Monthly Archives: February 2016

Kickstart This! Need to Know, Essence: The Resurrection, A Place for the Unwilling

Posted on February 23, 2016 by Andrew Rainnie - UK Correspondent

I’ve survived Chinese New Year and a solitary Valentine’s Day (because my other half is currently in China), so I decided to spread the love further than one day by highlighting some of the fantastic games currently vying for funds on Kickstarter. And for the price of a romantic gourmet burger, you could help finance a cool game that you actually get to play. Thankfully, not all the projects I picked are lovey-dovey.

We start things off with the mass-surveillance thriller Need to Know from Monomyth Games. Next, there is the surreal first-person exploration adventure Essence: The Resurrection by ONEVISION. Finally, we have an interesting isometric sandbox sim called A Place for the Unwilling by MadeInSpain Games. (more…)

Posted in Features, PC, PS4, Top Story, Xbox One |

Pre-order Doom 2016 on Xbox Games Store and get original Doom and Doom II for free

Posted on February 23, 2016 by John Scalzo

doom-header

Doom first delivered a shotgun blast of innovation to the game industry all the way back in 1993. Which means that many of today’s most voracious first person shooter fans weren’t even alive when John Carmack, John Romero, and the rest of id Software asked players to fight back against the denizens of Hell with a minigun and a whole lot of moxie.

Thankfully, anyone who was planning to pre-order the upcoming reboot through the Xbox Games Store will receive a Doom history lesson at no additional charge, as every Xbox One owners who pre-purchases Doom 2016 will receive a download code for the original Doom and Doom II: Hell On Earth for the Xbox Live Arcade. Best of all, both games will be backwards compatible on the Xbox One.

Players who pre-order Doom 2016 on the Xbox One (or any other platform) will also receive the “Demon Multiplayer Pack,” which includes a “unique Demon-themed armor set with three skin variations, six Hack Modules, six exclusive metallic paint colors, and three id logo patterns that can be applied to weapons and armor.”

Bethesda will digitally deliver the download codes for both games to your Xbox Live inbox roughly a week after Doom’s May 13th launch date.

Posted in News, Xbox One | Tagged ,

Daily Scoop: February 23, 2016 – So much great stuff today!

Posted on February 23, 2016 by Nicole Kline

The Humble Indie Bundle 16 is brand new at Humble! Pay what you want for Retro City Rampage DX, Outlast, and Never Alone with the Foxtales DLC. Beat the average to unlock Trine 3: The Artifacts of Power and Door Kickers. Beat the average by $2 or more to unlock Else Heart.Break() and Sunless Sea.

The Midweek Madness at Steam is on the Lost Planet franchise. Lost Planet 3 is $6.24, Lost Planet 2 is $4.99, and Lost Planet: Extreme Condition is $3.74. The Daily Deal is Tales of Maj’Eyal, which is $1.74. You can also get a four pack for $4.99, or the full package of volumes one through three for $8.79.

There are tons of great shirts today! (more…)

Posted in Daily Scoop |

Crowdfunding campaign for Jay and Silent Bob: Chronic Blunt Punch launches on Fig

Posted on February 23, 2016 by John Scalzo

Snootchie bootchies… Kevin Smith is making a video game! The Clerks director has teamed up with Interabang Entertainment to develop Jay and Silent Bob: Chronic Blunt Punch, a 2.5D beat ’em up about a cursed mall. With an art style inspired by Clerks: The Animated Series, Chronic Blunt Punch might just be the Askewniverse game adaptation we’ve been waiting for:

Jay and Silent Bob’s customers are gone and they’re on a mission to find out why. Their search soon leads them to the sparkling new mega-mall which is almost a city unto itself complete with apartments, restaurants, hospitals, and schools. On the surface, the mall seems a Utopia. But as our heroes soon discover once a would-be patron of this paradise enters they find they can’t make their way out. Before long the power of the place mesmerizes them and they no longer remember their lives before becoming permanent citizens of The Galleria. Who’s responsible for this diabolical labyrinth?! What do they want?! Will Jay and Silent Bob ever find the Orange Julius?! Only time will tell…

Interabang has launched a crowdfunding campaign for Chronic Blunt Punch through Fig, and the developer is seeking $400,000 by March 31. Like Fig’s previous crowdfunding success story, Pyschonauts 2, prospective backers will be able to pledge money through a variety of reward tiers or invest in the final product and receive some of the profit back further down the line. As of this writing, the campaign has amassed $25,000 in pledges and investments.

In addition to “voicing” Silent Bob, Smith will serve as a consultant on the game to ensure it captures his signature vulgar streak. He’ll be joined in the recording booth by his hetero life mate, Jason Mewes, who will provide Jay’s unmistakable voice. Players will be able to team-up in a two-player co-op mode and they’ll also be able to use their words to drive the story in new directions with the Convo Combo Combat mechanic. According to Interabang, the mechanic “changes the dynamics of enemy showdowns through cutting insults combined with an intricate facial animation system that bonds dynamic fighting with timed phrase matching.”

