Warp Zoned Presents
Most Recent: Mobile
Kickstart This! The Sweet September Edition
In the space of two short days, Keiji Inafune, co-creator of video game character Mega Man, managed to reach 100% funding for his new project, Mighty No. 9. The new game, whose lead character Beck bears an uncanny resemblance to Mega Man, has managed to rekindle something in the hearts of all those fans let down by Capcom with his Kickstarter campaign. It is the clearest sign yet that big-named developers are turning to the crowd funding site to raise capital for their dream projects. While the game is definitely coming to PC, if it manages to raise $2.2 million, it will be developed for current gen consoles and the Wii U to boot.
What it also does, and does very well, is walk the tightrope between creativity and plagiarism. Kickstarter developers take note. When the Mighty No. 9 video was shown at PAX, with the Kickstarter campaign simultaneously going live (and what a lovely piece of marketing that was), many began to wonder if Capcom was aware of the project, given its uncanny resemblance to Inafune’s other character for which Capcom holds the rights. Time will tell if the goliath game company decide to take legal action against indie outfit Comcept, but given the careful steps taken to distance Beck’s initial outing from Mega Man, while playing on fan’s prior knowledge of and desire for a sequel to that series, they may not have any legal recourse. Of course, this does not always guarantee immediate success; just look at Precursor Games Shadow of the Eternals, a spiritual sequel to the GameCube’s excellent Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem
So what other titles are currently vying for your money? There is Death Road to Canada, which is The Last of Us meets Dead Rising for mobiles, Mac and PC. Continuing the horror theme, there is psychological horror Neverending Nightmares, which looks like a hand drawn Silent Hill. Also drawing comparisons to that series, as well as Eternal Darkness, is Shades of Sanity.
Changing tack away from horror (kind of), RedNeck Assassin draws on House of the Dead: Overkill and Splinter Cell. Meanwhile, Super Mario Galaxy meets Portal in the gravity-bending FPS platformer Aterra. Last but by no means least, sci-fi ARTS .Decimal which looks like the futurist offspring of Mechwarrior and Command & Conquer.
In three, two, one… (more…)
Call of Duty: Strike Team sneaks onto iOS App Store
Surprise! Activision has secretly added a new Call of Duty game to the iOS App Store today.
Call of Duty: Strike Team was developed by Actvision’s new mobile team, The Blast Furnace, and is an original game “built from the ground up” for mobile/tablet devices. In this case, those devices are the iPhone 5/iPod Touch 5th Generation, iPad Mini, iPad 2 and iPad 3. Priced at $6.99, Strike Team gives gamers the opportunity to switch between first-person and third-person views as they hunt down terrorists responsible for an attack on the US in the year 2020.
“Call of Duty: Strike Team is all about giving a single player experience that is unlike anything else in the Call of Duty world in a way that matches the interests of players on-the-go,” said Mark Washbrook, Studio Head of The Blast Furnace. “By giving fans the option to play in either first-person or third-person views and to switch between them on the fly, we’ve really opened the doors for gamers to have a fun and entertaining gameplay experience with Call of Duty: Strike Team, because they can play the game the way they want.”
In addition to the Campaign, Strike Team includes a wave-based Survival Mode where players can compete for “leaderboard domination.”
Sega @ PAX Prime 2013: Sonic Lost World, Total War Rome II, more
PAX Prime 2013 opens in a few hours and Sega has revealed the four games they’ve brought to the Washington State Convention Center. If you’re going to be wandering the show floor today, you’ll get a chance to play Sega’s entire Fall lineup including Sonic: Lost World, which will be released this October exclusively for the 3DS/Wii U; Total War: Rome II, which will be available next week; Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse, which will also be available next week; Hatsune Miku: Project Diva F, which was added to store shelves and the PSN this week; and Heroki, a mobile game that will be released later this year. You’ll be able to find all of these games at Sega’s booth: #142/#242.
If you’re interested in the inner workings of Total War: Rome II, the development team at Creative Assembly is hosting a panel on Sunday, September 1 titled “History vs. Gameplay – Hey Creative Assembly, Where’s the Accuracy in My Pew Pew Shooter?” Sounds like a good time.
More details on all of Sega’s PAX Prime lineup is available after the break. (more…)
Posted in 3DS, Mobile, News, PC, PS3, Wii U, Xbox 360
Tagged Castle of Illusion, PAX Prime 2013, Sonic: Lost World, Total War: Rome II
Majesco launches Midnight City, an indie game publishing label
Majesco has always existed on the fringes of the video game industry. Normally a publisher of budget games, the company has dabbled in AAA development in the past (BloodRayne, for example), but mostly sticks with Zumba-branded exercise games these days. But while out there on the fringe, the Majesco brass has discovered that the kids love them indie games. So they started their own indie publishing label, Midnight City.
Midnight City will make its debut at this weekend’s PAX Prime, where the publisher will present ten very unique games to the public including a “lost” Game Boy game, a space age riff on Marble Madness, a “12-bit adventure,” a new game featuring Slenderman, and more. The label’s initial slate of games will be released for digital download services such as Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network, and PC downloadable sites.
