Broken Bootlegs- A Link to the Past

Posted on January 26, 2016 by Erika

Broken Bootlegs is a new weekly series covering unlicensed games (also known as bootleg games) for mainly 8-bit and 16-bit consoles. For this week I’ll introduce what bootleg games are, along with a review for A Link to the Past for the Famicom.

Something seems...off

Something seems…off

Sometimes these types of games are an unauthorized port of one game to another system, a ROM hack of existing games that were commercially distributed, or could be original games that use copyright characters without the owners permission. One of the more infamous examples of a bootleg game that’s out there is Somari.Read More

0

Zen Pinball 2: The Force Awakens

Posted on January 18, 2016 by Erika

Recently released, Star Wars Pinball: The Force Awakens pinball pack for Zen Pinball 2 is Zen Studio’s newest themed offering for players. This pack features the two aptly named tables Star Wars Pinball: The Force Awakens and Star Wars Pinball: Might of the First Order, with themes from Jakku and a Star Destroyer respectively. As with the the previous licenses for Zen Pinball 2, these two tables are not only top notch, but stunningly beautiful as to be expected from Zen Studios. First thing I’ve noticed, is it’s either because of the board layouts for the two, or my eyes are fooling me but both tables seem to be a bit larger than their last release in comparison

Zen Pinball 2: Star Wars Pinball- Might of The First OrderThe first table covers parts of the first act from The Force Awakens and upon loading it up, I was greeted with John William’s orchestral score. As with standard pinball fare, completing various objectives will advance the certain bits in the story, the movie plotline in this case, and make things entertaining. For this table, some of the stuff that can be done to rack up a high score are hitting Orbits to collect scrap metal, hitting tentacles after enough times will bring out the creatures to hit for high scores. Loading up the second table brings up a very nice Star Destroyer-themed layout. In comparison, having a dark contrast to this table with a light one for the first table offset each other just enough to compliment each other very well. One of the more entertaining objectives for this table is after sinkhole shots are made, Poe will sneak onto the table to engage with the Stormtroopers in a firefight. After Poe is captured, he’ll need to be recaptured by hitting the bumpers.

Both tables are are very nice, and stack up just as good with the others available for purchase. One thing that I noticed in comparison to my previous table set review is that voice samples are spaced out a bit more, which provides a smoother experience when trying to rack up points and complete objectives. An issue, albeit a very small one, is that it sounds like Kylo Ren’s voice sampling isn’t up to par and volume is louder in relation to all the other voice samples out there, which doesn’t adversely affect the entertainment value of this set. For any fans of Star Wars and pinball, I would definitely recommend getting this pack.

Star Wars Pinball- The Force Awakens is now available for Zen Pinball 2 on consoles, PCs, and mobile devices.

0

Team Fortress 2: Over the Years

Posted on January 13, 2016 by Erika

Team Fortress 2

Late 2009 would be one hell of a year for me with online gaming, starting with me playing a console online for the first time: a friend’s Xbox 360. Battlefield Bad Company was still going hot, and Modern Warfare 2 would be coming out shortly. Before then, all of my online gaming consisted of PC games Doom, Quake, and Unreal Tournament ’99, so I started exploring “modern” online gaming. I logged into steam for the first time in a long time to see what I could get, and I eventually bought Half-Life Deathmatch. Eventually, I saw a game called Team Fortress 2 that I wanted and told some of my friends on IRC that I wanted to eventually buy it. For people wondering about the the need to buy it, it wasn’t until June 23rd, 2011 Team Fortress 2 was free to play. Read More

0

The Joys of Import Gaming: How easy we have it these days

Posted on January 8, 2016 by Erika

As a kid having grown up during the 90s, I got to experience the height of the console wars in full swing: Nintendo vs Sega. Both of those companies duked it out for the dominance of the console market, with several other competitors such as Atari with their Jaguar and NEC’s TurboGrafix-16 lagging severely behind. Unfortunately, with growing up in the US, gamers such as myself missed numerous releases. Some of those were either not localized from Japan, or the translations of various games that did make it over were severely butchered by such things as Nintendo’s no-religious imagery/text policy, or had copious amounts of Engrish. Possibly one of the more famous examples of Engrish was the localization of the Sega MegaDrive game Zero Wing, which spawned one of the earlier memes of 2000/2001.

Read More

0

Steam’s Christmas Gift- A non-working store!

