New Games |
- Madden backed the Panthers to buck the Broncos (and was wrong)
- Is it about time to revive the WW2 shooter?
- Great googly moogly Sony is teasing Crash Bandicoot again
- Honest Kickstarter details exactly how it'll waste your money (Fauxclusive)
- What's so great about Undertale and The Witness?
- Visage is attempting to expand on P.T. at a much deeper level
- Report: Titanfall 2 will include single-player mode
- It looks like Street Fighter V whitewashed Sean
- Apple rejects The Binding of Isaac for depicting child abuse
- Indie G Zine hopes to be 'A huge encyclopedia for indie game lovers'
- Podtoid 322: Football or Gay Porn?
- Get big in Japan with Playism's Nayan Ramachandran
- Bit.Trip Runner2 jumps to PS4 this month
- You could be playing Red Dead Redemption on your Xbox One right now
- Final Fantasy Tactics director's Unsung Story placed on indefinite hold
| Madden backed the Panthers to buck the Broncos (and was wrong) Posted: 07 Feb 2016 02:00 PM PST [Update: Well, Madden was wrong. Contrary to EA's simulation, the Denver Broncos prevailed in Super Bowl 50, winning over the Carolina Panthers by a score of 24 to 10. Also, it seems EA has removed the video. Maybe the folks over there are a tad embarrassed about their miscalculation.] The folks at EA Sports like to use Madden, perennially the most realistic football video game, to predict the outcome of the Super Bowl. It's an obvious, easy trick to use the hype for The Big Game to redirect some attention to the Madden brand. It also works perplexingly well, not unlike that World Cup-pickin' octopus named "Paul." In this year's matchup between the Denver Broncos and the Carolina Panthers, Madden 16 has Carolina winning by four courtesy of a last-minute touchdown. According to the simulation, the Panthers get out to a 17-point lead at half-time, find themselves down by three in the fourth quarter, and clinch the victory on a Cam Newton run. Still, something seems amiss. Down three, why would Carolina go for it on fourth down from the five-yard line? The Panthers coach "Riverboat" Ron Rivera has a reputation for being aggressive, but gambling on picking up five yards against the league's best defense instead of the chip shot field goal to tie, well, that isn't very realistic. All of that aside, Madden has a good track record as of late when it comes to predicting the Super Bowl. It has gotten nine of the past twelve winners right. Last year, it forecast the exact final score which is probably equal parts impressive and coincidental. It all looks good on paper, but as the adage goes, that's why they play the games. Editor's note: This post originally ran on February 1, 2016. |
| Is it about time to revive the WW2 shooter? Posted: 07 Feb 2016 01:00 PM PST Years ago, World War II shooters were everywhere. Then the bubble burst. Activision, EA, and all the pretenders trained their sights on more contemporary settings, quickling transitioning series like Call of Duty, Medal of Honor, and Battlefield away from their 1940s roots and into the 21st century. That exodus has created something of a vacuum, one Bulkhead Interactive, the developer behind Pneuma: Breath of Life, is eager to fill. Last Tuesday, the studio announced Battalion 1944, the sort of game that would have been ignored a decade ago, on Kickstarter with hopes of raising £100,000. But times have clearly changed. The crowdfunding effort surpassed its initial goal in just three days, proving even the most timeworn trends will come back into style if you wait long enough. Bulkhead aims to release Battalion 1944 on Xbox One, PC, and PlayStation 4 by May 2017. Battalion 1944 [Kickstarter] |
| Great googly moogly Sony is teasing Crash Bandicoot again Posted: 07 Feb 2016 12:00 PM PST Sony is really getting comfortable this generation with its remasters, and for a long while people have been expecting something Crash-related on PS4. Every year or so it comes back and says "we'd love to revive Crash" or something to that effect, and then select talking heads (no, not the ones of Psycho Killer fame) say "no not really." So why is Sony Middle East teasing Crash on their Twitter account with the slogan "Most Wanted: Where Are You Crash?" We don't know! While the publisher could just be honoring its once storied legacy yet again, there's no doubt that one day, Crash will rise out of the ashes just like Spyro did. Toys-to-life with Crash? I'd consider it. I mean, Activision still owns it after all. Remember when he repped D-Generation X, had a canceled cartoon, a kart racing game that was better than a lot of Mario Karts, and probably coined the phrase "booyah Grandma?" Good times. PlayStation Mid East [Twitter] |
