If you’re enough of a fighting game fan to know BlazBlue, you might consider this week an elevated wallet threat for the release of Persona 4 Arena. I can’t imagine the average Persona fan caring much about characters from the JRPG series appearing in a new fighting game. But I can imagine BlazBlue followers wanting to see what developer Arc System is doing next.
Scribblenaut developer 5th Cell’s next game might normally be a cause for an elevated wallet threat. But Hybrid looks like as bog standard a shooter as they come. Multiplayer, online, cover, space marines, zzzzz…
The excellent Payday: The Heist gets a $10 download called the Wolfpack. It adds two new heists, a new skill track, a sentry gun, and a grenade launcher. If ever a game needed a grenade launcher, it’s Payday, what with how all those cops love to clump up.
I’ve been dinking around with a preview build of a game called Hotline Miami, which reminds me of an ancient game I played, most likely, on the Apple IIGS. It was that long ago. I don’t recall the name. It was a top-down 2D adventure game in which you’re tasked with murdering supposedly random people because they’re actually demons who will usher in the end of the world. This means you’re basically a serial killer, but for altruistic reasons. You murder one guy by dropping studio lights on him while he’s being interviewed on a TV talk show. You murder another guy while he’s having sex. I recall top-down nudity, although that might just be how I remember it. The game — man, what was the name of that thing? — was notable for being dark and edgy at a time when most adventure games were funny and whimsical.
Anyway, Hotline Miami has the same look and sensibility. The gameplay is more action than adventure, based on using weapons to set up kills. It’s almost a stealth game for how you have to puzzle out each kill. It’s got scoring, lots of ultraviolence, a mesmerizing soundtrack, and a truly unhinged trippy sensibility reminiscent of Killer 7. You know, from back when Suda 51 was good.
Hotline Miami is out later this year, but I think the best way to get a sense of what you’re in for is to watch the above video of Hotline Miami developer Jonatan Soderstrom’s previous project, Keyboard Drumset Fucking Werewolf. As near as I can tell, it’s technically a game, but probably best enjoyed as an awesome video that recalls the first time I had my mind blown by a Butthole Surfers album (drugs may have been involved). So for Hotline Miami, imagine that Keyboard Drumset Fucking Werewolf video, but with thematic unity and more gameplay.
Okay, Secret World, you got me. Issue #1: Unleashed came out this week and I couldn’t very well not take a peek. Besides, I can’t let a week at Quarter to Three go by without some gripe about the game. Which I wouldn’t gripe about if I didn’t like it so much. It would be so much easier if I simply didn’t like Secret World.
Orcs Must Die 2 is pretty much everything I wanted in Orcs Must Die. Namely, a game as good as Toy Soldiers: Cold War.
To see all that stuff in motion reminds me of a carwash. But for orcs. And with blades instead of brushes and acid instead of soap. In the upper left is a net full of boulders that I can drop at any time. On the right, coming down from the ceiling, is a whirring giant eggbeater called a haymaker. It’s positioned over a set of spikes that thrust up through the floor. To the right are jets that shoot out powerful sticky acid. All this stuff is nifty enough. And then I noticed you can scroll the selection box down. There’s whole other screenfuls of traps down there! With the co-op, leaderboards, and a long long menu of stuff to upgrade, this is a game that’s going to have legs where the previous game had stubby appendages.
Growlanser: Wayfarer of Time is the official North American debut of a game previously available only in Japan as Growlanser IV: Over Reloaded. That was ten years ago, and on the Playstation 2. In case you’re curious why the subtitle was changed from Over Reloaded for the North American release, just say it fast a few times. Yeah, that’s what that sounds like.
With yet another SRPG, Atlus continues to show more love for the PSP than Sony itself. And the re-release has new stuff:
New characters, scenarios, and events are complemented by dramatically improved loading times and a message-skip option that allows players to advance the story at a faster pace.
Hard to believe that ten years ago, people would put up with a 50+ hour game without skippable cutscenes.
Orcs Must Die got a lot of things right when it came to crushing, folding, spindling, and mutilating orcs. But it had stuff missing that kept it from being a great game. For instance, co-op multiplayer, a survival mode, and more ways to play than just working your way through campaign missions. Orcs Must Die 2 will include all those things.
And speaking of erstwhile Xbox games — Orcs Must Die 2 is only available on the PC — the pretty nifty side-scrolling League of Legends style game, Awesomenauts, will be out for the PC this week (review of the Xbox version here). If you’ve got a Nintendo 3DS and you don’t mind a little Disney in your JRPG, Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance is out this week. And Xbox Live Arcade’s summer series is finally putting out a non-Kinect game with Deadlight, a platformer/adventure game developed in Spain.
What a grand time to be a fan of action RPGs. It’s not enough that a AAA juggernaut like Diablo III changed up the action in ways that won over a Diablo II diehard like me. That just gives Torchlight II even more room to breathe with its older school approach to making the hard choices about your character build. But wait, there’s more! A Valley Without Wind is a side-scrolling retro plunge into infinite exploration. Drox Operative is an upcoming sci-fi excursion from the creator of action RPG masterpieces Depths of Peril and Din’s Curse. I’d even count the streamlined Hunters 2 on my iPad an action RPG if it weren’t for the fact that, well, it’s a slow, drawn-out, turn-based game. I’m probably forgetting a couple.
