Crypt of the Necrodancer is *breathe* Hardcore, Turn-based, Rogue-like, Dungeon-crawling, Rhythm-based game. *exhaaaallleeee*
This game has you battling your way through a crypt full of smooth groovin, high flyin, street jivin, monsters ranging from skeletons, zombies, bats, dragons, and more.
Crypt of the Necrodancer is a game that clearly had a great idea for a game and then they tacked on a story. Usually that is not the way to go, but this game offers a lot in such a small package that it is hardly the focal point.Read More
Almost exactly 7 years since Street Fighter IV came out for PS3, Xbox and Windows, Street Fighter V has released. With support for only two platforms at launch, PS4 and Windows, this is a more limited release. SteamOS support is coming “this spring” apparently. Sorry Xbox gamers, I don’t see anything planned yet for you. Unlike the version heck of the last release with Super, Ultra and Arcade Editions, this is going to be a unified online platform with players on any system able to match anyone. Considering the time between releases, and with that feature alone, this is an exciting event for fighting games. Street Fighter is the longest running fighter out there as far as I can figure, and created many of the ubiquitous tropes of the genre’s gameplay, including accidentally inventing combos in Street Fighter 2. In other words, if you’re into fighters at all, this game is big news. I played the game on Steam, where everything is already active and running. This release is well put together, as expected from Capcom.Read More
Capcom Releases Street Fighter V DLC Roadmap To Fans
The long running Street Fighter franchise gets turned on its head with the release of Street Fighter V next week. Sure gameplay additions like V-Triggers and V-Skills are going to force long time fighters to adapt to a new flow in combat but there’s something even more dramatic coming in the following months.
Instead of releasing Street Fighter V: SUPER ULTRA MEGA EDITION 2016 Capcom will roll out new characters on a monthly basis after the game’s release this Tuesday. Players will have the choice of either spending real world cash for each additional fighter or by using ‘fight money’ which they accumulate by completing single player content & playing online with others.
Not only has Capcom now outline it’s roadmap for future character releases for the next several months they’ve also said that players will able to buy the first additional character, Alex, with the fight money accumulated with just the on-disc story content.
Some of you may have heard the news that Alex will be available to all Street Fighter V players in March 2016 as well, and I’m happy to re-confirm that news here. At launch, playing through most of the single player content (in fact, just the Character Stories) will give you enough Fight Money to get Alex for free! We’ll have more information to share on Alex and the other post launch characters soon, so stay tuned.
FINAL FANTASY IX, a fan-favorite in the franchise, has been released for compatible Apple and Android devices starting today. The game is now available on the App Store and Google Play.
First released in 2000, FINAL FANTASY IX tells the story of the bandit Zidane Tribal who plans to kidnap the princess of Alexandria, Garnet Til Alexandros the 17th, with the troupe of thieves known as Tantalus. An unlikely series of events set Zidane, Garnet, the shy yet powerful black mage Vivi Ornitier, the loyal knight Adelbert Steiner, and other memorable characters on an epic journey as they learn about themselves, the secrets of the Crystal, and a malevolent force that threatens to destroy their world.
New features to the game include High-definition movies and character models, a new cloud save feature allows players to back up save data to play across other compatible devices, and an auto-save function. There are also seven all-new optional booster features, including high speed mode and no encounter mode, which will allow players to automatically master equipped weapons and gear, as well as maximize character levels, magic stone counts and gil.
Darkest Dungeon is the birth child of indie game developers Chris Bourassa and Tyler Sigman with the help of their studio, Red Hook Studios. This is their first game and they are coming out of the gate strong! Darkest Dungeon is a Kickstarter funded, Roguelike Gothic RPG, and was successfully funded back in February 2014 and earned over $300,000 when only asked for $75,000. It is quite impressive to see what a group can come up with when they do not have large pockets to work with. A year later on February 3rd, 2015, Darkest Dungeon Early Access was launched on Steam, garnishing the game with overall very positive reviews and a Metacritic score of 86/100 This game has gone on to sell over 700k copies since its release on January 19th, 2016.
