*plays drums loudly* Hi I’m Tom Cruise
Take a walk this weekend. For real. At least 35 minutes. Show your work.
While you’re not listening to me: go listen to that new Jurassic 5 song. Anytime someone dramatically yells “I’m a fraud,” imagine them yelling “I’m a frog” instead. Try sitting frontward on your toilet. Make love to a baseball. Take the cannoli.
Here’s last week’s post. Let’s begin anew.
[We post a lot of articles here at Destructoid. The endless, ouroboros news cycle has us burning the snake at both ends, which will ultimately push big news, thoughtful original pieces, and all sorts of other great content off of the front page. Check here every Saturday for my attempt to rectify that.]
ORIGINAL CONTENT
Under a red sky: How Transistor came to be Part I – Steven Hansen
Under a red sky Part II: Transistor’s strategy for doing strategy – Steven Hansen
Transistor’s sword was a briefcase at one point – Steven Hansen
The old world European electronic noir of Transistor – Steven Hansen
Turning down a one-way alley towards SuperGiant’s downtown San Francisco office space, I noticed the fenced parking lots on either corner decorated with two sorts of barbed wire. Three classical, no nonsense parallel strands were circumscribed by much more lively spirals of metal like a sharpened, stretched out slinky.
This is the coveted San Francisco startup space over two million Bastion sales led to. Atypical out of the gate success that the team doesn’t take for granted. The move from the sleepy San Jose suburb that bore Bastion to an urban hotbed would, perhaps by coincidence, bear Transistor, SuperGiant’s next project.
We sat down with Supergiant’s Amir Rao (co-founder), Greg Kasavin (writer), Jen Zee (artist), and Darren Korb (composer) — on Rao’s dad’s old, burgundy couch from the San Jose house — after development on Transistor had wrapped, while the team was prepping it for launch.
Remembering the glory of videogame manuals – Brittany Vincent
When I was a little girl, purchasing a new game often meant thumbing through the pages of a mammoth tome detailing impending gameplay down to the letter. If I were stuck on a long car trip with a recently-purchased title, digging into that precious parcel and retrieving the manual was the first thing on my mind. Sometimes, starting a fresh new game was only the icing on top of the delicious packaging sundae, and I was decidedly more interested in getting at the extras than actually tearing into Diablo II or Creatures.
Hardline 20: The E3 before E3 – Jordan Devore, Steven Hansen, Hamza Aziz, Brett Makedonski
This week on Hardline, we discussed the days leading up to E3 including the pre-E3 event known as Judges Week, a gathering of select members of the North American games press who vote on the Game Critics Awards each year. We also got to hear about Steven’s recent studio visit to Bastion and Transistor creator Supergiant Games for an interview series.
Reviews in Review: Mario Kart 8, Super Time Force and more! – Ben Pack
Hey, what are you doing here! There’s a ton of good games that came out this week! No wait, come back and watch this video for a couple of minutes, read the article, then you can go play those games.
Dumb Idiot Ideas: Spider-Man Video Review – Max Scoville, Bill Zoeker
Max and I set out to review The Amazing Spider-Man 2 videogame. But, we didn’t receive a review copy, forcing us to instead review a Spider-Man themed board game Max picked up at a weird Chinese shop.
Farts ‘N’ Crafts: Max’s Visit with Dr. Basketball – Bill Zoeker
Max is convalesced, so he forced me to display my complete lack of penmanship and artistic acuity. Watch me draw a heartfelt Get Well card for Max, with utter reluctance and embarrassment.
Just Saiyan: The ‘Dragon Ball Raging Blast’ saga! – Max Scoville, Bill Zoeker
Today, the Max and myself are playing 2009’s Dragon Ball Z: Raging Blast, which is a Dragon Ball fighting game in which Dragon Ball characters… uhh… fight each other. Is it a blast to play? Or will it leave us raging? Let’s find out.
Video: E3 2014 secret leaks revealed! – Max Scoville, Bill Zoeker
We’ve gotten our hands on some verifiable official E3 2014 leaks and secrets and we’re spilling the beans. Find out what’s in store from Microsoft, Nintendo, Ubisoft, Epic Games, EA, and all the other big companies making important announcements.
