New Games

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• Weekend video game wallpapers: Demonic carpal-tunnel
• There is a new PSP game about conceiving children
• Rhythm Heaven Wii is now Rhythm Heaven Fever
• Feeling funny about Little King's Story PS Vita
• Zelda Zine is a grand collection of Zelda fan art
• Robo-Garriott keeps those inefficient flesh-bags in line
• Storm's Adventure with Gears of War 3
• Review: The Haunted: Hell's Reach
• Top Eight Videogame Scarecrows
• Weekend Mobile roundup: Super Crossfire HD, Mage Gauntlet
• Review: Stronghold 3
• SEGA has 'no plans' to resurrect Classic Sonic for good
• Comments of the week: JIMMYX
• Postal 3 heading to Steam on December 10
• Marvelous made mad bank off of boobies and Vanillaware
• Tetris crackers: Taste Mother Russia in your mouth!
• Fewer dinosaurs in Europe - Jurassic Park delayed
• Trailer: Thomas Was Alone soon to be a full game
• Pre-purchasing Trine 2 gets you early PC beta access

Weekend video game wallpapers: Demonic carpal-tunnel Posted: 30 Oct 2011 03:30 PM PDT [Update: Site bug squashed!  You can now browse all 300+ images in the gallery properly, 25 at a time. ] This weekend we bring you some new art from I am Alive, Uncharted 3, Diablo III as well as new look at a ton of old favorites: Rochard, Ninja Gaiden 3, Juiced, The Wheelman, Starcraft II, Untold Legends, Tekken, EVE, SNK vs Capcom, and Left 4 Dead.  There's also a hint of random fantasy like dragons scissoring each other in space.  If you're in a metal band please feel free to use that as your album title. Our massive archives also include Dead Island, Street Fighter X Tekken, World of Warplanes, Resistance 3, PayDay, Asura's Wrath, Bastion, DrakenSang Online, Darksiders 2 (sick!), Magic The Gathering, World of Tanks, Infamous 2, Asphalt 3D, Hellbreed 2, Transformers, Hunted, and some classics like Devil May Cry, Final Fantasy X2, Heavenly Sword, Ninja Gaiden, and Street Fighter.  Our archives also include wallpapers from Uncharted 3, Dirt 3, Ridge Racer 3D, The Settlers Online, Homefront, Shogun 2, Lord of the Rings: War in the North, Might and Magic Heroes, Motorstorm Apocalypse, Armored Core, and Duke Nukem. Our archive also includes Operation Flashpoint, Test Drive Unlimited, Splinter Cell, Shogun 2, Magicka, Homefront, a few others. Enjoy! Want more or to upload yours?  There's a Destructoid forum thread with high res video game wallpapers. Do it. A portion of this gallery was donated to us by the handsome people at Gamewallpapers.com, as well as some CG art by our friends at Flamy Frog Interactive. Hundreds more are available on their site, which also feature variants for dual-screen downloads.  Want some Destructoid-flavored ones?  Go steal them from Hamza. Which one did you choose this week?

There is a new PSP game about conceiving children Posted: 30 Oct 2011 03:00 PM PDT The 3DS has been home to some pretty pervy games lately. The success of the boob-crazy brawler Senran Kagura and the announcement of If I Were in a Sealed Room with a Girl I'd Probably XXX had me thinking that the console was the new home to games focused on pandering to the reproductive instincts of teenage males. Looks like I thought too soon, as the PSP is about to be graced with a baby-making high-schooler game of its own. Conception: Please have my Baby is an RPG about trying to make magic newborns with 12 women in order to save the world. It's a turn-based combat title with romance sim elements, relatively sexuality-neutral character designs, and very little in the way of actual sex, but I don't think anyone is going to notice that. If this title comes to the US, it will be known as the 16 and Pregnant game, and that will be that.  Now before you grumps start bashing the game for glorifying the lust for teenage girls, remember that this game may not be made for or about you. If you're 30 and you want to hump a 16 year old, that's trouble. If you're just 14 and you've got the hots for a 16 year old, then you're more or less within your rights (though please boys and girls, consider abstinence, or at least wrap that wang before you do that thang). Anyway, if it's OK for western games to glorify hiring then murdering hookers, hog tying and dragging innocent strangers to their deaths, and doing all sorts of screwed up crap, then why is it so bad for the Japanese to make games about being a horny teenage dude? I know two wrongs don't make a right, but is it really so wrong to be a hormonal dude? I just wish that more developers made horny games that weren't so objectifying to women. After all, sexy doesn't need to mean sexist.  Conception is a game about making babies [Japanator]

Rhythm Heaven Wii is now Rhythm Heaven Fever Posted: 30 Oct 2011 02:00 PM PDT In Japan, the latest Rhythm Heaven game is called Minna No Rhythm Tengoku, which roughly translates to Everybody's Rhythm Heaven. It looks like Nintendo of America is going with a different direction for the game's Western localization, and are instead going with the Patapon-flavored moniker Rhythm Heaven Fever.  If this is a promise of things to come for the game's translation to English, then I can deal with it. I never expected all the the original charm from the Japanese version to translate into English. Topher Cantler and I were quick to discover that this was the case with Rhythm Heaven on the DS.  Instead, what I hope we get here is a game that has an inspired localization that actually adds new droplets of joy into my life. I can deal with changes as long as they are made with love. I suppose Fever seems like a loving enough change. It's certainly better than The Beyonce Game. That said, there will be Hell to pay if Nintendo of America messes with "NEH VAH GEE VAH UH POOH!" Rhythm Heaven Wii gets a new North American name [GoNintendo]

Feeling funny about Little King's Story PS Vita Posted: 30 Oct 2011 01:00 PM PDT When a new Little King's Story title was announced for the PS Vita, I was immediately overjoyed, but that joy quickly gave way to trepidation. The original Little King's Story was not a blockbuster hit, though it does have a strong cult following (including the Burch family, Chad Concelmo, and myself). When games like that get sequels or are otherwise graced with a followup, their creators often drop a lot of the aspects that made the original title special, and swap them out for qualities that are more marketable and "mainstream friendly." Sometimes that works out great, but other times it makes for a game that feels less like a continuation and more like a deformation.  I'm still not sure which way Little King's Story on the PS Vita will go on that split. The character art has swapped out most of the charm and simplicity from the original for a more generic look. Strike one! The gameplay is looking fun though, with giant chicken bosses and exploration/organization to spare. It also looks like the PS Vita's touch screen controls might help to make commanding your troops a much more manageable experience. I'm not big fan of touch controls, but I can see how they may work here. So just one strike so far, which leaves me feeling cautious but hopeful. How about you? Strike, ball, or home run? Little King's Story Vita Homepage [via Tiny Cartridge]

Zelda Zine is a grand collection of Zelda fan art Posted: 30 Oct 2011 12:00 PM PDT This past week, the GameCity videogame culture festival went down in Nottingham England. As part of the festivities, a Zelda Takeover Day was planned to celebrate the Zelda series' 25th anniversary. For the occasion, Corey Schmitz -- responsible for assembling the fan art magazine The Controller -- was asked to help edit a another magazine featuring submissions from many web artists. The result is Zelda Zine, a three-part collection of art, photography, poetry, and more. As you can see from the amazing header image above, the ever-effervescent Ashley Davis was one of the contributors. I've attached some more samples in the gallery below, and you can hit up Corey's Tumblr for a few more pieces. I would love to get my hands on a physical copy of issue one, but it looks like it was limited to just attendees of the festival. Maybe we'll have better luck with the following two issues! ZeldaZine [GameCity6]

Robo-Garriott keeps those inefficient flesh-bags in line Posted: 30 Oct 2011 11:00 AM PDT Ultima grandmaster Richard Garriott is Big Brother -- no matter where you go, no matter what you do, he's always watching, contemplating, judging. At Garriott's social and mobile game company Portalarium in Austin, Texas, he lives up to his "Lord British" moniker with a drone that effectively grants him omnipresence. He can keep tabs on everyone and everything even while chilling back in his New York home. The robot, which sports a hilarious Pringles mustache, can be controlled remotely; through it, Garriott can engage in direct conversation with his staff. The $15,000 killbot was originally purchased to allow Garriott's mother to attend his wedding in France without making her leave her home in Las Vegas. Afterwards, it was repurposed to lock his employees under the constant threat of laser death. How deliciously evil! Robot put in charge of Austin office [YouTube]

Storm's Adventure with Gears of War 3 Posted: 30 Oct 2011 10:30 AM PDT I don't think this joke will be well accepted, but I already wrote it down, so I might as well run with it. Fun Times with the Lancer 3 is the journey to save Sera, and this video is a journey into copyright infringement. I already enjoyed the franchise quite bit up to this point, and I'm glad to see it end. Don't get it twisted, I don't mean that Fun Times with the Lancer needs to end. I like that it has the dignity to end. Over the top violence and production value is always a winner in my book, and Fun Times with the Lancer 3 delivers. If you care to understand the background and progression of these jokes, you should watch my videos of the original Fun Times with the Lancer and Fun Times with the Lancer 2. Also, stop staring at my chestplate.

