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With a brand new Nintendo Direct under our belts, and one that the Big N was careful to emphasize was NOT an April Fool’s prank, we now know a bit more about Nintendo’s strategy moving forward:
Mewtwo has been dated and priced for Smash
Lucas is coming to Smash
Nintendo wants us to vote on the next Smash character
The new Fire Emblem is going to be radically different
Shin Megami Tensei X Fire Emblem is still a thing and it looks…interesting
Splatoon is looking pretty darn good
Amiibos! Yarn Amiibos! Packs of Amiibos! Card Amiibos!
Microtransactions!
Mario Kart 8 just got a lot faster
So, with those high points in mind, lets see what the staff thinks.
Digmbot
First off, I was excited to get a date for Mewtwo. I own Smash on Wii U and 3DS, so I get him for free. As for Lucas, I couldn’t care less. He was broken in Brawl, and since he IS broken, we all know they won’t balance him right in this game either. Plus, he’s a Ness clone, so this is an easy move for Nintendo. Reskin Ness and his animations, add the few unique ones for Lucas and BAM! DLC character. I was excited about Fire Emblem until the reports that if you want to play both sides of the story, you have to buy two games. If that’s the case, this is one SRPG I won’t be playing. Keeping the Fire Emblem train rolling, Shin Megami has never been my cup of tea, so I don’t have much interest here. At least they haven’t forgotten about it after they teased everyone in 2013. I’m still hyped about Splatoon, and now I need to make Lone get a Wii U so I can demolish him 1v1. You hear that Lone? 1V1 ME BRO!
I’ll take the Amiibos and microtransactions together. Yarn Yoshi amiibos sound awesome, although they won’t be as adorable as the Yoshis Scarlet Dragon could make. The Splatoon pack seems cool. And card Amiibos will be nice for people on the go. On the other hand…I can’t afford all these Amiibos. Nobody can. Nintendo, we are not made of money. Stahp. And stop adding microtransactions to everything. For the last few years, I’ve been so happy that you don’t nickle and dime us to death (not sure what the UK version of that saying is), and now you’re starting down a slippery slope. Yeah, the Pokémon Rumble game will probably be cool. But I’m not giving you real money for Poke Diamonds. I know you’re getting into phone games, and this probably makes sense there. But I already paid good money for my consoles. So stop it.
And finally, Mario Kart 8. More DLC is good. And 200CC seems fun. But….instead of making Mario Kart 8 faster, why don’t you just GIVE ME F-ZERO ALREADY!
*Drops mic, flips table, storms out*
PredictedCyborg
This Direct had something for everyone, with a lot of Nintendo’s most long running franchises making some appearance, from Mario Kart 8 updates to some Animal Crossing content that I don’t think a lot of us were expecting to see. Personally I was was glad to see some of this Nintendo Direct’s time taken up with talking about indie games.
Out of the big three console companies, Nintendo has always been the one who seems most open to trying new things. With Code Name S.T.E.A.M being spoken about with tournaments coming soon and the news that two well-known and loved indie games are coming to Nintendo console – Octodad: Dadliest Catch and Don’t Starve Giant Edition – I’d say that Nintendo still is. I hope that they port over well.
The other big thing that excited me was that a number of DS and N64 games were coming to virtual console. An N64 was one of the first consoles I had as a child and my beloved DS served me well for many years. It’s nice to see a little focus on the retro and the fondly remembered games of yesteryear. 🙂
Lonesamurai
Ok, I watched the Nintendo Direct early this morning and I must admit, there wasn’t really much new there. One thing I did notice that worries me is the quickly increasing amount of paid add ons/DLC
I get that this is the market, but I expect more from Nintendo.
Also, Yoshi’s new game makes me itch to watch it, but then I am allergic to wool… so I’ll skip that one too 😛
It’s that time again! The time for me to enlighten you on some awesome gaming deals! This week we have some great gaming bundles that are sure to catch your eye. 😉
Humble Indie Bundle 14
They did pretty well with the Humble Bundle this time. The Humble Indie Bundle 14 currently contains 7 awesome indie games with more on the way. Buying this bundle will support the charities The Electronic Frontier Foundation and Child’s Play. So you can support charities and get some awesome games at the same time. This bundle is split into 4 payment tiers.
The first tier is pay what you want. It includes the games:
Pixel Piracy- A side-scrolling 2D, real-time strategy/sandbox/simulation game where you play as a pirate captain who must recruit crew, upgrade his ship and fight the dangers of the world in order to become the most notorious pirate on the seven seas.
UnEpic- A game where you play as Daniel who gets sucked into a RPG world. He believes he’s just having a massive hallucination, but he decides to go along for the ride until his delirium comes to an end.
