Nukezilla

Torchlight Free on GOG, Huge Sale Running Too

Hans Wuerflein — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 02:38:52 +0000

With all the talk of DRM on consoles and people justifying it with “Well, it’s been that way on PC for years” or some other such crap, wouln’t it be nice to go back to before DRM was even an issues?

Well, if by go back you mean head over to GOG.com right now, then yes.

To kick off their huge summer sale, the excellent Torchlight is available for free for the first 48 hours (until 1 p.m. GMT Thursday). Just add it to your cart and check out, and it’s yours to keep.

In addition to this awesome freebee, the bigger sale will run until July 5 with nearly everything on the site at 50 percent off and daily deals, like all the Dungeons and Dragons games (Baldur’s Gate, Planescape Torment, etc.) in a bundle at 80 percent off, or the Alan Wake games at 90 percent off.

A handfull of more recent additions to the site have been exempted, but it wouldn’t surprise me to see one or more of them pop up as a daily deal as well.

Even without them though, there are more than 500 games on sale, just about all for less than $5, DRM free. Get on it.

Music Monday: Akumajou Densetsu

Brian Bickell — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 13:26:17 +0000

Holy hell we really got screwed on this one. We being gamers in the US, and this being the god tier VRC6 enabled soundtrack of Akumajou Densetsu (Castlevania 3: Dracula’s Curse) for the Famicom.

I’ve banged on about NES memory mappers and other oddities that we never got in the US before, but this one is probably the most disappointing to me. This soundtrack is some top shelf stuff. It’s not that the US version is particularly bad: it’s not. It’s that the Japanese version is amazing. Here’s where if I had any journalistic work ethic I’d detail the differences between these two soundtracks but instead I’m just going to drop you a link to a handy Retronauts video detailing the major differences.

I’m a huge fan of Castlevania music, and while not the best Castlevania soundtrack, this stuff in it’s unaltered, original form is great.

Presented in it’s entirety below, the soundtrack to Akumajou Densetsu for the Famicom.

Akumajou Densetsu: Complete Soundtrack

This Week in Videogame History: June 16 – 22

Hans Wuerflein — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 00:34:28 +0000

It’s time for another edition of This Week in Videogame History. Each Sunday I post a list of the most important, infamous, or otherwise intriguing information I can find regarding things that happened in the wide world of videogames in years past.

This week we’ll cover the third full week of June. I won’t cover releases that the best date I can find is simply “June 19XX” as I covered those a couple weeks ago. And as for why that’s the best date I can find, record keeping doesn’t seem to have been a very high priority of the early videogame industry.

As always, most of this info is coming from Wikipedia, MobyGames, and other crowd-sourced outlets. If you see something I missed or screwed up the details on, post in the comments and let me know. After all, I’m not just doing this to find an easy, weekly article for Sunday. I’m also doing it to help highlight the ups and downs of the industry and artform of the videogame.

Ok everyone, lets hop in Nukezilla’s Wayback Machine and take a look at the events that shaped our favorite pastime from June 16 – 22.

June 16

2009 – Ghostbusters: The Video Game released for everything in the world, and most of those versions (Xbox 360, PC, etc.) were pretty good. It even featured most of the original cast reprising their roles for voiceovers.

June 17

2010 – The OnLive game streaming service launched. At one point the company was estimated to be worth nearly $2 billion, but it sold in October 2012 for a little less than $5 million, showing that many industry analysts are dumber than dog shit.

June 18

2001 – Twisted Metal: Black released for PS2. This was one of the best reasons to own a Sony console. The most recent Twisted Metal however, is not.

2002 – Neverwinter Nights released for PC. This was back when BioWare were the kings of RPGs, not just another fucking EA studio. The game received roughly 37 expansion packs and also included tools for the gaming public to make their own adventures to play with their friends.

2012 – Pokémon Conquest released for Nintendo DS. It sounds a bit odd to mash Nobunaga’s Ambition and Pokémon together, but i t works surprisingly well.

June 19

1983 – Dragon’s Lair releases in arcades, showcasing the potential of laserdisc for videogames. Unfortuanatly, Dragon’s Lair is about all laserdisc could do for videogames, as by the time systems that could take advantage of that much storage space arrived CDs and DVDs had taken off.

2000 – Bungie bought by Microsoft. Prior to this, Bungie was one of Mac OS’s most prominent developers. After this, Master Chief became the mascot for the Xbox brand. Some took the news hard.

2001 – Sonic Adventure 2 released for Dreamcast. This was one of the last major Dreamcast games in the US, but contrary to popular belief, it was a bit shit.

2011 – The 3DS (supposedly) received its killer app, as The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D released in the US. Yes, believe it or not, there were people absolutely convinced the 3DS would suddenly become the most successful console on the market the second people had the opportunity to pay $40 for an N64 game.

June 20

2006 – NFL Head Coach released for Xbox, PS2 and PC. Madden bros rush out to buy it, then promptly return it when they realize how boring coaching simulators are.

June 21

2005 – Battlefield 2 released for PC. It had impossible system requirements and sketchy net-code, but God was it fun. I think anyone who plays Battlefield seriously is doing it wrong, so go all out and find an old stunts mod and launch a jeep a half-mile with a pile of C4.

2011 – Shadows of the Damned released for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. It had design input from the people behind Killer 7, No More Heroes, Resident Evil, Viewtiful Joe, and Devil May Cry, so it should come as no surprise that it is as bizarrely stylized as it is fun to play.

June 22

1996 – Quake released for PC. This is the game that really popularized deathmatch, and online multiplayer in general. It still had basic “find the key and don’t die on the way to the exit” level design, but it was (and still is) brilliant to play.

2004 – Mega Man Anniversary Collection released for GameCube and PS2. It included Mega Mans 1-8, as well as a few bonus features. An Xbox version came out in 2005.

Studio Behind Medal of Honor Reboot Shut Down

Hans Wuerflein — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 04:49:52 +0000

EA has confirmed that Danger Close, the studio behind the Medal of Honor reboot and its sequel, Medal of Honor: Warfighter, has shut its doors for good.

Many of the developers are now working for other studios within EA, or working in a reformed studio that will serve as something of an auxiliary wing (read: DLC packs) to DICE.

