There's been a lot of talk about the brand new, 2D, high-definition Sonic game. It's been something people have wanted for a long time, and the idea that this could be a sort of “Sonic 4” is pretty damn amazing. We've even got a screen shot and level design for the game!
Except, well, we don't. You see, at the same time that Sega was making their announcement for their new Sonic, code-named Project Needlemouse, a couple of young guys in Massachusetts announced their fan-made game, Needlemouse: The Emerald Hills. Needless to say, the timing was more than a little off, and those level builds are not from the new Sonic title.
However, this fan-made, inspired-by-but-not-endorsed, Needlemouse: The Emerald Hills is pretty damn interesting. I contacted the two guys behind the game, Jono Forbes and Matt Schoen, and talked to them about their project. While certainly big fans of Sonic, Forbes said that “we think we are the perfect age for this product. The first game we ever really played was Sonic 1, and that was my thing...that was my childhood, and that's what got me interested in game design.”
According to the team, the game has been in the works since May, but has been tossed around for the last few years. Obviously, Needlemouse: The Emerald Hills is an act Sonic-fandom, and they hope to make a game that would act as inspired from the speedy hedgehog's better days. Ultimately, they hope to have a final game for people by spring of next year, although that depends on how things come together.
Before I left them, I asked them about what they would want to see in a new, 2D Sonic the Hedgehog game. Forbes said that “if Sega is going to be remaking the classic, I would assume they would be keeping to the original feeling, as well as trying to keep to the art as true as possible, in a modern HD way; a big distinction between these Needlemice, I think, is that while we are also striving to remake the original feeling, we're taking our liberties aesthetically, and you can expect some radical changes to the look.” For those interested, check out the Needlemouse: The Emerald Hills website to follow up on the project, as well as stay up to date on any updates and beta tests for the game.
Sadly, this article isn't about a Zork remake (not that a text-only game would benefit from bump mapping or bloom lighting) -- I just needed a catchy headline that would attract text adventure enthusiasts. If the phrase "You are likely to be eaten by a grue" doesn't mean much to you, you should do a bit of homework (I would also suggest a personal favorite, Aisle).
If you are a text adventure enthusiast (or even just a "Hey! That's cool!" enthusiast), you'll be delighted to know that the Reign of Grelock (beta) is available as an online Flash game thanks to Chris Marjason. The game can be found in its original glory at a computer terminal in the Hubris Comics' offices in Fallout 3. Reign of Grelock is pretty short, and you won't get any bonuses for playing it (in Fallout 3 or otherwise), but it's a neat homage to ye olde school of text-only parser game design.
Because the game was remade in Flash, options are clickable, Marjason having done away with the text inputs. Nevertheless, he kept the computer terminal border and fixed some of the original's glitches. If you're feeling nostalgic and have ten minutes to kill, click here to give Reign of Grelock (beta) a whirl.
Ok, if you aren't some sort of SNK enthusiast, bear with me here. Earlier this year, on April Fool's Day, SNK Playmore announced a game called Star Radish, an 8-bit Neo Geo shmup made by a "Mikadosoft." Everyone thought the game was a joke, but it's actually playable ... in Doki Majo Plus, a sequel to the notoriously NSFW Doki Majo Shinpan. Like the original, Plus is a witch-hunting game: players track down witches by looking for their "witch mark."
Except the witches are all junior high school students. And the "mark" is usually covered up by clothing.
In any case, one of the potential witches is a retro enthusiast named Renge Oda who will talk your ear off about games like Psycho Soldier if you let her. Enter Star Radish. I'm not sure how Doki Majo Plus makes the jump from "interrogating" Renge to playing her favorite new game, but it's there.
There's some gameplay footage after the break, but you'll have to sit through Renge's awful voiceovers the entire time, speaking some sort of moon-gibberish. The screen unexplicably goes dark at the 1:40 mark, though. Unfortunately, while it's a quirky bit of fanservice, Star Radish doesn't look interesting enough to sift through the hours of loli molestation required to get to it.
It's highly possible that it is the funniest faux FPS ever, but I've been known to get worked up over incredibly stupid things before. Then again, haven't we all? The Onion has a first-hand report on Close Range, the anticipated new game that "consists solely of shooting people point-blank in the face."
As if that weren't enough in and of itself, there's also multiplayer where players take turns capping one another in the head, and let's not forget about the side missions which pit you against deadly creatures like horses and ostriches.
"Who cares. This isn't even a real game, and you're a madman for getting so carried away." Wrong, my friend. I may be a madman, but Close Range is a playable game. Seriously, go give it a spin.
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I know we cried wolf before, but that was for humor's sake. That other stuff? Definitely not even close to looking real, and even Capcom gave us sh*t for posting that.
