Yearly Archives: 2018

Super Meat Boy Forever: PAX West 2018 Impressions

by Andrew Skelton (Outfoxed)

If you’re a fan of Super Meat Boy, you probably like punishment.  No, not like that, more in the psychological sense. It was a game known for being both brutally challenging and completely fair.  It was a game where trial and error could see you past almost every puzzle the game threw at you. Well, following in those footsteps, Team Meat crafted a sequel to the game in Super Meat Boy Forever.  Instead of having to rescue Bandage Girl from the clutches of Dr. Fetus, you now have to save their child Nugget from his nefarious clutches. Oh, and if that last sentence made absolutely no sense to you, well, that’s by design, of course.

Super Meat Boy Forever Air Punch Screenshot

I spent time playing the first few stages while creator Tommy Refenes watched on mirthfully.  It’d been years since I’d actually played through most of the original game, so my lack of skill showed up pretty early.  One improvement immediately made to the game was you no longer have to control Meat Boy’s movement. This allowed the team to tighten the controls and the puzzles even further.  You can play the game entirely with two buttons: the action button and the down arrow.

Constantly moving presents an opportunity to perform some pretty tricky level crafting too, I noticed.  Some segments of the game require you to backtrack slightly in order to avoid some of the more nasty traps the game has in store for you in order to progress forward.  One new addition to the lineup, however, is the fact Meat Boy learned how to fight! Pressing the action button mid-air will perform an air dash punch what will take out enemies right in front of you.  Of course, because it’s also an air dash, it’s also going to be required to solve a bunch of puzzles. You expected otherwise? Meat Boy can also perform a sliding punch attack similarly to the air dash by pressing down on the controller.  Likewise, this slide will be integral for a lot of the game’s puzzles.

Super Meat Boy Forever Screenshot Saw Blades

After having cleared all of the demo’s stages, Tommy challenged me to a boss he’d just finished up the day before PAX West started.  This dual-arm-chainsaw-having robot of destruction was by admission not fully tuned, but it showed now that boss fights weren’t just about dodging.  This particular boss required me to destroy several buttons on the various boss segments, all whilst climbing on the safe part of either the arms or the body, all while trying to avoid the spiky wheel of death in the middle of the screen.  Amusingly, the person to my left was also challenging the boss encounter, and Tommy likened it to who would finally be victorious.

Alas, neither of us won because I discovered a bug in the boss AI that got him stuck in a fashion where I couldn’t win, nor could I get myself killed to restart the encounter.  Tommy promises that particular instance will be quickly fixed. So close to victory, yet so, so far.

Fans of super difficult platformers will absolutely love this sequel to Super Meat Boy, and it may be worthwhile for people who have heard of the series but never played to start checking into this title further.

Immortal: Unchained Launch Trailer

Immortal: Unchained, a hardcore sci-fi shooter RPG, is now live on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.

Unchain your wrath. Unleashed from your eternal prison, you are an ultimate weapon tasked with saving the Cosmos from a cataclysmic event threatening to end all worlds.

Robert Flodin, Toadman Interactive’s CEO, said in a press release:

We’re thrilled to finally put Immortal: Unchained into player’s hands. We’ve worked tirelessly to deliver a game that matches the vision that Game Odyssey brought to us, and that our fans and community have been asking for. I’m incredibly proud of what the team and the studio has achieved.

The studio is already working on additional content and updates for the game, including further enhancements for PlayStation 4 Pro and Xbox One X, a New Game Plus mode and other exciting features to be announced later.

Final Fantasy XV Pocket Edition HD Launch Trailer (PS4/Xbox)

Final Fantasy XV Pocket Edition HD, initially launched on iOS, Android, and Windows 10, is now available on Xbox One and PlayStation 4. It will also be arriving on the Switch soon.

To commemorate the release, those who purchase any of the Xbox One or PlayStation®4 versions from today through September 13th will also receive a discount of up to 40%, with the same limited-time offer available for the Nintendo Switch™ version at launch.

