These trays come just in time to prepare Mario-themed chocolate bars for Valentine's Day.
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Call in the big boy!
The post Shin Ultraman Teaser Trailer Brings Khara’s Angle to Classic Tokusatsu appeared first on Siliconera.
Hello! Welcome back to a new regular feature where we write a little bit about some of the games we've found ourselves playing over the last few weeks. This time: an R-Type off-shoot, a landlord game and a bit of Trials.
I got to interview a bit of a hero of mine in the early hours of Tuesday morning - Irem alumni and R-Type Final director Kazuma Kujo - and I kept myself up by partaking in some tangential research. There are so many gems in Irem's back catalogue, and a fair few of them I'm ashamed to admit I'd never even played before. Games like X Multiply, a glorious offshoot from R-Type that gets to the heart of why I love shooting games so very, very much.
There's a 2am eeriness to my favourites of the genre - the likes of Gradius and Darius - that's shared with great sci-fi cover art; a sort of vast melancholy that works as a counterpoint to the high energy thrills of playing the thing. X Multiply takes all that to an extreme. Giger-inspired levels are pretty much a prerequisite for shooting games of this era, but none of them are as squishy, as full of dank horror, as X Multiply's effort. As the opening level, it sets the tone for an enjoyably weird game.
Here's an embarrassing confession: when I was a student, I got too far into Bejeweled Blitz. Facebook was new, everyone was on it, and this was the perfect "one more round" game to endlessly procrastinate with. It was a habit that worried me enough to make me become more conscious of my screen time, but now and then a strategy or puzzle game will hit exactly the same notes for me. Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes. Into the Breach. Slay the Spire. Grindstone. Each of them offer me the same satisfaction of surprise chain reactions and the equal possibility for winning and losing.
Some people are saying about Grindstone that any puzzle based on a simple gameplay idea, in this case colour matching, stretched over several hundred levels, ought to get, well, grindy at some point. I've never played any of the games I've just mentioned with finishing them in mind, or getting somewhere. I just enjoy seeing what will happen, as if I have little to do with it. All these games have something beyond the perfect amount of challenge that's supposed to be conducive to flow - it's the sheer variety of gameplay options that stumps me. By mixing and matching just a handful of obstacles and some well-crafted gadgets, developer Capy made sure that I have a myriad of ways to solve each level in Grindstone. What's not to love about flexible game design like that?
Of course elements will start to repeat, but I'm constantly in awe of how different a level feels when it uses, let's say, both moving enemies and moving bridges, instead of just one of the two. Add to this that through its many levels, Grindstone gives you enough time to figure out how each obstacle works before it raises the difficulty by using it in a different way, and I'm just constantly looking forward to what's next.
Today Sega announced with a series of press releases that it’s restructuring its corporate organization, while relevant changes are happening at the helm.
The gist of the restructuring itself is happening mostly at the corporate/administration level.
While it’s fairly complex, you can find a visual summary below. Basically, the company is unifying its corporate structure, which was previously split across multiple subsidiaries.
The reasons for the challenge are as follows.
Shin Godzilla was a Japanese movie that brought the idea of the original Godzilla—a mindless giant monster and merciless force of nature—to see how modern Japan would handle him. Shin Ultraman, a similar reimagining of the hero who spawned the entire genre of tokutatsu shows from the same team behind Shin Godzilla, is…
Compile Heart publishes a new video on its YouTube channel, teasing that it prepares to reveal a new Neptunia game around Spring 2021.
The post Compile Heart Teases New Neptunia Game Reveal In Spring 2021 appeared first on Siliconera.
Japanese mobile device users can expect to get their hands on Ys VI: Online The Ark of Napishtim in Spring 2021.
The post Ys VI: Online The Ark of Napishtim Will Arrive on Mobile Devices in Spring 2021 appeared first on Siliconera.
While Nagoshi will be stepping down as Chief Creative Officer, he will remain within the company as a Creative Director.
The post Ryu ga Gotoku Studios Toshihiro Nagoshi Steps Down as CCO of Sega appeared first on Siliconera.
