jdodson1

Joined 01/23/2012
  Admin

I'm an Engineer and built the video game community Cheerful Ghost and text based mini-MMO Tale of the White Wyvern.

2761 Posts

Angry Video Game Nerd Movie Update
I hope he takes us back to the past and makes a movie that doesn't suck ass(sorry I had to)... I like what I am seeing from it more now that I saw before.

What do you think about the AVGN Movie Update? Will you watch this when it drops?

"It's been 2 years since cameras first rolled on Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie. For the occasion, I've decided to give everyone this special inside look on the making of it.

Last December, we finished shooting the practical effects shots. Since then, we've been working on the VFX shots (any effects done during post-production) which are approximately 3/4 finished. The next step is Sound Design and then Music.

I expect the film to be done by the end of this year."

http://cinemassacre.com/2014/03/23/avgn-movie-timeline-updated-91913/

Age of Mythology Extended Edition Comes To Steam in May
http://i.imgur.com/K3AP2Op.jpg
Hot off the re-release awesomery of Age of Empires HD, Age of Mythology Extended Edition is releasing in May. Like many gamers, I have the original and expansion and whereas it's a great game that still works for single player and LAN, online multiplayer has long since been shutdown and the games aspect ratio is 4x3. So hearing that Microsoft is going to polish up the old game, modernize it for bigger monitors and bring Steam online multiplayer, I am pretty excited.

"Use mythological creatures like Minotaurs and Cyclopes to bolster your armies' strength. Call upon the gods for assistance in flattening enemy towns with meteors or scatter opposing troops with lightning storms.

New in the Extended Edition: Steam Workshop, improved rendering engine, Twitch TV integration, enhanced observer mode, native support for Win 7/8 and HD monitors, and more!"

http://www.ageofempires.com/AoM.aspx

FTL: Advanced Edition Releases Today!
FTL: Advanced Edition launched today and the lives of space fairing nerds all around the world got a little better. If you own FTL on Steam the new updates will await you when you sign in or if you want to try FTL on iPad, you can now pick it up for $10.

If you are looking for a list of changes to the game the FTL developers made a fairly complete list available. Because of the popularity of the update the FTL site is getting hammered but the link is below. So far I like that there are many more changes than they advertised. It's great to have a team under promise and over deliver!

http://www.ftlgame.com/FTLChangeLog.html

Ben Prunty has made the new FTL tracks available for download and they are totally free. I listed to them all today and they really add quite a bit to the games tone. The new Lanius tracks and "Lost Ship" are quite good.

http://benprunty.bandcamp.com/album/ftl-advanced-edition-soundtrack

Curious what people think of the new update. Drop your thoughts in the comments or post your FTL: Advanced Edition review on the site.

April Fools 2014 Video Game Fake Story Roundup
Every year the Internet explodes with fake news on April Fools. Since some of the stories in gaming can be fun, I decided to catalog them here. If you have a particular story that isn't noted, hit up the comments.

Humble Bundle: PC And Android 9
"Humble Bundle: PC and Android 9 features six brilliant games ready to play on four platforms: Windows, Mac, Linux and Android. Pay what you want to receive the mind-bending puzzle adventure series, Broken Sword 2, the physics-based construction puzzler, Bridge Constructor, the stylistic typographic puzzler, Type:Rider, and the visually stunning action-adventure game, Ravensword: Shadowlands. If you pay more than the average, you'll also get the award-winning tower defense game, Kingdom Rush, and the retro-style pixel-art RPG, Knights of Pen and Paper +1 Edition."

I have been waiting to nab Kingdom Rush & Knights of Pen and Paper on PC for quite some time. Now that they are included as part of the Humble Bundle for PC and Android 9 I pretty stoked to pick them up.

Are you going to pick this up and if so which games will you try out first?

https://www.humblebundle.com/

Final Fantasy Game Lore In a Minute
Like many of you, I grew up on the Final Fantasy games. I found this video pretty interesting as I wasn't aware how the series started. I also knew(from watching it in the theaters) that The Spirits Within wasn't great, but I didn't know that it nearly bankrupted Square!