Achtung! Cthulhu Tactics Reveals First Gameplay Video

The Weird World War is coming from Ripstone Games and Auroch Digital. Their upcoming turn-based strategy title Achtung! Cthulhu Tactics. Tomas Rawlings (Design Director) plays through the opening mission of the game in this video, showing off mechanics, gameplay and discussing background lore to display the unique spin this takes on the WWII strategy genre. Launching for PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch in 2018, Achtung! Cthulhu Tactics is based on the wildly successful tabletop RPG from Modiphius Entertainment. The game is set in an alternate history of World War II, where the Nazis’ investigations into the occult have resulted in the summoning of Lovecraftian monsters at their side, that could enable them to destroy the allied forces. Players take control of Charlie Company, an elite band of allied forces, sent in to do the impossible; foil the Nazi plans and turn the tide of war.

In this mission, Mademoiselle Dubois and Corporal Singh must make their way behind enemy lines, then move through the deadly forest, crawling with Nazi enemies, in order to get to their rendez-vous point with other members of Charlie Company – Captain Harris and Sergeant Carter. 

Pathfinder: Kingmaker – PAX West 2018 Impressions

by Andrew Skelton (Outfoxed)

Few games are as beloved as the Baldur’s Gate series.  The sheer storytelling the game invoked is thought to be by some as near-legendary status.  Many games have attempted to follow in its footsteps, only to be left in the shadow of the juggernaut.  Well, times change, and there’s a new upstart challenger coming armed to the teeth. Pathfinder: Kingmaker follows in the footsteps of its predecessor, using the more modern and increasingly popular Pathfinder RPG ruleset that many pen-and-paper tabletop players are familiar with.  Thankfully for myself, I had a chance to sit down and watch an extended demonstration of the game at PAX West.

Pathfinder Kingmaker Companions

The first thing shown to me was the scale of the map.  The gameplay I was watching was about 3-4 hours in, and only a small section of the map had been filled out.  Expect 80-100 hours of gameplay, I was told. That alone will probably be enough to get plenty of people excited, myself included.  The sheer scope of the game world is incredible, with an estimated 200+ locations to visit. Towns, wilderness, and dungeons galore will be omnipresent in your adventures.

The game is split into three distinct sections.  The first is the aforementioned world map. The second is the individual area maps scattered across the game.  The one I was taken to quickly erupted into a confrontation between kobolds and mites, each accusing the other of stealing a sacred relic.  We decided to go the neutral route and not take a side, nor even get involved short of saying, “Well, if we find something out we’ll be sure to let you know!”  This then erupted into full scale mite-on-kobold violence, and gave me an appreciation for one thing you don’t often find in games.

See, most RPGs, even isometric ones like this, provide an illusion of a dynamic world, but in reality everything just ends up you versus the world.  Kingmaker has various factions like the mites and the kobolds that won’t necessarily get along, and will fight each other. Choose a side and you’ll be attacked too, but since we remained neutral in this conflict, we were able to walk through as the fighting went on around us with nary a problem to speak of.  It felt like a genuine tabletop experience to me, where your actions and responses actually make a difference in how the world around you responds.

Pathfinder Banquet

We then went through some combat explanation, when we encountered giant centipedes (entomophobes beware!).  When combat is initiated, the game pauses, and you can issue actions to all of your party individually. What sets Kingmaker apart, though, is the fact that your party members also have a level of AI that will make them perform more than a standard auto attack if you leave them to their own devices.  Your mages will cast spells, your clerics will heal wounds, and your sneaky types will skulk and surprise with impunity. While it’s probably always better to issue commands yourself when playing on higher difficulties (more on this later), it’s nice to have something in place where you don’t have to micromanage every last action every character takes.

