Tag Archive

Steam is having a massive sale on Anime games this weekend

Posted on April 29, 2016 by Fionna Schweit

So anyone who is recently reading the site knows I am a huge anime fan, I recently unboxed an anime lootcrate, I shared with you my current watch list for this season, and now I may have died and gone to heaven, because Steam is  having a sale on anime games. Steep discounts are being offered on everything from the well known Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm series all the way to the series of Hyperdimension Neptunia games and nearly everything in between.

If you are a fan of anime at all, this sale is going to empty your wallet. Even if you are just a fan of anime style fighting games you may be in trouble as all of the guilty gear and Blaze Blue games are also on sale! It seems like steam has really pulled out all of the stop on their anime collection. The discounts are a bit all over though, 10% on Helen’s Mysterious Castle doesnt really feel like its as good of a deal as 75% off of Chantelise. I could nitpick a whole bunch including how some of these games aren’t really anime but I am just glad to see steam featuring anything developed out side of the west.

Here is the full list if you really want it highlights include  Hatoful Boyfriend for $2.49, Transformers: Devastation for $24.99 and the Mega Man Legacy Collection for $10. But if you are anything like me, that is a giant anime nerd, you probably already own at least a few of these, and the rest may be sitting on your wish list. Interestingly, also included in the sale are several Naruto movies, and as far as i can tell only Naruto movies. I didn’t even know that steam sold movies, I guess I know now.

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Steam will now accept Bitcoins

Posted on April 29, 2016 by Fionna Schweit

Put this one in the category of “things that are about a year too late” Steam will start to accept Bitcoins in the form of BitPay for steam products. The market seems mainly aimed at international folks, but will no doubt also attract some of the rabid fans of the crypto-currency. Weather its for international or just crypto loving people, its a good move for Valve, who join an ever growing list of vendors online who accept the most popular crypto-currency Bitcoins. No doubt this will help grow Steams already impressive 125 million users from around the globe.

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BitPay wrote in a post on their website “Valve reached out to us because they were looking for a fast, international payment method for Steam users in emerging gaming markets in countries like India, China and Brazil,” Rory Desmond, BitPay’s director of business development in North America and APAC said, “While more users are coming online in in these countries, traditional payment options like credit cards often aren’t available.”

So hey im not sure someone in India or Brazil is going to know how to deal with the complexities of Crypto-currency but if they can get power, internet, and a computer, they can now buy things on steam via the most popular Bitcoin payment system. Personally ill stick to Paypal for a while.

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Knight Squad PAX East Guided Demo & Video

Posted on April 28, 2016 by Rae Michelle Richards

ChinsawAwesome’s 8 player indie brawler Knight Squad had their own booth at PAX East and we were able to get a guided tour of the mayhem filled multiplayer title from one of the developers. Players take to the arena was one of several colored Knights with the objective of capturing a chalice placed within the arena.  Just don’t think it will be easy to capture because every player has access to different power-ups and ability pick-ups placed throughout the map!

Last man standing style death match isn’t the only activity isn’t Knight Squad’s only mode – players can also test the strength of their friendships with Medieval Soccer, Capture the Flag, Capture the Grail and more. Knight Squad also supports up to 8 players for chaotic evil online times!

Knight Squad is currently available on Steam and the Xbox Live Marketplace.

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Croixleur Sigma Video And Impressions

Posted on April 22, 2016 by Rae Michelle Richards

During PAX East Fionna and I had a chance to check out Croixleur Sigma on the show floor at the indie megabooth. This stylized anime infused action game includes a number of different modes and during the show I got the chance to play a few solid minutes while talking with some of the developer’s PR reps.

From what I played the survival mode has your character facing off against waves of enemies, stringing along combos builds your character’s score and is the key to making progress in the survival mode. Each face button on the PlayStation four controller corresponds with a different weapon that I was able to assign prior to the beginning of survival mode.

The steam version was released in 2014 and features 2 playable characters, 5 game modes and twenty different weapons. More information on the Windows PC version is available here.

