I love the turn based game mechanic. So much so that I am really interested in picking up The Banner Saga. Since it's not a "must buy" for me I was thinking of picking it up as some kind of bundle or sale. That said, I recently watched the latest episode of the Red Letter Media "Pre-Rec" game review show and I was left a bit confused.

http://blip.tv/redlettermedia/pre-rec-the-banner-saga-6883636

Jack and Rich Evans really don't seem to like the game and their criticism of it seems pretty valid, if not a bit cynical. One one hand, the criticism seemed fune but then I remembered that The Banner Saga has received some pretty positive acclaim. The game currently holds a strong 4 review on Steam and an 80% Metascore.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/237990/
http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/the-banner-saga

Often times critic reviews don't stack up to what the overall public. Recently I watched the sci-fi film Oblivion and thought it was quite good. It's not a perfect film, but what is? That said I thought it was so much better than the critic hate it seemed to garner.

It's often hard to wade through the morass of game critique to find the simple truth. "Is this game going to be fun for me?" Reviews & critics are helpful but in times such as these, it's confusing.

One of the questions i've had since I heard about Destiny has been "what kind of shooter is it?" I mean, I always knew it was a shooter, but what made Destiny different? Clearly the people at Bungie had something unique in store and after watching this latest interview video with Pete Parsons, I have a much better idea. Destiny seems to take many ideas from Borderlands but seems to do things a bit differently with it's social hub play.

Oh yeah and the game just looks incredible too.

The folks over at CineFix have posted another film to 8-bit translation, this time re-creating on the classic Zemeckis film, Forrest Gump. All of the main highlight scenes are covered as well as Alan Silvestri's iconic score.

This is a picture of me and Nic Blondi, the developer of Hard Lander at the Cheerful Ghost booth at the Victory Condition Arcade yesterday. If you you are going to be in downtown Portland tonight from 5pm - 10pm, stop by the Art Institute of Portland and pick up a Cheerful Ghost sticker. After that you should check out the board and video games showing like Hard Lander and Monsters at My Birthday Cake.

Originally the Victory Condition Event said it ended today, but I was mistaken you can come tonight too.

http://cheerfulghost.com/jdodson/events/56/cheerful-ghost-the-victory-condition-arcade

Check out our recent Interview with Nic Blondi about the Ouya sensation, Hard Lander.

http://cheerfulghost.com/jdodson/posts/2017/hard-lander-shows-us-how-spaceship-rage-can-be-fun

As someone that typically doesn't like mobile games, I was strangely excited to see Wayward Souls launch. Wayward Souls is a 2D hack-n-slash rogue-like that has some of the best mobile controls i've experienced. Lately, it's been the game i've been spending the most time playing because it's focus on short gameplay chunks is really compelling. I want to thank Kepa of RocketCat Games for getting back to me and I wish them well to a speedy PC launch!

jdodson: Wayward Souls has launched to some pretty universal critical acclaim with fans and reviewers. How are you taking the feedback and has anything altered your initial set of plans for the game?

Kepa Auwae: There's some mixed feedback on the controls. "Best control scheme on iOS" generally, but some "flawed controls hurt the game". We found out there's a slight sensitivity problem for swipes on iPad, so we need to fix that. Our first big update got delayed a bit, as we added a lot of feature requests and such. Still working on that.

jdodson: I am a huge fan of PC gaming and think Wayward Souls would work really well in this space. Curious what the timeline is to bring the game to Steam and if we might see a Linux/Steam Machine or Mac port as well?

Kepa Auwae: We hope for a few months, for the Windows version. We can most likely get it on Steam. Linux/Mac: Not sure yet! We'd like to port it to as many platforms as possible, but we also don't want to handle the work ourselves. We need to find a porting company to tackle it.

jdodson: How long has Wayward Souls been in development before you decided it was ready for launch on iOS?

Kepa Auwae: 2.5 years. Really 2 years, but we took 6 months to DESPAIR.

jdodson: What was the inspiration for Wayward Souls?

Kepa Auwae: Secret of Mana was a big one. Mostly me not liking the combat after playing it again. I wanted to make a game like Secret of Mana, but one where the combat was fast-paced and required some twitch skill and thought. Spelunky was also a big one, due to its good level generation system.

jdodson: I heard it mentioned that Wayward Souls would get a few content updates. What kinds of things do you have planned? When you start supporting new platforms will they all receive the same content?

Kepa Auwae: New areas, with the first update having a huge new dungeon. Secret stuff. New content. Eventually a new playable character. The new platforms will get the same content, though PC version will get a big content update that may take awhile for the other platforms to get.

jdodson: When do you think the PC version will come out? Don't need a specific date, but are you working on it now?

Kepa Auwae: We hope that the PC version will take about a few months, but no idea really.

jdodson: If you could work with any video game property, which would it be?

Kepa Auwae: Sonic the Hedgehog, but with us intentionally making the worst game possible. With a King of the Hill cross-over.

jdodson: From your first game to finally shipping Wayward Souls and Death Road to Canada, how do you look at how things have gone? Anything in game development that you didn’t go the way you expected?

Kepa Auwae: Well we thought Wayward Souls would take about half the development time. And we thought Death Road would have been out a long while ago. So yeah I guess release dates didn't go as expected for either.

jdodson: Recently I watched a Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode that featured “Santa Claus VS The Martians.” In the film, Martians want to make their kids happy again by kidnapping old Saint Nick and having him make presents on Mars. Not sure this is a question.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6C5WwammH90

Kepa Auwae: I saw that one, I was a big MST3K fan. Sometimes I get flack for being a Mike fan instead of a Joel fan.

jdodson: My friends have asked me if I prefer Mike or Joel and I honestly don't like to answer that. It's odd because your supposed to have a favorite, but I really like them both. They are super different though, but it's hard to pen it down to which I prefer. WHY MUST WE CHOOSE ONE?

