Capcom Arcade Cabinet 1985-II Trailer: Three More To Make You Feel Young (Or Old)…


 

OK, my poor twitch reflexes are tingling, but that’s either good or bad depending on the game that needs playing. It’s good if it’s a slow jammer I can play half asleep, but not so good if it’s these three latest downloads for Capcom Arcade Cabinet on the PS3 (via PSN) and Xbox 360 (via XBLA), which you should be able to snap up right about now. Savage Bees, The Speed Rumbler and Commando are this week’s quarter-munchers, so grab them and prepare to see how the old folks got it done. Hey, wait… I’m ONE of those old folks, so perhaps I should show myself some more respect. Or maybe not, as that would be a bit too pompous – I kind of wasn’t so good at some of these games back in the day. But practice makes almost perfect, right? Off to get some training in before I fire this one up. 50 push-ups should do. If I survive that part, I’ll be back…

OK, OK, Telltale Games’ Poker Night 2 Wins The BEST April Fool’s Game Gag of 2013…

 

Why? Because I bet they NAILED the fan reactions to this one when they thought it up. Some of the ones posted on their YouTube page are from a bunch who now want to hope against all hope that this is real despite it being too damned crazy to exist as an actual product. The comments are almost funnier than the video to me because it’s something like 90% desperate Ash from Evil Dead fans ranting like madmen and the rest drooling about a game that will never, EVER be released (even under the most perfect of circumstances of the right people being paid for their vocal talents). Still, it’s a hoot to watch and wonder about. Touché, Telltale, touché!

Oh, wait. It’s a REAL GAME. Bleh. Well, I don’t play poker at all, so I don’t care. Well, it’ll sell like hotcakes among those who are into that, I suppose. Me, I prefer a good strategy game over losing my virtual shirt to a bunch of digital cheaters…

Best April Fool’s Game Gags: One Almost Works, Two Are Too Good to Be True…

Look, PR people: I’ve been around since 1972 as a gamer, so no game-related April Fool’s joke can pass by me without my eyebrow sailing up into the air over a vaporware or other intentionally hokey product/project announcement. THAT said, this year three jokes really made me crack up and all were from indie publishers:

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The first was Watermelon Team’s Magical Game Factory’s name and focus change to a SOCIAL games developer called Banana Games (Yikes!), which actually ALMOST got me for about a minute until I reread the press release and realized that the line “Forget about retro consoles, they’re too old (and complicated to program to, so freaking time consuming! Yuck!), and enjoy a universe of magic and fun for ONLY $19.99/month!” was a total stab in the eyeball at Facebook and other social/digital only sites that glom onto your wallet with their “free” to play products (that really aren’t).

Endless Space WOF Logo Endless Space WOF

The second was so unbelievable I laughed for a good minute because the idea is spectacular, but the proposed console? Yeah, OK. Iceberg Interactive and Amplitude Studios’ fan-favorite 4X space sim, Endless Space, called Endless Space: Wings of Freedom, coming to the NEOGEO X Gold as an arcade shooter? Well, those screenshots below SURE look real, and it’s an idea that would make X owners like me run around the room squeeealing like a chased pig. But it’s not gonna happen (too bad!). THAT said, doing something like this for the Vita and 3DS? Get on it, Amplitude! Seriously.

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The third thing? well, GOG.com didn’t get me at all, but I just KNOW people on that awesome site full of DRM-free gaming goodness of the classic to current variety would LOVE to have a RetroMator 4000 running in their PC’s or Macs (or ha ha, Linuxes). This one was pretty cool because I don’t think ANYONE on the site was fooled for one bit, but there have been some amusing screenshots cooked up by some users…

Better luck next year, folks. I’ll be waiting…

PAX East 2013: DuckTales Gets The Crowd Going (Therefore, You Must Go As Well)…


 

Yeah, you watched the show as a kid (or a drunken college teenager or early pre-hipster doofus) and yeah, you played the NES game to death. So now you need to show your love or else the game’s upcoming remake will be trapped in development HELL. Not really. I just wanted to see you all singing along to the DuckTales theme song. Corny as hell, but C-l-a-s-s-i-c cartoon stuff from the 80’s!

