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Control leads the way with seven nominations at the 2020 SXSW Gaming Awards
The SXSW Gaming Awards will once again play a big role in the annual Austin arts festival, and this year’s nominees were announced earlier this week.
Remedy’s Control and Kojima Productions’s Death Stranding lead the way with seven nominations apiece, but Kojima’s latest mindbender won’t be competing for “Video Game of the Year.” Instead, Control will do battle with Capcom’s Devil May Cry 5, ZA/UM’s Disco Elysium, From Software’s Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, and Respawn’s Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order for the coveted award.
Winners at the 2020 SXSW Gaming Awards will be determined by a split vote between the festival’s advisory board and a public poll, which is now open at SXSW.com through Sunday, February 23.
This year’s ceremony will be held on on Sunday, March 15, and it’ll be hosted by Wil Wheaton and Star Wars: Battlefront II‘s Janina Gavankar. All SXSW registrants will be able to attend the ceremony as part of their festival ticket, and the rest of us will be able to tune in to the festivities via SXSW’s Twitch channel.
You can find a complete list of this year’s nominees in all categories after the break. (more…)
Posted in Mobile, News, PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One
Tagged Control, Death Stranding, Devil May Cry 5, Disco Elysium, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, Tabletop Games
House House’s Untitled Goose Game wins “Game of the Year” at 2020 DICE Awards
I guess The Goose can cross “Win a Few Major Awards” off of its To-Do List. And that’s because House House’s Untitled Goose Game won “Outstanding Achievement for an Independent Game,” “Outstanding Achievement in Character,” and “Game of the Year” at this year’s DICE Awards.
While the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences’s voting body (which is comprised of more than 30,000 members) loves The Goose, it was Remedy’s Control that took home the most statuettes last night. Predictably, the outstanding action game won “Action Game of the Year,” as well as “Outstanding Achievement in Game Direction,” “Outstanding Achievement in Original Music Composition,” and “Outstanding Achievement in Art Direction.” Hideo Kojima’s Death Stranding was the only other game to win multiple awards, with the AIAS honoring it with “Outstanding Technical Achievement” and “Outstanding Achievement in Audio Design.”
A nice array of other games were also big winners at the 2020 DICE Awards, including Sayonara Wild Hearts (“Portable Game of the Year”), Apex Legends (“Online Game of the Year”), Super Mario Maker 2 (“Family Game of the Year”), Mortal Kombat 11 (“Fighting Game of the Year”), Baba Is You (“Outstanding Achievement in Game Design”), and more.
The complete list of winners and nominees for the 2020 DICE Awards can be found after the break. (more…)
Zach Gage’s SpellTower+ will be available for iOS devices this week
If you owned a smartphone in 2011, you almost surely played a few rounds of Zach Gage’s SpellTower, a ridiculously-popular word game that took inspiration from both Tetris and Boggle. But now it’s nine years later, and if you’re still playing SpellTower, you’ll be happy to know that the developer is launching a sequel this week.
SpellTower+ will be available as a free download through the iOS App Store this Thursday, January 30, and it’ll include five brand new game modes:
Pick your words wisely! As you play, more tiles rise from the bottom of the screen! It’ll take all of your lexicological wits, and tactical know-how to keep your columns down. If any letters make it to the top row, it’s game over.
Classic modes Daily Tower, Tower, Puzzle, Rush, and Zen are all back and packed with brand new BONUS TILES that double (or more!) word values.
Joining them is the brand new Search Mode, plus ExPuzzle, Double Puzzle, Bubble Puzzle, and Blitz Mode!
The success of the original SpellTower meant a lot to Gage, and he shared some of his thoughts about the massive response to the game on Apple.com.
Posted in Mobile, News
Tagged SpellTower
Death Stranding and Control take control of the 2020 DICE Awards with 8 nominations apiece
The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences (AIAS) has announced the nominees for this year’s DICE Awards, and Kojima Productions’s Death Stranding and Remedy’s Control lead the way with eight nominations apiece. As you might expect, both games were nominated for “Game of the Year,” and they’ll be competing against ZA/UM’s Disco Elysium, Mobius Digital’s Outer Wilds, and House House’s Untitled Goose Game for the big prize.
“On behalf of the Academy, I want to thank our peer panelists, who always dedicate their time, energy, and expertise in evaluating and selecting 2019’s best games,” said Meggan Scavio, the President of the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences. “To all of the finalists… a big congratulations on continuing to push the boundaries of storytelling, creativity and technical innovation. We can’t wait to celebrate your achievements at the 23rd Annual DICE Awards!”
