King of the Kill has been a site favorite for quite a while, Rae and I will often boot it up for an hour of two of relatively low-key fun. One of the most fun things we do is to find an ATV drive it around and look for some trouble. It seems that we are not the only people who enjoy that particular style of game play, as Daybreak has just announced that they will release a new mode essentially based around it. Instead of parachuting in, you’re going to start on an ATV, with a bomb strapped to you.
The mode is called ignition, and its central premise is that Ignition starts each challenger off with their very own ATV and a pack of explosives strapped to their body. If that sounds a bit well, crazy, its cause it is. Just like in other modes, players have a limited time to find weapons and other survival items, then a horn goes off a safe zone is marked, and its a free for all. In the case of Ignition mode, if you don’t make it to the safe house, you blow up. Ignition adds the twist of having more than one safezone for players to go to. Anyone who fails to reach sanctuary before the countdown expires will trigger their devices, eliminating them from the match. Players that leave the safe zone before the detonation timer resets for the next wave will meet a similar fate.
The mode sounds pretty fun to me! I haven’t been playing much King of Kill recently, but this may just be enough to get me to pop back in and have a look at this fun twist on survival games.
Falling Stars: War of Empire is a space sim developed by Riveted Games and published by Lock’n Load Publishing. It is a turn based space simulation in line with Civilization. Just like in Civilization you start with your single home planet and some ships and you send forces out to explore. When you find a neutral planet you have the choice to either barter with it and gain some immediate benefits like getting some free troops or transports, or you can conquer it. Conquering a planet allows you to build an Orbital Construction facility which allows you to build more ships and troops at that planet. So it’s a game of decisions, choosing the short or long term options, diplomacy, or war. While this sounds like it should be the opening notes of more a nice in depth symphony of a game, it is sadly not. That is the only planetary management you will get, no trading between empires, and no real diplomacy at all. Folks expecting an epic 4x game in space are going to be disappointed.
The game feels very much more like Risk than civilization, though you may lose fewer friendships in Falling Stars than Risk. Though the game is fast paced I never felt like it was action packed. There is no fog of war, so the four empires can always see one another and you as the player must watch everything that happens each turn, even the battles between the AI. In this way its similar to other turn based games, but with no options to skip or even fast forward these AI turns it can really start to feel like a slog. Like the rest of the game the battles are very bare bones. You can setup your ships in whatever formation you would like in the squares you are given, and then you go and both sides continue shooting until everyone is dead. This is supposed to let you layer in tactics to your combat and you are supposed to be able to retreat, but it never seemed to do anything when I tried it and I still lost all of my ships. This lack of choice really hampers the ground and space battles that really should be a true interactive experience. It make it feel as though the battles are carried by whom ever has more brute strength. There is no give and take it pretty much just boils down to who brought the most ships or troops to the fight will be the victor. Overall combat feels hollow and unfulfilling which is a disappointment because in a 4x game combat doesnt have to be first and foremost but it has to be fun and engaging.
Combat plays out in a non involved way just units attacking each other in order.
My next gripe with Falling stars is that all the factions essentially play the same. Though you start with some different technologies as the different factions, by the end everyone has fighters, troops, carriers, cruisers, and dreadnoughts. Without the ability to negotiate or trade between the powers it puts everyone into the same strategy boat. Go conquer a world and build as many things as possible to win battles and gain victory points. It makes the game feel like a race instead of a grand 4x strategy game. just like most other games you win by getting victory points. Victory points are earned several ways, first for winning battles, next for researching tier three technologies, and finally for winning the vote in the one policy that come up at the start of each turn.
