OVERPASS: Console Release Bumped To March, PC Still Landing Feb. 27

Posted on February 23, 2020 by geelw

According to publisher Nacon North America, all three console versions of Zordix Racing’s hardcore off-road simulation driving experience OVERPASS have been moved to March 17th, 2020, but PC fans using the Epic Store get their ride sooner on February 27, 2020. This is actually good news for Nintendo Switch owners, as it’s now launching at the same time as Xbox One and PS4 versions and in reality, some PC games are released before their console counterpoints anyway, so the delay here isn’t that unreasonable in my book.

Go ahead, play the theme from Rocky…

Here’s a short video of Zordix Racing’s Head of Production. Joakim Eriksson taking the game for a little spin to wrap things up (it’s educational!):

Yep, the good times are going to roll soon – I can’t wait.

-GW

TT Isle of Man 2 Hands-On: Lightning, Unbottled

Posted on February 22, 2020 by geelw

Let the good times roll, indeed.

KT Racing has done quite a lot of work on TT Isle of Man: Ride on the Edge 2 and it’s simultaneously quite a thrill and terrifyingly good so far. Major fixes to bike handling. road surfaces, lighting, weather effects and more all add an even more realistic feel than the first game, and the greatly improved Career Mode and an all-new open world area to practice (or just take relaxing rides) in make this a pretty superior sequel. Taking a build of the PC version out for a spin, many of the changes were amazing right from the start. Bikes all felt much better and the the ground effects were excellent overall (as in you don’t automatically go flying off your ride of choice at a jump or bump in the road). You can still wreck at high speeds, but it feels is if it’s your own fault for misjudging your speed, deliberately slamming into things, or not paying attention to the road surface.

Overall control is much more responsive as turning the bike is a lot more intuitive. In fact, the new handling model in third person views requires you to pay attention to both the driver’s positioning and the beautifully rendered road ahead of you. In first person, the game has a view where braking lifts the rider up in a realistic manner, as well as a nice optional helmet camera that adds to the immersion factor. The game is easier to get into, but NOT easy, as zen-like concentration and learning each course in the only way to master the tracks here. If your bike is wobbling and weaving from your own handling mistakes, expect to wreck, as the game demands perfection, practice, and patience.

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Survey Says (Ding!): Gothic Remake Is a Go, Won’t Be Ready in 2020

Posted on February 19, 2020 by geelw

The people’s choice, indeed.

Well, 43,111 people participated in a little extensive survey THQ was taking and the verdict is in: We’re getting a Gothic remake at some point, just not this year. PC and next-gen consoles are the targets here, so it seems at least the game will have a very similar visual fidelity across anything it’s eventually released on.

If you have Google Drive, you can see and download the results of the survey here in PDF form (it’s a whopping 21 pages):

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uNuvngHrTZ3AVpNEdoXS-E8rKlwVdhlX/view

Here’s the press release as well, below the jump.

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Sakura Wars: It’s About Time, Sega

Posted on February 18, 2020 by geelw

Boom time for Sega continues!

I think it was about 1998 when a friend visiting from Japan gave me his used copy of Sakura Wars as a gift after he found out I really liked strategy games and had made my way through a few Japanese games with a bit of effort and persistence. Well, I ended up picking up Sakura Wars 2 a few years later, but never played either game thanks to thinking Saturn games would all be successfully emulated and/or localized at some point and I wouldn’t need to learn any more Japanese other that what little I picked up from a few dictionaries and games over the years. Well, that and yes, I was a bit lazy to my great disadvantage (Or not that lazy, as I finished four Front Mission games, two FEDA games and a few other imports with not too much hassle). Anyway. with 2000+ games in the library here, I never got around to to playing either title.

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Persona 5 Royal/Persona 5 Scramble: Catching Up With a Beast Is Tough

Posted on February 14, 2020 by geelw

The gang’s all here, and then some…

I need more time!

At my ancient age, a new Persona game is something I look forward to with both a sense of awe and dread. Awe because the very expansive Megami Tensei and Shin Megami Tensei titles and their assorted spin-offs on a few platforms are one of the best and has been for decades, and dread because well, there’s so much to do in each game that it’s easy to lose track of time when playing them. The series is well known for some intensively lengthy games even back on the Famicom and Super Famicom systems up to today on the PS4, especially if you’re playing more than one game for just journalistic purposes. Heck, it took me almost three months to play Persona 4 way back on the PS2 and I’m here to report that I’ve been taking my time with the brilliant Persona 5 because of so many other games in my backlog to cover.

Well, that and the game is pretty and spectacularly dense in terms of depth and story and well, I bought it somewhat late (I think it was early last year when I made the plunge for a retail PS4 version). Even if I were to concentrate solely on the game, that’s about 60 or so hours without any shortcuts and that’s probably the basic story elements and a bit of leveling up for good measure.

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Let’s Go Gothic For A Bit, Shall We?

Posted on February 11, 2020 by geelw

Hmmmm. But I give it a thumbs up, with reservations…

I still have my boxed copies of Gothic and Gothic II here and got the non-Piranha Bytes developed Gothic 3 on a disc with two other games, so this news of a playable teaser got me thrilled the series is in a comeback mode of sorts. THQ released a demo of what their team in Barcelona is working on a few months ago and is very wisely asking for user feedback and whether they should continue with the project. In a nutshell, it’s a big YES from me despite some huge problems from the start, and yes, I have some notes to offer as a fan. Constructive criticism time:

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TT Isle of Man 2: Make or Brake Time

Posted on February 10, 2020 by geelw

I haven’t played a TT Isle of Man game since two solid games way back on the PlayStation 2, so I’m sure I’ll wreck quite a lot while I try KT Racing’s new PS4 game TT Isle of Man 2 and guess what? I’m okay with that. I’m gathering from the videos I’ve seen that it’s not going to be a simple “jam down the pedal and go” kind of game some may want or think is coming, and to me it’s clear KT has been refining a bunch of elements over the last installment they did that should appeal to fans of the sport while getting novice players to want to go riding like the wind. Here’s a look at a few game footage trailers and a brief interview:

Both of these classic bikes are available as pre-order content across all systems by the way:

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Preview: Aluna: Sentinel of the Shards

Posted on February 10, 2020 by geelw

Well, I just discovered two things buried in my ever-packed email inbox: Ember (reviewed here in its PC incarnation) is on Switch and I need to get this at some point because it’s a good game worth a few replays. That and developer N-Fusion has teamed up with another indie developer, NY and LA-based Digiart Interactive to bring the comic-based game Aluna Sentinel of the Shards to PC and console players. It’s set for release this year on PC and consoles, but I’m just getting to seeing the news and yes, I’m sharing.

Soon to be everywhere you get your games (and thankfully in a physical release as well as digital)

Here’s the trailer in case you haven’t seen it yet:

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Pathfinder Finds Its Path With 30 Days Remaining

Posted on February 9, 2020 by geelw

Kind of like bowling, isn’t it?

Geez, You take a few days away from things to get a clearer head and all manner of interesting stuff happens. Owlcat Games’ Kickstarter for Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous not only made its target on $300,000 in a single day, the game is still raking in a load of money, with as of this writing, over $860,000 being raised and a few nifty stretch goals added with 30 days to go. Wow. Here’s some rather nice title music from the developer to celebrate and yes, they’re still taking pledges and adding some mice stretch goals.

There was a developer live stream a few days back that I missed, but here it is if you want to check it out:

So far, the game is looking pretty well-packed with things to do and see, so kudos to the team at Owlcat for all their hard work so far.

-GW

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

Posted on February 4, 2020 by geelw

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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