An update to the Age of Empires Online support page revealed that Games for Windows Live will shut down July 1, 2014, and with it, at least some of AoE Online's features, if not the whole game. The announcement has been removed and replaced with the original text, but here's what it said:

"Games for Windows Live will be discontinued on July 1, 2014. Although it is available through Steam, Age of Empires Online requires features of the Games for Windows Live service. You can continue to enjoy all the features of Age of Empires Online as the service will remain 100% operational until July 1, 2014 when the server will shut down."

Microsoft announced last week that it's shutting down the Games for Windows Marketplace. Games for Windows Live is something else entirely, a DRM and multiplayer infrastructure formerly used by Microsoft, Rockstar, Capcom, WB Games, 2K Games, and others. If you've had to use it, you know why few will mourn the loss.

If this deleted update is accurate, however, there is one big concern: presumably, any game currently using GFWL will need to patch it out and replace it with Steamworks or its own system to continue working after the 2014 shut off date. That's Dark Souls, Street Fighter IV, BioShock 2, Grand Theft Auto IV, and more. Eep.

We'll let you know when Microsoft officially confirms or denies the news.

Thanks for the link, /r/Games.

The folks at Irrational Games are once again offering fame and fortune to a lucky few in a new contest, the winners of which will find their names somewhere in episode two of BioShock Infinite’s upcoming DLC, Burial at Sea.

Those interested can enter the contest by completing all 60 Blue Ribbon challenges in the recent Clash in the Clouds DLC by August 27 at 9 a.m. EDT. For those who missed our coverage of Infinite’s first piece of DLC, the Blue Ribbon challenges are optional objectives that generally restrict which weapons you use or require you to kill enemies in a certain way.

The announcement notes that you don’t have to complete all the challenges in one sitting—just be sure to have all 60 blue ribbons by that date if you want to apply. Thankfully, any of the blue ribbons you’ve collected prior to the announcement still count. According to the official rules, the three winners will be announced “on or about” August 30 but no later than September 8.

Irrational didn’t specify exactly where the winners’ names would show up, saying it will make that decision at a later date. Those lucky enough to be immortalized in the upcoming DLC will receive a hi-res screenshot of their name from Irrational, along with instructions on how to find it.

This isn’t the first time Irrational has emblazoned a fan’s name into BioShock Infinite, though the sweepstakes it held reportedly had over 100,000 submitted entries. Here’s hoping the Blue Ribbon challenge requirement cuts that number down a bit.

Bioshock Infinite’s first episodic DLC, Burial at Sea, is headed our way in the next few months, and the biggest news for fans of the series is that we’ll get a chance to step into Elizabeth’s shoes. Now we’re getting some new information about what designing Elizabeth has been like, and how her character will shape the game.

“Liz is such a different character to Booker, and if we were to just put Booker in a dress,” level designer Amanda Jeffrey told IGN, “then that would be the most awful betrayal of what we're doing for Liz, and players would just feel like it was a cheap way out, and that's not something that we want to do.”

Booker, of course, is a soldier, and his strategic but strong-handed approach to things informed a lot of what we saw in Infinite. “He's very much about storming the gates, or taking it head on, and he has these other tools available to him, but generally he's all about going head to head with his enemy...” Jeffrey continued. “Elizabeth was a much more thoughtful person. She would be more considerate about keeping out of danger, and assisting you with various different things, and looking for things around in the environment and keeping an eye out for stuff.”

In terms of the game, it sounds like Burial at Sea will be a much more stealth- and puzzle-based type of game. It will also be our first chance to revisit Andrew Ryan’s submerged utopia, Rapture, since Bioshock 1 and 2.

For more details, check out the full interview with Jeffrey and series creator Ken Levine.

BioShock Infinite Creative Director Ken Levine held an impromptu Q&A session over Twitter on Wednesday, handing out bits and snippets of information regarding Booker and Elizabeth’s return to Rapture in the upcoming DLC, Burial at Sea.