You have two resources in the game. First you have resources which are used to both building and researching technology, so a careful balance must be maintained. Second you have fuel, this is used to move your individual ships around the map. Pleas take note that I said ships, not fleets, each ship uses fuel, so you have to really plan out your movements as they can only move so far. So a lot of luck and well thought out strategy will ensure your ships are in the right place at the right time, hopefully. You of course gain more of these through resources by either bartering with planets or taking them over. Sadly, you will never have enough of either to do everything, so planning and placement are very important to winning the game. The real downside to this simple system is that once one empire has a good number of planets under their control they have a huge advantage in that they can build huge numbers of ships and move them to far flung parts of the map. This means that if you have a few small hitches early on, and overall end up with a bad start your going to spend the whole game behind. Which leads me to talk about the AI in general, there are no settings for the difficulty of the game that I could find. The computer will always make a perfect move pretty much every time, often one or two empires quickly become dominate and they never look back. If you are not one of them you are pretty much toast very early in the game. This brings us to the user interface. To be honest it is not well constructed, it was difficult to use and not natural feeling. The technology button is a building, the menu buttons are vertical which bothered me, and seemed an odd aesthetic choice that would work better on mobile than desktop.
button layouts leave much to be desired
While this game certainly has the feeling of missing pieces there are some good things to be said about it too. One of the coolest things the developer has done is lower the price from forty dollars to twenty. This amount is a much more comfortable price for me for the included game experience. Next is games duration, while a small game of Civilization can take several hours if you are quick. A small game of Falling stars can be over in as little as ten of fifteen minutes. This means you can get your fix of 4x in much, much less time than a game of Civ would take. My first game after I completed the tutorial was over before I had a second turn. The AI had gotten ten victory points on its first turn, which was kind of disappointing. This seemed like a major flaw with the game, but that being said this game is lacking a few things but it has quick gameplay for those times you only have a small amount of time to play a game or you are playing while you may be interrupted with life duties.
I see a lot of potential with this game and the developers are listening to the fans and will continue to craft a better experience for us the gamers. So if you are looking for a game with fast games that will not take you all day to finish and one with fewer bells and whistles that Falling Stars: War of Empires is the game for you.
Eli Hooten of Game Wisp was kind enough to sit down with yours truly this past week and spend about 30 minutes talking about Game Wisp, a new service for twitch streamers and YouTube content creators. Eli can explain his product better than I ever can but I will give you the quick pitch. Twitch doesn’t allow the vast majority of its streamers to have subscribe buttons, this is a feature that is restricted to partners only. Game Wisp aims to level the playing field, and bring the subscribe button to the masses.
It also does so much more, with Game Wisp you can give back to your fans, giving them something in exchange for their support of your channel or stream. If you want reward them by allowing them to play with you, you can do that, if you want to give them a shirt you can do that! All of it is quick and easy with Game Wisp. Game Wisp also gives creators the ability to give a percentage of their donations to charity, and perhaps most important of all, Game Wisp is on the side of the streamer, or content creator when it comes to charge backs. It really is a fantastic product, and along with its amazing donation features it also has a fairly robust (and getting more robust) community building system which allows creators to post and talk to their fans. Integration with existing stream tools like Stream alerts and popular bots means that you wont even have to change how you stream to start using Game Wisp. So watch Eli talk about how great his product is, and then go give it a try.
I have started using Game Wisp for our sponsored streamer, as well as our own Twitch account, and I can personally say that set up was easy, and I feel like its going to be a great help to me to have the tool available for use.
The sacred Steam summer sale will return June 23 and run until July 4, at least that’s what reddit is tell us. In a leak that appears to originate from Russia and even says Confidential right on the image. Hit the read more tag to see the image, but the gist of it is simple, the whole thing is just a time, its half in Russian and half in English (something many people have been quick to point out makes this look fake) and it says that the sale will be from 23rd June till 4th July.
Take all of this with a huge grain of salt, but its the same manner that the sales dates leaked in last year. its all pretty shady, but hey we know there is going to be a sale, and we know its going to be in summer, so this is probably a good solid bit of information. Hit the jump to see the leaked image.
