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2017 DICE Awards nominations announced and Uncharted 4 leads the way with ten
The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences has announced their nominees for the 2017 DICE Awards.
A Naughty Dog leads this year’s pack, as Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End scored ten nominations including one for “Game of the Year.” The developer’s swan song for Nathan Drake will be competing against Battlefield 1, Inside, Overwatch, and Pokemon Go for the coveted honor. We’ll hear from all of this year’s “Game of the Year” contenders throughout the ceremony as each earned multiple nominations including Inside with nine, Battlefield 1 with eight, Overwatch with six, and Pokemon Go with two.
The AIAS will hand out two new DICE Awards this year for “Immersive Reality Game of the Year” and “Immersive Reality Technical Achievement.” The nominees for both will be announced at a later date.
A total of 56 games received at least one nomination, and hosts Greg Miller and Jessica Chobot will announce the winners on Thursday, February 23, at 10:30 PM (Eastern Time). Viewers at home will be able to livestream the entire ceremony through the AIAS’s official website.
A complete list of this year’s nominees can be found after the break. (more…)
Posted in 3DS, Mobile, News, PC, PS3, PS4, Vita, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Tagged Battlefield 1, Inside, Overwatch, Pokemon Go, Uncharted 4: A Thief's End
Shovel Knight is officially coming to Nintendo Switch; Yacht Club also plans to re-release the expansions as standalone games
Followers of the Code of Shovelry have quite a bit to celebrate today as Yacht Club Games uncovered a massive amount of new information about Shovel Knight on the game’s official site… including confirmation that it’ll be released for the Nintendo Switch.
Yes, the side-scrolling masterpiece will make its way to the Nintendo Switch sometime this year, along with each expansion and all the bonus content like Body Swap Mode and Co-Op Mode. Oh, speaking of Body Swap Mode, it’s finished and will be released alongside the Specter Knight expansion this Spring. And in the spirit of sharing, Co-Op Mode will no longer be exclusive to the Wii U (and the Shovel Knight Amiibo). According to the developer, it will soon be available for all consoles and the PC (but not the 3DS or the Vita) as a free update.
Here’s where it gets interesting.
Shovel Knight’s release structure will soon be undergoing some changes, though Kickstarter backers and other current owners won’t notice anything different. Yacht Club has decided to upgrade the game for current owners to the Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove on all platforms. Available this Spring, the Treasure Trove will include free access to all updates and expansions. But because the expansions have grown beyond being simple character swaps, Yacht Club has decided to raise the price of the Treasure Trove for newcomers once its available. The game’s new price has yet to be announced, but the current $14.99 price (and its promise of free updates and expansions) will remain in place until the Treasure Trove is released.
For everyone who has yet to purchase Shovel Knight (or for those who might want to rebuy the game on a new platform), Yacht Club has decided to split each of the expansions off into its own standalone game. So the original Shovel Knight campaign will receive a new subtitle (Shovel of Hope), and the expansions (Plague of Shadows, Specter of Torment, the King Knight campaign, and Battle Mode) will all be available as individual downloads (and for a lower price) on the PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Switch.
Finally, Yacht Club has begun to think about life after Shovel Knight, and will soon begin work on their “second” game (depending on how you count the Shovel Knight expansions). Writing in a new Q&A, the developer said, “[I]f you want something new outside of Shovel Knight… we have vowed to begin work on a new project this year!”
Posted in 3DS, Mobile, News, PC, PS3, PS4, Switch, Vita, Wii U, Xbox One
Tagged Shovel Knight, Shovel Knight Showdown, Shovel Knight: King of Cards, Shovel Knight: Plague of Shadows, Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment
The Video Game Canon: Tetris
Dig deeper into the Video Game Canon with a look at how moms helped Tetris become the gaming gargantuan it is today. Here’s a teaser…
In 1989, most mothers believed that video games were a childhood distraction that eventually would be brushed aside as their offspring grew into responsible adults. But something happened along the way that prevented this. Perhaps the Nintendo Entertainment System, the most popular console of its day, was just that much better than previous attempts to bring video games into the living room. But I have a different theory. I believe it was Tetris.
Tetris brought mothers and their children together to play video games for the first time. And then something magical happened. Instead of jerkily moonwalking Mario into a pit or being the most unrad racer on the planet, the mothers were good at Tetris. They were so good that brother and sister soon had to compete with mom for control of the television. And mom wasn’t going to be finished until she made the castle take off into the stratosphere.
Visit VideoGameCanon.com to continue reading this article and to explore the complete Top 1000.
Hatsune Miku: Project Diva Future Tone, Fatal Fury, more added to PS Store
It’s the first PlayStation Store update of the year… so let’s kick things off with a big dance party!
Hatsune Miku: Project Diva Future Tone, the Virtual Diva’s latest starring role, is now available to download for the PS4. According to Sega, Future Tone is the biggest game in the series (if you download both expansion pack), and it’s amped up speed and energy will provide fans with the most intense rhythm game experience yet.
