Alternatively, 'Spelunking for Masochists'

There's a certain thrill to a game that punishes you for attempting to best it, as Bloodborne and Souls series fans can at?test to. That's why there happen to be so many of them cropping up here and there, especially over the last few years.

La-Mulana EX is a member of this special breed of titles; a throwback to the 1980s where a gaggle of our favorite games were stiffer than your favor??ite drink and tougher than the very nails you'd want to hammer into your head after a ??play session.

La-Mulana EX (PS Vita)
Developer: Pygmy Studio
Publisher: Rising Star Games
Release: March 4, 2015
MRSP: $19.99

Originally debuting as PC platformer from Nigoro back in 2005 and flirting with Steam and WiiWare players over the last couple of years, its latest incarnation is indeed, as its publisher asserts, its greatest. La-Mulana EX is considered the "ultimate" version of the platformer, with tweaked gameplay modes, an expansive Monster Bestiary, and more to create a modern appeal to the retro ga??me lover in so many of us.&nbs?p;

Step into the shoes of Lemeza Kosugi, the diminutive Indiana Jones-like explo??rer equipped with a deadly whip and a thirst for adventure that can only be quenched by heading into abandoned ruins, staving off monsters, and solving each level's often frustrating and complicated puzzles. 

This is a platformer where dying and dying and dying again is absolutely guaranteed, but in some strange way that's what makes it so charming, too. Pygmy Studio's PlayStation Vita version speaks on gameplay tweaks and?? alterations meant to simplify and alleviate some of the frustration, but don't be fooled: this is still very much a difficult and challenging game. Every stone tablet you manage to reach in order to save your game feels like a victory, just as figuring out some of the more convoluted mysteries attached to several areas within specific levels.

That's where the difficulty stems from, too: a lack of signposting and clear broadcasting of where and when specific events will occur, what you'll uncover if you happen to off a monster in a specific area, or a lack of information written on the many ??stone tablets nestled throughout the game. Of course, the monsters aren't just loitering; you'll need lightning-fast reflexes in order to fell a good number of them, and many will simply respawn over and over once you've already beaten them. This isn't so much a game in some areas as it is a test of endurance, but one you'll feel good about taking.

Unfortunately, despite being given a new home on the PlayStation Vita, La-Mulana EX does not improve on or alter the original resolution of the flagship title and eschews add?itional functionality proprietary to the Vita for additional content like the aforementioned Monster Bestiary. The tweaks to the already unapologetically difficult gameplay aren't exactly evident, especially since many areas are just as enigmat?ic as ever, but the ability to look up the beasts you're up against can be useful. The game also lends itself well to a handheld format, as playing on the Vita makes things much less frustrating somehow -- at the very least, you can put the system down and enjoy the world around you when things get too annoying.

La-Mulana EX has found a fantastic home on the Vita, the home of the niche Japanese game and those looking for bursts of handheld play on the go. It's fast, furious, and in-your-face, but it's a good time. Plus, it'll liven up that trip to the doctor's office? you've b?een dreading. 

The post L??a-Mulana EX is nirvana for punishing game enthusiasts appeared first on Destructoid.

Welcome to the machine

Today, Nintendo  and ??DeNA formed a capital and licensing alliance to bring Nintendo intellectual properties to smart devices. They will also be creating a multi-device membership service set to deploy worldwide. The partnership will be combining Nintendo's hit characters and game development experience with DeNA's expertise in the mobile market to expand Nintendo's reach into the multi-billion dollar mobile gaming i?ndustry.

To optimize gameplay experience, these games will be totally new creations, not ports of existing Nintendo titles. All of Nintendo's IPs are covered by this agreement, so future games could run the gamut of fan favorites. It's hoped that as those that are predominately mobile gamers explore the world of Nintendo through these games they will wish to co??ntinue their Nintend??o adventures on the Wii U or 3DS.

The online service is set to release in fall 2015, and is slated to be accessible f?rom smart phones, the Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo Wi??i U, and PC. DeNA will be handling much of the development, drawing on its extensive experience in online membership services.

As a commitment to their long-term relationship and commitment, Nintendo will receive 15,081,000 in DeNA treasury shares equaling 10 percent of ?their total stock and valued at 22 billion yen ($181,293,778 or £122,257,880). DeNA will be receiving 1,759,400 shares of Nintendo's stock equaling 1.24 percent of their total public shares and roughly around the same value.

Neither Nintendo nor DeNA have released details on any of their up?coming titles, but with their online service set to release this fall, you can bet they'll be moving fast.

The post Nintendo and DeNA enter into licensing agreement for mobile develop?ment appeared first on Destructoid.

You're a legend in the eyes of those that live on the battlefield

Konami has released a bit more info on what will be involved in transferring data from Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes to Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. Unfortunately, you can't use data from any version of Ground Zeroes for any version of The Phantom Pain. However, Konami made a?? handy chart to help us out.

Additionally, if you?? bought a physical copy, you'll have to have a disc handy to complete the transfer process. Here's what unlocks with the data transfer:

• Big Boss's sneaking suit from Ground Zeroes

• Bonus recruits for Mother Base, including any POWs you rescued during the course of the game

• A possible revisit to Camp Omega for a new mission in The Phantom Pain

I absolutely can't wait to get Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. I've already planned to take the week off, buy room-darkening curtains, and curse at my loved ones long enough so that they'll leave me alone for a wee??k.

Big Boss returns September 1.

Konami ??details data transfer from Ground Zeroes to The Phantom Pain [Metal Gear Informer]

The post More detai??ls on trans??ferring data between MGSV: Ground Zeroes and The Phantom Pain appeared first on Destructoid.

Prepare for mega-hipster action

Rejoice, fans of awkward teenage women walking on train tracks! The official Life is Strange Twitter account announced the second episode in the series will be available March 24. The episodes were supposed to be released in six-week increments, but due to unforeseen circumstances the second episode missed its mark, and was delayed, despite the developer claiming the contrary.

Hopefully, this entry will focus a lot less on being as "indie" as possible, and more on utilizing the time-travel mechanics in an interesting way. I saw a lot of potential when I played the first episode of Life is Strange, but the ?narrative was erratic t?o the point where I wasn't sure if I liked it or not.

@LifeIsStrange [Twitter]

The post Life is Strange Episode 2 release date revealed appeared first on Destructoid.

The magic of SimCity has returned

The connection between the design and implementation of the sidewalks and streets we use on a daily basis requires a huge mental leap for me. Walking down the cobblestone in my city and looking up to see the sky framed with highrises inspires my sense of awe. It’s as if they represent humanity’s dominion over the natural world, and seem to stand as a testament to our species’ tenacity. It’s as if their monolithic forms are a raised fist against all the devastation and hardship we’ve experienced as ??a whole since we left the fertile crescent over 60,000 years ago.

To make a city of our own, to imitate and create the spaces in which we live our lives is quite alluring. The nurturing and planning that goes into creating your own little virtual metropolis is naturally stimulating to the desire to solve problems that most of us find so innate. For more than a decade, Maxis’ SimCity series was the go-to for a city-building fix. However, the changes in the latest iteration of the series were very unpopular, and begged the question, “Is the city-building simulation genre dead?” Cities: Skylines answers with an emphatic, “No,” and goes beyond what even the venerable SimCity series had to offer.

Cities: Skylines (PC [reviewed], Mac, Linux)
Developer: Colossal Order
Publisher: Paradox Interactive
Released: March 10, 2015
MSRP: $29.99 (Standard), $39.99 (Deluxe)
Rig: AMD FX-6300 @ 3.5 GHz, with 8GB of RAM, ATI Radeon HD 7950, Windows 8.1 64-bit

For those who are fans of the SimCity series, Cities: Skylines is an easy jump as far as game mechanics go. The initial actions to create each city will be much the same. You are mayor of a burgeoning village and there is a specific set of r??equirements to ensure the initial happiness of your townsfolk. First a connection must be made to the road system, then a simple power system and water supply must be routed to the site of your future homes and businesses, and finally you can zone your first residential area and watch all the little houses start popping up.

From there you’ll enga?ge in the delicate balancing act between residential zones, industrial zones, and commercial zones. Citizens need jobs and goods to buy. Commercial businesses need employees and citizens to sell to. Industrial facilities need workers and businesses to supply. Take one of these out of the equation and you’ll begin to see unhappiness spread throughout your city. It all seems so simple, until you start adding the myriad of other components that slowly show themselves as your city ages.

Running out of money is an ever-present danger in Cities: Skylines. If you spend too much you may run into the red and never recover. If you spend too little, you run the risk of slowing the growth of your town. I loved the unforgiving budget dynamic. It added so much challenge without being unfair, and making the hard choice between my citizen’s happiness and the need to tax so the coffers would remain fu??ll was always a struggle.

