Your first look at Cave Story 3D's first cave

post from Destructoid on 12 May 2011 11:06:15 PM. © Destructoid

Your first look at Cave Story 3D's first cave screenshot

[Update: Just spotted an image of Mimiga Viliiage in polygon form on Nicalis's Twitter and added it to the gallery.]

Cave Story 3D is one of my most hotly anticipated titles at the moment. The promise of new content, designed by Cave Story's creator, is enough to deserve my hard earned dollars. Beyond that though, I'm just curious to see how the game's visuals translate from 2D pixels to 3D polygons. If this exclusive sneak peak of the game's first area is an indication, the translation is a strange, yet wholly familiar success. The game's signature "home made" look is still in effect. It's just being expressed in a different language.

NIS America is having an event tomorrow to show off Disgaea 4 and Cave Story 3D, so if you want to see more of the game, you won't have to wait long. I also just got word that I'll be getting some time with the game at E3 next month, so stay posted.

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Guy hilariously acts out gaming's worst
voiceovers

post from Destructoid on 12 May 2011 11:06:15 PM. © Destructoid

Guy hilariously acts out gaming's worst voiceovers screenshot

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One of my all-time favorite videos we've highlighted on Destructoid was dirtFilledCoffin's "Top 50 worst videogame voice acting," a modern-day classic.

YouTube user HansJamesMusicAOk has brought new life to that video by acting out the audio clips with the added drama and enthusiasm they so desperately deserve.

Mega Man 8, you'll always be my one true love.

[Via Reddit]

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Super Meat Boy dev: 'Hitlers really must die'

post from Destructoid on 12 May 2011 10:05:44 PM. © Destructoid

Super Meat Boy dev: 'Hitlers really must die' screenshot

Ever since Team Meat (creators of Super Meat Boy, the greatest 2D platformer of the modern era) started asking their fans via twitter about their favorite run and gun games, I've been chomping at the bit to know what their next project will be. Specifically, I've been dying to know if Edmund McMillen (half of Team Meat) plans to revive Hitlers Must Die, the run-and-gun physics shooter that he was developing right before the creation of Super Meat Boy officially took over his life. I'm couldn't help but gush to my Podtoid cast mates about how great it would be if the game was back in development. Of course, Jim Sterling took that as an opportunity to rant about how he's done with hearing about how evil Hitler was, but that's beside the point.

I sent Edmund McMillen an email asking the simple question "Hitlers must die? Must they? Your tweets about run and gun games have me geeking on a dream that the game will exist for real someday." His response -- "They really must die!!!" with a caveat that this is by no means a confirmation that the game is back in development, but to stay tuned for an announcement about Team Meat's next project.

Here's why I'm so excited about that.

A balance of offense and defense

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I loved how in Super Meat Boy, you never gain any sort of power-ups or capacity to defend yourself. Keeping Meat Boy in a constant state of vulnerability worked to both stay true to Meat Boy as a character (a constantly bleeding, skinless boy who's desperate for the touch of a girl made of bandages) and to streamline the gameplay experience. Super Meat Boy is an exploration of how far two brilliant developers can take the ideas of "running" and "jumping". It's like a gameplay symphony written in binary code, with "run" equaling "zero" and "jump" equaling "one". The amount that Team Meat managed to do with such a simple tool set is simply staggering.

From what the beta footage of Hitlers Must Die has show us, Edmund McMillen was working hard to give the game a similarly binary feel, except with the pinpoint specific terms of "run" and "jump" replaced with the more general terms of "offense" and "defense". There is a definitely focus here on rapidly flipping between putting the player in overwhelmingly dangerous situations, and the then giving the player the opportunity to violently turn the tables on the enemy.

And how exactly do you go about doing that?

Science!

Physics make me happy

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Physics based gaming is huge these days. It doesn't matter if it's the highly detailed world of Portal 2, or the relatively limited game of Angry Birds, there is an irresistible appeal to exploring the many variables present in physics based gameplay. Though physics also plays a part of what makes Super Meat Boy so fun, it looks like Hitler's Must Die was planned to have even more emphasis on using kinetic energy and gravity to solve problems (like killing hordes of zombies and Hilter clones in one fell swoop).

I love power slides, grenade lobs, and shotgun decaps as much as the next guy, but when you can use all those action elements to organically manipulate the environment in unpredictable ways, that's when you've sold me.

Killing Hitlers is good-time comedy gold

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People like the idea of killing "bad" things. That's why zombies, evil robots, man-eating insects, and of course, political enemies of the United States such as Nazis, are such popular enemies in modern videogames. It's gotten to the point where, with most games that feature those enemies, it's obvious that they were included solely because people love killing them. In the videogame world, Nazis have gone from being cultural icons for evil, to virtual, blood filled ticks who are just waiting to be popped. We don't pop them because they are a threat, or because we have to. We pop them because it's fun.

What better way to poke fun at how deeply gaming has trivialized "the Nazi threat" than to give us a game filled with disposable Hitler clones from beginning to end? With a game like Hitlers Must Die on the market, I could stop obsessively beating Bionic Commando over and over again just to watch Hitler's head explode. I could get that kind of action from the very first frame.

That begs the question though, what do you do for a last boss in a game where Hitler is a common enemy?

