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Leonard Nimoy’s passing had an effect on many other types of media besides gaming. The tributes inside of games are all still to be announced, but plenty of other mediums have made their tributes.
Firstly, in television SyFy is planning to run a special 5 hour marathon on Sunday, March 1st (tomorrow), starting at 9 am ET. It will include an episode of the original Twilight Zone that he featured in, both parts of the Star Trek: The Next Generation story he starred in; Unification and the final Star Trek movie that featured the original cast; Star Trek 6: The Undiscovered Country.
Channel Epix is also paying tribute today with two special airings; “A Conversation with Leonard Nimoy” and Star Trek Into Darkness.
On their Facebook, TBS Network posted the photo below with the caption: “In loving memory of the only man special enough to leave Sheldon speechless. #LLAP”. Fans of The Big Bang Theory have also asked that an episode in future pay tribute to the deceased actor.
Another sort of tribute came from an artist in Dallas. Rob Wilson created a piece of art in tribute to Nimoy and his most famous role, simply captioned “Beam Him Up”.
And of course, many people have been tweeting out their tributes from actors who worked with Nimoy to President Obama of the United States of America to even metal music artists.
“I loved him like a brother. We will all miss his humor, his talent, and his capacity to love.” -William Shatner http://t.co/U8ZN98tVYp
The most simple and probably touching tribute to Nimoy and how much he meant to people is probably the photo that Good Morning America posted on their Facebook. Nimoy’s star on the Walk of Fame with a single rose laid next to it, capturing the visual representation of the actor’s accomplishment along with a reminder of the fact that he is now gone.
We’ll be following this article up with news of tributes that are to be put into games, such as the station Elite: Dangerous is planning to add that we covered earlier.
Following the news of Leonard Nimoy’s death yesterday, players of the game Elite: Dangerous soon came up with a petition to ask that the station in New Yembo that was funded through a Community Goal be named after the actor, most famous for his role of Spock in the original Star Trek series.
Today both on the topic about said station on the E: D forums, and through the official Elite: Dangerous Twitter page, Frontier have confirmed that they are going to name a station in Nimoy’s honour but not the one in New Yembo. Instead a station in the LHS 3006 system will be named for him, where the game’s version of the planet Vulcan orbits. The station will be close to the planet in question.
Speaking on the forum Executive Producer Michael Brookes said: “Just a heads up that there’ll be a Nimoy Memorial station added in the Wings update (1.2), so the Yembo station is still open for other suggestions.”
The news has been fondly greeted by players both on the forum and through social medias across the net. Frontier said on their Twitter that right now they’re looking for the “most respectful way possible” to implement the in-game tribute.
We are now within a week of Nintendo launching not only the next entry in the Mario vs. Donkey Kong series, Tipping Stars, on the Nintendo eShop; but with it, the first ever cross-buy promotion – with Nintendo offering to give free download codes for the Wii U version of the game to anyone who downloads the 3DS version – and vice versa! However, if you live in a territory served by the American version of Nintendo’s eStore and can’t wait to get your next fix of Donkey Kong action – and you’re one of the handful of people who DIDN’T already get Donkey Kong Country Returns or its sequel when they first released on Wii and Wii U respectively – Nintendo have you covered.
In a deal that so far seems restricted exclusively for American eShop Users – i.e. Nintendo gamers using Nintendo 3DS or Wii U consoles registered as being in America, Mexico or Canada – starting today and lasting until 8:59am Pacific Time on March 3rd, Nintendo are offering 30% off Nintendo eShop purchases of either Donkey Kong Country™: Tropical Freeze (Wii U) or Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D (Nintendo 3DS), when you purchase one or more of six qualifying Donkey Kong Virtual Console titles. These are any of the three Donkey Kong Land titles from the 3DS Virtual Console (priced at $3.99 each at time of writing); or any of the original three Donkey Kong Country titles from the Wii U Virtual Console ($7.99 each at time of writing).
The usual catches apply, of course: The same Nintendo Network ID must be linked to your Wii U and Nintendo 3DS systems as well as your eShop account prior to purchase in order to be eligible for discount; and all of the games must be purchased before offer’s closing. For those of you serviced by the Nintendo eShop in other regions – sorry to disappoint. But if a similar offer comes your way, we’ll be sure to update this as soon as we hear it!
The single purchase model of acquiring a game seems to be making a slight resurgence as of late. Guild Wars 2 used it in MMOs and recently The Elder Scrolls Online followed suit with it; Apple also made a point of giving such ‘pay once and play’ games a starring role on the front page of their App Store. It feels good to see it coming back.
Even games that aren’t fully released yet are beginning to adopt the system, with the latest being Nival who are making a little game called Blitzkreig 3. The game is still undergoing closed alpha testing and was previously announced to be going to have a premium account system, dropping all in-game currencies and microtransactions from the game. There will be additional campaigns for the game though, available through the form of DLC.
“The pendulum is swinging once again when it comes to how consumers want to pay for their games. The market is shifting back towards a cleaner, simpler and more transparent model of one-time payments. This trend inspired us to return to the classic distribution model of the series, thus honoring the series’ traditions.” said Nival CEO Sergey Orlovsky in a statement announcing the change.
The single payment model is not exactly innovation, after all those of us older than a certain age remember it fondly (sort of) as the way all games used to be priced when we were children. A return to it after the years of freemium scare stories has to be a positive for the industry though.
HiRez has dropped a new warrior into Season 2 of Smite. Bellona, Roman Goddess of War is here, and her kit is one to be reckoned with. I’ll show you her abilities and how to use them. As usual, I’m going against bots in Arena to ensure that I get ample opportunity to talk you through the ins and outs of this newest god.