Croixleur Sigma is available for PlayStation on the PlayStation Network. We’ll hopefully have more on this game in the coming weeks.

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ITS: Into The Stars

Posted on April 18, 2016 by Kyle Scarboro

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Word around the information super highway is that this little game, aptly named Into the Stars, is a hybrid of Star Trek Commander and FTL: Faster Than Light, but is it really? The people have spoken and the people are generally right. Into the Stars is filling the void of the lack of spaceship commander based games that are out there. With inspiration gathered from these games and mixing it with a collection of modern ideas and stunning graphics, Into the Stars is paving the way and breaking ground on a genre that has not been explored to its full potential yet.

Into the Stars is the first title to come out of the California based studio Fugitive Games and published by Iceberg Interactive based out of The Netherlands. With just a team of four at Fugitive Games, they managed to squeeze out some of the finest graphics in a space based game that I’ve seen from the Unreal Engine 4. Though, the level of artistry and talent comes at no surprise when mentioning the team behind this game. Being former EA DICE and Spark Unlimited developers means that this game should be held at a higher pillar than most. Some of their past titles they’ve worked on are Lost Planet, Battlefield, and Medal of Honor. If working on AAA titles wasn’t enough, they managed to get Jack Wall to work on their soundtrack. For those who do not know Jack Wall’s works, he is the man behind Myst IV, Jade Empire, Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow, Lost Planet 3, but most notably from the Mass Effect series.

Like most small developing teams these days, Into the Stars was conceived by crowd funding through Kickstarter and surpassed their goal on January 16th, 2015 and by their last day on February 4th, they managed to raise over $110,000. By early July, they were Greenlit through Steam and up for Early Access. Now into 2016, their game is finally released, but does it hold up to the ideals they instilled in their 4,000+ backers and many others who helped through early access?

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Activision & Sony Pictures Announce New ‘Ghostbusters’ Video Games

Posted on April 17, 2016 by Jason Nason

Activision and Sony Pictures has announced a pair of new Ghostbusters video games set in and inspired by the comedic action world of the upcoming Ghostbusters film, which hits theaters on July 15th.

Taking place after the events of the new movie, both Ghostbusters games introduce new casts of rookies keeping watch over the station while the now-famous Ghostbusters tour the country stopping high-profile poltergeists. When paranormal phenomena unleash apparitions across New York City, these new squads of recruits must don their proton packs and wrestle those rogue spirits back to the afterlife!

The console game, Ghostbusters, is a third-person action role-playing game positively charged for thrilling couch co-op with up to four players locally. As rookie Ghostbusters, players can level up their characters’ gear and abilities by tackling objectives, defeating ghastly creatures and discovering hidden collectibles in Manhattan’s most haunted haunts. There are four heroes to choose from, and each has his or her own unique personality and play style, bringing special strengths to support the team.

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Mushroom Wars | Review

Posted on April 15, 2016 by Broken Joysticks

Mushroom Wars, the acclaimed PS3 strategy game by Creat Studios, has made its way to PC.

On its surface, Mushroom Wars comes across as a cutesy game that might be better suited to children than adults, with a simplistic art style and user interface. You’d be wrong to approach it this way, as the game is deceptively difficult. The game begins easily enough, with competent tutorials explaining the game’s mechanics, but rapidly becomes a tough, pure RTS experience.Read More

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Weekend Steam Deals: Activision Publisher Sale

Posted on April 14, 2016 by Rae Michelle Richards

This weekend’s Steam deals include a number of deals on several Activision titles across a number of genres. Everything from several Call of Duty titles, multiple Transformers games and Platinum Game’s recent Legend of Kora title have been heavily discounted until Monday morning. If you’ve wanted to jump in on older Activision games like 2012’s Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater HD, which seems to be several times better than last year’s Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5 now is the time time to do so for less than $5!

