Posts By Julian Titus
A round robin discussion by some pop culture junkies.
Oh hey, didn’t see you there. It must be time for another edition of PixlTalk, Tri-Force style! This week, Patrick takes us on a pop culture journey into fantasy game development. Before that we spend some time talking about what we’re playing, including Kid Icarus: Uprising, Gotham City Impostors, and Silent Hill: Downpour.
It's time to get angry all over again!
Asura’s Wrath wouldn’t seem like an obvious candidate for a whole slate of DLC, considering it’s a new IP that wasn’t aggressively marketed by Capcom. But that’s just what’s in store for the heavily anime-inspired action game. We’ve learned details for the DLC schedule, and it’s surprisingly robust.
More like a light drizzle.
What’s the key to great horror? More importantly, what is the key to creating great horror video games? Is it a strong, relatable character? Is it the combat? Monster designs? Atmosphere? Whatever your answer, one thing became abundantly clear to me as I played Silent Hill: Downpour: developer Vatra Games didn’t ask this one crucial question at any point in this game’s creation.
Sega's new online RPG is also coming to iPhone and Android.
The free to play business model for video games has really come into its own as of late. No longer an indication of poor quality or the last ditch effort by a publisher to turn a profit on a flagging property, free to play is changing the way people look at their electronic entertainment. More and more, larger studios are experimenting with the free to play model. We already got a story today about Syndicate developer Starbreeze moving in this direction, and now you can count Sega in this category with Phantasy Star Online 2.
Despite the retail setbacks of the first game, Grasshopper wants another crack at it.
Last year’s Shadows of the Damned was well-known for two things. The Grasshopper Manufacture game was a dream collaboration of Suda 51 (No More Heroes), Akira Yamaoka (Silent Hill), and Shinji Mikami (Resident Evil). It was also a colossal flop, selling a meager 24,000 copies in its first week on store shelves. Not a company to be held down by disappointing sales, it sounds like Grasshopper is eager to do another chapter in the life of Garcia F’ing Hotspur.
Dr. Ray says the team is back at work to quell the disheartened fans.
Mass Effect 3 has been out long enough for the hardest of the hardcore to have finished it. Others are still getting their crew ready to face the Reapers, but even for those trying to avoid spoilers one thing has become very clear: people don’t like the ending of the game too much. It’s caused a huge backlash among fans and non-fans alike. You can listen to our own Jason Ross talk about it on the PB & Jason podcast, and the fervor for this game has site director Nick DiMola asking gamers what the big deal is. Well, it seems that when enough people cry out, their voices get heard. Today, Dr. Ray Muzyka, co-founder and GM of BioWare, made a statement on the BioWare blog addressing the concerns over Mass Effect 3’s ending.
BioWare is looking to their past to craft Dragon Age's future.
Now that Star Wars: The Old Republic and Mass Effect 3 are out the door, it’s time for BioWare to start looking towards the future. That future doesn’t include last year’s Dragon Age II, however; BioWare recently announced that all work on Dragon Age II, including a rumored expansion, has been halted.
At least the name isn’t false advertising.
If I were to tell you that there’s a game for XBLA that combines the side-scrolling shooting of Contra with the 4 player co-op and loot based RPG mechanics of Borderlands, what would you say? Sounds pretty awesome, right? As someone who loves those two games, Shoot Many Robots sounds like it would be right up my alley. It sounds like a game crafted by the gods of programming, at least on paper. The actual execution of Shoot Many Robots is far from that idyllic image.
Both BioWare classics are getting a new lease on life.
PC gaming has a long and storied history, but it’s one that is notoriously difficult to curate. Trying to play games from even just 7 years ago can be a struggle with new machines, and even gaming portals like Steam can’t guarantee that the older games you purchase will work well on your rig. It’s fortunate for PC gamers old and new, then, that two of the most beloved PC RPGs of all time are getting a full-on upgrade for modern computers. That’s right, dungeon crawlers—Baldur’s Gate and Baldur’s Gate II are coming back in a big way.
BOOM! Headshot!
Welcome to the next edition of PixlTalk! This week, Patrick takes the reins of the Tri-Force show to talk about the modern day shooter. But before we delve into that heady subject, we talk about recent games we've been playing. New and hot releases like Alan Wake's American Nightmare, SSX, and Mass Effect 3 come up, along with random stuff like Batman: Arkham City, Bulletstorm, and Snoopy's Street Fair. Yeah, the Tri-Force crew is down with the Peanuts, big whoop, wanna fight about it?
