As revealed this weekend at PAX East, Dust: An Elysian Tail is coming soon to Steam. The hope is for a release in April, though we do know for sure that this version will not use Games for Windows. That's a win. To coincide with the news, there's also an announcement trailer full of some rather glowing (but deserved) quotes about the action game.
For as long as Dust was in development, it's so wonderful to hear that it's shedding exclusivity for a financially viable platform like Steam. I don't know how well it performed on Xbox Live Arcade -- presumably well enough -- but surely this news is a sign of even better things to come.
[Via NeoGAF]
Being a fan of puzzle adventure games, I couldn't pass up the chance to play Toki Tori 2 on the PAX show floor. What's not to love about an adorable yellow bird tromping around a brightly animated forest? I got a hands-on with Two Tribe's second installment, yet first attempt at publishing a completely independent game, and was delightfully surprised!
This time around, the cute yellow chicken (known as Toki Tori) uses his abilities to interact with the creatures around him to move forward in the level. This is a vastly different experience from the first game, where players were required to sort through an inventory management system to solve puzzles. I found myself enjoying the mechanics of this second installment -- as simple as it sounds on paper it's actually quite nice in practice.
Hyrule Historia is pretty awesome. The History of Sonic The Hedgehog is not bad either. But for me, the best game series bible is Mega Man Official Complete Works. Released to celebrate the franchise's 20th anniversary, it contained production art and behind-the-scenes nuggets for every mainline entry and most spin-offs in the Classic and X sub-series. The Japanese original was a single volume, but UDON chose to split it in two for the Western release. Unfortunately, both are now out of print and command exorbitant secondhand prices.
UDON has just announced at PAX a bunch of new Capcom art collections for the second half of 2013. There are books for Asura's Wrath, Dragon's Dogma, Monster Hunter, and Street Fighter, but my eyeballs are squarely directly at the fifth item: MM25: Mega Man & Mega Man X Official Complete Works . Released in Japan late last year, this updated edition includes Mega Man 9 and 10 coverage plus new art and interviews. It also sounds like there will be additional material not found in the Japanese release, such as covers from the Archie comic series.
Of the five books, MM25 is first on the production schedule. It'll be released as a single volume this time, so it ought to cost less than what the original two books cost together. If you missed out on the first run, I urge you to get your wallets ready when MM25 arrives later this summer... hopefully. We all know how UDON is with keeping to a release schedule.
UDON ANNOUNCES 5 NEW CAPCOM ART BOOKS [UDON Entertainment via The Mega Man Network]
The original Jak and Daxter was a charming little platformer if not a bit derivative. The two sequels were... err... something else, for lack of a better phrase. I enjoyed them nonetheless, and I'm disappointed that Naughty Dog doesn't want to give us a proper follow-up. Blame Uncharted.
But at least PS3 owners got the Jak and Daxter Collection ! Three of the best 3D platform games on the PlayStation 2 updated with that HD spit shine? Sounds golden to me! Know what would be even better? Being able to take those games on the road whenever you please.
A new ESRB entry suggests that the Jak and Daxter Collection will receive a Vita port in the near future. It'll contain the same three titles as the PS3 version, thoughI hope Naughty Dog will consider putting at least Daxter or The Lost Frontier as well for completion's sake. I doubt Vita owners would mind a little extra somethin'-somethin' either.
Jak and Daxter Collection [ESRB via NeoGAF]
Indie game developers are certainly an outspoken lot, aren't they?
Phil Fish, creator of the dimension-flipping XBLA platformer FEZ , finally decided to hop on the Monster Hunter train starting with Ultimate for 3DS. He thinks the game itself is fine, but he's having difficulty playing without a second stick. So he did what anybody else would do and took to Twitter to vent.
"started playing my first monster hunter game last night. on 3DS. it's not exactly playable without that circle pad pro atrocity...i don't understand. why would you even release a game like that on a platform like that? why is it not out on let's say... vita? you know, the one where you could control the camera. it's too bad because MH looks like it's basically phantasy star online but not in space. and i love me some PSO. [sic]" Funny he should say that, considering that our review notes the unwieldiness of the Circle Pad Pro in most situations and how the L is more ideal, but whatevs. Different strokes and all.