OK, shut up and sing along. You sing, an angel gets a new kidney or something like that. And a puppy.

YOU SING! NOW!!


Life is like a hurricane…
Here in Duckburg.

Race cars, Laser, Aeroplanes
It’s a… duck blur.

Might solve a mystery
Or rewrite history…

DUCKTALES
Woo-oo!

Everyday they’re out there making:

DUCKTALES
Woo-oo!

D-D-D-Danger moves behind you
There’s a stranger out to find you
What to do? Just grab on to some:

DUCKTALES
Woo-oo!

Tales of derring-do
Bad and good luck tales (Woo-oo!)

Not ponytails
Or cotton tails, no:

DUCKTALES
Woo-oo!

DUCKTALES

Woo-oo!

Now there, don’t you feel a LOT better?

You’re welcome.

Gallery: DuckTales

DT NES_WFT WOO-HOO! What’s old certainly has gotten a MAJOR makeover, as WayForward Technologies takes the classic NES game to the next level with its DuckTales “remake”, set to hit Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Wii U this summer. Screenshots don’t do this one justice, so make sure to check out that cool and funny trailer (and sing along, too, as you KNOW you remember all the words to that song! “Not ponytails. Not cottontails. DUCKTALES!!!”):

 

DTheader1 DTheader2 DTheader3 8b333e7b8198d579853fb9e92fe84313 9d0e1eefaeca31a0f8a9b9b00acb50a6 63b5554e52bf1e909ce4a23cac085ae4 212e411134697314d63d833f4e138d46 1586c36d0ae8781f53b503d98f2f13bf fc575e2bc0b04a64ad7bc5751301e908 bfaca205dee10d1e867d20dc0fdea19b

Gallery: Dungeons & Dragons: Chronicles of Mystara

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D&D_art_small (Cue stereotypical booming RPG narrator voice along with equally stereotypical epic-sounding fantasy music) NARRATOR: “And so, it came to pass, after many years of online fire and calamity that Capcom doth finally decree that the gamers worldwide long starving for a pair of decent fantasy hack & slash arcade games long consigned to history’s dusty trails become updated and set loose as one whole product to be forever named Dungeons & Dragons: Chronicles of Mystara. And that game, now headed to the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii U and Windows PC (developed for Capcom by Iron Galaxy and priced at $14.99/€14.99/£11.99/1200MSP) was indeed met by the cheers and praises of the long-starved masses destined to play until the long hours of the dark night have turned to day… and beyond!”

Or something like that. I’ll just shut up with the silly stuff and run the gallery below:

D&D faux machine 1 D&D faux machine 2 9c3578dfce792763854d46b2efea539d 2019c8f2a1588f5a1c6abcac2b7d0e0a 2250c9f1c00e2aee7b5610639ec06fc6 bffb0007127a70d52374374785f839ea c2a3ea084a2802aaf28e9994ba6e4a93 c46d32d4f9461645eabdb35c8bddbaf6 d31570646d1abf19e03c7b7129b2cc92 f9105b4dcd1a278c17279c8ccef21bd3 6493eaaadcd4b64d199183b4a5abe51e

PAX 2013: Capcom Makes My Day: Dungeons & Dragons AND DuckTales Are Back!

 

Dungeons & Dragons: Tower of Doom and its sequel Dungeons & Dragons: Shadow over Mystara have been two arcade games fans in the US have been begging Cacpom to localize for the US. For years, the only ways to play this were flying to Japan, buying an expensive Sega Saturn import or through not so legal emulation means, but now PS3, Xbox 360, Wii U and PC owners will get to get down with some serious D&D arcade action in Dungeons & Dragons: Chronicles of Mystara. Iron Galaxy is handling the dev chores on the two D&D games, which will get the HD remaster treatment and more (read that link for details – I have to warm up my happy dance) with everything set to release digitally in June.

