Zombie Army 4 Launch Trailer: You Bought A Bigger Boat, Right?

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Hmmm… this could be trouble…

Rebellion is maybe going to cause a rebellion at retail and on digital stores and their up to 4-player Zombie Army 4: Dead War will be the cause. I do need to play it at some point, as back on PS3, the series has always been a sort of reliable insanity for me where you know what you’re getting into from the title and can’t expect anything more than a developer having a bit of gory fun with the subject manner in whatever ways they can. I like that sort of thing because reinventing the wheel isn’t what’s intended, but a new set of spinning rims sure will do you good. Well, that and the zombie sharks in Dead War, which I have some (not so) important questions about, have me quite curious.

To wit:

Are they German-speaking sharks? If so, can players use “Hallo! Bitte beiß mich nicht!” as a command? If they’re undead, does this mean they’ll follow you even more tirelessly because a tired shark who stops swimming will die (allegedly) while a zombie shark will pretty much come at you forever? Am I overthinking this a wee too much? Stuff like that. I’ll wait kindly for the developer to come up with a few answers, but here’s the trailer below the jump to keep you warm while hell freezes over before I get my answers.

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Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous Hands-On: You’ll Come Back, But Be Gone For A While

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Prediction: It’s going to make its target and likely much more.

A little Kickstarter action, anyone?

Developer Owlcat Games is hard at work on a follow up to the incredibly deep Pathfinder: Kingmaker, which combined gameplay inspired by classic PC role-playing games such as the Baldur’s Gate, Fallout, Fallout 2 and Arcanum with a huge kingdom building system in a massive game with a pretty loyal following worldwide. It’s not at all a simple game as it sticks closely to the tabletop experience down to complex rules that need to be learned and implemented lest failure be your primary option.

Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous is a more an even more ambitious follow up, but tailored a lot better and not a direct “sequel”, adding in a wealth of changes to the game engine, a load of new classes to play as and packing in a ton of content. Owlcat is clearly in it for the long haul. This is good, however, as the hands-on demo’s Siege at Drezen sequence was pretty thrilling and left me wanting more. Before the demo, game Director Alexander Mishulin spoke and I got a wealth of lore on new classes, Mythic Path characters such as Angel, Lich, Aeon, and Trickster, some of the overall goals in the story line and more brain-filling content. There’s a lot going on here and Mishulin noted the final version will allow for many options and choices for new as well as returning players (which means a ton of replay value, naturally).

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This is going to be as deep as it gets and then some, but it was also noted that the dev team has been listening to feedback from the first game and is tailoring this new experience to be a bit more flexible for new players as a option. that certainly doesn’t mean the game will be easy or “casual”, mind you. The depth outside of the combat will include a number of “pay attention” elements that will have players glued to their PC’s as they dive into what’s looking like an extremely comprehensive solo campaign.

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SALES: Spike Chunsoft Wants You To Switch It Up

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Well, this is good news if you own a Nintendo Switch and want a few good deals on some mighty fine games particularly video novel adventure games and a really solid tower defense title. Developer/publisher Spike Chunsoft is running a sale on a small collection of digital-only games from now until February 10, 2020. Check out the list below the jump.

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Here Be Dragons: Insanely Good (So Far)

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Too good to be true, so it must be false!

 

How does one properly describe a game where you play as a few somewhat (okay, VERY) off-kilter pirates in a turn-based strategy game that features a dice-spitting cherub, sea monsters of a few types, gameplay on a “living map” and a reworking of Christopher Columbus’ discovery of the New World? Yeah, you can’t, but you sort of just have to watch this trailer first to see why:

 

 

Red Zero Games? Congratulations are in order as you win the prize. What prize it is will be determined at a later date, but you win something for this pure madness in my book (Memo: give Red Zero Games a prize but not the stale popcorn from last week, that’s not a prize unless they’re dead parrots). I’m actually still playing Here Be Dragons (my laptop has been in haywire mode this week), but so far, this game has had me laughing with it constantly because it’s got easy to pick up, tricky to master gameplay, other than a few glaring typos is extremely well written, and its humor is right up my alley.

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Overpass Hands-On: A Scoop Of (Extremely) Rocky Road, Please

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(sings): “Bumpy roads, take me home…”

 

Bigben Games wants to be your racing simulation racing studio of choice (WRC 8 was a pretty excellent sim on PS4 and my favorite console racer last year), and its upcoming off-road title developed by Zordix Racing in Sweden, Overpass (set for release on March 12, 2020 and March 17 for Switch) is certainly shaping up to be a really solid game experience. I got an hour or so of playtime with the PC version and can report that it’s going to fascinate some and frustrate others, but this is actually a really good thing. If you’re more used to arcade-style racers where all you do is floor the accelerator and powerslide to the fastest victory you can manage, well, here comes a game that’s a test of skill where learning the literal ups and downs of the tracks becomes part of the game and speed needs careful mastering and consideration.