Pathfinder Kingmaker Town

The final piece of gameplay we went over was the estate system.  As part of the gameplay, your character is given a barony to rule.  You choose what buildings to place, what services to offer, and what policies to enact.  Each of these options provides both positive and negative factors to your kingdom, and you must balance each of them to maintain a positive response.  Don’t feel like managing a kingdom and just want to enjoy the rest of the game? You do have the option to ignore the kingdom building aspect if you’d like, but I feel it will add a lot to the game.  Your companions can also be set as advisors and leaders in the community, providing further benefit. Your character’s own alignment also plays a big role in things too. Lawful characters can expect peace and order, while a more evil character might employ monsters and brigands for their guards.

As stated before, you do have the option to set difficulty in Kingmaker.  Those seeking a storyline driven game have the option of an easy mode which makes combat much more simple, allowing them to simply enjoy the game’s rich storyline.  This goes all the way up to Unfair difficulty, which lives up to its namesake. Want a customized difficulty? You can do that too, by adjusting a wide range of options such as allowing critical hits (and determining how much damage they do), monster scaling, and more.  It’s refreshing to see so many options for multiple playstyles, and it definitely encourages multiple playthroughs — a rarity for a game this long.

Overall, Pathfinder: Kingmaker ticks all of the boxes of an old-school RPG experience.  There’s a vibrant world, colorful characters, intrigue, suspense, and drama galore. There’s even an encyclopedia option for players who may not know the lore of the land, and simply hovering over anything highlighted in the text will give you a quick blurb about it.  The game offers a wonderful blend of accessibility and challenge in one package, and it’s sure to appeal to a wide audience, even beyond people who craved more Baldur’s Gate stories they never received.

The Ballad Singer is a ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ Title Coming to Steam

The Ballad Singer - image

Inspired by RPGs, Visual Novels, and the classic “Choose Your Own Adventure” style of books, The Ballad Singer is a narrated graphic experience coming to Steam on September 27th to Early Access. The final version will be live in November for 22.99. Players build their own path in each game, with immersive stories (up to 1700 stories and 40 endings), with every development and subplot in your story being narrated and illustrated, down to the smallest detail. In the single-player campaign, you’ll play as one of the four main characters, following their adventures in the world of Hesperia. Importantly, death is not a defeat in The Ballad Singer – it’s a new start and a new opportunity, as you will now have the chance to use another hero in a world affected by your previous character.

The game’s unique “Domino System” is what allows you to live thousands of different narratives within The Ballad Singer. These paths will change according to your actions, the characters you have selected and their progress or failures. This branching system is based on chaos theory, where a small change often leads to unexpected consequences that can affect all characters. Each event results in numbers of consequences affecting the entire Hesperia world and changing the whole game ecosystem.

“We would like to thank the over 1,100 Kickstarter backers of The Ballad Singer, as it is because of them that we managed to succeed in the campaign and launch on Steam. We know it is difficult to go from a Kickstarter campaign to public release, so we are even more proud and grateful to our backers,” says Riccardo Bandera, Project Manager, Curtel Games. “The gaming experience of The Ballad Singer is very special, with all the different narrative paths that we have created, each player will have a unique and personal experience. Whether you achieve one of the final stages or not, you will have built a one-of-a-kind and exciting experience!”

 

Features of The Ballad Singer include:

– Four heroes with different narrative developments;
– Asymmetric stories intertwining one to the other;
– During a single run with a character you will never face two fights alike;
– Your choices really matter, you can completely change the fate of the heroes through your decisions;
– Three degrees of challenge: deceive death and repeat mortal choices through powerful artifacts;
– Replayability: only by replaying The Ballad Singer you will be able to discover the different decisional paths of each hero;
– Domino System: a choice in the first minutes of play could have strong repercussions throughout the course of the adventure;
– Fully narrated story, over 400,000 words and 40 hours of narration;
– More than 700 HD illustrations;
– Over 40 musical tracks;
– 400 different detailed deaths.
– Dying is part of the story, so there is no “Game Over.” When a character you’re playing as dies, you will play as a new hero, within the same story, in a different narrative path.