Saturday, June 17, 2017

News:: Blast from the past: Destructoid's Mega Man Maker

This little app was originally published during PAX 2008 during a panel we gave about how important it is to create original content when starting your own gaming site. The music was made by Dale North, and all of the sprite art by the multi-talented Jonathan Holmes.  

In the early days when Destructoid was a tiny Wordpress blog in the middle of nowhere. I would lose a lot of sleep trying to make oddities like this in hopes that someone would pause for a moment from viewing kitten photos and care about my little site. Sometimes it worked.

Unfortunately, the final build was lost in the anus of the Internet somewhere. This version I recovered is an internal build four versions before the finished product.  It is going to be buggy as hell and the epic credits are missing, but the basic functions work. 

Go play!

Blast from the past: Destructoid's Mega Man Maker screenshot

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News:: Weekend deals: cheap Wolfenstein II, Fractured But Whole, plus free games roundup

PC gamers who can't hold off purchasing E3 announced titles until their fall 2017 release dates are in luck. This weekend GMG has savings between 21% off and 28% off after coupon in their E3 Sale which includes many of the big Fall 2017 releases like the new Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus. Just make sure you use coupon E3OFFER at checkout for the max discount. This will drop Steam copies of the new Wolfenstein from $60 to $47.51 - a price that's good this weekend only.

Arguably a better deal this weekend is the discount on South Park: The Fractured But Whole. GMG has a greater 20% instant discount compared to the 12% off on Wolfenstein II and other titles, stack the same code above and you'll reach a max discount of 28%. That's as good as one should expect from an upcoming AAA title. Pre-order bonus on Fractured But Whole includes a free copy of Stick of Truth at launch.

Feeling like keeping your wallet intact this weekend? There are several free games worth noting for us cheapskate gamers. On PC, Origin has Medal of Honor Pacific Assault now for $0.00 and no strings attached as their monthly "on the house freebie." GOG is now giving away the classic 1996 title Fantasy General, normally a $6 purchase these days, today only. For those that picked up PAYDAY 2 when it went free on Steam - you can grab two DLCs for free this weekend - though note that site is being hammered so YMMV.

If you're an Xbox Live Gold Member, you should fire up Xbox Live and grab Watch Dogs for free for life through July 15. PlayStation Plus members can take advantage of their own paid membership and pick up Killing Floor 2 and Life is Strange Limite Edition from Sony as your free games of the month. Both are worth the admission price of PS Plus though of course they remain "free" as long as you have Plus membership.

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Weekend deals: cheap Wolfenstein II, Fractured But Whole, plus free games roundup screenshot



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News:: In 'Fortnite,' building is just as important as fighting monsters

Epic Games' Fortnite, once described by company founder Tim Sweeney as Minecraft meets Left 4 Dead, has been six years in the making. That's a long time to keep someone excited about a game, but you can't fault Epic for not wanting to rush its latest Unreal Engine 4 project. And based on my first experience with Fortnite, it has the potential to be a solid survival game. Not everything here is about fighting or killing monsters, though, as your success in the Fortnite world will also largely depend on your building and exploring skills.



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News:: Insomniac's 'Spider-Man' gets what it means to be Peter Parker

When Sony revealed that Insomniac games was working on a PlayStation 4 exclusive Spider-Man game set in an original universe, the specter of another game hung over the announcement -- 2004's Spider-Man 2. This movie tie in is widely regarded as the game that perfected web-swinging, as well as the title that no subsequent Spider-Man game ever lived up to. Creative director Bryan Intihar is aware of the stigma, but he doesn't seem worried.He's confident his game will make players feel like Spider-Man. His goal is more complicated. He wants players to feel like Peter Parker.



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News:: Hunt: Showdown is the sleeping, swampy giant we need to keep an eye out for

Crytek's Hunt: Showdown began its life in a completely different place. First announced as Hunt: Horrors of the Gilded Age in 2014. a four-player co-operative shooter (essentially a Left 4 Dead clone) set in the Victorian era, the project underwent major changes during a period of financial struggle. But seeing its new incarnation emerge as a beautifully twisted butterfly of promising ideas, I'm still at a loss for words really. 

Sitting in the Crytek's booth as they walked me through their hands-off E3 presentation, I was taken aback as layer upon layer of intriguing depth showed an unwavering sense of dread and tension. If Hunt: Showdown can deliver on its promise, this could be a game entertaining folks for a long time. 

