Starting tomorrow, Creators Update features coming in for testing are integrated support for Beam streaming on both platforms, Cortana updates on Xbox One, and for PC gamers, the new Game Mode and gaming settings section. With Snap Mode on the way out, it's time to see what the sacrifice will bring to the table.
Source: Xbox News
In the old-school era, nearly every film had some kind of video game adaptation. It didn't matter if the film hadn't been relevant in decades, you were bound to find some form of interactive adaptation for a beloved classic. The Angry Video Game Nerd covered one of the weirder transitions to gaming, but I think he may have met his match.
Francis Ford Coppola's American Zoetrope studio is teaming up with video game industry "veterans" to give us Apocalypse Now, a psychological horror RPG. Now, this is a game based on a 38-year-old film that is based on a 116-year-old novel; Dante's Inferno, eat your heart out!
"Forty years ago, I set out to make a personal art picture that could hopefully influence generations of viewers for years to come. Today, I'm joined by new daredevils, a team who want to make an interactive version of Apocalypse Now, where you are Captain Benjamin Willard amidst the harsh backdrop of the Vietnam War. I've been watching videogames grow into a meaningful way to tell stories, and I'm excited to explore the possibilities for Apocalypse Now for a new platform and a new generation," the famous director has listed on the Kickstarter page for the game.
Yes, the game is going into crowdfunding to seek the funds necessary to bring this creation to life. There are a plethora of stretch goals with an estimated delivery of 2020. I mean, I know games take a long time to make, but was it really that hard to find a proper publisher for something as revered as Apocalypse Now? With how long the possibility has been thrown around, is this project ever even going to come to fruition?
Putting aside that there is already a pretty decent game based on Heart of Darkness (*cough* Spec Ops: The Line *cough*), what would this game possibly accomplish that the movie didn't already do? If the game ends up a series of cutscenes with some loose gameplay elements, wouldn't that just prove film was a better fit?
No platforms are mentioned on the Kickstarter page, but seeing as how 2020 is the potential release year, I'll just say PC, PS5, and Project Scorpio. Heck, those might even be outdated by then and I sincerely doubt a Nintendo Switch version is even being considered.
Apocalypse Now - the Game [Kickstarter -- Thanks, Steve]
Have you kept up with Don't Starve? It sure has come a long way and resonated with a lot of folks these past few years. I don't feel like I've grown much more adept at surviving Klei's weird horror-filled world (I'll forever dread those blasted hounds), but I still have a great fondness for this game.
Xbox One players who have been patiently waiting for multiplayer by way of Don't Starve Together will have their day this spring, and Klei and 505 Games are also prepping a retail release of the Don't Starve Mega Pack on Xbox One and PlayStation 4. For $30, that bundle will get you the core game plus Don't Starve Together, Reign of Giants, and Shipwrecked. If you're going all out, that's the recommended course of action. Those expansions add up fast when you buy them standalone.
Ohhhh Austin, Texas, don't you dare be sour! Clap for your South by Southwest Gaming Awards co-host and feel the power! It's Xavier Woods, yes it is!
The New Day's Xavier Woods is one half of the hosting team of this year's SXSW Gaming Awards. Woods and Twitch streamer Sonja "OMGitsfirefoxx" Reed will anchor the event, which takes place on March 18.
Woods is a natural selection for this kind of thing. His YouTube channel UpUpDownDown where he highlights WWE superstars playing video games has grown to be immensely popular. Also, he's a natural at talking on the mic, certainly helped in part by the fact that he cuts promos to an audience of millions every week.
Picking Woods for the SXSW Gaming Awards almost guarantees that the show will be entertaining. Expect references to Booty-Os and unicorn horns. And, don't be surprised if Francesca 2, Woods' faithful trombone, shows up as the third co-host.
Xavier Woods to co-host SXSW Gaming Awards [WWE]
The Xbox One is not the same device that it was upon launch in November 2013. Microsoft has moved far away from many of the guiding principles that it previously evangelized. For instance, it has (wisely) shifted course and put emphasis on video games rather than the console's media-playing capabilities. Microsoft is dashing another one of Xbox One's vaunted features with a snap of its fingers.
According to platform head Mike Ybarra, Xbox One's Snap will be removed in the next major dashboard update. Yesterday, he tweeted "We replaced Snap to improve multitasking, reduce memory use, improve overall speed, and free up resources going forward for bigger things."
It's no secret that Xbox One's dashboard frequently suffers from lag issues. It seems that Microsoft believes killing off Snap will help improve performance. It probably helps that -- and this is pure conjecture -- the Snap likely had a relatively low usage rate.
