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The official logo for the Pokémon franchise internationally
As is customary for Nintendo, overnight fans of Pokémon were surprised by the sudden announcement of a Pokémon Direct scheduled for 3pm British time today, with the promise of news of “future entries in the franchise”. Lasting just 8 minutes, the Pokémon Direct was a short and sweet affair, making three major announcements without going into detail about any of them – but here’s a summary of what we DID see.
Pokkén Tournament DX
As many people likely expected, Nintendo is bringing a Pokémon game to the Switch, although it’s not a main series RPG as many had hoped. Following in the footsteps of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, another of the most popular games on the Wii U, Pokkén Tournament, is coming to the Switch in an upgraded form. Pokkén Tournament DX will be bringing the popular Tekken-inspired Pokémon beat-em-up to the Switch on September 22, 2017, augmenting the original 14-Pokémon cast (and two additional alternative forms) with additional characters such as Darkrai, Scizor, Empoleon, Croagunk, and Decidueye. Three-on-three team battles are also being introduced to the DX release, alongside online ranked matches and friend-only group fights.
Gold and Silver on Virtual Console
On the same day, Nintendo will also be re-releasing the second generation of Pokémon games, Pokémon Gold and Silver, to the 3DS Virtual Console. The last Pokémon games before the modern GBA and DS era, Gold and Silver allowed players to traverse both Kanto and Johto on their hunt to catch all 251 Pokémon across both regions and beat the 16 gyms. Famously remade for the DS as HeartGold and SoulSilver with many enhancements, the original games will now be re-introduced to the modern generation as eShop exclusives on September 22, 2017; and like the Red, Blue and Yellow Virtual Console releases, will also support Pokémon Bank, allowing you to import your Pokémon into Sun and Moon to bring them to the latest Generation. Check out the announcement trailer below:
Unlike the original games, there is no word yet as to whether transfers between the Red/Blue/Yellow VC releases and that of Gold and Silver will be possible – but we wouldn’t put it past Nintendo to have thought of this too, so watch this space for updates.
Ultra Sun and Moon
Perhaps the biggest announcement of all though is the reveal of the next main series titles. On November 17, 2017 Nintendo will release to Pokémon fans worldwide Pokémon Ultra Sun and Moon, promising new monsters not found in the original releases and a different story, along with new features that, according to the video, “will allow you to enjoy your adventure even more, making this truly an ‘ultra’ title”. Details were scarce, with only ten seconds of footage shown, but there is a strong suggestion that the new titles will be a sequel/upgrade to the current generation Sun and Moon games, in a similar fashion to how Pokémon Black and White were later followed up by Pokémon Black Version 2 and Pokémon White Version 2 (commonly referred to by fans as Black 2 and White 2).
No doubt by now you’ll be wanting to watch these other announcements yourself as well, so enjoy the official announcement trailer below; and don’t forget to check back here for all your latest Pokémon and other gaming news!
It’s time for the weekly update on gaming Kickstarter campaigns!
As always we shall start with the updates, and unfortunately a lot of bad news this week. A number of campaigns are fast running out of time, with some having their remaining times marked in hours not days. Those struggling are Sons of the Void, Lost Cities and BLANK, with their times in the hours – as well as Abstract Arena, Fake News!, The End is Nahual: If I May Say So, PipPow and The Salt Fortress, all with a few days to raise sometimes most of their target goals. As well, one campaign has finished short of its target and that is INTERSTELLAR ROGUE. Once again there has been no update on the game’s campaign page for a while, so this could be a dead project.
However, there are some campaigns doing well and a few that have finished successfully. Street Masters Rise of the Kingdom was one I covered last week and it has since bypassed its goal comfortably. Three previously covered campaigns have finished and these are Kynseed (from the developers of Fable, so that’s why), Trouble For Hire (a novel idea) and Ashes of Creation (a very nice looking MMO).
Starting off this week with a tabletop RPG game with an 80s theme.