It’s not clear exactly when the decision was made, but it only seems fitting that the studio whose games were known for their impressive blandness would go out not so much with a bang, but a resounding “meh.”

The studio will be missed… by the pizza delivery guys in the area (assuming they tipped well).

Via Destructoid

What’s New and What’s Cheap in the UK : Dishonored, StarCraft 2 and Soul Sacrifice

Simon Julian — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 09:00:40 +0000

As June continues we have another quiet week of releases but what a week, The Last of Us releases on the PS3 while Animal Crossing: New Leaf hits the 3DS.

On the deals side, from Shopto you can pickup Soul Sacrifice on the Vita for £24.85 and Tales Of Vesperia on the 360 for £18.85, from Uplay you can get Trials Evolution Gold Edition on the PC for £11.99 and at Simply Games you can buy the freshly released Remember Me on the PC for £24.99 and StarCraft II : Heart of the Swarm CD Key also on the PC for £20.99.

Elsewhere from Steam you can pickup Dishonored for £10.04/$20.09/€20.09 and LEGO Lord of the Rings for £5.00/$7.50/€7.50 and the Indie Royale is back with the The Arclight Bundle for £3.48 at the time of writing and includes AI War: Fleet Command and Five Expansions, A Valley Without Wind, A Valley Without Wind 2, Shattered Haven and Tidalis.

What catches your eye this week?

What’s New

The Last of Us

Animal Crossing: New Leaf

What’s Cheap

Shopto

Soul Sacrifice | Vita | £24.85
Tales Of Vesperia | 360 | £18.85

Simply Games

Remember Me | PC | £24.99 – Steam Key
StarCraft II : Heart of the Swarm CD Key | PC | £20.99

Uplay

Trials Evolution Gold Edition | PC | £11.99

Steam

LEGO Lord of the Rings | PC | £5.00/$7.50/€7.50
Monster Loves You! | PC | £3.49/$4.99/€4.99
Dishonored | PC | £10.04/$20.09/€20.09

Indie Royale

The Arclight Bundle

AI War: Fleet Command and Five Expansions

A Valley Without Wind

A Valley Without Wind 2

Shattered Haven

Tidalis

If I’ve missed either a new release or a great cheap deal, please comment and make that information known.

cassette

PortsCenter Episode 14: Pokémon Trading Card Game (Game Boy Color)

Hans Wuerflein — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 03:36:36 +0000

A videogame, based on a card game based on a videogame. It sounds like a stupid, money grubbing move generated in a board room somewhere.

So why is it good?

In this week’s episode of PortsCenter, Ben takes a look at the videogame adaptation of the Pokémon Trading Card Game for the Game Boy Color.

I get the complaint that the game’s existence has more to do with financial concerns than creative ones, but so many people have fond memories of the G.I. Joe and Transformers ’80s cartoons, and those were just half hour long toy commercials.

Oh, and while the shiny Charizard was cool and rare, it kind of sucked. Don’t get me wrong, there were people that tried using them, but the kids fighting over Charizard were more into the collectable part of collectible card games than the game part.

Anyway, enjoy the episode.

Music Monday: Gimmick

Brian Bickell — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 00:57:28 +0000

Gimmick! is a platforming game released for the NES in 1992 in Japan. It made its way to Europe in 1993 as Mr. Gimmick but never managed to make it the US. It’s a pretty decent platformer but being that it never made it to the US and it was released so late in the NES lifecycle it’s no surprise that most gamers aren’t familiar with it.

It’s actually got some pretty rad music for an NES game, thanks to an Sunsoft custom memory mapper, the FME7/SUNSOFT5 which provided an extra 3 sound channels. The soundtrack really is outstanding for the NES.

Here’s the whole soundtrack below for your enjoyment.

Gimmick: Complete Soundtrack

This Week in Videogame History: June 9-15

Hans Wuerflein — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 02:39:35 +0000

This week we’ll work our way into the middle of June. I won’t cover releases that the best date I can find is simply “June 19XX” as I covered those last week. And as for why that’s the best date I can find, record keeping doesn’t seem to have been a very high priority of the early videogame industry.

Ok everyone, lets hop in Nukezilla’s Wayback Machine and take a look at the events that shaped our favorite pastime from June 9 – 15.

June 9

1999 – Shadowgate 64: Trials of the Four Towers released for the Nintendo 64. This first person puzzle-adventure game was probably hurt by reviewers looking for more of an RPG (that the N64 desperately needed) than a free-roaming remake of an NES puzzle game.

2004 – French developer and publisher Titus files for Bankruptcy. Given that their best know game was Superman 64, it’s amazing they lasted this long.

2009 – [PROTOTYPE] released for PS3, Xbox 360 and PC. It looks exactly like inFAMOUS, right down to stupid capitalization on the cover.

2009 – Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings released for Wii, PS2, PSP and Nintendo DS. The game was so-so, with the Wii controls being a bit sketchy, but the Wii version also included Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis as a bonus, so it might be worth tracking down for that reason alone.

June 10

2012 – Pikmin 2 (New Play Control!) released for Wii in the US, a full three years after it was released everywhere else in the world. This is yet another example of Nintendo of America failing to understand that for someone to give you money for a game, it first has to be released (See also: Earthbound/Mother series).

June 11

1983 – Capcom Co., Ltd. founded in Hirano, Osaka, Japan. Their first game, vertical SHMUP Vulgus, was released in 1984.

1996 – NetMech released for PC. A multiplayer-only expansion pack, NetMech added the multiplayer options MechWarrior 2 had promised before launch but had to cut due to time constraints.

1999 – Descent 3 released for PC. I feel like Descent 3 gets overlooked in hindsight, but back then it was pretty amazing.

2001 – Super Mario Advance released in the US. A port of the US version of Super Mario Bros. 2 at its core, Super Mario Advance included updated sprites, rearranged bosses, and other minor tweaks.

June 12

2003 – Obsidian Entertainment founded. The studio is best known for developing less popular sequels to successful RPGs (Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II, Fallout: New Vegas, Dungeon Siege III), but many have high hopes for their upcoming game South Park: The Stick of Truth.

2008 – Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots released for PlayStation 3. The Metal Gear story is a bit hard to follow, so please enjoy this summary of MGS4‘s incredibly important events.