Levine tweeted that Burial at Sea will host “mostly tweaked Infinite gameplay systems,” but promised that there were other new systems in the pipeline. For the record Levine said those systems include weapons, plasmids, gear and enemy types, though the plasmids aren’t necessarily ones you’ll recall from the original BioShock.
There is def. SOME new systems (weapon, plasmid, gear) but the level geo almost all new assets. Objects largely new. Story all new.

— Ken Levine (@IGLevine) July 31, 2013
 

Levine also specified that most of the Rapture we see in Burial at Sea will be built with almost entirely new assets and level geometry. While the prospect of diving back to Rapture's briny depths already gives me goosebumps, it's nice to know we won't be re-treading the damp, metallic floors we covered six years ago.

But don’t worry—the most important news has yet to come. Burial at Sea won’t include the hacking minigame from the original BioShock, and the Circus of Values machine you know and either love or despise will, in fact, talk.

Will the clownish vendor utter any new phrases? That, my friend, is still a mystery.

BioShock Infinite will uncover its plans for a new set of DLC later this month, according to a report at IGN. We already know from the Season Pass bundle that we should be expecting at least three additional DLC expansions for the first-person shooter, and IGN hints in its story that a late July announcement could mark the first narrative-extending content from developer Irrational Games.

A small pack of DLC including some bonus items and gear—Columbia's Finest—has already found its way to the public, but so far we are still waiting to hear anything more than rumors about how the BioShock Infinite story arc will be altered or extended by additional expansions. Will it be a new companion? Certainly a game that explores the consequences of rifts in the fabric of space and time leaves a lot of options on the table for possible tweaks to BioShock Infinite's complex plot.

We've already assembled a list of what we'd like to see from any large expansions to the shooter. These include changes to gameplay such as an expanded armory, streamlined looting, and greater punishment for failure, but probably the most intriguing alterations possible in any new DLC will involve the game's eclectic cast of characters.

Where does Booker go from here?

Susan O’Connor, who helped pen the stories in BioShock, Far Cry 2, and the latest Tomb Raider along with Rhianna Pratchett, isn't happy with the state of game storytelling. She doesn't condemn video game stories themselves, but rather the overall process through which those stories are written. She sees storytelling in games being as dominated by teams that care more about compiling code—and she's tired of it.

In an interview with The Gameological Society, O’Connor pointed out how the creative process for video games is different from other forms of media.

“For me, I always want to focus on the entertainment side of it,” O’ Connor said. “This is supposed to make people feel something. It’s supposed to be fun, or be scary. But when I look at conversations that creatives are having, like in television or film or theater or freaking mimes, everyone else, the conversations they’re having are totally different.

“If you were to say, ‘Books are a great way to go inside a character’s mind for pages and pages, and movies are a great place to see larger-than-life movie stars and phenomenal explosions that are 40-feet tall,’ games are a really kinetic medium. The story is what the player does.”



She has a point. Books and movies rely on well-developed plots because that’s all they have. Movies might add amazing special effects to distract you from a poor script, but games are interactive. Whether you’re taking out an enemy base, scavenging an abandoned cave, or opening inter-dimensional portals, you are busy doing something. Sometimes, there’s not enough time or priority to inject enough plot to tell you why you’re doing said thing.

O’Connor went on to admit that she was tired of writing stories for video games and wanted to move on to other areas of entertainment.

“I don’t want to put up with this s$*& anymore,” she said. “I’m grateful for the success I’ve had, but I’m never going to be able to do work that can come anywhere close to the kind of emotional impact that stories in other media have, at least not in the next five to 10 years. I love stories, and I just happened to fall into games. I’ve learned who I am as a writer, and I think my talents and skills are much better used in other places."

