Octopus Tree is a brand new publisher with a couple of really impressive looking upcoming titles. The one that jumped out and bit me the hardest (ouch!) was Whalebox Studio’s Goliath, an action/adventure RPG coming to Steam on May 12 for $19.99 where you build robots and take them out for some quality time in order to meet other like-minded robots and other big beasts with the intention of nicely or not so nicely knocking the stuffing out of them.
But don’t let me let you think I’m pulling your leg here. I don’t know you all THAT well and heck, I’d ASK first before I pulled anything on you even if you wanted me to (but I avoid fingers for obvious reasons). Ahem. Any-way… just watch that trailer above then go click below the jump and peek at part of the press release. Hey, I’m trying to finish up another writing gig here and I’ve a meeting in about ten minutes, so our “me” time today is somewhat limited… Continue reading →
If your day wasn’t or isn’t weird enough…it’s surely about to get its daily dose of the truly bizarre. Note: this video may cause you to want to go have a drink… of SODA!
Admittedly, I initially had no idea what to make of the infamous Soda Drinker Pro other than to say I played it about a year and a half or so ago for about two hours and I had no idea how to write about it. Was it a commentary on the indie game scene and how any idea that could get made got made? Was it a genuine attempt by a novice developer to get his offbeat game some free media coverage in this age of everyone online being some sort of critic just because they have opinions and easy computer access? Was it a bad dream after too much cold pizza and stale coffee?
After playing that two hours, I’ll admit that my brain was out of things to say back then. So nothing was said and the game seemingly vanished for a while. Actually, it didn’t “vanish” at all. It got tweaked with Oculus Rift support(!) and you can buy a DRM-free download code for the PC version for $4.99 from the official site if you’re brave and curious with five bucks in your hand you want to pass through your monitor to developer Will Brierly.
As you’ve more than likely guessed from that title… Soda Drinker Pro is BACK. As in it’s coming to XBox One and PC on April 14th with the rather intriguing and somehow far weirder platform game Vivian Clark as a bonus. As you can see, that game looks as if Salvador Dali moved into Pee-Wee’s Playhouse and had lots of babies with a spaceship full of willing extraterrestrials:
Or in proper English, I think I may need to play this at some point. You may need to as well if your eyes and brain survived up to this point. Just keep an eye peeled wherever games appear in your area in about a week or so.
While it’s not perfect, fans of Compile Heart’s offbeat and often gal-filled JRPGs should find Trillion: God of Destruction right up their respective alleys. Actually, you’ll probably need to travel through at least one of those alleys and hope there’s a game shop located somewhere at the end of that trip so you can pick up a retail copy if digital isn’t your thing. The game feels like a hybrid that mixes Princess Maker-style mini-games, nice art that looks quite like a Disgaea spinoff (former team members from that series worked on the game), and core gameplay that’s akin to a Mystery Dungeon game meets Vandal Hearts 2 but with a more awkward camera that will mildly to moderately mess with your mojo.