2012 – Lollipop Chainsaw released for PS3 and Xbox 360. A collaboration between Grasshopper Manufacture head Suda51 and Troma alumnus James Gunn, this game was everything you’d expect: brilliantly crude, strangely fun and more than the sum of its parts.

June 13

1986 – Activision takes over Infocom, the developer of many of the best text adventures (or interactive fiction, whatever you want to call them). The relationship between the companies quickly deteriorated, before Infocom was shut down for good in 1989. Most of their games have been out of print for two decades, but a collection of the Zork games and Planetfall is available on GOG.

2000 – Shogun: Total War released for PC. Shogun was the first game in developer The Creative Assembly’s long running Total War series.

2000 – StarCraft 64 released for, what else, the Nintendo 64. I knew a few guys who played multiplayer StarCraft this way because it was easier to come by an N64 expansion pack than reliable internet access in rural Oklahoma at this point.

June 14

2000 – The Legend of Dragoon released for PlayStation. It’s Sony’s take on Final Fantasy VII from the studio behind Ape Escape and LocoRoco.

2011 – After 15 years in some stage of planning or development, Duke Nukem Forever was released for PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. How was it, you ask? The Wikipedia entry ends with “See Also: Continuous Obsolescence.”

June 15

2004 – Front Mission 4 released in the US. A super deep turn-based strategy game, it also featured some of the coolest cutscenes of mechs I’ve ever seen.

FGF – ScummVM Edition

Hans Wuerflein — Sat, 08 Jun 2013 06:00:09 +0000

I’m filling in on Free Game Friday this week, and since ScummVM just released version 1.6, why not look at some of the great free games that run on it?

For those not in the know, ScummVM was created as a way of getting the old Lucas Arts SCUMM engine games running on modern PCs. The program has since been expanded to support dozens of other adventure games, from King’s Quest to Simon the Sorcerer to those Putt Putt and Spy Fox edutainment titles.

ScummVM has also been ported to dozens of different operating systems and consoles, so if you can’t get it running on your PC, that’s more on you than the program. It’s fairly simple to set up though, and both the documentation and forums are helpful if you hit any snags.

While ScummVM might be better known for getting Day of the Tentacle and Sam & Max Hit the Road running, some great supported games have been released as freeware, so I’ll highlight a few.

Beneath a Steel Sky

Featuring art by Dave Gibbons (Watchmen, tons of 2000 A.D. and DC stuff), Beneath a Steel Sky tells the tale of Robert Foster, an outsider in a dystopian future full of strife, corruption, and all the other good old fashioned depressing stuff for an underdog hero to overcome while sticking it to the man.

It features plenty of humor to balance out the dark tone of the game, full voice acting, characters that have their own patterns and schedules independent of the player, and puzzles that, while not always obvious, feature fairly logical solutions.

It’s a well designed, beautiful game that was a full retail release in 1994, but you can now grab completely free on ScummVM’s download page.

Lure of the Temptress

While I whole-heartedly recommend Beneath a Steel Sky, this one is a little more complicated.

It’s not as polished as Revolution’s other games, like Beneath a Steel Sky or the Broken Sword series, but it is their first game, and still a fun fantasy adventure in its own right.

Some of the puzzles can be a little confusing, the system of NPCs running on their own schedule doesn’t work as well as in later games, and it features a fairly limited number of environments to explore, but it tells a charming (if somewhat generic) fairy tale story.

It’s fun to see a studio’s ambitious beginnings, and since it’s freeware, what do you have to lose?

Flight of the Amazon Queen

This adventure from Interactive Binary Illusions was heavily inspired by Monkey Island, Indiana Jones, and pulp novels and serials of the 1940s.

It’s… good at just about everything, but not great at anything. The puzzles are good, but some of them are a bit odd and hard to follow. The humor works… most of the time. The writing and voice acting are decent, but some of the characters are a bit cliché. The controls and inventory system work well enough, but not as well as the Lucas Arts games they take inspiration from.

It’s still a fun, fairly lengthy adventure that point-and-click fans will enjoy, and at the low, low price of free, who can resist?

There are a few other freebies that run on ScummVM (that I’m sure you’ll find looking through their download site), but I’ll highlight them another day.

What’s New and What’s Cheap in the UK : Skyrim, Ni No Kuni and Starcraft II

Simon Julian — Thu, 06 Jun 2013 09:00:01 +0000

As June begins Remember Me is the only release of note and it hit’s the PC, 360 and PS3.

On the deals side, at Zavvi you can get the charming Ni No Kuni: Wrath Of The White Witch on the PS3 for £22.99, from Simply Games you can pickup The Elder Scrolls Skyrim – Legendary Edition on the PC for £19.85 and on the PS3 and 360 for £28.85, and on PSN you can pickup the inFAMOUS Collection for the PS3 for £13.99 which includes inFAMOUS, inFAMOUS 2 and inFAMOUS 2: Festival of Blood .

Elsewhere from Tesco Direct you can get Injustice Gods Among Us for £25 on both the 360 and PS3, direct from Blizzard you can get StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty for £16.99/€19.99, on Steam you can pickup Batman: Arkham City – Game of the Year Edition for £5.00/$7.50/€7.50 and the humble bundle continues with the Humble Bundle 8 which as per normal is pay what you like and includes Little Inferno, Awesomenauts, Capsized, Thomas Was Alone, Dear Esther and if you pay over the average Hotline Miami, Proteus, Tiny & Big in Grandpa’s Leftovers, Intrusion 2, English Country Tune and Oil Rush

What catches your eye this week?