Review: The Haunted: Hell's Reach Posted: 30 Oct 2011 10:00 AM PDT For those of us who like to celebrate Halloween with a horror-themed videogame marathon, a myriad of choices has opened up to us in recent years. Along with the old survival-horror standbys, we now have a new breed of team-based survival games such as Left 4 Dead, FEAR 3, and Killing Floor. While another contemporary is welcome, it takes a lot more than some horror gimmicks for us to stick with a game of this ilk past October. However, The Haunted takes a unique approach to team-based, horror-themed action which may give it an edge. It’s like a cross between an arcade beat-em-up, Gears of War’s Horde mode, and Resident Evil's Mercanaries mode. Unfortunately, technical flaws keep this one from becoming a horror game you’ll keep on the shelf throughout the year. The Haunted: Hell's Reach (PC [Reviewed], Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network) Developer: KTX Software Development Publisher: ValuSoft Released: October 25, 2011 (PC), TBA (XBLA, PSN) MSRP: $19.99 Despite being a budget title that began as a Unreal Tournament 3 mod -- in fact, it won the 2010 “Make Something Unreal Contest” -- The Haunted carries an original take on Horde mode that will consume you for hours if you give into the addiction. The problem is that the user experience is so bad that you’ll find yourself debating if it’s worth attempting another loss connection or 10+ minute pre-match wait. The Haunted comes with four multiplayer modes, but it’s the cooperative Inferno mode which bears the most potential for late-night online gaming. In it, four players must survive four waves of enemies that increase in number and power over time. Its structure is pretty standard fair, but the combat system and interesting design elements keep this independent game from feeling like a blatant Horde mode clone. The game’s combat system is as inspired by Resident Evil 4 and Gears of War as it is by God Hand. The game has a surprisingly deep melee system that gives the player an easy way out when surrounded by undead ghouls. You can jump kick, slam the ground, slide, and perform other maneuvers that recall the heyday of arcade beat-em-ups. Paired with some guns that sound and feel great, the combat will have you coming back to further explore what can be pulled off. Unlike similar games, watching a pro-player tackle The Haunted is a spectacle worth watching (see video below). Players are still finding new ways to use the game's combat system. Along with a strong backhand, you’ll mow down hordes of zombie-pals with a close quarters weapon, handgun, shotgun, and machine gun. You’ll unlock upgrades (and ammunition) to these as you kill. Upgrades range from akimbo shotguns to a glaive that will boomerang back into your hand. You’ll also find explosive weapons, in every other room of a stage, which will come in handy for wiping out a group of enemies. Sometimes a well-placed sticky bomb is all you need to get out of a hopeless situation. The learning curve is pretty steep and The Haunted doesn’t make it easy to learn. Along with weapons you’ll upgrade through killing enemies, there are six secret weapons hidden throughout each stage. These range from RPGs to flamethrowers, but you’ll rarely see them because most players don’t know they exist and the ones that do know can’t find them -- but, hey, it’s a secret bonus so that’s cool. What isn’t cool is how poorly the game conveys its rules. While the main goal is simple (SURVIVE!), the details of a match are never properly explained to the player. There is a “How to Play” guide in the menu options but it doesn’t really tell you all you need to know. For instance, you are told that Chronostones will randomly appear. When these stones spawn on the map, you are notified and given a timer to destroy them. If you wait too long, the stone will spawn into a minion that you will have to chase down and kill; as you may imagine, a moving target makes this task much more difficult. Kill the stone/minion and you are safe, but if you don’t the map will throw some nasty environmental effects at you -- something that is never fully detailed in the guide. Each of the eight maps has a level event triggered by the Chronostone that will make killing enemies a lot harder. These range from fog so thick you can’t see a wall in front of you to the floor erupting in flames, forcing you to constantly run until the effect is finished. Knowing what to do in these situations can be frustrating until you’ve learned how to properly play the game. As a result, you'll constantly be on edge when a Chronostone appears because you'll know that there will be hell to pay if the counter counts down to zero. Another unique feature is health. Each player starts with 200 hit points and the only way to heal is by executing an enemy. You execute enemies by beating them into submission and, once they are glowing yellow, you run up and punch them. It's risky and time consuming. It sounds like a terrible gimmick, but it makes the game pretty tenser as a result. You’ll be constantly wondering if you should go save a buddy or kick some zombies into submission for your own sake. When a teammate dies, they spawn as a Soulstone. Like Chronostones, they will turn into a minion after a couple seconds but there is no countdown -- you can always save your teammate. The biggest problem of The Haunted is that joining a game forces you to wait until the next wave of enemies, which can sometimes be a 10+ minute wait! It’s so stupid that I have to assume the developer never playtested this game with strangers. Not only does no one want to play a game that forces them to wait 10+ minutes, there is absolutely no reason to have it designed this way. If new players joined via Soulstones, it’d solve the problem. I think the above issues exists due to flaws in the programming related to enemy-scaling. While a solo survival game is manageable (there is no singleplayer camapaign), a four-player online game can be maddeningly hard even on Easy. Even when you beat all four waves, you must face-off against Abaddon: A boss that towers above you, who can kill in one hit. It’s neat the first time you beat him (no reward …), but having to due it every match is a pretty dull design choice. I know you think he is cool, KTX, but he’s not that cool. Along with Inferno (co-op), there is survival mode, Battle mode, and Demonizer. Battle lets players play against a human team, but you don’t really control demons. Instead, you spawn demons from a bird’s-eye view. It’s pretty boring since the best strategy is to just spawn a projectile enemy behind a player. Keep doing it and hopefully you’ll win. Demonizer is kind of like FEAR 3’s “Soul Survivor” mode, wherein players are converted to the other side when they are killed. Supposedly you control actual demons in this mode, but I wasn’t able to test it out. This brings me to another flaw with the game: connection issues and server options. Not only are very few people playing, it’s hard to connect to the ones that are. I found that restarting the game sometimes fixed the situation, but I still never came across a room playing a Demonizer match. I’ve also heard about players having other technical issues concerning graphics, but I never ran into any visual glitches. The Haunted doesn’t look great, especially its human player models that resemble freakish puppets, but the level design, combat system, and challenge kept me hooked on it for a couple days. Eventually, I found the technical issues got in the way of my enjoyment so much that I didn’t want to bother anymore. It’s a great cooperative game when it works, but getting to that point can often prove frustrating. KTX has been replying to Steam users and are working on a patch for many of these issues, but until these problems are solved it’s hard to give the game a glowing recommendation. If you are seeking a new, unique team-based game to play with some friends on Halloween, The Haunted is a worthy choice. Just know that you may not want to play it in November, when you are still facing the same server, waiting, and technical issues that plagued its release. Here’s hoping a patch saves this game for those addicted to its winning combination of gunplay and melee combat, while it still has our attention.