So what makes this game good? Did they stumble upon the underwater city of R’lyeh and prey to The Great Old One for inspiration and guidance? Maybe…let’s find out!
Flying Wild Hog, probably best known for their reboot of the Shadow Warrior franchise, is preparing to rebalance and upgrade their 2012 first person shooter Hard Reset for current generation consoles and a second go at Windows PC due out later this year.
Specific enhancements include graphical upgrades, new enemies, weapons and a glowing cyber katana that looks like it was ripped out of the pages of an indie comic book. Who wouldn’t want to hack apart enemies with a glowing instrument of death?
No price has been announced for Hard Reset Redux as of yet. You can check out the trailer in the embedded player below. Hard Reset was actually one of the first games we reviewed on our site many years ago.
Activision announced today that they have teamed with Nickelodeon and PlatinumGames to create Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan, a third-person action game featuring New York City’s crime-fighting Heroes in a Half-Shell. Players will protect The Big Apple from aliens, mutants and the Foot Clan in a single-player campaign or partner with up to three friends in four-player online co-op. Bebop, Rocksteady, Shredder and other iconic bosses will also be yhe game and from what we hear they won’t be easy.
The game promises fast-paced, team-based brawling will challenge gamers for all skill levels. Each Turtle will have a distinctive combat play style and can be customized with a unique set of Ninjutsu moves, combat items and special bonuses.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan also features gorgeous, cel-shaded art design, with an original story from prolific author of IDW Publishing’s acclaimed ongoing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series, Tom Waltz.
The latest Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak trailers contains some rather chilling words from a representative of the antagonistic Gaalsien fleet… “Diplomacy has failed!”
It seems as if the forces that chief science officer Rachel S’jet will face in the game’s campaign as she attempts to explore the mystery of an anomaly in the deserts of Kharak are more than ready for a fight.
Kath Gaalsien are a major religious sect and antagonists of this latest game, who have existed on the planet of Kharak ever since the Kushan settled on Kharak after being exiled from their former planet in the original Homeworld (1999). They believe that eventually their exile will expire and that they will be sent into heaven by Sajuuk, their believe that this sentence was imposed upon them for their ancestor’s arrogance.
Check out the brand new trailer in the embedded player below. Gearbox Software is publishing this Homeworld prequel on January 20th on Windows PC via Steam. Development was handled by former members of Relic Entertainment at the Vancouver based studio Blackbird Interactive.
Square Enix’s sequel to 2013’s Tomb Raider reboot, Rise of the Tomb Raider will be making its way to Windows PC on January 28th 2016 the publisher announced alongside the game’s minimum specs.
The minimum specs for Rise don’t seem so bad – the game only requires 25GB of install space, which is similar to the PS4 / Xbox One console versions. In terms of required graphics hardware you’ll need to be running an NVIDIA Geforce 650 or an AMD HD 7770 or better with at least 2GB of video ram. In realistic terms this means as long as you are running mid-tier hardware from 2012 Rise of the Tomb Raider will run albeit with some features disabled.
In terms of exclusive Windows PC features Rise of the Tomb Raider will feature support for 4K resolution, if your rig is up to snuff. It will also be one of the first games to use NVIDIA’s VXAO technology – which provides a voxel based performance boost for lower end GPUs and the game will be fully integrated into the Windows 10 Xbox game software.
Multiple editions of Rise of the Tomb Raider are available for Windows PC. The standard edition will set you back approximately $59.99 USD, the Digital Deluxe Edition will cost aprox $89.99 USD and it includes the Season’s Pass along with all existing DLC. If you are feeling like spending the big bucks there is a physical collector’s edition that includes all of the above, a free copy of 2013’s Tomb Raider, a replica necklace and journal from the game and a 12 inch Lara Croft statue.
