News:: Humble Bundle is inviting you to the Killing Floor for free

PS4 owners aren't the only one getting their Killing Floor jam on this month. For the next day and a half (June 22 - June 24), Humble Bundle is giving away the original game for free from their store. No other purchases are necessary; you just create an account, add Killing Floor to your cart and you're good to go.

I don't know much about the game, other than it being a chaotic co-op shooter, but I can't argue with free. I'm sure this will be a good way to generate interest in the sequel, which is currently rocking a 50% off discount in the Steam summer sale. Not too shabby.

Killing Floor [Humble Bundle]

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News:: Ice Kirby Nendoroid revealed, regular Kirby receiving a re-release

Watch out for high gusts, because Good Smile Company has revealed that not only will the Kirby Nendoroid be receiving a re-release, but that he'll be joined by a brand new Ice Kirby Nendoroid.

The new Ice Kirby will essentially be a base repaint of the regular Kirby, and includes the same face parts, but will come with a variety of new accessories. These accessories include not only an ice crown, ice breath, and ice effects for skating, but other Kirby abilities: the umbrella for Parasol, the bandana for Fighter, and stars for the Star Bullet ability, which is Kirby spitting out an inhaled object and I had no idea this even had a name to begin with.

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News:: Tracks: The Train Set Game announced for Early Access

When I was a young boy, some of my fondest memories were playing with my wooden Thomas the Tank Engine railroad toys. As I grew older, I turned to various video games to try and scratch that nostalgia itch, with no success. However, it would appear that Excalibur Games has an answer to that in the form of Tracks: The Train Set Game.

Tracks sets out to be the wooden train track builder for players of all ages. Excalibur Games states that the game will feature "an easy-to-use, yet-in depth-track-builder," along with the ability to ride and control the trains in first-person. They're also promising that not only will the game have a free-play mode, but that it will also feature objective-based scenarios covering a variety of tasks.

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News:: Destructoid Draws: Our Number One Villains

[Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, readers of all ages - welcome to yet another edition of Dtoid Draws! This is a tradition near and dear to my heart, so without further ado, let's let the community's hands do the talking! - Wes]

Good morning, everyone! Destructoid Draws' usual host, Bass, fell prey to a very sudden and terminal illness. Thankfully, I was able to take over for him, so the show will go on as usual! Plus, if we're being totally honest, I am better than he is anyway.

Don't you just love memorable villains? An entertaining rascal can make even the most mediocre game worth playing to the end. And the villains that are truly worth hating, oh they are something else! How satisfying it feels to finally punch their face in the face, and bring justice to the land. They can often be the most fleshed-out characters in a game because their motivation goes beyond simply wanting to help people.

So this one goes out to all of you world dominators, revenge seekers, social manipulators, or insane characters out there. All of these drawings are of our favorite villains. This is their darkness' time to shine, for it has made our gaming days brighter. 

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News:: Summer Lesson has a porn parody now...if you just want to get down to business

The goal of any technological advancement is to eventually figure out how to use it to watch pornography. VHS, DVD, Blu-ray, and now adult entertainment has truly thrown itself behind virtual reality. With the Tekken team's VR side project Summer Lesson making waves in Japan for allowing folks to live out their dream of not creepin' out teenage girls, it was only a matter of time before someone went whole hog with it. 

Private Lesson is an adults-only VR experience, starring Rena Aoi, featuring 16 minutes of "dramatic parts" and a hearty 30 minute helping of that good ole' good good. 

I'd say a porno flick would be cutting out the middle man, but in the case of Private Lesson's VR POV, it's literally inserting a middle man. You can view its very, very NSFW page here.

Summer Lesson gets inevitable porn adaptation [Kotaku] 

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News:: Gigantic is officially set for a July 20 release

With an extremely appropriate final setback, Gigantic has a release date. The free-to-play hero shooter with a troubled development history will launch on July 20 on PC and Xbox One.