This at least looks like something real, or the intro to something I'd like to play. Unfortunately, I don't know how much faith I can put into this being actual leaked footage. We will just call it now: it's a well-done fake...probably.
Nothing's clear enough to get a good look at. Some of the shots earlier in the video look just like the first Dead Rising. And the casino shots? That's my dream for a Dead Rising sequel, and I want it to be real, but they just don't feel legit to me.
We contacted Capcom for a comment, and I think I know what they're going to say.
German gaming blog, called ... uh ... Games Blog, has posted alleged image confirmation of Grand Theft Auto for the Wii. So let's look at what we have here, shall we?
The blog claims to have grabbed the images from a non-existent images directory on Rockstar's official Web site. The pictures show a man "playing" what appears to be Grand Theft Auto IV with the Wii Remote and nunchuck. He's punching! He's shooting! He's driving! He's also not actually playing anything.
First off, releasing pictures of some dude playing a game to announce a title is not Rockstar's style. When and if they ever announce a GTA game for the Wii, you can bet it will be accompanied by some slick screens and an even slicker trailer. Secondly, when Rockstar does release screens, we usually have to give a blood sample first, and then extract them from an archive that requires a password longer than this post. They're simply not just lying around in some directory.
For fun, I contacted Rockstar for comment, but have yet to hear back. It's probably because they're laughing too hard to respond.
The worst part about this video is that it's more or less indistinguishable from a real Wii rip-off product advertisment. Vii, Wii, Pii, they all sound kind of like something you might see peddled at that shady random electronics store wedged between girly fashion hangouts in your local mall. Who actually buys stuff from those guys, anyway?
At any rate, I'd guess the Pii is not real, considering there are people cracking up laughing in the background at the majority of this video. Of course, that could be because the presenter is mimicking Borat, because somehow people still think that is funny. You can have Pii for fifty American dollar! Har har!
A few days ago, a promotion that Microsoft ran for Windows Vista resurfaced on the Internet. It was a drawing for the opportunity to be digitally inserted into Remedy’s Alan Wake and a trip to the Tokyo Game Show to view the game in action. The bad part of all this is that the promotion is over a year old. We don’t know who beat the March 2007 deadline or if a winner was even chosen.
Until recently, we didn’t know a lot about Alan Wake. We knew there was a writer, some shadows and clouds, and windy roads, but that was the extent. At least that used to be the extent of the knowledge of the game. Recently, I got my hands on the teaser trailer that was supposed to be debuted at TGS 2008.
The level of excellence and the information that can be gathered from the teaser is enormous. In fact, I’m still speechless. Hit the break to check it out for yourself.
Motus Corporation is showing off their new Wii-mote look-alike, named Darwin. This sword hilt-looking device is supposed to bring better motion sensing gaming to non-Nintendo systems, including the PC.
Technology Review says that this device has its roots in golf hardware, and they've taken what they learned to try to one-up the Wii. The Darwin measures absolute position with respect to the earth, orienting itself to magnetic north to sense direction. They claim that through the use of improved technology with gyroscopes and accelerometers, they're able to relay positional information to the console in less than 30 milliseconds. Great. What about the games?
There's no finalized list of Darwin-supported games yet, but they say that they're working with console makers and game publishers to utilize the technology with current games as well as integrate it into ones currently in development. The Darwin is expected to be released in the Holiday season of 2008, and is expected to retail for $79-$99.
What do you think? Does the Darwin have a chance? How will it fare in the process of natural selection?
There are times in my life where I think I'm going insane. When I'm up late watching Comedy Central and they actually start dropping the f-bomb despite it being basic cable. When I go to a McDonald's and see that they sell veggie-burgers. Right now, it's thanks to these videos of Extra Mario Bros.
The amazing powers wielded by some of the fan developers out there never ceases to astound me. From the looks of these videos, this game could go toe-to-toe with New Super Mario Bros in terms of raw Mario-ness. But it's the multiple Mario/Super Metroid mash-ups contained here that push this one into the "must have" category for me.
From the looks of these videos, Extra Mario Bros may be an actual game. With that, I'm officially on the hunt to track down a copy. Or some anti-psychotic medication, which ever I can get first.
More vids of this maybe real game can be seen here, here, here, and here.
"Kill me, but I found it rather dull to watch. *shot*
On second thought, yes, the graphics, gameplay and music isn't what oyu find in your average ROM hack, but it seems to miss a few of the lovea..."...
More often than not, modern videogames aren't really about choices. Yeah, we've got branching storylines and local agency, but in pretty much every game there is always a "good" or "best" ending which players will, more often than not, strive for. It's typically possible to get everything you want in a game without ever sacrificing anything significant. We gain XP and we level up, but we're seldom forced to make narrative and gameplay decisions which permanently affect our characters for the rest of the game.