If you are feeling adventurous you can pre-orderRise of the Tomb Raiderhere.
Tomb Raider Minimum Specs
Minimum OS: Windows 7 64bit Processor: Intel Core i3-2100 or AMD equivalent GPU: NVIDIA GTX 650 2GB or AMD HD7770 2GB RAM: 6GB HD Space: 25GB DirectX: DirectX 11
Here is everything included with the physical collector’s edition for Rise of the Tomb Raider.
As we’re closing in on the end of one year and getting ready to start the next, a lot of people are reflecting on the year that’s past and others are looking at the year to come. I’m one of those looking to the future and I’ll tell you why: 2016 and the coming years after are going to be an extremely exciting time for games. While gaming has always been a longtime passion of mine, I do have to admit that it has felt like, in the last couple generations, innovation and creativity had been been steadily decreasing while market saturation has been steadily increasing. It wasn’t looking good as the market was looking stale and things weren’t change. Sure, there were gimmicks that came and went but nothing really stuck. There were few real surprises and the things that jumped aboard the hype train were mostly games we’d been anticipating and asking for, for years. There was a lot of vaporware, a lot of E3s that came and went that left us wanting more and spending more time laughing at the flaws than celebrating the wonders. In my honest opinion, the fifth generation was the last generation that truly brought us wonders we never thought we’d see possible and all the last couple generations did was expand on that. We never saw anything truly groundbreaking and that’s part of why 2016 is going to be an exciting year: we are going to see a lot of broken ground and whether or not it will be truly successful, we finally see companies going out and taking risks and those are the kinds of moves that change gaming for the better. Follow the jump for our preview of the year to come and what to watch for!
We’re smack dab in the middle of the vaunted Steam Holiday Sale – it’s just that time of year when snow is in the air, Christmas Carrols ring through the halls and PC gamers rejoice at the low prices Valve has been able to negotiate with publishers. Saving a few bucks is fantastic but be on the lookout for the shady side of some publishers “franchise packs” lest you be the next victim of bundling.
Call them “franchise bundles”, “series bundles”, “2015 Game of the Year Bundles” or whatever you please but in the end these bundles allow fans of a particular series to buy multiple titles in a franchise at a steep discount. It’s a great opportunity if you want to binge through all of the Assassin’s Creed games, catch up on the latest season of Telltale’s The Walking Dead or pick up some well regarded indie titles at a reduced price.Read More
With Christmas Day now past us I’m sure some of our readers are collecting their holiday cash and gift cards and getting ready to head down to the favorite retailer to purchase some new games. Perhaps you’re staying in-doors and doing a little shopping online instead? Regardless – Broken Joysticks has a rundown of all of the major deals from 3 major Canadian brick & mortar retailers and thankfully, yes, all of the ones listed in this article are also available online.
To be honest there aren’t a lot rush out and bust down the door deals this year. If you are in the market for an Xbox One Console then the 1TB Boxing Week Bundle is definitely worth it. You not only get two brand new games from this year – Rise of the Tomb Raider & Ori and the Blind Forrest but also Rare Replay which includes 30 classics. If you haven’t played Call of Duty: Black Ops III, Batman: Arkham Knight, The Witcher III or Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain all of these major 2015 releases are heavily discounted at multiple retailers.
Here’s a partial list comprising some of the deals I found interesting. There are lots more at the respective links!
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:
The following post appeared on the Steam Forums by a moderator acknowledging that Valve is aware of the issue:
Steam is notorious for its twice (and sometimes three time) annual sales. The sale always features deep discounts on popular titles as well as indie games you may never have known existed.
This years first day of Holiday sale Features Skyrim for 19.99 and The Witcher Franchise for both of which are new and a great value. It also features Besiege which is crazy fun, for $5.59 (30%off) and Killing Floor 2 indie titles that for the price point they are at can not be passed up. This years steam sale as always will run for 7 days.