Top Eight Videogame Scarecrows Posted: 30 Oct 2011 09:00 AM PDT Halloween is almost upon us, which means it's time for a litany of inane "top things" list articles with vaguely spooky themes! When it comes to stereotypical Halloween items, scarecrows are among my favorite. I'm not sure why that is, but I've always enjoyed stories involving haunted scarecrows and I find something aesthetically pleasant about them, albeit in an eerie way. I don't want to have sex with them or anything, I just think they're cool.  Naturally, Halloween causes me to become preoccupied with scarecrows of all types, so I am compelled to list the best videogame-related ones in an effort to exorcise my mind of these ridiculous thoughts. Scarecrow Status Effect Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars Super Nintendo Entertainment System  Scarecrow is a status effect in Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, inflicted upon Mario's team by such hilariously named spells as S'crow Funk and S'crow Bell. When turned into a scarecrow, characters can use magic and defend but are unable to perform physical attacks or use items.  Developed by Square Enix, Super Mario RPG bore several similarities to the Final Fantasy series, and Scarecrow was a straw-flavored take on the infamous Frog or Mini status effects -- being a spell that physically alters the victim and limits its ability. It's quite a terrifying prospect, to be trapped inside the body of a living scarecrow and unable to physically interact with the outside world.  Puts one in mind of Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis, thus proving that videogames are art and making Super Mario RPG the Citizen Kane of videogames.  The Scarecrow of Oz The Wizard of Oz Super Nintendo Entertainment System  Let it not be said that this industry isn't prepared to turn anything into a videogame. You'd think that a movie about a naive girl and her idiot friends skipping along a piss-stained path would make for pretty poor gameplay, and by all accounts your prediction wouldn't be wrong! This Super Nintendo title was loosely based on the film version of America's favorite shoe-theft and it's not considered to be a very good game. Even within the confines of bad software, Scarecrow is considered quite bad. He's the weakest of the playable characters but he has the best jumps and crows fly away from him, making him slightly more valuable than Tin Man. Look at me, typing as if I've ever played this thing and know what I'm talking about! The Pumpkin King The Nightmare Before Christmas: Oogie's Revenge PlayStation 2, Xbox  The Nightmare Before Christmas: Oogie's Revenge was a videogame sequel to the classic Tim Burton movie, published by Capcom and sharing more than a few similarities with Devil May Cry. Aside from its unique sequel status and a range of cool musical boss fights, Oogie's Revenge was a fairly mediocre game but it did let you play as Jack Skellington's scarecrow form, The Pumpkin King. That's pretty badass.  Like his movie counterpart, The Pumpkin King has an affinity with fire, able to burn enemies with a range of flame attacks. I always wanted to see more of Jack's Pumpkin-headed alter-ego in the movie, due to it being pretty hardcore, so it was nice to get a playable version in the videogame. Just a shame the game itself wasn't very good.  Harvest Golems World of Warcraft PC On the surface, Harvest Golems look like ineffectual fat teddy bear scarecrows. However, they are known to be surprisingly agile and merciless in combat, smart enough to appear inanimate just long enough to stab a passer-by in the back with its dagger fingers.  Although these creatures have blatantly been included in this list to pad out the article, they're pretty neat as far as scarecrows go. So let's hear it for obscure MMO enemies that nobody cares about!  Malphas' Scarecrows Castlevania: Lords of Shadow PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 I wasn't a big fan of Castlevania: Lords of Shadow at all, but I can admit when a bad game does something cool and Lords of Shadow rocked some damn cool scarecrows. In the game, scarecrows are inanimate until Gabriel Belmont wakes them up by making crows land on their head. Once alive, the monsters ignite and become fast-moving, sickle-wielding, terrifying purveyors of death.  Scarecrows make for quick disposable foes in any mildly spooky game, but Lords of Shadow produced some surprisingly threatening ones. They move swiftly and deal high damage, making them among the tougher enemies in the game. Plus, they look so friggin' awesome, despite the logical issue of having something constructed predominantly of wood spending the majority of its time on fire.  Scarecrows of Scarecrow Fields Medievil PlayStation One Medievil was a great game for its time but it wasn't afraid of annoying the shit out of players. Easily among the most infuriating of opponents were the Scarecrows from Scarecrow Fields. Ridiculously tough, these things were likely considered invincible by any kids playing it, though they do eventually go down with enough hits. Getting those hits in just isn't worth it however, considering how capable they are of annihilating Dan Fortesque's health with their deadly spinning attacks.  Nevertheless, they are awesome scarecrows and have a really kick-ass evil laugh. Few videogame scarecrows manage to be more intimidating than these straw-packed sons of bitches.  Stylin' Scarcrow The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask Nintendo 64  Scarecrows aren't the most fashionable of creatures, what with their tattered shirts, floppy hats, and tendency to drop straw everywhere. When faced with such a lack of taste, there's only one thing a living scarecrow can do -- spend its existence in denial! Stylin' Scarecrow is no more stylish than any other physically deformed sack of farm detritus, yet he's got the attitude of a winner! Sure, he's incredibly creepy, referring to a small boy as "baby" and offering to dance with him all night, but he's doing what he can to live the life of a player despite having a herp-derp face and remaining rooted to a single spot forever.  It doesn't even matter that he dances like Michael J. Fox on ecstasy pills. You just can't fault the guy's spirit! The Scarecrow Batman: Arkham Asylum PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 You knew there was no way that Dr. Jonathan Crane wouldn't make this list. Still hailed as one of the best surprises in videogame history, Batman's hallucinated encounters with The Scarecrow in Arkham Asylum provided some amazingly memorable sequences. Rocksteady Games did a great job of keeping Crane's presence a secret until the game was played, and the nightmare sections, in which Batman had to scale a variety of platform levels while avoiding his gaze, were terrific.  The Scarecrow took the fourth-wall breaking of Metal Gear Solid's Psycho Mantis and absolutely ran with it, doing a remarkable job of screwing with the player's mind. Not to mention, Arkham Asylum simply had one of the best representations of the Scarecrow character in all of Batman-related media. It takes a lot to upstage the Joker, but Crane managed it in Arkham Asylum with his unnerving performance, creepy hallucinations and Freddy Krueger syringe-glove.  Truly, Batman's Scarecrow is the king of all videogame scarecrows.

