We’ve had another busy week here at GamesBeat. One of the biggest releases of the year, Titanfall, launched on Xbox One and PC; we got the NPD sales date for February; and Angry Birds gets a new, epic installment. Of course, if you’re looking for something a little lighter, you can gander at some lattes that look like video game characters.
You’ll find all that and more in our weekly roundup below.
Previews and interviews
- The DeanBeat: How honest will the Game Developers Conference be?
- Introducing our first speakers for GamesBeat 2014: Total World Domination
- Crytek’s The Collectables brings PC-like 3D graphics to mobile tactical action game (hands-on preview)
- This game teaches players to make microcredit loans to the poor (exclusive)
- R.B.I. Baseball 14 developer wants to re-create the feel of the 8-bit original
- Dark Souls 2 leaves a leaner, smarter world in your direct control (preview)
- Duelyst puts Final Fantasy Tactics-style gameplay into your browser (preview)
Game news
- This may be Amazon’s game controller — and it looks awful
- February 2014 NPD: PlayStation 4 barely edges out Xbox One in console sales
- Respawn hunting down Titanfall cheaters
- Amazon opens up its service for streaming games and mobile apps from the cloud
- Nintendo looks to indie games to bolster Wii U’s sparse software library
- Razer debuts the most advanced gaming laptops ever
- These Nvidia graphics chips will make your laptop fast without melting it
- Mozilla & Epic Games are fast-tracking web-based gaming by bringing Unreal Engine 4 online
- Google buys Green Throttle Games, which could be a big part of its Android set-top box
- Sleepy Giant reveals new platform to help developers build and manage their games
- Blizzard’s Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft digital card game is out of beta
- A better Rift: Oculus hires former Valve VR engineer
- Texas governor Rick Perry honored for support of game industry
- SteamOS gets a powerful new weapon: Ryse: Son of Rome developer adds Linux support to its graphics engine
- Trion unveils its Glyph digital games platform for discovering hardcore digital PC games (exclusive)
- Attempting connection: Titanfall developer fixes early server problems
- Disney Interactive vets reveal The Masterplan — the first game from developer Shark Punch
- Titanfall runs at 792p resolution on Xbox One — and it may get a postlaunch upgrade
- Gaming video site Machinima confirms $18M round after major layoffs
- Ready? Fight! Capcom partners with Twitch for year-round Street Fighter league
- Research firm: China’s Tencent is now a bigger gaming company than Microsoft and Activision
Mobile and social
- Why one studio is still plugging away on new Facebook games
- Midverse launches reward-engagement network that guarantees 100,000 users to mobile developers (exclusive)
- Big Fish partners with startup Boss Fight Entertainment to create deeper casual games
- Gree launches its Rage of the Immortals exclusive Android game
- Unity acquires Applifier as mobile game replays take off
- Mind Pirate unveils its first Google Glass and mobile augmented-reality game: Global Food Fight
- iOS hit puzzle game Threes is now available for Android
- Clash of Clans is now the top-grossing game on iOS and Android
- You don’t need real-money gambling to succeed with social casino games
- ChangYou to invest a record-breaking $600M in mobile game developers
- DragonVale developer Backflip Studios gets into third-party publishing
- Zombot Studio aims to make console-quality games for smartphones and tablets
- Candy Crush Saga creator King may be worth $7.6B after IPO
- mSpy launches a smartphone that makes it easy to spy on someone you know
- More than a third of social casino players are women
- Angry Birds studio teases ‘Epic’ new game with short trailer
- Japanese megahit Puzzle & Dragons reaches more than 3M downloads in North America
- Kabam adds former GameStop veteran as its new acquisition chief
- Gamer social network Raptr reboots as a PC gaming communication platform
- DeNA goes with customization app Zedge to drive user acquisition
- With $6M raised, Finland’s Next Games plans big mobile games like The Walking Dead
- Big Fish Games partners with Coinbase to accept Bitcoin payments for games
Reviews
- Yoshi’s New Island is a skewed dream version of the original (review)
- Titanfall: Worthy of the good — and bad — hype (review)
- Final Fantasy X|X-2 HD Remaster shows Square Enix can actually pull off a fantastic rerelease (review)
- TowerFall: Ascension rises up as the Super Smash Bros. of indies (review)
Pieces of flair
- Analyst: Gamers slowed their digital spending in February in preparation for Titanfall
- Xbox Live not working for you on Xbox One? Here’s Microsoft’s potential fix
- GamesBeat Community: Write about Titanfall
- Game designer will turn a skyscraper into the world’s largest Tetris game
- Seven awesome games that large student teams are making at USC’s advanced games program
- How USC built one of the top video game schools in the country
- Microsoft, EA, and Respawn have a lot riding on the Titanfall launch for Xbox One
- Flappy is a toy-controlled game of Flappy Bird that you can throw in frustration
- Game-inspired latte art: You can finally drink Mario, Batman, and more