South Park: RPG (2012)

So, err, this sounds weird...

You'll play the silent protagonist; a new kid in town attempting to fit in. You'll be able to customise your character fully, with five classes to choose from - wizard, paladin, adventurer, rogue and an undisclosed class made up by Cartman at the beginning of the game. The combat system is likened to that of Paper Mario. Melee attacks will need to be performed with well-timed succession for multiple hits.
There will be melee and ranged weapons, all of which you'll be able to upgrade with various abilities; fire, electricity, posion, that sort of thing.
The game will run on the Dungeon Siege III engine and will remain in the same 2D style as the TV show - apparently a screenshot from the game looks like it could be from an episode.

http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/63172/South-Park-The-Game-Details-Emerge

Parker and Stone really enjoy rpgs and they do think that rpgs are the best fit for southpark.
-They were asked of how making a rpg story differs for an episode, they say that the learning curve was be bigger than anything they have done other then their Broadway musical.
-Visual and Visual style seen in episodes like “Good Times With Weapons”, or the live action hamsters in “Pandemic” will not be in the game they want to keep a simple 2D style.
-Parker has been a lifelong gamers, he really likes rpgs because he like the singleplayer nature of them so he doesn’t like or get MMO’s. His favorite game is Oblivion.
-Matt when he was young used to play the old Infocom game and Wizardry and likes open world games like Arkham City, Infamous, Grand Theft Auto, Red Dead Redemption, and also hockey and soccer games. He mention that he is more of a button masher and remember Serious Sam because he likes to shoot shit and blow shit up but he is now more interested in games like Arkham City and he hasn’t play a RPG in year because he got tired of walking everywhere. His favorite game is FIFA and he mentions getting his ass kick online by kids with English Accents.
-Lastly they joke how this Southpark game will be a cross between Obilivion and FIFA were “you gotta go kill a bunch of monsters and shit but you can only use your feet.”
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=454179

So uh yeah... sounds mighty odd.

I don't know if much more information is available in the 'exclusive' magazine article; besides I'm sure it will all be on blogs/forums within seconds of people getting it anyway. Let's hope it's good!

Thanks to a collaboration with THQ and Obsidian, Parker and Stone are writing the script, performing the dialogue, and overseeing the development of South Park: The Game. Unlike the cash-in Acclaim titles from over a decade ago, this ambitious project is a full-scale RPG for the Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and PC. As the new kid in South Park, it'll be up to you to make friends and defend the town from a wide range of threats. Be sure to check out our January issue for all the details, as well as an interview with Parker and Stone themselves.

gameinformer.com

New Xbox dashboard coming on the 6th

While many of you have been involved in the Xbox LIVE Preview Program and have been busy getting an early look at the next Xbox 360 and Xbox LIVE features, I wanted to let you know that the official release for the update for all Xbox LIVE members will be Tuesday, December 6th.  In this update, free to all console owners,  you will see:
New personal and social features including Cloud Storage for Game Saves and LIVE Profile
Beacons and Facebook Sharing
Enhanced Family Settings
Integrated voice and gesture controls across the dashboard and in apps
Bing voice search (Available this year in the US, UK and CA)
In addition to all these great dashboard features, starting on December 6th and continuing on an ongoing basis through the holiday months, a wealth of new content will be coming to Xbox 360. New, customized applications for television, movies, internet videos, sports and music will begin rolling out from world-leading providers in more than 20 countries.
http://majornelson.com/2011/11/22/xbox-360-dashboard-update-coming-december-6th/

The 'cloud storage' sounds like a pretty nice idea. As long as it's free (hotmail / spaces storage is free so I suppose it probably will be). No more using up your hard disk / internal storage for save games. Actually I get a bit annoyed on the new xbox that there are two places to save, and I always forget where my games are. It's only two tries to get it right, but one storage location would be nice. Plus loading games on another console will be a benefit (only to a select few people, granted, but I am one of those).

Voice / gesture, blah blah, I don't have a kinect yet like (I think) most people, but I can't deny it looks a bit fun.



Unsurprisingly it looks a bit Windows 8-esque. Which I think works here (and absolutely not on a Windows desktop, but let's not get into that...)


youtube 560x340

New Jagged Alliance game! "Back in Action"

I knew nothing of this! There's a new "Jagged Alliance 3" scheduled for Feb 2012. Saying 'the latest installment' seems stupid, since the last one was 6 billion years ago, but apparently the developers never lost the love (or couldn't come up with any new ideas) and so here we are again. Nice timing for me since I just started playing Commandos again (downloaded from gog.com for a measly six bucks!) and it stirred up my fond memories of JA2.

The graphics certainly seem to have improved somewhat. Lets hope they haven't.. umm.... de-improved... (?!) the gameplay. Not often a modern game has as much playability as these golden oldies.