Making sure that people can get where they need to go in a timely matter is a major concern for any city planner. I made the mistake of g?oing the cheap route in the early days of my mayoral career and connecting the core chunk of my township with simple two-lane roads. As I expanded, I neglected to go back and upgrade to four or six lanes, and by the time I was expanding into newly annexed territory to begin laying high-density residential and commercial areas, and offices, my core industrial complex was rapidly filling with abandoned buildings. As my industry output grew with my population, I failed to realize that the narrow roads kept products from getting where they needed to go, and because they couldn’t sell anything, my factories shut down one by one.

Keeping an overall plan in the back of your head during the entire life of your city is essential to success in Cities: Skylines. Although my overall grid-style layout served to make zoning simple, my failure to cope with my traffic problem ended up costing me major tax profits when I had to tear down almost every one of my factories to widen the roads. I ended up eventually running out of cash, and although I was able to take out several loans, I couldn’t recovery and my ci??ty slowly stagnated and population started declining.

This is but one scenario that could lead to many hours of time lost. However, the difficulty is one of the things that makes the game feel so good. Seeing your city grow fro??m a few houses to a skyscraper-filled megacity is extremely satisfying. Even more so because Colossal Orde??r added something Maxis dreamed of for years: integrated citizen simulations. Your citizens are not just random background blobs.

Clicking on them gives you a na??me, where they live, where they work, and parts of their background, and it’s all dynamic and real. You can watch your citizens actually go to the same home, go to work, shop, and go about the minutiae of life each day. Also, there is a spoof Twitter feed at the top of the screen that is the primary way citize??ns communicate with you. Seeing their opinions on my actions lent an interesting twist to what could have been a generic adviser panel.

Unfortunately, with my hands full building and managing the city, I did not get a chance to see just how persistent these citizen simulations are, or if t??hey’re capable of producing offspring. In the next city I build, though, I will take time out to just watch my citizens and their lives as opposed to jetting around the map.

As is natural for a title with this scope, there are a few bugs and frustrations. When building roads and train tracks, I found that if I had to come back to expand a current path or finish an incomplete one, sometimes it was a pain to get the new paths to connect to the old ones without stating “there is already an ?object here.” Eventually I was able to overcome any problems with that, but it can be a little too time consuming to have to wrestle with the whole thing.

Citizens' tweets can be inaccurate as well. I had the same person tweet me that they were having water problems and upon checking the water availability overlay, there were no areas that weren&rsqu??o;t receiving clean water. This was another bug that wasn’t a huge deal in the long run. However, with a game that depends so much on y?our inhabitants’ happiness to assure your success, it caused me to freak out a little too much.

Cities: Skylines not only returns to the ideals which made the city-building? genre so popular, it expands them. I enjoyed every minute I played this title, and the planning, building, and nurturing of my city brought forth imagination and creativity from me like few titles ever have. If you’re a long-time fan of the genre, or just wanting to try it out, you can’t go wrong with? this game.

There’s a bit of universal appeal that comes with building and maintaining your own virtual city, and for a while I thought that magic had left the industry. I was wrong. Cities: Skylines is a title that will eat up hours of your tim??e, and with a commitment from the developers to continue support for the title in the future, and Steam Workshop integration, the huge amount of replayability the base game has will become even bigger. I wholeheartedly recommend this game and can’t wait to see what modders and Colossal Order have in store for us in the future.

The post Review: Cities: Skylines appeared first on Destructoid.

Mick Jagger doesn't need any of this

Underneath the vision of all but the most observant?? of people lay the secret lives of the animal kingdom. From the meekest field mouse to the mighty lion, each is born into a world of hardship and violence, where merely surviving is ??the ultimate goal. Humans, with our obsession over the minutiae of modern society, can't fathom the sheer terror and panic that many animals face multiple times per day.

Few forms of media attempt to strip away the ties that bind us to the sentient, and force us into the role of a wild animal. The Shelter series has attempted with minimalistic graphics and gameplay to translate what it would feel like to be a scared and lonely new mother defending and providing for her litter. This iteration focuses on a family of lynx, and although you are a predator, the vulnerability of your position is poignantly felt. But even though Shelter 2 evokes a certain amount of emotion, the pack?age leaves something to be desired.

Shelter 2 (PC)
Developer: Might and Delight
Publisher: Might and Delight
Released: March 9, 2015
MSRP: $14.99 

Beginning with a pack of wolves chasing you as a very pregnant lynx, Shelter 2 portrays itself as a game full of suspense. However, a??fter some metaphysical assistance, you find a den and give birth to your four kittens. Although it was a bit nerve-wracki??ng to wonder what was going to happen to my defenseless children, the beginning was the high point of the narrative.

I’m not sure if there’s a bit of random generation going on as far as events, but the only things that happened in my lives were: I had my kittens, I hunted and fed them for a while, they grew up, they slowly learned to hunt, they left me, I went back to the den and a small scene played, and the credits rolled. That was the whole game. Twice. There ??is so?me replayability in the form of playing as your progeny, who inherit the color of your coat and collectables. However, it only takes about two hours to finish, and those two hours are fairly lackluster.

What made the first playthrough somewhat interesting also happened to be annoying. There are no clues as to what to do during Shelter 2. There are a few tips that pop up at certain points, but they’re rarely helpful as they often appear after you have figured out the function they point out? on your own.

This would be fine if the gameplay was intuitive, but it’s not. I spent a huge chunk of the game baffled as to what I was supposed to do. I thought, “Surely there must be more to this than hunting and feeding my kittens.” That was it, though, and even it was a struggle.

The controls constantly felt as though they were fighting against me. To hunt, you must simply r??un into an animal??. However, on the keyboard, there’s no analog buttons or joysticks to make minute adjustments. So, if you’re chasing a small rabbit, and it turns, typically you’ll over correct because the controls are so insensitive.

Your cubs feed automatically once you catch an animal, but to eat yourself, you have to utilize the right mouse button, which by default is mapped to another function as well. Having contextual contro??ls when the default method of control is a keyboard and mouse is bad design for a?? title that has so little complication to its control scheme already.

Visually, I initially liked the watercolor aesthetic. However, when I started pla??ying, it started getting in the way more than it pleased the eye. Trying to track a small darting target through an abstract playfield is infuriating. I can’t see it as a way to simulate the vision of a lynx either, because big cats usually have great motion tracking.

There were many times when the odd textures and color scheme would hinder depth perception and I wasn’t ?sure if my prey had despawned or ran into tall grass. There is a “sense mode” you can activate to subdue the colors and highlight prey in red, but you can’t use it while running, or for more than a few seconds at a time. Having more freedom with sense mode would have done quite a bit to allay my frustration with the inability to distingui?sh motion easily.

The textures are just awful as well. They’re constantly clashing, with the sun looki??ng like a ball of churning blonde hair, bushes being pixelated blobs, and the whole thing looked like the results of the airbrush tool in MS Paint. When you run, there is some sort of blurred effect on the sides of the screen which I at first thought was screen tearing. It was such an odd visual design choice, especially since certain scenes looked really good, such as the initial scene approaching the den with the constellations in th?e background. It’s a shame, because with a little more detail with the textures and colors, the visuals could have looked unique and popped.

As of writing, Shelter 2 is still fairly buggy. I was constantly having both my kittens and prey clip into th??ings and lose their pathfinding abilities. At times models would oddly rotate into the ground, and this took away from the small things it did right. It’s hard to feel caring and empathetic towards your kittens when they start walking steadily into a boulder, or sink through the ground. Also, sometimes I would be chasing prey and it would simply vanish. That was the final straw with my chance of enjoyment. If a game is only two hours long, doesn’t have a large scope, and has issues with the few things it does do, bugs are a sign that it’s not just my personal tastes that are keeping me from meshing with it.

I have heard that there are some antagonists in the game world in the form of randomized wolf encounters, but I didn't run into a single enemy through two playthroughs. Lack of an adversary coupled with the dearth of any real reason to explore and the terrible map had me staying in the same little swatch of territory for the entir??ety of both runs. Maybe this resulted in missing some sort of huge point, or something really cool to see. However, even if that is the case, the game certainly did a poor job of encouraging me to do anything outside of feeding my spawn until they left me high and dry.

It’s a shame, because Shelter 2 covers a subject matter that isn’t touched on very often. Projecting the human thought process into a role of a creature that lacks the ability to understand what we find so precious without anthropomorphizing it is a tough thing to do. Something went wrong in the design process. For all its flaws and little to no redeeming qualities, I cannot recom?mend this game. I really wanted to enjoy the adventure of living as a lynx mother, but technical flaws alone have me wary of playing another Might and D?elight title. Although the game is only $14.99, the entertainment value offered is far below that.

I recommen??d sitting this one out for a while and seeing if patches add content or functionality.

The post Review: Shelter 2 appeared first on Destructoid.

Pump the dragon

On a post about PAX East mechandise, Capcom Unity may have accidentally let the cat out of the bag about Street Fighter V. The description for the Street Fighter V Ryu key art t-shirt states: "Everyone is fired up for Street Fighter V coming to the PS4 and PC next Spring. Until then, you can sport the official SFV key ??art T-s?hirt, which features Ryu in a heroic pose, for $25."