Hot on the heels of an inventory update to significantly increase the stash limit, Fallout 76 is due to get another update - and a couple of really significant improvements to SPECIAL attributes and CAMPs.
The first of these is a change to how SPECIAL attributes work, introducing a way for players to quickly and easily reset their build. The blog post explains that once a player has reached level 25, they will be able to access SPECIAL Loadouts which allow you to reboot all of your SPECIAL points for free. All you'll need to do is head to your CAMP, where you can create and switch between custom loadouts. Here's what that looks like:
But perhaps even more significantly, the next update will introduce a way for players to create and save multiple CAMPs. Previously, players could only have one CAMP, meaning they'd have to scrap it and rebuild if they wanted to try something new. Going forwards, Fallout 76 will allow you to build multiple different CAMPs "each with its own location, build budget, custom name, and even a unique map icon". You can still only have one active CAMP at a time, but it adds some flexibility and opens up new creative options for players. In theory, it should also solve the age-old problem of joining a server only to find someone else's CAMP in the location of your own (the dreaded "CAMP cannot be placed" notification). Simply pick one of your CAMPs with a different location, and you're good to go.
The latest dances in Fortnite are not just those popularised by Tiktok teens. No, there's something for us old folk as well.
Dust off your history books and look up "Gangnam Style", a popular dance from 2012. This is now available in Fortnite too.
Gangnam Style was surprise-released last night on Fortnite's item shop, and within minutes I saw it being used by numerous people in the game's lobbies. Including by me.
I really want to like King Arthur: A Knight's Tale, but I find the experience of playing the Steam Early Access release so trudging as to almost be a chore. It's a shame, because there's promise in a lot of the features, and I'm very much on board with the idea of being Mordred, who's usually the villain, chasing down Arthur, who's usually the hero. We're all brought back from the dead - magical stuff: don't ask - and because of it, everything is cast in a graveyard hue, all grey and misty, moody and murky. But what it forgets along the way, or what it doesn't have yet - because I have to remind myself this is early access and there's plenty of time for things to change - is life.
It lacks energy, that kind of snappiness and charisma the best turn-based games have. Games like XCOM, games like Divinity: Original Sin 2, which, given King Arthur has RPG exploration and dialogue, seems an apt comparison. And it suffers all over because of it.
When you're in the RPG layer, wandering around environments, it's slow. And it feels empty, devoid of life in the surroundings, devoid of music or companion banter, devoid, really, of anything much to do. You can loot a body, loot a chest, maybe do a very simple sidequest for a very wooden NPC, but that's it. All there really is to do is fight.
Destiny 2 will be making changes to certain weapon stats ahead of crossplay support later this year.
In the game's weekly update, at present the Recoil stat on several weapon types is reduced by 40 per cent when using mouse and keyboard compared to a controller, leading to players "able to largely ignore the stability weapon stat", Bungie has said.
This has created "unintended discrepancies in weapon performance between controllers and mouse and keyboard", and so the difference in recoil will be halved - to around a 20 per cent reduction - across several weapon types, including auto, scout and pulse rifles, submachine guns, machine guns and hand cannons.
Life is Strange creator Dontnod has secured new funding to self-publish future games, sparking speculation it is no longer aligned with Square Enix, the publisher which oversees the Life is Strange franchise.
Yesterday, Dontnod announced a €30m (£26.5m) financing deal with Chinese tech giant Tencent for "new self-published intellectual properties" - a plan first mentioned to GamesIndustry.biz in an interview last November.
Dontnod has worked with various publishers in the past, including Focus Home Interactive for Vampyr and Xbox for Tell Me Why, though it ultimately self-published its most recent game Twin Mirror after an initial publishing deal with Bandai Namco was dropped.
Welcome to Morning Music, Kotaku’s ongoing hangout for folks who love video games and the cool-ass sounds they make. Today we look back to 1992, when, according to Philips, a classic became a legend. You can call it...Teshtris.
Today, Sega announced that Yakuza executive director and producer Toshihiro Nagoshi will be stepping down from the corporate board of directors. He will, however, remain at Sega.
