I have lost track of the number of times I've bought Metal Slug 3, which usually isn't a good sign -- but it's one of those timeless games and I can't help myself. Absolutely no regrets. Temptation will arise once again in February when the game becomes available on Steam.
Besides the character-select screen's head-scratching artwork, this looks to be about what you would expect after so many ports. Of special note: DotEmu appears to be handling development alongside SNK, and there's online cooperative play plus cloud saving.
No word on a price yet, but the Steam landing page is active. I'm ready to zombie vomit.
Paradox is looking to make a game so ambitious you'd think they're trying to please Odin himself. Runemaster is an upcoming title from the house that made Crusader Kings , Europa Universalis , and many more hit strategy games from the Sweden-based developers.
Yet Runemaster isn't anything like Paradox has created in the past. It's a role-playing game with JRPG influences based on Norse mythology. It's a game where you'll play on the side of good or evil, preventing or bringing about Ragnarök (the end times). And it's a game that takes place across six procedurally-generated worlds offering emergent storytelling that changes based on what you do in your quests.
The creative director of Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon is working on his next game at Ubisoft, which he's described as "the dream project. It's the one all of us have always wanted to make and it seems like they're gonna let us do it," he revealed to Polygon.
While it's possible the title could "go out the window," Evans says he's assembling his "dream team" and has earned trust from the company "to go and build a compelling and unique universe." This won't be more Blood Dragon, in other words. (Though that could one day happen.)
One member of this team is concept artist Darren Bartley whose DeviantArt page is telling in all the right ways. While Evans wouldn't give the name of the person responsible for art direction yet, he said it's someone who has an eye for 1980s and '90s aesthetics and previously worked on AAA stealth and third-person shooters. You don't say.
Funny how little actual information is needed for me to be interested in this.
Blood Dragon was one of creator Dean Evans' tamer ideas [Polygon]
GOG.com has worked up another interesting sale scheme you might want to take a look at. The "DRM-Free Time Machine Sale" started this morning and will be offering deep discounts on games from GOG.com's collection of classic computer titles, one at a time, for a limited time. How limited that time is depends on you, as purchase of the current title extends the time it's available at that price for an additional three seconds. Even if you don't choose to buy, you can have an impact with up-and-down voting which adds or subtracts a second. When time expires on a deal, it is then replaced with a new offer.
This is a much better idea than their prior, "limited number of copies" promotion, which went great until a game came along which nobody wanted and stalled out the progress of the sale for hours. Allowing shoppers to downvote to get the next deal a little faster ought to compel a little participation.
Following lower-than-expected sales forecasts for the Wii U and 3DS this year, Nintendo will announce its new strategy to investors on Thursday. Reportedly, this initiative includes releasing mini-games and promotional materials for smartphones in an effort to convince players to grab fully-featured games for Nintendo hardware. Not so, says Nintendo.
In a statement to Engadget, the company denied the mini-game claim: "Nikkei's article contains information previously stated by Mr. Iwata during past press conferences, including statements which relate to Nintendo's willingness to make use of smart devices to promote our products. However during such past announcements Mr. Iwata has also stated that Nintendo's intention is not to make Nintendo software available on smart devices and as such, we can confirm that there are no plans to offer mini-games on smartphone devices."
It would seem Nintendo will have something for smartphones, then -- just not games. We'll find out soon enough and then arguments about how right or wrong the plans are can unfold.
Asymmetric cooperative multiplayer is an idea that I always love to see in action. Artemis has done a good job proving that the concept is sound, if not a bit cumbersome to execute. The newest game that falls into the category of cool stuff I would probably have to play at an event because of hardware concerns is the bomb defusal simulator Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes.
Developed for the recent Global Game Jam, Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes requires one player to take on the role of the defuser, using an Oculus Rift and a Razer Hydra as the interface. The rest of the players act as his support back at the lab, poring over bomb schematics in an attempt to make sense of the device so they can all safely defuse the explosive. Of course, the bomb is on a timer, so players must act quickly.
For a game built in just a couple days, it is surprisingly tense. Just watching the video above had me on edge, especially when the timer drops to about thirty seconds.
Majesco's indie label, Midnight City, has announced that Blood of the Werewolf is heading to Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network Q2 2014. The Metroidvania-style game was released on Steam last year, and the console release will add a new Endless Challenge mode that will offer procedurally generated and increasingly difficult levels for limitless runs.
The label also announced Avalanche 2: Super Avalanche, coming to Steam in the next couple of months. It's a endless climber and sequel to the Avalanche flash game. It's basically like The Blocks Cometh , except, um, bad.
Conception: Please Have My Baby was a PSP RPG we mostly posted about (kind of a lot) because of its title and baby-making conceit. It was a laugh that we nurtured. I think, anyway. We're at that point where a running joke becomes a confusing reality as its Vita and 3DS sequel, Conception II: Children of the Seven Stars, is actually coming to North America later this year.
