While Nintendo is known for making gaming as accessible as possible to the masses, a number of indie developers have made a name for themselves on the Switch by providing absolutely ruthless experiences. Cuphead by StudioMDHR will be no different. This game is already known as a punishing run and gun 2D platformer and it’s now been reiterated the critically-acclaimed title will be released in the same state on the hybrid platform.
In a recent interview with Kotaku at Nintendo’s 2019 GDC indie event, Cuphead’s co-director Jared Moldenhauer said the studio wasn’t about to make the notoriously difficult game any easier and wants the next wave of players to experience it exactly how it was intended:
“Some people wondered if we were going to tweak the balance or really adjust things, and I don’t see that as being fair…We wanted to let the next wave of gamers experience it exactly how we intended to make it.”
Even though the game includes a simple mode, it doesn’t provide the full experience and cuts a lot of content. As Moldenhauer notes, “the end result, where people are a little upset that you can’t beat the game” pays respect to a bygone era of gaming.
Are you glad to hear the difficulty of Cuphead won’t be watered down on the Switch? Are you the type of player who enjoys overly challenging video games? Tell us down in the comments.
Posted by: xSicKxBot - 03-24-2019, 09:29 AM - Forum: Lounge
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Pokemon Go: Giratina Returning To Raid Battles Soon With New Form
Pokemon Go's first Gen 4 Legendary Pokemon, Giratina, is making an encore appearance in the hit mobile game soon. Niantic is bringing the Renegade Pokemon back to Raid Battles for another month beginning March 28, and this time around it'll appear in a different form.
From March 28 to April 2, players will have another opportunity to capture Giratina in its Altered Forme (pictured below). After that, the Legendary Pokemon will transform into its Origin Forme--the serpent-like appearance it takes in Pokemon Platinum--until it leaves Raid Battles on April 29.
Regardless of what form it takes, Giratina is a dual Ghost/Dragon Pokemon, so the same strategies you used to battle it when it first appeared during last year's Halloween event will apply. What's unique about this combination is that both Ghost and Dragon are susceptible to their own types, so Pokemon like Salamence, Rayquaza, and Gengar will prove to be effective against Giratina. Dark-types such as Tyranitar and Houndoom will also have an edge over it.
In the meantime, you still have a few more days to capture Pokemon Go's current Legendary, Dialga. The Temporal Pokemon will only appear in Raid Battles until March 28, meaning this is your last opportunity to add it to your collection before it leaves the game. Dialga is a dual Dragon/Steel-type, making it weak to Fighting and Ground Pokemon like Machamp and Groudon.
Pokemon Go is in the midst of its spring equinox event, which makes Grass Pokemon like Oddish and Sunkern easier to find. The game's next Community Day takes place this Saturday, March 23, and it likewise features a Grass Pokemon: the Gen 3 starter Treecko.
Power Rangers: Battle For The Grid Arrives Next Week On Switch eShop
Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid had an incredibly rough start to its life when a YouTube channel uploaded the game’s trailer and press release ahead of schedule, resulting in the game being officially revealed on the same day as the first Mortal Kombat 11 showcase. It really wasn’t the best start to its fighting career, at all.
Now that the team behind the game has comes to terms with this, the release date has been confirmed. The Switch eShop version launches worldwide on 26th March (aka. next week). You can pre-order a standard copy of the game for $19.99 or Digital Collector’s Edition for $39.99 right now. Both versions include the bonus V2 Green Ranger skin and a digital artbook. The Collector’s Edition also contains the Season One Pass (including three new characters, their arcade story, and warrior skin), an exclusive Lord Drakkon Evo II fighter and a selection of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Pink Ranger character skins.
If you haven’t already seen it, here’s the latest game trailer, revealing the full character roster:
Watch the gameplay reveal of the full starting roster. See the signature attacks from Goldar, Ranger Slayer, Mastodon Sentry, Kat, Magna Defender, Gia, Jason, Tommy and Lord Drakkon. Check out the game’s real-time assist takeover mechanics, dynamic defense, juggle combos, and Megazord come back system in action.
Will you be joining the fight on 26th March? Tell us down below.
