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Judging MomoCon’s Indie Games Competition
Each year Atlanta-area anime and gaming convention MomoCon selects five independently developed video games to honor in its Indie Games awards, and each year I help pick the winners. Here’s how games like The Banner Saga 2 and Talent Not Included made it into the top five this year. MomoCon (“momo” is “peach” in Japanese,…
By Mike Fahey Published May 30, 2017 -
The Friday the 13th Game Isn’t Very Good
Friday the 13th has a lot in common with some of the sillier sequels in the film’s franchise: it’s great for a laugh, but not much else. Friday The 13th is an online multiplayer game based on the long-running horror franchise about Jason Vorhees and the teenagers he murders. Up to seven players are counselors…
By Gita Jackson Published May 30, 2017 -
‘Life Is Unfair’: A Q&A With Nier: Automata‘s Director
Nier: Automata is both a wild action game and an introspective look at the things that make us human. We corresponded with director Yoko Taro via e-mail to talk about the game’s themes, what goes into writing memorable characters, and what he’d like video game players to stop doing. Here, in full, is our Q&A:…
By Heather Alexandra Published May 30, 2017 -
Streamer Jailbreaks Super Mario World Cartridge To Run Mods
Streamer and speedrunner Sethbling has taken Super Mario World hacking to the next level. Using a save glitch discovered by Cooper Harasyn, he’s managed to create a “jailbroken” Super Mario World cartridge with a mod-enabling hex editor built right in. Fooling around with Super Mario World code is usually a pretty complicated thing, as Sethbling…
By Mike Fahey Published May 30, 2017 -
Square Enix Announces New JRPG Lost Sphear For PS4, Switch, And Steam
The followup to I Am Setsuna is Lost Sphear, the latest release from Square Enix’s Tokyo RPG Factory. Here’s how Square Enix describes the game: The adventure of LOST SPHEAR begins in a remote town where a young boy, Kanata, awakens from a devastating dream to find his hometown disappearing. To stop the world from…
By Brian Ashcraft Published May 30, 2017 -
Street Masters Turns Beat-Em-Ups Into A Board Game
Street Masters: Rise of the Kingdom is an attempt to take the underlying design of games like Double Dragon and Final Fight and turn them into a board game (with a lot of miniatures). Designed by Adam and Brady Sadler, it’s for 1-4 players, and features both an “arcade mode” (for quick and random action)…
By Luke Plunkett Published May 29, 2017 -
Neill Blomkamp Is Making Short Movies For Steam
Director Neill Blomkamp, the guy behind movies like District 9 and Elysium (not to mention a very good attempt at Halo), is now heading up a studio that is going to be releasing “experimental short films” on Steam. Here’s the first trailer for the films, coming out of a company called Oats Studios: Steam has…
By Luke Plunkett Published May 29, 2017 -
Some Blue Shells Have Minds Of Their Own
You’re in first place and the finish line is in sight. Everything is going just fine until you hear that weird electronic whirring coming from behind. Someone’s dropped a blue shell and you think you’re doomed when all of the sudden it hits the person just behind you instead. Sacré bleu! If you’ve been playing…
By Ethan Gach Published May 29, 2017 -
Some Thoughts On Arms After Playing This Weekend’s Open Beta
Arms is hard to pin down, both literally and figuratively. While this weekend’s global testfires offered a good introduction to the house of whimsical party combat Nintendo is trying to build, a quick stroll around inside left me wondering, Peggy Lee-style, if that’s all there is. Across the roughly three to four hours I spent…
By Ethan Gach Published May 29, 2017 -
Rime Dev Says It Will Drop Denuvo DRM Once The Game Is Cracked
Rime, the indie game caught halfway between Ico and Journey was released last week. With Denuvo DRM. Like a lot of games. But that made some players angry, and prompted the developer, Tequila Works, to state that once the Denuvo DRM is broken, which it eventually always is, the company will release a DRM-free version…
By Ethan Gach Published May 29, 2017 -
The Plot Twist In Star Ocean: Till The End Of Time Is A Lot More Believable Today
Most video games are content just to string the player along through dungeons, towns, or corridors full of machine gun cover while dishing out character arcs and weapon upgrades. Only a few try to reflect on the nature of reality and human existence. Star Ocean: Till the End of Time tried to do both. The…
By Ethan Gach Published May 29, 2017 -
Fire Emblem Heroes Adds Wedding Costumes
These are the latest heroes to be added to the game starting May 30. The spring event came with bunny costumes, so naturally a series of special characters sporting bridal gowns was the next logical step. The latest trailer for Nintendo’s mobile slot machine shows off old characters all dolled up for the big “I…
By Ethan Gach Published May 29, 2017 -
Square Enix Moves Final Fantasy VII Remake Development In-House
Previously, Square Enix was working with external studio CyberConnect2 to develop Final Fantasy VII Remake. But now, Square Enix will be making the game in-house. Third party studio CyberConnect2 is perhaps best known for its Naruto and .hack games. Back in 2015, it was revealed that Square Enix was working with the studio on the…
By Brian Ashcraft Published May 29, 2017 -
Australian Pokémon Are A National Treasure
Pixel God Paul Robertson has drawn up an exhaustive catalogue of Australian Pokémon based on national foods, sayings, places, plants and animals, some of which could kill you, some of them which (probably) wouldn’t For those outside the antipodes who don’t understand many/all of these, niboswald has started annotating them so that you can read…
By Luke Plunkett Published May 28, 2017 -
Creepy Mod Transforms Fallout 4 Into A Horror Movie
Pilgrim is a mod for Fallout 4 that takes Bethesda’s Commonwealth and turns it into something you’d see in a game like Silent Hill It doesn’t add new much new content, so there won’t suddenly be quests to chase down chainsaw-wielding hick families or bog witches. But what it does do is overhaul the game’s…
By Luke Plunkett Published May 28, 2017 -
This Sure Is A $600 Mega Man X Statue
Good statues don’t come cheap and Mega Man X is no exception. But for the price of six months’ car insurance or a round-trip flight to the North American coast of your choice, it could be yours. The little blue robot man measures 21″ and is 1/4th scale, so naturally it’s already sold out. Produced…
By Ethan Gach Published May 28, 2017 -
There’s More To Phantom Trigger Than Just Another Beautiful Pixel Brawler
Phantom Trigger is, in the words of its development team, a “neon slasher,” and it’s slated to arrive on the Nintendo Switch later this year. But don’t let pink and teal pixel art fool you, it’s more than just Hyper Light Drifter-lite. Revealed two months ago, the PC action adventure game with roguelike elements looked…
By Ethan Gach Published May 28, 2017 -
We’ve Spent Way Too Much Time Not Playing Games On Our Microwaves
You should probably be playing video games on your microwave or doing absolutely anything other than watching it slowly count down while your leftovers are getting nuked. In the most recent episode of his Invention Show on YouTube, gadget stunt man Colin Furze revealed the “Play-O-Wave,” a fully functioning microwave with a screen and component…
By Ethan Gach Published May 28, 2017
