May 2011
3 posts
Old with the old, in with the new CountGameula.com
Apologies for the lack of posts in the past week, but it’s because I been slaving away, along with my team of Renfields, to launch the new CountGameula.com. It looks awesome, with dedicated pages for videos, screens, reviews, news, interviews and previews. That’s a lot for one person to handle, so I’ll be soliciting writers after the launch. It should be ready for mass...
Smuggle Truck gets makeover after App Store...
What do you do when your controversy courting iOS game about shuttling illegal immigrants across the border gets rejected by Apple’s arbiters of good taste? Why, you just tweak some art assets so Smuggle Truck becomes Snuggle Truck!
“The changes made to the game consist only of minor art changes and some swapped sound effects. Gameplay remains exactly the same,” Owlchemy’s Alex Schwartz...
Call of Juarez: The Cartel story trailer mixes...
Despite its mediocre Metacritic score, I enjoyed the hell out of Call of Juarez: Bound In Blood, Techland’s surprisingly sturdy take on the nitty, gritty western.
Hence my confusion over Call of Juarez: The Cartel, which trades the best part of the series – the wild west setting – for a present-day urban war zone, complete with the Grand Theft staples of mob bosses, drug lords and gang members....
April 2011
13 posts
The Witcher 2 coming to consoles, seriously this...
The console port of The Witcher: Rise of the White Wolf never materialized, though not for lack of trying, but there’s still hope that The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings will be coming to Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 as well as PC, says Polish PS3 site Polska.
According to a translated television interview, CD Projekt RED’s Michael Kicinski has confirmed that “Yes, [console versions are] for ...
Make room in your closet for the Three Turret Moon...
Okamiden, Minecraft, and World of Warcraft have all put their game-specific spin on that timeless staple of elegant casual wear, the Three Wolf Moon t-shirt, but there’s just something about Valve’s take on the fashion forward meme.
I think it’s the eyes. Or rather, it’s the eye. Those red cyclopean windows into the turrets’ complete lack of souls on the Portal 2 inspired Three Turret Moon...
Epic: cheap app store games are “killing us”
Angry Birds fills Epic Games’ heart with, unironically, anger. Their hatred is not reserved solely for revenge-seeking avians, but pretty much all cheap mobile games, and in particular the dreaded dollar app, which the developer claims will be the death of boxed games.
“If there’s anything that’s killing us [in the traditional games business] it’s dollar apps,” said Epic Games’ Mike Capps....
Alice: Madness Returns to include code for...
For those of you who missed out on American McGee’s Alice, the delightfully dark PC-only release that marked EA’s first foray into M-rated games, you’ll get you chance this June 14. The developer has confirmed that the upcoming sequel, Alice: Madness Returns, will ship with a code to download the 2000 original on PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
“There’s also going to be [a] pretty ...
Blind gamer Terry Garrett plays it by ear
The next time you’re bitching about the difficulty of your latest videogame acquisition, let me simultaneously humble and inspire you with the reminder that 23-year old college student Terry Garrett, who lost his sight at the age of 10, can navigate Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee and Oddworld: Abe’s Exoddus with near-perfect precision by sound alone. Garret uses “sound landmarks,” like the whisper...
L.A. Noire’s ESRB rating gets graphic
L.A. Noire, Rockstar Game’s decent into a hard-boiled 1940′s pulp detective novel, has reached my favorite stage of the game development life cycle – the ERSB description, which reveals all sorts of story details, coupled with an as always WAY too graphic description of the naughty bits.
The game’s main story will follow rookie Cole Phelps’ mission to stop a deranged serial killer. But...
Anonymous suspends attack, Sony admits to attack...
The day after Anonymous promised to wage war against Sony in response to the company’s legal actions against fellow hackers Geohot and Graf_Chokolo, the PlayStation Network went down. And stayed down. Sony claimed “sporadic maintenance,” even after Anonymous took credit for taking down the service, and several Sony websites, in an interview with PlayStation LifeStyle. Well, looks like...
