Oops. I got so buried in a couple of games that arrived yesterday that I forgot to add a post! Eh, it happens. I’ll be back with some reviews I started for some other games as well as some other posts later today. Now, I’m headed to sleep to rest my weary eyeballs. In the meantime, here’s a trailer for Scribblenauts Remix to ogle, now that it’s coming to iOS after all this time… good night!
Now with PayPal! Yup, even though about 3.3 million dollars was raised so for, a LOT of people who wanted to get in on the Kickstarter thing couldn’t because the wanted to go the PayPal route. Now, you can indeed not only get a copy of the game if you have an account there, you’re also getting access to the dev diaries as they’re released and you can start posting your thoughts and such in the game’s contributors forums. Nice!
Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. You HATE pre-ordering, right? You want to wait on your hands until the big review sites pass judgment on the games you want, then wait some more until they hit the clearance bin and snap them up for a song (or a whistle when they drop in price even quicker).
However… Telltale isn’t having that noise, kids – they’re giving ONE of you out there your big, fat chance to be IMMORTALIZED digitally in the upcoming game based on Robert Kirkman’s award-winning comic and all you need to do is… guess what? Easy as pie to enter and it doesn’t involve becoming irreversibly infected with a zombie virus at all. So go make yourself a potential neighborhood superstar and take a chance on winning this one. As much as a feel like one of the undead most mornings, I’d go and enter, but I’m sure us media elite (little in-joke there) aren’t allowed… rawr!
Yikes. Just when I get to griping about underfunded indie games that NEED more notice, along comes this news, which I gather will make people forget all about that last post. I guess I need to pay more attention to Kickstarter, huh? Anyway, a bunch of ancient mariners behind the original game (you HAVE to love the name they chose for their studio: Harebrained Schemes, LLC) are getting together and bringing the FASA classic Shadowrun back with an all-new title called Shadowrun Returns.
Of course, the project is already doing SUPER well as it zooms toward its funding goal of $400,000. Amusingly enough, I kind of wish they were doing an English translation of the Japanese Sega Mega-CD version, as that’s one of those completely unique versions of the game that was only released on one platform and a pretty hard game to track down even if you happen to own the proper equipment to run it on.
Oh, don’t worry, I’m not complaining at all or anything. Er… other than wishing the economy was a hell of a lot BETTER for the games industry so that all of these projects could appear as physical product at a fair price point so MORE people would be able to buy and play them…
The whole “add zombies to anything” style of game making is finally playing itself shuffle by shuffle after much success, but Telltale Games is definitely doing it up right in their upcoming episodic series based on the award winning comic. Actually, Based AROUND that award-winning comic would be a better description, as the game looks to introduce a whole new set of characters and situations rather than do the “expected” thing and let players dink around with what’s already in the comic (and on the TV show). Of course, some internet ranters aren’t hip to this and are giving the company both barrels on Facebook, Twitter and anywhere else they can set up a soapbox and bleat away mindlessly. Obviously, “Braaaaaaaaiiinnnns!” aren’t doing too well working, so even if Telltale and Kirkman sent a barn full of walkers out to get the haters, they’d all come back more pissed off because half those heads they chewed on were empty already (or filled to the brim with bile, yuk).
Personally, I rather like that the game isn’t trying to expand the older stories because there are absolutely a ton of other tales that can be told about other survivors, so you won’t be hearing any complaints from this direction. As for those excellent “making of” videos that have also been posted by Telltale, I’ll be dropping those into the other blog later this afternoon or so, as I’m about to go to bed. I’ve a long day later on – got a 7am wake-up call inbound, so I’ll be the one at the train station looking like a zombie, eek!
Like the Energizer Bunny, the DFA project is still going strong at over 2.5 million dollars raised so far. But, there are only THREE days left to donate to the cause of great games (or at least great games from Tim Schafer, Ron Gilbert and company). Check out the new-ish video above and click on over to the official Kickstarter page to send some cents (well, a few hundred cents or more) to the team so that can make this the best Double Fine Adventure ever! NEW rewards have been added since I last posted such as a $100 pledge getting you a BOXED copy of the game (oooooh!), a DVD or Blu-Ray of the documentary and a super cool T-shirt. That all makes me say hey, I want to see Psychonauts get a sequel at some point and not just as a download-only title!
Oh yeah, +10 if you got the Andrea True Connection reference…
Meh, for all its lovely tech features, the lousy name choice only sounds to me like Apple is trying too hard to make you forget you just bought an iPad 2 last year. OK, I’m no sheep-headed, blindfold-wearing fan of the iOS lineup, but a name for something so “resolutionary” is an important thing. I’d have least spent the time to think up a better name for the new device (maybe use that new super-screen as a starting point, perhaps?). Oh well, the Foxconn factory is pumping the iPad out as we speak. I still want to see live feed cameras from the factory floor so we know those underpaid folks we’re not supposed to care about (because we just want a new Apple toy as quickly as they can make them) aren’t being exploited.
Well, not TOO much.
Well, the game is hugely popular, big name publishers are kicking themselves in the face and butt simultaneously and all sorts of game projects are looking to Kickstarter or other crowd funding sources as all of a sudden people realize that SAYING a genre is dead because you’re too damn lazy to make games and drum up interest for them is a LOT different than allowing developers who KNOW what they’re doing to make the games they want to make in the first place…
Remember kids, just because something is popular (i.e., makes a ton of money automatically year by year), doesn’t mean it’s actually GOOD. Class dis-missed!
It was actually pretty funny (to me, at least) that EA had plenty of Android plushies to hand out at their Spotlight event on Tuesday, but one of the bigger games announced, Mass Effect: Infiltrator is currently ONLY going to be an iOS release. Yes, I know they’re going for the most successful platform in the world for this fantastic-looking third-person touchscreen action shooter, but I know some non-iOS device owners who are going to be (or already are) pretty irate about their devices NOT getting this game.
The rest of the Mass assault at the event was incredibly impressive, what with an amazing new CG trailer revealed (“Take Back Earth”) that’s going to blow fans away. All EA needs to do is get this into theaters and posted online (I think the latter will happen sometime next week) and I’d bet pre-orders for the game get a big bump. As for the Datapad app that lets you receive messages from your squad mates and other info, well… it’s not really necessary to play the game, but like Infiltrator, I can see a ton of downloads from core ME fans who want every single bit of content about the upcoming finale.
As for the latest build of Mass Effect 3 on display? Magnificent. BioWare has done its best work to date here and unless you’ve got that oddball genetic disposition to dump all over the hard hard work the team has put into this, you’ll find that both the single player campaign and multiplayer modes are rock solid. So solid in fact, that I’d rather spend time beefing up interest in Syndicate and SSX, two other titles shown at the event that deserve just as much love. More on those two later – I’m going to sleep, as it was a long day. for me…
Let’s see now, Xbox LIVE Arcade, Android and iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch today and tomorrow, PSN on the 20th, Windows Phones sometime early in 2012. How funny is it that a game with “CD” in the title DOESN’T get an actual disc release? Oh well. Heck, I was hoping this would have been a bonus in the otherwise superb Sonic Generations, but nope. I guess I’ll have to hold out for a Vita release at some point. Anyway, if you’ve one of these fancy de-vices listed above and want to experience a classic platformer that will plant a grin across your mug, definitely check out what Sega has cooking. Now about getting ALL the 16-bit up to to Sega Saturn Sonic games all in one place…
"DESTROY ALL FANBOYS!" 