| Honest Kickstarter details exactly how it'll waste your money (Fauxclusive) Posted: 07 Feb 2016 11:00 AM PST Following allegations of behind-the-scenes financial misconduct with the crowdfunded Ant Simulator game, the team behind a newly-launched Kickstarter campaign is now promising complete transparency with how it will ultimately blow the tens of thousands of dollars it's asking for. Francis Madoff, COO of Portland based Betrug Games, believes too many potential contributors are turned off by stories of funds being secretly mishandled and projects being canceled. Madoff says his company has learned from the mistakes of others and will be completely open about how investments are mishandled. |
| What's so great about Undertale and The Witness? Posted: 07 Feb 2016 10:00 AM PST In the last few months, two games were released that I feel might be among my favorite games of all time, Undertale and The Witness. But what exactly makes them two of the greatest gaming experiences I've had in recent memory? Well, it's difficult for me to say. That's not because I don't know why, mind you. I could explain exactly why I think both are incredible. I could easily describe one, singular moment from each game where I thought, "Damn, this is amazing!" But I don't want to to talk about these things, because they would have a much greater impact on players who figure them out for themselves. In essence, the greatest strengths of Undertale and The Witness can be considered major spoilers. |
| Visage is attempting to expand on P.T. at a much deeper level Posted: 07 Feb 2016 09:00 AM PST If you want to get Zack Furniss's attention, mentioning Phantasmagoria, Silent Hill, and P.T. while having a Babadook-lookin' homie in your game is sure bet. SadSquare Studios is attempting to crowdfund Visage, its take on "real-life horror simulators" à la P.T. Set in a secluded town in the 1980s, you'll be tasked with discovering why your new home has existed for centuries, and why most of the former tenants have died horribly. If SadSquare achieves what it's hoping for, this environment will feel like such a "believably realistic house that when you stop playing, you'll probably fear your own peaceful house." Players will be able to interact with the house (picking up VHS tapes and placing them in a VCR is mentioned), manage their stress, and avoid dark entities roaming about the premises. Just reading this sounds a little too good to be true, but the video has convinced me. It crept under my skin a bit, which rarely happens these days (though Rides With Strangers found a way to do it, perhaps unintentionally). Between this and Allison Road, the spirit of P.T. shall live on. Visage is currently planned to release next January on PC, though consoles releases are listed as a possibility, should the project succed in hitting its stretch goals Visage [Kickstarter] |
| Report: Titanfall 2 will include single-player mode Posted: 07 Feb 2016 08:00 AM PST Titanfall 2 hasn't been revealed yet, but a sequel to Respawn Entertainment's 2014 shooter is in the works and is planned for release "sometime late this year or early next," according to the series' lead writer Jesse Stern, who recently sat down for an interview with Forbes. Whenever the sequel does come out, the business journal asserts the game will boast a "dedicated single-player campaign," unlike its predecessor, which was a multiplayer-only experience. Responding to some of the criticisms of the original game, Stern admitted "we just did not have the mechanism to tell everyone 'here's who you are, here's where you are and who's around you.' We knew all the answers, we just could not deliver it. "So we are doing our best to deliver a vision of grand global colonial warfare, retelling the story of the American Revolution and the American Civil War in space," Stern continued, "We imagined the next generation of immigrants moving out to the new frontier of an inhabitable planet. "Rather than taking a traditional sci-fi approach to that, we wanted to look at how that would happen practically, what the ships would look like and with machines that were designed for excavation and construction, demolition and working the land, and what happens when they are turned into instruments of war. "What inspires us is the junction of technological advancement with the inevitability of conflict and war and what the next war might look like. In Titanfall 2 there will be a lot of [scenes] where science meets magic, but keeping it grounded and dirty and human and real." Stern also revealed Respawn is working with Lionsgate TV on a television series set in Titanfall's universe, though it still sounds like the project is in its early days and costs are a major concern. Titanfall 2 lead writer promises a grounded, dirty and human world [Forbes] |