 

 

DUCK TALES RMAs for DuckTales? This NES classic platformer is getting the SUPER royal deluxe McDuck treatment, as its HD remake is being handled by none other than WayForward Technologies, one of the best 2D developers in the business (in my humble opinion). Expect to see this one on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Wii U this summer.  I’ll post galleries for both games later today or tomorrow, as I have a museum trip and dinner appointment calling me and I’m about to dance on over thataway, happily…

Might & Magic X Legacy: Ubisoft (Finally) Revives The Classic RPG Series (Fingers Crossed Version)…

 

MMX_goblinySure, my first Might and Magic game was the lowly (but still incredibly hard as hell) Sega Genesis game, Might & Magic: Gates to Another World, but that turned me onto the series and I followed it onto the SNES and later, PC as time went on. Anyway, the series ended up dying a horrible death in 2002 with the rushed release of an unfinished Might & Magic IX (as publisher 3DO was itself dying in the flames from churning out too many mostly awful games for far too long) and has until now, been a series longtime fans have been begging to see reborn. Well, it looks as if Ubisoft is finally getting it in gear, as German developer Limbic Entertainment is working away on an all-new installment that’s coming to PC and will be revealed this weekend in Boston at this year’s PAX East.

Firemage rangerMight & Magic X Legacy should be one to watch out for if it’s done right, so here’s a few fingers and toes well-crossed that the dev team and Ubisoft get this out in fine form AND get it to gamers across multiple platforms and this classic style of RPG is strong thanks to a few indie darling hits and seeing MORE people playing a new M & M game instead of the high end PC elites only will make more fans of this game and more loot for the developer and publisher at the end of the day. Hell, Ubisoft slapped the much more casual-friendly Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes onto anything with a screen except for digital watches (and that was only because the screens were too small), so let’s see Vita and 3DS versions even if they’re scaled back or entirely different side-stories, I say…

Hating Aliens: Colonial Marines? Well, It Could Be Better (or Worse) With A Bit of Retro Perspective…

 

ACM_PS3Given the critical drubbing that Sega’s Aliens: Colonial Marines has gotten across most of the Internet-verse, some gamers are still feeling the urge to play something that feels closer to James Cameron’s 1986 film than what ended up on store shelves. Well, allow me to assist in this matter (sort of). Track down a working Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum and MSX and a copy of Electric Dreams’ 1987 game, Aliens or the rather interesting (and free) PC remake over at Derbian Games and see what was scary to gamers of that era. Continue reading

Inventist, Your Swerver Quad Skates Make Me Want to Go Broke (In All The Right Ways)…

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swerver quad skatesHmmm. $395 is a bit steep for a cheap guy like me, but I saw these awesome feet-wheels at Toy Fair and immeduately wanted to take them for a test drive. I used to roller skate a bit in the 80’s (no, it wasn’t a disco thing, silly!) and early 90’s, but stopped once I actually broke a pair of old-school skates during a parade I was in (no, it wasn’t that type of a parade, silly!). Anyway, those slick Swever Quads promise with a “patented lean-to-turn design” that according to the official site “allows for increased stability when skating forwards or backwards, and more freedom of movement.” Hmmmm. They do look nice with jeans, yes?

swerver quad skates 2

 

BC_ThorWell, no “Hmmm.” at all actually, as I’ve seen Inventist’s other products in action including the amazing Solowheel, which makes me crack up because I think of that old BC comic strip (which is STILL running, I just found out – just not in any NYC papers from what I’ve seen) and that “original” solo wheel cooked up by Thor back in the day. OK, so I’m mandated to get a gaming angle here by the other side of the brain, so here you go: a play through of the classic and slightly related to this post Commodore 64 game from 1983 called B.C.’s Quest for Tires. Hmmm… (again?) perhaps that NEXT Solowheel video can be a “remake” of the game? THAT would be really cool. Weird and funny as hell, but cool nonetheless…

 

 

(Thanks to Christian Liepold and his YouTube Channel for that video, by the way)