I’ve accidentally joined the cult of Pokémon
Pokémon passed me by when it arrived in the UK back in 1999, and I’ve never really been a fan. The way my friends were suddenly gripped by its cult-like lure made it seem like the worst thing ever. In my mind, 15-year-olds shouldn’t be hunched over their Game Boy Colors; they should be trying (and failing) to talk to girls. I also objected to the title on moral grounds, since it glorifies bloodsports like dogfighting for an audience that isn’t old enough to appreciate nuance. My stance between the ages of 15 and 30 was simple: fuck Pokémon. Which is why it’s so galling that I spent last weekend roaming the city for Pokéballs. Thanks to Pokémon Go, I’ve become everything that I hate.
I’m not much of a gamer, but I installed Pokémon Go out of a sense of obligation to the site I work for. I figured that at some point I’d have to cover the title, even if the only game I play is FIFA 13 on Xbox 360. But I decided to have some fun with it, using the Pikachu workaround to capture it first and then wind up my colleagues and friends. I sent them a screenshot of my captured Pikachu and told them that I’d won the game on my first try and therefore never needed to play it again.
I didn’t bother with it much after that thanks to the one-two punch of me not liking Pokémon and also thanks to Niantic Labs’ hilarious server issues. But, while out for a walk a few days later, my wife spotted a Pidgey close to our home and encouraged me to catch it. The further we wandered, the more times her phone began to vibrate, informing her of a nearby animal to capture. After the third or fourth capture, I started to enjoy the Paper Toss-esque mini-game in which you attempt to bounce a ball on the head of your prey.
At the end of that trip, I stumbled across a Golduck with a combat points rating of 165, far in excess of the 10-point minnows we’d been catching. Naturally, we both went for it, but I managed to rinse my supply of 45 Pokéballs attempting to capture this thing which kept escaping my clutches. That was probably the moment when I became lost to the cause, since I was determined not to let this creature get away. It meant, naturally, that I had to swing past plenty of Pokéstops on the way back to replenish my supply.
This is what a winner’s Pokédex looks like, if they suck at winning.
In the UK, it’s customary to celebrate a lunchtime Sunday roast with a long walk to balance out the Thanksgiving-level of calories you’ve just consumed. So we decided to venture out, but while we’d planned to just walk across the river, Pokémon Go had other ideas. It began suggesting that, through the older, cobbled streets that surround the cathedral, there was a litany of Pokéstops. So, we obligingly began to follow that path instead, stocking up on powerups, eggs and balls. On the way, we found a medieval defensive tower we’d never encountered before, plus a hidden riverside pathway that isn’t obvious from the road.
The walk was twice as long as planned, and I returned delighted to have found all these new spots nearby. I’d also managed to rinse my phone battery in about four hours — a new record even for me. The following morning, those same colleagues I’d ribbed the week previously were now dealing with a litany of questions. I wanted to know how best to level up, how gyms worked and what was the best way of improving my collection so that I can take over the gym across from my home.
Today, I’ve not been out on the catch, although I’ve had my phone open for much of the day picking up anything that comes within my range. When I’m done writing this, I’ll wander at least as far as my local Pokéstop to re-up on supplies, and maybe think about going a little further. I can’t believe that any game is getting me out of the house and wandering around historic sites, let alone a Pokémon game. It’ll be a while before I can get to the point where I’ll be able to fight my locals — their Pokémon all have combat points in the thousands — but I’ll get there at some point.
Facebook will refund app and game purchases made by minors
Parents, take note: if your child bought in-app or in-game purchases on Facebook without your knowledge or consent, you can get your money back. A California court has ruled in favor of the plaintiffs in a class action lawsuit originally filed by two kids and their parents back in 2012. The judge ordered the social network to provide refunds at parents’ request. Those kids bought Facebook Credits (now known as Facebook Payments) using their parents’ cards without their consent and racked up a few hundred to a thousand dollars in debt.
The website’s lawyers argued that the kids got what they paid for, but the plaintiff’s legal counsel reminded the court that the kids were minors and didn’t exactly understand that they were using their parents’ money. According to The Guardian, the whole case was centered around a California legislation called the Family Code, which applies not just to the state, but the whole country. That code voids contracts made with kids below 18 years old. It’s thanks to this case that Facebook had to launch a way for parents to get their money back. So, if you have a kid fond of playing with your tablet or phone, you may want to bookmark the Payments support page, just in case.
Source: The Guardian
Level-5’s 3DS puzzle series is back with ‘Lady Layton’
It’s been awhile since Professor Layton has graced the 3DS with a puzzle-filled adventure, but the famous detective is finally back. Sort of. Level-5 has announced that the next game in its long-running puzzle series will star not Hershel Layton himself, but Catriel Layton — the original character’s daughter. That tweak aside, Lady Layton: The Conspiracy of King Millionaire Ariadne looks like a direct sequel to the original series.
