Castlevania HD is the nerdy girl in a teen romantic comedy: just one makeover away from prom queen, but a pariah until it happens. There’s a fun multiplayer platformer in there, but it’s obscured by usability issues and you can miss it entirely. However, Harmony of Despair is the first cool thing to happen to the Castlevania series since Symphony of the Night, and no amount of kludge can hide that.
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Machinarium developer Amanita Studios is offering amnesty to pirates everywhere for the low price of $5. From the press release:
Everybody who downloaded our game illegally (for free) has now a chance to redeem himself and get the latest version of the game (Win+Mac+Linux) and its fantastic Soundtrack only for $5 (instead of $20).
Amanita distributes its games without copy protection of any kind, which makes them a convenient target for piracy. According to their not-thoroughly-explained estimate, 80-95% of players who downloaded the game never forked over any cash to the indie developer. I suppose you could be cynical and distrust the numbers, but they jive with more detailed sources. In fact, they also dovetail with the piracy numbers for DRM protected games. Hmm.
I’ll admit that this is technically just a sale, but the product is excellent (you can take my word for it) and the window is limited, and that makes it news. Absolution, a great adventure game, and a brilliant soundtrack for $5? You can’t even get that deal from Johann Tetzel.
You may recall Runic Games, developer of the Diablo-esque action RPG Torchlight. If not, don’t worry: they’ve announced a sequel to help jog your memory.
The big reveal for Torchlight II is peer-to-peer multiplayer, supported by matchmaking. From the press release:
Torchlight II answers the overwhelming call of our community with an expansive co-op multiplayer experience…all new character classes, an expansive overworld, new quests, monsters, and lots of new dungeons
Longtime followers of Torchlight will note that this sequel is not the MMO that Runic promised after the first game. Runic CEO Max Schaefer says this sequel is a response to fan demand for multiplayer, but that the MMO is still in the future.
Torchlight II is projected to ship in the spring of 2011.
Tags: runic games · torchlight iiNo Comments.
Starcraft II is like an echo channeled through twelve years of game design: textured somewhat by its passage, but still an echo. Blizzard has certainly reassembled all the components they used to define the realtime strategy genre, but whether that’s a good thing largely depends on your tastes.
Tags: starcraft · Starcraft II · wings of liberty2 Comments
Apparently sales aren’t the only white-hot thing about Starcraft II. The game’s menus, graphical lightweights though they are, don’t have any maximum cap on their rendering cycles. That’s right, Starcraft 2 is presently set to render those static blue menus at your video card’s nearest neighbor to infinity frames per second. The glowing slag that used to be your video card doesn’t quite meet the game’s system requirements, so you’ll probably want to implement the handy workaround.
From Battle.net (via GameInformer):
…go to “My Documents\StarCraft II\variables.txt” and add these lines:
frameratecapglue=30
frameratecap=60You may replace these numbers if you want to.
Of course, if the workaround is so damned simple, it makes you wonder why Blizzard didn’t throw it into the patch that dropped today (at least until they fix the real problem). But hey, it’s not my inevitable class action lawsuit; they can court it as they like.
Tags: FIRE · Starcraft 2 · video cardNo Comments.
Score one more for jealous intellectual property hoarders. PopCap Games yesterday told MTV Multiplayer that they would be modifying the successful tower defense game, Plants vs. Zombies. Said PopCap, “The Estate of Michael Jackson objected to our use of the ‘dancing zombie’ in Plants vs. Zombies based on its view that the zombie too closely resembled Michael Jackson.”
The dancing zombie in question is an obvious reference to Jackson’s seminal Thriller performance. However, it’s difficult to imagine that the zombie’s minor role represents a significant threat to the Jackson estate’s intellectual property. Regardless, PopCap has already altered the dancing zombie in the latest update to the iPhone port, and plans to alter the other distributions in the near future.
In one word, DeathSpank is staid. Heck, it might as well be a platonic form: the action-RPG-est action-RPG out there. Whether this will appeal to you is largely a matter of genre allegiance, because it’s good for the polish and bad for the novelty. Either way, DeathSpank is a solid game if you’re in the market to hit things and level up.
Tags: action · deathspank · Hothead Games · RPGNo Comments.
You’ve probably already heard of Valve’s free top-down shooter, Alien Swarm. What you may not know is that it’s also a FPS. PCGamer broke the news from the steam forums. It just takes a few console commands to make a whole new game from the downloadable title:
Go to Options > Keyboard > Enable developer console. Then hit ` (to the left of 1) and type:
firstperson
asw_hide_marine 1
asw_controls 0
Because the game was polished for top-down play, it’s not so smooth as it might be. However it’s hard to complain when the price is a few keystrokes.
Is there another entertainment medium that’s so transformative?
Tags: alien swarm · source · Steam · ValveNo Comments.
The recession has hit all of us pretty hard, but this is ridiculous. Siliconera is reporting that Nippon Ichi has posted a precipitous drop in operating profits. The developer reported a 97% decrease excluding investments, tax, and arcade and mobile sales.
The Japan-based developer is responsible for Disgaea, a popular strategy RPG noted for anime parody. However, they shied away from the property before and during the first nine months of the fiscal year.
It goes to show that, although gamers (like me) like to whinge about the innovation desert, we don’t appear to vote that way with our wallets. With game development costs rising, is it any wonder that companies try to play it safe?
Tags: Disgaea · nippon ichiNo Comments.
Although it’s a 2D platformer, LIMBO is a horror game, so come prepared. Whether you’re fleeing a giant spider or succumbing to brain worms, the game is stark and disturbing. That makes it incredibly compelling. Add that to the black and white silhouette art, vivid animation, and precision platforming, and you have a great game. It’s just not for the faint of heart.
Tags: horror · limbo · platformer · playdead · puzzle · ReviewNo Comments.
