april-fools-09 posts

Technically this is a April Fools story, except that while it's humorous it also happens to be true. BioWare has issued some new paid downloadable content for their fantasy RPG Dragon Age: Origins that are, shall we say, different. For $2 you can get the Feastday Prank Pack which gives players 10 pranks they can pull on party members along with two gifts to help them apologize after the prank is committed.

Another $2 gets you the Feastday Gifts pack which lets you give 10 humorous but nice gifts to give to party members plus two crappy gifts " let your companions know you weren't completely serious." You can also buy both packs in a bundle for $3.

We have been waiting to see what Valve might be doing for April Fool's Day and we were not disappointed. The official Team Fortress 2 web site has posted up their "all new" unlock for the Sniper character class. The Jarate. And what is the Jarate? Well all you have to do is look above this post to get all of the details.

We have never heard of the ancient art of throwing jars filled with urine at your enemies but now that we think about it, it could be a very effective method. And it could only come from the character class that hails from Down Under. How much you you want to bet that some mod maker is coming up with a Jarate mod right now?

Oh . . .dear . . . God.

You know, April Fool's is supposed to be fun, joyful. Sure we all get fooled every once in a while but no one gets hurt. But Cryptic Studios went way over the line for their April Fool's 2009 gag.

Star . . . Trek . . .Babies . . .Online.

Oh there's just not enough words to describe the horror we felt in seeing the site for one of our most anticipated MMO games get defaced by images of small cute Klingons, Vulcans and Gorns. "Shudder". Our skin is crawling just thinking about it.

We know it will never happen. We know that tomorrow things will be back to normal and the Star Trek Online site will be free of these images. But in the back of our heads, a single though goes through: "What it it's real?" We feel dizzy . . . .

THUD!

Some April Fool's gags are funny but also blatantly obvious. Others are a little more subtle, Such is the case with today's "announcement" by Microids for Syberia 3. The press release for the third game in the cult favorite adventure game series looked, at least at first, like the real thing.

That is until you actually read it. It states the game will allow "those playing on PC and those playing on PS3 to collaborate online, thanks to a simultaneous data exchange and sharing mode on the two platforms." Uh-huh. It also states, "Only PS3 players who have collaborated with PC players, and vice versa, . . " can actually finish the game. We emailed Microids' PR contact who admitted the truth: "Well... I do have to confess this is an April Fools joke..." Well played Microids . . . well played.

NCsoft is close to releasing their latest update for their super hero MMO City of Heroes, one which will add something rare for the MMO genre: User created missions and content. However on this April Fool's Day the publisher has just announced a new spin-off game that promises to bring back the 1980s to both the game world and its players.

City of Heroes: Golden Age isn't just about playing in a super hero universe back in the days of Ghostbusters and the first music videos. It's all about playing the game in the style of those 1980s PC game titles. That's right, friend: you are playing the game via the always fun text adventure interface. NCsoft recommends that your PC have at least DOS 3.1, a 386 processor or higher, 640k of RAM and a 1200 baud Hayes-compatible modem. For most of us that means breaking into the piggy bank for upgrades.

Yet another clever April Fool's gag has been released by a game developer today. This time it's Bohemia Interactive who claim to have abandoned plans to release their military shooter sequel ARMA II with a farm simulation called (wait for it) FARMA II.

As the post on the developer's message board states, "Cows, dogs and sheep will be powered by an improved version of the state-of-the art dynamic AI system originally used for infantry combat. Players will be able to develop their farms, establish a Kolchoz and dominate the food market in Chernarus, a fictional post Soviet country." The screenshots that accompany the "announcement" do look good enough for us to be interested in seeing more . . . if this were real.

If you watch even a little TV every day you might notice that there are about 10 gazillion shows featuring some type of competitive dancing. Blizzard knows a good thing when it sees it and for its World of Warcraft April Fool's edition decided to bring that trend to their MMO space.

The new "Dance Battle System" is all about popping, locking and grooving as the game searches for "Azeroth's best dance crew." Using a custom interface, players can form a crew and perform all sorts of dance moves in the arena where Azeroth's version of Slater from Saved By The Bell will give you the good or bad news. The odd thing is there are MMOs out there that are planning to add dance-offs to their games. So Blizzard might think about making this a reality.

StarCraft II SMASH!

That seems to be the theme of this April Fool's update on Blizzard's StarCraft II web site. The upcoming sci-fi RTS sequel will have a new unit in the game when it is released (if this was Earth Bizarro): The Terra-Tron. As the unit itself says in the voice sample: "Hell . .it's morphin' time!".

Bascially Terran bases can be "morphed" together to form the 100 foot tall behemoth that apparently has guns all over his body along with laser-saws, rocket launchers and more. We are not totally sure on this but we have a feeling that this unit might throw off the game's entire balance structure :).

Blizzard always seems to get into the April Fool's Day spirit and the 2009 edition is proving to be no exception. The official web site for their long awaited action-RPG sequel Diablo III "reveals" an all new playable class for the game: The librarian . . . er, make that the Archivist.

The page goes into detail about the new class, complete with gameplay footage via Flash-based movies moving showing the libr . . . er, Archivist doing his thing against enemies with spells like Shush and the Quest Bolt. Screenshots show other abilities such as "Book Vision" and the character's Radial Dialogue Tree. It's not the best character in the world but I'm sure we could work with it if Blizzard decides to make this joke a reality.

You can add PC gaming mouse company Razer to the list of folks with an elaborate April Fool's joke today. The company "announced" a unique collaboration with Valve to create a co-op tactical squad based FPS called HellRazer: Triple Helix.

The press release claims the game, developed by Valve, will be about this storyline: "Lock and load as you are thrust into the middle of a level 4 biohazard when the lab's centralized super computer goes haywire and blows up one of the viral research containment wings releasing the deadly triple helix S.N.A.K.E virus upon the lab's unsuspecting work force." Uh-huh. The two main characters will be "Gabriel Newman and Robert Krakowski, will be based on and voiced by Valve's Gabe Newell and Razer's Robert Krakoff." Uh-huh. Razer will make a new controller for the game that will be a "true 1:1 motion sensing and gesture recognition controller." And the game will be released with a collector's edition with a "limited edition 12" talking plush toy of either Gabe and Razerguy (batteries not included) armed and ready to take your heart by storm!"

Actually, that's sounds like a game we would buy!