Kepa Auwae: Because Mike's BETTER.

jdodson: I am a Death Road to Canada backer and can’t wait for the game to ship. How is development going on it? Will it ship this year?

Kepa Auwae: It's going slowly, but recently it's gotten a lot better. We hope it ships this year, but not going to guess at a release date at all until we're sure.

EXTRA THING: One of the updates will add a super elaborate Credits level.

http://www.rocketcat-games.com/

Like many of you I have a ton of games in Steam I've never played. We all get them from bundles, game packs or Steam sales and have high ambitions to play them all. Eventually.

Thing is, over the last year my list of games has increased at a faster rate than I can play them so I decided to take steps to address this. One thing I do now is I don't buy a game I won't immediately play. So if there is a new sweet bundle OR game on sale, I will not buy it unless I will be playing it within a few days of buying it. My thinking here is that if I don't plan on sitting down to play the game now it won't happen in a week.

I have also decided that when I want to play a new game, I'll pick a game from my catalog I haven't played yet. That doesn't mean I won't buy new games I want to play, it just means that for the next bit, I am going to try and play the games I already have. When I find a new game that is awesome, I'll write a bit about it.

So the other day I wanted to play something new and started looking at the bottom of my Steam list. As I went up I noticed a game called "Splice" and I decided to install it.

Splice is a really interesting puzzle game where you try and fit a cell sequence in a pre-determined area. It's kind of hard to explain in words so I recommend you check out the video above. The game kind of tosses you into the mix and after a few minutes of being totally lost I figured out how to beat the level. It's an interesting style and I kind of liked the feeling of being totally lost and finally having that "aha" moment where I knew what to do.

The game's visuals look like you are looking at the cells in a high def microscope. The game also has a really cool HD "scratched" feel. The game score is quite good and the mixture of piano and minimal synth works well with the overall tone of the game. Splice has a similar feel to Solar 2 and if you loved Solar 2, Splice is up your alley.

You can nab Splice on Linux, Mac, Windows, Android or iOS.

Blizzard will launch Diablo III: Reaper of Souls Ultimate Edition on consoles August 19th. If you have been unable to play the game thus far because your are console bound, now you will get your chance. At first I thought this release would only make it to the PS4 and XBone, but it seems Blizzard is releasing it on the PS3, PS4, 360 & XBone to keep everyone happy.

"Diablo III: Ultimate Evil Edition is filled to the brim with fast-paced action, awe-inspiring heroes, and legendary treasure. It features all the content included in the Reaper of Souls expansion set, as well as Acts I through IV of the original Diablo III for those who have yet to vanquish the Lord of Terror on console. The Ultimate Evil Edition goes on sale August 19 at select retail locations for a suggested retail price of $59.99 USD for the PS4 or Xbox One and $39.99 for the PS3 or Xbox 360."

Are you picking this up?

http://us.battle.net//d3/en/blog/14096399

"Tim sits down for the first time in 10 years to play "Day of the Tentacle"! In this first installment we explore some of Bernard's storyline and clear away the cobwebs of time from Tim's memory. "

Double Fine is releasing a few videos that have since been special backers only rewards. I just watched the latest video of Tim Schafer playing Day of the Tentacle. Hearing him talk about the games development as he plays it is really great as Day of the Tentacle has always had a special place in my "video game soul."

Thy plan on releasing more videos of Tim Schafer playing Lucas Arts classics and will conclude the Day of the Tentacle play with a part 2.

What memories do you have of the early Lucas Arts classics? Did you ever play Day of the Tentacle?

Blizzard gave Starcraft II a great map editor. That editor has spawned many awesome Arcade maps and in the case of the Warcraft III editor, it even created the whole MOBA game genre with DoTA. Not to be undone by the past, someone has taken it upon themselves to recreate the original Diablo in Starcraft II and call it "Diablo: Mortal Shroud."

Playing it is pretty simple, you just open Starcraft II, go to the Arcade section and search for "mortal" and select Diablo: Mortal Shroud. The game is already pretty darn great and has the feel of the original Diablo. The mod author is using the original game voice acting, art and play style as the original. The game looks a bit Starcrafty as it is built with the SCII toolset, but there is no mistaking that Diablo feel.

Currently Mortal Shroud supports single and multiplayer. I didn't notice the ability to save your game, but perhaps that will be added to a later version.

"Work on the future of Unreal Tournament begins today, and we’re happy to announce that we’re going to do this together, with you. We know that fans of the game are as passionate about Unreal Tournament as we are. We know that you have great ideas and strong opinions about where the game should go and what it should be. So let’s do something radical and make this game together, in the open, and for all of us.

HERE’S THE PLAN:

• We’ve created a small team of UT veterans that are beginning work on the project starting today.


• From the very first line of code, the very first art created and design decision made, development will happen in the open, as a collaboration between Epic, UT fans and UE4 developers. We’ll be using forums for discussion, and Twitch streams for regular updates.


• If you are a fan and you want to participate, create a free account and join the forum discussion.


• All code and content will be available live to UE4 developers on GitHub.


• The game will be true to its roots as a competitive FPS.


• Development will be focused on Windows, Mac and Linux.

Epic Games is pushing pretty hard on it's tools in a very unique way. Earlier this year they released the Unreal Engine toolkit for a reduced price, but now they are now going to develop the next Unreal Tournament game in the open. It's an interesting model and I hope the results are a great Unreal Tournament game, we have needed a new one for quite a long time.

I am curious how many from the UT community will join in the games development?

https://www.unrealengine.com/blog/the-future-of-unreal-tournament-begins-today