You can read all about Midnight City’s lineup after the break and, if you’re attending PAX Prime, you can check them out this weekend in their booth. (more…)
Star Wars: Force Collection card game coming to iOS, Android on September 4
I have good news if you can’t bear to wait until 2015 to get your hands on Star Wars: Battlefront: Konami is working on a new Star Wars and will release it on September 4. Wait a minute… let me check a calendar… why, that’s just two weeks away! How is this possible?
It’s possible because Konami is planning to release Star Wars: Force Collection, a collectible card game for iOS and Android devices, on September 4. The game will be available as a free download and will include over 230 cards based on characters and vehicles from all six Star Wars films. Using their cards, players will spend their time “completing quests, fighting battles, and collecting powerful cards and upgrades.”
“Stating the obvious, Star Wars is an enormously successful franchise, and we saw great potential in the story to delight fans around the world with a deep game experience on mobile devices,” said Tomoyuki Tsuboi, President of Konami Digital Entertainment. “Konami’s proven capabilities in mobile game development and publishing, particularly in the card battle genre, are the perfect fit for Star Wars, and we’re very pleased to bring this new experience to players around the globe.”
Still, free is free.
2K Drive will be available for iOS devices “soon”
Here’s another look at 2K Drive, the iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch racing simulation from Lucid Games. The team at Lucid broke off from Bizarre Creations, the developer behind Project Gotham Racing and Blur, after Bizarre was shut down by Activision in 2011.
2K Drive is expected to be released sometime this Fall.
Neil Gaiman will bring Wayward Manor to PC, tablets this Fall
Few names carry more cred in geek circles than Neil Gaiman (maybe Joss Whedon, as long as you ignore Season 6 of Buffy). Because of his reputation, there was much rejoicing in geek circles today as Gaiman announced that he plans to take his first step into the video game industry this Fall. The fantasy author has contributed the story to Wayward Manor, a PC/Mac/tablet game in development at The Odd Gentlemen (who also worked on The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom).
Wayward Manor, which shares a similar art style with the film adaptation of Gaiman’s Coraline, stars a ghost who just wants to enjoy his death in peace:
Set in a 1920s Victorian Gothic pastoral estate, Wayward Manor focuses on the plight of a ghost whose hope of a peaceful after-life is interrupted by a remarkable cast of intruders. Awoken from his post-mortem slumbers, our ghost must find ever-more inventive and brilliant ways to scare them away. As the ghost learns more about the living characters, he also learns more about his own death and after-life, and the danger they are all facing.
Players can pre-order the game, as well as a huge stash of Wayward Manor-stamped swag, at WhoHauntsNeil.com.
Revenge of the Swine! Angry Birds Star Wars II announced
From the secret, frozen, underground laboratory of Rovio, located somewhere in Finland, comes their latest Angry Birds incarnation, a sequel to the super-popular Angry Birds Star Wars of last year. This new game, Angry Birds Star Wars II, will be released on September 19th and will be available for download from all mobile app stores. The game also features a couple new twists in the gameplay.
In addition to new stories, levels, characters, special powers, and “new sides to fight for,” Rovio has proudly announced an interesting gimmick called “Telepods.” Made by Hasbro and available come September wherever toys are sold, Telepods will allow you to teleport your favorite characters directly into the game using, presumably, magic. You can also customize your slingshot lineup as well as choose which characters to include in that launch. There will be 30 collectable Telepods, so start saving up your nickels now, kids.
So many Telepods to play with, of course, means that there are over 30 “never-before-seen” Angry Birds Star Wars characters to play with, AND…OMG, GET THIS: “Another first for the series is that you can choose your side! Players can choose to “Join the Pork Side.”
Since this game sequel will feature the Star Wars prequels, the first two levels in the game appear to be called “Naboo Invasion” and “Escape to Tatooine.” So pull out The Phantom Menace, in the meantime, to prepare yourself. But don’t forget to plug your ears when Jar Jar comes onscreen. (Note: Rovio has not said either way whether Mr. Binks will appear in the game, but we can only pray to our respective gods that the Empire shot him in the face with a blaster and dismembered him into pieces as small as ice cubes with a Lightsaber. Oops, I hope there are no children reading this. He’s fine, younglings! Uncle Jar Jar is just fine!)
Check out the trailer to find out how these Telepods work (I’m being told it’s not “magic”), some screenshots of the game, as well as an interior shot of what looks to be the secret Rovio fortress featuring several English-speaking scientists. I’m starting to think they’re not really Finnish.
And in keeping with a really successful and marketable franchise, there will be ABSWII merchandise coming out the wazoo (which, I gather, must be some rural Finnish village), including but not limited to toys, plushies, books, clothes, pharmaceuticals, and more! Okay, one of those is not real. But I won’t tell you which. All this plus the Telepods will make their debut in September alongside the main event, Angry Birds Star Wars II, the game.
Posted in Mobile, News
Tagged Angry Birds Star Wars II