Ubisoft Montreal is making an effort to present players of the upcoming Watch Dogs with a more realistic depiction of hacking than usual. The studio behind Far Cry and Assassin’s Creed is recruiting help from internet security firm Kaspersky Lab to flesh out the “sexed-up” depiction of hacking found in, oh, every Hollywood movie ever.

“ really hardcore experts there on hacking. We send them some of our designs and we ask them feedback on it, and it's interesting to see what gets back. Sometimes they say, 'Yeah, that's possible, but change that word,' or, 'That's not the way it works,'" Watch Dogs Senior Producer Dominic Gray told Joystiq.

I'm overjoyed that the dreaded hacking minigame will be a restrained animal in Watch Dog’s futuristic Chicago setting. Unlike other games, hacking won’t be a word puzzle or a series of tubes that unlocks a secret room or a treasure chest full of gold. Hacking is Watch Dogs protagonist Aiden Pearce’s bread and butter, his main weapon in daily life. The challenge for players won’t be successfully beating a Frogger emulator, but in shooting a guard while they jump into an alley and hacked traffic lights stop traffic long enough for their explosives to go off.

"It's not about the minigame that will let me open the door, it's the fact that I'm making a plan,” Gray said. “I'm making a plan of how I'm going to chain hacking, shooting, traveling the city and driving to achieve an objective."

As someone who is routinely terrible at hacking minigames, this news could not be more welcome. A 100% true depiction of hacking, of course, probably wouldn’t make for a fun game, so I expect there to be plenty of liberties taken. Anything that keeps us out of Swordfish territory, though, can only make for a better game in the end.

Watch Dogs will be released this November. Check out our full preview here.

Are mute heroes better than verbose heroes? Does a voice-acted player character infringe on your ability to put yourself into the story? In this week's debate, Logan says "Yes," while his character says nothing. He wants to be the character he’s playing, not merely control him, and that’s easier to do when the character is silent. T.J. had a professional voice actor say "No." He thinks giving verbalized emotions and mannerisms to your in-universe avatar makes him or her feel more real.

Read the debate below, continue it in the comments, and jump to the next page for opinions from the community. Logan, you have the floor:

Logan: BioShock’s Jack. Isaac Clarke from Dead Space. The little boy from Limbo. Portal’s Chell. Gordon Freeman. These are some of the most unforgettable characters I’ve ever played, and they all made their indelible impressions on me without speaking a single word. In fact, they made such an impression because they didn’t say a word. By remaining silent throughout, they gave me room to take over the role, to project myself into the game.

T.J.: All of the games you mentioned were unforgettable narratives. But everything memorable about them came from the environments, situations, and supporting casts. Gordon Freeman is a great example. What can you really say about him, as a person? I find Shepard’s inspirational speeches to the crew in the Mass Effect games far more stirring and memorable than almost anything I’ve experienced in a silent protagonist game. I was Shepard, just as much as I was Gordon. But I didn’t have the alienating element of not having a voice making me feel less like a grounded part of the setting.



Logan: Ooh, Shepard. That was cold. I’ll happily agree that some games are better off with fully written and voiced protagonists—and Shepard’s a perfect example. But it’s a different matter, I think, with first-person games in particular, where your thought processes animate the narrative: “OK, if I jump into a portal here, I’ll shoot out of the wall there and land over yonder.” In this way I’m woven into the story, as a product of my own imagination. If the character is talking, I’m listening to his or her thoughts—and they sort of overwrite my own. It can be great fun, but it’s a more passive experience.

T.J.: First-person shooters are probably one of the best venues for silent protagonists, but lets look at BioShock and BioShock Infinite. I definitely felt more engaged by Booker, who responded verbally to the action, the story twists, and the potent emotions expressed by Elizabeth... than I did by Jack, who didn’t so much as cough at the chaos and insanity around him.

Logan: But was the result that BioShock Infinite was a better game, or just that it delivered a traditional main character?