In a further realization of this fevered dream meets running punchline, I played Conception II. I held it in my hands. I watched writhing pastel silhouettes (it's not nudity if there's no nipple, says Japan) emulate sex and hatch slave labor. It all happened so fast.
Is this what parenthood feels like?
How weird was it seeing that reveal trailer for Plant vs Zombies: Garden Warfare at last year's E3? Plants vs Zombies was known for its focus on strategy and quirky humor, so it was a pretty surprising move for the developers at PopCap Games to bring such an interesting twist to their hugely popular franchise. As a fan of the series, I was mostly curious to see how it would translate from a tower defense style game to an online focused shooter.
But strangely enough, the transition worked out surprisingly well. And then some. Using the Frostbite 3 engine, PopCap Games took a chance and made its first foray into 3D, bringing along many of its characters from the series. EA invited some the press out to try a new build of the class-based shooter Garden Warfare and it turns out it's still just as strategic as ever.
Dawn of the Plow is an adorable little snowplowing game for PC and mobile. The game sees you as a snowplower, and your goal is to simple clean up snow off the streets. You have to keep your approval rating up, and screwing around on the job will get you fired.
I love the visual style, and it honestly looks like it'd be a ton of fun when I have a few minutes to kill. Dawn of the Plow is available on Google Play, Windows, Mac, and Linux for $1.99. An iOS release is impending too.
Dawn of the Plow is a side-project and spiritual companion game to developer Dan FitzGerald's upcoming title, Dog Sled Saga. It too is a cute little game that involves you keeping your sled dogs happy in the same type of pixel art style. I just hope King.com doesn't go after Dan here over the whole Saga trademark.
Ouya users have not had a lot to be excited about for a while now. Excepting a few titles like Towerfall, there is not much worth owning on the microconsole, and especially few games that are not available elsewhere. As one of the more hyped titles, Airtight Games' Soul Fjord was looking like it could be a good reason to own an Ouya.
The elevator pitch is great. Soul Fjord is a rhythm-based, hack-and-slash roguelike with a truly unique setting that crosses 1970s funk and 13th Century Norse mythology. Protagonist Magnus Jones has to fight for his right to party after being denied access to Valhalla. Unfortunately, unlike Jones's expertly coiffed afro, Soul Fjord falls flat in its execution.
Demis Hassabis isn't a household name, but chances are you've played one of his games. He was the co-designer and lead programmer on Theme Park (at just age 17), and has been involved with games such as Syndicate, Black & White, and Republic: The Revolution.
Red Bull Gaming has a big breakdown on Demis' life including how his contributions helped change gaming, but his biggest success, and the point of this article, is that he just sold his start up artificial intelligence company DeepMind to Google for $400 million.
Demis, who is also a neuroscientist, founded the company with Shane Legg and Mustafa Suleyman, and the company's direction was applying human learning to computers. It's speculated that Google will be using the technology behind DeepMind to improve their eCommerce recommendations, giving Amazon a good run for their money.
How Google's new AI genius changed gaming [Red Bull Gaming]
The Mighty Quest For Epic Loot is finally set to enter open beta starting February 25. The free-to-play hack and slash game is kind of like a crossover between Diablo and Dungeon Keeper, letting you hunt for treasures across player created levels.
Additionally, the fourth playable character will be available for the first time once the game hits open beta. She's called The Runaway, and she's a melee fighter that uses a big axe in combat.
Car Mechanic Simulator 2014 is game that actually exists now. It has all the exciting features you'd expect in a car mechanic simulator, from unscrewing screws to using a laptop computer to check the tuning. What the hell did I just write?
The game went on sale last Friday and it's actually in the top 20 sellers on Steam as of this writing. There's a surprisingly amount of positive reviews for the game too, so I guess they're not totally cashing in on the whole "mundane simulator genre" as I thought they were seeing as they also released Professional Farmer 2014 last year.
Car Mechanic Simulator 2014 is normally $19.99, but you can get it for $14.99 till the end of January. A free update will be coming in June called the "Turbo Add-on" and another one called the "4x4 Add-on" that will offer off-road cars later in the year.
Videogames.
Ever wonder how they shoot those high-speed car sequences in movies? What they do to the cars, what kind of cameras they use, etc? Well, the makers of the upcoming Need for Speed feature film have provided a short behind-the-scenes featurette describing just that.
A lot of these rigs look really cool, and seem to showcase how much actual speed they're trying to capture with the races in the film, even with the lead actors (such as Breaking Bad's Aaron Paul) doing much of the driving themselves.
Now we just need a featurette describing how they put a plot in a racing game.
Need for Speed races to movie theaters on March 14, 2014.
In the latest Mega64 video, it seems Derrick has become a bit too enamored with the game Papers, Please . He's set up a border patrol booth at the entrance to the Mega64 offices, which has now been dubbed the country of Acosta (after his own last name). Rocco only wants to go inside to get his iPad that he left behind, but Derrick is getting a little too into the role. Hilarity naturally ensues.
If only bypassing the patrol in the game was as easy as it is to get past Derrick. But at what cost? WHAT COST?!