Additionally, Amazon has put up listings for Street Fighter V pre-orders for March 31, 2016. You can pre-order it now for $59.99, plus you get free shipping! To tide you over till then, watch this Charlie Nash trailer over and over. Poor Charlie Nash.

Pick up some Capcom merch at PAX East [Capcom Unity]

The post Street Fighter V gets a rumored release date appeared first on Destructoid.

Please don't cut me like Masamune

An intrepid Twitter user has leaked the changelog for the beta of PlayStation 4 update 2.50. I wasn't aware that Sony had a beta program for their updates, but I don't know a lot of th??ings. Most of the changes seem to be typical stability and feature improvement, but two of them stick out.

The system is receiving a proper rest mode. Now instead of everything shutting down w?hen you command the console to rest, it will hold applications in memory. This will allow you to pick up right where you left off in games and apps instead of starting everything up again as though you turned off the console.

Button remapping is also ??coming to the console. According to leaked screens, it seems like all the face, shoulder, stick buttons, and the d-pad will be able to be reassigned in the "Accessibility" menu. So if you're a fan of the Japanese system of "O is confirm, X is cancel," then you can finally live the dream.

Full PlayStation 4 update 2.50 beta changelog:

Main Features

• The system can now enter rest mode without closing any applications. You can adjust this setting in [Power Save Settings] > [Set Functions Available in Rest Mode].
• [Accessibility] has been added to [Settings]. You can adjust accessibility settings such as zooming and button assignments.

Trophies

• You can now delete trophies with 0% achievement progress.
• [Earned Date], [Not Earned], and [Grade] have been added as sorting options for trophies. You can also sort by [Earned Date] and [Not Earned] options when comparing trophies with other players.
• You can now search the Internet for details about trophies from the options menu in [Trophies].
• Screenshots of scenes when you earn trophies are now saved automatically. You can view saved screenshots in [Capture Gallery]. 
• You can now share trophy details and screenshots. Select the trophy you want to share details about in [Trophy], and then press the Share button.

Share Play

• You can now test the host’s connection speed when starting Share Play.
• You can now enjoy Share Play at 60 fps. A host in a party can adjust the setting in [Party Settings] > [Video Quality for Share Play] > [Frame Rate].
• A user who is running version 2.50 or earlier on their system cannot use Share Play with someone who is running version 2.50 beta on their system. Users who are both running system software version 2.50 beta can enjoy Share Play.

Other

• Users who are your Facebook friends can now be displayed in [Players You May Know].
• You can now send real name requests in addition to Friend requests to users who are currently not on your Friends list.
• You can now apply a shadow style for text in [Themes].
• You can now enter up to 140 characters for your self-introduction.
• If you enter 22 characters or more for your self-introduction, only 21 characters will be displayed on a PS4 system running system software version earlier than 2.50.
• You can now use the touch pad to operate playback of videos on discs.
• [Discover] has been added to introduce users to PS4 system features. You can view information about features in [Notifications] > [Discover].
• Remote Play cannot be used with a PS Vita system running version 3.35. A system software update for the PS Vita (to be released later) is required.

The rest mode is good news for me. I'm on the go a lot and it sucks to have to launch a game and reload a save when my free time is already so sporadic. I'm thankful I'll be able to avoid the 5 minutes of monotony it takes to get back into Dragon Age: Inquisition in the future. Sure it doesn't seem?? like a big deal, but that time?? adds up.

@Wario64 [Twitter]

The post PlayStation 4 update 2.5??0 details have been leaked appeared first on Destructoid.

Who knew a PlayStation could do this?

Rodensoft, a Japanese indie developer, has revealed new information regarding a Final Fantasy VII fan game in development as a personal project. Final Fantasy VII: Time Guardian was planned to be an alternate version of the original Final Fantasy VII, deviating?? at the Temple of the Ancients. In this version of events, after Cait Sith takes the Black Materia, he triggers the Time Guardian, scrambling time and scattering the party.

The story was to focus more on individuals than the original events. The c?haracters did not remember each other, so without the driving force to reunite, each of them took off alone into the world. Each of them would start in a place that was meaningful to the character: Yuffie in Kalm, Barret in North Corel, an??d it was entirely possible to not have any of them meet at all. Each of their stories was to be on one disc for a total of 9 CDs.

The playstyle was going to change to a more open-world approach as well. Time would pass and there was to be a day and night cycle, along with changing weather. Shops would close at night and more dangerous enemies would lurk in the darkness. Non-player characters (N?PCs) would also have their own routine depending on the time, and player characters would persist in the same place when you switched between them. Characters would also have field skills like lock-picking for Yuffie and explosives for Barret, which would allow for problem-solving or simply having fun.

At the heart of this was the upgraded PHS, which controlled character swapping, displayed the time and a calender, and allowed you to purchase and play mini-games to pass the time. As the characters met up, they would be able to form parties. If characters didn’t know e??ach other, they wouldn’t be able to join up. This could have resulted in two or three completely different teams completing various parts of the game without ever meeting.

It was an ambitious attempt, and was planned to actually run on PlayStation hardware, which is crazy to me. Unfortunately, due to more pressing needs, Rodensoft has reclassified the game as a tech demo and moved on to other projects. It’s impressive that an engine as old and clunky seeming as the Final Fantasy VII engine could do so much more than anyone thought. Hopefully, someone ?? will pick up his work and continu??e it as I find it incredibly interesting.

Final Fantasy VII Open-Wor?ld Sequel Project "Time Guardian" [Qhimm]

The post We’ll never get to play this Final Fantasy VII fan sequel appeared first on Destructoid.

It's a lot like Dark Souls

In an update to the official Bloodborne website, Son??y Computer Entertainment Japan has detailed the various modes of online play that will be available.

Real-time Modes

Co-Op

When a host player uses the “Hunter Calling Bell” item, guests will ?receive a notification and can use the “Resonant Bell” item to heed the call. The objective is to work together to beat a boss. The session will?? end if the host disconnects or dies, if the guests die, or if the “Separating Shot” item is used to return to single-player. Passwords of eight characters are set by the host, so random people can’t join just any game.

Player-versus-Player

PvP matches in Bloodborne are 1v1 fights that occur in pre-determined areas. The defender is the host, an??d the invader is the guest. PvP is initiated when a guest uses the “Ominous Resonant Bell” item. The host has to start the process of allowing invasions by either beginning a co-op session or using the “Ominous Resonant Bell” item themselves to call forth a Bell Chiming Woman. The host then can be invaded in any area where the woman appears. Once the fight is over, the guest returns to their own game. If victorious, a guest invader is granted a reward.

Asynchronous Multiplayer

Hints or messages can be left for other players, and graves will appear where other players have perished in the world. Touching the grave replays how they died, and similarly to Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls, phantom images of those other players will linger in the area of a limited amount of time.

Chalice Dungeons

Chalice Dungeons can be played on or offline, and come in norma?l and r?andomly generated variations. To access randomly generated dungeons you must connect to the internet one time, and they can be publicly accessible and shared online. The game will require a day one patch, and for co-op and player-versus-player modes, PlayStation Plus is required.

Look at that cool guy with the wings, you know you wanna be cool too. Bloodborne relea??ses March 24 exclusivel?y on the PlayStation 4.

Bloodborne’s online features fully detailed [Gematsu]

The post Sony Japan details Bloodborne online play appeared first on Destructoid.

This is no Saved by the Bell

It’s only a week and a half till the release of Final Fantasy Type-0 HD on March 17, and Square Enix has released a series of t?railers so you can meet the students of Class Zero. The handy playlist above introduces Machina, Rem, Cinque, Cater, and Trey, five of the heroes trying to save Orience. Unfortunately the trailers are in Japanese, but they look good!

I remember seeing screens of this game when it released on the PSP, and remember being super jealous that we never got it. I think it’s gonna be a return to the aesthetic that made Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy VIII so great, and you g??et to breed c?hocobos. I love chocobos.

Final Fantasy Typ??e-0? HD character trailers: Machina, Rem, Cinque, Cater, and Trey [Gematsu]

The post Square Enix releases five Final Fa??ntasy Type-0 HD character trailers appeared first on Destructoid.

Alanis Morissette would be proud

In a continued lack of self-awareness, Carlos Ramirez (a.k.a. Wynne), creator of the popular meme "Trollface" has filed a DMCA takedown against Ninja Pig Studios. The filing claims unlicensed usage of the Trollface likeness in their Nintendo Wii U eShop game Meme Run infringes on his copyright of the image.

Ramirez took to Reddit to explain why the cla??im was filed:

A handful of you might remember me, but (hopefully) most of you probably have no clue who I am. To keep it brief, I own the copyright to the Trollface image, and seeing as the image was the 'star' of Meme Run, I sent a DMCA takedown notice to Nintendo and want to try and settle the matter amicably. I don't really intend to have a discussion on fair use or explain my motivations beyond the fact that my business with other parties compels me to make sure that instances of copyright infringement are addressed and resolved. Typically the result in these matters is simply having the use of the imag?e be credited, recovering some kind of monetary compensation, or simply have it removed from the work.