Weekend Mobile roundup: Super Crossfire HD, Mage Gauntlet Posted: 30 Oct 2011 08:00 AM PDT It's been quite a while since the last Weekend Mobile roundup; time has been short the last couple of months (again!). Normally I play iOS games while watching terrible TV shows like Supernatural or Fringe season 4, the kind of shows that don't benefit from paying actual attention to the screen, but my 20 hour backlog of TV should give you some indication of how much I've gotten around to mobile gaming. Still, a bunch of great games were released and I wanted to highlight some of them that are worth a look. I'd like to dedicate this edition of the roundup to the long loading times in PC games I've played in the past weeks; without them I wouldn't have played half these games. Weekend highlights:  Super Crossfire HD (iPhone & iPad, $2.99 -- universal app) There is a lot to love about Super Crossfire HD. It's a shmup that you control by sliding left and right at the bottom of the screen, but with a twist: tapping the screen makes your craft teleport to the top of the screen and back. It makes for some fast paced and crazy gameplay as you evade bullets on both the top and bottom of the screen, and it quickly becomes quite hard. Every 10 waves there is a checkpoint, thankfully, and an opportunity to upgrade your ship's health points, speed, shots, etc. You'll also collect little dots from the enemies you destroy that power your super shot. This is very useful against enemies that are shielded by shield units you need to destroy first, or enemies that can only be hurt from one side of the screen. Super Crossfire HD looks great with its neon style as well. I played it on an iPad a while back at Eurogamer Expo, and I have to say it plays a lot beter on an iPad than an iPod Touch 4G. No surprise there, but it feels made for the larger screenspace and higher precision of the controls. Whatever you play it on, you have to be willing to die a lot of times. So if hard shmups and fancy graphics with a twist on traditional Space Invaders gameplay is your thing, you can't go wrong with this one.  Mage Gauntlet (iPhone, $2.99) Do you like Secret of Mana and Seiken Densetsu 3? If so, then buy Mage Gauntlet immediately! Made by Rocketcat Games, the people behind Hook Champ and Hook Worlds, this is a throwback to the 16-bit era of hack & slash RPGs. As an unfortunate girl in a world of magic, who can destroy any magical thing just by touching it, you receive the eponymous Mage Gauntlet from the elderly wizard who once sealed away a great evil. You know, story stuff. Running and fighting your way through three "worlds" filled with numerous levels, Mage Gauntlet is pure retro bliss. You'd think a game like this would not work very well on an iThing, or that it would feel forced and misplaced, but nothing could be farther from the truth. The controls are customizable, but the default control scheme that adjusts itself to your left thumb wherever you place it works like a dream. One button is for hacking/slashing, you can hold it down to slash-dash forwards if the energy bar is filled, and another button allows you to simply dash if you have enough energy. In any level you can destroy magical items that give you spells to cast, of which you can store up to four at a time. These are great a clearing groups of enemies or bosses, and sometimes they are a necessity. Being an RPG, you can level up the protagonist and find new gear and hats to increase your strength, make certain spells crit faster or drop more often, or just make you look awesome. Mage Gauntlet is a blast to play, looks great, and has a lot of humor and story to boot.  Whale Trail (iPhone & iPad, $0.99 -- universal app) This is one of those games destined to enter lists filled with the Angry Birds and Jetpack Joyrides of our time. Whale Trail is another tap-and-hold-to-go-up game and this time it's about a whale in the sky. It's a decidedly cute game, but behind its cuteness lays a lot of game. Rather than just going up and down, you can fly through a rather large vertical space in the sky to collect bubbles that keep you alive, and you have the option to make loopings to catch 'em all. Occasional special "items" can be collected to give you a boost, which also lets you fly through normally dangerous storm clouds. Like Jetpack Joyride and Tiny Wings, it's easy to pick up, hard to master fully and always fun to play. The difference between those two and Whale Trail, however, is that Whale Trail's single playsessions can be rather long in comparison. It's pretty easy to survive for quite a while, and while that makes sense to engage a casual mobile audience, the result is that you won't instantly replay it as much. It's only a minor gripe in the shadow of the great titles that have preceded it, though, and for a buck this is probably the best game you can grab at the moment. The larger playspace leads to a different kind of game you're used to by now, and the theme song will most likely get stuck in your head for days to come.  Charles C. Gull (iPhone, free) Pixel art maestro Caleb Hystad's second iOS game is yet another of the Jetpack Joyride kind, but with a more minimalistic indie approach. You are Charles C. Gull, a jerk seagull who just wants to crash through smaller birds in the air and trashcans on the ground. If you get hit by a flying raven or a walking bear you lose a feather (life), which you can regain by hitting other seagulls at the top of the screen. It's a fun and free little game that is worth checking out, although it is really up to you how much fun you can derive from it. If you just stay near the top of the screen, it's all too easy to keep hitting birds, evading ravens, and getting new feathers from gulls because they all tend to fly in the same zones that become easy to learn. Going for the trashcans spices up the gameplay and makes it a lot harder. The thing is, it is so much harder to hit the trashcans at the bottom than it is to hit the birds near the middle that if you are actually going for highscores to improve yourself, you're better off staying near the top. Still, it's an interesting little game that's worth a download -- especially if you are into these pixel art types of games. The music can be deliciously redneck as well, although that might be just my perspective on it.  Tiny Heroes (iPhone, $1.99) If Dungeon Keeper was an iOS game that focused on traps, it would probably be a lot like Tiny Heroes. Stupid heroes are after your gold! It's up to you to wall off approaches in your little 2D maze of a dungeon and lay down traps and defenses to kill them before they reach your gold, or worse: take off with it. I've been playing this game on and off for a long time now and I've yet to finish it, because there are a lot of levels to play through if you play it casually. It can be a little on the hard side, which forces you to manage your income efficiently and only use the traps that will have the largest effect on the heroes' health. Occasional challenge levels you unlock by playing through the campaign are even harder, even if they limit you to a few defenses that turns it into a bit more guided -- and sometimes easier -- approach than the general levels offer. The different hero classes can range from simpleton knights to annoying thieves who will try to disarm your traps, which keeps the game interesting. I found the thieves to be disproportionally annoying compared to the other types of heroes, but that can just be a personal gripe with having enemies mess around with my expensive and carefully laid out traps. There is certainly a lot of content here, and by the time you finish it there are a couple of in-app purchase campaigns for $1 that will keep you occupied for even longer. Mobile news of the week: Someone made Harry post about Ninja Pong. Poor guy! It looks alright, I suppose. Someone also made him post about a new mode Frogger iOS, bwahahahah! High Flyer Death Defier looks amazing but I don't have an iPad to play it, sadly. Jim didn't know about the games Anuman makes and thought XIII would be awesome like an idiot. There's a free TwitchTV app. Great for iPad viewing of fightans streams and getting HYPE. Shantae came to iOS. There's a 50% sale for iOS and Android Namco games. Too bad they all look a bit meh. That's it for this weekend. If you know of a ridiculous or cool new Android or iOS game, hit up Jim Sterling or myself on Twitter. Or post it in the comments! It might take a while before we get around to it in the coming weeks, though!

