General Game News

[The Lurker]

Castle of Illusion will drop September 3rd on PSN for $14.99.  They're going to be taking pre-orders from August 20th - September 2nd.  The following pre-order bonuses are:

Original Genesis version of the game
Pre-order exclusive dynamic theme
Three Avatars

http://blog.us.playstation.com/2013/08/16/castle-of-illusion-hits-ps3-93-pre-order-bonuses-revealed/

[Variety of Cells]

Killing monsters.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/c0i88t0Kacs" target="_blank" class="new_win">http://www.youtube.com/v/c0i88t0Kacs</a>

So very excited.

[Johnny Unusual]

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/olEGtoYs_8A" target="_blank" class="new_win">http://www.youtube.com/v/olEGtoYs_8A</a>

[Compound]

Okay, some news coming out of the German Gamescom convention.

XB1:
Microsoft is launching an Indy development service called ID@XBox.  Looks nice if you're an indy developer. Most of us aren't so I'll just skip the details.

Call of Duty Ghosts will be getting Xbox exclusive content. Surprise.

New Fable game for the XB1. They're pushing the multiplayer elements, which is of course why I played Fable. (Eye roll)

Oh, and Microsoft pushed the "Look! Soccer!" elements at Gamescom. A special mode in FIFA 14 for the XB1 version. (An all time AllStar version it seems.) Oh, and preorder the XB1 and you get a free copy of FIFA 14. (Note, that's for the EU market only. )


PS4:
GTA V PS3 bundle announced. A month before the PS4 launch. Good timing there.

Borderlands 2 will get a Vita release. (Neat!)

Vita gets a price drop tomorrow to $199 and 199 Euros. Memory cards will also be getting a (not specified) price drop.

Free Vita game- Big Fest, a "plan a music festival" game. Partnered with a music service that I've never heard of.

Sony, still pushing the whole "indy game!" concept spent about 20 minutes promoting indy games for the Vita and PS4. Rogue Legacy! Binding of Isaac Rebirth! (Free for PS+ folks, BTW.) MuraskaBaby! N++! Volume (from the Thomas Was Alone guy)! Guns of Icarus! Wasteland Kings! Hotline Miami 1 and 2! (Lots of "console exclusive debut" weasel words being used. I suspect several of these will show up elsewhere over time.) Sony? This is nice, and the BoILR folks will welcome the BoI news, but no one's buying a PS4 just for the indie games.

New Exclusives!
Everybody's Gone to the Rapture! A PS4 game set in 1984! That's what we know of it so far.

Ryme! It's a game!

Helldivers! From the Magika folks! (For PS4, 3 and Vita) Squard based sci-fi Magika-ish game. But with guns!

Resogun! A shooter! (Not a CoD shooter. A Xevious type shooter.)

Shadow of the Beast. An Amiga game  redone and ported over to the PS4. I knew some folks with Amigas who raved about this game, so they'll be happy.

Old News:
The Playroom will be preinstalled on all PS4s.

Infamous: Second Son! Still not a release title. New guy is showing a bit more diverse powers.

Drive Club! The Order! (2014 launch) Knack! Killzone Shadowfall! They ended with a segment showing off the diverse game modes in Killzone Multiplayer. Which seem nice but, meh. It's not like there aren't a gazillion shooters to play in multiplayer already.

15 new PS4 games announced, all console exclusive to PS4 at launch. Note that weasel phrase again. And I counted 9 games, so either I missed some or they forgot to announce them.

And Twitch will be on PS4 as well. I guess the Ustream deal wasn't thought out too well.

Sony announces the expansion of the EU broadband market in partnerships with various ISPs. Doc is still out of luck though.

PS+ folks, you get DriveClub and Resogun at launch, if I heard correctly. And starting tomorrow, subscribe for a year to PS+ via the PS store and they'll toss in another 90 days for free.

Some AC4 cross play demos. Play on the PS4! Then play on the vita when "your flat mate wants to watch some rubbish!" Almost all PS4 can be streamed to the Vita. Almost all. And AC4 will have a PS3/4 exclusive level featuring the character from AC: Liberation.

Watch Dogs! Sony's making a movie based on it! "It will change the world!"

Watch Dogs! It's got wubs in the soundtrack! Take that, Saint's Row IV! And an hour of extra gameplay on the PS4 and 3 and some extra gear too.

And some creepers appear on stage. Minecraft! In case you don't have it on your PC. Or Xbox. Warthunder! It has planes!

"Too many PS4 titles coming out before Christams to speak about each one!" Please try.

In the SC region, PS3 drops to $199, and the 12 GB model in the US is $199 too. Yes, a 12 GB hard drive.  Also offering a discount from some publishers on the digital version versus the physical copy. No specific discounts were given.