To that end, takedown notices are a necessary first step to quickly open a direct line of communication with the offending party and work on re?medying the situation.

I did try to reach out to the creator earlier this year and obtain the information I needed, but he claimed that he was not at liberty to speak about his relationship with Nintendo or any of the part?iculars regarding the game's sales data. My lawyer had been busy working on another case (which I am actually not at liberty to talk about lest I void the terms of our agreement) and I prefer to let him handle the matter of my legal representation, so I sort of dragged my feet on actually setting this in motion so he could wrap up our current cas??e.

So, whatever you may have thought of Meme Run, its absence?? might only be temporary. For those of you who were hoping to pick it up and missed their opportunity, I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience.

Besides the fac?t that memes are apparently serious business, the real irony is: according to Internet legend Trollface is itself derivative of the lesser known "Rape Rodent" meme.  Rape Rodent was the awkward result of someone's attempt to draw Mighty Mouse, which Ramirez attempted to insert into one of his comics, resulting in Trollface.

So, a failed drawing of a failed drawing ended in DMCA takedowns, lost profits, and general bad feelings.  Hopefully, some sort of arrangement can be made between Ramirez and Ninja Pig Studios so that Meme Run can return to the Nintendo Wii U eShop.

Whatever you do, don'?t post any homem??ade memes satirizing the situation in comments. That would be just terrible.

Regarding Meme Run, and why I had it pulled from the eShop. [Reddit]

The post Meme Run ?pulled from Wii U eShop by Trollface creator appeared first on Destructoid.

2GB textures and HDR for everybody!

Bethesda will be removing the 100MB file size limitation from Steam Workshop mods in an upcoming patch for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.  Finally, all those gorgeous gigantic textures can be installed from Steam itself, instead of from a third-party application. Fans of Nexus Mod Manager need not fear though. In the comments of the blog Bethesda stated that the new patch sh??ouldn't interfere with the popular solution for installing and updating mods.

The Creation Kit will also be receiving an update to support unlimited sized mods. The way the new system will work is that the Skyrim launcher will not longer download mods from the St??eam Workshop. Steam itself will download and place the mods in the correct location and the Skyrim launcher will update the .esm load order after the download is complete.

Bethesda has ??not yet released a solid release date for general release of the patch. However, it's currently in beta testing and if you follow the instructions on the source post, you can check it out yourself now.

S?kyri?m Workshop file limit is now… limitless [Bethesda Blog]

The post No more file size limit for Sky??rim mods on Steam Workshop appeared first on Destructoid.

I didn't see a bit of Nietzsche in there

Nintendo has dropped a new trailer for next month's Xenoblade Chronicles 3D entitled "Heir to the Monado." It features a ??flashback to when Shulk acquired the mythical sword Monado as well as a few cinematics and battle scenes.

You can really see the improved CPU of the New Nintendo 3DS showcased here. This may be the best looking game on the handheld to date, and the action on-screen all seemed to flow smoothly. I also can't wa?it to see how the improved super-stable 3D looks on a game designed specifically for the new model.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3D will launch April 2 i??n the U.K. for £34.99 and the U.S. April 10 for $39.99.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3D ‘Heir to the Monado??’ trailer [Gematsu]

The post New Xenoblade Chronicles 3D trailer released titled ‘Heir to the Monado’ appeared first on Destructoid.

Surprisingly its not releasing on iOS

"Own More and Be More" is EA's dystopian-toned tagline for its unveiling of Battlefield Hardline Premium. In addition to the £44.00/$59.99 price for the base game (£59.99/$69.99 for the "?deluxe" version), you can slap down an additional £44.00/$59.99 to unlock exclusive things that should have been included anyway.

For the price of another full game you get:

• Masks: These give you some sort of exclusive gameplay benefit tied to the mask's theme.
• Gun Bench: Allows you to exclusively customize weapons and track their stats.
• Competitive Play: Gain access to Battlefield Hardline Premium exclusive ladder and tournament games.
• Legendary Status: You know "Prestige Mode" from Call of Duty? Well,  it looks like you get to pay for exclusive access to it.

You'll also ge??t exclusive access to the four following content packs two weeks early:

• Battlefield Hardline: Criminal Activity: Players have to make a name for themselves in fast-paced, highly-destructible new maps littered with small-time crime jobs. Available summer 2015.
• Battlefield Hardline: Robbery: Take down the opposition head on and progress through key locations with major cinematic action. Available summer 2015.
• Battlefield Hardline: Getaway: This is frantic, high-speed chases that immerse players deeper in the heist. Available fall 2015.
• Battlefield Hardline: Betrayal: There is a rat in every operation and players will have to find out who to trust. Available winter early 2016.

These packs will feature "new multi?player maps, modes, vehicl??es, in-game content and a story themed throughout all four," all of which are sure to entice and thrill.

You'll also get 12 Gold Battlepacks which contain random in-game items for your enjoyment, exclusive in-game cosmetic #swag, exclusive in-game mis?sions and events, and an exclus??ive double XP bonus.

However, the most bullshit exclusive thing of them all is: "Priority position in server queues." That means, if you buy the base game and the servers are overloaded, you get to wait so that ?people who paid more money can go ahead of you.

Some might say, "Battlefield 3 and Battlefield 4's Premium memberships were a good deal!" I'll have to admit the amount of content was fairly good, but it's easy to forget how terrible and broken Battlefield 4 was at launch, and with launches in general lately, you might spend $120 just to have an unplayable mess on your hands. For a game that is??n't exactly knocking it out of the ballpark in previews, it's too much of an investment in my opinion.

Battlefield Hardline is coming out March 17 in the U.S. and March 19 in the U.K. exclusively on Windows, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One.

The post Prepare to pay full price twice to unlock all of Battlefield Hardline’s exclusive features appeared first on Destructoid.

Yo dawg I heard you like remasters

Square Enix has announced final details on Final Fantasy X | X-2 Remaster HD's improved port to the PlayStation 4. This release was announced in December of last year, but since then Square Enix has been mum about it. The port will come with new features and improvements tha?t address some of the qualms many people share?d about the original release.

New features will include:

• Cross-save capability: Transfer your saves freely across the PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, and PlayStation 4 versions of the title.
• Switch between the original and remastered soundtrack: Love the original soundtrack? Now you can get all the benefits of the HD visuals and a choice between the original and remastered soundtracks.
• Remote Play: You'll be able to play the game remotely on your PlayStation Vita, which is pretty neat.
• "Enhanced" enhanced textures: The enhanced textures from the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita will be enhanced for the PlayStation 4 version and look like they may fix the stark contrast between the great looking player characters and the NPCs that made me ask, "What's wrong with your face?" (See the gallery for PlayStation 4 screens)

I had a great time with the PlayStation 3 ver??sion, but for $49.99 I'm going to be hard-pressed to pick it up again, as to ?me the improvements aren't worth a new purchase. Hopefully, Square Enix will allow for some sort of discount for those who already own the PlayStation 3 or PlayStation Vita version.

Pre-ordering now on the Square Enix store or at participating retailers will get you a calender featuring artwork by Yoshitaka Amano. Final Fantasy X | X-2 Remaster HD is slated for release on May 12 in North America for $49.99 and May 15 in Europe for €49.99 or £34.85 in the U.K, and be available both di??gitally on PlayStation Network and physically on disc.

Final Fantasy X | X-2 HD Remaster dated for PS4 [Gematsu]

The post Final Fantasy X | X-2 HD Remas?ter hit??s PS4 this May appeared first on Destructoid.

The Mothership is standing by

Although Homeworld Remastered Collection is classified as real-time strategy, there are some elements that set it apart from its brethren. The 3D camera and movement add another whole axis to worry about that so??me may find disorienting, and the fairly strict strengths and weaknesses of the units may lead to defeat if a cohesive unit strategy isn’t considered.

These tips are geared primarily towards online multiplayer gameplay, but can also be applied to campaign or vs. ??the A.I.

Camera and movement:

• You’re in full control of the camera, so if you’re not careful it can be easy to suddenly find yourself disoriented. Use the arrow keys to pan the camera instead of holding the mouse on the edge of the screen. This allows you to quickly snap the camera in another direction and lets you still use the mouse to control your units.

• Pressing spacebar brings up your sensors manager, which allows you to see a representation of all resources and units, both friendly and enemy on the field, and issue orders and select units. If you’re plotting long-range attacks or movements, this is the screen to use.

• Don’t forget to utilize vertical movement. After pressing ‘M’ to bring up the movement disc, you can hold shift and move the mouse up and down to set which height you want to move as well as horizontal movement.

• Waypoints are your friend. Don’t wanna move straight through a minefield on the way to your destination? Use waypoints to plot around it.

Fleet management and resources:

• The most important concern while playing is to ensure you have a steady supply of resource units (RU). If you lose all your resource collectors to the enemy and you’re out of RU then you’re going to have to start retiring units to get enough money to build more. Your best bet is to build a few and keep them docked via the Launch Manager so that if an enemy takes your mining operations out, you can jumpstart a new RU flow.

