In today's incredibly weird gaming news, KFC has found a way to make working at KFC even more terrifying. Instead of a standard training session, new employees are now put through a virtual reality "escape room" where they're taught how to make its Original Recipe fried chicken.
The whole thing runs on Oculus and if I'm honest seems pretty damn horrific, but in a world with the KFC game controller, I suppose anything is possible.
I swear as I do more of these retro shows, like 80% of them are about ninjas. Not that there's really anything wrong with that. Anyways then, it should come as no surprise that tonight's episode of The GTFOMLG Show is, well, about a ninja as well. Enter Ninja Spirit for the TG-16. I don't actually know if it's a tie-in or not, but I can't help but be reminded of Legend of Kage for the NES as I play, although this game has quite a bit more going for it graphics and mechanics-wise (you can be SEVERAL ninjas at once!). Be sure to tune into Dtoid.TV tonight at 7pm PST for yet some more hot retro ninja on ninja action!
[The GTFOMLG Show airs Monday through Thursday at 7p.m. Pacific on Dtoid.TV. Watch Rick 'King Foom' Olson play a variety of retro games, chosen by the viewers. With a heavy focus on community interaction, you can be as much a part of the show as anything else.]
Zoo Tycoon? Pretty great. The original, I mean. It's been some time since I've played it but I bet it'd only take a few minutes for the species requirements to come rushing back. I was obsessed with that game (and to a lesser extent, the 2004 sequel) back when they were still relatively new. The most recent Zoo Tycoon for Xbox One didn't quite do it for me, even if it was a huge step up, visually.
Somewhat surprisingly, Microsoft Studios is already revisiting the property. Announced at gamescom, Zoo Tycoon: Ultimate Animal Collection is an expanded version with new animals from Australia and South America, 4K and HDR support, and the big one: no pesky zoo limit, reportedly.
It is priced at $30 and headed to Xbox One and Windows 10 on October 31.
I'm not sure I want to play this again, but the updates and the fact that it's an Xbox Play Anywhere title have me feeling a little more compelled. That said, Jurassic World Evolution is also coming up.
House Republicans made a blog post today arguing for tax reform. While we'll stay away from the politics of the situation, we're here to call out their ability to fact check video game history.
According to the post, the House GOP seems to think that Nintendo was founded in 1985. In what I can only assume is an attempt to "reach the hip youngins," they try and relate tax reform to The Legend of Zelda of all things.
[Spoilers ahead for Final Fantasy XV. You have been warned.]
Speaking with Polygon at Gamescom, director Hajime Tabata spoke about the future for Final Fantasy XV. The director talked about some of the pros and cons of creating a proper sequel. In particular, he focused on how people move on from a franchise during the development time of a sequel. So instead of a proper game, the team decided to work on smaller installments for the existing game instead.
It's an interesting approach to say the least.
Death is a tricky thing in PUBG. Like half the time, you have no idea where you ended up getting killed from. The other half, you know that death is inevitable and that you're just gutting it out as long as you possibly can.
Here's the thing though: When I'm going to die, I want to do it where no one can find my loot. If my team can't benefit from it, I want to make sure no one can. Run back into the blue wall, sink to the bottom of the sea. Take those med kits and scopes to places no one's gonna get.
Yeah, this is how I'm trying to rationalize JORDAN FUCKING MERCY KILLING ME AND THEN INSISTING EVERYONE DIE TOGETHER. That's some dark shit from the D-Team Dad.
When you hear the name Just Dance, you think of some of the hottest names in the music industry. The artists that radio stations play on loop all day every day. The likes of Lady Gaga, Bruno Mars, Shakira, Katy Perry, and TomSka.
Oh yes folks, YouTuber TomSka has a song in the upcoming 2018 iteration of the dance game, about how to beep beep like a sheep.
The good people of Humble Bundle have put together a collection of horror games that they consider "spooky" in a bundle presented for consideration over the next two weeks.
Currently, around seven bucks will nab you Steam editions of Alien Isolation, Five Nights at Freddy's: Sister Location, Layers of Fear, Dead Age, DreadOut & DreadOut: Keepers of the Light and Lakeview Cabin Collection.
