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You expect football games to continue well-known faces in there, it’s kind of what a lot of the advertising gets built on. The licenses to use footballers’ likenesses must be drawn up beforehand though and it seems that Konami might have missed a step somewhere because one footballer featured in Pro Evolution Soccer 2017 says he is going to sue them for using his likeness without getting his permissions first.
Diego Maradona is a retired professional by now, but is in PES2017 and apparently Maradona says that he was not asked permission to be added to Konami’s game. He is in as one of the ‘Legends’ in myClub mode alongside other retired players such as Ronaldinho, Thierry Henry, Ronaldo, and Gary Lineker. It seems that Maradona only became aware of his inclusion a few days ago and made a post on Facebook in which he said that his lawyer would “initiate appropriate legal action” against the game studio.
Konami however have said that they did get permission and released the following statement out to Kotaku:
“At this time, there have been news that in Winning Eleven 2017 (international title: PES 2017 Pro Evolution Soccer) there is one player that is being used without permission; however, our company is using [this character] appropriately, with the basis of the license within the contract.”
What contract they’re talking about is unknown, but it could be that they approached someone who represents Maradona as opposed to the player themselves and the player simply wasn’t aware of it. Who knows? Either way, this will probably be concluded quickly and quietly behind the scenes so unless it blows up, this probably means that at worst Maradona could not be in future PES games.
Welcome to your weekly update in the world of gaming Kickstarter campaigns.
Starting with our previously covered campaigns, there’s not too much news to report on this week. One campaign has concluded a success, with Village Attacks having made over £500,00 to bring the game to life. Another campaign has unfortunately concluded having missed its goal and that’s Passenger – one that I thought had a great concept. Unfortunately there’s been no updates on the game’s future since conclusion, so we can’t know if it’ll see the light of day in another way eventually.
Two of the campaigns that are getting close to ending are also at different ends of the scale to each other. Pine has 7 days to go and a fair chunk of change to make, but it’s far from struggling to reach its goal. As I mentioned last week though, Dragon Lore needs to make some serious progress if it is to have any chance of being successful. With 31 hours to go at time of writing, I’m not sure it can.
Okay, so technically this one’s not a game, but bear with me.
Gametee are a small gaming brand from the midlands of England who have run previous successful campaigns. This time they’re funding some stylish leather-bound notebooks for tabletop gamers. Each comes with a clip as well to mark your place as well as the ability to change the notebook inside the leather binding once you’ve used up the pages of the one you’ve been using. Gametee are known to me and I’ve always found their stuff to be high-quality.
Originally the asking target was £7,500, but I can confirm that they reached that almost immediately. The campaign’s running for another 27 days though, so go check it out.
Next, with an actual game we have one that aims to recreate the magic of SNES era titles.
A platformer, Attack On Kitten sees you play as Kat the Cat Knight aiming to save the Cat Kingdom from the fins of an evil goldfish called Xerxes. Using magical cats as weapons, you need to make your way through the 2D levels. All of the weapons comes with names, but feline and cat-pun weapon names – and there’s even a demo if you wish to try before you pledge.
Attack On Kitten has made $7,413 of its $50,000 goal and has 21 more days to run.
This one is a metroidvania-type game that unites two people together.
Outbuddies’ story happens in Bahlam, a sunken city located deep in the South Pacific Ocean. Our main protagonist is a marine biologist named John who wakes up in the sunken city 36,000 feet under the sea after a shipwreck. He’s severely injured and somehow connected to a supernatural Buddy-system that enables John to make use of various abilities like hacking, scanning and telekinesis.
Outbuddies has a €5,000 goal with 29 days more to go before it finishes. It has made €965 so far.
Finally we have a card game about controlling the media and collecting people parts for a skin suit.
A game for 3-7 players, this plays on the big conspiracy theory of lizard people secretly controlling mass media and passing among us in human skinsuits. Play is done by using the cards in your hand, along with the cards played by the ‘editor’ to try to construct the best headline. If you win the editor’s decision, you get rewarded with a human body part – and the first to be able to build an entire body wins the game!
Lizard People had made $1,041 and has a $15,000 goal to reach in 27 days.
A little while ago, we were hearing that some of Take-Two’s game franchises had been licensed out for film adaptation. Now we’re hearing that another game has been pegged for a movie, but for once it’s not a big name studio’s game. Rather, it’s Compulsion Games’ We Happy Few that is due to be put onto the big screen.
For those unaware of just what We Happy Few is, it’s a game set in the 1960s in an alternative history where Germany won WWII and then something happened that the people around you just want to forget. Now the world is filled with Wellies – people who spend their lives hopped up on a happiness drug called Joy; and Downers who are off their Joy. This world emphasizes being happy above most everything else and, well, Downers aren’t happy. And if someone isn’t happy then they have a chance of making others not happy too, and frankly Wellies can’t abide that. Oh no… not at all. It’s quite the creepy game.
The project for the film is apparently going to be helmed by Gold Circle Entertainment, the production company responsible for films such as Pitch Perfect and My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Dj2 Entertainment are also involved and the project is in a very early pre-production stage, with dj2 and Gold Circle seeking writers for the film’s script.
Of course, this is no guarantee that we’ll ever see We Happy Few make it to completion as a film, given that video game movies tend to have a history of getting stuck in development hell and then usually not being great if it does make it to release. Fans of the game can take some solace though in that frankly if any game’s story and setting was great for Hollywood – it’s We Happy Few’s terrifying, dark alternate England. A lot of good films have been set in dystopian settings, so there’s a good chance they’ll be able to get it right here.
At times genres define what you can expect from a game. However, some games will take the basics and innovate on them slightly to make something new of the genre.
Siegecraft Commander is a strategy game where you need to build a base and destroy your enemies’ own bases to take control of the map and win the level. Which sounds like many games we’ve seen before. However Siegecraft is different in that it has levels that are both turn-based and real-time; depending on what level you’re currently playing. Bases are built in a slightly different way to the norm as well. While there are resources to be found they are very minimal and not required to expand your base. And instead of simply placing a new building – you fire it out of one of your existing buildings.
An awful lot of this game requires you to shoot things, either shooting out another arm of your base to build a chain further into the map, or shooting at the nearby buildings of your opponents. You cannot really move or advance any other way, and while you can get ground and flying units – you have no control over where they head or what they attack.
The game comes with three different modes; singleplayer, multiplayer and, in a first for a game we’ve reviewed here on the station, a VR compatible mode. Singleplayer is campaign and comes with two different campaigns, one that follows a band of knights as they explore looking for treasure with mainly turn-based gameplay and a map that places you against a corrupted tribe in real-time gameplay. The former is probably the first one new players should go for, as it does include tutorials to help you learn what does what and how to build certain buildings.
This game is very creative a take on the strategy game genre. It combines both real-time and turn-based play with a unique base-building style that I’ve not seen from games of this type before. Attacking a chain halfway down becomes a legitimate strategy, as destruction there leads to all further buildings built out from it also being destroyed as its ‘lifeline’ gets cut. It’s very hard to do, but it certainly works.
But oh, for a game where aiming and shooting is the main game mechanic I do wish it was easier to aim. The tutorial doesn’t entirely make it clear how you properly aim and it took me a little trial and error before I finally got it down. The fact that there was no camera rotation also sometimes makes aiming a little weird as well as meaning sometimes you can’t see things that are hidden before the 3D environment of the maps you play on.
Siegecraft Commander is a very well put together game that plays with the basics and tries hard to do something fresh and interesting. It’s priced at £14.99 for the UK and $19.99 for the US, and if you’re looking for a different strategy game, this might be the one for you.