It’s a common trend for developers of upcoming releases to announce downloadable content ahead of time nowadays and NetherRealm Studios is no different. The first of six DLC fighters coming to Mortal Kombat 11 in the Kombat Pack is Shang Tsung. Interestingly, the character is voiced by the Japanese-American actor, martial artist and stuntman Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, who starred as this same character in the 1995 Mortal Kombat movie.
In addition to this, Noob Saibot has also been revealed in an official gameplay trailer. The character originally debuted as a secret fighter in the second Mortal Kombat game and became playable in Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3.
How are you finding all of these Mortal Kombat updates? Are you looking forward to the game’s launch next month? Tell us below.
Posted by: xSicKxBot - 03-24-2019, 03:27 AM - Forum: Lounge
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XCOM 2 Is Free To Play And 75% Off On Steam This Weekend
No matter how long and tiresome your week is, there's at least one thing you can look forward to by the time you make it to Friday: Steam's free-to-play weekend games will be live. This weekend, only one title is available as a free-to-play exclusive, but it's a big one: XCOM 2, a turn-based strategy game where you command a resistance group of soldiers fighting back against aliens who have captured and now dominate Earth.
From now until Sunday, March 24 at 1 PM PT / 4 PM ET / 8 PM GMT (or March 25 at 7 AM AET), you can play XCOM 2 completely for free on Steam--and if you love the game, be sure to grab it at its current steep discount of $15 / £11.37 / AU $21.16 (normally $60). It'll be on sale until Monday, March 25 at 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET / 5 PM GMT (or March 26 at 4 AM AET). The XCOM 2 Collection, its Digital Deluxe edition, and various DLC are marked down as well.
XCOM 2 takes places two decades after XCOM: Enemy Unknown, the series' 2012 reboot. You play as the commander of XCOM, a military organization working to sabotage and bring down the alien regime that now occupies Earth. Stealth and strategy play an even bigger role in this sequel, which allows for sneaking around enemies and planning thrilling ambushes. The game earned a 9/10 in GameSpot's XCOM 2 review for its nuanced strategy, compelling characters, and the critical decisions you're forced to make.
"Time keeps ticking in XCOM 2, and the best we can do is make the right choices when we have the chance," wrote GameSpot's Mike Mahardy. "XCOM 2 imparts the weight of those decisions, and that's what makes it extraordinary. It's mathematical, emotional, and thoughtful all at once. It's exhilarating, even in the face of failure. It's compelling, even though we often lose. Victory is the goal, but that's just an afterthought here--it's the complex journey that counts."
This 3D Model Of Super Mario World Is Breathtakingly Beautiful
If you love Super Mario World anywhere near as much as we do, you’re going to love this 3D model based on the game’s overworld, too.
Shared on Twitter by Matt Brailsford, this gorgeous little creation features all of the key areas seen on the game’s famous map. Everything from the little world numbers, the Yellow Switch Palace, and all the familiar scenery is correct and present, and it looks absolutely adorable. Take a look.
There are some more pics, too:
Go ahead and tell us you wouldn’t want of these making your home look wonderful in the comments. We dare you…
Google Stadia could change the way we use our mobile devices for gaming
By Joe Robinson20 Mar 2019
It’s perhaps a testament to how the worlds of mobile gaming and traditional gaming are starting to converge that we find ourselves covering a second mainstream GDC 2019 announcement in a 24-hour period. Google have been teasing some kind of big gaming announcement for a few weeks now, and last night they revealed what they’ve been working on – Google Stadia.
The nuts and bolts is that Google want to use their tech – honed over decades of internet shenanigans – to power a cloud-streaming game platform. They’ve essentially declared war on traditional hardware formats; mainly consoles, but high-end PCs will come into the crosshairs as well. I think the thing that summed up their ‘intent’ for me was an analogy they used for describing how link sharing works.
You get sent a link, you click on it, the page loads quickly and seamlessly. They essentially want that to be true for games in general. YouTube videos will have game links on them now, or perhaps a friend or a streamer will share a game link via social media or chat. You click on it, and instantly you’re playing that game without loading, installing or buffering. They boast they’ll be able to do it at the highest quality as well (dependent on Wi-Fi infrastructure).
If you’re passionate about gaming and you’ve got some time to spare (maybe on a lunch break or later this evening), I would recommend giving the full stream a watch – it’s a pretty fascinating vision, at the very least:
If you just want a recap or highlights though, here’s the short version:
But what does this mean for mobile gaming?