Stepping up a tier, to around ten dollars, will add survival slasher Dead by Daylight to the ensemble. As always, prices are subject to change as people buy-in, and your money can be directed to the developers, Humble themselves, or from a selection of charities.
Spooky Horror Bundle [Humble Bundle]
Nintendo Minute is being added to the Nintendo Switch News Service for anyone with a Nintendo Account in the Americas.
The video series features Nintendo of America's Kit Ellis and Krysta Yang doing everything from unboxing products, interviewing developers, and taking each other on in gaming challenges.
You can see them check out some gameplay from Metroid: Samus Returns in this recent episode:
Ruiner might be one of the most eye-catching titles showcased at Gamescom -- something that's hard to achieve when every company is bombarding you with posters, flags and bags at every turn. The aggressive, manga-styled protagonist and angry catch copy are difficult to ignore. It's also the first title to come out of Reikon studio, an indie Polish team founded by veteran gamesmakers that had previously worked on The Witcher, Shadow Warrior and many more. (I really liked Shadow Warrior, okay?)
Cofounder Magdalena Tomkowicz explained how she had grown tired of big gaming projects, and wanted to recover the passion of making a game: this top-down shooter / slasher is the result of that. The Hotline Miami comparisons might be fair at the simplest level, but Ruiner seems to take that top-down gameplay mechanic in a very different direction. Oh and a bunch of angry techno soundtracks alongside sharp character and environment design help drive things along, even if it can be a little overwhelming at times. Shoot, slash, dash and let the blood splatter.
If you're anything like me, you don't have many buildings named after you. If you're exactly like me, you don't have any buildings named after you. You now have the chance to rectify that particular wrong!
Our friends at Symmetry are sponsoring a contest for you, the plucky Dtoid readers, to get your very own weather station named after you in their game. One lucky winner will be bestowed with their own building, their name in the ending subtitles of the game, and a digital code of Symmetry for the platform of their choosing (PC, PS4, Xbox One, or mobile).
It's always a joy to hear Hideo Kojima talk about his passion for movies and games. He's done just that with an article published today on Glixel in which he delves into Dunkirk, The Great Escape, Metal Gear Solid, Death Stranding, and the ties that bind them all together. The latter project is still frustratingly yet tantalizingly shrouded in mystery, and I'm willing to bet it will be even after it's released.
Kojima didn't reveal anything new, exactly, but the article gives us an idea of what the team is striving for with Death Stranding: "a game that maintains the essence and fun unique to the medium, but also offers a completely new type of experience." Here's the relevant excerpt:
Naruto is in a strange place right now. The long-running manga series ended in early 2015, before its anime adaptation wrapped up in March this year. The spiky-haired ninja saved the world and achieved his dream of becoming the Hokage, or rather the leader, of the Hidden Leaf village. But now there's Boruto, a new series about his boisterous son. Both the manga and anime are relatively new and it's not clear just yet if either will replicate the success of the original series.
It has been quite the tumultuous year for Mass Effect. The release of Andromeda was met with a tepid reception that the series isn't used to. Then it came out that the majority of the game was made in the final 18 months and that the development cycle was dysfunctional and kind of directionless. It all went poorly enough that EA scrapped any planned single-player DLC (that Andromeda so transparently set the stage for) and effectively put Mass Effect on ice for a while.
But, and this is important, Mass Effect: Andromeda is still capable of driving revenue. That much was made evidently clear when the black sheep of the franchise still managed to lead EA to a good fiscal quarter. Business savvy dictates that you sell a product if there's a market for it, and that means Mass Effect isn't going on the shelf forever.
EA executive vice president Patrick Söderlund just said as much in a gamescom interview with Gamereactor. "I see no reason why we shouldn't come back to Mass Effect. Why not? It's a spectacular universe, it's a loved [series], it has a big fanbase, and it's a game that has done a lot for EA and for BioWare," Söderlund said.
However, Söderlund seemingly understands that Mass Effect's current state isn't the right fit for that revisit. He continued: "What we need to be careful though of is, whenever we bring Mass Effect back again, we have to make sure that we bring it back in a really [relevant] way, and in a fresh, exciting place. That's my job, and that's Casey [Hudson's] job, and BioWare and the Mass Effect team's job, to figure out what that looks like, and that we don't know yet, but we will."