What’s New

Remember Me

Remember Me

Remember Me

What’s Cheap

Zavvi

Ni No Kuni: Wrath Of The White Witch | PS3 | £22.99

Simply Games

The Elder Scrolls Skyrim – Legendary Edition | PC | £19.85
The Elder Scrolls Skyrim – Legendary Edition | PS3 | £28.85
The Elder Scrolls Skyrim – Legendary Edition | 360 | £28.85

PSN

Jak and Daxter: The Lost Frontier | PSP / Vita | £3.19
God of War: Ghost of Sparta | PSP / Vita | £3.19
God of War: Chains of Olympus | PSP / Vita | £3.19
inFAMOUS Collection | PS3 | £13.99 – Includes inFAMOUS, inFAMOUS 2 and inFAMOUS 2: Festival of Blood

Tesco Direct

Injustice Gods Among Us | 360 | £25.00
Injustice Gods Among Us | PS3 | £25.00

Blizzard

StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty | PC | £16.99/€19.99

Gamefly

Tomb Raider | PC | £9.99 – Steam Key

Steam

Vessel | PC | £3.00/$3.75/€3.50
Batman: Arkham Asylum GOTY Edition | PC | £2.49/$4.99/€4.99
Batman: Arkham City – Game of the Year Edition | PC | £5.00/$7.50/€7.50

Humble Bundle

Humble Bundle 8 | PC | £/$/€ Whatever you like – Includes Little Inferno, Awesomenauts, Capsized, Thomas Was Alone, Dear Esther and if you pay over the average Hotline Miami, Proteus, Tiny & Big in Grandpa’s Leftovers, Intrusion 2, English Country Tune and Oil Rush

If I’ve missed either a new release or a great cheap deal, please comment and make that information known.

cassette

PortsCenter Episode 13: Rayman 2: The Great Escape

Hans Wuerflein — Thu, 06 Jun 2013 02:26:15 +0000

Rayman 2: The Great Escape is one of the best 3D platformers ever made, rivaling even Super Mario 64 and Banjo Kazooie. It features smart level design, fun abilities and a beautiful world to explore.

It’s also been ported about a half dozen times, so what better material for an episode of PortsCenter?

While it launched on the Nintendo 64 in 1999, it was eventually ported to PCs, Dreamcast, PS1, PS2, DS, 3DS, iPhone, and probably one of those graphing calculators.

In this episode Ben covers the console (and PC) ports, as they’re some of the more interesting ones (and capturing DS/3DS footage is a pain in the ass).

Oh, and he doesn’t like the Dreamcast controller, making him not quite as bad as Hitler, but probably somewhere between Stalin and Pol Pot.

Enjoy!

Humble Bundle 8 is Out, Expanded to 11 Games

Hans Wuerflein — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 01:03:51 +0000

While the Humble Bundle has started weekly sales, the bigger pay what you want bundles will always be the highlight. Well, Humble Bundle 8 is out and, as usual, full of awesome indie games, DRM-free (and Steam codes, if you’re so inclined), plus soundtracks for most of them.

And also as usual, you can chose how your payment is split up between the developers, charity (Child’s Play and the EFF), and leaving the Humble Bundle organizers a tip.

The bundle launched with seven games (five pay what you want, plus Hotline Miami and Proteus for beating the average), but four more have been added as a bonus for those paying over the average.

Pay what you want and get the following games:

Little Inferno
Awesomenauts (plus exclusive DLC character skin)
Capsized
Thomas Was Alone
Dear Esther

And pay more than the average (at the time of this post $5.68) and also receive the following:

Hotline Miami
Proteus
Tiny and Big in Grandpa’s Leftovers
Intrusion 2
English Country Tune
Oil Rush (plus map pack)

So, what catches your attention out of this Humble Bundle?

Music Monday: Battletoads

Hans Wuerflein — Tue, 04 Jun 2013 06:36:04 +0000

Hey, I kind of forgot to get a Music Monday put together, so here’s the soundtrack to Battletoads. I listened to this a lot as a kid.

Well, the first five or so tracks anyway. This game was designed by assholes.

Music’s good though. Enjoy!

This Week in Videogame History: June 2-8

Hans Wuerflein — Sun, 02 Jun 2013 17:20:10 +0000

This week we’ll take a look at the first full week of June. I’ll also cover releases that the best date I can find is simply “June 19XX.” And as for why that’s the best date I can find, record keeping doesn’t seem to have been a very high priority of the early videogame industry.

Ok everyone, lets hop in Nukezilla’s Wayback Machine and take a look at the events that shaped our favorite pastime from June 2 – 8.

June (no specific date known)

1977 – Atari founder Nolan Bushnell purchases the rights to Pizza Time Theater back from the company. He goes on to develop the business into the chain of Chuck E. Cheese’s pizzeria/arcades.

1978 – Taito releases Space Invaders to Japanese arcades. By the end of the year they had sold 100,000 arcade machines and grossed over $600 million in Japan alone. The game was a worldwide success and generated billions of dollars, one quarter (or 100 yen coin, or whatever) at a time.

1981 – Ultima released for the Apple II. Building on the success and themes of his first game, Akalabeth, Richard Garriott’s next effort saw wider release (Akalabeth was originally sold in ziploc bags in the computer store he worked at) and helped shape RPGs for years to come.

1992 – Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis released for home computers. The original 11 floppy disk release didn’t feature voice-over, but the CD-ROM re-release a year later did. That version is one of the few Lucas Arts adventure games that managed to make it to Steam. It was also included as a bonus in the Wii version of 2009′s Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings. It’s still great. Go play it.

1993 – Dave Grossman and Tim Schafer’s classic point-and-click Day of the Tentacle released for PC. While harder to obtain (legally anyway) than Fate of Atlantis, it’s not any more difficult to get running on a modern PC thanks to ScummVM.

1996 – Firaxis Games, developers of Sid Meier’s Civilization III, IV and V, as well as Alpha Centauri and last year’s XCOM: Enemy Unknown, is founded in Hunt Valley, Maryland.

June 2

2009 – EA releases The Sims 3. I still can’t figure out what’s different from the second game, other than the 10 million copies EA sold, not to mention the twenty or so expansion packs and DLC bundles.

June 3

2008 – Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures released for current systems. Fun fact: An exploit in the Wii version’s save system is one of the more common ways to soft-mod the system. What you do with that information is up to you.

June 4

1987 – Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards released for PC and Apple II. While the more recent LSL games have been crappy mini-game bundles, the original was a fun, smart adventure game.

June 5

1989 – Bullfrog Productions and Peter Molyneux’s God game Populous is released. Fun Fact: The Daily Mail predicted that the game’s portrayal divine intervention and competing gods would bring a fatwa on Molyneux, similar to Salman Rushdie received for writing The Satanic Verses. So no, The Daily Mail saying stupid shit about videogames (or anything else for that matter) is nothing new.