Blizzard is back with another animated short to flesh out their world of Overwatch. This one features Genji and Hanzo with a bit of their backstory and just enough combat to keep it interesting. Take a look also at the attention paid to detail on the map, each bit of damage shows up on the in game Hanamura map and its that attention to detail and the quality of animation that really make this short the best we have yet seen.
In an announcement on their main blog page Microsoft has announced that Project Spark will shut down. What is project spark you ask? Well your asking and that is probably one of the big reasons Microsoft has decided to shut it down. Project Spark was the little know about user friendly 3D game development tool released by Microsoft for the Xbox platform back in 2014. Its basic premise was that you could use a set of tools to design games on your Xbox 360 and Xbox one with out having to do hardly any back end coding. It launced in 2014 to much fanfare, but with a heavy price, most of the raw materials for building came in separate packs that had to be purchased for small or large amounts of cash.
The “game” didn’t see too much use in its early phases as most users were confused what it even was much less why its pricing model existed as it did. I myself remember thinking it was basically a Minecraft clone, with a few more scripting features. It turned out to be quite a bit more, but not quite enough to make it worth the while of Microsoft. Though there has been no active “development” on the project since last fall, people were still making levels and other things. Alas no more, the service will now be closed by Mircrosoft. There is some good news tough no one will lose their job due to this move. As of now, you won’t be able to find Project Spark on either the Windows Store or the Xbox Marketplace, while current users only have until December 8 2016 to make final preparations before Microsoft flips the big ‘off’ switch.
Our Awesome editor Renee Gittens is in the last hours of her Kickstarter ! To support her, friends of the site and Star Mazer devs, are eating HOT PEPPERS on their stream which is currently hosting over 90 people who are all donating to get them to eat hot peppers.
In case you haven’t been following Renee has just a few hours to make her dreams come true, she left a safe job in tech to follow her dream and develop a game that everyone would love. So please go watch the stream, get out there, and support her and watch the wacky devs from Star Mazer eat hot peppers for Renee and Potions!
Actually, it’s all about Mai. Specifically the cute, shy daydreamer Mai and her secret love for her best friend Kunimitsu. In the world of Mai her life revolves around Kunimitsu, school and unfortunately for Mai football. Yes this manga has a sports theme to bad poor Mai doesn’t like football. But the love of her life Kunimitsu does and that’s her problem shes trying to solve.
When Mai was little Kunimitsu asked Mai to help him become a better football player. Thinking it would help her get closer she agreed. Years later Kunimitsu is now considered a genius at football and Mai’s love for him has only grown more intense. The story grows more interesting as it seems Kunimitsu is totally oblivious to Mai’s feelings. Making things even more unusual is all the time she spent helping him train Mai has grown to a very skilled football player and possibly of equal ability as Kunimitsu himself.
You get drawn into rooting for Mai hoping she will tell him the truth of how she feels but the world around her has other plans. Even if Kunimitsu is oblivious to Mai’s feelings his love for football has him begin to push Mai to embrace the same love he has. As this revelation happens Mai feels her skills are not good enough and even points out she hates the sport and only did things to help him. Kunimitsu appears ignorant to her feelings about the sport and begins to plan on ways for her to share his same ideals about the game.
While he works on making Mai share his love for football Mai is working on how to tell him how she feels. If these two weren’t having enough fun then comes Reika a girl who also has a crush on Kunimitsu and has resentment to Mai for being so close to him. Working on how to separate them she pulls Mai into a football challenge to see who the better of the two is. This is when you get to see the power of magic as Kunimitsu helps bring out Mai’s true abilities with a conjure – a kiss.
Finding her true power Mai confronts Reika on the field and it is here you see her true power shine in the sport. Too bad the magic also causes her imagination to go out of control and she has daydreams of love love with Kunimitsu. Even caught in her imagination Mai somehow beats Reika and is invited to join the girls team at the school. As the win is announced you are introduced to the all-girl football team and they are a wild and varied group of girls.
