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First R.B.I. Baseball 14 screenshots bring back the 80s sports game… literally
Today, Yahoo! Sports published the first screenshots of MLB Advanced Media’s mysterious R.B.I. Baseball 14. The game franchise was incredibly popular in the late 80s and early 90s, and the reboot will respect that heritage with its graphics and gameplay style. R.B.I Baseball 14 sidesteps the heavy duty simulation aspects of 2K’s defunct MLB 2K series and Sony’s upcoming MLB 14: The Show to bring video game baseball back to a simpler time.
But don’t think this means that R.B.I. 14 won’t feature realistic baseball. All 30 MLB teams will be represented and 480 players will be included in the game. And the developers will use real-life game metrics compiled by MLB Advanced Media to create each player’s digital self. But all of these statistics will be in service to a game that doesn’t include online multiplayer (it includes local “couch play” only) and only offers three modes: Season, Postseason, and Exhibition. It’s just like the 80s, but many don’t see that as a bad thing.
“There are people out there who would want by a pixel-by-pixel recreation of a game from that era, and there are people who want something that has more control and has more than eight teams,” said Jamie Leece, MLB Advanced Media’s Vice President of Gaming. “If you take a step back and just play the game, what we’re seeing and hearing is: ‘You’re taking me back,’ ‘It feels like the old games,’ ‘It’s so much fun.'”
R.B.I. Baseball 14 will be available as a downloadable game for the PS3, Xbox 360, and mobile platforms in early April (lending credence to this earlier rumor). The game will also slide onto the PS4 and Xbox One “shortly after.”
The Walking Dead Season 2: A House Divided Review: Strength In Numbers
Telltale’s Walking Dead games can be tough to review. The series is so heavily focused on story that it becomes increasingly difficult to write a review without giving away some of the finer plot details. In the Walking Dead universe, characters you’ve grown attached to are taken away in the blink of an eye, and if you know what will happen beforehand, the emotional impact is greatly lessened. In that regard, I’ve opted to provide a separate, spoiler-free review of The Walking Dead Season 2: A House Divided. That way, those of you who haven’t played the game can read on, knowing that nothing will be ruined. I promise to avoid any specific information or plot points throughout the rest of the review, so you can still feel confident in reading the entire review without learning too much.
Spoiler-Free Review: The game is amazing – go buy it right now!
OK, now that we have that out of the way, on with the review. (more…)
A Playing Card With Fangs: How Puzzle Games Use Characters to Get in Our Heads
An edited and updated version of this article is now available at Video Game Canon.
As video games begin to resemble film and television productions more and more with each passing generation, it’s interesting to observe that puzzle games remain a vibrant genre. Puzzle games burst onto the scene at the very beginning, back when gaming was nothing more than a handful of pixels projected onto an old television. While everyone in the “real world” was attempting to master a Rubik’s Cube in as few moves as possible, gamers were tackling the line destruction of Breakout and the line construction Tetris. However, without realizing it, the puzzle genre became just as story-driven as everything else the game industry produces today. (more…)
Rumor: R.B.I. Baseball 14 will be released for PS3, Xbox 360, mobile platforms in April
Back in January, Major League Baseball announced that the R.B.I. Baseball franchise would be coming out of retirement sometime this Spring. Since then, we’ve heard absolutely nothing about the game, but R.B.I. Baseball 14 is supposedly in development for “current and next generation consoles and smartphones and tablets” at MLB Advanced Media, the league’s in-house technology group.
Even though details about R.B.I. Baseball 14 are scarcer than a Mets playoff appearance, Darren Rovell, ESPN’s Sports Business Reporter, has tweeted that the game will be released for the PS3, Xbox 360, and mobile platforms on April 10:
MLBAM has set its release date for R.B.I. Baseball. PS3 & Xbox 360 hits April 10, same for iOS and Android versions.
— darren rovell (@darrenrovell) March 7, 2014
Can R.B.I. Baseball 14 make its April release date when its little more than a logo and a teaser website right now? I have my doubts, but I guess we’ll see.
