Mac gaming receives a boost from GOG.com, Japanese Vita sales lag, The Old Republic details free-to-play, and more.
Click through for the biggest gaming news stories for the week of October 15:
Does Tryst find a way to liven up the slowly changing real-time strategy genre?
Having purposely kept away from real-time strategy games after an unhealthy period with Age of Empires II over a decade ago, I was unsure what crazy changes had taken place in the genre. What insane new systems had evolved and how would I cope with them? If Tryst is any indication, not too much has changed in all that time, though Tryst tries really hard to inject some new ideas. Even adding on a few good-intention bonus points, Tryst is still a bland sci-fi entry in a genre that could really use some juicing up.
This gorgeous remake deserves better controls.
Nights Into Dreams has unquestionably been treated with love in its transformation into HD. The Japanese exclusive PlayStation 2 version of the game has been upscaled and displayed in wide screen, making the once blocky presentation smooth and vibrant. Even the sprites were upgraded to 3D objects, providing some extra visual flair. Heck, Sega even included a trimmed version of Christmas Nights for good measure. However, the port suffers from the same botched controls found in that PlayStation 2 version of the game and the rough patches of the experience persist despite the loving upgrade.
Don't talk, don't text, or we'll take your ass out.
Welcome to NWP at the Movies! This week, the pantsless ones are joined by film critic, actor, artist, and all around good dude, John Gholson. Movies are the topic of the day, but as always we begin with what we’ve been playing and listener mail. This week, we talk about Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater HD, Patrick’s intro to iOS games, XCOM, and Julian’s existential gaming crisis.
Return to Omega, packing new weapons, and an unlikely ally.
It’s been a rough year for BioWare, especially the Mass Effect team. After the outcry of fans upset with the outcome of the epic sci-fi/RPG trilogy the team had to postpone planned DLC to work on a new ending. To quell the anger in that time, multiple free multiplayer add ons were released, and the game didn’t see its first true story-based DLC until Leviathan was released in August. It seems like the team is back on track, soldiering on after the departure of the company founders. While it won’t quite make it in time for “N7 Day”, the Omega DLC pack will be available soon, and promises to be the biggest addition to the game so far.
Remember that cheaply made Big Daddy figure? Ken Levine is gonna do right by you this time.
There are some rabid game collectors out there, and Ken Levine and his team over at Irrational Games are banking on that fact with two impressive special editions of BioShock Infinite. The Premium Edition comes with a staggering amount of swag, while the pricier Ultimate Songbird Edition includes a large and very detailed statue. If your inner Gollum is starting to mutter “precious” read on for all the juicy collector details.
Beloved classic ideas merge together to form: Pure Evil.
I’m a sucker for retro. Give me some faux-8-bit graphics and some simple game mechanics and I’m hooked. Make the game challenging where I have to force myself to hone reaction times and I’ll put in hours to rack up high scores. Combine two classic game types into some new great thing and I’m likely to be smitten for months. Enter Wizorb with its Dragon Warrior RPG aesthetic and Breakout style battles, and I was drooling. That was months ago. My drool has long since dried, and now so have my tears as I’ve come to accept that Wizorb is just too damn difficult.
Julian Titus' Chronicles: An Existential Crisis
Video games are truly a unique medium. They blend graphics, sound, characters and story with intricate mechanics to create a completely immersive experience that simply can’t be duplicated anywhere else. When a game is crafted well, these elements merge together seamlessly, forging an illusion that is difficult to break. Then there are games like Red Johnson’s Chronicles: One Against All, a game so disjointed and jarring that it not only broke the immersive illusion for me, but it actually forced me to think long and hard about video games as a whole, and ask myself if they’re worth my time.
More than a cookie cutter.
When Sony announced Playstation All Stars, fans of the developer and its long list of exclusive characters let out rounds of applause. Unfortunately, that applause was followed by a mildly depressed sigh of remorse for a game that looked to steal major portions of the Super Smash Brothers battle system. Luckily, players who have been able to get their hands on the beta of Battle Royale have come away with relief all over their faces.
Remember, information is the weapon!
It’s hard to believe that it’s been six years since Hitman: Blood Money hit the scene. It was released in that heady time around the launch of the “seventh generation” of consoles, when it was still common to see games come out for the Xbox and PlayStation 2 alongside the Xbox 360. As such, Blood Money wasn’t technically a seventh generation game; it was designed with the PCs and consoles of 2005 and upscaled to run on the 360. That was my introduction to the series, and even though the game came across as dated by the time I got to it in 2009 I was impressed with the sheer amount of options for completing objectives in every level.
