Historical

The wuxia films that inspire many of Age of Wushu's mechanics have a fairly uniform attitude toward vertical mobility: screw gravity. Needless to say, the game takes that lesson to heart. A new article and video detailing the game's Flying skills makes it clear that players will not simply be encouraged to defy gravity but to go all-out and actively mock the idea that anything more than boredom keeps both feet planted on the ground.

Flying skills are treated like normal skills in the sense that players must locate skill tomes to unlock new abilities, but once unlocked these skills are only limited by the character's Stamina. As long as your character has Stamina you can feel free to run straight up walls, jump off with a series of spinning backflips, and then land from a great height without so much as a bruise. If you do run out, though... well, gravity responds poorly to mockery. Check out the video just past the cut to see what it looks like to spit in the face of downward velocity.

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Wargaming.net's Dmitry "Overlord" Yudo has posted a brief World of Warplanes-related update on his dev blog.

The arcade-style aviation shooter's 0.4.1 closed beta update will apparently feature a "soft wipe/reset," as well as joystick tuning updates, reworked upgrade UI elements, new premium aircraft, and two additional maps (Arctic and Harbour).

Head to Overlord's blog via the link below for a handful of gorgeous new in-game images.

Age of Wushu is launching out of closed beta on April 10th, and with that launch comes another newly announced feature: Battlefield Arenas. These arenas allow players to test out their PvP skills in a closed and controlled environment before hitting the mean streets.

The arenas will introduce two distinct modes: Power Competition and Death Mode. Power Competition scores teams for the kills made, while Death Mode is faster and more intense with no respawn timers and no time limit.

You can read more about these Battlefield Arenas at the official Age of Wushu site and be sure to watch the arena modes in action during the video embedded just after the jump.

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Warstory: Europe in Flames is one of those deceptively simple MMOs that makes me feel a bit lost for most of the week that I look at it for this column. It seems as though I stumbled into a game that features not only a time-limited server but one that is about to restart once the capital city of Berlin is taken by either the Russians (my side) or one of the other Allies. The goal is to race through content until Berlin is finally nabbed. I was even able to roll a new commander on a new server, but that game was far enough along to convince me that I really need to play in a brand-new game to see what happens from the very beginning.

I am getting ahead of myself, though. How about we talk about the gameplay and how it all feels? Then I'll allow myself to scheme about my possible glory.

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Innogames' hit browser-based game Grepolis has been receiving some pretty exciting updates lately. It's one of my favorite MMORTS titles because it's simple to learn and can be played on practically any schedule, so I've really been enjoying the updates that have added music and sound effects, holiday mechanics, and more animations. There's a lot more to come, however, according to Grepolis' developer crew.

What sort of things? Well, besides the usual updates and additions to gameplay, the team is promising that how players interact with the community will change as well. Sure, plenty of developers have promised better communication and more interaction, but what Grepolis is promising might just be some of the coolest community tools yet. If they work, of course.

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Last time on the Art of Wushu, I promised I would write on how to sell production crafts. Crafting is a big deal in Age of Wushu, so it seemed like a reasonable topic to cover. However, I realized doing so would probably be a mistake. Why?

If you followed my advice from two weeks ago, congratulations. You probably noticed a huge nosedive in a few markets: hemp, ramie, iron, and mint all took a huge hit. It's a bit flattering to see how I can write a post on what to sell and readers like you guys take it to heart, flooding the market with supply and crashing the value of these commodities. If I gave advice on production crafting, the same thing would happen.

Instead, this week I'm going to talk about real market strategy. Pointing out things that sell doesn't help you if the market takes a nose-dive. Understanding supply and demand curves, market equilibrium, and the importance of market diversity are all long-term tools that will help you regardless of what you're selling.

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[Source: Wargaming press release]

Many of the combat forms in Age of Wushu are fully capable of inflicting grievous bodily harm without a weapon, but that doesn't mean you can't hack at people with sharp bits of metal. And there are a lot of variants on the core principle of "sharp bit of metal," as displayed in the latest development blog examining three linked types of weapon. While swords, blades, and daggers all have the same core design and function, they're very different just the same.