Ybarra mentioned "bigger things" for the dashboard but it's unclear what that might be. Some reports have suggested that Microsoft is planning a picture-in-picture feature to allow apps to run alongside games. Whatever it is, we shouldn't have to wait long to hear about it. The new dashboard is expected to release in April alongside the Windows 10 Creators Update, and preview members will be testing it before then.
@XboxQwik [Twitter]
In case you missed it, or just don't care about the recent toys-to-life craze, Disney shuttered basically all of its studios in an effort to just license their IP out (a traditionally non-Disney move, as they typically create studios to handle their own business). That includes Avalanche Software, one of the best licensed developers in the industry, who was responsible for the (now defunct) Disney Infinity series, and a few other gems like Toy Story 3: The Video Game, which was far better than you'd expect.
In any case they're getting a new lease on life thanks to WB. John Blackburn, the former CEO, is leading up basically the same team, and they already have a gig -- Cars 3. It seems like a sure thing that more is on the way too, as David Haddad, president of Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment, specifically mentions that they're excited for "all future games under Blackburn's leadership."
Since Avalanche already developed the Cars 2 game, it seems like a perfect fit. I'm just glad they're still around making things.
Much like Darren, I am wholly on board with a game that takes the Where's Waldo? concept and just runs with it. That's the appeal of Hidden Folks and its painstakingly hand-drawn illustrations that'll have you poking and prodding and hunting down targets at your own pace (thankfully, there aren't time limits). If you're wondering about this latest trailer, it's true: "All sounds are mouth sounds."
Hidden Folks is coming to Steam, iOS, and Apple TV on February 15, with an Android version to follow.
AdriaandeJongh [Twitter]
Overwatch just kicked off its Lunar New Year event, which brings new cosmetics for three weeks on top of a "Capture the Rooster" CTF/Capture the Flag game variant. But just in case you thought maybe they'd let it linger after said event since it kind of naturally fits the FPS genre, think again.
Director Jeff Kaplan explains that the mode generally doesn't work for Overwatch because it's important that the game focuses on "one thing," like a payload or area objective. They've deliberated over CTF for "years," due to mobility issues as well, like Tracer's dash. To combat this at the very least in this limited Arcade mode, they forced players to deal with a small "capture time" for the flag to prevent Tracer from blinking in and recalling with it -- plus, you can capture the enemy flag even if yours isn't present at your post. In other words, it would be tough to balance the entire cast around this mode, so they just had fun with it.
It all makes a lot of sense, and having a few streamlined modes is what makes it so easy to get into Overwatch. Plus, you get plenty of bonuses from the Arcade, so it's a win-win. Jeff does mention maybe "one day" it could happen, but they aren't even "remotely" thinking about it right now. For now if the reaction is positive, it sounds like they'll bring it back to the Arcade at the very least.
Knowing that Devolver Digital was repping Minit even before I clicked play on this trailer, I figured there had to be some twist, some other point of interest beyond the Downwell-looking low-fidelity aesthetic. Well, it's right there in the name! It's an adventure game that plays with time.
Due to a curse, you have just one minute to rush out and make a mark on the world. It's a concept we really haven't seen explored all that much in gaming, and one I'd be interested in given the presumably very low stakes of messing up a minute-long cycle compared to something like Majora's Mask.
Minit is a collaboration between Kitty Calis, Jan Willem Nijman, Jukio Kallio, and Dominik Johann, and it's coming to PC and "maybe" consoles in mid-2017. It'll be at PAX South next month, too.
To commemorate the release of Kingdom Hearts 2.8, World of Final Fantasy is adding the familiar face of Sora to the game as free DLC in the form of a summon. He won't be voiced (sadly), but free is free, and you can grab him right now until March 31.
In case you're wondering, based on the wording and what Square Enix has communicated so far, he won't be reverting to a premium purchase after that date -- no, he'll be removed from the PlayStation Store entirely.
In other Kingdom Hearts news the other two HD compilations are coming to PS4 later this year, so now, every main Kingdom Hearts game will be playable on one system.
Sora [PSN]
The Xbox One's Snap mode was a major selling point on launch -- it was supposed to your console into a multitasking powerhouse that lets you play a game while watching TV or tracking achievements. It's a resource hog, however, and Microsoft now believes that it's time for a change. The company's Mike Ybarra has revealed that Snap is disappearing in order to boost performance. It'll improve multitasking, memory demands and "overall speed," he says. It'll also clear resources for "bigger things," although Ybarra offers no clues as to what that means.
Via: The Verge
Source: Mike Ybarra (Twitter)
The Power Rangers had a couple of good games back in the 16 bit era. The SNES beat-em-up and Genesis fighting game are still held in high regard, but you'd be hard pressed to find another game from the series that even comes close to the quality of those titles. Heck, the Power Rangers: The Movie game on SNES wasn't even as good, despite introducing co-op play.
