Phil Spencer – head of Microsoft’s Xbox division and t-shirt aficionado – wore a shirt with the Battletoads logo at a Windows 10 press conference earlier today. Of course, this achieved the desired goal of setting the internet ablaze. But in all this fervor I have to wonder: Do we need a new Battletoads game?
Continue reading Would More Battletoads Really Be A Good Thing?
Pixel art… check. Roguelike… check. Hack and slash… check. Crafting… check. Looks fucking great… check.
Children of Morta is all of those things. It’s the next game from Dead Mage, developers of… Garshasp: The Monster Slayer. Don’t worry though, because, well, just look at this thing:
As the trailer says, Children of Morta concerns the adventures of the Bergson family, whose job it is to protect their home Mount Morta, which has been besieged by an evil force. Its Kickstarter page really drives home the fact that this is a narrative-driven experience, and cites The Binding of Isaac and Risk of Rain as examples of its approach (though I wouldn’t say that either of those games really had any more of a narrative than retrieving the Amulet of Yendor, so we’ll see).
Many playable characters in the Bergson family are listed. John, the patriarch, is a traditional heavy sword/shield type. Mark, the eldest son, is a martial arts monkish character and sister Linda is the archer (though it is also stated several times that she likes to play the violin). Also listed is Kevin the rogue, Lucy the sorcerer, and Uncle Joey – a big dude with a big hammer.
Gameplay is going to consist of crawling through procedurally generated dungeons and collecting divine relics of the Mountain Gods to increase your skill. The mountain’s wildlife can also be tamed into familiars by the native Bergsons.
Children of Morta can be backed on Kickstarter starting today. Their goal is $65,000, and as of this writing they’ve already gotten $2,066 of it. Please, for the sake of video games, back this game.
A couple of months ago I posted about a wonderful app I’d found, Terra Battle, that was the only really good phone game I had played since Jetpack Joyride. Well, in a burst of emotion and for reasons I can’t recall, I deleted the app. I’ve decided that I’m just going to wait until I get an Android phone to restart that game, and in the meantime I’ve been on the hunt for something to tide me over. Gemini Strike seems cool. Continue reading A Bit Of Opinion: Gemini Strike
Gearbox today announced it made the most logical move it could and is releasing two Borderlands games on next-gen consoles.
Continue reading Gearbox Surprises No One, Drops Two Borderlands Games on Next Gen
Club Nintendo, in one form or another, has been a huge hit with customers of Nintendo. The concept of adding a code to most Nintendo products for redemption for virtual currency that could in return be used for downloadables and various physical goodies has become a global success and way of keeping fans of Nintendo happy long after the purchase of their new console or games. However, news hit today that Club Nintendo will be closing down.
Not 3 months since Sid Meier’s latest foray into space, Firaxis Games has announced Sid Meier’s Starships, a space-strategy game that is Sid Meier’s first new IP in almost 8 years. Continue reading Sid Meier Continues His Quest for Intergalactic Dominance in Sid Meier’s Starships
One of my fondest memories of playing a pre-release game was the Halo: Reach Beta that ran for about two weeks some months before the game’s release. The changes beyond the visuals were subtle at best. But what made it so great was the feeling of familiarity that came with the game. You could give someone a controller, tell them “This is a Halo game,” and, assuming they’ve played one before, they instantly understand how the game should be played. Every change that was made to Reach was enhanced off of the typical Halo design; things like assassinations, jetpacks, and armor lock all fit with how Halo had been designed for years beforehand. So it makes sense that when I played the beta for Halo 5: Guardians, I wasn’t impressed by it’s first impression.
Continue reading Greek Letters: Halo 5: Guardians Multiplayer Beta