Blades are the largest and most savage of these one-handed weapons; they are tools, meant to end lives as quickly as possible without any concern for elegance. Swords, meanwhile, are weapons and statements both, associated with grace and elegance in movement. Or you could opt for the short and concealable dagger, favored by duplicitous fighters everywhere. Even within a fairly narrow range of weapon types, variety abounds if you know the details.

The stack of games made about World War II is pretty thick at this point, but Petroglyph is hoping to add another game to that lineup with its newest Kickstarter project, Victory. Fresh off of its departure from the End of Nations project, the studio is trying something different with the game's formula. It's a strategy game in real-time, but it's not an RTS; rather, it's closer to playing World of Tanks with control over an entire squad.

As the project page outlines, players will be given control of a squad of units, which has to either defeat the enemy units or capture and hold key locations. Units that are killed are gone, with no base management or tech trees to worry about in the thick of gameplay. The game is not being designed as a free-to-play title, but it is meant for online competitive play. If this sounds intriguing enough to cut through the fatigue of endless World War II games, take a look at all the details on the Kickstarter page.

The laptop-clad Hummer is fueled up and Wargaming.net is ready to roll out for its first road tour. The studio behind the "World of Deadly Historical Battle Vehicles" franchise is drumming up publicity for its titles by staging the least gas efficient Russian invasion ever.

The Wargaming Road Tour's first stop is at the SXSW Interactive Gaming Expo this weekend. If you're attending and spot the hummer, swing by to get a first look at World of Warplanes and grab some nifty swag.

Following the Austin expo, the Wargaming hummer will travel across the United States to spend time in major cities. You can stay abreast of the promotional trip on the official road tour website.

If you're going to be taking part in group combat in Age of Wushu, you need to know about battle arrays. Despite the name, these are not organizations of various battles that serve as an index of information. Rather, they're a type of buffing formation that players can enter to improve a group's overall effectiveness in conflicts. A new article on the official site goes into detail about how battle arrays work and what players can do to maximize their effectiveness.

Arrays vary in strength and scope, with the simplest array requiring only three players to execute. There are six arrays in the game without any school requirements and several more in individual schools, allowing for a variety of group-wide buffs that provide several effects in combat. And if one of the people in the array happens to be a skilled Weiqi player, arrays only get better. To get a clearer picture of these group-based buffs, dive into the full article.

If the launch delay of Age of Wushu caused you to sad-emoticon all over the internet, then it's time to break out the colon-and-capital-D keys: Snail Games announced that it is releasing the martial arts MMO on April 10th in North America.

Content Generation Lead Tyler Rawlins says that the extra beta testing has done a world of good for the game: "The beta has been a great way to connect with the player community and introduce a real world of Wushu to the Western audience. We received and incorporated an abundance of player feedback during beta and can now announce an official launch date for Age of Wushu."

Age of Wushu was originally slated for a February 1st release in North America. It currently boasts over 10 million player registrations in China alone.

You can watch the high-flying launch announcement after the jump.

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I don't know about you, but I really wanted to like L.A. Noire at release. I mean, come on. It was Rockstar. It was also a gigantic open playfield based on the 1947 incarnation of a real-life town that's spilling over with sordid, sultry characters all looking to make their mark on post-World War II America.

Alas, something about the title just didn't jell with me at launch. In fact, I didn't even finish the original campaign on my Xbox 360, which is rare when it comes to personal gaming habits. Equally rare is the occasion when I repurchase a game that I didn't really like on a different platform, but that's what I did thanks to yet another ridiculous Steam sale this past December.

My second tour of duty as hard-boiled detective Cole Phelps has been decidedly more enjoyable than my first, and while L.A. Noire is still a flawed video game in some respects, it makes for an engaging vacation from massively multiplayer convention while riffing on some of the genre's new-school charms.

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Is there a serious need for more games in your life based on World War II? There are a few options out there already, but very soon you'll have another as Nexon brings Navy Field 2 into closed beta testing on March 27th. Unlike many of the other options, this one isn't meant as an action-based game; it's an MMORTS focused on naval engagements and the more strategic pace of sending ships into confrontations.

Players will be able to choose between 500 different ships from World War I and World War II to build their own fleets, entering huge engagements of up to 64 players at a time. The ships can also be customized with new weapons and armor. If this sounds like your cup of tea, check out the official trailer past the break and sign up for the beta, which will run until April 10th.

[Source: Nexon press release]

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