T.J.: Booker? Traditional? Did we play the same game? I mean, it’s a tough call to say which was out-and-out better, as there are a lot of factors to consider. But zooming in on the protagonist’s vocals (or lack thereof) as an added brushstroke on a complex canvas, Infinite displays a more vibrant palette.

Logan: Do you think that Half-Life 2, in retrospect, is an inferior game as a result of its silent protagonist?



T.J.: Half-Life 2 was great. Great enough that we gave it a 98. But imagine what it could have been like if Gordon had been given the opportunity to project himself onto his surroundings, with reactive astrophysics quips and emotional back-and-forth to play off of the memorable cast around him? We relate to characters in fiction that behave like people we know in the real world. So yeah, I’ll take that plunge: I think I would have bonded with Freeman more, and therefore had a superior experience, if he hadn't kept his lips sewn shut the whole way.

Logan: A scripted and voiced Gordon Freeman may or may not have been a memorable character, just like a scripted and voiced Chell from Portal might have been. But in a sense, that’s the problem! Because some of my best memories from games with silent protagonists are the memories of my own thoughts and actions. I remember staring at the foot of a splicer in BioShock and realizing that the flesh of her foot was molded into a heel. I was so grossed out that I made this unmanly noise, partway between a squeal and a scream. I remember getting orders shouted at me in FEAR and thinking, "No, why don’t you take point.” I’m glad these moments weren't preempted by scripted elements.

T.J.: You were staring at the Splicers’ feet? Man, in a real underwater, objectivist dystopia ruined by rampant genetic modification, you’d totally be “that one guy” who just stands there dumbfounded and gets sliced into 14 pieces.

Logan: No, I’d be the guy at Pinkberry with his mouth under the chocolate hazelnut nozzle going “Would you kindly pull the lever?” But my point is, I remember what I did and thought at moments throughout all of my favorite games, and those are experiences that are totally unique to me. And that’s at least part of why I love games so much—because of unique experiences like that.



T.J.: I see what you’re getting at. Likewise, a lot of my love for games is driven by their ability to tell the kinds of stories other media just aren’t equipped for. Silent protagonists take us further beyond the bounds of traditional narratives, accentuating the uniqueness of interactive storytelling. That being said, really good voiced protagonists—your Shepards, your Bookers, your Lee Everetts—never feel like a distraction from the mutated flesh pumps you come across. When the execution is right, they serve to enhance all of those things, and lend them insight and believability.

There’s nothing like being pulled out of the moment in Dragon Age: Origins when the flow of an intense conversation stops so the camera can cut to the speechless, distant expression of your seemingly-oblivious Grey Warden.

Logan: Oh yeah, there’s no question that voiced protagonists have their moments. But they’re not my moments, and those are the ones I enjoy the most in games. Valve seems to understand this intuitively, and that’s why it’s given us two of the most memorable characters in videogame history: because I think the developers deliberately build into their games moments that they all understand will be uniquely owned by the players; “a-ha!” moments when the solution to a puzzle suddenly snaps into focus, or narrative revelations like watching horseplay between Alyx and Dog that instantly tell you a lot about how she grew up. Voiced protagonists can give us wonderful characters; silent ones let me build my own.

That’s the debate! As always, these debates are exercises meant to reveal alternate viewpoints—sometimes including perspectives we wouldn’t normally explore—and cultivate discussion, so continue it in the comments, and jump to the next page for more opinions from the community.





https://twitter.com/hawkinson88/status/325060938120183808

@pcgamer it really depends on the writing. Some voiced characters are amazing, and some are whiny and annoying.— Ryan H (@kancer) April 19, 2013


@pcgamer In many cases, yes. I am forced to substitute the absence of a developed personality with my own words and thoughts. I like that.— Rocko (@Rockoman100) April 19, 2013


@pcgamer The volume of the protag doesn't matter, only the skill of the writer: hero voice is just one tool of many in a master writer's box— Jacob Dieffenbach (@dieffenbachj) April 19, 2013


