I like how they seem to have thought, "yeah we'd better make this a bit less interesting to look at."

duskvstweak wrote: ↑March 25th, 2021, 3:45 am Just played it last year, didn't realize the game had a remake coming at the time. A lot of it was dated and some of the voice acting was ROUGH, but the graphics still looked cool. And, from what I've read, the graphics are the one thing they actually changed! People are crazy!

Did you ever read the comics? I started them a couple of years back around the time I was playing the game again. Love the story concept, but unfortunately they were just a bit....dull.

The rather tasty Sega Astro City Mini is getting a UK release via Funstock... https://funstock.co.uk/products/sega-as ... ni-console

Ooh!

Alex79uk wrote: ↑March 25th, 2021, 5:07 pm Did you ever read the comics? I started them a couple of years back around the time I was playing the game again. Love the story concept, but unfortunately they were just a bit....dull.

Yeah, the comics have a lot of atmosphere but once they burn through the initial arc they have nowhere to go and keep extending "Steve's" story way past the natural limit.

--Dan

Monster Harvest, the new game from *NOT THE* the Stardew Valley dev is out in May for all the usual formats.

(The game is by Merge Games. Not to be confused with the completely different sounding ConcernedApe )

At its base, Monster Harvest is similar to Stardew Valley. You’re a kid in a colourful little pixel-art town, and it’s your job to build out your farm by choosing crops to plant. You’ll explore the village and meet new people, buying supplies from the local vendors and keeping an eye on the seasons. Things take a turn, however, when you discover strange slimes – it turns out, these can mutate your crops and turn them into ‘planimals,’ which become your trusted companions and bodyguards.

The slimes will have different effects depending on which crops they’re added to, and the season in which they’re used. In all, Maple Powered Games says, there are 72 different mutations possible. They’ll square off with enemies you encounter in familiar Pokemon-style turn-based battles.

You and your planimals will eventually leave the farm and venture forth across the land in a quest to stop the evil SlimeCo corporation from doing whatever evil corporate things it has planned for your idyllic world. In addition to tending crops and raising planimals, you’ll also be able to craft “dozens of items” to use on your farm and in your home.

Looks nice!

It's not the same dev as Stardew though, Alex.

Oh dammit, my bad! I totally misread the news story I saw! Oops

https://www.gog.com/ is currently giving away the original XIII for PC.

Ubisoft announce a free to play The Division spin-off:

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2021 ... -heartland

Ubisoft's Skull & Bones reportedly restarting development and won't release in 2021: https://gameluster.com/exclusive-skull- ... e-ubisoft/

Seems like its becoming vapourware to me at this point! Don't think anyone is waiting with baited breath, but it did interest me when the initial trailer dropped at E3 all those years ago. Wonder if we'll ever see the finished game.

I honestly think the golden age of piracy is a woefully underused setting in gaming, there's still potential for someone to come along and create an absolutely incredible, story-driven RPG where you sail the seas, plunder ships and explore remote islands.

I know Sea Of Thieves exists, and I know AC: Black Flag had elements of this, but nobody seems to have really nailed it yet, with a slightly grittier, realistic looking pirate game. That's really my 'dream game', basically Elite but with pirates.

I should plug King of Seas which is out today, for all your pirate adventure cravings It has been getting good reviews so my plugging is justified haha

Last year, a shared my flat with a guy at work who was quite high up in the company but was staying with me while searching for a house. Anyway, he used to work at Ubisoft and would tell me lots of stories, one of which was how much of a mess Skull and Bones was, he said it should never had got announced so early and when he left the project had already been rebooted twice. He also didn't have much good to say about the Beyond Good and Evil 2 game.

That's a shame, it's the first project led by the Singapore office so I'd obviously like to see them have a bit of success. They did the ocean parts for Odyssey and Black Flag as well and there's a fun game in there somewhere for sure. I love anything piratical

really good article brought to my attention by kfgd: https://www.ign.com/articles/special-re ... crossroads

Looks like Square Enix's next collaboration with Marvel may be a Guardians of the Galaxy game: https://comicbook.com/gaming/news/guard ... eff-grubb/

I did rather enjoy the Telltale game, I actually think Scott Porter makes a better Peter Quill than Chris Pratt (sorry, Chris).

--Dan

Photographer sues Capcom over use of her photographs in their games:

https://petapixel.com/2021/06/05/photog ... deo-games/

The evidence seems rather irrefutable!

Nacon had another press event, and it had some interesting news. Test Drive Unlimited: Solar Crown was announced to be set in Hong Kong, Steelrising got a short gameplay trailer. But the most interesting thing was a big surprise...



We're basically getting Zeno Clash 3! The same developer, very similar visual style and gameplay, and set in the same world as well. I'm guessing the reason it's not called Zeno Clash 3 is because the name is tied up in some complicated rights issues, but it looks like that's pretty much what this is in all but name.

Definitely interesting in the new Test Drive game. Man, been playing those since the 80s on my old Amstrad! I hope there's some nice country or costal driving thought, burning around Hawaii in the original Unlimited game was a blast.

I cannot wait for the Steamdeck! I love handhelds and I haven't been this excited for a new console since the PS Vita. I have a load of indie games in my Steam library which I will now be able to play like I do my Switch and Vita (in front of the TV) and any future indie games I want to get will be cheaper than on the Switch with its Switch tax. I will still play my Switch for the exclusives but the Steamdeck will be my new indie machine.
There's also the prospect of playing the grindy bits of more demanding games on the Steamdeck whilst I do something like watch TV rather than have to sit at my PC to do those bits. Multitasking!

It's definitely an interesting prospect, my only fear is how quickly it may become outdated. I wonder if there will be a facility to upgrade it like a PC or whether in a year or two it's not going to be running the latest games. At least with a console it's a standard set of hardware, and devs make that work for 5-8 years. That said, with the advent of these 'mid gen' upgrades to consoles, even that's starting to be less relevant I suppose.