Review: Stronghold 3 Posted: 30 Oct 2011 07:00 AM PDT 2001's Stronghold was a very good, and very European game. Finally you could build up an entire castle from the ground up, man the walls with your units, and manage the feudal economy to support all of it. It was the kind of game they go nuts over in countries like Germany, but thankfully it became pretty popular all over the world. Other than Stronghold: Crusader the spin-offs and direct sequel were not very well-received, and Firefly's games in general weren't particularly great for the past 8 years or so. Now, ten years after the first game, Firefly is back with Stronghold 3. Stronghold 3 (PC) Developer: Firefly Studios Publisher: SouthPeak Interactive, 7Sixty Released: October 25, 2011 MSRP: $49.99/€49.99 Once again the Stronghold campaign mode is split into a military and an economic (peace) campaign. Although the same economy and resource gathering system is present in both campaigns, the former focuses a bit more on building troops while the latter is a bit more centered around tinkering with the most efficient economy. The Stronghold 3 economy itself should be familiar to fans of Stronghold. Food production buildings deliver food to a granary, other resource buildings deliver resources to a stockpile, and some buildings take resources from the stockpile to process them into things like bread, weapons, and ale. To support the economy you need peasants that appear as long as there is sufficient housing and provided your popularity is a net positive. Your popularity or peasant mood is affected by the tax rate, food rations, provisions of ale for the inn and candles for the church, spare housing, and certain ornamental buildings. These ornamental types of buildings offer a modest increase in popularity at the cost of productivity (gardens), or increase productivity at the cost of popularity (gibbets). If you do everything right, you should be on your way to create the castle of your dreams. That is, in theory. The systems behind Stronghold 3 are of the kind that should keep your playing for hours on end, watching your initially small hamlet turn into a well-oiled castle economy that you can look back on contently. Unfortunately, Stronghold 3 is riddled with so many issues and weird design choices that contentness is the last emotion you will feel while playing it. On the economy side, the balance between food and resource production is vastly skewed towards food production. Peasants eat a ridiculous amount of food, forcing you to be a bit of a douche lord and cutting their rations almost continuously, until you have the vast majority of peasants working in farms; it's almost as if instead of a feudal lord you are actually a Maoist governor. If you don't take care of the high demand of the food cycle quickly, you'll eventually run out of food and reach a very punishing stalemate where you lose population due to the negative effects the lack of food has on your popularity, even though you need more workers to increase your food supply. Managing this would be doable, if you didn't also need workers to gather the wood necessary to construct buildings and housing to support your economy and population growth. To make matters worse, you'll occasionally be struck by random events that can give you a positive or negative boost to popularity. Mostly, these are negative effects like a plague, fire, or wild bear attack. Some of these can be countered if you built the right buildings, to douse a fire or clean puffs of plague mist, but the game will often take a minute or two to realize you took care of it. Meanwhile the negative effect on popularity means you'll keep losing important peasants that you are almost always in short supply of, and these events tend to occur just when you were thinking things were going relatively smoothly for a change. The balancing act between food and the rest of your economy makes it hard to enjoy Stronghold 3, especially because the campaigns will throw requirements in your face that can take multiple tries to even get a grasp of what exactly you're supposed to be doing to fulfill them -- or in what order. After many hours, you'll start to get the hang of how to start and manage the Stronghold 3 economy in any mission, but the game will still troll you with random events to make your life utterly miserable. It's fine to offer a good challenge to the player in a game like this, but it's another thing altogether to make you feel like you have to work around the game to be able to complete a seemingly simple mission. Controls are plagued with another issue where Stronghold 3 makes you wonder if it has received any testing at all. Depending on how far you zoom out, the cursor may require you to move anywhere up to an inch from a unit in order to select its few clickable pixels. This becomes a nightmare when you want to make some units attack incoming enemies, especially if they happen to walk below some trees where it becomes a random click fest. If you don't zoom in and click exactly on that part of the enemy where your cursor turns into a sword, your units will often just walk straight past them as if there is nothing to worry about. The AI doesn't adjust to ongoing fights either; a group of units may kill a carefully clicked enemy, only for the majority to completely ignore a bunch of incoming enemies. When you have precious ranged units, you're better off moving them to a spot far away from the enemy followed by a sliver of hope they will automatically shoot at any enemy that comes within range, rather than trying to make them attack single targets from any camera viewpoint that provides a good overview of the battle. The AI problems -- or the lack of an AI that works -- sometimes make their way to the economy side as well. An apothecary can't be controlled directly so he'll usually clean the wrong building of plague mists, even though you want him to take care of a more important one first. Sometimes he'll just stand there and do nothing as you watch your popularity plummet due to a plague and raise your hands in frustration as your precious peasants leave your lands. In a lot of these city building games, the AI can do some crazy stuff and often veterans of the genre can work around them. But even this is hard to do in Stronghold 3. For instance, oxen can be used to transport iron and stone, but you can't direct them in any way. Stone is created faster than iron and often the oxen will transport the one resource you don't need, unless you build a ton of them so one is always available at the source. Military units offer no feedback on strength or hit points either, so it's up to you to guess and experiment to see which unit is good at what. That is, if you can even select them. Because of the control issues with selecting and directing military units, the military campaign is best ignored altogether until Firefly fixes the controls. Alas, if you just want to kick back and enjoy a stress-free economic campaign you are far too often confronted with harsh mission objectives, time limits, or enemy raider units to get rid of in a timely fashion that take the leisurely enjoyment out of it. It doesn't help either that the game looks rather drab, with some laughable grass and crop textures that look like they came out of a mediocre mobile game. Although the graphics are never the most important part, they are being touted as having great lighting and day and night cycles. These are alright, if unspectacular, but the graphics also obstruct placement of buildings. Groups of trees and buildings have a rectangular shape around them where you can't build, but this is indicated by a very thin black line that can be very hard to spot unless you zoom in far enough. It's another small issue that you'd think is hard to miss during development, especially when there are so many examples from other games of how to do it right -- making the obstruction's borders light up for greater clarity or something similar. Yet another issue lies with the pacing, which is well below an acceptable one even for a city building game like this. The Settlers 7 may have had some stressfully quick pacing near the end of the game with all its objectives, but even the Sunday afternoon pace of the first The Settlers goes at the speed of CERN neutrinos compared to the pacing seen in Stronghold 3. There's no fast-forward option, so for most of the game you'll be impatiently waiting for peasants to work and walk -- slower than it takes for a dinosaur to turn into oil -- and trying to raise your population enough to support the economy required to fulfill the mission objectives, only to fail an arbitrary time limit at the last moment; one that only provides you with the actual time when there is a mere two minutes left on the clock. Fans have not been blind to the myriad of bugs and issues and there is quite a bit of fan backlash after the long wait for the next Stronghold. Firefly has stated it is listening to the fans and trying to fix things as they go, but the issues that plague Stronghold 3 should never have been in a finished product in the first place. Even with an extra year in development, one has to wonder if it would've helped the title to achieve the lofty goal of a return to form after all these years of disappointment. The Stronghold I knew and loved was not about being frustrated with control issues and glacial economic development. It was about creating a smart economy to build an awesome castle the way you wanted, with walls of your own design and archers defending them from the battlements. There wasn't anything outside of Stronghold that gave you that experience at the time -- or at any time afterwards -- and somehow Stronghold 3 has removed the fun and joy of that core experience. What could have breathed new life into the Stronghold franchise has become a rushed, buggy, and ultimately extremely disappointing new entry in the series. It might be a niche franchise, but the Stronghold series still has its fans and they deserve better. The most hardcore of fans can only hope Firefly will fix some of the issues that plague this game, but it's hard to imagine that it will become more than halfway playable even with dozens of patches. Whatever the rationale behind the decision to release Stronghold 3 in its current state may have been, it can't have been a good enough reason for fans to have to deal with the final product. Buried beneath bugs, control issues, harsh mission design and even harsher economic balancing, there seems to be a shadow of the old Stronghold as we remember it; sometimes you'll even have a minute of fun here and there. Perhaps we remember the original through rose-colored glasses, but that memory is infinitely better than the wild disappointment that is Stronghold 3. Even if you do stick with the campaigns (and you need to be the most forgiving of souls for that), the few extra modes, and the multiplayer, there is just nothing here that is actually better than the 10 year old game it was once based on. It makes you wonder why it was even made, which is the one thing no game should ever make you do.

SEGA has 'no plans' to resurrect Classic Sonic for good Posted: 30 Oct 2011 06:00 AM PDT Despite making a huge deal out of "Classic" Sonic's appearance in next Tuesday's Sonic Generations, SEGA has stated there are no plans to bring him back full-time. However, European brand manager David Corless has told fans to never say never.  "Do you know what? There are no plans, to be brutally honest, to bring Classic Sonic back," he said. "The reason for bringing him back for this game was because this is a celebration of 20 years of Sonic. It was a real fitting time to do it. He’s really well loved. Let’s see how Generations does. You can never say never in this industry, but at the moment there are no plans." Fair enough, although admitting he is loved makes the decision to keep him retired a little illogical. It's a shame he won't be back for more, especially given how adorable he is in Sonic Generations, but that's SEGA for you!  Our Sonic Generations review will appear in the small hours of the morning, October 31. SEGA: "Brutally Honest" on Classic Sonic [Spong]