Brink shows off some special abilities in new...
If you can resist customizing your simian-like character long enough to get down to the business of playing, Splash Damage’s Brink will allow you unlock all sorts of special abilities. This latest gameplay video, titled “Ready and Able,” shows off some of the multiplayer mayhem that will come with leveling up your persistent character, including the ability to hack enemy turrets, chuck...
PopCap launches new small games label, 4th and...
PopCap have announced the formation of a new small games label, 4th & Battery. Named after the cross streets of the game maker’s Seattle headquarters, the studio within a studio will act, according to Executive Vice President Ed Allard, as “a pressure valve intended to keep [their] heads from exploding.”
“The PopCap brand has become closely associated with ultra-high quality,...
Latest Pocket God update chock full of Charlie...
Pocket God gets a transfusion of tiger’s blood in today’s “Two And A Half Pygmies” update, with the addition of a character named Charlie who in turn transform into a tiger and a Vatican assassin warlock.
“A mysterious stranger arrives on Oog Island and he seems a little addled,” says the official description for the iOS title’s thirty-eighth episode. “He speaks in a strange code and...
Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery EP soundtrack...
Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP, the iPad point and click sensation, wouldn’t be the success it is without the haunting, hypnotic score of Jim Gunthrie, now available as Jim Gunthrie’s Sword & Sworcery LP: The Ballad of the Space Babies. This means I can enjoy the Toronto-based artist’s sonorous stylings without exposing myself to the temptation of tweeting every line of ...
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Hacker group Anonymous sets sights on Sony
Sony’s handling of the case against PS3 hacker George “GeoHot” Hotz has attracted the attention of “hactivist” group Anonymous, who have previously targeted Gawker, Amazon, Mastercard and the whole of Scientology.
“Congratulations, Sony. You have now received the undivided attention of Anonymous,” reads the statement on the group’s website. “Your recent legal action against our fellow...
F.E.A.R. 3 story trailer, making you feel so much...
The familial dysfunction in this story trailer for F.E.A.R. 3 makes Oedipus look like the poster-boy for healthy mother-son relationships.
In F.E.A.R. 3, pregnant paranormal powerhouse Alma and her two sons, Point Man and the seemingly resurrected Paxton Fettel, look to be heading toward a horrifying family reunion. The trailer’s pretty light on details. But Warner Bros....
March 2011
20 posts
L.A. Noire goes to the Tribeca Film Fest
Rockstar Games’ L.A. Noire is the first video game to be named an official selection of the Tribeca Film Festival. The world-renowned film fest, co-founded in 2002 by Robert DeNiro, will feature a live interactive screening of a case from L.A. Noire, which Tribeca’s Geoff Gilmore describes as “a new realm of storytelling that is part cinema, part gaming, and a...
Kinect hacks: the gateway drug to Judgement Day
The tech behind Microsoft’s Kinect is way more awesome than any of the games currently putting it into practice, so it’s no surprise hackers have come up with so many ways in which to use the device that its makers never intended.
And it should also come as surprise when the device eventually, and inevitably, becomes self aware and initiates a nuclear strike at the first...
Dead Island’s special zombies, playable characters...
While the first batch of screens for Dead Island, Techland’s zombies in paradise project, showed the game would be nothing like “the campy world of Dead Rising,” the second batch showed it would be a lot like Left 4 Dead. Case in point: the straight jacket-sporting behemoth pictured above, while bearing little resemblance to your typical tropical resort patron, would have no problem passing...
Kings of Kong fight for world champion title
Arcade arch nemeses Steve Wiebe and Billy Mitchell battled once more for the title of Donkey Kong champion in a sixteen-way face off between North America’s best players, but when the dust from the broken barrels finally settled, neither could claim the crown.
That honor goes to New York plastic surgeon Hank “Doctor Kong” Chien, who defended his current world-record holder title – a Twin ...
Duke Nukem Forever has babe slapping multiplayer...
