|
|
 |
Archived News:
Shining Rock Software
announces a February 18th release date for Banished, their upcoming
city-building strategy game (thanks
IncGamers). We've apparently been living under a shiny rock, because this
game hasn't been mentioned here, so
here's a trailer from
last year showing an alpha build, and here is a rundown on the game: The
townspeople of Banished are your primary resource. They are born, grow older,
work, have children of their own, and eventually die. Keeping them healthy,
happy, and well-fed are essential to making your town grow. Building new homes
is not enough—there must be enough people to move in and have families of their
own.
Banished has no skill trees. Any structure can be built at any time, provided
that your people have collected the resources to do so. There is no money.
Instead, your hard-earned resources can be bartered away with the arrival of
trade vessels. These merchants are the key to adding livestock and annual crops
to the townspeople’s diet; however, their lengthy trade route comes with the
risk of bringing illnesses from abroad.
There are twenty different occupations that the people in the city can perform
from farming, hunting, and blacksmithing, to mining, teaching, and healing. No
single strategy will succeed for every town. Some resources may be more scarce
from one map to the next. The player can choose to replant forests, mine for
iron, and quarry for rock, but all these choices require setting aside space
into which you cannot expand.
The success or failure of a town depends on the appropriate management of risks
and resources.
Continue here to read the full story.
A post
from yesterday on the SimCity website discusses modding the most
recent addition to EA Maxis' urban planning series.
In October EA solicited suggestions
for their User Generated Content Guidelines, and true to that, almost everything
in the post covers the rules governing what you can and cannot do in modifying
the game, and in noting this news,
PC Gamer tries to parse what all these regulations mean, noting they are
potentially even more restrictive than they appear at first, which is saying
something.
A Supershow Collective Twitch stream
is set to get underway this evening at 7:00 pm EST (a pre-show gets underway at
6:30), hosted by Greenlit Gaming and indie developers Robot Loves Kitty. This
48+ hour marathon has two components, beginning as an
Indie Showcase which will
morph into an Indie Dev Super
Show at 7:00 pm EST tomorrow. Each program will show off some indie games
that can use some additional exposure. Here's word: The
Supershow Collective Marathon is a
48+ hour event that showcases over 60 indie games and their developers. Tons of
gameplay, special guests, Q&A's, giveaways, sneak peaks, cake, and more!
The first 24 hours Greenlit Gaming's "Indie
Showcase" will treat you to games on Steam and Greenlight, then for 24 hours
Robot Loves Kitty's "Indie
Dev Supershow" will intrigue you with indie games you might not have heard
of, but really should have.
This event was put together to help bring devs and players together in an
unprofessional fun-time bonanza.
There's an interview
on Rock, Paper, Shotgun talking with Valve employees Jan-Peter Ewert, Jeff
Cain, and Louis Barinaga. Whatever the pretext of the conversation, RPS chose to
focus on communication, which they suggest is often a one-way street, noting the
company is often silent on questions about topics like the delayed Diretide
event for Dota 2, company layoffs, and the long-overdue Half-Life 2:
Episode 3. When asked specifically about the lack of information about
whether there would be a Diretide this year, Ewert and Cain defend their
silence, saying: Jan-Peter Ewert: I don’t think there is a lot of
improvement to be made there. The thing is, if you feel something is wrong and
your customers tell you something should be fixed, the right response is to fix
it – not to tell them, “Yeah, at some point in time we’ll fix it.” Because
that’s expectation. And if you’re ultimately not able to fix it, then that only
makes people even more angry.
So I think the right response around SteamOS or anything we do will be what we
did with Diretide, which is to bring out the thing people want [if it works out
behind-the-scenes], not just tell them we’ll fix it.
Jeff Cain, business development: Reactions start even if people don’t hear
anything. We’re listening. Things happen.
- 3079 -- Block Action RPG on
Steam. Save 30%.