Which is where Path of Exile’s open beta weekend comes in, starting this Friday. There’s no denying its debt to Diablo II — just look at that screenshot — but neither can you deny that the free-to-play approach is, uh, an interesting take on the genre. It’s got a decidedly harder core approach to character builds, and as a fan of the Teutonically demanding Sacred 2, I’m down with making hard choices about wonky numbers. I’m even open to the free-to-play model not utterly ruining it. I’m also intrigued by a couple of Path of Exile’s unique features.
a new end-game system featuring Maps whose properties, risks and rewards can be modified by players
An opportunity to roll my own difficulty? If there’s one person I trust more than developers to determine the risk/reward ratio in my games, it’s me. I also like Path of Exile’s approach to player vs. player much more than the prospect of standing there whacking away at someone else’s character:
The Open Weekend will also feature special events, such as two hour ladder races and competitions to clear areas first.
Events like these take place within “leagues”, which are firewalled areas with their own economy, where you roll a new character who can’t be twinked with your shared stash or microbought advantages. This is how Path of Exile has hardcore characters, competitions, ladders, and so forth.
Since the open beta is a stress test for a free-to-play game, anyone can jump in. Go here for more information, including links to register and download the client.
X-Com was a child of its time. It was a brilliant exercise in taking the basic idea of Aliens, which is the basic idea of Space Hulk, and expressing it with Microprose’s gleeful love of numbers, courtesy of 90s era computer game design. The thinking back in those days was that computers compute. They can eat numbers for breakfast. So feed them! Back then, computer gaming was a small enough pursuit to equate complicated with good. That worked for me.
But numbers have fallen out of favor. Latter day X-Coms are mostly SRPGs from Japan, where numbers aren’t reviled. And while 2K figures out how to update X-Com, other games have found their own approaches. One of my recent favorites is Hunters 2 for the iPad, which presents the X-Com experience courtesy of 21st century videogame design.
The new update for Tiny Wings, perhaps the most ingenuous combination of simplicity and charm ever to grace the iOS, adds a new mode in which you race three brother birds to the finish line. The brother birds are like ghost cars in a racing game, taking the same route each time you play. Any other game would simply dole out first, second, third, and last place at the end of the race. In Tiny Wings, a mama bird waits at the finish line and tosses fish to the baby birds as they arrive, from largest to smallest. Like I said, perhaps the most ingenuous combination of simplicity and charm ever to grace the iOS.
The Tiny Wings update is free because creator Andreas Illiger “[doesn’t] particulary like in-app purchases”. You and me both, brother!
The latest update to DC Universe Online, the MMO I’d probably be playing if it weren’t for Secret World, arrives today. It features a much maligned superhero.
The impending Atlantean civil war between Aquaman and his brother, Ocean Master, has come crashing into DC Universe Online. Today, Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) unleashes the Tides of War Summer Seasonal Event, where the fight for the Atlantis crown has come to the surface in a fierce battle for all to witness. Players must choose a side and assist either Aquaman and his loyal Atlanteans or Ocean Master and Mutineers to victory.
Aquaman’s brother’s name is Ocean Master? That can’t be his actual name. I assume it’s just a title that he’s let go to his head.
Tides of War offers players an all-new boss battle with up to four players, open world missions on the waters between Metropolis and Little Bohemia, Atlantean turrets throughout the map, and a slew of new rewards and item drops including Atlantean Suit appearance, Fisherman appearance and new pets!
I’m glad to see an update that doesn’t shove everything into instances. DC Universe Online offered players a wonderful Gotham and Metropolis to explore, and I hope the latest updates have taken better advantage of that. I’m also glad to see Aquaman given his due. Can an Aquaman movie be far behind?
One of the obstacles for jumping into a real time strategy game like League of Legends or DOTA2 is the sheer variety. League of Legends has over one hundred characters. Picking one of them is literally just the beginning. Then you have to figure out the other nine in your current game.
One way around this is a license. Monolith, a once great developer who’s been on the rocks for a while, is bringing to bear the Lord of the Rings license to make a League of Legends style game (I just can’t bring myself to use “MOBA”, or multiplayer online battle arena, which does nothing to distinguish the genre from your average multiplayer shooter). Although League of Legends has developed a rich set of lore around its characters, I don’t know the first thing about it. But I do know my Lord of the Rings. Legolas is a ranged damage character, Gandalf is a support tank, Gollum is a sneaky assassin type, and Boromir will have some sort of self-sacrifice damaging power. There. I’ve never even played the game and I already know how some of the characters work. I didn’t even need to watch this video about the unique powers for Gandalf and Gollum.
Also, since Guardians of Middle Earth will be a console-only game, how hard can it be? We’ll find out this fall.
This isn’t a post complaining about the Red Ring of Death or Yellow Lights. It’s a far more serious problem than that. I have had a recurring console tech problem far more severe than those minor issues for the past four or five years. You see, I have two sons, ages thirteen and seven. That’s a terminal problem when it comes to televisions and console gaming.
I expect gamers in a similar situation understand where I’m coming from. For those who don’t immediately grasp the subtleties of the situation, let me explain.
Developer Ronimo announces that the first new characters for their side-scrolling console-based League of Legends-a-like, Awesomenauts, will be free. A patch scheduled to go live on July 23rd will include two new characters: Coco, a melee fighter who rides a hoverboard, will be Awesomenauts’ only chick, and Zork — hey, isn’t that trademarked? — is some mech dude who shoots cats out of a gun. Did you get that? He shoots cats out of a gun. Don’t believe me? Check it out:
The patch will also include a mess of the balance changes you see in any real time strategy game after its first round of contact with the player base. Read more specifics here.
