New Games |
- Second chance: One-week PSN sale on Odin Sphere
- Steam Greenlight now supports software and 'concepts'
- Rift Extra Life marathon event to feature corgis
- Razer is giving away a custom Star Wars-themed Blade
- The DTOID Show: Skyrim DLC, Far Cry Minecraft, & CoDBlops
- PC-only survival horror title Outlast shows promise
- Serious Sam 3: Jewel of the Nile DLC and franchise sale
- New League of Legends Halloween event detailed
- ESA Foundation awards $90,000 in scholarships
- Star Citizen clarifies its payment model, required specs
- Live show: Hanging out with Niero
- Review: New Little King's Story
- Burnout and possibly Road Rash are in Criterion's future
- Dead Space 3 trailer shows of Limited Edition goodies
- Forza Horizon Rally Expansion slated for December
- Nintendo: Pikmin 3 is scheduled for a spring 2013 release
| Second chance: One-week PSN sale on Odin Sphere Posted: 17 Oct 2012 04:00 PM PDT Vanillaware's Odin Sphere is priced to sell right now on PlayStation Network. You can pick up a digital copy of the PlayStation 2 action-RPG for five bucks this week. Half price sounds pretty good, but more than that, the sale serves as a good reminder that this game exists. Plenty of us didn't play the first time around, so here's another opportunity for North American gamers. You hear that, Dust fans? Although it's been a few years, time has been kind to Odin Sphere -- that art style still holds up well, especially for a last-gen release. Then again, this is Vanillaware we're talking about here. Of course it does! |
| Steam Greenlight now supports software and 'concepts' Posted: 17 Oct 2012 03:00 PM PDT Valve allowing non-game software to be sold through Steam seemed like the next logical step for the platform, but the company has gone one step further. Now, developers can post this kind of software on Steam Greenlight for the community to leave feedback on. Additionally, "concepts" can be posted to Greenlight free of charge to allow developers to showcase their work earlier and see what users have to say, however, voting for these items won't result in them getting distributed on Steam. Even still, there's value to be gained through this process and not having to pay the $100 fee on concept submissions sounds like a good balance. Today's update also did the following:
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| Rift Extra Life marathon event to feature corgis Posted: 17 Oct 2012 02:30 PM PDT I don't know a lot about Rift, but I do know a lot about corgis. The world's most perfect animal will be making an appearance in one of the scheduled events for the Rift Extra Life marathon for the Children's Hospital Network. Rift Junkies says that this event will close something called a "Corgi Rift," and will have players giving treats to "royal Corgis." And if this didn't sound amazing enough to corgi fans, the achievement for doing this gives the suffix "of House Fluffington." Trion even made a reference to a popular corgi meme, "Suddenly Corgis." Amazing. The Extra Life Marathon starts on October 20th at 8pm. Details on how players can access these Extra Life events will come soon.
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| Razer is giving away a custom Star Wars-themed Blade Posted: 17 Oct 2012 02:00 PM PDT The Razer Blade is one of those products that I'll likely never own, but damn if it isn't fun to daydream about. This custom-made Star Wars: The Old Republic Blade doesn't exactly help the tech envy. One lucky person will win this system through Razer's sweepstakes. In addition to the the paint job and emblem, of special note is the keyboard's yellow backlighting. Shame there's only one of these Blades in existence. Contest runners-up will take home The Old Republic keyboards, mice, mouse pads, and headsets, so sign up if you're eligible to enter. |
| The DTOID Show: Skyrim DLC, Far Cry Minecraft, & CoDBlops Posted: 17 Oct 2012 01:30 PM PDT
Hey gang! We're back again with the news about the bleep-bloops and the CoDBlops. Today, there's whisperings of new Skyrim DLC, codenamed: "Dragonborn," possibly involving us actually riding the dragons this time. The Wii U doesn't have any latency problems, or so claim people who make games for it. Call of Duty: Black Ops II is the most pre-ordered game ever, but everyone hates it, but who cares, it has robot bugs in it. Finally, they're putting Far Cry 3 in Minecraft. |