| It looks like Street Fighter V whitewashed Sean Posted: 07 Feb 2016 07:00 AM PST Though we likely won't know for sure until the full game is released on February 16th, right now it appears that Brazilian Street Fighter III brawler and little brother to Street Fighter V's Laura has gone through a radical racial transformation. In this image spotted on BasedPavy's twitter, the formerly brown skinned, kinky-haired combatant now sports a decidedly Caucasian look, complete with straight, light brown locks and a peachy-keen skin pigment. He also appears to now have a piece of tape where his nose once was. Maybe he's still recovering from some Michael Jackson-style facial/racial reconstructive surgery? This isn't the first time that Capcom has given one of their characters a racial make-over. The original Street Fighter Alpha took Birdie, the Anglo-punk from the very first game in the series and transformed him into a brown skinned, large lipped semi-stereotype. Capcom never explained how or why that happened, though they did decide to keep Birdie brown for Street Fighter V, albeit with a lot more skin on his frame in general. It seems like Capcom is making an extra effort to make Street Fighter V feel inclusive and culturally sensitive for the Global market, but with this move, I'm less and less confident that they have any real idea of how to do that. |
| Apple rejects The Binding of Isaac for depicting child abuse Posted: 07 Feb 2016 06:00 AM PST Remember the other day when we reported The Binding of Isaac is coming to iPad? Well, looks like that may not be the case now, as Apple has rejected the game.
Apple apparently doesn't allow software depicting violence towards, or abuse of children, which is a pretty good description of Isaac's treatment at the hands of his mother. While Nintendo also had reservations about the game, even it eventually allowed Isaac to be sold on its stores, so there's a chance Apple could also be swayed, but I wouldn't hold my breath. Tyrone Rodriguez [Twitter] |
| Indie G Zine hopes to be 'A huge encyclopedia for indie game lovers' Posted: 07 Feb 2016 04:00 AM PST Physical game magazines may be getting smaller, but that doesn't mean they're dying. In fact, becoming more niche has only made fans of the medium more passionate. I know this from experience, thanks to three years of work on the fan-published successor to Nintendo Power, and one ill-fated but wonderful issue of the Destructoid/GameFan magazine. It's okay that future game magazines may never be distributed in the millions. A few thousand loyal fans are all most publications need in order to stay in print. I'm hoping the Indie G Zine manages will be able to harness that passion for physical games media and do something great with it. Curating a series of highly polished pieces of fan art paying tribute to legendary independent releases like Cave Story, Skullgirls, and Hotline Miami, and compiling them all into a fully-fledged indie game encyclopedia is one heck of a concept. Now we'll just have to wait to see how well the book's publishers can follow through on that potential. Which games would you like to see added to the zine's already sizable roster of subjects? Personally, I want to see 1001 Spikes, Bit.Trip, and Thomas Was Alone get a few pages apiece. They're all games with rich, compelling back stories that a lot of players may not be fully aware of. |
| Podtoid 322: Football or Gay Porn? Posted: 07 Feb 2016 02:00 AM PST Subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or download it here. In celebration of today's Super Bowl football fight, Darren took the liberty to write a little trivia quiz where the rest of us were forced to guess whether titles were football games or pornographic films. Also on this week's show, we discuss A Boy and His Blob, Nitroplus Blasterz, games we wish we could delete from our digital libraries, what games about our lives would be like, and guacamole. |
| Get big in Japan with Playism's Nayan Ramachandran Posted: 07 Feb 2016 01:00 AM PST [Sup Holmes is a weekly talk show for people that make great videogames. It airs live every Sunday at 4pm EST on YouTube, and can be found in Podcast form on Libsyn and iTunes.] [Update: Show's over everybody! Thanks so much to Nayan for joining the program! The rerun should be up soon. In the meantime, here's a clip from the upcoming Playism release Lieat, a game about a dragon girl who eats lies and thinks about underwear.] Back when I was just a tyke, kids around the playground would often talk about what they wanted to be when they grew up. Fireman, doctor, and astronaut were common ambitions, though if you looked hard enough, you might find a kid in the corner who wanted nothing more than the be a Japanese video game developer someday. If you knew that kid, or better yet, if you were that kid, then this episode of Sup Holmes is for you. At Playism, Nayan Ramachandran has helped in the development of Daisuke "Pixel" Amaya's Kero Blaster and Nigoro's La-Mulana 2, pushed to help build Playism's storefront to maybe someday become the eastern equivalent of Steam, met some of the biggest names in the Japanese game industry, and a lot more. We'll be talking about all of that on special Super Bowl Sunday morning Sup Holmes at 10am EST, so if you're the type who prefers Travis Touchdown over actual touchdowns, make sure to give us a holler. [Banner art by Mekabrain] |