And the adventure continues…
For the love of the sport and of course for Kunimitsu’s affection!
Renee Gittins is no stranger to struggle, she’s been fighting her whole life as a girl gamer, a female engineer, and now a female indie developer. Renee can now add to her list of accomplishments female TV star. Fusion brings her struggles to life as she wrestles with a male dominated world of game developers to get her game Potions: A Curious Tale into PAX Prime, to show it to the world. Follow Renee on her journey, and watch from her perspective as she tells her story this week on My Selfie Life (Fullscreen account required to view, but a free trial is available, episode will also air on Fusion TV later this summer).
My Selfie Life is a new production from the folks at Fusion which follows several people in their daily lives. Renee’s episode follows her journey in to the world of developing games as she rushes to get a playable build of her game Potions: A Curious Tale to PAX. Renee took some time out of from her Kickstarter to answer a couple of questions for me about how it feels to be coming to the world of live TV and the screens of the Fullscreen network.
Renee’s first time exhibiting Potions: A Curious Tale, at Power of Play 2015.
One of the most difficult things faced by Renee on any given day is how much the world of game development is seen as a man’s world. Renee has always faced discrimination, as a major player of online MMO’s she has often written about how attitudes change when other gamers find out she is female. Now a bit of that struggle will be shown to the world thanks to Fullscreen. Follow Renee as she talks about how her upbringing has helped her to overcome obstacles, how being self taught affects her work, and her day to day rush to get her game to PAX!
Renee demos her game, Potions: A Curious Tale, to a publisher at PAX Prime in her My Selfie Life episode.
Q: Renee What is it like to have your whole life put out there on TV? Something like a million people will see this video which contains details of your personal life do you fear it will effect your future or your safety?
It was pretty intimidating, actually. I was scared of giving people ammo for harassing me or saying I am somehow unqualified due to what they would see.
Q: Do you think that this video which specifically talks about harassment will provoke even more reaction from your internet trolls? I mean you have even had death threats before.
Yes, I think it’s a deep, personal look into my life that’s going to be getting a lot of attention. The more attention it receives, the more trolling I will have to deal with. I’m actually a bit scared about it, because I expose a lot of personal self-doubts in it. While I’ve talked about them in the past, I feel like it’s different seeing me break down in front of a camera. I never want to have to experience the harassment that some women in the industry have, with people sending them pictures of their front doors and calling the workplaces of their friends and family members to start trouble. I always want to feel safe in my own home.
A girl plays Potions: A Curious Tale at PAX Prime in My Selfie Life.
Q: So your big push the Kickstarter is almost done, what do you think it will feel like when its finished? will you be sad if it fails, or will you just be relieved that it is over?
It’s hard to say. I really, really want to be successful, but I know that 45% of funding in 40 hours is going to be a really hard task. Still, with over 700 backers, it helps to know that there is interest and support out there. I tend to expect a lot out of myself and would probably take unsuccessful funding pretty harshly at first, but I know that I’ve come such a far way that there’s nothing to be ashamed of.
Q: In the video you come to tears at one point over how much of this game is your heart and soul, and how afraid you are of the world judging you about Potions, and how no one might show up at PAX, with PAX long behind you and another watershed moment approaching, how are you feeling now? Are you to the its all over but the crying phase? Or have these last 40 hours made you ever more resolute to reach your goal?
I’ve cried a number of times over the last month, I’ve really even barely slept for most of it. I’m putting myself and my game out there, not only for people to judge, but for them to support. Without their support, I lose my dream, and that’s really, really scary. Potions: A Curious Tale is so much a part of me, even more the longer I work on it. It is part of my soul and I’ve put thousands of hours into its development, it’s really a part of me at this point. Yet, even though I’m scared, I know how to push forward, even if it’ll be through tear-blurred eyes.