A complete list of this year’s nominees can be found after the break, and the winners in all categories will be announced during the DICE Awards ceremony (which takes place during the DICE Summit) on February 13. (more…)
Posted in Mobile, News, PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One
Tagged Control, Death Stranding, Disco Elysium, Outer Wilds, Untitled Goose Game
Death Stranding connects with 7 nominations at the 2020 GDC Awards
It looks like Hideo Kojima’s Death Stranding really connected with the judging panel for the 2020 Game Developers Choice Awards. The developer’s latest game, and his first as the head of an independent team, was nominated in seven categories: “Game of the Year,” “Best Design,” “Best Visual Art,” “Best Narrative,” “Best Audio,” “Best Technology,” and the “Innovation Award.”
The remaining “Game of the Year” contenders gobbled up most of the rest of the nominations, as Remedy’s Control and Mobius Digital’s Outer Wilds were close behind with five nominations apiece. Also in the running are House House’s Untitled Goose Game (which collected four nominations) and From Software’s Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (which snuck into the conversation with three nominations).
In addition to this year’s slate of competitive awards, Kate Edwards will receive Ambassador Award for her work in “helping video games advance to a better place through advocacy and action.” Edwards is the current Executive Director of Global Game Jam and the former head of the International Game Developers Association.
The 2020 Game Developers Choice Awards ceremony will take place on on Wednesday, March 18, and will be livestreamed on the GDC’s Twitch channel. The full list of nominees, as well as all the Honorable Mentions, can be found after the break. (more…)
Posted in Mobile, News, PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One
Tagged Control, Death Stranding, GDC 2020, Outer Wilds, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, Untitled Goose Game
Latest update for Doom and Doom II adds Add-Ons, Quick Saves, 60 FPS support, more
As promised back in December, Bethesda has updated the recent re-releases of Doom (1993) and Doom II with a bevy of new features.
The biggest new addition to both titles is support for Add-Ons, which will initially include a number of popular semi-official WADs. The Final Doom campaigns (TnT: Evilution and The Plutonia Experiment) are now available to download for free through either game. Another bonus campaign will be available to Doom players looking to grab John Romero’s Sigil, while Doom II fans will be able to download the previously XBLA-exclusive expansion No Rest For the Living.
More Add-Ons will be added to Doom and Doom II at a later date.
Other new features included in this update are native support for visuals at 60 FPS, a Quick Saves option, and multiple Quality-of-Life Adjustments (including a “Quick Weapon Select feature, improved Level Select function, added Aspect Ratio and Brightness options, a new split-screen HUD, and more”).
You can learn more about everything that was added to Doom and Doom II today by visiting the Patch Notes page on Bethesda.net.
Untitled Goose Game and Slay the Spire lead the nominees at 2020 IGF Awards
The Independent Games Festival, the scrappier sibling to the Game Developer Conference, has announced the nominees for this year’s Independent Games Festival Awards.
Not surprisingly, House House’s Untitled Goose Game stole the spotlight, earning two total nominations (for the “Seumas McNally Grand Prize” and “Excellence In Audio”). However, it was Die Gute Fabrik’s Mutazione that lead the pack. In addition to a nomination for the “Seumas McNally Grand Prize,” the mutant soap opera is also in competition for “Excellence In Visual Art,” “Excellence In Audio,” and “Excellence In Narrative.”
Other games in the running for the IGF’s top prize this year are Mega Crit’s Slay the Spire, Adam Robinson-Yu’s A Short Hike, Zachtronics’s Eliza, and Sean Han Tani and Marina Kittaka’s Anodyne 2: Return to Dust.
The winners of the Independent Games Festival Awards will be revealed on Wednesday, March 18, at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco. League of Geeks’s Trent Kusters will serve as the host of the ceremony, which will be livestreamed for viewers at home on the GDC’s Twitch channel.
The complete list of nominees (and Honorable Mentions) from the 2020 Independent Games Festival Awards can be found after the break. (more…)
Dodge Roll confirms that Exit the Gungeon will be released for PC and consoles in Early 2020
Dodge Roll Games started 2020 off with a big news drop (on Twitter) about all their current and upcoming projects.
First up, Exit the Gungeon will escape its exclusivity deal with Apple Arcade and make its way to “PC and consoles” in Early 2020. The developer didn’t specify which consoles the game would appear on, but Enter the Gungeon has found a lot of success on the PS4, Xbox One, and Switch, so a wide release strategy seems likely for this pseudo-sequel.
Speaking of Enter the Gungeon, Dodge Roll also announced that their first game has now sold more than three million copies across all platforms. Congratulations to the team on reaching that milestone.
Finally, Dodge Roll revealed that Enter the Gungeon: House of the Gundead, a lightgun-powered arcade cabinet developed by Griffin Aerotech, will also be available in Early 2020. The spinoff will offer two-player simultaneous shooting against the “adorable” Gundead horde when it launches sometime in the next few months.
Dodge Roll recently overhauled their website at EnterTheGungeon.com, and you’ll be able to find future updates about all of these games over there.
Posted in Mobile, News, PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One
Tagged Enter the Gungeon, Exit the Gungeon