1995 – Earthbound released for the Super Nintendo in the US. Nintendo of America promptly decides they hate it and refuse to re-release it until they needed some good PR for the Wii U. It’s worth noting that if you want to play Earthbound again, it might really be worth picking up a Wii U, as even after the announcement of its digital re-release, cartridge only copies of the SNES version are still going for $150 a pop on ebay.

2002 – In other ebay inflated news, Capcom released Shantae for Game Boy Color this day. This excellent, technically impressive platformer regularly hits $200 for cartridge only copies, with some boxed copies breaking $500.

June 6

1984 – Alexey Pajitnov releases Tetris, a puzzle game he developed for fun while working in the Dorodnicyn Computing Centre of the Academy of Science of the USSR. The game went on to be remade or ported to damn near everything ever.

June 7

2004 – The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures released for GameCube in the US. While not as successful as other games in the series due to its reliance on the linking to a Game Boy Advance, it was still an excellent game. The art style was a mix of elements from A Link to the Past and Wind Waker, making for a beautiful top-down 2D Zelda game.

June 8

1999 – Conker’s Pocket Tales released for the Game Boy Color. This game shows the original idea behind the Conker character, of yet another platformer mascot, searching for stolen birthday presents or something sickeningly innocent like that. Shortly after this game, Rare changed their minds and filled Conker’s Bad Fur Day with swearing, violence and singing piles of poop. Smart move.

The Unearthing of an Urban Legend

Hans Wuerflein — Sat, 01 Jun 2013 06:58:24 +0000

Everyone with even a passing knowledge of the videogame industry’s incredible rise and meteoric fall remembers the story of E.T.

Not about how a little boy’s love saved his alien buddy, but about one of the worst business decisions (and subsequently, games) of all time. Atari paid somewhere between $20-25 million for the videogame rights to the smash hit film E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, an unheard of sum for the time.

Game designer Howard Scott Warshaw was assigned to the game, but only given five weeks to complete it in order to meet production deadlines for the holiday shopping season. While some may be thinking, “so what? It’s an Atari game,” his two previous games, Yar’s Revenge and the adaptation of Raiders of the Lost Ark took seven and six months respectively to develop.

Millions of copies were printed, and Atari waited for the cash to roll in.

Except it didn’t. The game was a flop.

Millions of copies rotted on shelves and in warehouses, and many of the copies that were sold were returned. This flop, along with the top brass at Atari over printing Pac-Man, by some estimates, by more than a million copies brought on the videogame industry crash of 1983.

As part of that crash, Atari had to dump a ton of inventory, and fast. As legend has it, they reached a deal with a New Mexico landfill to dump several truck loads (estimates range from 9 to 20) full of cartridges, consoles and accessories, emptying their El Paso warehouse. The games were steamrolled, dumped in a pit, covered in concrete, and Atari hoped, forgotten.

Rumors swirled, a legend grew, and even without specific details or easy access to the internet at the time, just about everyone knew the story of the E.T. cartridges buried in the landfill.

Jump forward thirty years, and we might finally be getting a better look at what really happened that night. A documentary crew has been granted permission by the Alamogordo, NM City Council to dig in the cartridges’ supposed resting place for their film on the urban legend.

I’m not sure what they’ll find, other than a bunch of crushed plastic bits, but it’ll still be pretty interesting to bring the facts of the urban legend to light.

What’s New and What’s Cheap in the UK : Bioshock Infinite, Dark Souls and the Humble Bundle 8

Simon Julian — Thu, 30 May 2013 09:00:09 +0000

As May draws to an end Fuse releases on PS3 and 360 while Grid 2 releases on the PC, 360 and PS3.

On the deals side, at Game you can pickup Need for Speed: Most Wanted on the Vita for £12.99, from PSN you can get PlayStation All-Stars: Battle Royale also for the Vita for £11.99, and on Xbox Live you can pickup Dark Souls for the 360 for £8.99 if you are a gold user.

Elsewhere on Gamersgate you can get Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning on the PC for £9.98, on Impulse you can pickup Deus Ex: Human Revolution Augmented Edition on the PC for £6.61, on Steam you can get Crusader Kings II for £8.74/$9.99/€9.99 depending on region and the humble bundle is back with the Humble Bundle 8 which as per normal is pay what you like and includes Little Inferno, Awesomenauts, Capsized, Thomas Was Alone, Dear Esther and if you pay over the average Hotline Miami and Proteus.

What catches your eye this week?

What’s New

Grid 2

Grid 2
Fuse

Grid 2
Fuse

What’s Cheap

Game

Need for Speed: Most Wanted | Vita | £12.99

Simply Games

Grid 2 | PC | £17.99 – Steam Key
Bioshock Infinite | PC | £19.99 – Steam Key
XCOM : Enemy Unknown | PC | £11.99 – Steam Key
Dead Island: Riptide | 360 | £19.99

PSN

PlayStation All-Stars: Battle Royale | Vita | £11.99

Xbox Live

Dark Souls | 360 | £8.99 – Gold Users Only

Gamersgate

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning | PC | £9.98

Impulse

Deus Ex: Human Revolution Augmented Edition | PC | £6.61 – Steam Key

Steam

Crusader Kings II | PC | £8.74/$9.99/€9.99

Humble Bundle

Humble Bundle 8 | PC | £/$/€ Whatever you like – Includes Little Inferno, Awesomenauts, Capsized, Thomas Was Alone, Dear Esther and if you pay over the average Hotline Miami and Proteus

If I’ve missed either a new release or a great cheap deal, please comment and make that information known.

Mega64′s Journey through the Mystical Land of San Diego

Hans Wuerflein — Thu, 30 May 2013 06:19:15 +0000

What secrets will be uncovered? What challenges will they overcome? Did they get arrested?

Watch and find out.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie is 20 Years Old Today

Hans Wuerflein — Tue, 28 May 2013 21:53:26 +0000

On May 28, 1993 the world first witnessed the bizarre spectacle that is the Super Mario Bros. movie. It… sure is a film that was released in theaters on purpose.

Now, I get that once the decision had been made to make a live action movie about the Super Mario games, there really isn’t much that can even remotely make sense about it, but that doesn’t make the film any less odd.