Posted on December 25, 2015 by Erika

After getting messaged by a friend on steam on how to clear out card info, I wondered to myself, “what the heck is going on?” I looked over onto SteamDB’s Twitter to see that  “Valve is having caching issues allowing users to view things such as account information of other users. Don’t use Store for now.” To my dismay, and possibly the ire of thousands of PC gamers, people are unable to make Steam purchases as all the store pages are just currently cashed versions. People on twitter are reporting that they are seeing other people’s cached pages due to this issue and is a possible security risk for users. It’s been suggested to avoid the store completely for now.

Here’s hoping Valve can fix this before too long

Update:

Valve has taken the Steam Store offline  and users are unable to purchase anything.

The website SteamDB has suggested via Twitter that the issue with random accounts and storefronts showing up may be related to problems with Valve’s caching servers.

Here are some of the details Steam DB shared:

image

The following post appeared on the Steam Forums by a moderator acknowledging that Valve is aware of the issue:
image

0

COLECO Chameleon: a rebranding of RETRO VGS into a COLECO comeback

Posted on December 18, 2015 by Erika

Fans new and old of the ColecoVision will probably be surprised to hear that a new cartridge-based system in partnership with Retro Video Game Systems, Inc will be coming out in early 2016. Dubbed the COLECO Chameleon, the system will be capable of playing classic games, and is also noted for being able to play new releases in 8-bit, 16-bit-, and 32-bit styles, which are still quite popular formats with adult gamers today. In a day of age where games are played on discs or flash cards, having a new cartridge-based system will be quite interesting to see that isn’t just a rehash of old systems released like the Sega Genesis or Atari 2600.

While information is still somewhat scant, it’s going to be demoed at the Toy Fair New York 2016, February 13-16. Upon some digging from their Twitter @RETROVGS, RGS had an unfunded Indiegogo campaign for a “RETRO VGS” system which looks quite similar to the now upcoming COLECO Chameleon, not only in design, but also it’s aim for a cartridge-based gaming system. With that said, this current console project looks to be a re-tooling of their previous attempt at doing a game system.

Going off of that, it wouldn’t be too far off to guess that the specifications will be quite similar to the following listed from that Indiegogo page:Read More

0

Zombie Vikings: update and coming to Steam!

Posted on December 5, 2015 by Erika

Previously released on the Playstation 4 in September, indie game Zombie Vikings from Swedish developer Zoink Games is being released on Monday, December 7th for Steam. For those not familiar with the game it’s an entertaining adventure of up to four undead Vikings on a quest though Norse soil to retrieve Odin’s lost eye. With the Steam release coming around the corner, also comes a major update for the game, which will also be available for the PS4 later in the month. Among the updates are-

  • A unicorn pig named Oink for Single Player, which not only will accompany your viking, but also has the ability to carry items on it’s back and eventually strap a cannon onto it!
  • New Enemies
  • A weapon progression system where the player can unlock weapons by completing levels
  • Weapon improvements across the board, including special abilities for every weapon and stats in the store
  • Combat improvements including target hints, better damage stat tracking, mini health bars for enemies, and directly rolling

In addition to that, the Steam release will be including Steam Cloud Saving, and Steam Trading Cards.

The Steam version releases on December 7th at 7:00AM PST and includes the update for $19.99USD with a 20% launch discount for the first week, so if you’ve been wanting to get it, now’s the chance! In addition to that, a bundle containing DLC characters Frostbjörn and Raybjörn along with the game’s soundtrack will be available for $24.99USD.

Zombie Vikings will be available for purchase on Steam and is currently out for the Playstation 4

0

Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 review: Here we go again all over again.

Posted on November 13, 2015 by Erika

Black Ops III

Please note that this review covers the PS4 version, and some features are not available for the PS3/Xbox 360 versions

Treyarch does an amazing job once more with another installment in the Call of Duty franchise, Black Ops 3. The series has come a long way from the World War II era setting of World at War, to Cold War settings of Black Ops 1, and the more recent near future settings of Black Ops 2 and now 3.  Just like Infinity Ward and Sledgehammer Games, Treyarch tries to keep the Call of Duty fresh and engaging for it’s fans, and I feel that it has succeeded with those objectives.