Here’s the some of the better deals in the Activision Publisher Sale (in Canadian Dollars):

  • Call of Duty Black Ops III (Full game) – $47.99
  • Call of Duty Blacks Ops III Multiplayer Starter Pack Upgrade – $29.99
  • Call of Duty: Blacks Ops – $21.99
  • Deadpool – $21.99
  • Timeshift – $5.49
  • Prototype 2 – $10.99
  • Singularity – $8.24
  • The Legend of Korra – $4.24
  • Prototype – $5.49

More deals on the Official Steam Store page

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Bplus gives Puzzle Box early Steam release

Posted on April 5, 2016 by Jason Nason

Bplus Games have released an early access of their upcoming Steam game Puzzle Box. The game was released on April 1st.

Puzzle Box is painting with creative gameplay. You can create fantastic pixel art images, by dropping your color paint blocks in the correct place across the levels. Create colourful bold images in the classic color-by-numbers mode. Puzzle Box puts the joy and addictiveness of creativity in your hands, but with an added challenge. Then you can use them as levels in other Modes with different action gameplay – it is a simple way to enjoy Pixel Art in different ways.

With the game not yet complete, the developers have opened up the game to play in it’s as is state. The game is ready to be played, but this is still an early version of the game. The number of available levels for Classic and Copycat modes, as well as more background themes and music tracks, will continue to be added.

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ARK: Survival of the Fittest Video Interview With Jesse Rapczak

Posted on March 25, 2016 by Rae Michelle Richards

Studio Wildcard, the minds behind last year’s smash Steam hit ARK: Survival Evolved have taken the concepts from their first prehistoric title and fashioned what they call a M.O.S.A or Multiplayer Online Survival Arena. Ark Survival of the Fittest pits a number of different players in  Survival Evolves‘ world map and gives them a limited number of time to craft weapons, tame dinosaurs all in a bid to be the last one standing.

We got a chance to sit down and talk with Studio Wildcard co-founder Jesse Rapczak about the challenges of adapting the ARK world to this new game type, how tamable dinosaurs change the pace of the game in relation to other Battle Royale style games and just why did Studio Wildcard release Survival of the Fittest with no monetary model?

Check it out below:

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GDC 2016: Interview With Nicole Stark From Disparity Games

Posted on March 17, 2016 by Rae Michelle Richards

Ninja Pizza Girl

An entire family make up the development team over at Disparity Games and I got the chance to sit down with Nicole Stark from the team to chat about her family’s company, representation in indie games and learn a little bit about their first title Ninja Pizza Girl.

Nicole was the recipient of a GDC Scholarship through #IneedDiverseGames and we also had time to chat about what it’s like to travel all the way from Australia to attend GDC for the first time.

Their first game, Ninja Pizza Girl, is already available on Steam. Here’s the official description:

Ninja Pizza Girl is a serious game about self-esteem, bullying and resilience – and pizza delivering ninjas! Its deeply-woven story follows Gemma, a sixteen-year-old girl working as a pizza delivery ninja for her father’s independent Pizzeria.

Check out the video interview in the embedded player below and look out for more coverage from GDC 2016 later today.

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Battlestation: Harbinger back from the dead

Posted on March 2, 2016 by Fionna Schweit

Review by Robyn Robo
Back in 2014, a new independent developer in Finland by the name of Bugbyte started making mobile space combat games called Battlestation. Now, they’ve made their first PC release on Steam with Battlestation: Harbinger. This game has obvious mobile roots, but makes for a fun, affordable and instantly gratifying desktop game. Written in Java, the game runs on Windows, Linux and OSX. I tested on Windows and Ubuntu 14.04, and I had no issues with it. In fact, it should run on any machine with a GPU built in the last decade.

Bugbyte has had an interesting history. The company is a tiny one, with the only 3 staff being the founder and his brothers. They went nearly bankrupt in the current mobile games market and pulled through via a Reddit AMA, Kickstarter, and other new funding and social sites to make it to their Steam release of Battlestation: Harbinger (simply referred to as Battlestation for the rest of this article). There, Battlestation is currently available for ten dollars, with 20% for its launch week. Assuming it takes off, all is financially well that ends well.