Earlier this month, developer Motiga said that Gigantic was on-track for a June release unless the game had troubles in Microsoft's certification process. While it wasn't explicitly stated, we can probably infer that those difficulties arose by the fact that the official date is in late-ish July.

In the meantime, Motiga is offering an opportunity to get in on the ground floor of Gigantic. For the next month, the Founder's Pack will be on sale for $30, down from the regular price of $40. The Founder's Pack grants access to all 18 heroes, 2 more heroes to be added in the future, and other rewards.

As we noted previously, this is far from the end of the road for Gigantic. These kind of games need to constantly adapt and evolve to remain competitive. It starts all over on July 20. Still, getting to 1.0, a proper launch, is in itself a huge milestone for this game.

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News:: Valkryia Revolution gets some free themes and DLC for launch

To celebrate the release of Valkyria Revolution next week, Sega has released some free themes for PS4 and PS Vita users (I'm sorry Xbox One brethren). The two different styles are the same on each platform, just made to order for smaller/larger screens. Along with that little freebie comes the announcement of a bunch of free DLC for the game. These different packs will be releasing one a week for a month after launch.

As for what these packs will bring, lets break it down:

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News:: Metroid: Samus Returns has a fancy collector's edition in Europe

You can't always get what you want, but we are getting two Metroid titles -- one for 3DS, another for Switch -- and that makes me so very happy. I honestly wasn't expecting that news out of E3.

Metroid: Samus Returns is getting a collector's edition in North America that's about what you'd expect, but in Europe, Nintendo is going a step further. Or several steps further, I should say. Look at this!

I don't know who suggested making the case resemble a Game Boy cart, but good on you.

[Via Go Nintendo]

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News:: Burn books and sacrifice villagers in The Shrouded Isle

There's nothing simple about presiding over a struggling community. People get pissed if you don't take care of them. Groups get unruly, threatening rebellion when neglected and ignored. More often than not, it's impossible to make everyone happy. You have to think about the big picture -- certain choices might screw someone over, but if it's good for the community as a whole, it's often for the best.

In The Shrouded Isle's case, the big picture means waking a sleeping god. Cast as the arbiter of rule among a cult-like society, it's your only job to balance law and order while pleasing the strange whims of a being that lurks below the sea.

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News:: We're back from E3, so get to asking us questions

What a whirlwind two weeks it has been. First, we all descended upon Los Angeles to bring you the industry's best video game coverage (Editor's note: May not actually be the industry's best video game coverage) and then we had some pretty important personal news to share.

Our heads are still spinnin' but we're gonna record a podcast anyway. Steven, Darren, and myself are getting together for this week's Podtoid and it should be a good one. Steven and I will have all sorts of debaucherous E3 stories to tell; Darren will probably regale us with riveting news about how he switched laundry day from Tuesday to Wednesday or some such shit.

Anyway, as always, we need your help to make this happen. Leave us questions in the comments about whatever's on your dirty little mind. Lots going on, it's raining in the forest. Make it rain in the comments so us old chunks of coal can engage in polite and meaningful discourse.

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News:: Check out the first in-engine gameplay of Beyond Good and Evil 2

When Ubisoft announced Beyond Good and Evil 2 at its E3 press conference, people were understandably excited. They were also understandably tempered in their expectations that this would launch anytime soon. No release window was attached to the reveal and it took nearly 15 years to get a sequel. Just proof that it exists was enough for the time being.

However, the week after E3, Ubisoft has provided us with this in-engine gameplay of Beyond Good and Evil 2, which is more than we thought we'd get this soon. The Michel Ancel-led video focuses heavily on the scale of the world and how the spaceships fly. It's impressive even if it is just a tech demo.

There's still a lot to learn about Beyond Good and Evil 2 (nearly everything, actually), and we have no idea what the timeline is like for when we'll find out more. It'll be interesting to see the rate at which Ubisoft rolls out new information, almost as interesting as the game itself. When it comes to Beyond Good and Evil 2, the process is just as prevalent as the product.