Let this serve as confirmation to what we probably could've already guessed: Mass Effect isn't gone forever. It just needs to lay low for a while.
Patrick Söderlund "sees no reason" not to return to Mass Effect [Gamereactor]
Nintendo and Cartoon Network have teamed up to create a promotional advert for arena-brawler ARMS, featuring the stars of hit animated series We Bare Bears.
In the tie-in ad, Grizzly is seen struggling to defeat his brother Panda, before Ice finishes the housework and steps in to free him up. Git Gud Grizzly. The ad then awkwardly cuts to a standard ARMS commercial. It would have been much better to combine the footage, but there's probably some silly licensing reason why they couldn't.
Look, I'll level with you, I don't know what this show is, or if it's any good. Do people still watch Ren & Stimpy? I thought everything was all about Adventure Time now? And who's currently top of the hit parade? Is it One Direction?
There is an ARMS Global Testpunch happening this weekend, so don't forget to jump on that if you fancy trying the game out. Apologies for video quality, it's the best complete version of the advert I found.
The sequel to the mind-bending, gorgeous puzzler Monument Valley has been available for iOS since June; it was announced at Apple's developer conference, WWDC. Now Android users get to experience the MC Escher-inspired mobile game. Well, almost. Monument Valley 2 is available for pre-registration on the Google Play Store.
Via: Android Police
Source: Google Play
I'm running out of things to say about A Hat in Time that aren't "It's finally almost here" and "I hope it's as good as it looks." The 3D platformer is now confirmed for October 5 on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One, and thank goodness for that. Soon enough I'll be able to shut up about this game and play it!
Gears for Breakfast has also detailed mod support for the PC version. They're going all out. Not only will there be "official mods" with cameos from Psychonauts, Freedom Planet, Hyper Light Drifter, and other assorted indies, but at launch, A Hat in Time will support all of this good stuff on PC:
For those of you who helped fund A Hat in Time way back when, there's now an option to upgrade your Kickstarter tier to also pack in an Xbox One or PS4 code (in addition to your Steam key). That said, there's a $20 fee included "as consoles do not allow us to generate codes for free."
Gamescom Announcement: A Hat in Time releasing October 5th for PC, Xbox One and PS4 [Kickstarter]
Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle drops on the Nintendo Switch later this month, and I'm more excited about a game with that title than I ever dreamed possible.
We now have news that Mario's crossover with the Rabbids will include a season pass, which consists of three pieces of downloadable content.
Godspeed to all of you out there trying to track down an SNES Classic. It's been a messy, frustrating experience -- and expectations were already low following the similar rollout of the NES Classic.
Toys"R"Us might not be on your radar as an option, but it probably should be if you aren't able to order a unit before launch. The retailer has confirmed several pertinent details about its plans on Twitter:
In the wise words of Jonathan Holmes, "That's going to be the place to camp out on 9.29."
The Joker's already set to appear in two DC Unilaterally-bad-verse movies: a Suicide Squad sequel, and the Harley Quinn spinoff. Both will reportedly feature Jared Leto reprising his role as Mr. J. Wait, you might be asking yourself right about now. Wasn't Suicide Squad garbage? Yes, yes it was, you may be nodding your head vigorously right about now.
But despite that being true, it's also true that the film made over $745 million. That's several hundreds of million dollars more than WB needed to green light the shittiest sequel to the shittiest superhero movie of all time. Wait--that's not fair--sorry Halle Berry! Sorry Catwoman! You will forever be the shittiest superhero movie of all time.
The same way that we need more volcanoes and more astronauts, we need more cooking levels. Games like Rayman Origins have kitchen stages with lava-hot stews and fork-wielding chefs. Cooking is good for video games and hardly anyone's doing it.
Nintendo's doing it, though. A new Super Mario Odyssey stage was shown off at gamescom (in the video embedded above) and it's a culinary dreamscape. Named "Luncheon Kingdom," it's a pastel, polygonal paradise that was inspired by Italy and other European countries that are known for their cuisine.
Also, a giant bird took over the Stupendous Stewpot that's sitting on top of a mountain. So that's happening too.