In the movie, Italian plumber brothers Mario Mario and Luigi Mario (played by Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo respectively) must rescue Daisy, an archeologist, from a paralel universe created by the asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs where King Koopa (Dennis Hopper) is trying to take over our world.

Oh, and people evolved from dinosaurs and the goombas are some sort of big dude, tiny head nightmare fuel.

I want to call this a low point for some of the more respected actors like Dennis Hopper, but then I remembered he was in Waterworld. And Space Truckers. A movie about truckers… in space.

You know, maybe Super Mario Bros. isn’t that far below average for ’90s movies after all.

Anyway, you can watch the whole movie below. On one hand, I feel a little weird telling you how to watch it in a borderline legal fashion. On the other, someone uploaded it to YouTube two years ago and no one’s bothered to make them take it down, so it’s basically on the same level of legality as a Music Monday post.

Enjoy!

Music Monday: Sim City 2000

Hans Wuerflein — Tue, 28 May 2013 06:26:59 +0000

As Brian and I both mentioned in posts in the last week, and as you’ve seen on the news pretty much anywhere if you follow it, Oklahoma got hammered by tornados last week.

It sucks, but people are already cleaning up and getting ready to rebuild what was destroyed.

My day job (which is actually overnight, but I digress) in video editing has had me pouring over hours of footage from the scene the last few days, and as I looked through helicopter footage of some of the neighborhoods, it reminded me of playing Sim City 2000 in junior high.

Maybe the sight of block after block of destruction reminding me of that game is a sign of how bad I was at it. Oh well.

Anyway, we didn’t have anything else really ready to go for this week, so here’s a playlist of Sim City 2000‘s soundtrack.

This Week in Videogame History: May 26 – June 1

Hans Wuerflein — Mon, 27 May 2013 00:20:32 +0000

This week we’ll finish off the month of May and look ahead to June. I won’t be covering the game releases and other events that the closest date I can find is simply “May, 19XX”, as I covered those a few week s ago, and I’ll cover June’s dates next week. And as for why that’s the best date I can find, record keeping doesn’t seem to have been a very high priority of the early videogame industry.

Ok everyone, lets hop in Nukezilla’s Wayback Machine and take a look at the events that shaped our favorite pastime from May 26 – June 1.

May 26

2004 – Eidos released Thief: Deadly Shadows for PC and Xbox. The final game to come out of Ion Storm’s actually successful Austin office, it featured a more open world, as opposed to the separate levels of the first two Thief games.

2009 – inFAMOUS released for PlayStation 3. I’m still kind of bummed Sucker Punch didn’t do Sly 4, but at least the stuff they’ve moved on to has been pretty cool too.

May 27

1986 – Dragon Quest released for the Famicom in Japan. Localized in the US as Dragon Warrior to avoid potential trademark problems, Dragon Quest is one of the most influential games of its generation, if not all time. Many elements of of its design are still popping up in RPGs decades later.

May 28

2002 – From Software’s real-time card battle RPG Lost Kingdoms released for Gamecube in the US by Activision.

2008 – Mass Effect released for PC. Whine about the ending of Mass Effect 3 some more, won’t you?

May 29

1999 – Worst game of all time contender Superman 64 released. Somehow, developer/publisher Titus managed to stay in business for five years after this.

2001 – Crazy Taxi 2 released for Dreamcast. While the first Crazy Taxi has been ported to every system under the sun, Crazy Taxi 2 remains a Dreamcast exclusive.

2007 – Nintendo released Mario Party 8 for the Wii. One of only two Mario Party games released for the Wii (the other being Mario Party 9 in 2012), 8 went on to become one of the best selling games for the system.

2007 - Shadowrun released for PC and Xbox 360. This game got a ton of hype, as it would allow PC and console players to compete directly against each other. Unfortunately, the game sucked, so no one cared.

May 30

2000 – MDK2 released for PC. Kurt Hectic, Dr. Hawkins and the six-legged dog Max have to save the world from aliens in this awesome third-person action game.

2001 – PopCap’s first game, Bejeweled, is released for browsers. It goes on to become one of the biggest time sinks since Solitair.

May 31

1996 – The last of the original Doom games, Final Doom is released for PC. Final Doom stated life as a fan project before being bought and distributed by id Software. It’s basically a stand alone expansion pack for Doom II, featuring two more sets of levels, TNT: Evilution and The Plutonia Experiment. Both revolve around more experiments with dimensional gates that lead to demon invasions and contain some of the more difficult levels of any official release.

1997 – Blood released for PC. Similar to Duke Nukem 3D in it’s heavy use of pop culture references and one liners (not to mention using the same graphics engine), Blood takes players through a world full of zombies, cultists, dark carnivals, nightmare trains and other horror themed locals.

1998 – Jersey Devil released for PS1. This Jersey Devil is a bat-like ’90s platform game mascot, as opposed to the “real” Jersey Devil, which is a terrifying horse demon thing.

1998 – Banjo-Kazooie released for Nintendo 64. It and its sequel Banjo-Tooie were part of the last batch of major release platformers before publishers (other than Nintendo) decided no one wants platformers anymore.

2007 – Halo 2 released for PC. It included a couple extra multiplayer maps, a map editor, and the blight on PC gaming that is Games for Windows Live.

June 1

1992 – Super Star Wars released for the Super Nintendo.

1993 – Super Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back released for the Super Nintendo.

1994 – Super Star Wars: Return of the Jedi released for the Super Nintendo. Man, LucasArts (or more likely, publisher JVC) really liked June 1.

1998 – Quest 64 released in the US. It gets made fun of a lot, but I always really liked Quest 64.

2004 – The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay released for Xbox. While the movie was kind of dumb (and the best Warhammer 40K movie we’re ever going to get), the game was actually really, really good. Pick up the sequel, Assault on Dark Athena as it also includes an updated version of the first game as a bonus.

2006 – Half-Life 2: Episode One released for PC. lol Episode Three is never coming out.

Off Topic: YouTube Comedy Weak

Hans Wuerflein — Sat, 25 May 2013 01:20:17 +0000

This week has been rough. The tornado that plowed through Moore, OK has had the media here working around the clock. I think by the end of the week I will have put in about 60 hours, and editing got off light.