• Make sure your resource collectors aren’t having to sit around with the cargo bays full waiting to land. Build multiple resource controllers and keep them as near resources as possible to maximize collector turn-around time.

• Researching and building ships takes a ton of time and RU. Find which ships fit your playing style and research their technologies first so you’ll have a template for the fleet you want in your head before you start the game. If you try and research and build every ship, you run the risk of having an unbalanced attack force and being overwhelmed.

• Spread ship construction between your mothership, carriers, and shipyards. This can make the difference between getting the jump on your enemy and getting caught with a meager force.

Combat:

• Unfortunately, Homeworld Remastered Collection uses the Homeworld 2 engine, so you have to baby your units a little more than fans of the first game may remember. Setting formations is very important, otherwise your ships are going to head full-speed towards the location you command them to. Ships in formation together will advance towards their destination at the speed of the slowest ship in their flotilla.

• Use the right ships for the right job. A flight of interceptors isn’t going to take down a heavy cruiser, but you don’t want to send a heavy cruiser to take out a single frigate. Using the group command, I suggest you split your main fleet(s) into subsections that you can split off for specialized attacks.

• Make sure you use those carriers for what they were made for. Docking fighters and corvettes to a carrier and hyperspacing to your destination is the best way to carry them into battle to support the rest of your fleet. While in hyperspace, you can hit the “auto-launch” command and when your carrier appears at its destination it will immediately disperse your fighter and corvette groups.

• Have a few units that can make repairs on standby either ready to jump in, or guarded by escorts. Make sure if your fighters are getting hammered to press “D” to have them dock with a carrier, mothership, or support frigate, they’ll touch down and launch fully repaired.

Advanced tactics:

• Your fleet will exit a hyperspace jump in the same orientation they entered it in. You can use this to arrange your units in a square and jump in surrounding your target. This will expose less of your units to the enemies firing arcs and allow you to disperse the maximum firepower you can.

• Hide your Mothership by either moving straight up or straight down and away from your starting position. Most players will only send their probes in a straight horizontal path to search for others and you can evade that search pattern by moving into an unorthodox location.

• Minelayer corvettes can be used to deny resources to an enemy. Even if you don’t plan on setting up operations in an area, send a few minelayers to saturate it with mines. That way when an enemy comes to use it, their resource collectors will be destroyed.

• Salvage and capture every thing you can. Every ship you salvage or capture is one ship the enemy doesn't have and one ship that you didn't have to pay for. When playing Kushan or Taiidani, I typically designate a carrier with salvage corvettes docked along with four to six frigates as escorts as a quick strike capture force. You'll want to use around six corvettes per unit to capture ships the most efficiently. The marine and infiltrator frigate serve the same purpose for the Hiigarians and Vaygr and only require a light corvette for fighter escort.

The post Very Quick Tips: Homeworld Remastered Collection appeared first on Destructoid.

Lost and found and turned around

In 1999, I was 11 years old. It was a time when every video game purchase was a gamble. The best you could do was to read a review or watch a grainy, minute-long Quicktime video that you spent an hour to download on 56k while hoping your $50 wasn't spent in vain. I discovered some of my favorite games with just the blind promises of the back of a box. Starsiege: Tribes, Suikoden II, Half-Life, Giants: Citizen Kabuto and more were all stabs?? in the dark that?? paid off with hours of enthrallment in front of the glow of a CRT.

As a young sci-fi fan, all anyone had to do back then to wrestle my hard-earned money from my wallet was throw some spaceships on a box. More than likely, if my mom allowed me, I'd fall in love with the simple promise of being whisked away to the stars. Sometimes my gambles paid off, like with Star Trek: Klingon Academy and Freelancer, and sometimes I'd get a dud like Allegiance, which was a good game, but one whose servers had been shut down before I even bought it. However, none made a bigger impression on me than Sierra's Homeworld did. The top-notch ??writing? and 3D playing field etched themselves into my memory and left me clamoring for a sequel. 

Although the story continued in Homeworld: Cataclysm in 2000 and Homeworld 2 in 2003, the series went dark and new copies weren't even available. THQ's bankruptcy in 2013 led to the franchise's rights going up for auction. After acquiring the IP with the winning $1.35 million bid, Gearbox announced it would be bringing an updated Homeworld and Homeworld 2 to a new generation in the form of the Homeworld Remastered Collection.

Homeworld Remastered Collection (PC)
Developer: Gearbox Software
Publisher: Gearbox Software
Released: February 25, 2015
MSRP: $34.99
Rig: AMD FX-6300 @ 3.5 GHz, with 8GB of RAM, ATI Radeon HD 7950, Windows 8.1 64-bit

Starting on the desert planet Kharak, Homeworld follows the tribal peoples of the Kushan. The discovery of the ancient starship Khar-Toba in one of the planet’s vast deserts confirmed what many already speculated: Khar?ak was not the origin of the Kushan people. The Guidestone was recovered from the ruins of the ship and carved upon its chipped face was a map of the galaxy leading to a distant star inscribed with a single word: “Hiigara.” No translation was needed as every Kushan knew it.

The map was pointing “home.” Over the next hundred years every man, woman, and child worked toward one objective: to complete the ship which would carry over 600,000 of them to their ancestral home planet. It would be equipped to overcome any adversity and be the first Kushan space-faring vessel to be capable of faster-than-light travel thanks to the salvaged Hyperspace Core found on the Khar-Toba.

You are Fleet Command, and the Kushan are depending on you to lead them to Hiigara. Along the way you’ll face off against the corrupt and despotic Taiidani Empire, trade?? with the enigmatic Bentusi, and discover the past of your race as you attempt to reclaim your rightful place in the stars. You??r exodus across the galaxy is a relentless struggle against the odds and is one of my favorite campaigns in video game history. By the time you make it to the end there is a true feeling of satisfaction. Even though most of the story is told through voiceovers and the movements of starships, I felt truly connected with the Kushan as if I actually went through the journey with them.

Unfortunately, Homeworld 2’s story is of less consistent quality. Without spoiling the excellent saga of the original, all I c??an say is that it takes place 100 years after the conclusion of the first game. Although it’s still interesting, it can’t compare to the tenacious flight of the Kushan. I found to to be a bit tangential, and the antagonists of the game, the Vaygr, don’t evoke the same raw anger that the Taiidani did.

I highly recommend that if this is your first time playing the series to play them in order, as the charm of the original makes the second one shine a bit brighter than if it was played on its own. However, gameplay between the two is very similar, and in Homeworld Remastered Collection, the lines are further blurred as bo?th games now u??se the same engine.

Up to the release of this collection, unlike the gameplay and plot, graphically ??the series was showing its age cons??iderably on modern computers. Although changing a .ini file will enable 16:9 on the original games, it’s simply not a big enough change to do the game justice. However, Gearbox’s new models, effects,  cutscenes, textures, and skyboxes have brought the series back to life.

They remain faithful to the original while fitting in enough subtle changes to make them interesting. Those expecting revolutionary visuals though will be disappointed. The new textures do have a bit of a muddled look about them, but with the amount of models that can be on scr??een at once, it may be for the best that they didn’t go overboard.

The series is played on a completely three-dimensional field. Unlike Starcraft or Command and Conquer, you’ll have to worry about enemies from above and below you as well as on all sides. Even though these games are 12 and 16 years old, no game series since has replicated th??is formula, leading them to still feel as fresh as any game coming out this year. Your focal point will be your mothership, and its survival comes above all else. Typically, you’ll need to concentrate on collecting and refining resources from the various asteroids and gas clouds which dot the map, and use them to build your fleet.

At its core, combat depends on a rock-paper-scissor system of effect?iveness and is easy to get into, yet offers quite a bit of tactical finesse. One thing I liked a lot was that during the campaign, ships you’ve built or salvaged will transfer to the next mission. It adds a huge incentive to actually shepherd your units, and I found myself giving carriers and Assault Frigates names and characterization and reveli?ng in their victories and yelling at the screen when my favorites were blown apart because I made a mistake.

Although the movement system is still top notch and unique to this series, but the A.I. that controls the ship could use some work, particularly with formation settings. Both games are in the Homeworld 2 engine which had a distinctly inferior formation and posturing system than the first and unfortunately it’s made for a ton of frustration. I found myself having to micromanage my ships when moving a large fleet because even when I put in the command to fa??ll into a formation, they sometimes refused to stay wi??th the group.

In particular in my last session, my fleet of over a hundred ships flew together in formation perfectly except for two Support Frigates. Instead of falling into their battle line and matching speed with the rest of the formation, the??y wanted to race ahead towards wherever the fleet’s destination was with not a care in the world that they were the weakest frigate-class ships in the game. Although I was able to get them to rejoin the fleet if I ordered formation again after each movement command, it was frustrating to worry if my units were going to rac?e blindly to their death whenever I had to pay attention to another situation.