Hunt: Showdown is the sleeping, swampy giant we need to keep an eye out for screenshot

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News:: The evolution of women in video games continues at E3 2017

Feminist Frequency founder Anita Sarkeesian tries to make it clear her yearly, gender-focused analysis of the video games announced at E3 isn't founded in malice -- it's simply reality. Even in 2017, video games overwhelmingly feature male protagonists, rather than female leads. According to Feminist Frequency, 109 games debuted at E3 this year, and just eight of them (or 7 percent) star female characters, compared with 29 titles (26 percent) featuring male protagonists. Fifty-two percent of newly announced games utilize a system that lets players select specific characters or genders. On their own, these statistics aren't bad or good; they're simply facts.

"We're not trying to be bummers," Sarkeesian said on the Engadget stage at E3. "But it's like, let's look at the actual numbers so we can actually improve for real."



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News:: Xsens body suits are getting even better at motion capture

Motion capturing is becoming more important for games and movies alike, but unless you're ready to shell out for a complicated rig and dedicated studio space, it's incredibly difficult. Xsens has been working to solve that problem for the last decade with its custom body suits, which handle all of the motion capturing work without the need for any external sensors. The one problem with the company's suits so far? Metal -- or anything that can disrupt its embedded magnetometers. But at E3 this week, Xsens showed off the latest version of its software, which no longer gets disrupted by metallic objects.



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News:: IndieCade's 'resist' theme at E3 holds a mirror to society

IndieCade CEO Stephanie Barish operates at the heart of the independent-development community, running shows throughout the year that highlight some of the most innovative, thoughtful and beautiful games the industry has to offer.

This year, IndieCade sponsored the #ResistJam, an international competition "about creating games that resist oppressive authoritarianism in all its forms." The #ResistJam took place in March, not long after President Donald Trump unexpectedly signed a contentious, and ultimately unenforceable, executive order banning travelers from seven Muslim-majority nations from entering the US. Protests sprang up around the nation, and the jam was meant to give game developers a unique outlet for activism, organizers said.



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News:: ‘The Last Night’ is a stunning take on 16-bit games for the 4K generation

Indie darling The Last Night stepped onto the big stage this week at E3. The game was announced as an Xbox exclusive during the same event that Microsoft officially revealed its powerful new 4K console: the Xbox One X. After those proceedings, we sat down with Odd Tales' Tim Soret for an update on the "cinematic platformer" and to discuss the recent controversy about his tweets.



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News:: 'Dragonball FighterZ' looks dangerously close to the anime

There have been so many Dragonball (Z or otherwise) games that it's hard to tell most of them apart. While the latest Xenoverse titles attempted to spin out Akira Toyama's characters into alternate universes with online play, Dragonball FighterZ is an easier-to-explain premise: a 2D fighter with the anime's top-flight characters, with assistance from the same talent that made BlazBlue and Guilty Gear, both well-regarded competitive 2D fighters.



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News:: On Review scores

[Editor's Note: Originally posted on our community blogs, Gamemaniac3434 gives us his thoughts here on the perpetually and hotly debated review score issue, which is something that's always worth talking about so long as we're not yelling at each other. Whether you're for or against them, his core missive of "read the text" is a humble request that rings true for every form of media. We've always encouraged our readers to eschew all notions of "subjectivity" in the quest for their own personal truth with the writer that you trust the most. Whether that's us or someone else is up to you, but we're always here if you need us. - Chris

In March 2017, Jim Sterling reviewed Breath of the Wild and gave the game a seven out of ten. This caused a huge outcry, both across the internet and even on Dtoid proper which is one of the first times I’ve really seen that happen to such a degree. My problem with people's reaction was not mere disagreement but the way some people expressed their disagreement-I saw people call him "a fucking idiot", say he was shit at games, DDOS’d his site till it went down, and attack his credibility as a games reviewer. Rather than calmly stating their disagreement, or rationally explaining why they didn’t value Jim's opinions as much as some other reviewers due to differences in taste people lashed out emotionally and violently-over a review score for a game that had received several perfect or near perfect scores from almost every other outlet.

On Review scores screenshot

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News:: The Morning After: Weekend After E3 Edition

Hey, good morning! You look fabulous.

Welcome to the weekend. The E3 2017 show floor has closed, but gaming news will continue to flow all weekend as we wrap up our coverage of the event. Of course, that's not the only thing that happened this week, so check below for a few more highlights.



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