Just look at that and tell me the little kid inside you isn’t excited! No, really do tell me. We need more comments. But anyway, Sonic the Hedgehog 4 (Episode 1, ugh, does this mean it’s gonna have 3 levels and then make us wait for Episode 2, 3, and the rest…) has a release date! And a new trailer. It’s looking remarkably like the original 2D classics that I grew up with, albeit with a nice 2010-sheen to everything. Click below for release date info and the newest trailer.
It’s coming out on all the major digital download places (for consoles at least) next month. Courtesy of IGN, and because I want to see what a ‘quote’ looks like within a blog post, here’s the info:
The game will be available for download on the iTunes App Store starting Oct. 7, the Wii Shop Channel on Oct. 11 (15th Oct in EMEA territories), the PlayStation Network on Oct. 12 in America (Oct 13th in EMEA territories), and Xbox Live Arcade on Oct. 13 across all territories.
Sonic 4 will be priced at 1500 Wii Points on WiiWare, 1200 Microsoft Points on Xbox Live Arcade, and $14.99 / £9.99 / €12.99 / AU$19.95 on the PlayStation Network.
Okay that looks rubbish…add “make quotes look cool” to the list of BcR tweaks…
Fantastic gameplay trailer of a certain casino-themed level below.
Dome Keeper is an excellent little spin on the tower defense game, in which you play the role of a jetpacking miner defending his base from swarms of aliens, whilst searching for a hidden relic buried somewhere beneath him. And now, with this huge free update, you can play it with friends.
I want to talk about Cloudpunk, a game where you get to be a flying-car delivery driver in a futuristic cyberpunk city. Its world is an incredible achievement of environmental design, and while the gameplay itself may be basic, the city of Nivalis is a thing of beauty to behold. Nivalis is built out of hundreds of hand-modelled cuboid buildings; there’s nothing procedural about it. Apparently it took 3 years for the devs to design the city, and it really shows.
I do love me some quality pixel art, and it doesn’t get much better than this. Cast n Chill is a cozy side-scrolling fishing game by small indie dev team Wombat Brawler, with absolutely gorgeous visuals. It’s simple to play, and you you can dip in and out of it at your leisure, making it a fine addition to our collection of coffee break games.
Beyond: Two Souls is a paranormal action thriller starring Ellen Page and Willem Dafoe. You’d be forgiven for assuming it’s a Hollywood film based on that description, but it is in fact the latest game from Quantic Dream, the studio behind the equally cinematic Heavy Rain. It’s tempting to compare the two, but Beyond is a different experience, opting to tell a linear story with fewer choices and consequences. As a big fan of Heavy Rain’s dynamic storytelling approach, I expected to be disappointed but as soon as I started playing I realised what writer and director David Cage was trying to achieve and felt satisfied to go along for the ride. Because what a ride it is…
The following took place in 2012, in the beta version of the DayZ mod for ARMA 2. It recounts the story of how I survived the zombie apocalypse by eating 87 cans of baked beans.
Chernarus is not a welcoming place any more. The lush green fields are now infested with hordes of shambling undead. And if the zombies don’t kill you, other wanderers surely will. Being alone is risky, but trusting the wrong person could cost you your life. In this harsh new world, you won’t get far without friends.
Last night I finished Firewatch. It’s a first-person mystery game, being rudely dubbed a ‘walking simulator’ by some of the reviews I’ve seen elsewhere. While it’s true, the game has you fulfilling various tasks in a forest in which you navigate solely by hiking, that description completely ignores the beautifully told story and the reason you are there at all. Having completed it, I want to recommend it to everyone because it’s fantastic. I also would say that the less you know the better, so don’t read the rest of this review, just go and get it.