One of the big changes with Homeworld Remastered Collection ?is that the games are somewhat combined. Playing vs. A.I. or online multiplayer, instead of having to choose from either the Kushan and Taiidani, or Hiigari??ans and Vaygr, you can choose from all four. I was afraid that this would throw the impeccable balance that the game’s combat depends on off, but they’re all similarly matched, and the dynamic that the combination of both game’s playable races create ended up making the game more interesting.

Steam Workshop support makes installing mods a cinch as well, so not only do your have the unique dynamic between these four races for the first time, but you can easily add new material. There’s quite a few of the more popular?? mods on the workshop for the original versions of the games, and before too long you can be sure we’ll see ports of mods and new mod.

Online multiplayer is currently in beta, and requires a Gearbox SHiFT account, which is free and fairly easy to sign-up for. Once I linked my SHiFT account to Steam I really didn’t notice any interference from it when I?? played online. The first couple days I had the game it was shaky, with the service sometimes unavailable and a few game crashes. However, although I didn’t notice a patch, something must have been changed on Gearbox’s end because I have now played four online matches with no issues.

When committing to playing online, just remember, it can take two or three hours depending on the map and number of players to actually complete a match on Homeworld Remastered Collection. Although I absolutely love the feeling of victory after facing down three other players, I hope that future updates add an op??tion to get a match done a ?bit faster.

The major disappointment I had with the collection is the absence of the excellent Homeworld: Cataclysm. The reason given by the developers was that the source code was lost or incomplete, but having a copy of the original or even a cinematic giving its backstory would have been great, especially for new fans to the series. Honestly, I found the fight against the Beast to be a more engaging story than that of Homeworld 2’s artifact hunt, and the changes in units and gameplay were much more interesting than the sequel’s replication of the first’s formula. Hopefully the success of these remasters will inspire Gearbox to attempt to reconstruct Cataclysm, and maybe even create a con??tinuation of the series.

Seeing these classic g??ames back in print is wonderful. It’s always saddened me that these two titles, along with some of the best games of the late ’90s and early 2000s, are impossible to get. My adolescence was spent playing titl?es from industry icons Sierra, 14 East, Interplay, and Black Gate, and I hope that the recent storm of successful and well-made remasters gives someone the incentive to revive even more greats from the past.

Whether you’re a fan of sci-fi, real-time strategy, or simply just video games in general, Homeworld Remastered Collection is a must-have if you haven’t played the series before. For those who spent years guarding their precious pressings of these classics, it’s time to rejoice, the Homeworld series is just as good as you remember it.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

The post Review: Homeworld Remastered Collection appeared first on Destructoid.

Got the world in my wingspan

Originally billed as another crossover of the Sonic and Mega Man universes in the vein of their Worlds Collide storyline, Archie Comics' upcoming Worlds Unite crossove??r is shaping up to be so much more. Not only will Sonic and Mega Man be featured prominently, character??s from franchises spanning Sega and Capcom's rosters will make appearances.

Over the last four days information has trickled out as to which characters will be feature??d in the story, culminating in today's final reveal.

The cast includes:

Sonic Universe:

• Sonic and Sticks

Mega Man Universe:

• Mega Man and Mega Man X

Sega:

• Billy Hatcher
• Alex Kidd
• Vyse (Skies of Arcadia)
• Base Wing (Panzer Dragoon)
• Nights (Nights Into Dreams)
• Tyris Flare (Golden Axe)

Capcom:

• Nina (Breath of Fire)
• Viewtiful Joe
• Red Arremer (Ghosts 'n Goblins)
• Amaterasu (Okami)
• Ryu (Street Fighter)
• Gore Magala (Monster Hunter 4)

Although plot details haven't been revealed, I hope some of the characters from the underutilized franchises like Vyse and Red are a big part of the story. We haven't seen them shine in years. A scene with the Delphinus facing off against Bas??????????????????????????e Wing would give me a nostalgiagasm.

Archi?e Comics' Sonic/Mega Man: Worlds Unite - full? cover revealed [GoNintendo]

The post Sega-Capcom crossover comic ‘Worlds Unite’ features characters we haven’t seen in years appeared first on Destructoid.

Start the reactor

In a future where corporate greed has depleted the Earth's resources, humanity has taken to space to acquire the goods needed for survival. The ast?eroid belt was supposed to be the great salvation, an almost limitless bastion of metal and minerals which could be used to prop our depleted world up. However, the same corporations that harvested the Earth dry laid claim to all the most bountiful asteroids, forming a syndicate that continued to sub?jugate even the most powerful of the world's governments. That's where you come in. In one last great experiment in capitalism, you'll be claiming stake in the New Martian Colonies, the last place within humanity's reach that hasn't been claimed by the hand of the syndicates.

Offworld Trading Company is being produced by Stardock, developed by Mohawk Games, and headed by Soren Johnson, Civilization IV's lead designer. It's a real-time strategy where there are no armies to move, units to build, or cities to conquer. Instead your fight is purely financial; sell high, buy low, and bankrupt the competition. It's still in Steam Early Access, but the main gameplay modes are already all there. There's a dynamic campaign in which you'll play through a series of scenarios to make your way to the top ??of the Martian economy. They've also integrated a fairly intuitive set of tutorials that help get you into the game quickly, as well as take you through the advanced mechanics if you need the extra help. Multiplayer is also fully integrated, although when I checked there weren't a ton of people playing the game yet.

I'm n??o math genius, but the Martian market is simple enough that it only takes a few minutes to pick up the basics. There are 13 resources that make up your stockpiles. Some of them, like power, water, food, oxygen and fuel, are required for basic operations. If you don't produce these yourself, you'll face a constant drain of funds as you're forced to buy them for a ??steadily increasing rate off the market. Aluminum, iron, carbon, and silicon are your basic building blocks. These are collected straight from the source and into your coffers. Steel, chemicals, glass, and electronics, must be refined in their own facilities from simpler materials, and typically give the highest return. Each resource can be bought and sold on the market, and this is how you'll be making your fortune.

So without massive armies, how do you beat your opponent? You buy them out. Each company on the playing field has both a total price value, and stocks available for purchase. The easiest way to victory is by purchasing a companies stocks until you're able to get 100% owned, at which point ?you'll take management of their operations. The tricky part is that your company is public as well, so you have to balance keeping control of your own company by purchasing your stock, as well as attempting to take control of others. Buying stock, as well as paying off debt raises a company's price, while selling it, or getting hit by black market attacks, lowers their value. Most of the time, it pays to buy some and then lower the opposition's value before buying another batch. If another company (or yourself) own 100% of their own stocks, it becomes rather expensive to take over as you'll have to pony up the total price, cash money.

I found that to really effectively control the market, I had to specialize. When I first started playing, I just tried to rake in as much of every resource as I could, but I found that I never had enough of any of them to produce a steady supply of the big selling materals. I changed my approach to work with the type of business model my headquarters was aligned with. For the expansionist headquarters, I claimed as much carbon and iron as I could to turn into steel as their need for the resource is much lower than o??ther models. With a robotic HQ, their lack of use for glass allowed for a surplus. Scavengers high output of carbon allowed me to focus on chemical production. Lastly, scientists' ability to build hydrolysis farms directly on water hexes, and electronics plants on silicon, carbon, or aluminum hexes had me harvesting and selling food and electronics at a tremendous rate.

When everyone has the same rules, to get ahead you've gotta break them. That's where the black market comes in. If you need extra claims, you can buy them here for an increasing fee. There are EMP blasts to knock your opponents buildings off line in a six hex radius, and a power surge that does the same thing but chains from building to building in a line. You can sabotage res?ource hexes with an underground nuke, which when used lowers the deposit level of a targeted hex by one. Dynamite lets you blow up a single building. You can also pay opposition workers to mutiny for a time which diverts the targeted building's resources to your HQ for a little while. Alas, the only defensive option is the "goon squad" which protects a hex from any of the above effects.

Not all buildings are for collectin??g and producing resources. There are five of them that allow you to get an edge on the competition. The patent office allows exclusive access to technologies that vastly improve your ability to produce energy and collect resources. Also helping with resource collection is the engineering lab that utilizes the chemical resoures to upgrade collection rate up to four times for each material. The hacker network allows you to spread disinformation that can raise or lower the price of a particular resource momentarily. To keep your workers relaxed and spending their hard earned cash, you can build the pleasure dome which generates a steady stream of resource independent ?revenue. The most important of these though, is the launch pad, that allows you to launch 100 units of a particular resource to Earth at a time for massive profits. I felt that all of the buildings added to the game's dynamic except for the hacker network. Its effects were too temporary to really waste the time fooling with it.

There are limitations in place though. Each player only has a limited number of hexes they can claim, and to raise them, resources must be spent on upgrading your headquarters. This is one system of the game I felt lacking. Once your HQ is level 5 and you've built out all your squares, there are times where you're going to be just sitting and waiting to be able to take your next action. There are random claims auctions, both for an extra general claim that you can use on any square, and for high resource squares, but they can be few and far between. Sure you can buy claims on the black market, but this is one part of the game that felt stifling, like it was there just to slow you down. I would have liked to see a more complex real estate and land claims system integrated into the Martian stock market. I think an opportunity was missed by not adding land valuation to Offworld Trading Company and?? I hope that future updates will show us something a bit more interesting in those regards.

