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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
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.
The Video Game Canon: An Introduction and The Top 100 (Version 1.0)
The Video Game Canon is a statistical meta-ranking of dozens of “Best Video Games of All Time” lists that began in 2017 with Version 1.0, and the ranking has been updated several times since then. Which game is #1? There’s only one way to find out…
Is it possible to rank the greatest video games of all time in a “scientific” way? Do you just throw the question to so-called experts and let them hash it out in a no-holds-barred debate? Or is there some way to create a “Video Game Canon” that the wide-ranging community of developers, critics, and players can all agree on?
Probably not. But we can try.
Since gaming’s earliest days, dozens of publications have tried to sort through the noise and compile their own list of “The Best Video Games of All Time.” By analyzing all of these attempts at ranking the greatest games and combining them into a single list, we can apply a little scientific rigor to the process and possibly create a “Best Video Games of All Time” list that everyone can agree on.
Before we go any further, let me just say… no matter how we try to justify it, it’s impossible to prove, by “science” or otherwise, that one game is definitively better than another. My attempt at adding “science” to the mix is just a way to add some zing to the numerical formula doing all the work behind the scenes.
Ideally, this project will give us the chance to look back at the history of video games reflected through some the medium’s greatest titles. The list itself will serve as something of a road map to help us learn how the best games of all time are connected to each other, to better appreciate how players interacted with video games in the past, and to explore what video games might become in the future.
Visit VideoGameCanon.com for all future updates to this project and to explore the complete Top 1000.
The Walking Dead: A New Frontier, Shantae: Half-Genie Hero, Fruit Ninja VR, more added to PS Store
After more than a year of teasing, Clementine will return to our screens this week in Telltale’s The Walking Dead: A New Frontier, which is now available to download for the PS4 through the PlayStation Store. The special two-part premiere, Ties That Bind, will also introduce us to Javier, the co-protagonist of this post-apocalyptic tale.
It’s not all doom and gloom in this week’s PlayStation Store update, as WayForward plans to reintroduce gamers to Shantae’s side-scrolling adventures in Shantae: Half-Genie Hero. Available to download now for the PS4 and PS Vita, Half-Genie Hero brings back the character’s “devastating Hair-Whip Attack” in another bid to save Sequin-Land.
Finally this week, a handful of PlayStation VR games are now available to download including Fruit Ninja VR, which gives players a virtual samurai sword and asks them to slice and dice a wide variety of oranges, melons, and grapefruits “without all the mess.”
More information on all of these games (and a few other new releases) can be found after the break. And, as always, a complete listing of this week’s new add-ons and discounts is available at the PlayStation Blog. (more…)
Posted in News, PS4, Vita
Tagged The Walking Dead: A New Frontier
New Retail Releases: Shantae Half-Genie Hero
Just a single new release will be available on store shelves, and it’s Shantae: Half-Genie Hero. WayForward’s platforming heroine is jumping to high definition consoles for the first time, and her latest adventure will be available for the PS4 and Vita. Naturally, the game will also be available through Sony’s PlayStation Store this week, as well as Microsoft’s Xbox Games Store and Nintendo’s Wii U eShop.
Shantae embarks on her first full HD adventure! When a mysterious crime wave sweeps Sequin Land, it’s up to Half-Genie Hero Shantae to save the day! Use Shantae’s devastating Hair-Whip Attack to send monsters flying, or Belly Dance to transform her into more powerful forms! Topple the masterminds behind each criminal caper and prepare for the ultimate showdown against Shantae’s arch nemesis – the bodacious buccaneer Risky Boots!
Even though the end of the year is fast approaching, we’ll be back later this week with a complete rundown of all the other new additions to the PlayStation Store, Xbox Games Store, and Nintendo eShop.
Valkyria Revolution will be released in Spring 2017 for the PS4, Vita, and Xbox One
It looks like Sega had quite a bit of success with last year’s launch of Valkyria Chronicles Remastered, as the publisher has announced the fourth game in the franchise, Valkyria Revolution, will be released in North America and Europe next Spring.
Unlike the original trilogy, Valkyria Revolution takes place in an alternate timeline with a new set of characters and an entirely original storyline:
All it takes is a single spark to start the inferno of war, and in the story of Valkyria Revolution, players will experience that firsthand. Five lifelong friends consumed by personal revenge plunge an entire continent into a terrible war, sacrificing the lives of countless innocents for a cause based on twisted half-truths and outright lies. This “Circle of Five” use their combined influence in their political and military positions to motivate their small, economically blockaded homeland to rise up and become a powerful resistance against its imperialist oppressors. Will the Circle of Five be remembered as heroic liberators, or will their selfish motives expose them as traitorous conspirators who sacrificed untold lives just to carry out a personal vendetta? Players will watch this history unfold in Valkyria Revolution and find out the truth behind the events…
In addition to the new setting, Sega has created a brand new battle system for Valkyria Revolution that mixes real-time combat and tactical strategy. Other features players can expect to find in the game include:
Valkyria Revolution Features
- A Brush with Death – Turning the tide of battle in Valkyria Revolution is Brunhilde, one of the last of the ancient and powerful Valkyrur, magical beings with near limitless power. She’s bound by oath to the enemy forces and players will have to figure out how to defeat her.
- Prepare for LeGION – Valkyria Revolution has a brand new battle system that mixes real-time combat and tactical strategy. Players can take control of the battlefield using brazen combos or cunning tactics and finding a balance between them is the key to excelling in skirmishes.
- The Ingenuity of War – Through adversity comes great engineering, and with a besieged homeland, players will have upgrade their existing weapons through branching customization paths.
- A New Painterly Look – Valkyria Revolution has a refined look thanks to the new Gouache rendering engine, giving the graphics a unique canvas texture.
- Classic Composer – Valkyria Revolution has a vibrant soundtrack brought to life by the incredibly talented composer Yasunori Mitsuda (Chrono Trigger, Stella Glow).
Valkyria Revolution will be available as a physical disc for the PS4 and Xbox One. Sega will also release the game for the Vita exclusively as a digital download through the PlayStation Store.
Posted in News, PS4, Vita, Xbox One
Tagged Valkyria Revolution