Digital storefront Epic Games Store has released some pretty hefty figures pertaining to last year's service growth. The store now serves over 160 million registered users, who between them spent a huge $700 million USD in purchases over the course of 2020.
On a daily basis, Epic Games Store sees around 31 million active daily players, which is an increase of 192% from its day-to-day activity back in 2019. The store's catalogue has more than doubled, rising from 190 games at the end of 2019, to 471 games by the end of 2020. Among the most popular titles purchased last year were Rocket League, Borderlands 3, Assassin's Creed Valhalla, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2 and, of course, global phenomenon Fortnite.
It won't surprise anybody to hear that EGS' free game giveaways have proven ridiculously successful, with some 749 million titles nabbed by the store's registered users. The most popular of these was May's offering of Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto V, which saw some 13 million "purchases" - a frenzied rush that actually ended up crashing the store's servers.
Azur Lane will celebrate Lunar New Year 2021 by adding the Chao Ho-class cruisers to its ever-expanding shipgirl roster.
The post Azur Lane Will Add Chao Ho-Class Cruisers To Mark Lunar New Year 2021 appeared first on Siliconera.
People on certain platforms can get a jump start on the 1.3 update with the Genshin Impact pre-installation process.
The post Genshin Impact Pre-Installation for Update 1.3 Begins Next Week appeared first on Siliconera.
The Japanese version of Atelier Ryza 2 recently updated its Photo Mode features and added more BGM Pack DLCs.
The post Atelier Ryza 2 Update Expands on the Photo Mode Feature appeared first on Siliconera.
Uncover the truth behind fictional murders with the Higurashi When They Cry and Umineko When They Cry board game.
The post Higurashi When They Cry and Umineko When They Cry Murder Mystery Board Game Announced appeared first on Siliconera.
Yakuza series director Toshihiro Nagoshi is stepping down as chief creative officer of Sega, and will take on the role of creative director at the company as of April 1, 2021. ...
In 2020, I challenged myself to complete one game jam every month for the whole year. Here's what I learned. ...
In the debut episode of PlayStation Haven’s GTA V Real-Life Comparisons video series, actor, rapper, and comedian Gerald “Slink” Johnson, AKA Lamar Davis, gives us a tour of the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Vinewood style. Warning: He gets a little physical.
Okay listen up jabronis. We’ve tested your trivia knowledge, and we’ve even measured your personality and told you which member of the gang you would be most like. This time around, though, we’re going to see if you’re paying close enough attention to what everyone is saying and can remember some quotes.
That’s right, are you as sharp as… a… um… thumbtack! Or, are you an illiterate like Charlie that just goes with the flow? Either way, pound some Fight Milk, focus up, and let’s see if you can get all 20 of the quotes right below.
No hints or anything; just you, me, and a couple of tasty treats… Wait, I’m getting carried away with the quotes now. Just get started.
All images via FXX, FX Networks & Walt Disney.
The Medium has finally released on Xbox Series X|S and PC courtesy of Bloober Team. The third-person, atmospheric horror title introduces a dual-reality gameplay mechanic that sees players controlling Marianne between both the material and spirit world, but did you know that you can listen to both Troy Baker and Mary Elizabeth McGlynn singing the original soundtrack as a little The Medium Easter Egg if you’re an avid scourer of your surroundings?
Just a heads-up, I will be diving into some brief spoilers for The Medium. If you’d rather enjoy the game entirely spoiler-free, we suggest bookmarking this page and returning once you’ve rolled the credits. Anyway, on with the show!
For a bit of context, Troy Baker voices The Maw — the game’s primary antagonist and a rather unpleasant being. Mary Elizabeth McGlynn joined the acting talent to lend her vocals to the original soundtrack, and it’s a song from this score that players can listen to towards the end of the game.
When Marianne enters the bunker underneath the red house, you’re tasked with seeking out various shards of a broken mirror. Once you’ve opened up a number of different rooms by restoring power, you’ll find an old radio sat atop a washing machine, in a dreary, tiled laundry room.
If you’re antsy to see what’s next, Disney has you covered
