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Announcing backwards compatibility was always going to be a good move for Microsoft and the Xbox One. Being able to play the last console’s games on the current-gen console keep players happy and makes them more likely to get your latest piece of hardware. Now Microsoft’s Phil Spencer has put forward the idea that he’d like to get 360 games working on PC as well.
Speaking with Gizmodo Brazil, Spencer said “[Xbox games on Xbox One is] something I want to do, but it is a matter of priority. I would love to have the ability to play Xbox 360 on PC at some point too, so we have different things we have to think about when we plan these things. But it would be great to have support for original Xbox games. So yes, I want it, but we have many other things we want to do as well.”
This would mean that disced 360 games would work on your gaming rig, as well as digital editions possibly being made available for download too. Given that Microsoft were all about integration of PC and console with Windows 10, this doesn’t surprise me too much.
At the very least, if it does happen there’ll be quite a few very happy gamers.
Chaos Reborn made headlines as it had the big name of Julian Gallop behind it, and the funding came through quite swiftly and thoroughly. Now after having been out in Early Access for a while, the game will finally see full release on Steam at the end of this month.
Snapshot Games have announced that Chaos Reborn will release fully on October 26th, with version 1.0 coming with an extensive tutorila and an upgraded interface to allow new players to get into the game as quickly as possible.
Higher tier Kickstarter backers will also see their rewards fully realised at last. Wizard Lords will be able to set the equipment and spells of AI wizards defending regions in single player Realms mode, while Wizard Kings will be allowed to design their own Realms with the use of a bespoke designer tool, implementing challenges and rewards in their designs. There are also demigod and god roles to be fulfilled, allowing the divine players to bestow blessings onto members of guilds who have pledged loyalty to them. However, these rewards will not be fully implemented upon release and will take up to a further two months to be released.
“It has been an intensive year and a half of development,” writes Gollop, “but we have a great game ready to ship.”
The Witcher 3 is still getting patches and updates and its latest one – Patch 1.10 – is pretty hefty as far as updates go.
With a 13-page PDF of patch notes and around 600 changes, CD Projekt have clearly been busy. The main thing to note, as well as the foxes for a load of quests, is that a whole bunch of new conversation options have been added into the dialogue options for many major characters giving you the change to “enhance your relationships with them as well as the story as a whole”. The other big change is that the way items in your inventory are ordered has been completely overhauled.
The patch itself will be somewhere between 6 to 15 GB in size, which makes sense really with so many changes. There’s bound to be something in there too that will tie into the Hearts of Stone expansion that due out on Tuesday so make sure you’ve already updated if you’re planning to get it to expand your Witcher 3 experience beyond the core game’s offerings.
Welcome to your weekly update on the interesting side of Kickstarter gaming.
First things first – since last week Home Free has seen its target met as well as a stretch goal involving the performance of tricks for the ‘beg’ side of earning food as a low-poly puppy. As I backed this one myself, I can’t wait to see if further stretch goals get met, especially the cat one. Dracucat has not quite reached its target but it is less than €100 away now with plenty of time to spare yet. However, at the same time Crashnauts has had its campaign cancelled by the developer which is sad but not terribly surprising.
Also in Kickstarter news, our friends at Big Punch Studios have successfully got their card game Sandwich Masters backed as of 2 days ago. Lonesamurai has played this game already and he’s excited to get into playing the game where you do your best to fulfill the sandwich orders to reach the winning level of sandwich bucks. Well done Big Punch!
This is actually the second in a series of games continuing in an episodic fashion.
The story follows the titular character as he attempts to find out the identity of the culprit known only as ‘Geoff the Murderer’. The game is animated and is a point and click game, requiring you to locate clues and click on them to ‘discover’ them. The team behind this game want to make Episode 2 bigger and better than Episode 1 with “more story, more choice and even more punbelievably bad jokes” included. Fortunately they made enough money from the first game to cover a good deal of this game’s development and just need a bit more to ensure Episode 2 lives up to expectations.
Bertram Fiddle has made £5,744 of its £25,000 goal and still has 27 days of campaign left to go to meet target.
Next another cat-based card game. Boom Chicka Meow Wow is a simple little game. Basically, a cat is on the table and you need to use your cards to get the cat who gives you points. Person with most cat points at the end wins.
You obtain cats by using cards, such as the Money cards to bid for the cat (highest one wins) or Text cards which have certain effects to them. The cats themselves can also have effects, like Lancelot who will allow you to take a cat from another player. That is basically the game, simple as it is, and this is another Kickstarter to get the funding to see the game printed and distributed – like Dracucat it has been developed and refined already.
This game has 24 days to go and has made kr2,750 of its kr30,000 goal so far.
This one I’m including because its a 2D platformer and its story kind of harkens back slightly to the days of the original Spyro game despite the game’s roughness. Also it’s being made by one 20-year old student, and I admire that drive.
NinjaFrog is a 2D sidescrolling platformer in which you can collect coins to buy upgrades, find cages of prisoners to free to encourage you to explore levels and in which there are no ladders – only your grappling hook.
The story sees Frog as nothing more than a gong-ringer for a local temple where a powerful scroll is kept. But when that scroll is stolen and the mighty warriors made nothing but spirit, Frog must set out to retrieve that scroll himself!
NinjaFrog has made only €30.00 of its €10,000 goal so far, but has 27 days to go still.
Another interesting little card game here, a 2 v 2 team game this time.
Each player has a paddock of 3 sheep, and must use their cards to move the wolf or the hound around the board. Each team is trying to make it so that one of their opponents loses all their sheep before their opponents leave them with an empty paddock. Having a wolf in the paddock at the start of your turn will chase away one of your sheep, while having a hound in there at the start of your turn will return a sheep to you. There are also more advanced cards that can change play as well. This game has already been marketed successfully in Japan, and the Kickstarter aims to bring the game to more audiences in the world.
Wolf & Hound has a $10,000 goal and has made $2,150 already with 27 days to go.
Shovel Knight caught our attention from the first time we saw it on a Nintendo Treehouse at a big gaming event. The game has been popular enough on Nintendo consoles that Yacht Club Games decided to release retail versions of the game.
Now however they’ve just announced that not only will the retail edition coming to PlayStation 4, Wii U, Nintendo 3DS and PC (in Europe only) be delayed until October 30th in Europe and November 3rd in North America; the retail copy for the Xbox One had been cancelled altogether.
Explaining the situation on their website Yacht Club Games wrote: “The final few steps of the Plague of Shadows content took a little longer than expected, but it was important to us that this update to be on the disc/cart right out of the box. Unfortunately that meant we had to push back the date just a little a bit.” They then explained that the Xbox retail edition had been cancelled for now owing to “publishing policies on that platform that are totally beyond our control.” The digital version is still available though.
The price of the physical copy has also been raised a little, but people who pre-ordered at the original price should have their retailers honouring that original price. The decision to bump up the price was down to limited space to display wares and down to the location of where certain priced merchandise was to be displayed meaning that Shovel Knight might not have been displayed where Yacht Club Games would have liked it to have been. “We didn’t want our ‘bargain priced’ game to go straight to the bargain bin.”
Each physical version will now come with a free soundtrack download to make up for the delay and price increases, and Yacht Club Games have said that updates on the retail Vita version and the Shovel Knight Amiibo are coming soon.