After the titular titan Trillion bumps off Zeabolos, the Supreme Overlord of the Underworld, his brother and about a million minions, it’s up to his female Overlords to get revenge on that massive one plus a dozen zeroes HP creeping terror before it lays waste to their home. Poor Zeab is revived and reconstructed to the best of her ability by a lady with an appropriately Faustian name (Faust) who makes him an offer he can’t refuse. She creates a single ring that the Overlords can wear that will boost their powers considerably provided they also train while Trillion sleeps parked near the gates to the Underworld. Of course, Faust’s deal comes at the cost of Zeab’s soul once the big baddie goes beddie-bye for good. But whomever defeats Trillion instantly becomes his successor and new Overlord of the Underworld with all the riches, sweets and other treats that entails. Continue reading →
Of all the different games from Excalibur Publishing I’ve sampled over the past two months, Jalopy is out and out the best one to date. Created by Minskworks, which is Greg Pryjmachuk, a former game developer who worked on on the legendary Formula 1 franchise, Jalopy is both a visual throwback to the 1990’s and a solid, challenging car simulation for the modern age that’s more fun to play than certain AAA driving games. Set during the fall of Communism in the Eastern Bloc, players are tasked with owning and maintaining a beat up but lovable Laika 601 as they drive it around the GDR’s highways and countryside. Continue reading →
So, yeah. I haven’t done a nice cooking article in a while. But that’s probably because I’ve been in a bit of a food rut for a bit. I guess you could say it was something akin to this, but with me and a great deal less comedy (or something like that):
I cook the majority of my meals myself, only occasionally going out to eat or if I’m really lazy, buying precooked soft noodles and tossing assorted appropriate leftovers into a bowl for a zippy but dull lunch or supper. Oh, don’t go weeping into your freshly made consommé, kids – this story has a point! Anyway, about two weeks back I was dinking around the former Deals (which is now a Dollar Tree) picking up a loaf of nice Pepperidge Farms pumpernickel and I spied something that took me back about 30 or so years. Continue reading →
“Here am I floating round my tin can. Far above the Moon. Planet Earth is blue. And there’s nothing I can do…”
While PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and VR-enabled PC and PS4 versions of threeonezero’s ADR1FT are still in the works, PC gamers with Steam accounts and rigs with decent specs can now purchase the game for $19.99. Even without the added virtual reality functionality 505 Games has a hit here that should go along way in convincing even the most ardent skeptic about the viability of VR for certain gaming and entertainment purposes.
Of course, getting past the new breed of hard-core internet skeptics who dub these sort of first-person experiences “walking simulators” (Bleh. There’s no “walking” here, as you play an astronaut stranded on a partially destroyed space station who needs to figure out what happened) will be the game’s biggest hurdle with the second issue for some being the estimated 4-6 hours it takes to complete the game. Length really isn’t something to whine about here as the game has enough elements to make it replayable as well as a conversation piece to show off for the outstanding Unreal 4-powered visuals.
And if you really want to show off something even more physical, you can boogie on over to iam8bit.com to check out their cool online shop and snag one of those cool ADR1FT Collector’s Edition boxes for $54.95. That price nets you two digital codes for the game (PC and Oculus Rift VR versions), one of two different 756 piece jigsaw puzzles, a nice embroidered HAN-1V patch and a pack of “tasty” astronaut ice cream, all in a big box for safekeeping (but probably not guaranteed to survive being sent into actual space).
If you missed out on Buddy Cooper’s amusing and gory slasher flick The Mutilator way back when it was in theaters or later on VHS, you’re in for a treat thanks to Arrow Video. This one’s got the goofy acting and eyebrow-raising plot holes you’d expect from the genre, but it’s the exceptionally nifty gore effects from Mark Shostrom (Videodrome, Evil Dead II) that will get most viewers on the hook (pun intended).
As for special features, Arrow packs the disc with a raft of bonus content that makes the film a lot more enjoyable thanks to all the great interviews with the cast and crew that participated. These extras are all a great thing as the story here is pretty standard genre wrangling saved by some humor and the aforementioned gore effects.
Ten years after accidentally shooting his mother, Ed Jr. (Matt Mitler) gets a phone call from his dad with a request to close up his beach condo for the winter. After his girlfriend Pam (Ruth Martinez), and school chums Ralph (Bill Hitchcock), Sue (Connie Rogers), Mike (Morey Lampley), and Linda (Frances Raines) invite themselves along for a little fun in the cool fall sun, they discover the condo in a rather messy state. Chalking it up to Big Ed being drunk with a few friends, two of the teens commence their usual getting drunk and splitting up for some alone time antics. Let’s just say Big Ed has a little (okay, somewhat large and sharp) axe to grind with his son… and his poor friends just so happen to be in the wrong place at the right time for him to get in some prime chop time. Continue reading →
It’s somewhat surprising that with so many RPGs available on the Nintendo 3DS, the old-school dirt simple hack & slash sub-genre is somewhat underrepresented. Granted, you’re probably not going to get a fancy looking Diablo or Torchlight-style game up and running on the 3DS hardware without some miracle coding skill and Nintendo completely missed the boat on localizing the fantastic DS game Soma Bringer to the west some years back. Thankfully, Rising Star Games has taken up the chase ‘n chop mantle with Ishi-Sengoku-Den “Sadame” (heretofore shortened to Sadame for the remainder of this review).