Comments of the week: JIMMYX Posted: 30 Oct 2011 05:00 AM PDT JIMMYX!  Comments of the Week is a feature where we scour the front page, community blogs, forums, social media and Jimmyx picking out comments. The ones that make you think, the ones that make you laugh and the ones that make you cry (but also laugh), and consolidate them into an entertaining package for the viewing pleasure of you, the Destructoid community.  Comments will fall into three categories:  TRUTH: Jimmyx  LOL: Jimmyx  WUT? Jimmyx From life; it sucks  Just to show you that the forums have people that care, too.  From Review: Battlefield 3  Satirical!  From The Daily Hotness: Your mom's an 8 out of 10 (nominated by VGFreak1225)  The "jimmyx is a troll" pop-up book is available at all good book stores.  From Stop bullying bitstrips!  You'll never see these comics inside a newspaper.  Re: Is the dual-stick controller a game design crutch? @ Jamie McGinn  ROLF tru dat bud ... view replies Re: Is the dual-stick controller a game design crutch? SHIt bombs away? ... view replies Re: Review: The Adventures of Tintin THAT is some freakin amazing shit SURE GLAD I have Kinect ... view replies Re: The Daily Hotness: Your mom's an 8 out of 10 I think I can sorta see into the psychology of these sad fangirls refreshing metacritic every 10 seconds. They ARE UNCONSIOSLY very upset that they are not able to enjoy the DEFINITE experience of Gears and have to settle for a lesser coverbased shooter experience instead. THEIR own fault IMO u cant be a tru gamer these days AND not own a 360. Can def do without ps3 or wii but common by 2011 u cannot not have the single console that defined this generation PIECE OUT ... view replies Re: The Daily Hotness: Your mom's an 8 out of 10 @ Mr 3man  WTF??? Gears isnt boring AND BEAST mode is worth the price of admission alone U simple CANNOT compare UnCharted to a game like Gears 3. Gears amazing mp is what separates it from other games and thats why it deserved the high reviews it had. HAD Jim sterling reviewed it for its mp (he even admitted that he was more into sp) it would have got a much higher score NUFF SAYD ... view replies Re: The Daily Hotness: Your mom's an 8 out of 10 DOnt realy see why theyr complaining Judging from the game footage Ive seen ITS EXTREMLY LINEAR BORING game theyr lucky that [Uncharted 3] got 8 [in Eurogamer] ... view replies Re: Does Uncharted turn people psychotic? @ Master Snake  ON another note I cant stand FF13 and Heavy Rain too WHO knew we had such similar taste in games BUD. MIGHT even get that MGS HD collection for 360 when drops in price eventualy ... view replies Re: Does Uncharted turn people psychotic? @ Master Snake  U AGREE???  FIST BUMP BROTHER ... view replies Re: Does Uncharted turn people psychotic? IS it safe to say that most unCharted fans are idiots than? ... view replies Re: Does Uncharted turn people psychotic? @ amtalx  EXACTLY specialy UNcharted Seams like reviewers will give 10 to just about anything these days NUFF SAYD ... view replies Re: Does Uncharted turn people psychotic? pokota: "Also, slightly off-topic, but the gig is up, Sterling. We all know jimmyx is your alter-ego"  Dude ur as kookoo as those $ony fangirls on metacritic if u think Im JimSterling. WHAT do I have to do to prove that Im not Sterling to u dumbasses? Jimbo doesnt even like Gears and I cant stand the stupid Dinasty Warriors games ERGO NOT SAME PPL ...view replies Re: Does Uncharted turn people psychotic? @ Jim Sterling  Jokes on them lol cuz UC series is not even that good compared to some other games (u of all peeps know BEST) but fangirls are still losing sleep over its scores ITS FUCKIN HILARIOS ... view replies Re: Does Uncharted turn people psychotic? JIIIIIIIIMBOOOOOOO HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH ... view replies Re: Activision: Call of Duty is 'explosions everywhere' AS if none of u a$$holes liked the last Michael B film . STOP acting all superior in hear Whatevar they are great summer movies with tons of entertanement value and nothin wrong with games trying to copy that MayB then will actually get more good games these days ... view replies Re: Activision: Call of Duty is 'explosions everywhere' Sexualchocolate  Jus cant admit that gamers younger than u schooled ur ass online haha? that jus sad bud I realy feel for u Maybe u should go play some SLOWER less challenging games (BF 3 fo the win lol) to make urself feel better again ... view replies Re: Talking to Women about Videogames: Going mainstream BUT maybe next time u should intervew some random street babes and not ur friends gf ... view replies Re: Talking to Women about Videogames: Going mainstream THAT shits wack lol U rock Holmes ... view replies Re: Activision: Call of Duty is 'explosions everywhere' @ Lycan "i hope ur 360 red rigs/dots...'  Its a SLIM so jokes on u bud HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA ... view replies Re: Activision: Call of Duty is 'explosions everywhere' BlackOPs story was quite good not as great as MW2s but still good. Overall MW3 is lookin like it might truly have fantastic story best in serios SO VERY EXCITED TO PUT THIS BADDBOY INTO MY 360 ... view replies Re: Review: Battlefield 3  But its the pc version Jim prob did most of his reviewing on 360 version ... view replies Re: Review: Battlefield 3  @ Hystzen  WOW NICE fake profile BRo U even got the pic right ... view replies Re: Review: Battlefield 3  @ Glorbo  MW2 did it FIRST dumbass ... view replies Re: Review: Battlefield 3  JIMBO sayd it straight like it is cuz when u relese a 360 version that was butchered like this one and expect to get high review score then boyo ur gonna get burned. Gamers and critics gona shut u down. CoD games get CONSISTANT HIGH SCORES fo reason Activision treat all platfomrs equaly and their games show amazing production values and quality on all versions HOW IT SHOULD BE ... view replies Re: Review: Battlefield 3  In OTHER news COD 8>>>> BF3 ... view replies Re: Review: Battlefield 3  ROLF I FUCKING LOVE U JIMBO thanks a bunch for this WAITING FOR MUCH BETTER MW3 REVIEW NOW ... view replies Re: Review: Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception @ Jibberwocky  What, are you expecting people to be jumping up and down, pissing themselves with excitement? Judging by my own experience I doubt I look much more than comatose when I'm truly engaged."  Obviosly u never played Gears, Halo Reach or other truly fun games. I FEEL sorry for u bud ... view replies Re: Review: Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception @ Silent Protagonist  EXACTLY  THANK U BROTHER ... view replies Re: Review: Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception SORRY that last one was directed at @ anti-soffic ... view replies Re: Review: Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception @ NICE one bud  BY the way did u evar hear me say "PS3 is poop"? Just sayin I got nothin against the system itself (beside crappy tiny controller) MY BIGGEST PROBLEM (and I sayd this many times befr) IS THAT ITS GAME LIBRARY IS VERY POOR RIGHT NOW nice and all for uncharted fans but whatabout the rest of gamers who arnt into linear movie "games" JUS feeling sorry for u guys DATS ALL PIECE ... view replies Re: Review: Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception @ anti-jimmyx  NO I Just CANNOT OVERLOOK THE FACT THATS ITS NOT A GAME BUT A FUCKING MOVIE disguised as a game and not even a good one at that. SO why besides hype is it getting such undeserved praise? REALY wanted Jimbo to review this HIS SCORE WOULD HAVE BEEN SO MUCH DIFFRENT REMEMBER WITCHER 2 review LOL ... view replies Re: Review: Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception REALY?? BUT seriosly all the points u brought out POINT EXACTLY WHY THE WHOLE SERIOS IS A WORST THING TO HAPPEN TO GAMIN just watch for the next batch of "cinematic" games $ony games division is gona barf out now after all the fangirl reviews of UC3. Im actuly hoping for another PSN hack just so UC3 mp can go down fo like months and cuz sales to bomb. AND  I herd MAG was shit cant believe u just wrote that its worth to buy ps3 for ... view replies Re: Review: Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception @ BomberJacket  Great post dude ... view replies Re: Review: Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception ARE peeps SO stupid that gone go out and buy a new console ONLy so they can only play one game on it? Dayum peeps must be rich to afford such luxury. WHATEVER Ill be picking up Arkam City to add to my 40+ plus game collection on 360. Will take a great multiplat which is still guna be better on 360 like Skyrim or MW3 over a single overated exclusive any day NUFF SAYD HATERS ...view replies Re: Review: Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception AND Please tell me how this Indyana Jones rippoff is better then Gears 3 . Seriosly if Gears3 review was for real then this shouldve been getting a 6. ... view replies Re: Review: Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception JImbo shouldve reviewed this one BUT instead we got THIS review gushing with sappy fangirlism ... view replies Re: HEY GUYS, ROCKSTAR IS MAKING GRAND THEFT AUTO V LA Noire Spring 2011, Max Payne Spring 2012, GTA V Spring 2013  NUFF SAYD ... view replies Re: HEY GUYS, ROCKSTAR IS MAKING GRAND THEFT AUTO V NICE that means that stupid Agent game was scraped for good THERES NO way Rock* can work on both AAA at same time. $ony fangirls guna cry ... view replies Re: Minecraft playable on Xbox 360 at MineCon next month STFU haters 360 is HD consol for a reason Im not dishin out my hardearned cash just for anything specily for something that right now looks like it was made by a 7 year old ... view replies Re: Minecraft playable on Xbox 360 at MineCon next month Final version better not look like utter shit like Mincraft Beta does on computer  Unlike pc "gamers" we 360 players have some standards ... view replies Re: Sony: PSN hack attack woke up customers, made money U people make me sik ... view replies Re: Sony: PSN hack attack woke up customers, made money DAYUM still no edit button MENT TO say JIMBO is guna rip Drake a new one BRIng that THAN metascore way down fo good ...view replies Re: Sony: PSN hack attack woke up customers, made money Cant wait to read Jimbo's review of UNcharted 3 hes guna rip it a new one LITERALY ... view replies Re: Sony: PSN hack attack woke up customers, made money LOVING the headline Jimbo $ony exclusives must have put em to sleep eh LOL ... view replies Re: Halo: CE Anniversary reminds me of the good old days Sir Tobbii  CoD took Halo accessible but still insanely competitive and addictive stile and copied it to realistic war shooters BEFORE u just had lameass boring shit like CounterStrike and Unreal Tournament on computer but Halo and then CoD MW afterit really made consols the kings of competitive FPS not jus fo pc "pros" humping their keyboards ... view replies Re: Halo: CE Anniversary reminds me of the good old days NOT GONNA BITE hate IF u played it wouldnt be asking such questions LETS just say u wouldnt have great console FPS like CoD MW if not for Halo ... view replies Re: Halo: CE Anniversary reminds me of the good old days AND that Remstein dude shold be banned from XBOXlive forever like SErIOSLy  LETS DTFO this hater ... view replies Re: Halo: CE Anniversary reminds me of the good old days KNOW what funny guys?  