Shoot Many Robots has a directness I can appreciate. When I eventually make a game, I’ll call it “Craig Make Gun Bangs”: it will have no story apart from a bit that says “he puts a bullet in his gun” in Comic Sans, and then a few seconds later “bang” spelled out in bullet holes. I reckon Ubisoft will pick it up like they have this four-player Borderlands-esque platform game. Sure, mine won’t have pretty graphics, charm, wit, or be anything more than an idea scribbled in crayon on a cereal packet, but then they already have that in Demiurge’s game.
The cartoony co-op wild west steampunk… thing is coming out this year, digitally getting all up in your grill. In it, you and friends will dispatch numerous androids. I feel I’ve put my scribbles up for an unfair comparison: the video shows off a small fraction of KMR’s enemy contingent, personality driven robotic death machines. My stick figure with a bear’s head stuck on and the word “Bobot” (TM) written in black underneath it clearly needs a bit more work.
Xbox 360 Call of Duty Elite paid subscribers to get access to Overwatch New York City skyscraper level later this month.
The next content drop for Call of Duty Elite subscribers is just two weeks away. Activision today announced that the Overwatch map will launch February 21 for paid Elite members on the Xbox 360. The map’s PlayStation 3 and PC debuts have not yet been revealed (although if January’s Elite downloadable content is any indication, PS3 owners will have to wait at least a month to get their hands on it).
The sole piece of new content for Modern Warfare 3 this month, Overwatch is a nearly symmetrical map set on top of a New York City skyscraper in the midst of construction. Gamers will need to watch their steps, as construction crews apparently haven’t gotten around to installing safety measures like guardrails just yet.
I don’t have the digital dexterity to be a Super Meat Boy master and VVVVVV took me to my limits, so the sight of a new spike-laden contender for most malicious platformer ever should see me jumping for cover. Cloudberry Kingdom has been in development for three years now, originally placing tenth in the 2009 Dream Play Build Competition, and is almost ready for release on both the MicroBox and PC. The most recent trailer makes it seem the kind of challenge that will have some people flexing their fingers in preparation for. I’m just scared, though intrigued by the brainy brainwork behind this madness.
Good morning, Internet! I’ve been off having adventures, but I suppose I’d better try and put together an entertaining Saturday. Let’s kick off with the latest Aliens stuff: after that CGI trailer it’s good to get at least a few fragments of game footage, which is what you can see below. This latest emission from the developmental innards of the Gearbox creature show a bunch of scene-setting stuff, and then a little of the running about with a gun shooting Aliens stuff. I’m tentatively excited about this one, and it’s been a while since I’ve thought that about a licence shooter.
Polytron’s Fez, a world-shifting indie platformer that’s been coming to Xbox Live Arcade longer than some of you have been alive, might actually be out soon. Why? It’s been rated by the ESRB.
To be rated by the ESRB, it’s got to be almost completely finished, at least in terms of classifiable content.
Last we heard the game was due in “early 2012″, but we’ve long ago learned to mistrust anything that comes out developer Phil Fish’s mouth when it comes to release dates. The ESRB, however, are far more reliable, so hey, Fez! It might be out in a month or three!
EA Partners’ executive says single-player, co-op shooter won’t include controversial pass in an effort to have the game achieve mass appeal. Electronic Arts has stirred up much fervor with its online pass proposition, but Syndicate fans looking forward to the upcoming game won’t have to worry about it.
Speaking to Eurogamer, EA Partners executive producer Jeff Gamon said the publisher chose not to include an online pass with Syndicate, a single-player game with co-op missions, so as to reach the broadest appeal.
“We want as little resistance or barriers to entry as possible,” Gamon told the website. “The co-op is equal billing in this. We wanted everyone who owns a copy of the game to have access to the entire product.”
Canadian animator Joel Furtado wants to see Nintendo make a sequel to Wind Waker. In HD. Since they’re likely to do no such thing, he went and made his own trailer for the dream project.
Called The Legend of Zelda: The Lost Oracle, it looks…well, for a guy working on this for fun in his spare time it looks amazing.
If you’re going to infringe on copyright, you might infringe on all the copyrights at the same time. That way you can keep track of who’s taking you to court. Mario Crossover 2.0, the sequel to the already astonishingly rippy-offy original, is a remarkably slick mash-up of all the best Nintendo games. And Zelda.
Crossover 2.0 takes the basic concept of allowing characters like Samus (from Metroid), or Link (from Meh-lda) to run around Mario levels and runs in crazy directions with it. Mega-Man tossing blocks at Koopas, Samus blasting them with her arm gun thing, Link boring them to death with his boring-ness. I love the idea of in-game power-ups upgrading the graphics, taking the player into a modern era with every mushroom, and sliding back through history when damage is taken. And Ryu fighting Bowser is just precious. Feast your eyes on the entire roster in this demonstrative video-gram from a bygone era.
Renegade-X is a reworking of the original, awful Command & Conquer: Renegade, Westwood’s ambitious FPS with RTS acne. I’m downloading the just released short single-player preview, “Operation Black Dawn”, from the official torrent, and we’ll make brain thinks into words about its UDK-based goodness another day. In the meantime, here’s the download link and video, strategically placed below.
The current download is just a peek, with a short single-player campaign to tide you over until the multiplayer release. There’s a lot of bluster in this video, about redefining entire genres, but it does look pretty and with a cool name like “Renegade-X” you kind of have to be all: “we’re making it the best thing since that last thing that was also good”. Grab it here.
Indie platformer A Walk In The Dark has a cat rescuing a lost little girl in a dark, fantasy world; the quarter of Dexter that John owns once lost a fight with his own feet (my bit was obviously the winner there). I see now why they had to place the game in a gothic forest: as a cat owner of four years, I wouldn’t believe the skills he shows off in the trailer below.
Side-scrolling, sillouhettey lovliness seems like an effect that indie developers lean on, but the results here are perfectly pleasing as the cat leaps over spikes and flips gravity in VVVVVV fashion. He sproings rather neatly over spikey things, and gracefully hops from wall-to-wall and floor to ceiling. It reminds me of the time that Dexter ate a tapeworm that he’d just extruded. Good times.
Want to help the kitty pursue the ancient evil through the gothic forest? All we have is a vague 2012 release date. Why not rescue a real one, instead? You can pretent the shelter is a gothic forest, and the administration people are ancient demons.
