Tiny Metal, Vegas Party added to PS Store

Posted on January 3, 2018 by John Scalzo

It’s 2018, and the shelf stockers at the PlayStation Store are still mostly on vacation. But there’s still somebody working the registers, and a pair of new titles are now available to download through Sony’s digital storefront.

Tiny Metal, a tactical war game for the PS4 from Sony’s Unties publishing label, is one of this new week’s additions to the PlayStation Store. It’s joined by Vegas Party, a gambling game for the Vita.

You can learn more about both games right here:

The Drop: New PlayStation Games for 1/2/2018

Tiny Metal
PS4 — Digital
It’s WAR in Tiny Metal, the revival of Japanese arcade war gaming! Outfight the enemy with your own army of foot soldiers, tanks, helicopters, tactical vehicles, and fighter jets. Capture rival territories and extend your military power over the sprawling map of Zipang. Follow the gripping story of Nathan Gries and answer for yourself what is — and what isn’t — worth fighting for.

Vegas Party
PS Vita — Digital
Welcome into the gambling-friendly universe of this over-the-top version of Las Vegas city. Played as a race, the goal is to reach the end of the Strip before anyone else. Manage your token account, avoid the dangers, take advantage of your gaming skills and your insolent luck, trust no one and forget the meaning of the word “mercy” because it does not apply here!

Posted in News, PS4, Vita |

Blizzard will bring more maps, a new Hero, and encore events to Overwatch in 2018

Posted on January 3, 2018 by John Scalzo

2018 will probably be a pretty big year for Overwatch, especially because the game’s eponymous epsorts league launches next week. But Blizzard is also planning to add another hefty batch of new content to the game, and we got a sneak peak at some of it earlier this week during Game Director Jeff Kaplan’s latest Developer Update.

First, Kaplan confirmed that the “Blizzard World” map should be available “very soon.” He also said that more “great new maps” will be released this year.

Next, Kaplan said that Blizzard will launch this year’s Lunar New Year event in the very near future. The “Year of the Dog” event should operate fairly similarly to last year’s “Year of the Rosster” event. Players should also look forward to encores of the “Uprising” and “Anniversary” events.

Finally, Kaplan revealed that Overwatch’s 27th Hero is currently undergoing internal testing at Blizzard, but he couldn’t say anything more than that.

Ideally, we’ll learn more about all of these Overwatch updates soon. And in the meantime, be sure to watch Kaplan’s Developer Update, which has been embedded above.

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

Someone recreated the last five minutes of Star Wars: The Last Jedi using 16-bit graphics

Posted on January 2, 2018 by John Scalzo

Taking a blockbuster movie and recreating it in the style of a Super NES is a popular pastime for animators and artists, but this adaptation of the last five minutes of Star Wars: The Last Jedi is quite literally out of this world.

If you haven’t seen Star Wars: The Last Jedi, I implore you, don’t press that Play button.

But if you have, give it a watch and be sure to congratulate animator John Stratman and the Mr. Sunday Movies YouTube channel on a job well done.

Posted in Etcetera, News, Retro |

PUBG Corp. wants to put PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds on “every platform”

Posted on January 2, 2018 by John Scalzo

PUBG Corp. CEO CH Kim has big plans for PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. The executive recently sat down with Inven Global and said that he wants to bring the battle royale game to “every platform”:

[I]t’s going to be an exclusive title on Xbox One for some time, we’d like to focus on completing the Xbox One PUBG for now. If we have the opportunity, the final goal would be to launch the title on every platform.

Obviously, Kim is referring to the pending PS4 launch of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, which is currently on the backburner because of the console’s lack of a “Game Preview” program like the Xbox One. But could Kim’s statement mean that PUBG might one day also make its way to the Nintendo Switch? That would certainly be an interesting outcome.

However, it sounds like PS4 owners might have to wait quite a while before they get the chance to play PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds:

Early Access on Steam and Game Preview on Xbox One are like pre-release, so they don’t have a restriction on quality. However, PS is very strict about this. There were cases where a game took 6 months more to launch even when it was already completed. We are still in the stage of learning the console development environment and console gamers’ taste. We need to think about other platforms after evaluating and completing the Xbox One version first.

Towards the end of the interview, Kim also revealed that his long-range plans for PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds include turning it into a “universal media franchise” that encompasses an esports competition, as well as a film adaptation:

I’d like PUBG to become a universal media franchise based on the game. We want to take part in diverse industries including Esports, movies, drama, cartoons, animation, and more. In fact, we received a couple of love calls from a number of developers in Hollywood and Netflix. Our dream is to build a new game-based culture through various ways like this, and have the lead of that culture.

PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds is now available in Version 1.0 for the PC and as [art of the Xbox Game Preview program on the Xbox One

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

Mutant Mudds developer will release “at least” three games for the Switch in 2018

Posted on January 1, 2018 by John Scalzo

Atooi launched the Mutant Mudds Collection (which includes Mutant Mudds Deluxe, Mutant Mudds Super Challenge, and Mudd Blocks) for the Switch on December 14, but the developer has even bigger plans for Nintendo’s newest console this year.

Writing on Twitter, founder Jools Watsham has said that Atooi will release “at least” three games for the Switch in 2018:

There’s only 364 days left in the year, so presumably, we’ll learn more about these games soon.

Posted in News, Switch |

Platinum Games will self-publish two original games in the near future

Posted on January 1, 2018 by John Scalzo

Platinum Games has been cozying up to big-name publishers like Nintendo, Activision, and Square Enix in recent years. These partnerships have produced an interesting (and critically-acclaimed) slate of games, including Bayonetta 2, Transformers: Devastation, and Nier: Automata.

The developer will continue working with Nintendo in 2018, and they recently confirmed that Bayonetta 3 is coming to the Nintendo Switch. But Platinum is also independently working on several other projects, and they have plans to self-publish a pair of original titles in the near future.

Atsushi Inaba, Platinum’s Head of Development, recently sat down with Game Informer, and described the company’s process for creating these original titles alongside their more high-profile work:

Over the last year we’ve pretty much opened the company up to “Anybody can pitch a game,” and so over the last year we’ve gotten about 70 design documents from different people. And if you’re going list out the other random ideas, the scratched stuff on paper, that’s a hell of a lot more. So this year has been about us basically diluting which stuff we wanted to focus on and not focus on, and drilling down to the point where we now have two designs that we’re genuinely focused on.

According to Inaba, fans can expect an experience that’s positioned somewhere between a smaller indie game and a larger AAA project like Bayonetta:

We can’t put together a AAA, $10 million-plus game, because we just don’t have that sort of cash as an independent developer. However, we don’t plan to go the indies route with just a few people on a team making a game, so it’ll be somewhere in the middle, looking at probably about 20 people on the staff making the game, so that’ll still be a healthy [size].

Neither game currently has a release date, but Platinum is known for working fast, and (at the very least) we’ll probably learn more about both games this year.

Posted in News |

Van Helsing III, Winx Club: Alfea Butterflix Adventures, Dustoff Heli Rescue 2 added to Xbox Store

Posted on December 29, 2017 by John Scalzo

Microsoft is closing out 2017 by adding a trio of new games to the Xbox Games Store.

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing III is the latest entry in the Diablo-like series of action RPGs, and it’ll be a free download all this month for Xbox Live Gold subscribers as part of the Games With Gold program.

Also available to download today is Winx Club: Alfea Butterflix Adventures, a 3D adventure featuring the Winx fairies, and Dustoff Heli Rescue 2, a blocky helicopter rescue sim.

You can learn more about all three of these games after the break.

Press Start to Continue →

Posted in News, Xbox One |

Diablo III’s “Darkening of Tristram” event will return on January 1, 2018

Posted on December 28, 2017 by John Scalzo

Blizzard has announced (via their official website) that Diablo III‘s “Darkening of Tristram” event will return on January 1st. The anniversary event will feature a dungeon that’s designed to be a “loving homage” to the original Diablo, as well as a retro-themed graphical filter, and exclusive loot:

Stop the Cultists
Your journey begins on the trail of a group of mysterious cultists causing trouble in Sanctuary. As you hunt them down in Adventure Mode, you’ll uncover clues leading to a portal into Tristram’s past, and the terrifying darkness that took hold of the town so many years ago…

Explore the Cathedral
Follow the clues and you’ll soon find yourself in a realm of glorious RetroVision™, where an all-too-familiar cathedral looms. Explore the depths and you’ll discover familiar enemies and iconic items, all brought to life in the Diablo III engine. Meanwhile, deep beneath the catacombs, the Dark Lord himself awaits any intrepid adventurer who dares to challenge him…

Discover Precious Loot
What is a Diablo game without shiny new loot to call your own? Completing activities in the anniversary event yields unique transmogrification effects, achievements, portraits, pets, and more.

The “Darkening of Tristram” event will be available in Diablo III on the PC, PS4, and Xbox One through January 30th.

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