By Lorin Baumgarten

Before we get into this week’s topic, I feel it is my job – nay, my duty – to mention my friend’s new ‘ism’. With several weeks of intense work, Brent Adams and Tony Grice manged to cure our good friend Daniel Kayser of a pretty severe ailment. The disease was one of the larynx. The sickness would cause his voice box to forcibly eject the words “At the end of the day” from his oral cavity multiple times a day. But with a lot of hard work, that dark period is behind us. And for the Boys of Battlecasting, it has been a serene time. Well this week it seems there is a new strain of the virus infecting Daniel’s body, and I feel that I would be remiss in my duties as a friend were I not to try and strike out the plague before it takes hold. This new strain has taken the form of the following words: “On the Whole”. Now it seems benign enough, but don’t be fooled. Mr. Kayser uttered these words no less than one hundred and thirty-seven times throughout the short show that was released last Monday, and every time he did I could not help but think of Scott Evil uttering the infamous line from the cinematic classic Austin Powers: Goldmember, “You know what, I agree. Preparation H does feel good… on the hole.” So it is time for an intervention to help our friend. Consider yourself intervened upon Daniel.

Ok, with that out of the way, what is the topic of this week’s article, you ask? Well if you couldn’t tell from the title, it’s how APB makes me feel like the game is a hooker that I picked up on the street corner by asking me to pay for it by the hour. But, maybe that’s the effect they were going for. Read on and let’s discuss pricing by the hour (and maybe hookers – ‘ya never know).
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Make ready chains for the war machines, and bring down the city walls! Its time for another edition of EpicBattleCry; this week we discuss the alliance between Bungie and Activision, check out the Dead Space 2 trailer, ponder the indefinite delay for Game Room releases, consider the APB pricing structure, and mull over Alan Wake’s free DLC.

First out of the gate, we check out the trailer for Treyarch’s new entry in the Call of Duty franchise: Black Ops. We discuss our impressions of the teaser and what the future holds for CoD. Next up, with the summer movie season about to kick off (and Iron Man 2 and Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands waiting in the wings), we talk movie tie-in games and offer some thoughts on how devs could actually manage a good one.

The Battle Cry of the Week goes to the rumored Castlevania title, Gaming Heads‘ collectible Valve statues, UFC Undisputed 2010, and Mega-Man Legends.
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APB, the PC only action-MMO from Crackdown developer Realtime Worlds, has been given an official release date of June 29th in North America and July 2nd in Europe. Along with this announcement comes the reveal for the pricing structure the game will be sporting. Here is a description of the game’s pricing options taken directly from the APB website:

You can purchase a retail version of APB either in-store or via digital download at standard retail price (SRP $49.99/£34.99/€49.99). The game includes 50 hours of action game play out of the box plus unlimited time in APB’s social districts customising, socialising and trading on the marketplace.

Once your game time is up, you have flexibility to top up your action game time from as little as $6.99 (£5.59, €6.29) for an additional 20 hours, while more frequent players can switch to a 30-day unlimited package for only $9.99 (£7.99, €8.99) with discounts available for 90 and 180 days.

The retail package also contains a bonus 100 RTW points towards your next purchases.

An additional benefit to this evolutionary model is the ability for you to convert your own customisations and rewards to tradable products to give to friends or clan-mates or to place on the Marketplace to earn more RTW points (convertible to game time) or in-game cash.

So…what do you think? Are you excited for this game? How do you feel about the pricing structure? Does it feel reasonable to you? Sound off below!!

Source

Joystiq, today, said that they have received info from “tipsters” telling them Realtime Worlds will be sending out another wave of invitations to the beta for their persistent online title APB.

Realtime Worlds, makers of a little title called Crackdown, calls the new game “the next evolution of action games into the persistent online space.” If your interested in being part of the beta and you’re not yet registered, you might want to head to the APB website to get signed up.

If you do get into the beta, or are already in, be sure to let us know what you think!

Source

Full Story

EA announced at their E3 2009 press conference this afternoon that they would publishing a new IP from developer Realtime Worlds. APB is a unique MMO where players take part in a persistant world of crime and justice. Players choose to either prey on the citizens and businesses of the city or become enforcers and prey on the criminals.

Hit the official site for more deets.