THIS 10yrold will about 10X funner then Uncharted 3 or any other pretensious "blokbuster" coming out from $ony this year SO cheers for Halo still one of the most innovative, amazingly fun games today DAY ONE HERE ... view replies Re: Comments of the week: Gnilretsmij @ Sir Tobii  YA heard me whats ur a$$ on backwards? Like fucking Mikey Moore peeps jus LOVE to take shit OUT of contest ... view replies Re: Comments of the week: Gnilretsmij Lameshit basterds will keep taking it at wrong face value SO STFU ... view replies Re: Review: Kirby's Return to Dream Land HOTDAMN JIMBO LIKE A HUGE SLAPPON ... view replies Re: BlizzCon11: Diablo III headed to consoles, no public beta WTF?? happened to that dudes pants ... view replies Re: BlizzCon11: Diablo III headed to consoles, no public beta AND torchlight played amazing with 360 controler and this game shoud play basically the same ... view replies Re: BlizzCon11: Diablo III headed to consoles, no public beta GOOD this game will look amazing on 360 still not interested but love to see pc "gamers" squirm ... view replies Re: Yup, Saints Row: The Third has a 'Whored Mode' @ pedo  Ur grandma too ... view replies Re: The Modern Warfare 3 launch trailer is here YEA got a humongus boner right now ... view replies Re: Review: Dragon Age II: Mark of the Assassin Crappy D&D is crappy NUFF SAYD ... view replies Re: Diablo III's Black Soulstone cinematic is pure eye candy Torchlight 2 on xbla is gonna be so much funner But graphic whores will be whores ... view replies Re: Review: PAYDAY: The Heist WHAT a shamless RIPOFF DISGUSTINg ... view replies Re: Analyst says PS4 first, Xbox 720 not likely in 2013 ITS THE GAMES THAT COUNT SO PS4 is prob gona have as bad start as ps3 and even that still has very limited selection for those not into japanese games ... view replies Re: Uncharted 3 multiplayer Plays, Creates and Shares  ALSO i wasnt comparing Uncharted uberunderwhelming mp in anyway to the beast mode BUT maybe next time mayb u should stop to read the content of the comment bfr postin somethin halfbaked or jus get ur ass out of ur ears NUFF SAYD ... view replies Re: Uncharted 3 multiplayer Plays, Creates and Shares  @ Epic-Kk  WTF u dont like uncharted series OR gears?? U must be one of those weirdos whor into those f@ckedup japanese porno games cause they make u feel strong like a big asian girly man ... view replies Re: Insomniac responds to 4/10 All 4 One review with dignity JIMBOS NOT AFRAID TO GIVE TO $ONY FANBOYS I RESPEKT THAT ... view replies Re: Modern Warfare 3 trailer reveals the 'Strike Package' FREAKING AMAZING ... view replies Re: Uncharted 3 multiplayer Plays, Creates and Shares  THATS TO COMPANSATE FOR LACK OF ACTUAL GAMEPLAY I ASSUME ... view replies Re: Bioshock's Ken Levine digs into some creative influences @ RoBoSexual  Too bad cause it was amazing SO he better not mess this new game up I GOT IT PREORDERED ... view replies Re: Bioshock's Ken Levine digs into some creative influences Bioshock 2 was my favorite game back in the day SO Here expecting big things for Bioshock 3 ... view replies Re: Cliffy B wants Avatar movie quality graphics for games He actualy looks pretty cool in this pic ... view replies Re: Battlefield 3 is 'standard def' on 360 without install ONE FINAL QUESTION  WHY THE HELL ARE THEY RELEASING SD version FOR THE SYSTEM THAT WOULDVE GENERATED THE MOST SALES (did u people check the nmbrs for BadComp sales on 360 not bad for a nonexclusive title) but SERIOSLY THIS NEWS BLOWS DONKEY BALLS ... view replies Re: These Harrison Ford Uncharted commercials are fantastic AFTER THAT DISGUSTING BF3 NEWS I THINK I NEED TO SERIOSLY TAKE A BREAK FROM THIS FORUM ALL THE RECENT ANTI360 BY DEVELOPERS AND GAMERS ALIKE HATE IS GETTING ON MY NERVES AND EFFECTING QUALITY OF COMMENTS ... view replies Re: These Harrison Ford Uncharted commercials are fantastic spending $300 on ps3 would be the biggest waste of money at this point in time SPECIALY with all the games coming out for 360 this holiday season and in 2012. $ony exclusives are kinda overated bud AND U KNOW IT ... view replies Re: These Harrison Ford Uncharted commercials are fantastic AND ALSO MEANT TO SAY "BEST CONSOLE CONTROLLER EVER MADE" NEED TO STOP POSTING THESE FROM MY PHONE ITS RIDICULUOS ... view replies Re: These Harrison Ford Uncharted commercials are fantastic "FUCKING HATE PS3 CONTROLLER" BEFOR U FANGIRLS JUMP ALL OVER THAT MISTAKE ... view replies Re: These Harrison Ford Uncharted commercials are fantastic WTF! I meant to say ps3 controller $ony fanboys GETTING ON MY HEAD TO MUCH ... view replies Re: These Harrison Ford Uncharted commercials are fantastic @ jasondm300  FIRST OF ALL I fucking hate 360 controll its made for tiny asian hands and is absolutly horrible for any game requiring speed and cordination  SO maybe if I could somehow play Uncharted using 360 controller (best console ever made imo) THEN and only THEN would I even consider giving it a try. ... view replies Re: Battlefield 3 is 'standard def' on 360 without install @ LegendPenguin  WHEN SOMETHING AS HUGE AS SKYRIM WILL RUN OFF ONE DISK ON 360 WITHOUT NO NEED FOR INSTALL THAN ITS OBVIOUS THAT EA AND DICE JUS DIDNT TRY HARD ENOUGH AND SHAFTED 360 GAMERS ... view replies Re: Battlefield 3 is 'standard def' on 360 without install JUST CONFIRMED THAT MW3 IS GETTING MY MONEY THIS HOLIDAY SEASON  ITS SAD WHEN DEVELOPERS DONT TRY TO WORK AROUND PROBLEMS AND STILL USE THE FULL POWER OF THE SYSTEM ... view replies Re: Battlefield 3 is 'standard def' on 360 without install WHY DONT THE DICE DOUCHEBAGS RELEASE IT ON MULTIPLE DISKS?  WELL U JUST COST URSELF A CUSTOMER EA ... view replies Re: These Harrison Ford Uncharted commercials are fantastic NOW i know harrison ford has a horrible taste in games or $ony just paid him alot lol ... view replies Re: Yup, Saints Row: The Third has a 'Whored Mode' SERIOSLY u should write to gradma about ... view replies Re: Latest Xbox 360 holiday bundles detailed U cant even compare Halo Reach to something like Killzone Same goes for Gears and Uncharted Its like comparing oldschool Nintendo games and crap like that E.T the extraterrecial game ... view replies Re: Latest Xbox 360 holiday bundles detailed NO matter how $ony fanboys come out to defend facts are still facts THAT PSN sux donkey balls compared to Live Also I know some peeps who sold their ps3 because it was taking them hours to download demos. There is like almost noone who owns ps3 at my school now. BROKEN CONSOLE IS BROKEN while almost every household in US has 360 THAT Says something about the system NUFF SAYD FANGIRLS ... view replies Re: Latest Xbox 360 holiday bundles detailed U get what u pay for BUD last time I heard PSN online was... kinda bad ... view replies Re: Latest Xbox 360 holiday bundles detailed LETS see $ony try to match those 3 months of Live HELL YA ... view replies Re: Uncharted 3 will be getting a season pass for $25 WELL EPIC DIDNT WHORE MARCUS OFF TO SUBWAY LOL THATS LIKE THE LOWEST U CAN GO no wait let me guess McD's is prob next stop for Uncharted $ony is getting realy despirate at this point specialy with rumors of xbox720 ... view replies Re: Uncharted 3 will be getting a season pass for $25 MILK IT!!!! MILK IT NOW!!!!!! ... view replies Re: Christina Hendricks, Sean Faris star in NFS: The Run HELLLLOO the preview thumnail pic doesnt do this article justice ... view replies Re: You're gonna get tazed in Payday: The Heist This game belongs on XBLA developers are a bunch of dumbass but what can u do THERE LOSS ... view replies Re: Broken Sword 4 hits GOG, first 3 games on sale WTF??? Is it one of those Japanes porno games? ... view replies Re: Review: Dead Rising 2: Off the Record THIS looks so much funner then Yakuza of The End might just pick it up once Im done with Arkam City and Skyrim ... view replies Re: Watch Marcus chainsaw LEGO locust in 'Bricks of War' LIKE MASTURBATION i mean stupid edit button my fingers too big for my phone LOL ... view replies Re: Watch Marcus chainsaw LEGO locust in 'Bricks of War' @JohnGrisham  GTFU hater just becuse u got no skillz and/or no friends to join clan. Jus shows how sad u are that u need to go and spit ur hate for video thats obviosly tribute to one of the best loved games of this generation. Go back to playin ur offline crappy ps3 sp Thats like maturbation u know Playing by urself when got no friedns online NUFF SAYD ... view replies Re: What time is it? PS3 FIRMWARE UPDATE 3.73 TIME! HAHAHAHAHAAH LOVE JIMBOs $ony articles HEs obviosly havin a laugh at all the fangirls ... view replies Re: Xbox 360 countdown timer site: Not as cool as we thought Korea? WTF??? ... view replies Re: Halo Waypoint getting a huge update for Halo Anniversary ALSO $ony fangirls (lookin at u Epic) hatin on one of the best game series EVER is freaking COMEDY KEEP IT COMING BUD ...view replies Re: Naughty Dog uses bullsh*t to defend Uncharted 3 PSN pass WTF Crazy Bacon is DNA617 REBORN ... view replies Re: Naughty Dog uses bullsh*t to defend Uncharted 3 PSN pass $ony Uncharted and bullshit all go together LOL ... view replies Re: Halo Waypoint getting a huge update for Halo Anniversary @ Crazy Bacon  360 doesnt lack exclusives u fangirl THERE is a thing called XBLA, something psn aspires to be right? AND unlike what passes for exclusives on ps3, 360 exclusives like Gear and Halo offer hundreds of hours of gameplay not just to finish a 5 hour campaign and be forgotten. SO thats why ps3 needs so many exclusives cause with its weak online gamers would have nothin to play in a week SAD FACT ... view replies Re: GUNNAR winners and new Modern Warfare 3 contest soon! NO THANKS LOL THATS FOR FUKIN PUSSIES  WOULD LOOK LIKE A RETARD GAMING IN THOSE ... view replies Re: Tips from the pros on how to make funny videogame films Nijits u dumbass THATS NOT a redhead thats a man LOOK REAL CLOSELY ... view replies Oh jimmyx, you are the Scrappy Doo of Destructoid. Don't ever change! "Sir Jon Bloodspray. That is all." -Aurain (AKA The Bear King)    Good times, good times. See you all next week NUFF SAYD PIECE.