Although the beginning of a round is a bit slow, as you graduall??y build up funds to get that next building or mine operational the action builds with a frantic crescendo. In the late game it requires all of your attention lest you fail to sell at the right point or trigger a black m?arket buff before your competition buys more of your stock. The problem I had though, is that the end of each game feels so anti-climatic. There's no capital city taken, or fanfare, just a pink slip if you lose, or a victory message when you win. In fact, because of the feeling of disconnect between your operations and your rival's, sometimes the game ended so abruptly it took me by surprise.

I believe the primary problem with the game as of right now is the lack of information displayed about your rival companies. For a game that is basically an animated spreadsheet, aside from building management and targeting for the black market, there is a stunning lack of graph or statistics integration with the main user interface. You c?an access info??rmation about historical stock prices, how many of each resource you and your rivals have bought and sold, building numbers, and so on, but the menu it is held in is completely separate from the game. This makes it to where if you want to use this info to say, use the hacker network to drop the price of the resource your rival is making their money off of, you have to enter a separate menu, analyze the information, exit the menu, and then execute your action. With all the real-estate on screen, I hope that Stardock ends up integrating the user interface and statistics readouts before the game's official release.

I have to admit, although I was intrigued when I first saw Offworld Trading Company, I never thought I would have as much fun with it as I did. There's quite a bit of balancing left to be done, and the whole experience is still rough around the edges, but it's got a truly unique play style. For someone looking for the mid-ground between a action-packed RTS like Starcraft and the menu driven depth of Crusader Kings, this game might be for you. For now though, unless you're absolutely sure that you want to take the plunge, a drop from the $39.99 price tag for Early Access might be worth waiting for. It's a very different ??game, and it's a bit too much money to gamble on something that is so hard to quantify by compa?rison to another title. However, with the quality of this early of a release, this title bears watching.

The post We’ve got to go to Mars in Offworld Trading Company appeared first on Destructoid.

All I can think about now is Johnny Mnemonic

There's nothing that quite replicates the gritty '90s synth of th??e Super Nintendo's Sony SPC700 sound chip. Electronic dance music team ??elix, consisting of cTrix and ferris, have developed a music track creator, so that chiptuning for the venerable system will be a ton easier for anyone wanting to pump out tunes on native SNES hardware.

The tracker will have full access to the SPC700 and one click ROM generation, as well as a WYSIWYG editor and other goodies. The playlist above showcases several demos of what elix has created with their prototype tracker, and it's right up there with some of the most complex sounding music I've heard professional developers wrangle out of the SNES. The team states that this is only the beginning as they believe they're only starting to figure out the potential of the SPC700 chipset and future tunes will bring even more ?unique sounds out of the archaic hardware. The team hopes to have a public beta out sometime this year.

I love the dirty sound of the SNES and literally every ones of these tunes reminds me of raw cyberpunk goodness à la Shadowrun.

"This? is ?just the beginning of what we can do on f*cking Super Nintendo" [Attract Mode]

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I'm gonna buy all three again to celebrate

In the first official amiibo price drop, Nintendo has lowered the MSRP of the Super Smash Bros. line Peach, Yoshi, and Donkey Kong to $9.99. The change can be seen on the official Nintendo amiibo website. All other figures in both announced lines remain at an MSRP of $12.99. This news is a little old, but with New Nintendo 3DS fever, it somehow slipped through the cracks and I just now noticed it. Luckil?y, my wallet just now recovered from the beating it took at Nintendo's hands last week, so I am ready to get these three again so I can keep my boxed copies mint.

Nintendo hasn't announced why these three have had their prices lowered, and I can't place my finger on it myself. I did get to thinking about how the Super Mario Bros. universe and the Donkey Kong Country universe are somehow linked. I wonder why Nintendo hasn't made a crossover of the two. I mean you could have King K. Rool and Bowser be long lost brothers. Koopalings and Kremlings could fight side by side. Plus, hold on to your socks, you could switch between Donkey Kong and Mario just like in the Donkey Kong Country series.

I just pooped a little.

[UPDATE: My local Wal??-Mart still tried to charge me $12.99 for Peach, Yoshi, and Donkey Kong. The little old lady there didn't believe I was a games? journalist even when I made her read several of my articles on my smart phone. I got a quote of, "All those whatchachiggers cost the same, they told me that." 

Who is "they?" I'll be investigating in the coming days. I'll be leaving?? no amiibo unturned to bring this breaking news to you.]

Amiibo Price Now $9.99 For Peach, Donk?ey Kong, Yoshi [NintendoNews]

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The bass is finally picked up

There's a sub-community of emulation fans out there dedicated to disassembling and modifying the arcane code of yesteryear's classics. Brad Smith, a.k.a. rainwarrior, is one such individual, who after hearing the errors in two music tracks of Nintendo's classic island adventure, StarTropics, took it upon himself to right the coding errors that are almost as old as I am. It seems like it re?quires quite a bit of knowledge on how the NES processes audio and in the video he details the process he went through to isolate and correct the bugs present in each track.

What ever happened to the StarTropics series anyway? They were fun games, and a great alternative to The Legend of Zelda series, with a bit of the modern quirkiness that has proved a cult classic with the Mother series. Was it because Nintendo designed them as a North American and PAL exclusive and they were forgotten by Japanese ma??nagement, or simply the less than stellar reception the second entry in the series received because it was released at the end of the NES's develo??pment cycle?

Hopefully before long, with Nint?endo sticking its neck out and trying new things with both new and established IPs, we'll get to take another trip to C-Island.

StarTropic's Broken Music [The Punk Effect]

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amiibo, amiibo everywhere, but not a port to dock

Tired of waiting for that beautiful King Dedede amiibo? Well you can stop blaming Nintendo, at least if you want to be rational. I personally don't, and am still pining to complete my wave 3 collection, so it's still Nintendo's fault in my head. During the Q&A session after Tuesday's 3rd quarter accounts briefing??, President and CEO of Nintendo Co. Ltd. Satoru Iwata state??d:

今日のプレゼンテーションで、Newニンテンドー3DSの海外での出足をご覧いただきましたが、おそらく「海外のニンテンドー3DSは今の状況だ とNewニンテンドー3DSが発売されてもムードは変わらないのではないか」という見方をされている方は少なからずいらっしゃったのではないかと思いま す。しかし、現実には世界中の販売店で初回出荷分はあっという間に品切れになってしまいました。プレゼンテーションでお示ししたNewニンテンドー3DS の発売初週の販売数は、発売から（ヨーロッパでは）2日分、（アメリカでは）3日分のデータとお伝えしましたが、実は初日に大半が売れていて、2日目、3 日目は品切れであまり数が伸びてないというようなこともありました。ちょうど今、アメリカでは西海岸の港で労使交渉がまとまらなかったために、この半年ぐ らい荷揚げのスピードが少し遅くなり、港が混雑しているということが起こっています。実はこの影響で私たちが発売前に届けようと思って送った数量全品は現 地には着いておらず、Newニンテンドー3DSや一部の『amiibo』の販売に多少影響は出ています。ソフトは非常に軽いので航空便で送ることが選択肢 として取れますので、ソフトのビジネスにはあまり大きな影響は出ていないのですが、むしろ、家電製品などをつくっておられる会社さんは非常にお困りのはず だと思います。そのような制約の中でNewニンテンドー3DSが順調な出足を見せたことは、「これからプラットフォームサイクルの後半だから、ビジネスは どんどん縮小していく」というのとは違うシナリオを描き得る可能性があると思います。

To save you the absolutely horrifying Google translation, I took the liberty o??f painstakingly interpreting each sentence in an attempt to present Mr. Iwata's words as close to their original meaning as possible:

In today's presentation, we examined the sales of the New Nintendo 3DS overseas. The figures for the first week showed drastically higher adoption rate than during the release of its predecessor. The first shipments to Europe and the United States sold most stock that made it to shelves in the first two (Europe) or three (United States) days. We believe that sales could have been even better in the United States. For the last six months, labor negotiations on the West Coast of the United States have made getting goods to shore slow, as the amount of berths open are lower than usual and therefore the harbors are congest?ed. Many of the heavier goods sent to the U.S. have still not arrived to their destinations. However, this has had little effect on total amiibo and software sales as they are light enough that we can ship by air if we have to. The companies being affected by this the most are appliance manufactuerers that don't have any other option then to ship by sea. Even though the New Nintendo 3DS has had the handicap against its supply, the public has still shown huge interest in it and sales are phenomenal. Many think because the New Nintendo 3DS is the second half of ??this platform cycle, business will steadily continue to shrink. I believe that there is a possibility that we can influence a different scenario to occur.

Hopefully this means not only are there a lot more amiibo coming our way, but that the New Nintendo 3DS supply issues may be solved soon. The thought of a fleet of container ships filled with Meta Knights and Majora's Mask Limited Edition New Nintendo 3DS's makes me want to pull a Waterworld and chain a bunch of t??hem together to form a manmade atoll where Nintendo eShop credit is the national currency.