It’s a complicated proposition – I think the question that Stadia poses is more to do with how we use our handheld devices for gaming, rather than ‘mobile gaming’ itself. For those of us lucky enough to possess the wireless infrastructure that ‘optimum’ Stadia will demand, it will be another attempt at engaging with a game streaming/cloud gaming platform, similar to what OnLive tried in the UK half a decade ago. Instead of jumping on to Meteorfall or Castles of Burgundy, you could instead fire up whatever AAA game is currently doing the rounds, and you wouldn’t need a console to do it. Further to that, if you’d been playing that game at home before you left your house, you could pick up exactly where you left off on your tablet or phone. Theoretically, you’d be playing with the exact same visual fidelity as well, with the only real difference being the interface.
But for the rest of us, the App stores and the games that end up there will remain our primary source of games on mobile. Android users I think have the most to be concerned about at the moment – It’s hard to judge the impact Stadia will have on the Google Play store. They’ll be some kind of integration for sure, but whether Google will try and phase it out, or encourage the devs there to use Stadia as an additional thing, only time will tell. Apple, being a self-contained infinity engine, will probably continue as normal and as long as phones with physical memory still exist I suspect there will always be a demand for mobile games as we know them currently – stored locally on the device, built to the specifications of existing physical hardware.
The real question is how will the app store game line-ups be affected: Will less devs make games for Google Play/Apple? Will the currently growing ‘console-games-on-mobile’ trend fall off with those companies switching to Stadia instead? How will this effect the currently popular business models on mobile. At the moment, there’s painfully little information as to how Stadia plans to monetise itself and provide revenue for developers. Is there a fundamental difference for developers and/or users between someone having Crashlands on their phone, or playing Crashlands via the cloud?
At the very least, we could be getting a snazzy new wireless controller out of this initiative. The Stadia controller was also announced during the showcase. It’s a Wi-Fi gamepad that’s apparently able to connect to any device. Whether it can be used for non-Stadia games we’re not sure – current reports indicate the controller hasn’t actually passed the FCC certification process yet, so a lot of its capabilities are still TBC.
The one thing we can say with confidence, however, is that we won’t have long to wait until we find out what all this means. Google Stadia plans to launch this year in 2019, and we’ll be keeping an eye on this as it develops. StadiaTactics confirmed.
Sired in an act of vampire terrorism, your existence ignites the war for Seattle’s blood trade. Enter uneasy alliances with the creatures who control the city and uncover the sprawling conspiracy which plunged Seattle into a bloody civil war between powerful vampire factions.
Starting at 2:00 p.m. PST today, members of the Xbox One Preview Delta Ring will begin receiving the latest 1904 Xbox One system update (19H1_RELEASE_XBOX_DEV_1904\18356.2000.190311-1920). Read on for more about the new features, fixes and known issues in the latest 1904 system update.
DETAILS:
OS version released:19H1_RELEASE_XBOX_DEV_1904\18356.2000.190311-1920
We are aware of issues of No Audio heard from Non-Spatial Audio games when using Dolby Atmos for Home Theater with the LG SJ9 soundbar.
Game Pass Mobile App
Issue/Impact – After pushing a remote installation of a game from the Game Pass mobile app, customers will not see progress of the installation on in the mobile app and may not receive install notifications. The game will still successfully install if there is sufficient available space on the console.
Affected audience – must be in 1904 preview, must be a GP subscriber, must be using the GP mobile app, must be pushing game installations from the app.
Workarounds – None. A fix is coming in the next version of the mobile app in March. Customers interested in getting early access to the fix can download the Game Pass Beta app.
Home
We are aware that the clock/time is missing from home and the dashboard.
My Games and Apps
We are aware that the game such as “One Leaves” causes guide to crash on game exit. We are tracking a fix to the system.
Profile Color
Sometimes users may encounter the incorrect Profile color when powering on the console.
System
We are tracking that Home is failing to load/crashing with latest update.
Virtual Keyboard
On Screen Keyboard in Hebrew – We are aware that the onscreen keyboard in Hebrew the period or semi-colon no longer works. Workaround: A physical usb keyboard works.
On Screen Keyboard covers group chat window – We are aware that the onscreen keyboard in group chat covers that text entry window. Workaround: Touch typing is a skill.