Rememorex takes those suburban horror films of the mid-80’s and brings them to life in the setting of this game. You play as just a normal kid, until things start happening and the ‘Strangeling’ arrived to ask you for help and make you the hero of all the cartoons you watch on Saturday morning television. Anyone who binged on those films or grew up reading the children’s horror series that spawned from them in the 90s will see a lot to love here.
Rememorex has already bypassed its $5,000 goal, but with 25 more days to go and something outside of the usual fantasy RPG setting, it’s worth a checking out!
Blood Ancestors is described as being a “competitive first person multiplayer game” in which the developers are hoping to fill a gap they saw in the gaming market. A team game, you and three other players must get the relic to activate a portal to return to your home world. You will be against the other team and the Blood Ancestors, protectors of the relic you need. It sounds as if it’ll be a fast-paced one, so if that’s your idea of fun this one could be for you.
Blood Ancestors has a €50,000 goal of which it has made €3,942 with 24 days to go.
Next we have a sweet-looking little 3D puzzler in which you’re a cube-shaped rabbit.
Bokube has over 70 levels to play through with 8 of those available in the demo you can download from the campaign page. You play by rolling the little rabbit cube around levels, pushing things around to solve puzzles and rotating the camera to get a good look around your environment. Each level will introduce some new element into the mix to keep you thinking.
Bokube has made $1,135 of its $5,000 goal and has 26 more days to run.
The sub-title of the campaign page describes the game as a “story-driven, hand-crafted, open-world, sandbox-style, zombie-horror survival game, crafted with passion by skilled zombie geeks” which tells you mostly what you need to know. The game will come with a starter tutorial, related to the story mode which you can then choose to carry on playing after completing the tutorial or instead roam off that path and carve out your own in the midst of zombie-infested woods.
Jaws of Extinction has 29 more days to run, and has made £1,180 of its £25,000 goal.
It’s that time of the year when the gaming leaks are popping up everywhere (whether or not you think they all are leaks is another topic entirely), and it seems this time the company in question is Telltale.
The source is the Australian Classification website and interestingly it seems that a second season of the Telltale Minecraft adventure could be incoming. The first episode is apparently titled ‘Hero in Residence’ and was rated in the 2nd of this month according to the certification posting. If we choose to believe the pattern set by past game leaks via certification we could be seeing this episode being released within two months.
Of course, this time of the year is so rife with leaks and rumours due to E3 being around the corner so if this game is due out in two months is likely we might see it officially being announced there. It’ll mostly likely be in Microsoft’s presentation, and used to push Mixer, formerly BEAM. Telltale have apparently being working with Microsoft to help develop the new Crowd Play feature for Mixer, where stream viewers are able to ‘help’ decide dialogue options during a Telltale game.
Of course, this isn’t the only rumoured Telltale game right now. Twitter user AnEvilHag has posted some screenshots taken from a Telltale demographic survey, which suggests we might also be about to see a second season of Tales From the Borderlands and a James Bond Telltale series.
As always, take the leaks and rumours with a pinch of salt. They could be false or details could change before any official reveals. The classification of the Minecraft Story Mode game certainly makes it seem a lot more likely to be for real and unchanged though.
Popular car-football game Rocket League is nearly two years old and Psyonix is celebrating by introducing an Anniversary Update to the game on the week of the game’s birthday – July 7th.
The Anniversary Update will add a whole bunch of new content to the game, all for free. This wil include a new arena to play in, some new cars and of course options to customise your car. The new arena is called Champions Field and features the standard layout with a modern look to it – it will be available for play in Competitive, Casual, and Private modes. The new cars are called the Animus GP and Centio V17 and look pretty cool, although they’ll only be available to acquire through the game’s new Overdrive Crates so you’ll have to do a little searching to find them and add them to your collection.
One noteable piece of news though is to do with the customisations, and it’s that two new options have been added to the list of things you can tweak – Engine Audio and Goal Explosions. Expect to see those beginning to pop up in Crates and free drops from the time of the Update.
There will also be 18 new tracks added to Rocket League Radio, all from the Monstercat record label.
If you want the full details about the update you can find them on the Rocket League website.