- 3089 -- Futuristic Action RPG on
Steam. Save 30%.
- Adventures NOW! on
GOG.com. Daedalic Entertainment and Telltale Games titles up to 85% off.
- Brothers – A Tale of Two Sons on
GamersGate. Save 50%.
- E.Y.E: Divine Cybermancy on
Steam. Save 80%.
- Sanctum series on
GamersGate. Save 75%.
- The Witcher: Enhanced Edition Director's Cut on
GamersGate. Save 75%.
I'd be lying if I told you I believed myself that I'd post this early three
evenings in a row.
Double Fine's
Tim Schafer
tweets excitedly about the January 14th release of Broken Age: Part One
for the game's Kickstarter backers, saying: "Haven't shipped a game of my own in
4.5 years, an adventure game in 16, a point-n-click in almost 20. Next Tuesday
is going to be exciting!" As
Double Fine
announced over the summer the game was split into two parts, with profits
from Early Access to the first part to help fund completion of the second.
Thanks
Joystiq.
The Bethesda
Blog announces the standalone
QUAKE LIVE client is now available, removing the web-browser
interface to this free-to-play online game based on QUAKE III Arena. As
revealed when this
was first
announced, this means that Linux and OS X support for the multiplayer shooter
has come to an end. They provide a FAQ on the topic, which explains that no
changes are being made to their subscription service "at this time," player
stats will carry over, and what to do if your machine no longer meets their
system requirements. They also say the
QUAKE LIVE website will remain online, but many of the game functions it
provided are now integrated into the game client.
PQube and Milestone announce a March 28th U.K. release date for MXGP: The
Official Motocross Videogame, their upcoming dirt bike simulation. No
corresponding North American date is offered, but the
game's official website says the game
"will be available from March 2014 on PlayStation®3, PlayStation®Vita, Xbox 360®
videogame and entertainment system from Microsoft and Windows PC®." That note is
in their news of a new official wallpaper pack they are offering, and for a
further look at the game, there's
a new
gameplay trailer which also confirms the game is due in March. Scheduling
aside, here's a bit on the game itself: "MXGP: The Official Motocross Videogame
is the official game of the World Motocross Championship - authentically
simulating the emotion, the mud, the amazing jumps and fierce competition of
this incredible sport. Including a redesigned career mode, MXGP features all the
riders, teams, bikes and rules from the official MXGP 2013 calendar. Experience
the intensity of these adrenaline-fuelled races first hand, as a new generation
of riders fight it out, to claim the World Championship title race by race." Continue here to read the full story.
The Rambo the videogame website
now offers a new gameplay video with the
upcoming game adaptation of the Rambo movies. The
first and
second trailers for the game showed
some peculiarities in skin reflections and character proportions, and while
these do not seem nearly as pronounced in the new clip, it's not without its
visual oddities. Also,
Strategy Informer reports a tentative February 21st release date for the
game, which they learned from a "development source," though they are also told
this is "not completely fixed yet." Continue here to read the full story.
Recent stories about Energy Hook
coming first to PS4 and PS Vita seem to imply this means the swinging
Spider-Man-inspired action game will come to consoles before PCs, in spite of
the game's Kickstarter being for Windows,
OS X, and Linux.
Rock, Paper, Shotgun clears up this confusion, saying this PlayStation talk
covers the game's console debut, and that the game's PC plans are unchanged,
noting that those who preorder from the
ENERGY HOOK website get
immediate access to the alpha version for Windows, OS X, and Linux, which
includes Oculus Rift VR support.
Following a report on
Eurogamer.cz outlining a rumored shakeup at 2K Czech
( rumored to be working
on Mafia 3),
Eurogamer.net has a confirmation from 2K that some employees of 2K's Prague
facility have been centralized in Brno, also confirming that part of their
operation is being relocated to the U.S. Here's the official statement from
2K: "We have relocated and consolidated our 2K Czech team from our Prague
facility to centralise resources in our location in Brno. Additionally, we are
transferring some development resources from Prague and Brno to 2K headquarters
in Novato, CA. This transition will both strengthen the integration of the 2K
Czech team with our award winning development teams, and better align
cross-functional business practices. As part of this realignment, we are
adjusting our staffing levels, resulting in the elimination of some
positions."