Game Pricing in The Download Age
One of the coolest parts of being in gaming is how many awesome games we have access to. Steam, GoG, Origin, iOS and Android stores all let you buy a ton of awesome games for much less than the traditional $60 console price point. That said, many triple A games that come out sell digitally and physically for the same price. YouTube gaming sensation Boggie2988 made a video recently that caught my attention I linked above. He asks Microsoft and Sony to change the pricing model for digital content because the digital versions of games don't allow trading and loaning yet are cheaper to distribute.

This is something that's bugged me for quite a long time that doesn't stop at certain kinds of games. Digital movies, music and books are often priced similarly to the physical versions. When you cut out the cost of shipping and retail costs, why can't the pricing of digital content go down too?

Recently I picked up the Diablo III: Reaper of Souls Collectors Edition. All told I love it and the extras it comes with are great and I plan to write more about it soon. That said, it comes with a traditional game install DVD that I decided to check out on a lark. The fact that all the disc contains is a 4 meg install file that simply starts the download process lets me know the digital only direction we are headed. That said, I don't the new digital only world, but I do mind it's strange pricing model alongside it's physical counterparts.

FTL: Advanced Edition Will Release April 3rd
"As a reminder, FTL: Advanced Edition is a free content expansion for FTL. All current (and future) customers will receive this update regardless of where they purchased it. Prior to release, we will post detailed instructions on how to get the update from whatever digital vendor you originally purchased FTL.

The iPad version of FTL will require an iPad version 2 or higher (iPad 1 is not supported) and will cost the same as the PC version, $10. It will be the complete game, including the new Advanced Edition content, and will not have any in-app purchases. We are proud to say that the iPad version is a true equivalent to the PC in the experience it provides, which is why we are price matching to the PC version."

A free FTL update with more music, ships, events, systems and the Lanuis race? Hell yeah. Can't wait to head back into the galaxy and be destroyed by the rebel flagship again!

In another piece of amazing news, Ben Prunty will not only make the new FTL: Advanced Edition music tracks available for download but the whole score will be free forever.

Ben Prunty: "The FTL Advanced Edition soundtrack is all ready to go. You'll be able to get it on Bandcamp on April 3rd. It will be FREE FOREVER."

If you haven't tried FTL or want a great reason to head back to the game, April 3rd is the day. Curious how many Ghosters will be playing FTL on iPad?

https://twitter.com/benprunty/status/449640404762124289
http://www.ftlgame.com/?p=688

WowCraft Episode 1: The Creation
WoWCraft is a fun new cartoon from the creator of the amazing Starcrafts series. The opening episode of WowCraft is pretty spot on with how hard it can be to start a new character in an MMO.

Prison Architecht Alpha 19 Cash Horde
"After a long playthrough of the game, we concluded that the Finance system was most in need of some development love this month. It has become common practice to cheat your way to $1,000,000 in the bank because there is simply no other way to raise that kind of capital, and the game becomes boring when you have to wait for it to roll in. There are many mods that filled the gap by adding more grants to the game. Furthermore, if you use all the official grants up (all four of them) and still have a negative cashflow, you have literally no way to recover other than cheating, because your bank balance will be decreasing every day and you won’t be able to afford to build new facilities. It was clear that Finance needed looking at. Urgently.

We’ve added a ton of new official grants, and added new requirements to them as well. You can now only have two grants running at once, although your accountant to expand that to three - so be careful which ones you choose. Grants can have “Pre-requisites” before they become available to you - eg you must have completed a previous grant, or have a certain number of prisoners on site. Some grants are hidden and will only reveal themselves when the conditions are right. There is a new special “Government Bailout” grant that acts as a second life - if you run out of money and have a negative cashflow, the government will put together a rescue package and bail you out of trouble. But only once."

Great to hear that money is now a bit easier to come by. I remember a few early playthroughs where I wanted to improve my prison, but couldn't because of cash flow problems. I did result to cheating while I was building up a good game strategy and then afterward knew the right build order to keep the money flowing.

http://forums.introversion.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=47811