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News:: Review: RPG Maker Fes

Every other week, it seems like there is at least one game that comes out that was made from one of those readily available game development software that lets almost anyone make a game. The game creation software of choice is usually either Unity or Game Maker but once in a while there is a game made using a very unlikely piece of software.

That unlikely software is RPG Maker, which unbeknownst to many, has been used to make some pretty notable RPG titles and now it's on the 3DS for the developer on the go. Will this lead to the creation of the next great RPG? Is it even good enough to make stuff? Join me on this quest, brave soul.

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News:: Log off now before today’s Steam’s summer sale leaves you broke

Your wallet is about to get a bit lighter. Or, if you lack self-control, a lot lighter. That's because over the next 13 days games on Steam will be marked down dramatically during this year's summer sale. The first crop includes up to half off the Final Fantasy franchise and 70 percent off underwater indie charmer Abzu. Hyper Light Drifter has been discounted by half as well, and if you wanted to explore Mafia III's version of the Luisiana bayou, now it'll only cost you around $15.

Source: Steam

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News:: Blizzard is going to 'drastically reduce' dupes in Overwatch loot boxes

There's a new Overwatch patch being tested on the PTR and it's a good'un.

Blizzard is "drastically reducing the amount of duplicates player will receive when opening loot boxes" and, in line with that change, it is also "increasing the overall amount of credits players will receive from loot boxes." These are words I've waited a long time to hear. I've been drifting away from Overwatch.

PC players can log onto the PTR and get five free PTR Loot Boxes to test out the new, more generous system, but your unlocks won't transfer to the live game. Early reports sound promising, though.

The other big change relates to in-game highlights. Game Director Jeff Kaplan speaks about this stuff in length in the attached developer update video, but the short of it is: you'll still get automatically-generated highlights, you can now create your own 12-second clips (bound to the key/button of your choosing), and you can export highlights as a video file on consoles and PC. In the latter case, there's support for up to 4K at 60 frames per second on Windows 8 and above.

The full patch notes have other smaller fixes and changes, including oft-requested custom reticles.

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News:: Tetsuya Nomura is a character designer for Xenoblade Chronicles 2

On Tuesday, the Twitter account for Xenoblade Chronicles 2 revealed that Tetsuya Nomura, know for his work on the Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts franchises, would be a guest character designer for the game.

The account went into further detail about how the character design was being handled. Masatsugu Saito, who did the redesign of Celica for the Fire Emblem Awakening DLC, would be handling the character designs for the majority of the games cast, including main characters Rex and Pyra. Nomura on the other hand will be handling the designs for Torna, an organization found in the game. Two characters he's responsible for have been shown, but no names or further details were given.

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News:: Game titles that are wonderful euphemisms for genitals

Yesterday, it was revealed Destructoid agreed to be bought out by Enthusiast Gaming. When I first found out, I wondered if anything would change. In the comments of the story yesterday, some of our readers also wondered if the move would put an end to our outstanding and highly informative news coverage. I’ve been told nothing will change and this site will continue publishing what it’s always been most famous for: stupid shit like this.

Earlier this week, I was farting around at work diligently doing my job when I came across a story on Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap. Because I have the mind of a nine-year-old trapped in the body of an underweight Hutt, I latched on to the words “Dragon’s Trap” and instantly thought it was a funny name for a vagina. As is bound to happen in these situations, my day quickly spiraled out of control as I opened every window possible on my Safari browser and started to look up other game titles that make the dirty little boy in me giggle.

So I compiled this list as an opportunity to hopefully make someone somewhere laugh and to test the elasticity of our new Canadian overlords. Now get your mind in the gutter and start thinking of some wonderful pick-up lines when you ask the ladies and the fellas to touch your:

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News:: It's time for the Steam Summer Sale

The 2017 Steam Summer Sale kicked off this morning. Remember: stay on budget, or stay away.