Yesterday's release
of METAL GEAR RISING:
REVENGEANCE included always on DRM that required being connected to the
Internet to play the Windows edition of Konami's action game. It seems this
stealthily snuck into the game, as
Konami tweets
that it was not intended, saying: "We are aware of the offline play issue for
Metal Gear Rising for Steam and are working on a fix. Please stay tuned for more
updates!" There is no follow-up tweet on the topic, but according to
CVG the fix has now been implemented.
Drunken Robot Pornography is now available via
Early Access on Steam,
offering the chance to be among the first to play Dejobaan's bullet-hell
first-person shooter. In
this video Dejobaan also announces a new competition called Drunken Robot
Battle Royale that will involve the release of a new challenge map every Friday
for the next six months, which should include the game's official release, which
is currently planned for this quarter. Here's word on the game: "DRP is a
bullet-hell first-person shooter for Windows. You battle giant robots—called
Titans—as they try to slice you apart with their lasers. Armed with a jet-pack
and a gun, you pick off their missile launchers, fry away their carbon fiber
armor, and tear off their claws, leaving them writhing." Continue here to read the full story.
1C Company announces a February 20th 2014 release day for the digital edition of
Men of War: Assault Squad 2, the upcoming World War II strategy sequel.
Preorders are now underway
on Steam
where the game or its Deluxe Edition variant are both offered for 20% off, with
an additional 10% loyalty discount for owners of the original
Men of War: Assault Squad.
Here's an outline of how the sequel improves upon the original: This new
Assault Squad game brings significant game engine and visual improvements as
well, with special attention paid to ones that were highly requested by the
players. These included items such as advanced multi-core support, advanced
shader technology, interface and AI improvements, as well as added camouflage
depending on season/map, fully updated inventory items with new graphics and
updated vehicles, sound improvements, Steam multiplayer and much more.
A
Steam Greenlight campaign is underway for Usagi Yojimbo: Way of the Ronin,
the PC edition of this side-scrolling action game that's already available for
mobiles. The samurai rabbit character is the creation of award-winning author
and illustrator Stan Sakai, and word is that 100% of the game's profits for the
first 47 days (in honor of 47 Ronin) after it goes live will be donated directly
to Sakai to help with his family's medical bills. "Stan Sakai and his family
have had a tragic year, and we want to help him out as much as we can," said
Michael Levine, HappyGiant President. "We hope to use this as a
'Kickstarter-like' event, except in this case, the game is already done. We just
need people to spread the word and vote for it on Steam!"
This article shows other ways to support Stan and his family in their time
of need as his wife struggles with a debilitating condition. Here's more on the
game itself: The title is a “2D side-scrolling hack-and-slash game”, done
in the comic’s art style, and in the vein of the old Teenage Mutant Ninja
Turtles Arcade game, to which Usagi is often linked, as the characters have
appeared in each other’s comics and TV series over the years. The game features
over SIXTY (60) different enemies, over 13 boss monsters and several of Usagi’s
friends who fight along his side as companions in 13 action packed levels. The
characters were all animated in 3D and the animation was brought into Unity3D in
a proprietary method.
My cooking project last week was pretty successful, as I made my best batch of
Bolognese sauce yet, though perfecting my technique and recipe for this remains
a work in progress. I'm now faced with a greater challenge, as I have a couple
of pork chops I'm tasked with preparing, but the weather (and my aversion to
cold) do not make cooking them on the man-stove very appealing, so I am going to
have to stoop to cooking them indoors. Please don't rat me out to Steven
Raichlen.
|
Twitter 
