2014-06-20



Above: Evolve was one of the coolest games at E3.

Image Credit: 2K Games

Welcome to another GamesBeat weekly roundup! This time, we talk about the best games and coolest technologies we saw at the Electronic Entertainment Expo, Angry Birds gets a Transformers crossover, and League of Legends is now a college sport.

You’ll find all of that and more below. Happy reading!

Pieces of flair and opinions

The DeanBeat: The top 10 games you’ll be itching to play

5 ways to make Hearthstone even more addictive

How to become a Let’s Player like PewDiePie and Game Grumps

Alien: Isolation’s creative director talks through the classic film in this audio commentary track (exclusive)

Goat Simulator: How to beat all quests, find all trophies, and unlock all Achievements

GamesBeat’s favorite indies of E3 2014

E3 2014: The Games of the Show (GamesBeat staff picks)

The 10 coolest technologies for gamers at this year’s E3

The first-person shooter problem: Why the games we love rarely change

Is single-player dying? The move to multiplayer and the sacrifice of solitude

The GamesBeat E3 2014 Non-Award Awards: The stuff no one else is writing about

Still don’t want a Wii U? This is what Nintendo would say to convince you

How the Zelda Wii U reveal trailer broke the Internet



Above: Mario Kart 8 was the second best-selling game of the month.

Image Credit: Nintendo

News

WWE 2K15 is getting a NBA facelift thanks to 2K’s tech

League of Legends is now a college sport — and one university is offering scholarships for its team

The Witcher 3 team wants to make President Obama an honorary witcher

Major League Gaming app hits Xbox One just in time for its e-sports championships

How speedrunners are helping Doctors Without Borders and the people of Syria and Iraq

Trials Fusion’s Tournaments mode is out — and it’s probably not what you were hoping for

Atari’s new owners come out swinging with licensing, classic remakes, casino games, and an LGBT title

For game developers looking to avoid violating federal laws, AgeCheq releases a free solution

Titanfall’s ‘no servers found’ issue affecting players — Microsoft is working on a fix (update)

How Watch Dogs’ performance on PS4 and Xbox One is helping EA, Activision, and Take-Two

Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft $10,000 tournament winner accused of cheating

E3 helps Twitch break viewership record

‘Video Games: The Movie’ documentary will launch in theaters on July 18

Curse gets a million gamers in a week with the open beta launch of Curse Voice (exclusive)

May 2014 NPD: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Watch Dogs, and Mario Kart 8 fuel industry-wide surge

Square Enix’s cloud tech will enable games with 17 times the area of Skyrim

Mobile and social

How Lego Fusion will build on Activision’s and Disney’s success with interactive toys​

We’re cheap: Most mobile gamers will share their personal information for in-app rewards

Hands on with Amazon’s Fire Phone

Mind Candy launches Match 3 social mobile game Moshling Rescue

FMV classic MegaRace’s rebirth brings back its original host along with cheesy videos

Mobile games will bring in nearly $29B by 2016 by squeezing players for more

Amazon’s 3D Fire Phone already has a game: Angry Tofu

TreSensa launches a mobile web game feed to help boost engagement and revenues (exclusive)

RapidFire’s dynamic in-game ads will help Miniclip finally monetize its online library

Analysts: New Amazon phone must reinvent shopping on smartphones

Former Twisted Metal and Warhawk developer’s first iOS game hits this Thursday

Fruit Ninja developer Halfbrick explains why it’s getting into publishing

Animoca Brands’ Garfield mobile games hit 30M downloads

Angry Birds Transformers rolls out later this year

Facebook unleashes game discovery feature for the iPad

With 60M members using its brain-training app, Lumosity finally launches on Android



Above: Ori and the Blind Forest feels like a playable animated movie.

Image Credit: Microsoft

Previews and interviews

E3 was filled with new things for GameStop to sell to hardcore gamers (interview)

After 10 years of episodic games, Telltale’s time in the sun has come (interview)

Abzu’s secrets are about more than a Journey-esque scuba dive

Ori and the Blind Forest’s producer wants his beautiful Xbox One exclusive to play as good as it looks (interview)

How Civilization Online brought a Grammy-winning composer back to games (interview)

EA has brands, but it absolutely needs to create all-new games (interview)

Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons’ creator canceled his next movie to work on a new game (exclusive)

Insomniac takes us into the ‘awesomepocalypse’ with Sunset Overdrive (interview)

Nexon’s new CEO wants creative devs, free-to-play to be fair — and cloners to take a hike (interview)

‘Han Solo simulator’ — No Man’s Sky developer says the sci-fi game’s tech came after the idea

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain makes the cardboard box better than ever

Wing Commander creator Chris Roberts shows off Star Citizen and the new way to fund triple-A games (interview)

Reviews

EA Sports UFC is the best UFC game yet — but that isn’t saying much

GamesBeat 2014 — VentureBeat’s sixth annual event on disruption in the video game market — is coming up on Sept 15-16 in San Francisco. Purchase one of the first 50 tickets and save $400!

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