Looking forward to this one!

gamershell.com (few more screenshots here)

i'm a bit of a design ripoff

So lots of the websites I look at seem to be carrying adverts for something called an i'm watch. Ignoring how much I hate it when products have irritating and difficult-to-search-for names like this (yes I'm looking at you, "be" internet), I can't help think it's a rather massive ripoff of the iPod shuffle (6g) or, more specifically, the many third party iPod shuffle watch straps on the market. I don't know which was first, but most famous to my mind is the 'lunatik tik tok':

Still, I suppose the i'm is quite attractive and it has some functions an iPod nano doesn't (although conversely the iPod nano is, well, an iPod).

i'm a pretentiously named product
tik tok (actually also a bit hard to find, thanks to 'ke$ha' (sigh..)
many alternatives

Asus Transformer Prime is gorgeous

Come in, iPad, your time is up.

Thanks, engadget.com

Cyber Monday xbla deals

What the hell is this 'cyber monday' all about anyway?

Well, whatever, there are a few (very few) good deals on xbla. These four are on majornelsons page, and I would buy three out of the four. 'Dungeons & Dragons Anything' doesn't interest me. These are today only, although probably today only by US time, so don't dally.

Mortal Kombat Arcade Collection was 800 now 400.
Dungeons & Dragons Daggerdale was 1200 now 600
Beyond Good & Evil was 800 now 240 to be this good takes ages must buy!
Risk Factions was 800 now 200

I already own Risk Factions (pretty decent, 4 players on one console or on live, a good Risk incarnation and the 'factions' mode and goal games are interesting). I just bought Beyond Good & Evil (thanks for making it so easy for me to spend money, xbox.com!) because it's the most talked up game I've never played. Mortal Kombat is enticing, depends on my ms points balance.

Which probably means I won't get it. I'm mighty pissed that I missed Marvel vs. Capcom 2 for 320 points on Friday. But then I probably wouldn't have bought BGAE which I'm sure will be more fulfilling.

Enjoy, xboxers. I don't know about any offers for the psn network, I don't really care. Sorry x

Ben Whishaw to play Q in new Bond

Normally I wouldn't really consider this sort of thing blogworthy, but Ben Whishaw is Pingu from Nathan Barley! That's great! I can see it now, James Bond skulks into the lab with a camcorder and sneaks up behind him, then shocks his testicles with his Omega Seamaster and uploads it straight to trashbat.co.ck



Perhaps not, in which case just congratulations to the lad I suppose.

news.bbc.co.uk // nathan barley (you must watch this!)

No time to explain

This game is mental. And awesome. Actually I have plenty of time to explain (huhu) but I just don't know how to. You jump about whilst firing off a ridiculous jetpack stroke raygun thingy, and fly around the screen like a loon whilst trying to dispatch baddies and impale on the ceiling or wall.

Watch some clips on youtube to get a feel for the game since there's no demo before you splash out the 10 bucks, but I'd say it's worth it. Plus you get the sequel for free when it comes out, which I have to imagine being a more polished and yet more insane version of this one which can only be a good thing.

(ten)

It's fun. Review here @ gamingdaily.co.uk
Buy it with this link and I get some baked beans money. I wouldn't steer you wrong, you know it.

Gamesalad adds Android publishing

Gamesalad, the quickly-create-mostly-naff-but-occasionally-quite-good-games tool, has expanded it's reach from just fruity devices to android based ones too. If you've never heard of it, it's a mac only affair and uses drag and drop graphics combined with simple (although capable of reasonably complex) if/and/or type statements to create games. Previously these could be exported to flash or published to iOS devices, and now Android users can 'benefit' from the output too.

If you have a mac, it's certainly a bit of fun. Don't think it'll be easy though, once you get settled in you will soon realise that to make anything half decent is going to be a lot of work.

I must recommend you give SPACE PANDA a try. It's so amazingly shit, it's amazing. And I mean that in a good way, in case you're the person who wrote it. Strawb'riiiiiiiiiiiies!

space panda @ gamesalad.com

Good Old Games, most deserved name ever?

So I may be years behind, but I finally signed up to Good Old Games and what can I say. The name is no misnomer, the site is jam packed with good, mostly old, games. Better yet, as soon as you sign up you get five titles for nowt...
Lure of the Temptress - good.
Tyrian 2000 - amazing.
Beneath a Steel Sky - awesome (but I never finished it!)
Teen Agent - um no idea sorry.
Ultima IV - never played any of these (for shame!)
Dragonsphere - *shrug*.

So anyway I signed up in order to purchase Commandos, a game I remember spending many an hour struggling with. For $6 (about £4, give or take) I couldn't justify pirating it. Not that I ever would. I'm lying.

So yeah. Thought I'd share that nugget of useless information in the hope it might not be useless and might entice you to check out their catalogue. There's some gold in there, such as Beyond Good and Evil, a game which almost perpetually topped the chart of 'games you must play' in the sadly defunct PCZone magazine, a suggestion I have always meant to follow. I think it's $10, so I might have to save up my pocket money...

Oh PS they just signed up EA, so hopefully some epic games to come. Bioforge anyone?

(lol at their Polish-ness)