Legion of Angels News Archive

RALEIGH, North Carolina (Reuters) - Sequels may not always match up to the original in Hollywood but videogames can often get better the second or third time around.

Videogame producers are hoping it will hold true with the latest games that will hit store shelves soon including Insomniac Games’ “Resistance 2″ PlayStation 3 exclusive, Epic Games’ “Gears of War 2″ Xbox 360 exclusive, Microsoft’s “Fable 2,” and Bethesda Softworks’ “Fallout 3.”

“Developers can hit the ground running with sequels,” said Ted Price, president and CEO of Insomniac Games. “The game’s story and art style have a solid base, the tech and tools are stable and the basic gameplay mechanics have gone through plenty of tuning in the first game.”

The second or third time around developers can devote more energy to building game assets instead of trying to get things up and running.

“It’s certainly a liberating experience when you’re no longer arguing over the main character’s name, or waiting for basic systems to be implemented,” said Price. “The end result is usually a game that’s bigger, more polished and has more innovative features than the original game.”

“Resistance 2,” thrusts players into an alternate 1950s America invaded by aliens called Chimera. In addition to a single-player campaign, the game offers an eight-player cooperative campaign and online gameplay with battlefields filled with 60 players.

Aliens also feature in “Gears of War 2″, which sends gamers into the depths of the planet Sera to tackle a race called the Locusts. The sequel offers a story that can be played with a friend. Online gameplay modes like “Horde” also pit up to five players against waves of heavily armed Locusts.

“We want casual gamers to play the game and be sucked into the universe and finish the game,” said Cliff Bleszinski, lead games designer, Epic Games. “We want them to potentially finish with a friend and become a fan of the characters and the setting.”

Attracting the mainstream audience was also a major goal of Peter Molyneux, creator of Microsoft’s “Fable II” for Xbox 360. He’s crafted a game that he believes will satisfy the 3 million gamers who bought the original, while opening up the fantasy role-playing adventure genre to anyone.

“We’ve designed this game to allow the player to do whatever they wish, including getting married and having kids, playing mini-games and creating a custom character that will evolve as you play,” said Molyneux.

“Call of Duty: World at War,” the latest game in the franchise focuses on the bloody Pacific Front and the Russian invasion of Nazi-occupied Berlin during the Second World War.

“The developer spent two years working on the technology behind this game, which includes four-player cooperative play and the introduction of new weapons like flame throwers and flame tanks,” said Daniel Suarez, executive producer of the game at Activision

Gamers have been waiting 10 years for Bethesda Softworks’ “Fallout 3,” for PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

“I think it’s good for people to miss things,” said Todd Howard, executive producer of the game. “Ten years between ‘Fallout’ is a bit long, but I think there’s this nostalgia factor.”

Fans of the post-Apocalyptic game, set in Washington, D.C., won’t have to wait another decade for “Fallout 4.” Howard said he believes three years is a good time frame between games.

Source — Yahoo!

Like Unicorns (or in these trying times, a bank you can trust) consolidator fares are elusive, precious items that can offer a traveler great savings. Airfarewatchdog.com has taken the time to track down the facts about these airline special offers. In the first installment, we learned they were created to ensure flights sold out, but in an era of airline consolidations and bankruptcies, these deals are getting fewer and far-between.

What’s Your Best Chance of Finding the Fares?

According to both Bob Harrell of New York airline consultancy Harrell Associates and Greg Rholl, Vice President of Pricing and Distribution for Minnesota consolidator Centrav, the best times to find consolidator fares are when 1) you’re traveling coach internationally, 2) you’re traveling last-minute, or 3) both.

Because consolidators don’t actually buy the seats, they’re usually granted their window of opportunity early in the booking process (to fill up a limited number of seats to hedge the airline’s bet on passengers) or late (to make up for the passengers the airline estimated would book, but didn’t). Your travel agent can even find consolidator business class seats last minute, for up to a 50% discount.

What Do Consolidator Fares “Act” Like?

You may think that because you’re getting a bargain basement price, your consolidator ticket will be nonrefundable, non-changeable, won’t allow you to make advance seat assignments, won’t let you earn miles - a heavily restricted “use it or lose it” ticket. That’s usually not the case (and yes, you’ll almost always earn your miles), but you DO need to ask your travel agent for up-front restriction information. Consolidator fares generally act like those discounted economy class tickets of the lower echelons, and carry similar restrictions. That’s why some travelers are convinced they’ve bought consolidator fares on airline websites - but they haven’t. American Airlines spokesman Ned Raynolds confirmed that the airlines aren’t allowed to sell unpublished fares themselves.

The problem with bulk fares often doesn’t lie with the restrictions themselves, but the capacity that the consolidator has been granted by the airline. For example, say you bought a consolidator ticket as a “T” class (generally one of the lowest of the low airfare classes). If you bought it and the airline then closes out the consolidator’s “bucket,” you won’t be able to change it, even if the airline still has “T” class tickets of its own to sell. IF the consolidator has similarly restricted tickets like “L” or “K” class, you might be able to swap them, through your agent, but only if the consolidator’s window is still open.

Similarly, say you bought a discounted “Q” class ticket directly from the airline. If you wanted to change it and that particular class was sold out, you could ask the airline to let you pay the difference and a penalty to upgrade to a full-fare, unrestricted “Y” class ticket. You won’t be able to do that with a consolidator fare. The other restriction you’ll find across the board: You’ll never be able to upgrade your ticket using miles. The lesson: You’d better be sure that your consolidator ticket is the one you want, because you’re most likely stuck with it.

What About Consolidators That Sell on the Web?

Not a good idea. Consolidators simply aren’t built for customer service. As we mentioned before, through years of relationship-building, your travel agent has a much better grasp of which consolidators are good, and which ones are shady, than you do. Consolidators themselves can’t really offer you any guarantees on your fare. Big consolidators have a lot of sway with the airlines because of the volume they do, so they can often help (but the reputable ones will only deal with your travel agent). If something goes wrong with a consolidator ticket you’ve bought through a trusted agency, the agency should absorb your loss.

According to Simon Bramley, head of pricing for Travelocity, the Travelocity Guarantee to “make things right” would function this way, buffering you from a loss if something should happen to one of the consolidator fares it offers through its site (you’ll usually spot these marked as “exclusives,” and all restrictions are listed before you purchase). And as always, you’ll want to ensure every purchase by using a credit, not a debit card, so you can take it up with the credit card company if the deal goes south.

Comparison Shopping

The inevitable truth is that you’ll want to shop around. Airlines, in an effort to drive customers to their own sites, now offer low fare guarantees. That means that even if you find an “exclusive” consolidator fare online, the airline will more than likely match or beat it. Domestic consolidator fares have been all but completely squeezed out by the Internet, and because airlines are decreasing capacity (mostly domestically), you’ll find even fewer for US-only flights. Rholl notes that airlines now release prices to consolidators that are exactly the same as published fares. Of course, you always have the option of searching the consolidators that sell online, and then mitigating your risk by asking your travel agent to find the fare for you. Like all fares worth finding, locating them will take a search.

Source — Yahoo!