The announcement trailer shows Catriel taking over her father’s detective agency, and teases both new puzzles and beautifully animated cutscenes — but long-time fans of the series will know that the new lead isn’t the only thing different about Lady Layton. The Conspiracy of King Millionaire Ariadne will be the first game in the mainstream Layton series to be made without master puzzle designer Akira Tago, who passed away earlier this year.
The game is slated is confirmed for a spring 2017 launch in Japan on both 3DS and mobile devices. So far, international audiences have missed out on Layton’s smartphone adventures — but it’s likely the US market will at least get the 3DS version of the game. Check out the full trailer at the source link below.
Source: YouTube, IGN
‘Darksiders’ rides again on PS4, Xbox One and Wii U
Aside from the next Legend of Zelda Wii U owners don’t have much to look forward to in terms of forthcoming games. Breath of the Wild is the lone glimmer of hope in the console’s twilight years, but there could be another — perhaps even before that new Zelda makes its debut next spring. If those folks are hankering for something similar, albeit with a post-apocalyptic take, maybe Darksiders: Warmastered Edition will fit the bill.
The game is a mash-up of classic Zelda tropes (specifically its puzzles, dungeon designs and boss battles), RPG elements and the God of War series’ combat. Except here, you’re playing as one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, War. In 2010, Darksiders: Wrath of War was initially available on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 and published by the now-defunct THQ. It spawned a sequel where you played as a different horseman, Death, before the franchise was sold off with the rest of THQ’s assets in 2013.
With little to no fanfare, last year Darksiders 2 was remastered under the awkwardly subtitled Deathinitive Edition and released on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One with higher-res graphics and a bunch of add-on packs. Seeing as how the original was a Wii U launch title, Nintendo’s console didn’t see that revamped version.
This chance to see where the cult-classic series started doesn’t have a release date yet, but developer Nordic Games promises native 1080p resolution, doubled texture resolution and a few other graphical tricks. Unlike the PC, PS4 and Xbox One editions, though, the Wii U’s aging hardware will only run the game at 30 FPS versus 60 FPS on Windows and Microsoft and Sony’s consoles. With the Gamescom tradeshow in Germany around the corner, expecting more details to surface about the game is a fairly safe bet.
Via: Polygon
Source: Nordic Games
‘Quantum Break’ studio’s next project isn’t what you expect
Historically, Remedy Entertainment has only worked on one project at a time, releasing only a handful of games since 2001’s Max Payne. The company recently announced it was moving away from that fan-frustrating workflow and was becoming a studio that has more than one iron in the fire at a given moment. Now, a few months after the fantastic Quantum Break, we know what one of the team’s next projects is: creating a campaign for the next installment of free-to-play shooter CrossFire, the aptly named CrossFire 2.
If you haven’t heard of it that, it’s because a bulk of its players aren’t here stateside. But the tactical shooter has a massive global audience, particularly in Asia where Korean developer Smilegate is located. How big is the game? According to some reports, in 2013, it pulled in $1 billion in China alone. There’s also a feature film adaptation in the works. Combine that last bit with Remedy’s flair for the cinematic, and the partnership makes a lot of sense.
“Smilegate specifically chose Remedy to bring our unique blend of storytelling, memorable characters and inventive gameplay to CrossFire’s global audience,” Remedy’s blog reads.
The post goes on to say that the Finnish studio has been working on this for some time, but, those are all the details available at the moment. Folks hoping for the news on the chapter in Alan Wake’s narrative are going to have to wait awhile longer, it seems.
Source: Remedy Entertainment
Twitch now makes highlight clips on any channel
Twitch has so far been limiting its Clips sharing feature to partnered channels, but no longer: as of now, you can create those bite-sized highlights on any channel. If a friend pulls off a slick move during a live stream, you can share it just as easily as you would the footage from a big tournament. As before, you don’t need exceptional timing. A Clip will capture the 25 seconds before you hit the button to start, and 5 seconds after. While that won’t cover every situation, it’ll be enough to preserve a game-winning moment… and the cheering that follows.
Source: Twitch Blog
‘Life is Strange’ is getting its own digital series
The massively popular adventure game Life is Strange is getting its very own digital series, care of the minds behind Legendary Digital Studios and Square Enix.
Life is Strange was originally released as an episodic adventure from Dontnod and Square Enix, following teenager Max Caulfield as she found herself wrestling with newfound time traveling powers. While investigating the disappearance of student Rachel Amber, Chloe uncovers some truths about herself as well as friendship, loyalty and self-identity.
The project, of which there are very scant details for just yet, will be developed and produced with Dmitri Johnson and Dan Jevons of dj2 Entertainment. Cory Lanier and Greg Siegel, senior VP of development and production for Legendary Digital Studios.
It’s unclear just yet whether the digital series will simply follow the events of the games or if they’ll explore a new venue entirely. Whatever the case ends up being, hopefully some of the cringe-worthy writing will be changed up a bit for the series incarnation. It had a solid story, but now it needs to clean up its awkward dialogue, and it can make an excellent sci-fi adventure as a series in addition to episodic games.
