blue flame. Igniculus is controlled via the right thumbstick and left trigger, but -- if you're so inclined -- a second player can take control of him. He can help you collect wishes to replenish your HP and MP, shine lights to solve puzzles, illuminate dark passages, as well as slow enemies and heal party members during battle. It's a relatively uncomplicated role -- but one that could work brilliantly to get a less confident player involved in the game.

UBISOFT ON CRAFTING CHILD OF LIGHT
Interview: creating a fairy princess with a badass swordThe puzzles are relatively simple. They often involve navigating mazes of tunnels or levels, locating weights to hold down buttons and shining lights (via Igniculus) through clear objects to place a sign or colour in a specific location. It gets a little more complex not long into the game, when Aurora gets her wings. These allow you to scour the screen from top to bottom, finding tunnels and passages tucked away containing hidden potions and Oculi.
Potions deliver heals, of course, but there are a few other tricks they can deploy, such as offering a speed boost during battle. It's the Oculi that are the fun part. These are gems that can be used to upgrade your equipment. Sapphires, for example, give your sword a water-based attack, or, added to your armour, protect you from them. You can also combine Oculi to create stronger ones. Three rough sapphires can be combined to create a tumbled sapphire, which gives you a stronger attack; and so forth. There is a lot of fun to be had from combining different Oculi to see what cool power-ups you can get.
Ubisoft

As you make your way through the world, you pick up companions along the way, each with their own strengths. Rubella (yes, German measles), the circus acrobat, is a healer. Finn, the magician, has a variety of element-based magic attacks. Norah, Aurora's sister, can provide buffs.
To make things interesting, though, you can only have one character in battle with you at a time. These are played out in a kind of turn-based fashion. Turns are taken based on a bar at the bottom of the screen. When a character's icon reaches the red section, you can choose your action. You then spend the red section taking that action. If you get hit while in the red section, you lose your action and have to wait again. It takes a little while to get the hang of, but it does make the turn-based experience a rather more tense and exciting one.
The XP you earn during these battles is used to level your characters by way of skill trees. Each character has three different skill branches, and you can choose to concentrate on one branch or spread your skills out. Between the skill trees and the Oculi, there is a genuine sense of character development.
All this is played out in a simply breathtaking watercolour-painted world. We mean that quite literally, too: Child of Light was built using Ubisoft's Ubi Art engine, which allows hand-painted artwork to be ported directly into a game.
The result is a gorgeous dream-world that feels both delicate and magical. It's a genuine pleasure to watch Aurora's red hair plume around her as she flies, and we ended up spending quite a bit of time just flying her around to watch it move, like mermaid hair under water. Likewise other animation touches -- like how Aurora's crown falls off her head when she gets hit in battle, or how she stumbles backwards under the weight when she hoists her sword aloft in victory -- breathe life into a game that looks lifted straight from the pages of a story book.


Ubisoft

Even the music -- fey, melancholy violins, pianos and flutes composed by Canadian musician Cœur de pirate -- contributes to this overall atmosphere.

However, it is possible that the game's creators bit off a little more than they could chew with the writing. All dialogue and narration is composed in rhyme, inspired by nursery rhymes and folk tales. Unfortunately, it doesn't work, and it's quite jarring. In most cases, the meter is off, which makes following along awkward, and most of the rhymes are uncomfortably forced, either shoehorning in a word that doesn't fit simply because it rhymes, or by using a word that almost rhymes but doesn't quite match up.

We can see what Ubisoft was aiming for, and it would have been amazing if the writers had pulled it off -- but they didn't. It's a shame, because it mars what would otherwise have been a just-about perfect gaming experience, and we can't help but feel that Child of Light deserved better.

Would that stop us from playing it? Heck no. It's a beautiful game, and one that the developers clearly poured a lot of love and work into. And it's a delightful contrast to the endless grit and guns and blood that mainstream developers seem to now think are so vital to the gaming experience. It's a gutsy move for Ubisoft, and we hope to see a lot more of its ilk in the future.

Child of Light is available now for PC, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 and Wii U.

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Kirby: Triple Deluxe: Totally competent platformer

The Nintendo 3DS isn't the same surprisingly great handheld it was a year ago, but it's a system that still routinely churns out good games, in thanks almost exclusively to Nintendo franchises. Mario Golf and Kirby Triple Threat, both available at exactly the same time, are a rare double-scoop of gaming for the 3DS. Neither is a world-beater, but both are really good, and more than worth your time.

Kirby: Triple Deluxe is a charming Kirby side-scrolling platformer, with the standard bunch of power-up hats and clever use of foreground-background gaming, where enemies and even Kirby will hop in and out of the screen.



Nintendo
It's called Triple Deluxe because there are two other game modes thrown in: a rhythm-action game with several levels, and a Smash Brothers-like game pitting various Kirby forms against each other. The Kirby fighter doesn't work online, though, only via local play. It's a bit of a tease just months before Smash Brothers hits 3DS, but it's a nice extra.


You're bound to have fun with Triple Deluxe, even if it's a lot of the same platforming mechanics you've played so many times before. The main story mode of Deluxe is hefty enough and is split up in stages that take about 10 to 20 minutes to complete.


If you've finished all the other colorful cartoon 2D platform games in the 3DS stable, and there are a ton, Kirby's another really good one to dive into. It's not a genre the 3DS needs more of, but it's one of the better Kirby games in years, which isn't a bad thing at all.


If Triple Deluxe has anything significant to say about the 3DS, its that the console has just about hit its capacity for side-scrolling platforming games. The vast majority of recent titles that are worth a go all blur into the same genre. Such a surplus of similarly styled games can dampen the market. With that, the 3DS just might be running into its next great hurdle: a lack of variety with software
.

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