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September is over, and October is upon us. It was a crazy month, starting out with some great guests on the Indie Game Show and ending with EGX. In case you missed anything this month, here’s a quick recap:
PumpkinOnline
Monique and Malik from Pumpkin Interactive stopped by the Indie Game Show and chatted with PredictedCyborg and Digmbot about their game. It has since been funded on Kickstarter. A farming MMO based around building community and crafting, rather than combat, the game looks to be truly unique. Characters are created totally outside the norms of most games, meaning that male, female, straight, gay, or anything in between is a possibility in this game. With skills that are dependent on working together to make the most out of the ingredients you mine/farm/fish for, Pumpkin Online is one that Cy and Digm are super excited about.
Sanitarium.FM eSports
Esports is huge, and this month saw the official launch of the station’s eSports section. headed up by Digmbot and Novindus, our eSports coverage will look to cover LoL, DOTA2, Starcraft II and Smite. News, analysis, tutorials and more are coming down the line. And, as a special bonus, Smite pro team Snipe has signed on to mutually promote eSports with us. Look for some exclusive interviews as well as opinions from the boys in Snipe as they claw their way through the ranks of the Smite Pro League in search of the World Championships. And don’t miss the Starcraft II coverage along with all the hottest LoL and DOTA2 action.
The Bloggers AreMultiplying
You all know about Thay, our Indie blogger. Shes amazing, right? Well, we’ve expanded our roster even more this month. With Novindus fully onboard as a DJ, we also now have BlueStripePanda and Darkseeker helping bring you even more news. Darkseeker has already written an amazing in depth look at the new Total War: Atilla, and BlueStripePanda’s wonderfully crafted Lego Batman 3 roundup will leave you with a smile on your face. Welcome them to the team and look forward to what else they’re going to be bringing us. In addition, Thay has something special up her sleeve, so stay tuned for that.
Twitch & YouTube
After some needed tweaks, we’ve gotten the station Twitch and YouTube pages fully up to snuff. So get ready to watch a tone of stuff as Lonesamurai digs into the new WoW expansion. PredictedCyborg tackles Hearthstone, Digmbot has a go at Starbound and we might even stream you some eSports games along with some commentary and tutorials. If you don’t catch it on Twitch, be sure to head over to the YouTube channel to catch the vods.
EGX
EGX was INSANE! I don’t even know how many metric tons of coverage went up on the site. Seriously, just load it up and check out all the videos, developer sessions and staff opinions. Our personal picks from the show? Elite:Dangerous, Total War: Atilla, Witcher 3 and Shadow of Mordor. On the indie side, Volume, Magic Circle and Nuclear Throne look amazing. What are you waiting for? Get to reading!
So guys, it was a crazy month. Don’t forget, we need YOU to help us promote. Retweet, reblog, refacebook, re…Google plus? Does anyone use that? YOU SHOULD! And you should promote us with it! Help us grow folks! And be sure to tune in to all the shows so you can chat with your fellow inmates and the staff. Till next month!
Fans of the Plants vs. Zombies games listen up! The latest installment in the series, Garden Warfare, is getting a sizeable update this week called Legends of the Lawn and it’s free too!
The update will include some new character variations, Golf Star, Centurion, Paleontologist, Chomp Thing, Alien Flower, Jade Cactus and Sanitation Expert; as well as five characters that are ‘spawnable’, over 200 more customisation items and even a new game mode. That’s not bad for a free update.
The new game mode is called Taco Bandits and sees the plants defending “Crazy Dave’s deliciously grilled tacos”. Victory for the grass-root fighters comes if they successfully protect three tacos, while the zombies win if they manage to capture and return them all to a UFO to win. Because zombies are aliens, everyone knows that.
The pack will be released on today (September 30th), although some areas are getting it October 1st instead.
The racing MMO The Crew starts its console beta tomorrow according to a tweet from Ubisoft. If you’d like to participate in the console beta and you are a PlayStation 4 or Xbox One owner, you can sign up on the official site.
The PC beta is already underway, and the game is set to launch on November 11th.
One of Sundays highlights from EGX 2014 (Apart from LEGO Batman 3 of course) was HellBlade, from Ninja Theory, the studio behind DMC (Devil May Cry), Enslaved and Heavenly Sword.
Hellblade, from the look of it, is quickly shaping up as a good looking RPG in the vein of Skyrim or Dragon Age, but from a team of only a handful of dedicated, and fun people at Ninja Theory.
However the Dev session today was more about the MAKING of the game and almost Ninja Theory’s new manifesto for better games development and the future of games development going forward.
Dominic Mathews () took us through a really easy to follow, but informative chat about what they are calling, “Independent AA” Development”, basically producing triple A games but with the ethos and love of an Indie dev studio.
Not only that, but also starting apprenticeships and even training new games devs, whether those people then stay with Ninja Theory or move on to other houses, or even start their own. A very interesting call to arms for the video game industry going forward (and one desperately needed in these times of big companies buying up Indie stars like Mojang)
In their own words:
What is the Independent AAA game? It is about creating, funding and owning IP of AAA quality but with the more focused game design, lower price point and open development process that defines indie games. It’s about taking creative risks and making spectacular, exciting and unique game experiences that can compete with AAA and engages fans directly.
They did show the same teaser they showed at E3, but as the game only started development in march this year, we saw no gameplay this time. You can see the teaser here:
What we DID find out though, is that although HellBlade will start as a Playstation exclusive, we may see the game on XBox and PC later on, which I very much hope is the case.
The game, AND the idea for Independent AAA sound great and I’m looking forward to following HellBlade as it grows, so keep checking back for more news as and when we get it!
You can see the Developer session from EGX2014 below:
Call of Duty has a long and chequered past, often considered to be a franchise on it’s death bed we still see a new game every year. A lot of people have said enough is enough, but Sledgehammer games is coming out with a new entry into the franchise.
Call of Duty: Advanced warfare is looking to change your opinion of this long standing franchise by trying to create a new world and concept within the overarching franchise. Advanced Warfare has been in development for three years by Sledgehammer games who have done extensive scientific research to bring us the Earth from 50 years in the future in the most realistic and engaging way possible. During their EGX presentation they talked extensively about how they wanted this world to feel real and visceral but they still wanted the player to feel like a bad ass. They’ve opted for a much more realistic graphical style and taken real world technology and tried to make it feel sleeker and more futuristic to create a believable world in which private military corporations, a real concern for the world’s governments, have gone out of control and grown in power to the point where war is the only way.
Their EGX presentation also revealed more about the main character and the EXO suit that he is wearing. The suit is based off of the real deal, which in the present is a bit clunky ,so the team at Sledgehammer put their own spin on it- making it sleek and slimming it down while bringing more EXO based technology and vehicles into the game and even Sci-fi classics like tanks that can walk OR drive. There seems to be plenty of research and science influencing this game but it also appears to be keeping the core mechanics and feel of Call of Duty which are often criticised as being archaic and poorly implemented.
At the end of the presentation they showed a trailer (See below) which showed a portion of the multi-player including a survival mode and some of the single player story. There were also a couple of questions at the end including the very important question about PC support which he rather openly deflected saying more would be announced about that soon.
Will you be picking up the newest entry in the Call of Duty franchise? Could this game be what the franchise needs? Tell us what you think in the comments below!