Indie games are place that anyone should be allowed to play in and Renee is out to prove that’s true. I personally hope you will follow her on that journey, and please consider helping out in the final 40 hours of her Kickstarter. Renee has put her soul on view for all of you out there to see, because she wants you to see that you too can do it, go out there and follow your dreams.
It is no big secret that EA’s Battlefront edition set in the Star Wars universe is pretty. barren. right. now. Most of the peopel who are still playing the game are experiencing long load match load times, low population counts, and difficulty even finding a game. Perhaps in response to this or perhaps because its spring and everyone loves a sale EA have decided to take the age old startegy of selling it for a low price to attract more people. Currently Star Wars Battle Front a game which sold for 60USD on retail is on sale for 24USD. Its a rare chance for people who may not have gotten the game (which is less than 6 months old) to get in to it before its gone forever.
Everyone who plays shooters knows that as the game ages the community shrinks, but usually you can get at least a year out of most games. Even the most recent COD has a player base large enough to support half a dozen modes or game play at once with it only taking a few minutes to get to the game. Perhaps this 60% off sale will reinvigorate the game.
Loot Crate brings some of the best geeky nerdy gamer gear to the table already with their subscription boxes, and now anime fans are going to be able to get in on the action. Crunchyroll is of course the best source for streaming anime on the internet, and one of our favorite partners (try a 15 day free trial on us!) This is practically a match made in heaven as it will grant much greater access to the folks from loot crate to Crunchyrolls extensive network of Japanese contacts for licensing.
The first crate to feature this match made in heaven will be themed as “UNITY”. Loot Crate says that “the new partnership will bring increased access to licensors, discounts for Crunchyroll premium members, and Crunchyroll branded items to the new box. I recently did an unboxing of my first ever Loot Crate Anime and I could have been happier with the variety of quality of the included items. Now lets take a look at what Loot Crate says will come with this new subscription and what benefits you will get if you already subscribe.
A match made in heaven, I think so just look how pretty the box is!
All Crunchyroll Premium subscribers will now receive an additional $5 monthly discount on their Loot Anime subscription. This discount is available to both new and existing Loot Anime subscribers. For 3-, 6- and 12-month Loot Anime x Crunchyroll subscriptions, the discount will be an additional $10, $20 and $40 respectively.
Loot Anime will have early access to Crunchyroll’s content schedule, anime licensing expertise and relationships in Japan to ensure the merchandise inside the crate features the hottest anime on Crunchyroll.
The Loot Anime crate will now include Crunchyroll branding and colors. In addition, this month’s theme of Unity contains exclusive artwork featuring Crunchyroll’s Hime Chan and Loot Anime’s main character as well (whose name has yet to be revealed!)
Those are some pretty awesome benefits, I love Crunchyrolls cute orange themed mascot (dubbed by Crunchyroll as Hime Chan) and would love to see more of her on soft goods like hats and socks. I am eager to receive my first month’s box and see what’s inside. So far we know the crate will feature Crunchyroll’s Hime Chan and Loot Anime’s monthly theme mascot (whom has no name yet). The Unity crate will celebrate characters coming together to achieve greatness and will feature four exclusive from the following franchises: “The Boy and the Beast,” “Dragonball Z,” “Fullmetal Alchemist” and “Yo-Kai Watch.” Additionally the box will be rebranded as Loot Crate anime x Crunchyroll and items (and im guessing the box) will feature both Hime Chan, and the unnamed box mascot.
Existing Loot Anime members will not need to change anything and will still get their crates just like normal. The first Loot Anime x Crunchyroll crate is on sale today and offers exciting and new member benefits to Loot Anime and Crunchyroll premium subscribers: 5$ off of their loot crate! For 3, 6 and 12 month Loot Anime x Crunchyroll subscriptions, the discount will be an additional $10, $20 and $40 respectively. It’s a pretty great vale with each crate being valued at about $60USD, and if you are a fan of anime who maybe can’t make it to conventions to get merch, or just wants to collect cool things like funco pops, and T-shirts that no one else can get, this new marriage of Loot Crate and Crunchyroll is for you.