Also new this week is Fatal Fury, a PS4 recreation of the classic arcade game from 1991. As one of SNK’s earliest games, Fatal Fury helped lay the groundwork for the dozens of fighting games the developer would produce over the next two-and-a-half decades. Fatal Fury will be available to download through the PlayStation Store beginning tomorrow, January 12.
More information on all of this week’s new additions to the PlayStation Store can be found after the break. (more…)
You should watch this great Shovel Knight speedrun race from Awesome Games Done Quick 2017
Awesome Games Done Quick is hosting their first speedrunning marathon of the year this week, and some of the best players from all across the world have descended on the Washington D.C. area to play through a huge number of games as fast as they can. In addition to putting on an excellent show, the AGDQ2017 participants are also raising money for the Prevent Cancer Foundation.
It’s a pretty fun week of gaming, and for further proof, just look at this year’s Shovel Knight race. Not only is it an extremely competitive contest, but you can watch two experts masterfully pick apart the new side-scrolling classic. The two players going head-to-head are “Smaugy” and “Munchakoopas,” and they provide a great match featuring plenty of platforming acrobatics, multiple lead changes, and an amazing photo finish.
Yacht Club Games will release the next expansion for Shovel Knight, Specter of Torment, sometime this year.
Joe Carnahan has finished the script to the Uncharted movie
After years in development, Final Fantasy XV, The Last Guardian, and No Man’s Sky all launched in 2016. With that trio of games now available in stores, we might have finally reached the point where all the vaporware-adjacent video games have either finally been released or officially canceled. Thankfully, the Uncharted movie is the gift that keeps on giving.
The film adaptation was first announced in 2009, and since then, Naughty Dog has actually said “goodbye” to Nathan Drake with the release of Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End. Before that, but after the Uncharted film was first announced, they managed to produce three sequels to the original game and multiple spinoff titles. Several directors and writers have taken a crack at the franchise over the years, and all of them eventually stepped away. But it looks like director Shawn Levy and screenwriter Joe Carnahan will finally be the ones who bring the franchise to the big screen.
Carnahan got on Instagram this weekend and revealed that the script for Uncharted is finished. This is an accomplishment in itself, but he also seems rather proud of his work. Carnahan referred to the script as “a BEAST” and claimed “[there’s not] a more monstrously cool action script in Hollywood right now.”
The Uncharted movie will begin filming sometime this year, and you can find Carnahan’s Instagram post after the break. (more…)
Posted in Etcetera, News, PS3, PS4
Tagged Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Someone remade Super Mario Land in Super Mario Maker
Super Mario Land was one the five games to launch alongside the Game Boy in 1989, but it has been largely forgotten by Mario fans thanks to the release of the superior Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins in 1992 and the inevitable march of time.
Thankfully, one dedicated Super Mario Maker maestro is bringing it back. “KHAce” recreated all 12 courses (along with the final boss fight against Tatanga) from Super Mario Land in Super Mario Maker, and you can download them on the Wii U right now:
- 1-1: 8088-0000-02E1-8DAB
- 1-2: 3EB9-0000-02E1-8E7E
- 1-3: 0BE6-0000-02E1-8F1B
- 2-1: 5751-0000-02E1-8FCF
- 2-2: E5C3-0000-02E1-90B3
- 2-3: 3624-0000-02E1-9251
- 3-1: BC22-0000-02E1-93EE
- 3-2: 20C5-0000-02E1-9504
- 3-3: 25B0-0000-02E1-963A
- 4-1: B108-0000-02E1-9772
- 4-2: EE82-0000-02E1-986D
- 4-3: 0103-0000-02E1-9992
- 4-3 (Tatanga Fight): ECCD-0000-02E1-9A32
“KHAce” also uploaded a video walkthough of his Super Mario Maker recreation, and its been embedded above.
Posted in News, Wii U
Tagged Super Mario Maker
Warp Zoned’s 2016 Golden Pixel Awards: A Look Back at the Year in Video Games
In a very real way, the game industry wiped the slate clean in 2016.
After nearly a decade of development difficulties, Square Enix unleashed Final Fantasy XV on the world. Fumito Ueda and Sony Japan Studio overcame similar troubles to finally release The Last Guardian. Id Software shook off the past and was reborn after the launch of the fourth game in the Doom franchise. Blizzard closed the book on their failed “Titan Project” with the release of Overwatch. Naughty Dog said goodbye to Nathan Drake, but gamers said hello to altered realities that were both “augmented” and “virtual.” Nintendo found new kingdoms to conquer with Super Mario Run. And the launch of No Man’s Sky taught us that while the hype machine sometimes fails to deliver, the chance for a brighter tomorrow is always there.
But before we venture off into that great unknown, let’s look back at some of gaming’s highlights from 2016. (more…)
Posted in 3DS, Etcetera, Features, Mobile, PC, PS4, Top Story, Xbox One
Tagged Dangerous Golf, Dark Souls III, Doom (2016), Dragon Quest Builders, Dragon Quest VII: Fragments of the Forgotten Past, Final Fantasy XV, Hyper Light Drifter, No Man's Sky, Overwatch, Pac-Man Championship Edition 2, Pokemon Go, Pokemon Sun/Moon, Superhot, The Last Guardian, Uncharted 4: A Thief's End