I was thinking about this the other day, which (as most things do) made me think about the concept of revenge. What if I tracked him down and planted child porn on his computer, then called the feds? What if I took a plane to her house and burned it down while she's out? I never would, of course, as I'd probably get caught, I'm not that evil, and my life would be permanently ruined, but one's mind does tend to linger on the subject of retribution.
These malicious, creepy thoughts of vengeance have probably passed through all our minds at some point or another (hopefully, anyway -- otherwise I look like a creepy asshole), and I thought it might be an interesting concept to create a videogame around.
[Special thanks to our own Topher Cantler, who made the incredible Photoshop seen above]
I just finished reading The People of Paper by Salvador Plascencia, and it gave me a pretty unusual (but hopefully interesting) idea for a short, independent game.
Initially charting the picaresque adventures of a bed-wetting father and his lime addicted daughter as they make a new life together, The People of Paper takes a sharp narrative turn about a quarter through the book. Tired of being forced into absurd, depressing situations for the entertainment of the reader, the characters literally revolt against the author who has created them. In order to dissuade the author from writing about their thoughts, the characters force themselves to think of meaningless gibberish; attempting to grant themselves some sort of privacy from the prying eyes of the reader, the characters cover passages -- and sometimes, entire pages -- in black bars. The protagonists refuse to continue the story as it is written, and the rest of the novel chronicles the characters' war against the author, Salvador Plascencia.
After finishing the novel and coincidentally watching Duck Amuck, the greatest Warner Bros cartooon ever made (posted above), I thought it might be fun to play a meta-videogame where the player and the game's protagonist constantly fought one another.
Hi everybody, I'm new here at Destructoid. My name's Jonathan. Nice to be working with you.
Now that we've gotten that out of the way, take a look at this fan-made video depicting what could be a more exciting (and potentially more profitable) idea for a game than anything Nintendo has currently announced for 2008. Though beware -- the video contains spoilers, as the premise of the thing is that there is a (GASP!) Super Mario Galaxy port for the Nintendo DS, available as an unlockable only to those willing to obtain every last star the Wii game has to offer.
A cute idea to some, pure genius to others. Me, I'm still waiting to hear that this project, like Halo for the DS, was in fact a real game at one point.
Orson Scott Card has been talking about making an Ender's Game videogame pretty much since the novels were first written -- yet, after all this time, we've still got nothing to show for it.Today's fake game, brought to you by forumite Pangloss and Photoshopped by our own Topher Cantler, solves this problem.
Sez Pangloss:
For the longest time, I've wanted a true co-op RTS. And when I say, "true co-op" I mean two (or more, god willing) people working to manage the same army. I'm talking about an actual military chain-of-command in an RTS, one of the most inherently military genres out there. Rather than directing my dudes to gather, building structures A, B, and C, hiring units D, E, and F, and sending them all to attack point X, the game works as follows (names changed to protect the hypothetical):
Jim-Bob dictates a build order, expansion plans, and attack routes (alternatively, this could be decided by the team beforehand). Willy-Joe (the general) directs the economy, gathering resources, managing trade (in a Civ-type game), making sure we have all the Vespene Gas we require. He also manages construction, expansion, and levies troops. Meanwhile, John-James, Sammy-Bob, and Ellie-May take their batallions of troops and attack or take up defensive positions. When actual combat is joined, each of the three commanders micromanages their assigned troops and makes tactical maneuvers (something that's usually lacking in RTS games). This game would emphasize communication and a balance of tactics with overarching strategy.
I've wanted this for years, but it was only today that I've finally managed to place this in a setting of any sort. Ender's Game, I think, would be just about perfect for it. Maybe the building and colony management would be lacking, but the tactical co-op would be great. I really, really want this game (or something like it), and I don't have anything funny to say about it, so I went ahead and gave it a vulgar title as a way of apologizing to those expecting a joke.
Gotta say, Pangloss's idea sounds a lot more viable than many of the potential Ender videogame ideas I've heard thrown around. It doesn't overreach itself, but still strives for something reasonably innovative: quite an interesting writeup. As always, hit the official thread if you'd like to post your own fake game idea (you get to be on the front page, and Toph makes a pretty Photoshoop for you).
"I will try to read the book as soon as possible. Still, despite all the xp penalties and new orders and all that, someone will find a way to fuck things up and do their best to ruin the game for..."...
Destructoid is an independently-run publication forged by our love of video games and the gaming community's need of accountable enthusiast press living the dream since March 16, 2006
7:20 PM on 09.14.2009, 
Think L4D2 is an expansion? You're a f*cking idiot 
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