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Badass: Cyborg Ninja from Metal Gear Solid in toy
form

post from Destructoid on 12 May 2011 10:05:44 PM. © Destructoid

Badass: Cyborg Ninja from Metal Gear Solid in toy form screenshot

It's been too long since Hideo Kojima has been in the news, so allow me to give the famed game director a quick mention. Tomopop has spotted a few of his recent tweets, which so happen to include pictures of a Cyborg Ninja figure that is multiple kinds of badass.

Pretty good for a toy that's only partially complete. It'll be coming to us by way of Square Enix's Play Arts Kai at some future point in time that is entirely too far off, I'm sure. I want one of these figures yesterday, and I'm about as indifferent toward the Metal Gear Solid series as they come.

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New Law Would Force Search Engines to Block
"Infringing" Sites

post from The Escapist : Latest News on 12 May 2011 09:14:00 PM. © The Escapist : Latest News

The proposed new PROTECT IP Act will allow private rights holders to seek court action against "rogue" websites that could see them cut off from third-party services and even blocked by search engines.

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David Jones back working on APB in its new form

post from Destructoid on 12 May 2011 09:06:13 PM. © Destructoid

David Jones back working on APB in its new form screenshot

GamersFirst has brought on David Jones -- who is known for his work on Grand Theft Auto, Crackdown, and APB -- to work on APB: Reloaded. He'll be in an advisory role "during critical design stages" of this rejiggered, free-to-play MMO.

"This game was my passion back when I was developing it with Realtime Worlds, and I'm extremely excited to be able to participate in fulfilling the long term vision for the title," remarks Jones. "After seeing what the team has done with the game thus far, I'm certain that APB Reloaded will become the title that truly breaks new ground for online game experiences, especially with transition to a free-to-play model."

The open beta for Reloaded is nearly upon us -- May 18, to be exact.

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The 8bitrocket Daily Inter-Web Mash-Up May 12,
2011

post from 8bitrocket on 12 May 2011 08:07:19 PM. © 8bitrocket

Atari releases the first update to Star Raiders in almost 20 years.The original Star Raiders was one of the best 8-bit computers games of the golden-age and the main reason that over a Million Atari 400 and 800 systems were sold in 1979 and 1980. This week, Atari released a new version for the XBox [...]

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Shoot Many Robots contest ends tonight, go cast
your vote

Shoot Many Robots contest ends tonight, go cast your vote screenshot

A couple of months ago, Conrad told you about the "Design Many Robots" contest for Demiurge Studio's Shoot Many Robots. We have entered that crucial period where the results are almost final, but a sudden flood of votes could make all the difference.

Look over the finalists on this page. If you're reading this post prior to midnight EST, go ahead and cast your vote to decide which robot will appear in the first add-on pack for Shoot Many Robots.

It's a tough call between Trikey and Gnash Britches, honestly. For whatever reason, these designs are reminding me of Vectorman. That's never a bad thing.

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Dark Dimensions: City of Fog Collector's Edition

post from Hidden Object Games and Free Downloadable Games at Fenomen-Games.com on 12 May 2011 08:00:00 PM. © Hidden Object Games and Free Downloadable Games at Fenomen-Games.com

Silvertown was swallowed by fog and disappeared from the face of the earth 100 years ago. Search for a town consumed by fog! Unlock forbidden doors and uncover mysterious items in this thrilling Hidden Object Puzzle Adventure game!

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Ghost Recon: Future Soldier slips, Ubisoft
clearly doesn't give a **** anymore

by: Nathaniel Cohen
NEWS - Or perhaps they're caught in a time-hiccup, destined to relive the same moments over and over again - like a really pathetic version of Groundhog Day with less Bill Murray and more conference calls.

According to the internet (I saw it on joysiq first), Ubisoft has delayed Ghost Recon: Future Soldier until Q1 of 2012. If you'll remember, we went through this exact scenario last year. In fact we're only 6 days away from that anniversary (another joystiq article). The excuse is even the same: to avoid holiday competition. Lame. Maybe if they didn't insist on delaying their games past the point of their relevancy, they'd have less to worry about from said competition.

As you might have know I HATE GAME DELAYS. But even worse than a standard game delay is this nonsense that Ubisoft seems to get a secret thrill out of pulling. They delay a ****-load of games a year, and often delay the same game multiple times. Does anyone remember Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway? I do. I love that franchise but the last game got the same treatment Ghost Recon: Future Soldier is getting. By the time Hell's Highway came out, its graphic engine was out-dated and its main new gameplay feature (sticky cover), trendy at the time of announcement, was regarded as a terrible cliche. Not surprisingly, that game is considered the worst of the series. I love the Ghost Recon franchise just as much (GRAW2 is one of my all time favorites) and would hate for Ghost Recon: Future Soldier to suffer the same fate.

Look, I like Ubisoft, they make good games (putting out the great Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood only a year after ACII was especially impressive), but their "like it's a bodily function" approach to game delays is bad for games and gamers. As time goes on those interminably delayed games become obsolete. The only way around that is to constantly reinvent them (see Splinter Cell: Conviction), but that costs money and delaying a game for strictly monetary reasons, then spending more money on it doesn't make sense. So when the game finally comes out, it's dated and mediocre, it sells less and gamers are robbed of a quality title. Those are all bad things, are they not? So why does Ubisoft always go down this road?

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early-doesnt-give-a--anymore/Item22578.aspx