| PC-only survival horror title Outlast shows promise Posted: 17 Oct 2012 01:00 PM PDT Even before watching this trailer for Outlast, I was happy on the basis that more independent designers are trying their hand at survival horror. This is currently in development at Montreal-based Red Barrels, a studio made up of people who worked on the Prince of Persia, Assassin's Creed, and Splinter Cell franchises. The video itself doesn't unveil too much yet, though the prospect of wielding a camera instead of a gun has me optimistic. Outlast takes place inside of Mount Massive Asylum, which, yeah -- if this game is legitimately scary, that's going to be embarrassing for us. Another trailer is planned for Halloween, while the full game is due out digitally on PC in 2013. If you're looking for new stuff to play and aren't afraid of digging a little deeper to find less mainstream titles, now is a particularly good time to own a PC, especially for this genre. Let's hope Outlast can join the ranks of recent horror hits. |
| Serious Sam 3: Jewel of the Nile DLC and franchise sale Posted: 17 Oct 2012 12:30 PM PDT If you were salivating at the chance to play more Serious Sam 3, then your wait is over. The Jewel of the Nile DLC is now out for Croteam's old-school FPS, consisting of three new levels as the titular hero travels to the foreboding Temple of Isis! That's not all, folks: the main game will be updated with seven Versus maps and three new Survival Maps. The Serious Sam franchise is reduced by up to 75% in a midweek sale on Steam. Jewel of the Nile is yours for $8.99 or £6.74. |
| New League of Legends Halloween event detailed Posted: 17 Oct 2012 12:00 PM PDT Riot Games has been very well known for celebrating holiday events in League of Legends with a great deal of flair. This Halloween seems to be no different with the announcement of The Shadow Isles, a newly revealed area of the world of Runeterra. It's not just that, either -- this update brings a few more scary festivities with it. A new champion will also release with this update, dubbed "Elise, the Spider Queen." She will be directly related to the Shadow Isles, fighting under their banner. Not much else is known about her yet beyond this small bit of backstory and a few quotes of hers. Also representing the isles are existing champions Karthus, Mordekaiser, Hecarim, Yorick, and Evelyn. It's interesting to finally see some of the characters who had never really been appropriated to any of the existing nations -- such as Mordeekaiser, who appeared out of a dark alley randomly one day -- finally get a bit more to their origin. In addition to this, Elise, Hecarim, Maokai, and Twisted Fate will be receiving some haunting dreads with a Halloween-themed skin each. For the first time, there will also be new skins for the vision-granting items known as wards. Details about these "ward skins" will be revealed at a later date, as well as details on new Halloween-themed summoner profile icons. As far as the Shadow Isles themselves, it's currently unknown what role outside of lore they will provide. It's possible that there might be a new map, although reps from Riot Games have previously stated that they were not going to be focusing on new maps anytime soon. It's likely this could be the new Halloween-centric skin for the Summoner's Rift map. In any case, you can check out the promo site for The Shadow Isles here. |
| ESA Foundation awards $90,000 in scholarships Posted: 17 Oct 2012 11:30 AM PDT 30 lucky students were awarded $3,000 each for the 2012-2013 academic year by the Entertainment Software Association Foundation to help them become amazing innovators in the entertainment software industry. The winning students are studying in a large number of fields including computer science, animation, programming, graphic design, digital entertainment, and software engineering in schools all over the United States. To paraphrase the president and CEO of the ESA, Michael D. Gallagher, these students are the next generation of creative geniuses that are going to blow our minds with crazy and awesome new tech and continue to imagine cool new toys. Congratulations to the winners, and good luck to all of you who are working toward making life better and more fun for all of us. I can't wait to see what you'll create. |
| Star Citizen clarifies its payment model, required specs Posted: 17 Oct 2012 11:00 AM PDT Despite the fact that Chris Robert's space sim Star Citizen is potentially two years from release, he's not been shy with the nitty gritty details of the game. Contained in new FAQ update, Chris has given us an idea of what kind of PC we'll need to play Star Citizen, modding policies, and the thorny issue of microtransactions. It's all good news, though; despite the fact that Star Citizen will feature in-game purchases, the game will "NEVER sell anything that can’t be acquired through honest (and fun!) gameplay." Mods will also be supported on private servers with the hope "to institute a 'mod approval' process that will allow the best of the best player created ships and other additions to be integrated into the central persistent world as well." When developers started using Kickstarter as a way to revive PC genres from the '90s, I thought "hope someone brings back the space sim genre, games like Freelancer or Freespace." Chris Roberts is doing just that, and he's 50% of the way there. Star Citizen system requirements, modding and potential microtransactions detailed [PC Gamer] Here's the minimum and recommended specs for Star Citizen (bear in mind, this game is not due to be released for another two years): Minimum:
Recommended:
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| Live show: Hanging out with Niero Posted: 17 Oct 2012 10:37 AM PDT [Mash Tactics airs Monday through Friday at 4p.m. Pacific on Dtoid.TV. Watch King Foom play a variety of games, each day with its own theme. With a heavy focus on community and viewer interaction, you can be as much a part of the show as anything else.] We have a special treat in store for our live viewers this evening on Mash Tactics. Come join in the conversation as we sit down with the one and only, Yanier "Niero" Gonzalez. You know, he's that one guy, that started this one place called Destructoid, no big whoop. We'll be chatting for a bit about a live page here at Destructoid, as well as whatever else comes to mind. He's a busy man, and won't be staying long, so don't miss your chance to catch him while you can, and ask a question or two, only at Dtoid.TV! QotD: What features would you like to see implemented into the Dtoid live page? |
| Review: New Little King's Story Posted: 17 Oct 2012 10:00 AM PDT As the iconic Mel Brooks once said: "It's good to be the king!" Well, sorta. You might get all the power, all the gold, and all the women, but you have to deal with, you know, problems and stuff too. If I had a motto for New Little King's Story, it would be, "It's mostly good to be the king...mostly."
New Little King's Story (PlayStation Vita) For the uninitiated, Little King's Story is kind of like Pikmin mixed with Harvest Moon. You have a home base, you have chores to do, and you have farmers, but you also have an army, and places to conquer, enemies to defeat -- you know, typical king stuff. Forced out of your lavish castle by a mysterious surprise attack, you, the almighty king, are exiled to a particularly dull, less than idyllic land, to plot your revenge and homecoming. Armed with your swarthy crew of advisers (who are basically catalysts for tutorials), it's your job to whip your serfs into shape, and force them into various careers such as farmers, builders, soldiers, hunters, and so on. Right off the bat you'll notice that the story is different from the decidedly more zany Wii original (where you happen upon a mind-control crown). While the new story isn't really that different once you get knee deep into the game's mechanics, it feels a bit uninspired, and that starts to bleed into the rest of the game. To actually control your citizens, you "recruit them" by pressing circle, then press square to send them in a straight line towards whatever enemy or obstacle may be in their way. You can press triangle to sort them by job, so you can bark orders at multiple classes at once. For instance, you might have five soldiers and five farmers in your core crew, and within few seconds of each other, you could send out your soldiers to fend off some pestersome foes, and the farmers to grab the goodies that they're guarding. Touch-screen controls are fairly minimal, to the point where I nearly never use them -- except for the odd design choice which forces their use on some menus, and not others. It's all fairly simple to use and really easy to grasp, as you're basically using the same method of play from the first hour until the very last. Most of the problems I have with the game don't stem from the controls -- it's how the content is delivered to you. To be blunt, the pace can best be described as "drip fed" for a decent portion of the experience. While the game does open up after the first few hours, many of you will probably want to call it quits by then -- to those people, I say "march on!"
Because when the game opens up, it doesn't mess around. You're going to have a ton of fun trotting around, exploring new areas, fighting demon cows, cooking up evil vegetables with your cook class, and plotting and scheming new bridges and building plots. Every hour or so, the game presents you with either a new concept or idea, all the while counting on you to retain prior knowledge of the previous mechanics. If you're looking for a lengthy experience, you're probably going to get your money's worth here, as the game is fairly long (at least thirty hours, usually more), and lends itself well to replay value. There is a small amount of online capability with the ability to go online and mess around with alchemy/items, but I could almost never get it working, and the squeeze isn't worth the small amount of juice you'll get from it. Also, DLC is planned for the future; thankfully, since the full Wii game is still included here, I won't cry foul on that one.