Upon starting up the game and getting the necessary content downloaded to be able to play single player, I brought up the menu and happened upon the Identity section and was immediately taken aback when I explored further into it. I was taken aback due to the fact of the sheer level of customization that can be done with individual weapon setups. A new feature in the franchise is the ability to customize optics, attachments, camos, and paint jobs. In addition to that, the player can save multiple variants of individual weapon setups and use them across Campaign, Multiplayer, and Zombies, provided that the weapons and attachments are unlocked though each mode. One thing to note is that similar to the emblems, paint jobs add an individual flair if one wants to take the time to make use of a whopping 64 layers for the left and right sides, and the top of the gun. All of that can be done within Gunsmith or Paintshop sub-menus. Also making returns are unlockable calling cards and customizable emblems, franchise staples introduced in Modern Warfare 2 and Black Ops 1, respectively. Expanding upon those two features you are now the abilities to unlock calling cards via Campaign, Zombies, and from Supply Drops found in Multiplayer.

Read More

0

Hands on with Zen Pinball 2: Balls of Glory | Review

Posted on October 20, 2015 by Erika

First off, I want to say that I’m a huge pinball fan since I got an Atari 2600 with Virtual Pinball back in 1995. I’d spend hours playing on it trying for a high score, so when I’m able to go to an arcade, I always hit up the pinball sections to see how high of a score I can get. So imagine my surprise when I was given an opportunity to try a themed pinball set for Zen Pinball 2.

After downloading the Fox Digital Entertainment Balls of Glory corroboration pack for Zen Pinball 2(ZP2), it came with four following boards to try out: Archer, Family Guy, American Dad, and Bob’s Burgers. At first glance, I noticed the most recently announced Archer board, and as being a big Archer fan, I immediately started it up to play. After starting it up, Archer’s theme played to my delight.

Archer Pinball

What Archer fan wouldn’t love to be able to play this?

With standard pinball fare, the player is able to rack up points by hitting bumpers, and by trying to complete minigames by hitting certain bumpers and objects a certain number of times, or though certain timed events. As an example for the latter, Archer’s cell phone rings and if you can light up the two small bumpers that are to the right of it, Archer will send it to one of his voicemail soundboards. It can be quite entertaining to listen to the small touches like this that the developers have put into the boards. One of the more unique minigames though is where it’s a first-person persepctive of Archer and you’re trying to shoot terrorists with a very limited ammo supply, all the while not trying to shoot friendly targets.

Read More

0

Oddworld: New ‘n’ Tasty: Coming soon on Vinyl

Posted on October 11, 2015 by Erika

For Old Honest Abe’s 18th birthday, the complete Oddworld: New ‘n’ Tasty video game soundtrack is being released by German record label Black Screen Records on 180 gram green vinyl! Currently available for pre-order, it will be released and shipped in late November. Coming in a full-coloured gatefold sleeve with RuptureFarms art by Raymond Swanland, with the soundtrack being composed, mixed, and mastered by Michael Bross.

 

Doesn't it look amazing?

Doesn’t it look amazing?

 

If that wasn’t enough for die-hard Oddworld fans such as myself, also included is not only an exclusive two-sided A2 poster, or that it includes official DLC downloads for Oddworld: New ‘n’ Tasty and Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee MP3 soundtracks, all that is shadowed by the fact that it includes Steam codes Oddword: New ‘n’ Tasty on PC, Mac, and Linux!

For anyone that wants to give a listen to the newly mixed version of Abe’s Moon on Oddworld’s Soundcloud channel. After giving it a listein, I feel like it really captures the mood from Oddword after playing the previous games long ago.

As far as pricing goes the regular black vinyl is priced €26, with the limited edition green vinyl is €28 and shipping running €12 additional per vinyl to the USA. A bundle for both will be €50 with €17 additional for shipping to the US. Fair warning though, the green vinyl edition is limited to only 500 copies, so those will most likely go quite fast for anyone who wants to order them!

0

Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War franchise Free to Play!

Posted on September 26, 2015 by Erika

As a thank you to the players, Relic is making their Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War Franchise free to play from Septmber 24th 10am PDT though till September 27th 1pm PDT. This includes Dawn of War I and II and their respective expansions. In addition to that, all included content will be on sale for 75% off until September 28th at 10am PDT.

Not to leave out current players, Relic has released a new multiplayer map for Dawn of War I along with the expansions Dark Crusade and Soulstorm expansions: The Temple of Cyrene. In addition to that, four free sets of Wargear to be used in the main campaign  are being given away for Dawn of War II players: The Vanguard, Sniper, Sterngaurd, and Destroyer.

This is a perfect time if you’re a fan of the DoW franchise and wanted to complete your collection or even to check it out this weekend!

 

0

Get the latest articles and news from BrokenJoysticks and a selection of excellent articles from other sources.

Simply fill out the form below and you’ll be on your way to getting our upcoming newsletter.