A lot of us have fond memories of Mutant League Football as kids, but that nostalgia wasn't enough to raise the recent Kickstarter project above the rather ambitious goal of $750,000. In an update given after the campaign was over, the developers noted that they "weren't going to give up," and will "keep fighting to get this game to market."
The next order of business is to give out prizes that were promised during the campaign, then they'll gather some surveys and revise a new plan for the game -- from there, they'll figure out where to take the franchise. If they can't get funding, my guess is they'll go solely for iOS with controller support.
Mutant League Football [Kickstarter via Joystiq]
I had a great time with Monaco for weeks on end after launch, and was kind of disapointed that it didn't seem to catch on with a mass audience. Was it the Xbox Live delay? Or perhaps the learning curve preventing people from jumping in online on PC? We may never know, but it's nice that new content is still coming.
The Monaco team has officially announced that the Linux version is dropping on Monday, and with it, a "ton" of free and new content is arriving. There aren't any hints as to what that content may be, but the mystery is enough for me to boot my game up again come next week.
Monaco [Facebook]
I can't believe that the PS4 is approximately a month away, and a few of you can get your hands on the system right now. Sony has announced that at select retailers nationwide (US), PS4 demo kiosks have been put in place.
Those retailers are Sony Stores, GameStop, Best Buy, Target, and Walmart, with more to come down the line. The games on offer include Knack, Octodad: Dadliest Catch (nice!), FIFA 14, Contrast, Super Motherload, and Pinball Arcade.
If you want to try and find one closest to you, follow this link.
PS4 at Select Retailers [PlayStation Blog]
This week's challenge is in Battlefield 3 in which I attempt to run over an enemy player whilst piloting an air vehicle. With so many other players ready to blow me out of the sky combined with my lack of piloting skills, this might be just beyond my grasp!
If you've got any ideas for future challenges you'd like me to have a go at, feel free to leave them in the comments!
Duet is deceptively straightforward. The player controls two balls – one blue, one red – that sit opposite each other on a circle. Levels are comprised of sets of falling blocks, and your task is to navigate the balls around them by spinning the circle left and right, swinging one and then the other out of the way.
Straightforward, yes – but not easy. Touching any block spells death, your ball bursting and leaving a grisly blue or red stain that persists through your next try and the many that follow. Some levels you might complete first time – some with quick reflexes, most with luck – but many more will end coated with the splattered evidence of your constant failure.
As you advance through the (mercifully) short levels, the game begins dropping harder and harder obstacles in your way: blocks that hide other blocks, blocks that spin and blocks that fall at different speeds. More collisions. More restarts. More paint. But for all the punishment it inflicts, Duet never feels unfair – when you fail, it’s your own sluggish reflexes and prodding fingers you’ll be cursing.
That balance is key. A stupid mistake on the first block is annoying, a fatal slip on the last is hateful - but that makes pirouetting through unscathed, even on your 20th attempt, feel hard-won. The final rush of snatching victory does much to make up for the futile, paint-spattered rage that preceded it.
Duet is out now on iOS.
The post Duet review appeared first on Edge Online.
Remember all those Wii commercials where families would get together and waggle their hearts out? Well it appears as if Nintendo is at it again with this Wii Party U commercial, but now you can use the GamePad while you waggle -- innovation! Joking aside, this new Wii Party U trailer shows off a ton of features, and reveals that there are over 65 minigames to tackle.
Interestingly enough the game seems to only be packacked with a Wiimote at retail, and the digital version reportedly clocks in at over 5GB, so if you have a standard Wii U you should be prepared to get an external harddrive.
All in all it looks like a decent distraction (especially if I can get the disc-only version on the cheap), and I think I want to start a campaign Party Phil for Smash Bros. 2014.
You won’t find a more confident game this year than Device 6. From its brassy opening – soundtracked by what appears to be the theme tune from a great lost ’60s spy thriller – to its elegant, understated epilogue, this is a wonderfully assured piece of interactive drama. It moves with a tangible swagger in its step, even as its protagonist advances uncertainly through an unfamiliar environment.
Anna, you see, has been kidnapped. She awakens in a strange building with no memory of how she got there, save for a vague recollection of a doll. Her journey is illustrated by words and occasional images, and sporadically brought to a halt by locked doors and curious mechanisms. Your job, then, is to read and listen, tease out environmental clues, and open the path forward.
It’s tempting to describe Device 6 as a visual novel, then, though that isn’t quite the full story. Rather than tapping through text to advance the narrative, you follow it, swiping and rotating your tablet or phone to trace Anna’s footsteps. A long carpet stretches out as a single line of text you traverse with your finger, while a spiral staircase sees a paragraph corkscrew from bottom to top. In other words, unlike acknowledged influence 999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors, you’re directly involved at every turn, guiding the narrative with your fingers, while looking and listening for clues.
If Year Walk’s conundrums were relatively abstract, the puzzles here are more successfully integrated into the narrative. The solutions are usually fairly close at hand, though it isn’t just considerate design and thoughtful structuring that keeps backtracking to a minimum. It would be a mistake to say why, just as it would to explain how its linearity is actually crucial. As with its predecessor, the less you know about Device 6 going in, the more it can surprise you. And surprise is a more potent weapon here than in most games.
While there are echoes here of influences as disparate as Kafka, The Prisoner, Saul Bass and David Cronenberg, it’s a very game-literate adventure, with strong hints of Layton and Zelda. The thrilling rush of the last two chapters, meanwhile, as the puzzles are cast aside just as players are craving an uninterrupted sprint to the final revelations, is reminiscent of Killer7’s riveting closing stretch. Yet while maintaining its exhilarating blend of the dark and the playful – there’s an unforgettable moment here that may be 2013’s most delightful cameo – it takes great care to finish on a full stop. It’s not about knotting together loose ends so much as satisfyingly pressing that final piece of the jigsaw into place.
Simogo’s greatest triumph, perhaps, is to intensify the potency of the written word. In using its text both as narrative and as geography – and through its impressively restrained use of illustration and sound – it generates an almost unrivalled sense of place. It isn’t embarrassed to allow Device 6 to be a game when it needs to be, and yet it knows precisely when to let the story take over. The result is a sharp, striking mystery that is at once provocative, extraordinarily stylish and altogether essential.
Device 6 is out now on iOS.
The post Device 6 review appeared first on Edge Online.