"We have a consistent, non-shifting gaming message." I'd appreciate the swipe at Microsoft more if it hadn't been preceeded by an hour of "console exclusive debut."

One million PS4 preorders. Launches in 32 countries. November 15th launch in US. Nov 29th in EU.

[Compound]

Okay, after all of that I have to ask, Sony? What makes you think that people will buy the PS4 to play Rogue Legacy or the like? Yes, many indie games are great but they're side items. The number of people who bought an X-Box just to play Castle Crashers is probably in the dozens, and that was a true exclusive for years.

Look indie games are great, but they're not system sellers. I don't think that the number of people who say "Wow! This console is the home for indie games! I'll buy that!" is anywhere remotely close to the number who say "Wow. These three games are available on this console and nowhere else. I'll buy that!" Especially when many of these "exclusives" are already available on the PC, mobile devices or other platforms. 

[Pak-Man]

Yeah, I play indie games on my PC. I play games on a console when I can't get them anywhere else, or I don't want to worry about the system requirements. It's not often that either of those things are true for indie games.

[iv3rdawG]

I think the people watching a Gamescom press conference aren't casual gamers that they need to sell systems to. The people watching an online stream of a conference in Cologne, Germany on a Tuesday morning probably already made up their mind on whether or not they're going to purchase the system, and Sony probably knows that. I doubt you'll see them heavily advertising indie games outside of events like this. They're trying to appeal to the viewers that aren't lining up to buy the Call of Duty games.

You're right that almost all of them are already available on the PC, but PC gamers are few and far between when compared to console gamers, so it's understandable why they're doing this, even if it's most likely going to reach that same crowd. At least it's showing those gamers that, "Hey, we have what you like over here too!" They're trying to be the next best platform for indie games next to the PC and honestly, I applaud them for even acknowledging them when Microsoft rarely mentioned them at E3.

[iv3rdawG]

Infamous: Second Son will be released in February: http://cobess.com/infamous-second-son-coming-to-the-ps4-in-february-0098/

[Variety of Cells]

So the Hanger Module is being released for Star Citizen next week.  All it is is walking around your ship in the hanger.  Can't fly it yet.  But I still think it's nice that they are giving something tangible to the backers.  Especially since a lot of people have continued to fund the game by purchasing more and more ships.  They just reached 16 million in total funding. 

But what I thought was interesting were the minimum specs they released. 

Windows 7 or 8 64-bit Dual Core CPU Intel: Core2 Duo 2.4Ghz AMD: Phenom X2 8GB of RAM NVidia Geforce 460GTX AMD Radeon HD5850 DirectX 11Keep in mind that these are estimated system requirements and may change for the final release of the game.

Nice to see a game that is built for a 64-bit system.  Don't think I've played a game like that yet.  Have to admit, I'm a little excited to walk around in my hanger next week.

[SJP]

Shadow of the Beast. An Amiga game redone and ported over to the PS4. I knew some folks with Amigas who raved about this game, so they'll be happy.

Really?  Hmm...I wonder who would be interested in that...



I was VERY disappointed when I heard that Reflections, the company that made these (that got bought by Sony in the late 90s and released stuff like Wipeout as an in-house developer) got disbanded last year.  The fact that there is a Beast game, and likely a Sony property only since they pretty much own the rights to the franchise, is actually a very big selling point for me.  Was already going to get a PS4, but new Beast?  Hell, I have notes I wrote in college for a fourth game in the series when I should've been studying (still graduated With Honors, thank you very much, though game programming has never been a strong suit for me).

And yes, I did get out my working Amiga copies just to take this picture.  And no, while I have three working Amigas, they are in varying states of disassembly to get hard drive data on them backed up (which, since they are SCSI, is extremely hard and expensive to do these days).  And yes, I am one of the 12 people on the planet to have beaten all three games without cheat codes (number of people who have beaten the game a rough estimate from what stories I have heard).  And no, Killing Game Show has nothing to do with Beast, but it is a damn fine game with a damn fine soundtrack and just wanted to show it off.  It and Beast I also made a guest appearance in my Atom Age Vampire VOD, but you can barely see it with the blue lighting I used.

[The Lurker]

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/aY62Pj_ZqMY" target="_blank" class="new_win">http://www.youtube.com/v/aY62Pj_ZqMY</a>

[Pak-Man]

Nintendo announces the $129.99 2DS!

http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/08/28/nintendo-announces-2ds

[MSTJedi]

Nintendo announces the $129.99 2DS!

http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/08/28/nintendo-announces-2ds

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

So they're finally realizing what a stupid gimmick 3D is?

[mrbasehart]

The idea is pretty sound, making a handheld that's probably just for children but man, they really like confusing consumers with console names. 

[RoninFox]

I'll wait for the 4DS, I don't want to go backwards.