…and stay inside playing a lot longer. 505 Games and developer Keen Games have announced a huge new update to their popular family friendly crafting/action/RPG, Portal Knights that includes many requested features such as voice and text chat for online play, remappable controls, and a ton of tweaks and fixes. The new larger islands make the overall game world even more fun to run around in, and my logging in to check out the changes also revealed the game’s visuals have gotten nicely upgraded as well.
Check out the new trailer and screenshot slideshow below.
Hey! Got some burning questions about the Nintendo 3DS version of Gurumin: A Monstrous Adventure, coming soon to the handheld? Well, join the Gurumin 3D Live Twitter Chat this Thursday (3-5pm Pacific Time, or 6-8pm here in NYC) on the game’s Twitter page! If you’re asking “What’s Gurumin?”, well, thank me now for removing that stone off your head and getting you into the daylight!
Here you go:
While you’re cooking up those tasty questions for tomorrow, check out this blog post on the Gurumin Rocks site to find out a few cool nuggets on how the game’s battle system evolved during development. I’ll be sitting on this session at some point, but don’t mind me – I’ll just be taking a break from a really insane backlog, chilling with a cold drink watching the questions roll in.
And if you need to get Gurumin and don’t own a 3DS, you’re still in luck! If you own a PSP, Vita, or PS TV, or have an active Steam account, well… you know what to do, right?
So, yeah. I’m buried under games even more so than usual, but when something cool and FUN like UK-based Space Lizard Studios‘ Dragon Bros pokes me in the eye (ow!) with a free demo I read can be completed in five minutes or less, I have to stop, drop and roll away from my backlog and get some quick hands-on time. That five minutes and twenty-seven seconds it took me to finish the demo build was pretty invigorating to say the least. Yes, they got my vote on Steam Greenlight and I want to see this one get done up right.
Dragon Bros is a super-charged cute run & gun very much like you’d be playing on the Sega Genesis or SNES (minus that console’s better color palette). Your little dragon with the big gun is out to rescue his mom (in solo play, the game will be solo or co-op), and those robotic dopes shooting back aren’t going to stop him. well, unless you’re lousy at these types of games. As with many old-school games, this one’s a side-scroller where you can’t back up if you’ve missed a weapon pickup or dropped coins. Still, the action is fast paced and a slider on the options screen lets you choose difficulty on the fly. There seemed to be a few secrets just out of reach easily lost when the current screen slid over to a new one. But replaying the map and paying attention to spots where one can jump up to or down from helps out a great deal.
As the game is still early, there are some obvious tweaks that need to be done. The options menu needs some character sprite love for sure. The developers note on the Greenlight page that the game is still a WIP and has a ways to go before completion, but so far, they’re well on the way to making an instant classic in my bookIm.
Go click away above, try that demo out and see for yourself what’s what. I think this team and these Bros. deserve a shot as well a space in your game library. That, and snapping up the Bros when they hit Steam means THIS can probably get made sooner. Wow.
UPDATE: Okay, I played a bit more and Got my time down a bit, but I need to slide away from this and get back to work. That backlog is staring at me and tapping its fingers waiting. Back in a bit.
Dejobaan Games‘ latest eye-popper, Tick Tock Bang Bang comes out tomorrow on Steam and yes, you probably need to be dodging cars, lasers and anything else the game throws at you just because this can come in handy as a real-life survival skill. Well, for a pie fight, maybe.
In real life, all of us who see a flying car would either scream like a busload of kittens going off a cliff or whip out that phone of camera to snap a selfie, THEN scream like that busload of kitties going off that cliff as the car was about to crush us like a grape.
Priorities, people, PRIORITIES. Duck and cover FIRST, then pop up to take that selfie right before the bus you were waiting for falls on your head because you didn’t look UP first. Oops.
For a bit of practice, here are some GIFs, as they do a good job of distracting you AND teaching you how to dodge pie-like stuff coming your way:
Too distracting? Okay, okay. Here are a few non-moving screenshots to tide you over until tomorrow, then:
Gamers who love stuff like Team ICO’s games, the Oddworld series and gorgeous artwork would do well to keep an eyeball peeled for Fossil Echo, set for a July 1 release on Steam. You can also pre-order the Fossil Echo – Special Edition directly from the developer for 14.99 (the price jumps up to $19.99 in about 20 days) which includes a Steam copy of Fossil Echo for PC, a Fossil Echo Original Soundtrack by John Robert Matz (25 tracks + 1 bonus), a 20+-page PDF: The Making Of Fossil Echo, other extras (such as wallpapers, profile pictures) and yes, the dev team’s infinite gratitude.
Much to the joy of many gamers in the know, there are now two major games on the way from indie developers focused on returning the classic character Wonder Boy to his former glory and both have the blessings and cooperation of series creator Ryuichi Nishizawa.