While this new mobile game doesn't look like anything special, at least it acknowledges the series' past and looks far more memorable then whatever Mega Battle is supposed to be. Called Power Rangers: Legacy Wars, the game is a fighter with an emphasis on classic villains. From the very limited screenshots, there even looks to be classic designs for the Rangers, which is pretty neat.
Nothing has been stated about whether or not this is a free-to-play title, but the game will be launching sometime before the new film in March. It will be available or iOS and Android and I hope it has controller support. This may be one of those strange times where the mobile cash-in is dramatically better than the console counterpart.
Power Rangers Film Getting Fighting Game Tie-In [IGN]
Although they're still not sharing subscribers numbers (I tried!), Blizzard is quite happy with the reaction to World of Warcraft: Legion. It managed to strike a chord critically, sure, but a lot of fans who were disenfranchised by Draenor have come back, and best of all, they're actually adding worthwhile reasons to do so with a regular cadence of content.
With patch 7.1.5 dropping this month, I decided to check in with game director Ion Hazzikostas to see how they were handling all of this post-launch business.
Sega just dumped a ton of their music onto Spotify, and even if you don't have a subscription it's probably worth checking out the web client for. The lengthy list includes Fantasy Zone, NiGHTS, Out Run, Virtua Fighter, Skies of Arcadia, Kunoichi (Nightshade), and more.
I mean a lot more, like Golden Axe, Alex Kidd, Galaxy Force, and Jet Set Radio. Me? I'm all about that Rhythm Thief, which is one of my favorite new Sega franchises of the past decade.
Right now the "popular" playlist is utterly dominated by Sonic music, including "Sonic Boom," (the one from Sonic CD, not the ill-fated new franchise) the Pumpkin Hill rap, and "Stardust Speedway." Amazing. I'll be listening to "Escape From the City" all day now.
Sega [Spotify]
Bethesda's creepy Prey reboot has a release date: May 5th, 2017. It's a divisive game, throwing out the work that Human Head Studios did on the now cancelled Prey 2. In its place, Arkane Studios has developed a chilling sci-fi horror game set on a 60s-inspired spaceship. You play as Morgan Yu, a human researcher living on board the Talos 1. Of course, everything turns sour, and you're soon left fighting for your life against an alien race called the Typhon. Thankfully, some strange experiments have left Yu with a collection of devastating and constantly evolving powers. Game on.
Source: Prey (YouTube)
The stories behind some games are just crazy. What began life as a direct sequel to Prey has now been rebranded as some totally different, yet still somewhat cool looking, sci-fi game. I'm not sure why Prey was chosen for this kind of experiment, but Arkane Studios has made some solid games in the past.
With all that said, anyone looking forward to Prey will be happy to know that the game is launching this year on May 5. It will be a worldwide release, so there won't be any stupid embargos to delay foreign launches for outdated reasons. Those who pre-order the game will receive some bonus shotgun and other pointless crap items to help power up your character.
Along with the news of the launch date, Bethesda has uploaded a new trailer to showcase some of the game.
Apocalypse Now was a landmark achievement of cinema. Garnering near-universal praise since its 1979 release, director Francis Ford Coppola's Vietnam War epic has left an indelible mark on the cultural landscape, launching countless careers and impacting just about every form of entertainment since. Especially video games. Now, a veteran group of developers wants to put you in Captain Willard's (Martin Sheen) boots as he hunts Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando) in the jungle and witnesses the horrors of war first-hand.
Source: Kickstarter
Don't you just get sick of higher difficulty levels being nothing more than a combination of giving you less HP and defense while making enemies into stronger damage sponges? Sure, its more acceptable in some cases than others, but I always love it when developers take the initiative to make higher difficulty mean something, like adding additional objective in Perfect Dark. Even nonsense like making all enemies speak only in Korean in Crysis is cute.
One of best examples of good difficulty has been the Hitman games, where playing on higher difficulties increased the challenge by improving enemy AI, giving you a limited number of saves, limiting your maps functionality, and requiring you to not leave any evidence behind. That added challenge was an extra source of replay-ability for a series of games people already loved to play over and over, but was missing from the latest installment.
Now it's back, as IO will be delivering the Professional difficulty to all Hitman players (even those who only bought a single episode) in a free January update that will coincide with the release of the physical version of season one.
In a move sure to please long-time Pokémon fans, players can now transfer old Pocket Monsters to the latest games in the series, Pokémon Sun and Moon. Updating Pokébank (Nintendo's subscription-based Pokémon cloud-storage service) gamers are now able to easily send their favourite 'mon from X and Y straight to Sun and Moon. For the uninitiated, this service offers a cloud storage box that can store up to 3000 different Pokémon online. You can even transfer mon to different generations of Pokémon games -- all for just $4.99 a year.