| Bit.Trip Runner2 jumps to PS4 this month Posted: 07 Feb 2016 12:00 AM PST Runner2 is coming to PlayStation 4 on February 23, Choice Provisions has announced. The auto-run platformer will support cross-buy compatibility with the Vita port Choice Provisions released a couple years ago. Unfortunately, since another publisher (Aksys Games) handled the PS3 version, it looks like folks who own the game on that platform won't have the same opportunity. In better news, the studio will be offering the "Good Friends" character pack for free, giving players the opportunity to play as Raz (Psychonauts), Quote (Cave Story), Dr. Fetus (Super Meat Boy), Josef (Machinarium), Spelunky Guy (Spelunky) and Invisible CommanderVideo. Runner2 launching February 23rd on PS4 [PlayStation Blog, Choice Provisions] |
| You could be playing Red Dead Redemption on your Xbox One right now Posted: 06 Feb 2016 06:00 PM PST [Update: Looks like Microsoft pulled the trigger early. The game has been removed and more info is coming soon.] Last year, Microsoft hosted a vote to see what Xbox 360 titles folks wanted to see on the Xbox One via backwards compatibility. Rockstar's Red Dead Redemption came in third place behind Skyrim and Call of Duty: Black Ops II. We haven't heard anything about the glorious ol' Western coming to the Xbox One, but that didn't stop it from stealthily appearing on Microsoft's store. LyleLanley on NeoGAF found that if you own a digital copy of Red Dead Redemption on Xbox 360, you can download it on the Xbox One. But! In order to do so, you have to follow "rockohoward" on the store, view his profile, view what he follows, and then choose the game (thanks Yabo!). Unfortunately, if you have the disc, you won't be able to use it for now. This all reeks of a strange accident, and I hope we get official word from Microsoft soon. Since you can't play the DLC through this method, and Undead Nightmare is one of my favorite expansions ever, I'll be keeping an ear to the ground. Let us know if you're able to download the game! Red Dead Reremption is now backwards compatible on Xbox One (sic) [NeoGAF] |
| Final Fantasy Tactics director's Unsung Story placed on indefinite hold Posted: 06 Feb 2016 05:00 PM PST Remember Unsung Story: Tale of the Guardians, the Kickstarter dream project from Yasumi Matsuno (director of Final Fantasy Fucking Tactics, Final Fantasy XII, Tactics Ogre, and Vagrant Goddamn Story), Hitoshi Sakimoto (composer for all of the above), and Alexander O. Smith (translator for all of the above)? If just hearing the names of those games is enough to get you all twitterpated, you were the primary demographic for that crowdfunding attempt, and you might never play the finished product. Playdek, the developer tasked with creating Unsung Story, has updated backers less and less since the game's announcement. There were 40 updates in 2014, eight in 2015, and one today. There were murmurs of troubled development, but Playdek always popped out of the woodwork to say "Hey! It's still happening! We promise!" Not this time. Today's update begins with an apology for the four month delay since the last update. Then Playdek drops the bomb: "We have had some development setbacks that are affecting our timeline and progress on the game, while also affecting what we need to do in the immediate future as a company." Since the previous backer update, the team lost a few key staff members. Playdek now only has "one internal team capable of working on a single project, and for the financial strength of the company we need to focus on a few products in the near term that have the ability to get to a retail release before Unsung Story is able to." This isn't a permanent goodbye. Playdek is still seeking outside development help. It can't make any promises, and "at this time [it does] not have an update as to what the new release window for development rollout will be." The launch window will be updated if any new circumstances arise. On the update page, most of the backers are either calling for refunds or swearing off crowdfunding entirely. Whether this project will be miraculously saved or left die remains to be seen. Game Development Update [Kickstarter] |
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