You'd think that last one would indicate an impending western arrival, but we're still waiting on the 3D-enhanced versions of Space Harrier and Super Hang-On. We've reached out to Sega to find out what, if anything, is on the horizon.
You'd think that last one would indicate an impending western arrival, but we're still waiting on the 3D-enhanced versions of Space Harrier and Super Hang-On. We've reached out to Sega to find out what, if anything, is on the horizon.
The $219.99 bundle comes with a 4GB card, pre-loaded with Animal Crossing: New Leaf. In this latest entry in series, players assume the role of Mayor.
Spector, the creator of Deus Ex and the Disney Epic Mickey series, will put together the curriculum, which will include a 12-month intensive program where students will make a game themselves. Students selected for admission will also get a tuition waiver and a $10,000 stipend for fees and housing expenses. The program will begin next fall.
The Novelist stars three characters: Dan Kaplan, a father attempting to finish writing the most important book of his career; Dan's wife and their young son – and you won't play as any of these people. Instead, players control an omniscient presence in the family's summer cabin, able to watch their daily lives, read their thoughts, enter their memories and influence their actions. The only catch is that the ghost must stay out of sight.
"It's up to you to decide how Dan's career and family life will evolve, but choose carefully; there are no easy answers, and every choice has a cost," The Novelist's description reads. "Dan's relationships – to his work, his wife and his son – react and shift in response to your choices. With a different sequence of events in every playthrough, The Novelist gives life to a unique experience each time you play.
"The decisions you make will define the Kaplans' lives, but they may also tell you something about yourself."
The Novelist is the brain child of Kent Hudson, who worked on AAA titles such as BioShock 2, Thief: Deadly Shadows, Deus Ex: Invisible War, The Bureau: XCOM Declassified, and maybe even more games with subtitles. He left the mainstream industry in 2011, and has been working on The Novelist ever since. We hope he wasn't working all the time, though – all work and no play make Kent a dull boy.
The Novelist is due out on PC and Mac this summer, with pre-orders live now at a 25 percent discount ($15) via Hudson's site, with a Steam Greenlight page ready to roll.
The sale ends on May 20 at 10 a.m. PT, even though Valve's weekly news post still says "May 6th." Shh – nobody tell Valve and let's see how long before someone on the team notices.
Mad Genius break-apart motion controller is for the serious Skyrim sniper
by Richard Mitchell
(8 days ago)
Split controller designs are nothing new. We've seen them implemented by third parties such as SplitFish and, of course, major players – Nintendo's Wii Remote and Nunchuk, and Sony's PS Move and Navigation Controller. Now, Mad Genius is looking to up the ante with its new break-apart motion controller.
Mad Genius says the controller is capable of tracking movements as minute as 1/100 of an inch. A video demonstrates the controller being used in an unmodified version of Skyrim on Xbox 360, tracking the player's body movement to make the character move in the game world. A more practical application is splitting the controller apart to aim and fire a bow in-game.
Holding the two halves like a bow and arrow, the game automatically equips and begins aiming the bow. The control is so fine, according to Mad Genius, that players will actually have to hold their breath to steady their shots, lest a tiny movement knock them off target.
The motion-tracking system will work with any game on any platform, including even outmoded platforms such as the original PlayStation (though it's not clear how you would actually connect the two together). Mad Genius is planning to launch a Kickstarter to fund the final version of the controller, which will be wireless and, presumably, a bit sleeker.
Knytt Underground, normally priced at $15, is an exploration-based 2D platformer in which players solve environmental puzzles by swapping between their default humanoid form and a bouncy "ball" shape that can access hard-to-reach areas. Knytt Underground is available as a Cross-Buy title, and is playable on both the PlayStation 3 and PS Vita.
4A Games' first-person shooter Metro: Last Light, due for release tomorrow, is available to PlayStation Plus members for $48, or $12 off of its retail price. Codemasters' motorsports title GRID 2 also gets a discount ahead of its launch later this month, and PlayStation Plus members can pre-order it this week for $54.
Other free titles coming to PlayStation Plus this month include Pinball Arcade, Germinator, and BlazBlue: Continuum Shift Extend.
To put that in perspective, GungHo's catalog-wide earnings for April totaled ¥12 billion ($119 million) – a 1,142.8 percent increase over its performance in April 2012. Puzzle & Dragons currently generates $3.76 million in daily revenue, and boasts 13 million players in Japan.
Puzzle & Dragons originally launched for iOS and Android devices last year. A Nintendo 3DS adaptation is slated for release in Japan this winter.
"Due to overwhelming popular demand, we are happy to announce that an official Kickstarter campaign has launched for Shadow of the Eternals," Precursor says. "This gives potential pledgers even more options to contribute to the game."
Precursor's campaign accepts payments through PayPal – unlike Kickstarter – and doesn't necessarily have to reach its goal to take whatever money it raises. That campaign has 24 days remaining and has raised $156,000. The Kickstarter campaign has 36 days to reach its goal, otherwise Precursor won't receive any of that money.