If Jay and Silent Bob: Chronic Blunt Punch reaches its crowdfunding goal, the plan is to release it for the PC, PS4, and Xbox One in February 2018.

Posted in News, PC, PS4, Xbox One | Tagged

Bethesda will add official mod support to Fallout 4 (on PC) in April; Console release to lag one-two months behind

Posted on February 23, 2016 by John Scalzo

fallout4-header

Bethesda’s Todd Howard is a very busy man. But the company’s Studio Director found the time to sit down for a discussion with Game Informer recently, where he revealed that official mod support for the PC version of Fallout 4, AKA the Creation Kit, will be available in April. Howard also confirmed that PS4 and Xbox One owners will get a chance to play with Fallout 4’s mod tools, but they likely won’t be ready until May or June:

Game Informer: When can we expect to see mods, especially on console side?

Howard: Our goal is between the first two DLCs. It’ll go up at that time on PC. In April. All of that stuff will go up on PC. People are beta testing it. There’ll be a lag on consoles. We want to get it up on PC and have it work. It’ll probably be a good month before it hits Xbox One, and another month for PlayStation 4.

Howard was a huge presence at last week’s DICE Awards, when he trudged to the stage on Thursday to collect “Game of the Year” honors for Fallout 4. That same day, he also had a conversation with comedian Pete Holmes and told the audience that Bethesda is currently working on three unannounced projects that are, in his words, “big and crazy.”

Posted in News, PC, PS4, Xbox One | Tagged

Tom Clancy’s The Division Beta Impressions: Fear and Loathing in New York City

Posted on February 22, 2016 by Sam Sheldon

tomclancysthedivision

After watching Ubisoft’s E3 2015 playthrough last year, I started up the weekend-long beta for Tom Clancy’s The Division with some vague memories of a very traditional looking third-person shooter with an online mode designed to encourage uneasy alliances. Now that I have played The Division, I can confirm that it does indeed play like most other third-person shooters, and yes, it looks about as uninspiring as most of them, too. Fortunately, The Division’s hook, “The Dark Zone,” does occasionally deliver great, tense moments in which you’ll be wondering which member of your hastily-assembled team is going to try to kill everyone and make off with the loot. And who knows? Sometimes, it might even be you. (more…)

Posted in PC, Previews, PS4, Top Story, Xbox One | Tagged

Daily Scoop: February 22, 2016 – Great shirts today

Posted on February 22, 2016 by Nicole Kline

I played tons of games this weekend, including a ton of Diablo III: Reaper of Souls, some Burgle Bros., and even some Dungeons & Dragons. I also finished up my homework, did some freelance, and managed to do a little housecleaning. I felt really productive!

When I’m done finishing up all of these video games, I should hit up some deals! There are lots of great sales happening at the Humble Store right now. The Walking Dead: Michonne – A Telltale Miniseries is $13.49, Californium is $8.99, Burly Men at Sea is $7.99, and The Town of Life is $16.90.

There are 144 brand new Weeklong Deals at Steam right now. You can get 12 Is Better Than 6 for $2.49, Apotheon for $3.74, Lowglow for $4.39, and Geneforge Saga for $5.99, among many others. The Daily Deal is the premiere edition of Lifeless Planet, which is just $9.99.

Let’s check out today’s t-shirts! (more…)

Posted in Daily Scoop |

Axiom Verge is “really, really close” to launching for the Vita

Posted on February 22, 2016 by John Scalzo

Axiom Verge launched last Spring to ecstatic reviews and closed out the year with a trophy case full of awards. But sadly, the promised Vita release never materialized.

But it looks like a Vita launch for the game is closer than we realized. In a lengthy update on the game’s official website, developer Tom Happ confirmed that the Vita version is “really, really […] close” to release:

The tl;dr version is this: we have a list of mostly known issues that we are working through and we really, really are getting quite close.

[…]

So here’s the good news: the game is ported. It runs and is playable! Anyone who has worked on a porting project can tell you that that represents the biggest hurdle. Going from ported game to polished and shippable ported game is much easier than going from non-ported game to ported game. In fact, one of the reasons I couldn’t give a status update on the port before was that there was nothing to show. It was all plumbing and wiring. It’s only when you get everything hooked up and hit the switch that it goes from 0-100 pretty much overnight.

Happ also shared some alpha footage of Axiom Verge running on the Vita, which has been embedded above. And don’t forget, Axiom Verge on the Vita will be Cross-Buy compatible with the already-available PS4 version when it finally does get released.

Posted in News, Vita | Tagged