Now that PAX East is upon us the flurry of Indie gaming news is starting. I was happy to see the new trailer drop for Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number. Focusing more on many of the new gameplay elements the trailer really showcases the additions Dennation Games has added to the Hotline Miami formula.

Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number will release this year on PC, Linux, Mac, PS3, PS4 and Vita.

Recently The Simpsons parodied Minecraft in the show intro. Not as much funny as it is cool to see the Simpsons do it. It's a sign of cultural relevance that certain people and things achieve to be parodied by The Simpsons and Minecraft is popular enough to warrant it.

Seriously, cataloged in this YouTube video is every Super Nintendo game start sequence in alphabetical order. If there is no English translation of a game, they use the Japanese version. The video is only 9 hours and three minutes so start watching now!

Kero Blaster is Studio Pixel's latest game that will launch May 11th on PC and iOS. Studio Pixel was the company behind Cave Story and it seems Kero Blaster falls in the same genre. I like the NES aesthetic of Studio Pixel games and appreciate how the main character of Kero Blaster is a frog with a gun.

Kero Blaster is releasing on PC on the Indie Game site http://www.playism-games.com/ It's an interesting service I hadn't heard of that is similar to GOG.com or the Humble Store.

When Diablo III first launched I was hooked. I enjoyed running through Sanctuary with SnuggyBunny, my Witch Doctor, collecting loot and murdering evil. That said, after I killed Diablo a few times I started having less and less fun. The loot started to suck, I didn't enjoy having to relive the story over and over and the game wasn't that challenging. My interest died off but I would occasionally come back to SnuggyBunny to dispatch evil.

When the loot 2.0 patch hit what little I played I loved. Diablo III was fun again and I was getting some really amazing gear. Many of my friends came back to the game and we were enjoying playing it together. A bit after loot 2.0 hit I decided to stop playing until Reaper of Souls was released so I could bottle up the excitement I had for the game. I am happy I did that because...

Reaper of Souls is an great expansion to Diablo III.

The Tale of Westmarch

Reaper of Souls starts off with Malthael the angel of death stealing the soulstone from Tyrael. Ultimately you are sourced with retrieving it and halting Malthael and his plot. (I am being vague here to avoid spoilers) I really enjoyed the addition of Act V and felt they really upped the ante from the base Diablo III experience. In Act V there are more things to explore, the world they created is deeper and the story isn't as chuckle-worthy.

Act V contains about 8 parts and starts in the battle ravaged town of Westmarch. The level design and art direction really shine and you don't go too long without seeing something totally new to look at. The mini-boss encounters are fun and the final battle with Malthael is much more challenging.

The Music of The Reaper

Some have said the music in Reaper of Souls is better than the music from the base Diablo III experience. I don't agree with that but I will say the music for Reaper of Souls is very different and more immediately memorable. Derek Duke takes the helm to pen a really massive score that reminds me of something from a modern film and less a Diablo game. Not to say the score doesn't seem like it comes from the world of Sanctuary, just that it seems to have evolved much from it's Diablo and Diablo II roots.

Bounties, Rifts and Adventure Mode

One of the strongest elements of Reaper of Souls is Adventure Mode. Adventure Mode allows you to go to whichever Act you fancy to complete Bounties. Bounties are in game goals that upon completion award you experience and rift tokens. Collect enough rift tokens and you can open a rift that is a random dungeon filled with tons of monsters and loot.

I like Adventure Mode because I can head into the game and complete 5 bounties in under an hour. Competing a set of bounties nets you a Horadric Cache which gets you an assortment of rift tokens, gems and loot.

The Crusade Marches On

The first thing I did when Reaper of Souls hit was start a Crusader and head back into Act I.

If you are curious what HammerTime, my current Crusader build is, clicky click.

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/jdodson-1332/hero/43985764

I need to start focusing on socketing diamonds for all resist to make him less brittle. Currently he can hit pretty hard but doesn't fare too well against dense mobs. The Crusader has many skills that increase his block chance and I need to figure out a good build in that regard. Currently HammerTime feels "too glassy" and I want to change that.

Currently my DPS is high enough and when the Crusader starts throwing around his hammers it's insta-death for most mobs. I have heard that Blizzard is planning on patching the Crusader soon and I look forward to it. Some of the Crusader skills are not great and i'd love to have them changed such that they make sense to use.

The Final Verdict

If you love point and click RPG games, Reaper of Souls is well worth a look. If you are nervous about dropping the coin on Reaper of Souls because your were disappointed with Diablo III then just head back in and check out loot 2.0. The game has been changed considerably from when it initially launched two years ago and I think many of the major problems have been addressed. But really, at the end of the day I recommend it because killing things and looting the remains is just a lot of fun.

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/

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 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.

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.

• Blizzard Outcasts is the new fake brawler by Blizzard. That said, fighting as Deckard Cain sounds pretty rad. http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/games/outcasts/


• While not gaming related, Think Geek has a pretty fun Flux Capacitor USB car charger. http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/1ba1/?srp=2


• Guild Wars 2 set all the in game players heads to bobble. http://i.imgur.com/m4GmxvB.jpg


• Path of Exile just went pay to win. Candy Crush players rejoice. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w19sqGjmNlY


• League of Legends Rapid Fire: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=misAyNLuoQg


• Boogie2988 plays Half-life 3 for 30 minutes. Nearly perfect satire, my personal favorite of the bunch. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLq-KmI3VKc

"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/