Satoru Iwata confirms port strike is reason for ??shipment woes in? US [NintendoEverything]

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It's all fun and games till someone shoots their eye out

The Delta Six controller is the latest entry in my inadvertent series on crowdfunding drama. Hot on the heels of news that The Stomping Land was abandoned by its development team, details have emerged of project mismanagement, unfulfilled or?ders, and lack of communication between Kotkin Enterprises and Kickstarter backers.

The Delta Six is a motion controller designed to enhance the first-person shooter experience by duplicating the look and feel of a real assault rifle. It received a lot of media coverage and brought in almost double its $100,000 goal via Kickstarter in May 2013. Backers were told that the controller would ship in December 2013, with the first shipments g??oing to thos??e who pledged at the $500 tier and trickling down as units came off the line.

Unfortunately, that's not what happened. After several delays, Kotkin started shipping the final product May 2014. Although several $500 pledgers confirmed receiving their controller, as the months went by, backers became m??ore and more restless as to when they were getting their product. The company did post updates in July about being on the news and its new Instagram account, and again in August detailing a Fusion TV appearance. However, it did not comment on repeated inquiries as to when the product was going to reach backers.

After the Fusion ??TV upda??te, in a move out of the, "Oh shit, everyone is on to us," Internet marketing playbook, Kotkin Enterprises went silent. From August 12 until February 16 the company released neither any updates to backers, nor shipped any Delta Six controllers. Monday, it finally released an update on its Kickstarter page stating that Kotkin Enterprises was under new management and the product is being manufactured under a completely new team. The "management team" admitted, "In looking at the pledge amounts from the backers and the cost of goods on our end we found HUGE problems in the management of the Kickstarter process. It was very very poorly managed from the start."

So who is this new management? Details are as sketchy as the rest of this ordeal, but interestingly enough, the link provided for backers to ?pay arbitrary extra shipping c??osts leads to the domain of a product that is also mired in controversy, the Avenger Controller. Way back in 2011, the Avenger and its producer N-control were taking heat for delivering the product late (surprise), and the actions of their chosen public relations firm, known internet asshole Paul Christophoro's Ocean Marketing. At some point Kotkin Enterprises either changed its name from N-control, or bought the rights to the Avenger Controller and its domain. If you peruse the website, you can purchase your very own Delta Six, that will be mail?ed right to your door, while the Kickstarter backers continue to wait for theirs.

Backers were told, due to the company's mismanagement, the Delta Six's costs were higher than anticipated, and to receive the product they've already paid for, they must pay an additio??????????????????????????nal $30 in the U.S. or $70 internationally for shipping, in contradiction to the Kickstarter description that assured shipping was included with the pledge. As if the backers weren't screwed over enough, Kotaku spoke to the company's namesake, David Kotkin, who had this to say about refunds, "When you invest in this company, you invest in it. If you did invest in the company, I spent the money on ordering a certain amount of Delta Sixes. So if, all of a sudden, you don't want it, it's [not possible]. It's not like you bought the purchase. You didn't purchase a product. You invested in a company to develop a product in the hope of getting a prize. But I want you to realize I'm honoring the promise??. I'm more than honoring the promise, I believe."

Kotkin's excuse for the product being available on the website is that the current inventory was being sold to fund an improved version of the Delta Six, which would be the version that goes to backers. However, he didn't state any of that to anyone before speaking to Kotaku, and instead went silent for 6 months, and then his company updated their Kickstarter to ask for more money. Also, why would the new model go to backers, when they're being expected to pay even MORE? just to get the current model shipped. Are they going to pay shipping, receive the current model, then a free improved model? Are they going to have to wait even longer after paying? What the fuck is going on?

According to the comments page on Kickstarter, none of those w?ho chose to pony up the extra cash have received any solid tracking information other than "pre shipment info received." Several backers have also filed complaints with the Better Business Bureau and their State's Attorney General's office (or their country's equivalent).

When contacted, Kickstarter replied its typical "¯\_(ツ)_/¯," and linked to its Kickstarter 101 page.

After all the screw ups and excuses involved in this Kickstarter, I wouldn't trust these people to manage putting on a pair of pants, much less a electronics manufacturing operation. If you were a backer of the Delta Six controller, you may want to wait to see proof that the controllers are even shipping under ??new management before committing to spending even more on the product.

I've got a weird feeling that this s??tory ??isn't at its end.

$200,000 Gun Control??ler Kickstarter Goes Dark, Then ?Asks For More Money [Kotaku]

The post Backers of crowdfunded Delt??a ??Six controller hit by friendly fire appeared first on Destructoid.

You're darn tootin'!

In the late '80s the Carmen Sandiego series was immensely popular and over 20 states were looking to get in on that red hot edutainment action. Details are sketchy on exactly what happened, but Where in North Dakota is Carmen Sandiego was the only state-specific entry Brøderbund ever pro??duced.

The game was developed in conjunction with the North Dakota Department of Education. It came with a full lesson plan, comprising of the double-sided Carmen Sandiego floppy, a North Dakota? state almanac on floppy, a binder with info on the game, a printed version of the almanac, and a teacher's guide. Another ??binder comprising 18 floppies and printed exercises completed the package. 

According to the in-game copyright date, it was released in 1989, the state's centennial. Gameplay followed the same pattern as the others in the Carmen Sandiego seri?es, albeit with a North Dakotan theme. Around 5,000 copies were produced exclusively for schools, but due to computer upgrades over the years, many of the Apple IIs and their flop?pies have been lost to landfills. 

Recently Where in North Dakota is Carmen Sandiego was located and preserved on Asimov's Apple II FTP along with many other obscure edutainment titles. They've even got Math Blaster!

Wher??e in North Dakota is C??armen Sandiego? Game Review [YouTube]

The post Rare North ?Dakota-themed Carmen Sandiego game has surfa??ced appeared first on Destructoid.

Not the mama!

In another Kickstarter heartbreaker, it seems as though The Stomping Land is stuck in the tar pits. After a very successful crowdfunding campaign in June 2013 totaling $114,060, it was released on Steam Early Access almost a year later in May 2014. Although there have been several updates for the game since then, no content or patches have been?? added since October.

In a forum post last month, The Stomping Land's lead artist Vlad Konstantinov announced he had temporarily frozen all work on the game due to losing contact with lead developer Alex Fundora. Konstantinov stated the last message he received from Fundora was in December, and he and the texture artist were owed money for completed work. Since then, it's been discovered Konstantinov has gone on to start work on another project.

This isn't the first time Fundora has gone silent. The developer disappeared from late May until August before returning to inform the fanbase The Stomping Land would be transitioning to Unreal Engine 4. After the announcement, the game was temporarily unavailable for sale on Steam, but at some point sales were reinstated and the game can still be purchased for $24.99.

As it is, the game is glitchy, it's missing features, and it's far from a completed product. Unfortunately, Kickstarter is offering little assistance other than apologies. One backer, who pledged $90, detailed its response to his inquiries about receiv??ing a refund in the? game's forums.

As of the posting of this article Alex Fundora has not made a??ny statement.

After Raising $114,0??00 on Kickstarter, Dev Goes Silent [Gamespot, PC Gamer]

[Thanks Hoffmann!]

The post Early Access game The Stompin??g Land may be extinct appeared first on Destructoid.

Evil will always triumph because good is dumb

This turn-based fantasy/strategy with city-building elements is super enjoyable. Even in Steam Early Access, it's got a surprising amount of polish, more so than several AAA games I can thin?k of. I have encountered no gamebreaking bugs?, and the main problems right now seem to be stat balance and unimplemented art.

If you enjoyed the RPG elements of Heroes of Might and Magic and the city-building of Civilization, there's a lot to like in this game's eclectic blend of gameplay. However, if turn-based gameplay isn't really your thing, Steam's $39.99 price tag may be a bit too steep. 

The post In the worl???d of Sorcerer King everything is terrible appeared first on Destructoid.

Never give up. Trust your instincts

Star Fox is possibly the most under-appreciated Nintendo series. It's had games cancelled, been snubbed entirely for a whole console generation, and hasn't received an original entry since 2006 (although an untitled Star Fox game is in the works for Wii U). However, Fox fans can rejoice with this zany trailer from Nerdist, featuring real-life animals playing the role of the Star Fox team. 

I think a live-action Star Fox movie given the Guardians of the Galaxy treatment would be awesome. This trailer also reminded me of the comics that ran in Nintendo Power when the first game came out. It had a killer art style and was a unique look at the picture Nintendo might have had in mind for the original series continuity before the cancellation of Star Fox 2 and the Nintendo 64 remake was released.

Unfortunately, the Star Fox comics have not been reprinted, although you can find them online in their entirety. However, Viz has announced a collected edition of the A Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past comics that ran in Nintendo Power due out in May!

Nerdist Pres??ents: Star Fox: The Fur Awakens Official Trailer [Nerdist]

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