Duke Nukem Forever is really reaching out to women, like literally reaching out, with the sharp crack of an open palm to the derriere.
According to the latest issue of OXM, Gearbox’s Duke Nukem Forever will include four multiplayer modes: Dukematch, Team Dukematch, Hail to the King (aka King of the Hill) and Capture the Babe (aka Capture the Flag). It’s the last of these that’s stirring up...
Mature-rated titles only make up 5% of games...
Boobs and blood might get all the press, but mature-rated titles only comprised 5% all games rated by the Entertainment Software Rating Board and published last year, according to a recent news release.
Of the 1,638 ratings handed out by the board in 2010, 1 percent were rated EC, 18 percent were rated E10+, 21 percent were rated T and more than half, at a whopping 55 percent, were rated an...
Review / Homefront (X360)
The United States hasn’t had an enemy both sides of the political divide could rally against since the collapse of the Soviet Union, but Kaos Studios’ Homefront thinks North Korea could fit the bill, with a little creative license. Kaos Studios and John Milius, the writer of Red Dawn and Apocalypse Now, have created an almost post-apocalyptic vision of an America weakened by economic...
Little Zangief treats school bully to pavement...
Australian high school student Casey Haynes has been dubbed “Little Zangief” after video of his Street Fighter inspired retaliation against a bully surfaced on the internet.
Originally posted on Reddit, the now infamous video captures the smaller bully repeatedly taunting and punching the bigger Haynes in the face, and Haynes calmly takes it. Right up until the moment he unleashes his...
Dragon Age III could incorporate multiplayer
Fighting your way through the darkspawn-laden lands of Dragon Age is a team effort, even if said team is composed of computer-controlled simpletons who court death at every turn. Developer BioWare has created a deep customization system for Dragon Age‘s companion characters, but even so you’ll still have to step in and take control once in a while to keep them from doing something stupid,...
10-minutes of Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet...
Fuelcell Games has released 10-minutes of gorgeous gameplay footage from Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet, artist Michel Gagné’s forthcoming Xbox Live Arcade-exclusive silhouette shooter.
The game’s striking shadow puppet aesthetic come from Gagné’s own Insanely Twisted Shadow Puppets, a series of 12 interstitials created for Nickelodeon’s 2005 Halloween Shriekin Weekend, which you can watch...
Microsoft: points exploit losses “nowhere near”...
Microsoft has officially commented on the Microsoft Points pirating incident, saying that the hackers reported theft of $1.2 million dollars worth of virtual goods and monies is “inaccurate.”
“We can’t share specific numbers, but the figure is nowhere near the amount that has been reported,” a Microsoft representative told Gamasutra. “We are aware of the situation and have taken steps to ...
Homefront taking hardline against campers
American freedom fighters can start hitting back at a unified Korea’s occupation forces tomorrow, when Kaos Studios’ patriotically paranoid shooter Homefront is released, but what they won’t be able to do is stay still.
Though generally frowned upon, waiting for another player to wander into your crosshairs has become a strategic staple in Call of Duty‘s multiplayer modes, but Homefront hopes...
Microsoft loses $1.2 million due to points exploit
Microsoft has learned first hand how quickly Microsoft Points, the virtual cash of Xbox Live Marketplace, can deplete one’s real life bank account – a website offering 160 Microsoft Points per page refresh has been shutdown, but not before taking the media mogul for $1.2 million dollars.
Hackers discovered an algorithm that allowed them to add numbers to previously used codes, generating...
Shinji Mikami: Shadows of the Damned is a...
Shadows of the Damned has assembled a developmental dream team in No More Heroes director Goichi Suda, Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami and Silent Hill composer Akira Yamaoka. But with two out of the three being horror game icons, should we worry that self-professed punk fan Suda51′s quirky sense of humor will be lost amid the haunting music and freakish beasts?
“When you look at it,...
Epic: Fox News controversy good for Bulletstorm,...