In a bid to lure in fans of the original games, this update also allows one-way Pokédex transfers from 3DS versions of Pokémon Red, Blue and Yellow via the included Poké Transporter app. With gamers previously unable to move monsters from their Gameboy games into the DS era, this means that fans of the original 150 can finally get to see their untouched old-school teams in 3D. As the series battles have changed dramatically over the years, once transferred, older Pokémon will gain new hidden stats that help keep them competitive.
For players who still have previous generations of Pokédexes to relocate, Nintendo have provided the handy transfer guide below.
Source: The Pokemon Company
Bethesda must be bound by one hell of an NDA, as they barely even confirmed Skyrim for the Switch over the past few weeks, even though we saw footage of it during the Switch reveal! It's a weird situation, and at this point, we still don't have any real details. That includes mod support.
While all signs point to Nintendo being even more stringent than Sony, given that they have little to no experience with mods on their platforms, a recent Best Buy listing indicates that "PC-like mod support" is confirmed for the Switch version. Now, the rest of the details are specific to the Special Edition of the game on PS4 and Xbox One, so it could be a misnomer, and we've reached out to Bethesda for clarification. Is this a full-on Special Edition port with all the bells and whistles? Or is it its own thing?
We don't expect to hear anything back though, because outside of a "fall" window, which was practically forced out of them, we simply don't have any real facts about this port.
Skyrim [Best Buy] Thanks Corey!
In a surprise move, Blizzard announced that this year's Heroes of the Dorm eSport tournament will be shown exclusively through Facebook Live. Based around Blizzard's popular video game --Heroes of the Storm -- this unique tournament sees college teams across the US and Canada competing for a chance to win free tuition at their university. After two years of being broadcast on ESPN, every match of 2017's competition will instead be live streamed exclusively from the game's Facebook page. Blizzard state that the move to the social network will help to 'enhance' each match, allowing the company to create easily shareable clips and interact more closely with its fans.
For the second week in a row all console sales have dropped, but the bigger news may be Valkyrie Revolution's relatively low count. Despite the name change, Valkyrie Revolution opened up with 56,416 Japanese sales combined for PS4 and PS Vita. For comparison, in their respective first weeks, Valkyrie Chronicles sold 77,267, Valkyrie Chronicles 2 sold 94,444, and Valkyrie Chronicles 3 sold 102,779.
38k was good enough to land the PS4 version at the number three spot, but combined it is the second most purchased game of the week behind only Gravity Rush 2. When the first game initially went on sale for the Vita, it sold just over 43,000 copies back in 2012, so this is a considerable improvement.
Though Viking axe-and-smash tactics game The Banner Saga suffered years of delays after it got funded three days into its March 2012 Kickstarter campaign, it enjoyed critical and commercial success upon its release in January 2014. Its sequel earned lower sales and fanfare after indie studio Stoic fatefully decided to forgo another draining crowdfunding campaign and build it behind closed doors. But to finish the trilogy strong, they've launched a new Kickstarter for The Banner Saga 3, which is already 40% funded on its first day.
Source: The Banner Saga 3 (Kickstarter)
So far, Nintendo has been pretty fair with their mobile releases. But a strategy game that houses microtransactions? It has the potential to get a little hairy. Well, maybe not any more hairy than a typical NIS SRPG that has characters linked to a fee but I digress.
Fire Emblem Heroes is going to be here really soon (just over a week on Android), but for now you can check out the newest character trailer that showcases quite a few series staples. A lot of it is based on newer entries like Awakening and Fates, but there's a few old school cast members in there too.
At the very least it's great that Nintendo is trying new things. First a free social networking app, then a premium "one fee buys all" platformer, and now, a strategy RPG. I wonder what kind of scheme Animal Crossing will entail?
Final Fantasy. Skyrim. The Legend of Zelda. These and so many other video game franchises offer beautiful, sweeping scores for players to get lost in. Unfortunately, however, they're not always known or appreciated by people outside of the gaming community. Recognition is improving through live concerts and awards, but there's still a long way to go. The latest effort to champion and broaden its appeal is a new radio show on Classic FM. It'll be hosted by Jessica Curry, co-founder of British game studio The Chinese Room and composer of Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, and will focus on symphonic video game music in particular.
Source: Classic FM
Herding your friends into voice chat before a gaming session has always been a bit of a chore, especially going through the rigmarole of hosting servers and exchanging passwords. The scrappy chat service Discord aimed to simplify all that, cribbing some of Slack's better features alongside its pièce de résistance: Click-and-join servers that don't require software installation or logins. Two years after launching and 25 million players later, they've activated a new $5-per-month paid tier -- Nitro -- for fans to support the service.
Source: Discord blog