@pcgamer The most interesting characters are the ones with a history, with regrets. Blank characters don't have that.— Devin White (@D_A_White) April 19, 2013


@pcgamer Most voiced characters seem to disappoint. I think silent ones express the storyline better through visuals which I prefer.— Casey Bavier (@clbavier) April 19, 2013


@pcgamer Definitely voiced. Having an NPC talk to you directly, then act as if your lack of response is totally normal feels eerily wrong.— Kirt Goodfellow (@_Kenomica) April 19, 2013


@pcgamer Silent! #YOLO— Michael Nader (@MNader92) April 19, 2013

“Let’s Reboot” takes a look back at a classic in need of a new outing or a beloved series gone stale and asks how it might be best redesigned or given a kick up the backside for today’s gaming audience. The Rules: Assume a free hand, and a decent budget, but realistic technology and expectations. This week’s sacred cow – the cyberpunk adventure from 1994 that sparked the 'Shock series.

Ken Levine. Kenny Lovin’. Kenbo Baggins. The Manly Jowelbeast. I recall an interview with King Divine, in which he said that System Shock 2 was not, contrary to all common sense, a perfectly-realised vision of the authors’ intent. That the monotonous corridors of System Shock 2’s Von Braun were as much a product of technical limitations, as the thundering powerhouse of the creativity behind it. Learning this, I had a brief teenage response. I felt like a Belieber trying to process Justin tweeting, “Did I say I love my fans? Naw. They’re dicks, and that includes hypothetical ones like Anne Frank. #worldwarPOOmorelike”

I wanted to defend SS2 against one of the guys who made it.

That’s an argument I’d probably lose, so let’s just reboot the bugger. Commence spoiler warning klaxon for System Shock 1, 2 and BioShock Infinite: AROOGA AROOGA AROOGA etc.

WHAT DO YOU DO WITH A ROGUE AI LIKE SHODAN?

"What can we do with Shodan that hasn’t already been pre-empted by GLaDOS?"
You can hear Shodan’s tame, morality-restricted voice during the optional intro to System Shock 1. And at the risk of spoiling a 14-year-old game, at the end of System Shock 2, she collapses cyber and meat-spaces to occupy the body of Rebecca, turning her into a kind of hard-wired fusion of Tron’s MCP and Bonnie Tyler. One of the best moment of going back to SS1 is watching that optional intro, and hearing her voice change as she narrates the story of the hacker removing her morals.

But what can we do with Shodan that hasn’t already been pre-empted by GLaDOS’ tale of unexpected humanity, humility, and anti-redemption?

How not to do Shodan:

1. Law Of The West-style conversation simulator, in which Shodan and minor SS2 character Tommy share awkward chats as the AI discovers her new sexual urges;

2. Multiple body-swap comedy in which she learns how difficult it is to be a Californian teenager, a rock star, and a single mum;

3. Endlessly looping animated GIF of Shodan's face slowly appearing and disappearing from Anton Corbijn’s iconic 1981 photo of Kate Bush.

I'll bust more than your clouds mate

Look: it’s fine, but it’s not a video game.

So, why not make Shodan the playable character? She’s totemic enough to step around that pervasive bullshit about gamers not wanting to play women, in case we all start spontaneously trans-identifying, or something.

Plus, in the body of Rebecca, she’s a total unaugmented newcomer to meatspace, a perfect way to put her at the bottom of the skill tree. Stranded in her new body, her only access to computers would be hacking - a process that would be disgusting to her. Imagine having to use arthritic bones, where once was a sheer force of will.

"Potato-GLaDOS was sympathetic. Shodan's tale could be a study in psychopathy."
This might seem like I’m trying to turn System Shock into a comedy. Insane, ambitious evil is innately comical when it’s powerless - but that’s forgetting her sinister history with comedy. She was powerless in SS2. She needed you, and it actually was pretty funny that even then, she couldn't hold back the insults.