Scrolling through the top-sellers, I see PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (which is #1 despite being $30 as usual), Rocket League ($12), NieR: Automata ($42), Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor ($4), Hollow Knight ($9.89), Civilization VI ($36), Doom ($15), and Subnautica ($10). What've you found so far?

There's pricing funkiness and page errors, presumably due to too many people trying to look at too many games, but maybe that's for the best. I don't need anything here. I've got lots of Dead Cells to play.

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News:: Ron Howard is the new director of the Han Solo movie, situation normal, how are you?

Earlier this week, Lucasfilm fired directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller from the young Han Solo movie. They were six months into production, but major creative differences led to an unexpected and unprecedented split. Today Lucasfilm officially announced that Ron Howard will step in as the new director. Production will resume on July 10th, and the still-untitled film is set for a May 28, 2018 release.

Obviously everything's okay now. Situation normal. They just had a slight director malfunction, but everything's perfectly all right now. They're fine. They're all fine there, now, thank you. How are you?

Even though I'm not interested in a Han Solo movie, it's unfortunate that this project took such a major stumble. I'm left wondering how much of Lord and Miller's material will make it to the final cut, and how Lord and Miller will be credited for their work. Ron Howard is maybe the most vanilla choice to finish the film. Best known for movies like Apollo 13 and Willow (a Lucasfilm production), he's always been a bit of a journeyman director. Yet that's not necessarily a bad thing. Howard is a reliable, experienced journeyman filmmaker, and the original Star Wars trilogy was essentially the work of journeyman directors. (Though could you imagine if David Lynch did Return of the Jedi instead of Richard Marquand.)

It's also important to keep in mind that while this sort of shake up could be bad, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story underwent major reshoots and restructuring, but it turned out good for what it was. (Gareth Edwards was the credited director of Rogue One, but veteran screenwriter/filmmaker Tony Gilroy helped rework and mold the film into its final form.)

Do you have a bad feeling about this? Do you want to see Ron Howard pop the space-clutch and tell the galaxy to eat his space-dust? Let us know in the comments.

[Ron Howard Confirmed As New ‘Star Wars’ Han Solo Director ]

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News:: Review: Machinarium (The Definitive Version)

Machinarium is a game I’ve someone managed to play through numerous times. I gave it a shot after it was free on PlayStation Plus and then grabbed it in a Humble Bundle before acquiring the PS4 copy last year. Somehow, it has become my comfort food for when I’m down and need something familiar and charming to play.

Much to my surprise, I’m now reviewing Machinarium years after its debut because of its new PC update (available today), which developer Amanita Design has dubbed the “Definitive Edition.” Seeing as how I’ve almost committed the game to memory, I think I have a good understanding of why this title is so enjoyable and how this new PC version really does feel like the best way to enjoy it.

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News:: de Blob 2 gets a surprise release on Steam

It seems like just yesterday that de Blob got a release on PC (after nearly a decade of being a Wii exclusive). Publisher THQ Nordic worked their magic to make sure the game didn't stay obscure and they have done so for the game's sequel, de Blob 2. The only difference this time is that no one knew the game was coming.

Coinciding with the start of Steam's summer sale, you can now grab de Blob 2 on Steam for 25% off its normal price. Normally the game will run you $19.99, so a cool $5 off isn't too bad. This new port has all kinds of modern conveniences like different controller support (somehow including Wiimote functionality), enhanced graphical filters and redone FMV sequences.

Maybe these re-releases are hinting at a possible sequel in the works? Either way, getting a chance to relive these games without performance issues is nice, though the original ran pretty damn well on Wii.

de Blob 2 released on Steam, has Wiimote support [NeoGAF]

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News:: Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 will run at all sorts of resolution and framerate variations on Switch

We shared the news that Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 would arrive on the Switch later in 2017 (almost a full year after the original launch), but now by way of the official site we have a more technical breakdown of what to expect from this port.

According to the site, the game will run at 60fps with singular battles, and 30fps with multi-fighter battles. As usual the docked and handheld resolutions differ, with a 720p limitation for handheld mode and 900p for docked.

