I think Bethesda might be the kings and queens of next level video game advertising that border on satirical art. With the recent protests of actual Nazi's in the US (can't believe that shit is real and happening) Wolfenstein II is verging into eerily real territory. In an earlier trailer for Wolf II Nazi's and the KKK stand side by side in an American street as buddies. With all that's happening in the US and the story iD Software wants to tell with Wolfenstein II it's just an interesting intersection where art imitates life but in the words of everyone favorite Nazi hunter BJ Blazkowicz...

"I got kids on the way and i'll be damed if i'm gonna raise them in a world run by these Nazi assholes!"

Preach.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyOkaHBfdjo

Retro Game Mechanics Explained is a YouTube channel that goes over some of the most highly technical explanations of retro games and systems i've ever seen. In the video i've linked above he talks about the Game Genie which I never really thought about but the explanation of how it works makes sense and it's such an elegant solution to the problem I tip my hat to the developers of it. Bit of a warning though, it's highly technical and discusses some pretty low level computer concepts such as registers and op codes.

Enjoy!

The Super Meat Boy Forever trailer launched today with news of it's upcoming launch in 2018 on PC, Xbox One, PS4, Nintendo Switch, iOS and Android. This looks to be a good movement for the game and some aspects of it are refined somewhat such as the controls moving to two buttons.

"Two Buttons? That Sounds Dumb! Here’s the thing: shut up. Two buttons doesn’t mean less control, it means we designed levels to use two buttons. You can get a surprising amount of movement and precision by designing levels that complement your controls. Super Meat Boy felt great because there was a marriage of level design and controls, Super Meat Boy Forever is no different."

It's also made of dynamically constructed levels much like Diablo III taking pre-constructed segments and moving them around to make multiple playthroughs different.

"“Procedurally generated” is an overused term that applies to a wide range of things. While the levels are randomly generated, they aren’t truly random and their creation is heavily based on criteria we’ve designed and tested. Each level consists of hundreds of carefully designed “chunks” that are placed together to create a level. Chunks are selected randomly from pools that are categorized by difficulty by us. Each time you beat a level, an increased difficulty criteria is used to generate the harder version of that level. Also, levels need to have a certain cadence to them so they don’t feel like just random stuff thrown at you. We’ve worked on a system that allows us to give a criteria of difficulty and pacing that makes the levels randomly, but still within the confines of what we want the levels to be presented as. Oh and also, it sounds way cooler than “procedurally generated”."

Looks like this Meat Boy will work out just as well on PC as it will on Phones and Consoles and if it's anything like I saw at PAX in 2014 it should be great. Tommy will be at PAX this year showing the game off so I imagine we will hear much more about how the game plays then!

http://www.supermeatboy.com/

Yacht Club games blasted on to the Indie scene with an amazing Kickstarter for Shovel Knight. The game was funded and all of the games strech goals were met giving the base game a TON of extra content. If you've had Shovel Knight since the beginning you've see it get update after update making the game get so much bigger and adding a ton of new story content like Plague Knight and Spector Knight campaigns as well as Gender Swap mode and Co-op. Shovel Knight is set to get it's final set of story based content in Shovel Knight: King of Cards in 2018!

"Shovel Knight: King of Cards is the final campaign in the Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove saga, and it’s bigger and grander than ever! Step into the regal shoes of King Knight, the Gilded Goon himself, as you shoulder bash and spin jump through all those who would oppose your reign! Travel through 4 new worlds and more than 30 all new courses, all on a journey to best the “Three Kings” who lord over the land. Discover what it takes to become a true monarch, meet a friend or two, and amass a King’s ransom in items and loot! Refined platforming, exquisite visuals, story with heart, action-packed courses, glorious new bosses and more await in Shovel Knight: King of Cards!"

Strangely or unstrangely enough Shovel Knight is also getting a mini card game too that seems interesting.

"Had your fill of glamorous adventure? Unwind and sharpen your strategic mind by competing in card battles with future subjects from across the land."

I wonder if this is the first step to Yacht Club releasing a Shovel Knight-verse digital collectors card game in the same way CD Project Red released Gwent? Remains to be seen but the thought that Shovel Knight gets even a mini card game seems like a really interesting idea.. so why not?

http://yachtclubgames.com/shovel-knight-king-of-cards-press-kit/

"We still can't believe it's happened, but SimCity for the NES has been unearthed! Back from the depths of a closet, two protoype carts have appeared like Bowser on the loose in Tokyo, stomping, smashing, and ripping up all guesses on what their value may be!

Yesterday, a longtime NA member BIGDADDYRAMIREZ posted the above two minute video showcasing the first footage seen of this unreleased NES game since it appeared on Johnny Arcade in 1991. Where exactly did they come from? Well, turns out BIGDADDYRAMIREZ is the owner of Back in Time, a chain of game stores in the Seattle area, and like unicorns are want to do, they both walked in the other day. We just got off the phone with him, seeing as we've been waiting for this moment all our lives it seems, and learned that both copies will be making an appearance at PRGE this year."

Finding these lost Nintendo prototype carts is really great because often times nearly completed ports are abandoned and in the case of SimCity revisioned to work on the Super Nintendo. The Super Nintendo SimCity port is incredible and Nintendo was right to release it on the system at launch but losing the Nintendo port to history is a bit sad and I'm glad it's been found so it can be preserved.