Tumblestone will bring back the multiplayer puzzle game this Fall
The Quantum Astrophysicists Guild, besides having one of the coolest company names in the business, released The Bridge to almost universal acclaim last year on the PC and Xbox Live Arcade. Now they’re back with their next game: Tumblestone.
Tumblestone is a multiplayer match-3 puzzler that looks like a mashup of Bust-A-Move‘s cannon and Puzzle Fighter‘s block-filled stack. Like any good multiplayer puzzler, matching three squares of the same color will dump them on the player to your right and the last one standing wins. In addition to the main multiplayer mode, Tumblestone will also include a cooperative multiplayer mode, several single-player modes, and multiple cannon operators on the character select screen (presumably, each will have their own skillset when it comes to manning the cannon).
Tumblestone is currently scheduled to be released this Fall for PC platforms (PC/Mac/Linux) via Steam. The game will also be released for tablets and the Xbox Live Arcade (Xbox 360) at a later date. If you want to give Tumblestone a playthrough before its released, Ty Taylor of The Quantum Astrophysicists Guild will appear at this weekend’s SXSW festival and April’s PAX East expo to demonstrate the game’s multiplayer mode.
Posted in Mobile, News, PC, Xbox 360
Tagged PAX East 2014, Tumblestone
PopCap forms “HD Team” to bring Peggle 2 and an original game to consoles
The “HD Team” within PopCap Games that produced the recently released Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare will continue their work in the console realm.
“PopCap is now structured in the way we have standard PopCap mobile development and then PopCap HD, which is entirely focused on bringing games to PC and console,” Gary Clay, PopCap’s Marketing Manager said.
The team definitely has their plate full. In the near term, they plan to create new content for Garden Warfare, with the first update available in March. They are also working on an update to Peggle 2 as well as porting the game to additional consoles besides the Xbox One. Finally, PopCap HD is also developing an original console game unrelated to any previous PopCap property.
Looks like my dream of a Heavy Weapon sequel has been dashed once more.
[Source: Digital Spy]
First Shin Megami Tensei game coming to iOS next month
“The struggle between law and chaos… what is right and wrong?”
For the first time, the original Shin Megami Tensei will be available in the United States! Atlus is bringing the first game in the series to the iOS App Store, giving mobile gamers a chance to get addicted to these games. Now you can start from the very beginning and spend 40-60 hours with your favorite device: your phone.
For those of you unfamiliar with the plot, here’s a synopsis:
Step away from clear notions of good and evil, right and wrong. There are demons in the world, but whether they are ally or enemy depends on player actions. In Tokyo 199X, a mysterious murder leads to the emergence of demons and an escalating global conflict thanks to the rise of a charismatic rebel leader in possession of a demon army, and external forces that wish to crush such threats with extreme measures. As the protagonist, players have an unusual ability (via computer program) to communicate with and recruit demons to fight for them. As they collect demons, the program will allow you to store, summon, and fuse them to create the right team to negotiate the ever-changing balance of powers, and fight for the kind of world you ultimately wish to live in.
Shin Megami Tensei will be available on the App Store on March 18 for $7.99.
Next Tony Hawk game is exclusively in development for mobile devices
It has been revealed that Tony Hawk’s new game, which he teased last week, will be a mobile exclusive. Hawk confirmed to Bloomberg that he is working on a mobile game now: “We’re working on a game for mobile devices this year.”
“We’ve never gone exclusively in that direction yet so I’m excited because, with the amount of time people are spending on their phones and their tablets playing games, we’ve never had our own game in that space so I’m excited to provide one finally,” Hawk continued.
According to CVG, Hawk told CNBC in October of 2013 that he wanted to see his series on mobile platforms, because so many people are playing games there. “You just have to adapt and you have to realise where people are going to actually play their games,” Hawk said. “It used to just be Nintendo and PlayStation, and now it’s all kind of devices. So you’ve got to learn to adapt what you know from the technology into those areas. I’ve been wanting to do a mobile game for a long time.”
Hawk had previously told IGN that he wanted to bring his games to next-generation consoles as well, so who knows – maybe there are PS4, Xbox One, and Wii U versions in the mix somewhere down the line as well.
Posted in Mobile, News
Tagged Tony Hawk's Shred Session