Yesterday was May the 4th, which is as close to a real Star Wars holiday as fans will ever get, so EA chose it to announce they will be making another Star Wars IP. Their exact quote was “all-new third-person action adventure game set in the Star Wars universe.” what does that mean? Your guess is as good as mine, but id guess its going to be another shooting game, possibly something in the vein of republic commando but set around the time of this years Star Wars installment (Rouge One) and following a story with single player and action and adventure styling.
Respawn is already hard at work on Titan Fall 2 which is set for a release date later this year. So once they wrap that we can expect to see news for this new IP to start ramping up. Lets just hope this game is not a disaster on the level of Star Wars Battlefront which currently sits basically empty with player counts so low its difficult to even find games. There are so many Star Wars related games on the way that I think I have lost track of them but just in EA’s house alone you have EA-owned studios Capital Games, Visceral Games, DICE, BioWare, and Motive also currently working on Star Wars projects. That is a lot of games, I expected a large number of games to show up after the sucess of The Force Awakens kick started Disneys want for more money, but my most fervent hope is that this doesn’t turn in to a shovel ware situation.
Soderlund also said in his announcement post “Over the past few years, I’ve had the opportunity to spend a lot of time with Vince Zampella and his group, their obsession with making games that feel amazing has helped make Titanfall one of the most successful new game launches of this generation.” We do know that Stig Asmussen former director for the God of War series will be leading this project and having played most of the amazingly fun God of War games I feel confident that he has the experience to bring third person combat to the Star Wars universe.
Mr. Asmussen did publish a lengthy blog post on the Respawn blog about the game, but it doesnt really say anything you need to read. There is however at least one very encouraging line in the blog post “I have been playing Star Wars games my whole life, now I get to make a Star Wars game,” lets hope that love translates over to the game, and we dont get a bit of shovel ware pushed out EA’s door to just try and ride on the back of the Star Wars hype.
Speed Runners is an endless runner with a twist. You have probably played endless runners before, perhaps on your phone? The objective is to run (forever) collect some things, dodge some obstacles, and eventually die. Speed Runners is a new take on this genre from TinyBuild games, it adds because it adds competitive multiplayer. You will still be running, in fact it’s the main point of the game, but you will also be competing against three other runners all on the same screen. You will traverse a variety of obstacles, and use a items to hinder your fellow runners. All in all it’s a fresh new take on the running genre presented in an easy to digest 2D package.
One of the many things I often find myself doing is picking up games on steam that cost less than $20USD just to give them a try. Speed Runners is one such game. Usually I buy 3 or 4 copies to play with a few friends, and with Speed Runners this is basically essential. The basic premise of speed runner is to run, and run fast. 4 Players run through a series of levels with a single simple objective, survive. The breakneck pace of the that survival is what keeps the game interesting.
Overwatch may not have a dedicated story mode, but Blizzard is doing a good job telling its story through little vignettes and other lore material. Now with the open beta just one day away the masses have been given one more cinematic teaser, this time with a distinct recruitment feeling
It features the same character that was present in the last short Winston, who further explains the back story of the omnic crisis and the world of Overwatch, then implores you to return and “do something” to make a difference. The short then closes with “are you with me” and some pretty awesome cinematic footage of Overwatch itself. If you haven’t already decided to play the game, I encourage you to at lest get in to the beta for a short time, and give it a try.
I can honetly say that through both of the stress test weekends (I was not in the general beta) I had so much fun that my opinion of the game changed and I purchased it. So I emplore you to at least give the game a try and see if it feels like something you might enjoy. Join me in the beta, and lets go frag some newbs.
So there you go. I spy Titans, and still those ever used blood angles. Hopefully time will tell us more, but so far I am happy with what SEGA has done with the Dawn of War license.