Don’t get me wrong, it could be worse. I could have been one of the people who lost family members, their home, or both.

Even so, I had a really long, stressful week. When I got home today I thought I’d look around YouTube for a few funny videos to help unwind. That’s when I noticed all the banners for Comedy Week. I’d seen a little bit of promotion for it, but hadn’t really had time to check it out.

This has to be the single largest collection of unfunny shit I’ve ever seen. After watching the YouTube selected highlights I think I might go back up to the station and dig through our raw video to see some old lady being pulled out of the rubble with half a 2×4 sticking out of her leg, or that interview with the kid who’s house got hit, woke up 40 feet from where it used to be, and found his mom’s body under a mangled car.

Sure, it’s horrendously depressing, and makes you question whether anything good and right will ever happen in the world again, but at least it’s better than Comedy Week.

I was going to ramble on for a thousand or so words about what a fucking waste of space these videos are, but luckily, I don’t have too:

That’ll do Mega64. That’ll do.

And YouTube, I hope you kept the receipts.

What’s New and What’s Cheap in the UK : Metro, Unreal and Alan Wake

Simon Julian — Thu, 23 May 2013 09:00:23 +0000

As May continues Resident Evil: Revelations hits the PC, 360, PS3 and Wii U, while Donkey Kong Country Returns releases on the 3DS.

On the deals side, at the Game Collection you can pickup Halo: Combat Evolved – Anniversary on the 360 for £11.95 and Street Fighter X Tekken – Special Edition also on the 360 for £16.95, at Zavvi you can pickup Hitman Absolution: Professional Edition on the 360 for £12.99, on PSN you can get Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition for the PS3 for £5.99 and on Xbox Live you can pickup Alan Wake for £4.49.

Elsewhere at Simply Games you can get Metro Last Light on the PC for £19.99, on GamersGate you can get Dungeons & Dragons Neverwinter Nights Complete on the PC for £6.78 which include Neverwinter Nights and Neverwinter Nights 2 and 3 Expansion packs each and on Steam you can get the Unreal Deal Pack for £5.75/$10.00/€10.00 depending on region which includes Unreal Gold, Unreal Tournament: GotY Edition, Unreal 2: The Awakening, Unreal Tournament 2004: Editor’s Choice Edition and Unreal Tournament 3 Black.

What catches your eye this week?

What’s New

Resident Evil: Revelations

Resident Evil: Revelations

Resident Evil: Revelations

Resident Evil: Revelations

Donkey Kong Country Returns

What’s Cheap

The Game Collection

Street Fighter X Tekken – Special Edition | 360 | £16.95
Halo: Combat Evolved – Anniversary | 360 | £11.95

Zavvi

Hitman Absolution: Professional Edition | 360 | £12.99

Simply Games

Metro Last Light | PC | £19.99 – Steam Key

PSN

The King of Fighters XIII | PS3 | £5.99
Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition | PS3 | £5.99
Marvel VS. Capcom: Origins | PS3 | £5.99

Xbox Live

Alan Wake | 360 | £4.49
Alan Wake’s American Nightmare | 360 | 320MSP

Gamersgate

Dungeons & Dragons Neverwinter Nights Complete | PC | £6.78 – Includes Neverwinter Nights and Neverwinter Nights 2 and 3 Expansion packs each

Steam

Unreal Deal Pack | PC | £5.75/$10.00/€10.00 – Includes Unreal Gold, Unreal Tournament: GotY Edition, Unreal 2: The Awakening, Unreal Tournament 2004: Editor’s Choice Edition and Unreal Tournament 3 Black
Cities XL Platinum | PC | £6.80/$10.20/€10.20
Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion | PC | £8.49/$13.59/€10.19

If I’ve missed either a new release or a great cheap deal, please comment and make that information known.

Phil Harrison Appears Already to be Lying About Xbox One DRM

Peter Silk — Wed, 22 May 2013 12:06:07 +0000

I really don’t have anything to say about Microsoft’s soulless Xbox One reveal except that if I’m not seriously misreading, they’re already lying about DRM – and they’ve barely even got started.

In an excellent Eurogamer interview, Tom Bramwell asks Microsoft’s Phil Harrison some pressing questions about the functionality. It’s a curious response because it seems outright contradictory. There’s no way that he can honestly believe what he’s saying. Let’s take it piece by piece.

So, think about how you use a disc that you own of an Xbox 360 game. If I buy the disc from a store, I use that disc in my machine, I can give that disc to my son and he can play it on his 360 in his room. We both can’t play at the same time, but the disc is the key to playing. I can go round to your house and give you that disc and you can play on that game as well.

So far, so true. In fact, there are two Xbox 360 consoles in my house, so we often share games for this reason.

What we’re doing with the digital permissions that we have for Xbox One is no different to that. If I am playing on that disc, which is installed to the hard drive on my Xbox One, everybody in my household who has permission to use my Xbox One can use that piece of content. [So] I can give that piece of content to my son and he can play it on the same system.

Wait, that’s not ‘no different’ at all. Before we were talking about two consoles playing one disc. Now we’re suddenly talking about one console where multiple people have permission to use it. I wonder why one console has stealthily disappeared from this so-called ‘no different’ example? Ah, looks like we’re about to find out.

I can come to your house and I can put the disc into your machine and I can sign in as me and we can play the game. The bits are on your hard drive. At the end of the play session, when I take my disc home – or even if I leave it with you – if you want to continue to play that game [on your profile] then you have to pay for it. The bits are already on your hard drive, so it’s just a question of going to our store and buying the game, and then it’s instantly available to play.

The bits that are on the disc, I can give to anybody else, but if we both want to play it at the same time, we both have to own it. That’s no different to how discs operate today.

Looks like we have our answer. With the Xbox One, it wouldn’t be possible to have more than one console in the same household without paying multiple times for the same discs.

And there’s that phrase again; ‘no different.’ Phil, this is, again, very different. At the moment, if I leave my disc with a friend then he can play it until he’s done without paying, but I can’t play it at the same time. Then, when I get it back, I can play it again. There’s absolutely no hassle with profile sign-ins or other such nonsense – I can just take the disc to his house, pop it in, play on whatever his default profile is and leave. With this new system, any different user who wants to play the game on a different machine has to pay. That is different, and is a clear reduction in the utility of having a disc.