Battlestation is an interesting game, combining select 4X elements to deepen a Rogue-like (permanent death and random levels) space combat game. The battles involve small to midsized fleets with careful, pause-able, real time maneuvering. The closest analogy I could think of to this game specifically is a 1990 release by the name of Star Control, also known in its open source incarnation as Ur-Quan Masters. You can also customize your ships with new items you build, buy or loot as you make your away across the map, jumping from system to system

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It’s really *not* a 4X game!

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Nekopara Volume 2 review, return to La Soleil Patisserie

Posted on February 27, 2016 by Fionna Schweit

Nekopara Volume 2 returns us to the bakery La Soleil patisserie where we last left our lovely cat girls Chocola and Vanilla. When last we left them they had reached a happy ending and were heading back to the bakery with their master Kashou Minaduki  in tow. Volume 2 picks up right where volume 1 left off, our two primary cat girls are living in the bakery and things are going pretty well. Unlike the majority of the first volume, all is not well in La soleil. One of the first things we see after the game starts is a small fight between Coconut and Azuki, and Volume 2 has a lot more terms of depth than did Volume 1. We get to see some “family problems” that occur, and what can happen when you keep a harem of cute cat girls in your bakery. We get to see a bit of sibling rivalry between Azuki and Coconut with their sibling rivalry serving as a mode of conflict in the game.

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Super Galaxy Squadron EX | Review

Posted on February 26, 2016 by Erika

A shmup can be categorized as a “you vs the world” shoot-em up that’s hard as hell and can often be rage inducing. Super Galaxy Squadron EX really isn’t  that rage inducing but its still a shump.  Super Galaxy Squadron EX, following along with it’s original counterpart, is a much more forgiving vertical shump, when compared to say, the infamous Touhou series by ZUN. Before I get into how easily someone can get into the game, here’s a little bit on the game- Super Galaxy Squadron EX is a remastering and rebuild of Super Galaxy Squadron. In both games, a truce was forged after a war between the United Interstellar Federation and the alien race Tau Ceti. After an attack on a neutral world by the Tau Ceti, the Super Galaxy Squadron is mobilized to take out the threat and eventually take on the Tau Ceti’s space armada. Players take on the roll of a fighter in the Super Galaxy squadron and face a mass of enemy forces much greater than their own. The game plays from a top down perspective and features all of the hallmarks of the shump gametype; health, hyper shots, and ship upgrades all appear in the game. Read More

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Disgaea PC release on steam, but is plagues with issues

Posted on February 25, 2016 by Fionna Schweit

Beloved strategy RPG Disgaea is now on steam.  All the good parts of the beloved strategy title are here, and the developers have enhanced the experience with PC specific upgrades. Visual upgrades include an improved UI and textures, support for keyboard and mouse, Steam achievements, cloud saves, badges, and trading cards, and all the content from the PSP game Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness. That’s pretty neat! Take a look at the trailer for all the Disgaea goodness.

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Now that your in a good mood, let me go ahead and ruin it. This is a really garbage PC port. There is no support for changing resolution, it only plays in full screen or windowed. For someone who likes to stream games, or who wants to play and also do other things, this is a huge issue.  V-sync is an option in graphics, however enabling it will lock the game at 30 FPS, and with a game like this that is a problem.  Visually the game itself did not receive any updates so PS2 graphics textures abound. This is not really a bad thing, after all it was a PS2 game, but when a developer touts visual updates, usually they mean more than just the UI.

As usual the Steam forums for the game are all lit up with people on both sides. if you want to wade in to that hell here is the link. The only two usefull things I found there were that AMD cpu’s seem to have more issues and disabling SSAO might make your frame rate better. Lots of people seem to have forgotten that Steam has a refund policy so if they really hate the game, they can just go ahead and return it.  Disgaea PC is currently available for $20.

 

 

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