Besides, even Portal 2 didn't plunder the comedy mine of malevolent impotence too deeply. For potato-GLaDOS, it was a chance for sympathy. Shodan's tale could be a study in human psychopathy: there are real people who think like Shodan. The bastards run the world. And being a psychopath would reduce the sense of disconnect, when the inevitable “snap their spines, slashing blood across the screen” moment comes, as it probably must.

You’d need a mutual cause to give Shodan an air of possible redemption - and as the player, we’d need to believe there’s genuine conflict between the megalomaniac AI, and the new unaccustomed waves of hormones and humanity.

(Again, GLaDOS has taken the best line, with “Caroline deleted”. Note to self: ask Valve if System Shock can be part of the Half-Life multiverse. Half-Life 3, maybe. Cool? Cool.)



BUILD A GRAND UNIFYING THEORY OF *SHOCK

Bioshock Infinite’s Sea of Doors was a massive pull-back-to-reveal that can’t ever be matched in the Bioshock universe. You really get the feeling it was a final defiant piss on the franchise that was Irrational’s way of saying, “Oh, you just try another Bioshock 2.”

Is there room for another, crashing, pull back? Can we fold System Shock into the world of lighthouses, men, and doors? “There’s always a sentient thing, there's always a location. And space. That’s just how it works in this, even more generalised, multiverse.” Shodan collapses meat and cyber in the same way Elizabeth collapses branching universes - they could be distant relatives.

OK. Maybe not. In that case, I've got another idea:

OH MY GOD GUYS WHAT ABOUT A MINI-SERIES

Bioshock Infinite didn’t feel to me to be quite as important as it wanted to be. I’m aware that there are dozens of people more intelligent, sexy and taller than me who feel otherwise. But taken on plot alone, it felt like a Doctor Who season finale. This similarity includes the fact that my family still look at me like a demented adult baby because I tell them to shut up on Christmas day while we all watch a kid’s TV show. Only, you know, with this it's my choice of career.

Moving on - I would love the same prolonged sense of “what’s going on?” that Doctor Who gives. I loved the post-ending discussions of Bioshock Infinite more than I liked the actual ending. Imagine three months of constant System Shock speculation, forum chat, talking to strangers in ATM queues. I know the episodic thing is tough, and nowhere more so in the world of shooters. Half-Life, Sin, s'up. So why not stuff shooting - shall we just give System Shock to TellTale?

You want a real 1999 mode? In 1999, LucasArts had just made Grim Fandango.

"Cyberspace is a location with unrealised potential, a place where imagination is tangible."
WHERE IS IT SET?

Irrational have built a fantastical rod for their back with locations. But we've already got a location with unrealised potential, here. Cyberspace. A revamped Cyberspace could go further than the aesthetics of Monolith's Tron 2.0. It could be a place where imagination is tangible. And god knows, you could seed endless stuff in the environment when it's all conjured by the perception of an unreliable narrator. In fact, this could be the solution to the another annoying problem:

FIND THAT ALTERNATIVE TO AUDIOLOGS

I really don't like audiologs. I don't like the acting in them, because there's something about pretending to record their thoughts in this way that always rings hollow. And I don't like the fact that finding one creates an artificial zone of in-game safety, because you know the writers will get snippy if combat happens over their precious story.

(Either that, or they make it so the audiologs fade out as you walk away, and that can sod off twice as hard.)

CONCLUSION

OK: so I've been all over the place, here. But I've settled on this - a serialised TellTale adventure, in the vein of Walking Dead, that flips between the perspectives of a disempowered Shodan and a Rebecca finding her feet in Cyberspace. They're racing to Earth - Shodan to become a god, Rebecca to get her body back. Of course, many exciting things will happen on the way, but I'm not the details man. Someone start the Kickstarter and send me ten million when it’s the most popular game in the world. I'm off to eat a bunch of grapes.