PREVIEWS
It looks like I’ll be playing Driveclub this fall – Dale North
A couple of challenge races around a single track was enough to have me feeling better about that first showing at E3 last year. This version of Driveclub looks and plays much better, and has plenty of social connectivity hooks that I’m sure I’ll be getting into. I had a good time going up against other previewers last week — I quickly tuned into the driving feel and was able to place second by my second lap, and was happy to jump back in again to try to top it. If I got that much from just one challenge, I could see getting much more out of the full experience.
Candy Crush studio’s next game, Bubble Witch Saga 2 – Dale North
Bubble Witch Saga 2 is easy to get into, but after the first dozen levels I found that you really have to be strategy minded to clear the maps using only the allotted shots. Simply matching colors isn’t going to cut it — I had to maximize every shot to make each one count. Strategies like aiming from the top and using bouncing trick shots helped a bit. I felt I would have had a bit easier of a time with a longer bounce trajectory line, but even that wouldn’t have made some of the later levels (beyond level 50) any easier. The later maps are huge and their challenge level is pretty high.
First hands-on of Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor won me over – Dale North
I had absolutely no expectations for Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor. I’ve never played any of the franchise games, and I knew very little about the upcoming title. But my first hands on was a very pleasant surprise. A mere 45 minutes of play of its sandbox game got its hooks in me and now I’m totally sold.
EA Sports UFC looks ultra-freakin’ real – Dale North
They used every ounce of system resources to make the in-game fighters look like the real ones. The team recorded 3D head and body scans for all of the athletes, and then took it over the top with details like veins popping out of players’ heads when they’re straining. Also expect to see blood and sweat come out in the most natural/gross looking way. Even the clothing looks real and seems to flow naturally.
Preview: Sid Meier’s Civilization: Beyond Earth – Dale North
I started out in an area called the Lush Biome where the idea was to take the explorer unit from my base and go explore, with the hopes of finding anything that could help us. But these guys are not a combat unit at all so they were quickly trampled by the green miasma-eating aliens that spawned up from a point just above my base. Angry at dying so soon, I sent my only combat unit up to take care of business, but they were quickly surrounded and whittled down to just a few members. It wasn’t but a couple of turns before my one little hex of nearly dead troops was surrounded.
Metro Redux comes to Xbox One, PS4, and PC this summer – Dale North
It does see a big change in gameplay options with its new choice of two game modes. Last Light’s play style was more spartan, with more power to play with and more resources available. On the other hand, 2033 was more about survival. Both games in Metro: Redux let you freely change the feel of the game, letting you jump into both play styles. Even the small details change between these survival and spartan modes, like the speed of your gun reloads.
Evolve is making advances toward infinite replayability – Brett Makedonski
Judging by the handful of demos I’ve seen, Evolve looks as if it’ll walk that line between making the player feel like both the predator and prey at all times, regardless of what role they’re playing. No one’s ever comfortable with their prospects of success, because it seems as if fortunes can turn incredibly quickly.
HOTTEST, SLIMIEST NEWS OF THE WEEK
Tuesday Newsday: Far Cry 4, Halo 5, Bombshell & TwitchTube – Max Scoville
There’s been a whole bunch of interesting stuff to talk about in the last week! Halo 5: Guardians has been announced for 2015, Far Cry 4 is coming this fall, Duke Nukem: Mass Destruction has been rebranded as Bombshell, Tom Clancy’s The Division is basically pulling a Watch Dogs and disappearing into development for another year or two, Playstation Now beta invites are going out to PS4 owners, and Twitch TV might be acquired by YouTube. Wild!
Go pre-order a gnarly Destructoid shirt here!
ZeniMax sues Oculus VR for misappropriating trade secrets – Jordan Devore
ZeniMax and id filed a suit against Oculus VR and founder Palmer Luckey for “illegally misappropriating ZeniMax trade secrets relating to virtual reality technology, and infringing ZeniMax copyrights and trademarks. ZeniMax is also asserting claims for breach of contract, unjust enrichment, and unfair competition against the defendants.”
Hyrule Warriors has unexpected playable characters – Jordan Devore
Word has it that Hyrule Warriors launches for Wii U in Japan on August 14, 2014. That comes direct from Famitsu and there’s of course no news on a Western date yet. However, some bits and pieces have been translated, such as the game’s inclusion of “unexpected” playable characters. There’s an image of Impa in the article! Maybe Impa is among them?
Ciao, amiche.