The game takes the basic formula found in Blizzard’s classic franchise and adds a feudal Japanese setting, simplified gameplay and multiple routes through four acts that feature multiple routes which add replay value if you want to explore every inch of the maps. While the results aren’t flawless, gamers with more open minds and a willingness to deal with a few quirks will get a lot more out of what’s here than those who come in with a load of expectations. Continue reading →
Thanks to so darn many indie games dropping from the sky these days (it’s a digital monsoon at times!), I’d never even heard of the one man show called Roland Studios or its wild PC game Daydreamer until I got word that Atlus was handling the PS4 (May 31, 2016) and Xbox One (June 3, 2016) publishing in North America. Updated with enhanced features and now called Daydreamer: Awakened Edition, all you need to do is ogle that mind-bending weirdness above and you know you’re in for a trip and a half.
If you like reading a bit more and that laser-eyed bunny above hasn’t freaked you out too much, here’s what to expect in the updated console version:
Daydreamer: Awakened Edition features:
• Twitchy Retro Gameplay – Those who live for intense side-scrolling, platforming, and shooting action will feel right at home, because players will shoot, whip, shield, jump, and warp their way to the Earth’s core. The design choices in the game harken back to gaming’s arcade classics!
• A Varied Combat System – With a dearth of different weapons and abilities at the daydreamer’s disposal, she will eradicate aliens with energy, homing, ray, helix, and flamethrower blasters, and melee mutants with her whips. She also has the abilities to shield against damage, warp to hard-to-reach areas, slow down time, and more. But they don’t come cheap—players must hunt for Psymatter in order to buy the weapons and items that will aid her along her hazardous journey.
• Powerful Pets – Psymatter also can be used to purchase/sustain a loyal pet companion to stay by your side to the death (or until you run out of Psymatter). From fuzzy turtles to vicious weasels, pets will offer invaluable support in varied forms to the daydreamer.
• Frightening Bosses – If normal aliens, mutants, robots, and bugs aren’t bad enough, the bosses of Daydreamer: Awakened Edition are truly terrifying to behold. The disturbing Mr. Smiles, the repulsive Grimeboy, and ferocious, but still kind of cute, Rabies Rabbit are just some of the creepy boss monsters brought to life in the game.
• Numerous Improvements – Since this is the Awakened Edition, that means there are a multitude of improvements and additions to the original release. Besides gameplay tweaks and balancing, there are now more difficulties, enhanced controls, improved combat, a ranked mode/leaderboard for the competitive, world map function, a brand new ending, and much more.
That sounds like a plan to me, folks. The strangeness will commence on those two newer platforms on the dates noted above. Hopefully the PC version will get the same updates as I know some gamers who only do their thing on PC will want what everyone else is having.
If you make it this far without losing a ball, you sir (or madam) are officially some sort of deity to be bowed down to.
tinyBuild Games decided to unleash a little surprise last week and allow some 3000 random Steam account holders to play a six stage Alpha version of Torched Hill‘s upcoming Road to Ballhalla, a game that’s a tiny bit hard to categorize. While it has a few similarities to Marble Madness and the 1998 PlayStation game Kula World (or Roll Away here in the states), Road to Ballhalla is more of a wall-less maze game where reaching the end of each level requires players changing their gameplay focus on a dime often within the same level. I guess you could all it a “puzzle” game if you like based on the simple visual style and rather cool music in that trailer below.
In case you didn’t watch the trailer and that previous sentence connotes “casual” to some of you core gamers who’d normally ignore something like this, you’re in for a big surprise. You can consider Road to Ballhalla the Dark Souls of indie puzzle games (or something *sexy* like that). Continue reading →
"DESTROY ALL FANBOYS!" 