Super Splattlers- A game where your goal is to make the most spectacular scenes by flinging these blobs called splattlers around, performing crazy stunts, ultimately leading to and exploding finally.
The second tier is pay above the average. It currently includes the games:
Outlast- A survival horror experience where you play a journalist who must uncover the secrets of a secretive asylum and then survive to tell the tale. A must have game for any fan of horror games.
Torchlight II- An awesome action RPG, often thought of as the true successor of Diablo. Explore a randomly generated world, collect loot, and play with friends. Defintely a must have game.
La-Mulana– An exploration action game where you search inside ancient ruins for the “Secret Treasure of Life,” all while avoiding traps and monsters to get to your goal.
More to Come
The third tier, which costs $10(£6.73), gives you the game Shadow Warrior Special Edition. Shadow Warrior is an awesome fast pasted first person shooter that has you fighting the armies of the shadow realm by overwhelming fire-power of guns and the elegant precision of a katana. The special edition includes extra weapons, and art book and the soundtrack.
The fourth tier, which costs $40(£26.94), gives you a t-shirt, patch, and a handkerchief.
This is another awesome bundle that contains many critically acclaimed indie games. For $2.99(£2.01) you can get 8 great games. It includes Magicka, Tropico 4, System Shock 2, Mount & Blade: With Fire and Sword, Deponia, S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Clear Sky, Prime World: Defenders, and To The Moon. It is defiantly a must buy.
Bundle Stars: Zen Bundle– A bundle that contains 10 mesmerizing games that are both calming and sometimes challenging for the times you are in a zen like mood.
And for anyone who is really interested in chiptune music, I definitely recommend the Groupees: This Week in Chiptune Bundle. This bundle contains awesome chiptune music including one album that has cool remixes of songs from games like Shovel Knight, Mario, Bravely Default, and more. Also includes and album of chiptune pirate-metal music. now who doesn’t want that? 😉
No doubt, many of you saw PredictedCyborg’s article on the deficiencies in Dead Or Alive 5: Last Round’s PC port. I’ve checked the game out, and now bring you my video first impressions.
Be warned, the following video contains: Jiggle Physics, Rage, Cursing, Boobs, Rage, Shitty Textures, and Rage AND NO F###### ONLINE MULTIPLAYER.
The fact that games are priced differently for the online markets of different countries should come as no surprise to many of you, if you’ve been paying attention to the news in the last few years. The fact that a Steam key is cheaper in eastern European countries is why so many of them end up being sold through sites like G2A and other third-party retailers to people looking for a bargain. Now though, the European Commission want to create a Digital Single Market for all of Europe and that means setting the prices equal too.
The managing body in charge of proposing legislation and implementing decisions in the EU is the Juncker Commission, and just last week it declared that it was dedicated to bringing down the national barriers that section up the digital stores online through European countries.
“Let us do away with all those fences and walls that block us online,” said Andrus Ansip, Vice-President for the Digital Single Market. “People must be able to freely go across borders online just as they do offline.”
One specific area they’re looking at tackling is the practice of geo-blocking – whereby users are re-routed to local websites with different prices to those seen elsewhere in the EU. It’s familiar but the Commission insists that “such discrimination cannot exist in a Single Market”.
Of course, such a decision can not be taken lightly. The average wage, a country’s economy, agreements with developers and Valve and other big online-sellers; this all must be dealt with if the Commission is serious. Who knows, they might succeed.
Let’s just hope the Digital Single Market turns out to benefit all European gamers.
Dead or Alive players have already had some reason to be irritated at the developers of the latest installment of the game series. About a month ago modders of the game were warned to tweak their game in a “good moral and manner”, which drew some furor from some about limiting freedom of expression. Now though, the PC version has released on Steam and there seem to be a few bits missing.
Dead of Alive 5: Last Round has been released, but right now it lacks online multiplayer. That’s expected to arrive as a patch to the game in three months time, although publisher Koei Tecmo have said that until that update is added the game will be 10% off. Other issues include the variety of different graphical standards with it mostly being said to resemble the PS3 version, except the shadows which seem more like they come from the PS4 version apparently; as well as two stages being missing entirely – Crimson and the Danger Zone.
On the other hand it does support up to 4k resolution, but I’m not entirely sure that’ll make up for it. Especially as the consoles released their versions on February 20th and the PC fans were left waiting for over another month for this release, so they must be a bit disappointed that the release is lacking some parts – especially the online multiplayer function.
Let’s hope that these issues are fixed quickly, otherwise I don’t see the game doing too well on PC…