We will have a system where you can take that digital content and trade a previously played game at a retail store. We’re not announcing the details of that today, but we will have announced in due course.

Our goal is to make it really customer-centric, really simple and really understandable and we will announce those details in due course.

Perhaps Phil Harrison is just in denial. But otherwise, he simply can’t honestly believe that the Xbox One’s system is ‘no different’ to regular disc usage. And surely he realises that these changes aren’t ‘customer-centric,’ unless by that he means that they’re centred around hobbling the customer.

Introducing the Xbox One

Hans Wuerflein — Wed, 22 May 2013 02:29:08 +0000

Yep, Xbox One. That’s what they’re going with.

I don’t think it will be as confusing as Wii U was, simply because the original Xbox isn’t on sale anymore, unlike the Wii, but it’s still an odd choice.

Anyway, here’s the breakdown of what they announced:

They open by acting like getting YouTube on a TV is a herculean feat, despite the fact that smart TVs have been a thing for several years now.

Next up, a reminder that the Xbox was a thing, and they are a well established company.

“In a few short weeks at E3, we’ll be sharing great news about what’s next on Xbox 360.” In other words, look forward to their announcements on $60 sequels they’re hoping will cover the bills until we can get viable user base on their next console.

Why yes, whoever this guy is, I do use consumer electronics. How ever did you guess that?

Oh god, he’s starting on about “the living room.”

Well, at least the said the name. Xbox One. Some Microsoft employees in the audience seem pretty happy.

It looks like a desktop PC from 1997, only shinier.

The controller looks like the original Xbox controller S, only shinier.

The new Kinect looks like a sound bar, only shinier.

“What if a single device could provide all your entertainment?” You mean, like a computer?

Oh god, it looks like Windows 8. I guess the Xbox 360 dash does at this point too, but still.

Wow. The Xbox One can go through a complicated voice recognition algorithm and activate a video pas through. And here I’ve been pressing “input” on my remote like a sucker.

Hey, it kind of works during a major press demonstration. I’m sure it will work just as well in my small poorly lit apartment.

Hey, it has Skype. You guys liked that before we started screwing with it, right?

Ho ho! A humorous exchange with the dude-bro who negotiated their ESPN contract (or something).

Okay, the fantasy sports stuff might be kind of… wait. This guy has Jrue Holiday as his point guard? Not even Jrue Holiday would take Jrue Holiday for his point guard. Microsoft clearly knows nothing about sports. Calling it now, the ESPN app will burn someone’s house down.

Now he’s calling Tyson Chandler dominant. Run for the hills! An ESPN app made by these people will surely kill us all!

The Xbox One has a TV guide built in. They seem convinced that the average consumer is FURIOUS at owning more than one electronic device.

The trending section: because it’s not worth watching unless it’s base enough to rank in the top 10.

Hey, some system specs: 8 core 64-bit CPU, 8GB ram, Blu-ray drive, 500 GB hard drive, HDMI in/out, 802.11n, USB 3.0.

It’s running multiple OSs at the same time, Windows, Xbox, and some in between thing, all running at once to enable swapping between media on the fly. So, only 6 or so of those core will be doing any gaming I guess.

He’s talking about the controller. It really doesn’t look like anything special, but he mentioned the d-pad. It still doesn’t look great, but it’ll be hard to tell how good it is until we play with the final product.

Hey, they brought up Smart Glass again. Maybe someone will find a way to make it more useful that the GameCube’s Game Boy Advance connectivity.

He’s describing a bunch of stuff the Kinect does, and honestly, I’d rather it wouldn’t.

I’d try and do a breakdown of the Xbox Live stuff, but he’s just blowing smoke up our asses. He’s been talking for a couple minutes without saying anything new or interesting, other than cloud based game footage recording.

Official server hosted multiplayer is only living and persistent as long as the publisher keeps the servers up. Last time I checked, 14 months (which is about all EA has given some games) is a bit weak for a “persistent world.”

It also pretty much means no used games in cases that use these features. Fun.

EA will have four games for the Xbox One. Football (US), Football (everywhere else), Basketball and sweaty dick-punching.

Coming in the next 12 months, so at least one of them almost surely won’t be a launch title.

EA Sports’ new graphics engine has the capability to render both black people and Lionel Messi.

Ultimate Team in FIFA 14 will be Xbox One exclusive. If I knew what the hell that was I might be impressed?

Well, Robert Griffin III made the Dallas Cowboys defense look like a bunch of chumps, so at least they got that part right.

Forza Motorsport 5 is a game. It looks like a pre-rendered trailer, because it is.

Remedy (Max Payne, Alan Wake) is working on a game called Quantum Break. There’s a live action cut scene where it implies a little girl steered a tanker ship into a bridge. Then there was some tagline about time being on fire or something and brief shots of what looked like a third-person action game.

Halo: The TV Series is a thing being produced by Steven Spielberg. How involved he’ll really be is hard to say, but Spielberg has been involved in videogames before, so I’m sure he has a decent amount of respect for the world and characters of Halo.

Apparently there was also a Call of Duty: Ghosts trailer, but the version of the stream I found cut off beforehand. I watched it, and it sure looks like some shooty-shoot guys doing things. Also, there’s a dog.

To give COD: Ghosts a little credit though, the trailer had a much more somber tone than usual, and they hired the guy who wrote Traffic and Syriana, so maybe it won’t be a super jingoistic dude-bro fest this time around.

So, other than not knowing when it will come out, what games will come out with it, what it will cost, or how exactly the new Xbox Live stuff will effect used games in practice, who wants one?

Music Monday: Tornado Outbreak

Brian Bickell — Mon, 20 May 2013 09:00:46 +0000

Seriously, you guys, there are goddamn tornadoes all over this state while I’m writing this. But being that I have a duty to provide you with music every Monday I found you some music from an obscure game called Tornado Outbreak from 2009. It’s not as bad as I thought it would be.

I’m going to keep this short because, afk tornadoes.

Tornado Outbreak: Chicken Con Carnage

Tornado Outbreak: Roadside Destruction