Not really related to the new level, but still worth writing down: Producer Yoshiaki Koizumi quipped "I'd love to see the surprised look on everyone's face if I could transform into a dinosaur and rampage around the streets of Cologne. Us too, Koizumi-san. Us too.
Tattoos are cool. I'm too indecisive to get one for myself, but they're fun to look at on other people, and that seems to be what NIS America are going for now that they're localizing Tokyo Tattoo Girls, a new PS Vita and PC game from developer Sushi Typhoon.
Despite an early trailer (embedded below) that was light on specifics outside of showing off various anime girls, it seems the game is actually a strategy title in the vein of Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Players will lead a gang of tattooed, superpowered ladies on a quest to unite the divided wards of post-apocalypse Tokyo, defend their territories from incursions by rival gangs of tattooed anime ladies. The tattoos themselves were designed by real-life tattoo artist Koji Tanaka, who specializes in adapting the traditional Japanese body art of irezumi to temporary tattoo format, typically used in film and TV for actors who don't want their roles permanently etched into their skin.
The game is due out on November 14 in North America and November 17 in Europe. I have to say I'm intrigued, if only because I've been more interested in tattoos since I got the chance to review a cool book on the subject last year.
Knobb’s End is staged to look like just another generic indie RPG. However, it’s not even really a game. Instead, what you get is a hilarious satire of the lengthy loading screens from games like Skyrim, The Witcher 3, and even Fallout 4.
Full Disclosure: The whole thing leads to a link for the pilot of their new show called NPC. It’s pretty decent too, but the real star here is Knobb’s End. If you have any familiarity with the material they’re parodying, it’s absolutely worth downloading for a quick laugh. You can check it out here for free.
Washed up on the beach, you, young boy/girl/robot, are the hero that will save the island of Ditto. Or you'll fail, and plunge the land into a hundred years of darkness until another hero is born. OneBitBeyond's The Swords Of Ditto puts you control one tiny adventurer at a time, and if when you die, when the Big Evil (some sorceress of some kind) fries you on the spot, you won't live to fight another day. However, someone else will claim your hero's sword and continue the struggle. That's the crux, but it's how OneBitBeyond have executed it, in a top-down action RPG that leans heavily on SNES-era Zelda (and some Secret Of Mana), with a punchy cartoon style that belies the small team behind it all.
Can't get enough of everyone's favorite androids 2B and 9S? Fear not, your boy Yoko Taro has you covered with his latest mobile game SINoALICE. Even more so if you just so happen to understand Japanese.
SINoALICE released back in June, with no word yet sadly of a western release of any kind. However, both 2B and 9S from NieR: Automata will be making a collaborative appearance and some of the art from within the game is fantastic.
Yesterday, the world finally got its first teaser trailer for the very long-awaited Shenmue III. However, the trailer elicited some guffaws from the back of the room for it's blank-faced, dead-eyed character models.
Director Yu Suzuki, speaking to Game Spark, has stated that these character models are mostly temporary and largely incomplete. "Shenhua still has to be fixed up a bit,” said Suzuki of the recent footage. Generalising that "This is a character close to completion. This one is temporary. This one is also temporary. This one is temporary, too."
As for facial animations, none were coded for the trailer. "Facial expressions were implemented a month ago, but were temporarily removed,” Suzuki confirmed. Also of note, the director stated that he was interested in the concept of making Shenmue IV, and that he feels the Shenmue story shouldn't be "forced" to completion.
Hmmm... maybe, once again, Ryo will be yet to find closure for his tale when Shenmue III arrives on PC and PS4 late next year.
Yu Suzuki interview [Game Spark]
At Blizzard's Reveal Ceremony at Gamescom today, they screened a brand new animated Overwatch short, the first in quite some time, featuring the story of adorable/frustrating Queen of Cryo, Mei.
Mei's episode is short on action, but features a bit of backstory, a bit of joy and some sorrow. I absolutely love all these mini-movies, and this one even made me shed a tear get something in my eye (To be fair, I'm pretty much a constant ball of heightened emotion, blame the coffee).
Hope you enjoy it, and here's hoping it isn't another year until we get the next installment in the series.