Until now, Epic Games hasn’t commented on Fox News’ now notorious report in which psychologist Carole Lieberman basically, and baselessly, laid the blame for “the increase in rapes” at the giant black-booted feet of video games like Bulletstorm. But with the title looking to be a success, company president Mike Capps seems ready to address the “games cause rape” controversy, albeit...
Florence + the Machine lends musical magic to...
Though it would be even more exciting if my favorite ginger-haired howler were actually appearing in Dragon Age 2, I’ll settle for Florence Welsh, the lungs behind Florence + the Machine, being on the game’s soundtrack.
“I’m very proud and touched and honored that [Florence + the Machine] tapped in and gave us the power behind the music,” said Dragon Age 2 composer Inon Zur in an interview...
Double Fine makes with the mechs for XBLA-only...
Developer Double Fine has announced their next download-only title, Trenched, a World War I-infused tower defense game that will put players in control of a mobile trench. The trailer describes it as a “revolutionary breed of weaponry, a combination of mobile firepower and stationary defences that will turn the tide of war,” but that’s just fancy talk for giant mechs.
As part of the...
Hunted: The Demon’s Forge bags Xena: Warrior...
Lucy Lawless, star of Spartacus: Gods of the Arena and Battlestar Galactica, will be lending her voice to Bethesda’s upcoming tag team dungeon crawler, Hunted: The Demon’s Forge.
Lawless will voice adventurer turned temptress Seraphine, whose promises of wealth and power lures mercenaries Caddoc and E’lara to seek out an ancient artifact, the Demon’s Forge. It’s like totally evil of course,...
The Last Guardian creature is just like your dog,...
The latest issue of Famitsu, Japan’s arbiter of all things gaming, has a four page feature on Team Ico’s new ammunition for the games as art argument, The Last Guardian.
Though the actual gameplay remains a mystery, the article does detail some of the ways in which Trico (a.k.a. Toriko), the gigantic griffin-like creature, will develop an emotional attachment with the player-controlled...
No wait, Atlus is planning western release of...
Just a few days after announcing that Catherine, the erotic horror game from the Persona team, was a “Japan-only game” with “no plans for a North American release,” Atlus has revealed plans to bring the title westward.
With a release scheduled sometime later this summer, on both the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360, the developer should have plenty of time to tone down the brutal level of...
February 2011
14 posts
Atlus not planning western release of Catherine
Catherine, the punishing erotic puzzler from the same team behind the Persona series, won’t be getting a western release according to Atlus. “Catherine is a Japan-only game and there are no plans for a North American release at this time,” the publisher revealed in a statement to Beefjack. “Sorry about that!”
Atlus’ adult-only title has proven equally successful and stressful for its...
The one minute Dead Space 2 death that took eight...
It’s not ruining anything to tell you that Franco Delille doesn’t die of old age in Dead Space 2, seeing as his demise happens, quite horrifically, in the opening moments of the game. But more surprising than his death is the amount of work that went into bringing him to such short life – it took a team of eight people two months to complete Delille’s Infector-induced death, as detailed in...
Minecraft coming to iPad, iPhone and Android
Markus “Notch” Persson’s sandbox building game Minecraft, better known to some of you as the reason for having internet, is coming to iPhone, iPad and Android devices later this year.
Though there are plenty of unofficial Minecraft apps currently cluttering the app store, the Swedish developer has revealed that an official Mojang-approved version of the crazy successful cult...
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Telltale making videogame versions of Walking Dead...
Sam & Max‘s Telltale Games have scored a comic book coup d’état, announcing plans to develop episodic games around two of the most amazing and acclaimed graphic novel series currently running, Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead and Bill Willingham’s Fables.
For The Walking Dead, the developer has partnered with creator Robert Kirkman to make a “multi-year, multi-platform, multi-title”...
Felicia Day does a mean “Blue Steel” in Dragon Age...