Precursor will use the money raised in its crowdfunding efforts to launch a pilot episode in Q3 2014, and pay for the engine and core system development. Future episodes of Shadow of the Eternals – there will be 12 in total – will be "significantly cheaper and faster to produce," and Precursor will announce more episodes based on the success of its fundraising(s).
CD Projekt RED has released REDkit, an official set of tools that allows amateur modders to make The Witcher 2 even witchier than ever before.
REDkit, originally launched as a private beta back in August, is a robust toolkit that lets users create new characters and quests within The Witcher 2. If you want to further tweak your mod's fantasy setting, REDkit also allows modders to edit terrain and plant virtual forests using the SpeedTree system. User-created content can be shared with fellow Witcher series enthusiasts at CD Projkt RED's website.
Would-be modders might want to check out REDkit's wiki before delving too deeply into the REDkit's world of character creation and tree-planting.
There's a certain stigma attached to strategy games, where deep systems and mechanics can hoist a sky-high barrier for the uninitiated. Sid Meier's Ace Patrol sidesteps these stigmas, presenting a turn-based experience so simple that even the strategically challenged will be able to play and excel.
Designed for iOS devices, Ace Patrol is a dogfighting game set in WWI. With a series of taps, intense air combat is engaged over a battlefield of hexagonal grids. Using these taps, players execute everything from strafing to swooping dives, hard banking, the Immelman turn and other expert maneuvers.
Take-Two notes that BioShock Infinite met with "significantly" higher sales than any previous BioShock release, shipping over 3.7 million units to date. The company reports a net loss of $31.2 million over the past fiscal year, but projects between $1.75 to $1.85 billion in revenue for the current fiscal year (ending in March, 2014), spurred by upcoming releases like Grand Theft Auto V and WWE 2K14.
The report notes year-over-year improvements in both revenue and net losses, bolstered by big sellers like Borderlands 2, NBA 2K13, and XCOM: Enemy Unknown. Catalog sales for older releases like Grand Theft Auto IV and Red Dead Redemption also saw strong performances, as Take Two noted a 192 percent year-over-year rise in revenue from digitally delivered software.
Max Payne 3 ships 4 million, Borderlands 2 on track to be 2K's best-selling game ever
by Alexander Sliwinski
(8 days ago)
"Borderlands 2 remains on track to become the highest selling release in the history of 2K," Zelnick said.
That's 2K Games, which should not be confused with Take-Two's other child, Rockstar Games, which has a clear highest-selling franchise with Grand Theft Auto. The next installment in that series, GTA 5, is scheduled to drive off with everybody's money on September 17.
WWE 2K14 is in production from series developer Yukes, based in Japan, and 2K Sports.
The company also mentioned it has seen solid demand for the BioShock Infinite Season Pass, but did not share any numbers. The Season Pass will include the game's three coming DLC packs.
If not its purpose, I have to respect the accordion's presence in Metro: Last Light. You can listen to the instrument's musical wheezing as part of a show put on in a dilapidated theater, one of several populated hubs you'll visit in your trek through the tunnels of Moscow. If you opt out of the game's scavenging and shooting for a few moments, there's an entire show to take in. It has all the awkwardness and earnestness of a production that only needs to be less bleak than its surroundings.
Last Light, much like predecessor Metro 2033, is a feat of obsessive, paradoxical world-building – you believe this as a place that has been demolished, poisoned and forced to retreat into claustrophobic hovels. There are glimmers of recuperating life in these bastions, most of all in Metro's stunning sewer-bound equivalent of Venice. The town layouts are noticeably linear, in part because there isn't much room for subterranean sprawl, and because the game spends all its money on the critical path. To explore is to linger, listen and look; and that's fine.
Indie Royale Mayhem Bundle features burning zombies, demon children
by Richard Mitchell
(8 days ago)
Indie Royale is back once again with the Mayhem Bundle, featuring a "mix-up of anarchic indie games." As such, the games in the bundle include post-apocalyptic shooters, a zombie burner, a demonic child simulator and ... a Zen-like puzzle game. Okay, so most of the games seem to hit the mark.
All in all, the bundle features Burn Zombie Burn, Lucius, Plain Sight, Alien Shooter 2: Concription, Primal Fear and – the puzzle game – Droplitz. There's also a mystery seventh game, but we don't know what it is – because it's a mystery. The current minimum price for the bundle is just over five bucks.
While Baba said he couldn't confirm Perfect Edition, he did say such a game would be "a representation of the dreams and hopes of the fans, who have long been wanting it."
One Koi-nya source also says Tales of Xillia 2 is coming to the west, but given we're still waiting on the first Xillia to arrive - it's due in August - don't expect a localization soon.
We've reached out to publisher Namco Bandai for comment.
Whew. The full lineup of on-sale indies can be found at Show Me the Sales, a project of Show Me the Games, and wherein 32 developers are probably thinking, "Show me the money."
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