Nintendo’s set to finally reveal some concrete details (and hopefully some real games) about their latest console in just a few weeks at E3, but thanks to a pic posted to Twitter by a game tester at TT Games (a tester who’s probably in a lot of trouble right now,) we’ve gotten an early look at what appears to be a finalized version of the Wii U’s tablet-like controller.
The indie game community is rallying together to put a substantial number of their games on sale next week. Why? To send a message to online retailers and publishers that the issue of pricing should be in the hands of the developer, not some retail or marketing exec. The iOS App Store and Valve’s popular Steam service let developers pick their price and give them the ability to put their games on sale whenever they want, and indie devs want this freedom to spread to other download services and platforms. So, in order to show everyone the benefits of open pricing, they’re dramatically slashing the prices of their own games across a number of platforms.
It would be hard to imagine the world of modern gaming without the efforts of Epic Games and their series of Unreal Engines. I mean just look at the list of games that have used the engine to craft their worlds; there are too many for me to list here. It’s easy to think of the Unreal Engine as an engine for shooters, but in looking at the list there seems to be no limit to the type of game that can call Unreal home. With the next-gen consoles on the horizon, Wired sat down with Epic Games founder Tim Sweeney to talk about the where Unreal started and what Unreal 4 has to offer.
On Wednesdays I spend my time looking for a digital buffet of gaming goodies – I post them here on the Humpday Bump.
Today’s bump features a pretty funny inside joke from Blizzard regarding their not-so-secret cow level in Diablo 3. If you remember, a few years back fans of the Diablo series were up in arms about the possibility that the next installment in the franchise looked a little too bright and cartoony for their tastes. Roughly 2,000 went so far as to formally petition the game’s release. Well now it appears as if Blizzard will get the last laugh, as they are parodying the drama with an all new secret cow level.
Most of the big publishers have struggled to remain solvent in this economy, but THQ has been hit especially hard in recent years. Despite some surprise hits like the Saints Row series, THQ has had to shut-down many of their development studios in order to remain in business, and now the company is saying that it’s no longer in a position to release Devil’s Third, the upcoming third-person shooter from former Team Ninja head Tomonobu Itagaki.
Fighting games have experienced a resurgence in popularity in recent years, but it appears that the revitalized market may have finally reached its carry capacity. Capcom announced today that Street Fighter X Tekken’s sales have fallen well below expectations, and Capcom is blaming the crossover fighter’s poor performance on an over-saturation of the fighting genre.
Fans have waited 12 years for Diablo 3, and it looks like they’re going to have to wait a little while longer before playing Blizzard’s latest action RPG. The game was supposed to launch tonight, but somehow Blizzard underestimated the popularity of their own game, as the company’s servers were immediately overwhelmed within minutes of the game going live.
Ok, so remember a few weeks ago when I wrote about the Two Guys from Andromeda, Mark Crowe and Scott Murphy, making a Space Quest reboot without the help of Kickstarter? Well now they have a one. It seems that their pre-Kickstarter buzz has done a fairly good job of getting the ball rolling without actually starting the clock, in only a little over a week the Two Guys have raised over $150,000 for another classic adventure game. That’s pretty damn good especially considering that these two haven’t made a game in over 20 years.
Back in February I reported on the legal skirmish between Blizzard and Valve over the use of the name Dota in Valve’s upcoming Dota 2. Well it appears as if the battle is over, and even though Blizzard’s press release says the agreement was mutual, it’s pretty clear Valve came out on top as they’re the ones that get to keep using the name Dota. Blizzard on the other hand has now changed the name of their game from Blizzard Dota to Blizzard All-Stars. I may not be a legal expert, but I’m pretty sure that this all backfired on Blizzard, I mean they are the ones who originally filed and yet they ended up being the ones to change their name while pretty much nothing happened to Valve. Then again, this could all be just a case of, to quote Notch, “lawyers being lawyers.”
Looks like Bioshock Infinite isn’t the only high profile sequel to bow out of the 2012 holiday season: today developer Crystal Dynamics announced that the much hyped Tomb Raider reboot for Xbox 360 and PS3 has been delayed until early 2013.
I spent a good chunk of the summer of 2003 playing Rockstar’s Midnight Club 2 on PS2. There were a lot of illegal street racing based games last-gen, but MC2 managed to remain ahead of the competition thanks to its unique, track-less style of open world racing, tight controls, and (at the time) very pretty graphics. The series has been strangely MIA ever since 2008′s Midnight Club: Los Angeles, but now Rockstar is giving fans an opportunity to relive their virtual ricer glory days by downloading Midnight Club 2 for free.
Fans of the original 8-bit Kid Icarus had to wait almost 25 years in order to get a fully fledged sequel to the side-scrolling classic, and despite glowing reviews and strong sales, it seems like fans of the new 3DS Kid Icarus might have to wait just as long to see another adventure starring Pitt and Palutena.
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