New Games

The Arbiter is coming to Killer Instinct
Samsung's new phone has video games in mind
Things that are less expensive than the HTC Vive
Popping Cherries: The Legend of Zelda
Fighting games, big heads, and Killer Instinct with Iron Galaxy's Alex Jebailey
The HTC Vive will cost a cool $799
Team Blue/Green won the international Pokemon Splatfest
Namco originally pitched Pokken as a Taiko: Drum Master game
Podtoid 324: Celebrity Surprise

The Arbiter is coming to Killer Instinct

Posted: 21 Feb 2016 10:30 AM PST

Today, at the Halo Regional World Championships, Microsoft, 343, and Iron Galaxy announced that Halo's beloved Arbiter will be arriving as downloadable content, in the vein of Rash from Battletoads. Unfortunately, from what I can hear, Keith David's delightful voice is nowhere to be found. Maybe he's off doing another Rick and Morty guest voice?

2013's Killer Instinct reboot is one of the great launch games -- admittedly a low bar, but the fact remains true nonetheless. It's a solid fighting game, one that defied expectations set by both its predecessors and developer Double Helix. (Its last two games were the Battleship and Green Lantern movie tie-ins.) Although port house Iron Galaxy has long since taken over development duties, the game seems to be doing fine well into its third year.

I'm also way down with the idea of guest characters in fighting games. It's the best part of Smash Bros.; Ryu vs. Pac-Man vs. Mario vs. Bayonetta? That's great. Although I'm not in love with Battletoads, this is a mindset I can get behind. General RAAM would be a great fit in Killer Instinct, for example. Throw a Fudgehog in there and you've got one hell of a guest roster.

The Arbiter is coming to Killer Instinct screenshot

Samsung's new phone has video games in mind

Posted: 21 Feb 2016 09:00 AM PST

Today, Samsung revealed the Galaxy S7 at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. Although the phone brings back multiple features missing from the S6, including water resistance, it contains multiple game-centric features that move the S7 closer to a PC.

The most prominent one is a liquid-cooling system, albeit a scaled-down version. According to a report from CNET, "the sealed copper cooling system will do its best to shift excess heat away from the S7's processor when games push things to the phone's thermal limits."

The phone also includes a special "do not disturb" function, that will deactivate notifications, game recording with the ability to record picture-in-picture using the front-facing camera, and multiple graphics & frame-rate settings for power conservation. I don't need to tell you that the ability to essentially produce a Let's Play from your phone is an great leap forward from we were just a couple years ago. The democratization of production tools is real, my friends.

CNET also reports all of these settings will be easily accessible from a single icon located "at the edge of the screen." Although none of these settings are enough to get me to jump ship from Apple, the ability to run games in 2K HD at 60 frames-per-second on a phone should be a pretty sweet deal for those already invested in the Galaxy line.

Hot gaming tip: Galaxy S7 has ice water in its veins [CNET]

Samsung's new phone has video games in mind screenshot

Things that are less expensive than the HTC Vive

Posted: 21 Feb 2016 08:00 AM PST

With the current exchange rate, the $799 Vive will cost roughly $1099 in Canadian dollars where I live (not counting taxes and any extra charges). That's a whole lot of cash. While I'm as excited as anyone else at the idea of stumbling around my living room and tripping over the coffee table while slaying demons or shooting space marines, that kind of expense gives me pause. When I start to think of all the things in my life that cost less than first-generation VR, it paints a very grim picture.

Things like:

Things that are less expensive than the HTC Vive screenshot

Posted: 21 Feb 2016 05:15 AM PST

_{[Sup Holmes is a weekly talk show for people that make great video games. It airs live every Sunday at 4:00pm EST on YouTube, and can be found in Podcast form on Libsyn and iTunes.]}

[Update: Thanks to Alex for hanging out and to everyone who tuned in. The rerun should be up soon. In the meantime, here's a mysterious Halo-themed teaser for Killer Instinct. I wonder what it means?]

