Since the recent growth in Steam we have seen indie games become more and more popular. Games such as Dungeon Defenders and Super Meat Boy have seriously hit it off with the market by making as much profit as a normal retail game in some cases.
We love these indie games because of the innovation that seems to be drained from the mainstream publishers, we see brand new ideas from hundreds of different studios that would never have the chance if we didn’t have distribution services such as Steam and the popularity of social networks today. One of the greatest things about indie games though are the prices, and by prices I don’t mean the regular price you pay when the game is released. When I talk about prices I mean bundles, indie bundles to be exact! If you have not learned of this growing phenomenon the basic idea is that a group of developers donate keys to a website for a good cause such as Child’s Play and the website sells these group of games in a bundle for what ever amount you decide to pay. That’s right, they are practically giving their game away. But that is not the point of the bundles, the point is to give what you think the games are worth and how much you appreciate the developers making these games, so you can donate anywhere from 1 dollar to 1000 and it’s all up to you. The most popular bundles seem to be The Humble Indie Bundle, Indie Royale and The Indie Gala. Continue Reading
Gaming
Rockstar Games have released the 2nd official trailer for Max Payne 3 today. It shows us a bit more about why he’s fighting the criminals and gangs in Brazil. Max is trying to locate and take back the kidnapped wife of wealthy real estate mogul Rodrigo Branco. The trailer shows lots of shooting, explosions and guns, “just another day at the office” as Max would say. There’s still no indication as to why he shaved his full head of hair though, maybe it was too hot in Sao Paulo.
The game is coming out on May 15th 2012 in North America and May 18th 2012 in Europe on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 with the PC version launching on May 29th 2012 in North America and June 1st 2012 in Europe. For more information see the official website: http://www.rockstargames.com/maxpayne3
AJ
Ubisoft have today released a new trailer for their upcoming game, Far Cry 3. Title “Stranded” it follows the main protagonist, Jason Brody, his girlfriend and friend as they go from backpacking on the Far Cry 3 to being kidnapped and running for his life from the ever so slightly mad Vaas. It’s clearly a trailer designed to set up the backstory for the game. If it keeps up this level of action and intensity throughout the game Ubisoft could be onto a sure winner.
You’ll be able to play the game on September 7th 2012. Let’s just hope Ubisoft don’t package their awful always-on-DRM with the PC version.
For more information on Far Cry 3 check out the official website: http://far-cry.ubi.com/far-cry-3/en-GB/home/
AJ
Telltale games, developers behind the Back to the Future, Jurrasic Park and Sam and Max episodic adventure games, have announced Playing Dead, a new 9 part behind the scenes series counting down to the first episode for their The Walking Dead game.
The videos are hosted by AJ LoCascio, the voice of Marty McFly in Back to the Future: The Game, and will offer an insight into the development of the game. Fans will be able to see interviews with special guests including The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman and Gary Whitta, screenwriter for The Book of Eli, writer for Gears of War and story consultant for their game. As well as exclusive interviews and development information, fans can expect to have their questions answered in a Q&A segment exclusive to the game’s official site. Continue Reading
New screens for the downloadable Sequel in the Sonic series is starting to look more and more like the Genesis sequel.
This time around we are seeing purple sonics, Tail’s and his plane and even dual abilities? There seems to be a couple of similarities with this game and the sequel to the original Sonic, we even get that fun 3D mini games for the chaos emeralds! You can check out the gallery over at destructoid.
Board games have had just about every theme you can think of these days, Nintendo, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, basically if it has a fan base there is most likely someone trying to cash in on it and what better way to do that than with Monopoly! Well it seems that Blizzard has jumped into the dice filled ocean too.
USAopoly has anounced that there will be two new board games revolving around two of Blizzards biggest franchises. The first being Monopoly: World of Warcraft where players will try to be the richest creature in Azeroth. The other game will be Starcraft: Risk which will apparently consist of 290 custom designed pieces and three different game modes.
Both games will be appearing this summer for a price tag of 40-50 dollars.
3 new screenshots for Max Payne 3 have been released showing Max shooting guns with a range of states of hair. These have obviously been taken from different sections in the game and they all have one thing in common: Guns, explosions and awesomeness. It’s looking explosive and you’ll be able to play it when it comes out in May 2012, for now though check out the screenshots below. Continue Reading
Unlike my previous retro gaming posts on Doom and Re-Volt, Thief II: The Metal Age is not one I have played when it first came out, we can be sure therefore, that my opinions on it are not tinted with rose coloured spectacles.
Thief II the Metal Age has just been re-released on Good Old Games.com, along with the first in the series “The Dark Project” I thought now was as good a time as any to give it a go. GOG do ensure that any games they sell will work on a modern computer and operating system before they sell them, even if it means shipping them with DOSBox, we can however do better as both games have received fan patches that mean they don’t just run, but run in resolutions suitable for a modern monitor without letterboxing and upscaling. The GOG forums have all the information you need, for the first game you need to go here and for the second have a look at this. Note that for the first one there is an additional step to get the briefing videos to work which can be found in the second post of the thread.
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By this point in time you have probably heard the mountains of fan boy hate about how Final Fantasy XIII is possibly the worst game in the entire series and how the franchise is going down the whole. While the last entry in the series wasn’t an awful game many of the statements given were correct about it, the number one statement being that it didn’t feel like a Final Fantasy Game. With Final Fantasy XIII the developers decided to change everything about the series to try and keep up with the current generation of games, only to realize that it wasn’t what the audience wanted from them. While a lot of games today have become very fast paced and combat oriented Final Fantasy is a series that needed to stay with a lot of the things that made it great.
Old Friends Return in This Entry
It’s starting to become a stretch for the Wii in these last couple years it is running. Nintendo is planning for the Wii U in hopes of it becoming bigger than the Wii and the 3DS is even becoming bigger and bigger by the week it seems. But Nintendo still has a trick up it’s sleeve to make me buy more games for my dusty Wii. Soon to be released this coming month is Rhythm Heaven Fever, a game full of miniature Wario Ware-esque games all revolving around rhythm. For those of you that bought a Wii just for Skyward Sword this may be a game to fill up your Wii library, it’s not the most hardcore game but that doesn’t seem to be an issue with Rhythm Heaven. You can play alone or with a friend and have a great time playing badminton in an airplane, or become the ultimate wrestler in an interview. This game is also a must for anyone who loves games such as Katamari Damacy and Wario Ware Inc. just because of the noticeable Japanese feeling to the game. If you haven’t seen the english trailer yet, check it out below!
Gaming and Tech Network 