Postal 3 heading to Steam on December 10 Posted: 30 Oct 2011 04:00 AM PDT Running With Scissors' long-awaited murder-em-up Postal 3 has finally been given a real release date after all these years. You'll be able to chew people up with badger-based weaponry on December 10.  Set in the town of Catharsis, Postal Dude will be up to his old antisocial shenanigans as he deals with a "satirically broken US economy." He'll be joined by "celebrity" guests including Ron Jeremy, Jennifer Walcott and Uwe Boll.  So far, the game only has a PC date, although the studio says it still aims to get an Xbox 360/PS3 version out of the gate.

Marvelous made mad bank off of boobies and Vanillaware Posted: 30 Oct 2011 03:00 AM PDT Behold the combined might of mammaries and rich, creamy vanilla! Japanese media powerhouse Marvelous AQL was expecting a net loss of 185 million yen (over $2.4 million) for the first six months of its fiscal year. However, it looks like the company actually experienced a net gain of 192 million yen (over $2.5 million). The $5 million difference is thanks primarily to strong sales booby ninja schoolgirl game Senran Kagura on 3DS and hand-drawn Vanillaware RPG Grand Knights History on PSP. As a result, Marvelous has revised its full-year forecast -- instead of a net income of 180 million yen (over $2.3 million), it expects a whopping 3.14 billion yen (over $41.4 million)! I love it when promising-looking games are rewarded with strong sales, don't you? It's the kind of performance that leads to localization announcements, wouldn't you say? We already know that Grand Knights History will arrive this winter on our shores, so I just hope this news is the push Senran Kagura needs to make the trek across the Pacific. Marvelous Raises Earnings Expectations Due to Senran Kagura and Vanillaware [Andriasang]

Tetris crackers: Taste Mother Russia in your mouth! Posted: 30 Oct 2011 01:00 AM PDT If you ever sit and wonder how a simple pick-up-and-play time-waster like Angry Birds could spawn such a large merchandizing machine, take comfort in knowing that it is hardly the first such case. Nope, not by a long shot! Once Tetris blew up in the States, Nintendo of America granted permission for the production of Tetris Snack Crackers. Tetris. Snack. Crackers. I remember Nintendo Cereal and Sonic the Hedgehog Pasta, but I don't recall ever seeing this particular food item on grocery shelves. If I had, I would have shoveled handfuls of shapes in my mouth and pretended I was lining up pieces in my stomach; every time I had to take a sh*t, it would have meant I just cleared a row. The box scans in the gallery come from one Chris Bieniek, who has a butt-load of old videogame paraphernalia stashed away in his closet. The Tetris Snack Crackers box might just be his most bizarre item, but you still ought to check out the rest of his collection of brochures and promo materials on his website. Wild stuff, man! Article 31—TETRIS SNACK CRACKERS BOX (1990) [Video-Game Ephemera]

Fewer dinosaurs in Europe - Jurassic Park delayed Posted: 29 Oct 2011 10:00 PM PDT Europe is not famous for its large, ferocious fauna. Indeed, here in the UK, the worst creatures we have to deal with are gangs of youths loitering. Our dreams of living vicariously through videogames and fighting off some of the most ferocious animals to walk this planet, dinosaurs, have been dashed against the rocks. Telltale's latest adventure game, Jurassic Park: The Game, has been pushed back to 2012 for European Xbox 360 owners. The dino-romp is still planned to launch on PC and PSN on November 15, but Telltale's lack of publishing presence in Europe has left them searching for a publishing partner for the Xbox 360 version. However, Telltale has revealed that it will be making an announcement about that soon. The game is available for preorder and there will be a special edition version for PC and Mac containing a map, the soundtrack and a variety of Jurassic Park paraphernalia. Jurassic Park Euro release delayed until 2012 [Eurogamer]

Trailer: Thomas Was Alone soon to be a full game Posted: 29 Oct 2011 07:00 PM PDT Last year, game designer Mike Bithell crafted a flash puzzle prototype -- Thomas Was Alone -- in 24 hours. It was a game that emphasized friendship and teamwork as you moved Thomas and his chums to specific areas by working together. For example, a small block could ride on an oblong block as it floats through water. It was fairly minimalist, with the characters represented by differently shaped blocks, but managed to strike a chord with Conrad, who checked it out. A year on, Mike has been working to turn this into a full game. It's coming out in April next year as a downloadable title for PC and Mac. The trailer has me intrigued, despite the simple appearance of the levels and the music is certain to add ambiance. Keep an eye out for this one, folks.

Pre-purchasing Trine 2 gets you early PC beta access Posted: 29 Oct 2011 04:30 PM PDT I have a good feeling about Trine 2. It's been on my radar ever since the initial screenshots went public, largely thanks to the remarkable use of color. Many of the images could even make for decent desktop wallpapers. On Steam, the game's pre-purchase switch has been flipped. Paying early results in access to the two-level PC multiplayer beta, and it's also worth mentioning that Trine 2 is a Steam Play title, meaning your $14.99 gets you the game on Mac and PC. Love it. Additional pre-order opportunities, including those for a European retail edition, are expected to open soon. December is sounding like the big month, although Frozenbyte ideally wants to put out all versions -- Windows, Mac, Xbox Live Arcade, and PlayStation Network -- simultaneously. That could be tricky. [Thanks, Paul]

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