This shouldn't make anyone mad as the most competitive element, 1v1 on a big screen is more than adequate, but it pales in comparison to the beautiful Arc System Works helmed Dragon Ball FighterZ.

Nintendo Switch [Dragon Ball Z]

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News:: Destructoid is hiring part-timers, send us your resumes

Real quick -- I have a few paid internship slots available right now. It's honestly not a ton of money, but enough to buy some booze and games now and then. Come work for Destructoid part-time for the fun and stupidity of being part of our counter-culture video games publication. You can drop fuck-bombs like it's hot, we're the fun one to work for!

And goddammit, can I get some female applicants? We have an 10:1 guy/girl ratio right now; it's like that time I converted the site to OK Cupid for April Fools and it was the most sausage I've ever seen.

What I'm looking for: loud-mouthed fearless gut-punching firepower that knows their shit. I'm looking for VERY opinionated people who can write original stuff. I don't need any more reporters or game reviewers.  Please send writing samples, podcast links, and YouTube videos to niero@destructoid.com. If you're already streaming on Twitch or can shoot/edit video and have a YouTube channel, that's a huge huge plus. If your friends describe you as loud and obnoxious and an asshole that's even better.  

Help me discover you already.  Get in touch!  Awkwaaaaaard.

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News:: Super Mario Odyssey has such great screenshot potential

One of my favorite parts about the Super Smash Bros. series is the build-up to the next game and all the wacky screenshots Nintendo cooks up along the way. Poring over every last image brings me to my youth, back when I'd do the exact same thing with video game magazines rather than Twitter feeds. Even if it weren't my job to stay current, I'd still be staunchly following along. It's a rare joy.

Super Mario Odyssey is shaping up to be another one of those games for me and, based on how bananas this game is, I'd imagine plenty of you could say the same. I've played a morsel of it -- it's super good! -- and now I'm dying to see more. Here's where we're at so far, image-wise.

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News:: Nintendo Download: Ever Oasis

The 3DS is still alive! Yes, it's allegedly going to be around "past 2018," a fact that remains to be seen, but for now it is still kicking with Ever Oasis and RPG Maker Fes. The Switch is getting ACA Neogeo Fatal Fury 2 and Oceanhorn, and the Wii U is getting Daikon Set. Yes, the Wii U is still around too, just don't tell Nintendo.

It's your lucky day -- we happen to have reviews either up right now (Ever Oasis) or coming later (RPG Maker Fes) for today's big drops.

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News:: How do you want an 'all you can eat' retro service to work?

For years, and I mean since the Wii first came out, I've been pulling for a monthly fee all access service like Netflix's increasing (and always available) cache of original content. Basically for a nominal fee you get access to every NES (or SNES, Game Boy, and so on) game that Nintendo developed on the Switch. If you want to buy them outright you can, or you can opt for the service. It's a win-win. I don't think Nintendo is going to be that generous and give us everything, but they're basically going with that idea now -- it took them long enough!

I'm not as sure about Sega Forever. On paper the whole "it's actually free just with ads" (and you can buy stuff) thing is neat, I just hope they don't go too far with the branding. Right now apps are going to be individually released which seems like a bummer, but it's actually good, because if Forever was just a singular app, and Sega eventually shut that down, you'd be potentially screwed -- here you can just re-download the apps. All of that is pretty much erased if the actual emulation method is poor though.

Also, individual programs have a shelf-life too. Mobile devices are notorious for altering all sorts of OS related inner workings over time, and if a publisher deems that the apps aren't profitable enough to warrant an upgrade so that it works with a new firmware update, they might just let it rot, freezes and bugs in all. That won't happen with a fairly priced subscription service that also gives you the option to buy out.

This whole brave new "you don't own anything you just buy the digital license" is weird, and we're all sort of still figuring it out. But I really wanted to know what you guys think now that Nintendo and Sega have joined in on it.

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