Via: The Hollywood Reporter
New Feminist Frequency video dissects ‘Women are too hard to animate’
After shifting its schedule to release shorter, more rapid entries in its series Tropes vs. Women in Video Games earlier this year, the cultural criticism web channel Feminist Frequency posted its latest episode today. It tackles the excuse game studios have given when they don’t include female playable characters: that women are too hard to animate. (Spoiler: they’re not.) When one sex is treated differently in games, the video argues, negative and predatory attitudes proliferate.
The episode’s title comes from the 2014 game showcase convention E3 when Ubisoft’s trailer for Assassin’s Creed: Unity was criticized for lacking any playable women. Their response: animating female protagonists would have been too much work on their tight release schedule. The resulting social media firestorm between critics and supporters brought up a crucial question: how much work are studios willing to put in to include feminine protagonists?
Though Ubisoft would pointedly include Evie Frye as a main character alongside her twin brother in the next year’s Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate, show host Anita Sarkeesian lists how long it took other franchises to bring playable female characters into their games. The FIFA series didn’t have women’s soccer teams until its 2015 iteration, while Call of Duty took a decade before 2013’s Call of Duty: Ghosts introducing the ability to choose a female avatar in multiplayer. The Battlefield franchise, on the other hand, still doesn’t allow players to be female.
She also picks apart a common non-inclusion defense that bringing women in to the fray would promote violence against women. As in most things, intention is everything: it’s only promoting abuse if women are being attacked because of their gender. In the Street Fighter games, for example, Chun Li is on relatively equal footing with any of her male combatants and wants to be in the fight.
But when female enemies are dressed sexually while the males are not, the intentional violence becomes an issue. Saints Row: The Third’s ‘Whored Mode’ has players killing waves of women in provocative clothes with the option to do so using a giant purple dildo. 2012’s Hitman: Absolution has an all-female squad of assassins dressed in ridiculous latex getups: it’s pretty clear what the player’s supposed to feel when they gun them down.
“Whenever female combatants are dressed in sexual attire, it sets them noticeably apart from other enemy units. It’s intended to make the players’ encounters with them sexually titillating, and that’s particularly troubling when players’ encounters often involve fighting and killing those characters. Violence against female characters should never be presented as ‘sexy,’” Sarkeesian said. “The way for games to handle female combatants is not to present them as sexualized treats for the player. Rather, it’s to present them simply as combatants who happen to be women fighting alongside their male counterparts on equal footing.”
Some titles, even the mega-million-dollar tentpole games, are starting to do this right: the aforementioned Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate presents women in both the enemy and ally rank-and-file, undifferentiated from men in the same role. Some studios are shrugging off the criticism that having a parity of sexes isn’t realistic to the setting, like having as many female soldiers as male. But games, even ones that draw on historical locations or events like the Assassin’s Creed series, create their own worlds and set the tone for what we will or won’t believe, said Sarkeesian.
“To participate in the worlds games create, we happily accept time travel, superpowers, ancient alien civilizations, the ability to carry infinite items, the idea that eating a hot dog can instantly heal your wounds and a million other fictions. It’s certainly not too much to ask that these fictional worlds give us believable female combatants,” said Sarkeesian.
Representation is key, she concludes: when female combatants are presented as normal and typical, players accept them just fine. And as for believability, unlike those magical healing hot dogs, female combatants actually exist in the real world.
Source: Feminist Frequency (YouTube)
‘Yakuza 0’ is coming to brutalize your PS4 in January 2017
Yakuza fans, rejoice! Yakuza 0 has finally been given a release date, and it’s officially on its way as a PlayStation 4 exclusive.
Travel back to 1988 to the streets of Kamurocho on January 24, 2017 with the latest entry in the Yakuza series. It’s a prequel to the previous games in the series, so if you’ve yet to try one of them out this is one of the best ways you could get acquainted.
This PlayStation 4 release will feature chapter titles, character introductions, opponent names and on-screen directions in English rather than offering subtitles for the kanji for the first time since Yakuza 2. In addition, the Japanese voice actors will remain, with the English script retaining Japanese honorifics.
Yakuza 0 will receive both physical and digital copies next year when it rolls out in January. Check out the official website for additional details.
Source: PlayStation Blog
Pick up charity War Child’s 12-game bundle for a great cause
If you’re in the market for a few new video games and want to support a charity in the process, you may consider checking out charity War Child UK’s game jam HELP: The Game, which is comprised of 12 PC titles available on Steam now for $14.99 (£9.99).
The game jam contains titles like 10 Minute Tower, Anthelion, NeverMine, Octamari Rescue and HELP: The Game. There’s something in there for everyone, from puzzlers to platformers, all created from the combined efforts of 11 participating dev studios. Bossa Studios, Team 17, Sumo Digital and Rovio Sweden are among those who contributed, putting together these titles over the span of six days.
All proceeds from the game jam will be going to support War Child, an initiative that aids children whose lives have been torn asunder by war. If you’re interested in giving the games a try and tossing a few bucks the charity’s way, you can check out the cause’s official site here.
Source: War Child
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