 

 

Does anyone remember Spintires? If so, imagine that with faster off-road racers in mind and the needs to both master a track’s hazards and nail in a quick time despite those hazards. Overpass does this somewhat magnificently, with analog triggers and a thrilling use of controller feedback where you’ll feel the road beneath your ride of choice and need to navigate through the environment unless you want more free badly done rolls than you can find at an Olive Garden.

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The Thousand (Plus) Post Stare

I’ve got a secret that’s not really a secret is a silly way to begin a post, but so it goes. Anyway, I started blogging on Blogger 11 or so years ago, moving to WordPress because, frankly, Blogger was a pain on a few fronts and Google for some reason chopped my Adsense monetization off for no good reason. I know there was a class action suit filed a few years later and they eventually sent me a pittance of what I was owed, but that’s fodder for a separate post.

I’d been meaning to migrate my old site’s posts here for some time and indeed, did move a few years of content (a few thousand posts) over a few years ago. What’s left are about 1100 posts (including drafts) that I have no idea what to do with, although a few are junk posts that point people to this site, so I can ignore those completely.  As for the rest, it may seem that many posts are outdated and some old reviews are no longer relevant, but it’s a weird time in the world where one may want old stuff to have some existence in some way outside the disposable content the internet is packed with.

Well, that and converting even a few hundred of those old posts will take a bit of time to do and transfer any images and videos over. Well, that’s a thing to consider, right? It might not actually happen, but I may slip in the occasional old blog post as a “retro” review other feature in the future, Well, maybe. My backlog is so huge that it may never happen, but I may surprise myself one of these days..

-GW

Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous Coming to Kickstarter in Feburary

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Something’s cooking over at Owlcat…

If you’re fan of old-school PC classics like the Baldur’s Gate series and other Infinity Engine games, Keep an eye of this, please. Developer Owlcat Games will be launching a crowdfunding drive via Kickstarter for Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, the followup to Pathfinder: Kingmaker, which by the way is on sale for about 20 hours more at Fanatical (go get it!). There’s a lot of changes on the way, but I’ll reveal a few when the Kickstarter goes live on February 4, 2020 and I can report on some hands-on time spent with a build.

You’ll also want to go sign up for info on the game on Owlcat’s website, as this will get you a stunning free 178 page artbook PDF from the first game that actually surprised me at how much it contained. A bit of info about the new title and some nice screen and art is below the jump.

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Maneater: Watch Out, Folks – It’ll Chew You Up This May

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“HEY YOU KIDS, GET OFFA MY LAWN!!

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Please don’t sing that “Baby Shark” song here.

Way back in 2006, developer Appaloosa Interactive and publisher Majesco released JAWS Unleashed, an officially licensed game that had players take on the role of the shark in an open-world adventure set 30 years after the original film. While it suffered from some camera issues and a few glitches, the game was quite a guilty pleasure many players liked for its shark-driven bloody violence and some pretty wry humor in all the M-rated mayhem caused.

Me, I have both the PlayStation 2 and Xbox versions of that older game here, plus an Xbox review build from Majesco that I got at a press event for the game, which was a ton of fun to play, warts and all. The Xbox versions are buried in a pile of games here, but I did locate a sealed PS2 version I should crack open at some point (I’d reviewed the Xbox version many moons ago on a new defunct website).

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I don’t think a bigger boat will help much, to be honest.

 

Flash forward to 2020, and developer Tripwire Interactive has what looks like a much meatier game called Maneater coming this May and man, does it bring back some good and gory memories.

Here’s a somewhat tongue in cheek trailer to ogle:

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Review: SEGA AGES Shinobi (Switch)

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Hey, that’s NOT a ninja weapon!

Switch Shinobi boxAnother flawless and essential port by M2 with a few excellent modern options, the 1987 arcade classic Shinobi ($7.99) sneaks onto the Switch, and it’s just as hard as ever. There’s an easier AGES mode that changes lead Joe Musashi’s garb to white and lets you take more that a single hit (as in the Genesis and Mega Drive follow-up Revenge of Shinobi) and you can choose to use the new rewind function if you like to make things a bit easier. I’ll admit that I didn’t touch it for a few days until it was tested for review purposes and yep, it helped a lot in a few areas. But it’s not necessary to clear the game if you’re averse to it and want to do it the old-fashioned way. Well, minus the feeding the machine part.

 

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Dawn of Fear: Some Residents Are Quite Evil Here

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I like the PlayStation Talents program, as it’s been bringing a few games to players from quite a few indie developers in Spain that might otherwise be ignored in a market crowded with new releases every week. Survival Horror fans have a new game to look at with Dawn of Fear, from indie team Brok3nsite. Take a look at this trailer and get the warn and fuzzy zombies coming after you feeling once more:

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