Felicia Day is sword-swinging, back-flipping and knife-throwing her way through this first trailer for Dragon Age Redemption, the upcoming web series she’s writing and starring in with Bioware’s backing.
The six-episode story will follow The Guild star as Tallis, an elven assassin hot on the trail of a renegade mage. Though the trailer doesn’t reveal much, beyond the fact that Day will...
Dead Island teaser trailer looks good coming and...
Dead Island, the once perpetually in search of a publisher zombies cum Sandals® title from Call of Juarez developer Techland, hasn’t ever pinged my survival horror radar - I mean, I have nothing but love for the walking dead, but the world needs another hack and slash zombie game like it needs a gaping, oozing hole in the head, in the shape of a human’s upper and lower bicuspids.
...
EA already talking Dead Space 3
Okay, so EA isn’t “talking” about Dead Space 3 so much as “making brief mention of it” in a larger discussion about their stable of “strong, growing franchises,” but EA’s boss confirmed it’s but one Sprawl-spanning kill fest removed from joining the ranks of the company’s other top money makers.
“Right now we’ve got strong, growing franchises including Madden, FIFA, Need for Speed, Medal...
Stacking’s Tim Schafer: For games to be art, you...
Developer Double Fine’s just released Russian nesting doll-centric puzzler, Stacking, is stuffed to its delicately painted gills with the studio’s unique design aesthetic. Like the previously released Costume Quest – the first of four THQ-published titles devised during a two-week brainstorming session dubbed Amnesia Fortnight – Stacking bears the distinctive creative mark of its makers, a...
David O. Russell's Uncharted will have...
Like a steel toed boot to the ball sack of my heart is director David O. Russell’s latest comments concerning his upcoming big screen adaptation of Uncharted, which will star Mark Wahlberg, Robert DeNiro and possibly Joe Pesci as a family of criminals turned art connoisseurs.
“I think if we take that family dynamic that we have in ‘The Fighter,’ and put that in terms...
World of Goo for iPad is 99¢ for one day and one...
It might be a hollow greeting card company-created holiday, but the App Store is certainly feeling the love – major developers like Gameloft, EA, Capcom, Sega and Namco Bandai have slashed prices on huge chunks of their pocket gaming catalogues from now until Valentine’s Day.
I’ve already grabbed Spider-Man: Total Mayhem, Street Fighter IV, Resident Evil 4, Mirror’s Edge, Battlefield: Bad...
Demon’s Souls spiritual successor, Dark Souls,...
Dark Souls, developer FromSoftware’s followup to the brutally, brilliantly challenging Demon’s Souls, is looking appropriately life-threatening in this first gameplay trailer.
Let’s see, have we got fire-breathing dragons? Check. Gigantic murderous crows? Check. Armor plated warthogs? Check. Lava spewing hyenas? Check. The list keeps on going, as you will see when you watch the trailer,...
Dragon Age II demo release date announced,...
A round of applause, or if you prefer a round of swords banging on shields to the BioWare marketing team for handing out Dragon Age II unlockables like so much Dwarven ale during the last ten minutes of happy hour. You get a dog for ordering the game, a sword and shield for pre-ordering, a veritable jewelry box of rings, amulets and a belt for playing the Facebook tie-in, and now yet another...
Atlus’ adult-oriented Catherine now has a demo
Catherine, the brilliantly bizarre HD debut from the same team behind the Persona series, finally has a demo. At least if you’re Japanese or pretending to be Japanese – your system has to be registered in the land of the rising sun if you want to experience all the pillow-clutching, boxer-sporting, fork-stabbing weirdness of this adults-only title.
Players control 32-year old “herbivore...
GOG also selling tickets to The Last Express
Classic art nouveau PC game The Last Express is coming to GOG. And though the digital distribution site isn’t offering all the extras of DotEmu’s previously reported “collector’s edition,” which includes the game’s soundtrack, making-of documentary and official walkthrough, they are offering significant savings.
Good Old Games has listed Prince of Persia creator Jordan Mechner’s underrated PC...