NES on SimCity will be at this years Portland Retro Game Expo and I'll be making a point to check it out.

http://nintendoage.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&blog_Id=1&Id=1754

Capcom is teaming up with IAm8Bit to create a limited run of Street Fighter II to 3,500 units at $100 each. It's an honest to God Super Nintendo repo cart and it's pressed to look like the original yet, it's red. The box is a tri-fold box with foil and a glossy finish that should make any collector jealous. They are randomly going to mix in 1k Blanka Green glow in the dark carts for the lucky few that get those shipped to their house. It's an interesting way to distribute and even more limited edition version of the game and the site totally allows buying 5 to increase you chances of hitting Blanka!

https://store.iam8bit.com/products/street-fighter-ii-30th-anniversary-edition

"The Open Beta phase will begin on August 29 at 10 a.m. PT. All PC players will be able to play for FREE during this period. To play, you’ll just need the Blizzard Battle.net desktop app and a free Blizzard account—no additional sign-up or code required."

I've heard great things so far about Destiny 2 on PC and it seems it's a very amazingly created port that runs super smoothly. Curious what everyones thoughts are now that anyone with access to Battle.net can give it a try for a couple days?

https://news.blizzard.com/en-us/blizzard/20974970/play-destiny-2-free-on-pc-august-29-31-during-open-beta?utm_source=destiny-2-open-beta-activation-20170829

Secret of Mana on the Super Nintendo is one of the best RPG's of all time. It was remade on the iPhone in 2012 and I thought that port was terrible in every possible way. So i'm a bit nervous to hear that Square is remaking Secret of Mana in 3D and launching it in 2018. It could be a great game. But... if the trailer is any indication, it doesn't look like it will be that good. Firstly the voice acting isn't to my liking and i'm not a big fan of the art style either. Still the game could be fun and i'm not going to rule it out entirely, i'm just not too excited about playing it. Personally, i'm more excited about getting it on the Super Nintendo Classic, but I am a sort of purist when it comes to certain games and films (like Star Wars). I don't mind revisionings of things but some games and films are better left as is and maybe Secret of Mana is one of those games? Also... maybe not so we will see how it turns out.

The 3D remake will be available on 15th February, 2018 for Steam, PS4 and PSVita!

https://cheerfulghost.com/jdodson/posts/259/secret-of-mana-is-one-of-my-most-beloved-games-of-all-time

Back in August of 2013 I wrote about the new Kickstarter for Death Road To Canada and quickly after that I backed the Kickstarter. After that I interviewed the creator of the game and then dug in to wait for the games launch. The game finally launched in 2016 and it was added to my backlog of games to play. Since the games launch they have updated it considerably and the game seems to be even more widely praised by it's fans so I decided to jump in and give it a shot.

Death Road To Canada is a very well polished rogue like zombie bashing road trip game that pays homage to the Oregon Trail and the Ninja Turtles arcade game. Like most rogue likes you die... a lot but the main game loop is so much fun that doesn't really matter. There is much strategy to the base game and how you approach zombies, collecting loot and making choices really matter. Not to say there isn't a fair amount of RNG at play making some games massively unfair but sometimes the RNG is in your favor and that luck and your skill make it a very special experience. One other fun element of Death Road is that you can play it with a friend. I had a friend over recently and we played the game for hours really enjoying ourselves.

You can play the game with a keyboard and mouse but I seriously recommend you use a gamepad. I found the experience with a controller to be much better and playing with friends, it's a must.

Looks like the game will be getting even more future updates and if you are interested in checking those out, check the steam update link below. If you are looking for a new rogue like to play that hooks you right from the start and works on PC, Mac and Linux you should look into Death Road to Canada.

http://cheerfulghost.com/jdodson/posts/1590/interview-with-death-road-to-canada-s-kepa-auwae

https://steamcommunity.com/games/deathroad/announcements/detail/2353548518942679770

Back in May I started my playthrough of Link Between Worlds on the 3DS. It's a fun follow up to Link to the Past and bring enough new things to the table to be interesting. As with most new Zelda games and because I have a one year old I play it in bursts. Recently I completed a few dungeons in Lorule, which is the Dark World equivalent in Link Between Worlds. Link Between Worlds keeps the dungeon locations to the same places as Link to the Past. The Lorule dungeons are all different but keep some of the themes with the original dungeons. For instance, Lorule has a Thieves Dungeon that is similar to the Link To The Past Dungeon. Each dungeon in Link Between Worlds, so far, keeps the base similarity to Link to the Past while changing the puzzles and having the dungeon layout be totally different. I'd also say, in general, the Link Between Worlds Dungeons are a bit harder and more varied in puzzles. The Lorule Dungeon bosses are also based on the original Link to the Past dungeon bosses but feature a new mechanic. So far, like most Zelda bosses, they have a couple hooks but once you understand them are easy to beat.

If I had to guess I'd say i'm slightly less than half way through the game and given about how long it's taken me to get to this point I should complete it sometime this holiday season. Good thing people in Hyrule are used to living under the thumb of evil despots because i'm not going to save them anytime soon. But you know, freedom doesn't come quickly when you have kids.