As you'll probably notice, the new art style can be hit or miss. It looks fairly sexy on the Vita's OLED, but it's much less inspired (and colorful) than the original look on the Wii. While the new art isn't offensive, the major problem I have visually is the constant drop in framerate. When you start ordering around a massive amount of peons, it gets to be a bit too much for the game, causing the performance to dip. You'll also notice a number of visual bugs that rear their ugly head every now and then. None of these technical issues were a problem on the Wii version. It's a bit of a shame, because underneath this new, dusty, slightly buggy veneer is a fairly solid game. I had a ton of fun ordering around my faithful servants, even if I felt a bit disconnected from them on a personal level. Simply put, roaming around the countryside with a swarthy crew is something that isn't heavily emulated in a lot of games. For many of you, this may be your chance to check out the franchise since you missed it on the Wii -- and if the genre interests you, I would suggest doing so. While those of you who played it before are probably better off not double dipping, everyone else who's a fan of lighthearted simulations will most likely want to give this a shot. |
| Burnout and possibly Road Rash are in Criterion's future Posted: 17 Oct 2012 09:45 AM PDT Speaking to The Guardian, Need for Speed Most Wanted creative director Craig Sullivan divulged what many of us were hoping: "There's still a lot of stuff we want to do with driving. We will make another Burnout game at some point," he says of Criterion. "Obviously, as we're working on NFS we're thinking of really good ideas that aren't right for this series; there are ideas that we're going to explore with Burnout. And we wouldn't be making NFS or Burnout games if we didn't think the driving genre had a long shelf life and that we could push the boundaries." But it wouldn't be a discussion about Criterion's future without the mention of a certain motorcycle game. "When we did Burnout Paradise we did some motorbike DLC and now everyone thinks that we're going to do Road Rash at some point," explained Sullivan. "I had a lot of fun playing that game, we think bikes are fun. We might make a Road Rash game…. But then we might make a game without vehicles in it. I mean, we made Black, I was the lead designer -- we might make a game about blowing the crap out of each other!" Sullivan then continued: "but Road Rash seems like a good fit for Criterion..." Oh, you. There's also an explanation -- a long one, at that -- for why there isn't traditional vehicle progression in Most Wanted. Worth reading, if you aren't feeling the open-access approach Criterion is taking. Criterion, Most Wanted and the art of racing game design [The Guardian] |
| Dead Space 3 trailer shows of Limited Edition goodies Posted: 17 Oct 2012 09:30 AM PDT Here's a new (rather short) video for Dead Space 3, showcasing the extra toys that buyers of the Limited Edition shall obtain. The Limited version comes with two in-game content bundles -- "Witness the Truth" and "First Contact." Each comes with a unique suit for Isaac, as well as the Evangelizer weapon and Negotiator weapon respectively. Check 'em out in the video above. They are some things! |
| Forza Horizon Rally Expansion slated for December Posted: 17 Oct 2012 09:00 AM PDT Upon seeing the price of Forza Horizon's season pass, you had to know that a bunch of post-release content was planned. One of the more appealing packs -- as someone who has not yet played the game, but likes going off-road -- is the Rally expansion. The Forza Horizon Rally Expansion Pack isn't inexpensive at 1600 Microsoft Points, but the promise of driving rally cars in Colorado is an enticing one. New cars, events, Achievements, and co-driver calls are all that's been teased so far. We'll hear more leading up to the December 18 release date. If you are looking to get the season pass, know that this rally content will be included. |
| Nintendo: Pikmin 3 is scheduled for a spring 2013 release Posted: 17 Oct 2012 08:45 AM PDT The new Iwata Asks column covers the Wii U GamePad in great detail from the perspective of the people who worked on it, but that isn't all that's mentioned. Showing that we ought to read all of those notes, one of them (via NeoGAF) mentions Pikmin 3 is set for "the spring of 2013." A bit disheartening, especially since Pikmin 3 was previously listed as having a launch-window release. To be fair, they did say the period would extend through March, so that wasn't technically inaccurate. Still, I think many of us were hoping for something sooner. |
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