Today on Sup Holmes, we're pleased to welcome CEO Gaming and Iron Galaxy's Alex Jebailey to the program. My plan is to get into it with him about how he got started in the industry, his appearance in Divekick!, the unique place that Iron Galaxy has in the world of game developing/publishing, the past, present, and future of Killer Instinct, his thoughts the current state of the fighting game community, and maybe even some Tekken 7, Street Fighter V and Pokkén Tournament talk if he's feeling brave.

Join us here at 2:30pm EST for the whole no-holds-barred exchange!

Fighting games, big heads, and Killer Instinct with Iron Galaxy's Alex Jebailey screenshot

The HTC Vive will cost a cool $799

Posted: 21 Feb 2016 05:00 AM PST

Following a leak earlier today, HTC has officially confirmed the price of its VR device, the Vive, and its launch date. Early adopters will pay $799 to bask in the glory of VR with the first shipments of the device heading out in April. Pre-orders begin on Febuary 29.

That $799 may sound mighty steep, but hey, you're getting more than just a doofy-looking visor. The Vive comes with the headset, two controllers, two sensors to turn your living room into a budget-holodeck, and two games. One of those is Job Simulator, one of those goofy physics-based games, like Surgeon Simulator, where future humans try to reenact the absurd day-to-day grind of 21st century workers. The other, Fantastic Contraption, is more inscrutable, described as "walking around a grassy island floating in the sky, building a machine the size of a horse with your own hands, and then watching it roll out into the world." Your guess is as good as mine.

In other news, today I stole the flyers my neighbor left in his mailbox all weekend to double up on coupons. Ever get the feeling you're being priced out of existence?

HTC Vive is $799, ships ‘early April’ and you can answer phone calls in VR [UploadVR]

The HTC Vive will cost a cool $799 screenshot

Team Blue/Green won the international Pokemon Splatfest

Posted: 21 Feb 2016 04:00 AM PST

This past Saturday marked the first of hopefully many international Spaltfest contests in Splatoon, pitting fans of Pokémon Red against those of Pokémon Blue (or Pokémon Green, if you live in Japan). The event may have been more popular than Nintendo anticipated, causing a greater occurrence of connection issues than usual. Either that, or die-hard Pokémon fans are just quicker to rage quit before losing a match. We may never know for sure.

I've long been of the opinion that blood and dragons are more popular than leaves, turtles, and blueberries, so I was pretty sure that Team Red would end up being larger than Team Blue/Green. That's why I picked Blue. Statistically speaking, the larger team will always have a greater chance of losing the overall contest, due in part to the way that Splatfest matchmaking is arranged.

It will be interesting to see if competitors catch on to that fact and adjust their strategies accordingly. If everyone knows that the less popular of the two teams is more likely to win, then it would stand to reason that they'd want to join that team, resulting in an ironic surge in size for the side that less people like. I'd love to see a Splatfest between Team Midna and Team Tingle result in a surprise Tingle popular victory due to this sort of overthinking shenanigans.

Splatoon - Pokemon Reb/Blue International Splatfest Results [GoNintendo]

Team Blue/Green won the international Pokemon Splatfest screenshot

Namco originally pitched Pokken as a Taiko: Drum Master game

Posted: 21 Feb 2016 03:00 AM PST

Pokkén Tournament, or at least the collaborative project between The Pokémon Company and Bandai Namco that eventually became Pokkén Tournament, wasn't always a fighting game.

According to Bandai Namco fighting game chief Katsuhiro Harada, speaking with The Verge, the studio initially wanted to partner up on a Pokemon-themed version of Taiko: Drum Master. The Pokémon Company CEO Tsunekazu Ishihara had other plans, though, and instead insisted that any cross-over with Bandai Namco involve the developer's Tekken franchise.

Since Pokkén Tournament has been in Japanese arcades for the better part of a year and is gearing up for a console release next month, I suppose we know which party got its way in this negotiations. 'Taiko Pokémon Master' remains on the cutting room floor amidst a thousand other collaborations like this, the sort of which that fans can typically only dream about.

Maybe the companies will pick up the idea someday and decide run with it. I'd be into it.

How the minds behind Tekken and Soulcalibur transformed Pokémon into a fighting game [Verge]

Namco originally pitched Pokken as a Taiko: Drum Master game screenshot