“Innovation” (cue angelic music or whatever you hear when that word is mentioned) is one of the most overused buzzwords in gaming “journalism” (another overused word clung to by some) and it’s clear that too many writers about games tend to try too hard to push the idea that if an new game isn’t “Innovative” it’s somehow lacking the necessary “fun” required that seemingly ONLY comes via “Innovation” (cue angelic music or whatever you hear when that word is mentioned).
Well, Black Pants Studio has some happy hogs that need to be washing by some of these soulful-eyed scribes who seem to not be having FUN because they’re waving their “innovation” meters all over every game they play looking hard instead of cutting loose and having… well, you know what.
On Rusty Trails is their new PC/Mac/Linux game set to hit Steam June 13 and early code in hand, a spin was taken that finds the game is truly more (and actual) FUN without trying so hard to “innovate” that it spins itself into a pretzel that pleases none but those who want it to bend how they please. But enough jabbing at peers here. Let’s get to the describing as best we can how FUN Elvis is to play as… Continue reading →
Blue Isle Studios‘ upcoming first-person action/adventure/exploration platformer Valley is coming along very nicely indeed as you can see in these new screens. As noted earlier, the developer is not slapping together a new Slender game just to cash in on the still percolating jump-scare horror craze. The richer Unity-powered visuals and more open game world beg to be explored and the intriguing L.E.A.F. Suit’s yin/yang powers of death dealing and life giving should make this quite the interesting game experience.
I have the feeling that this is going to be one of those summer games that gets people to stop and hop in for a slice of thrills they don’t expect coming, but as usual, we shall see. Valley‘s Steam page is beckoning you to wishlist the game, so you go on ahead and do that. Well, after you finish ogling those screens below.
And don’t forget, PS4 and Xbox One versions are on the way. Blue Isle isn’t letting those console owners have a slow summer either. Back with more on this one soon.
Sneaky, Tamsoft, SNEAKY. Teaming up with Idea Factory and Compile Heart and getting your Onechanbara in my Neptunia while making it a ridiculously fun and ridiculously cute hack & slash with a ridiculous amount of replay value. Ridiculous! MegaTagmension Blanc + Neptune VS Zombies is an absolutely silly blast of a game that’s easy to get into and deserves a sequel of some sort down the road. Yeah, I missed out on Hyperdimension Neptunia U: Action Unleashed (it’s on my list of stuff to get to, really!), so I’m going into this one as it’s an all-new and different experience.
While it’s packed with characters and content, the “Hey, let’s put on a show!” hijinks that revolve around the female students of Gamicademi trying to save their school from closing by making a low-budget zombie movie also makes for a pretty amusing plot. The game is part visual novel, part action/RPG and definitely going to take up a small to moderate chunk of your time thanks to all the variables that come into play. That tongue-in-cheek humor it bashes you over the head with gets you into the groove right from the start, but it’s not going to be everyone’s cup of tea. Your Vita will either pop out of its hiding place and kiss you for making this purchase or slap you in the face with a smirk if you get too serious while playing this game. Or both. Continue reading →
Lumo is out now on Steam, gog.com, the Humble Store (PC/Mac/Linux), and PlayStation 4 now and that $20 price tag may actually be too little for such a gorgeous and brain-twisting platform/adventure game hybrid. Created by Triple Eh! (Gareth Noyce) and published by Rising Star Games, there’s so much packed into this isometric wonder that most gamers under a certain age with no sense of game history outside their own short memories will spin themselves silly trying to keep up with the seemingly endless references to games they’ve never seen or played. North American gamers with some experience will note the Solstice and Equinox homages along with nods to Donkey Kong, Marble Madness, and a few other classic arcade and console games while they jump through around and in many cases, OVER levels to locate some very-well hidden secrets.
This isn’t a proper “review” (yet) as I’m basing my wordy noise here on the preview code I received and finally got around to this past weekend. Think of this as a fine and dandy heads-up if you’re on the hunt for a lengthy, challenging blend of old and new schools that’s cute enough to be a kid’s game, but tricky enough to get the most seasoned player checking out every nook and cranny for hidden stuff. As you play, you’ll discover Noyce is indeed a very, very talented guy with an elephantine memory and deep knowledge about his favorite games and a willingness to share that with anyone who picks up a controller. 400 rooms in a beautifully rendered Easter Egg farm where fast movement is necessary, yet paying attention to visual cues makes for truly rewarding play sessions. The sense of discovery in Lumo is fairly remarkable because you’ll be doing things both inside and outside the box. See some crates stacked by a wall or what looks like a curious means of reaching the top of a wall? With a bit of effort poking around in nearby room or a bit of backtracking to other curious spots, you’ll be up and over those walls and into new territory. Continue reading →
"DESTROY ALL FANBOYS!" 