Kill Screen Magazine's Blog, page 455

Donkey Kong: Tropical Freeze simulates a capitalist apocalypse

When getting coins for the hell of it starts to feel sort of wrong.

How DreadOut combines Indonesian horror with the PlayStation 1

These teens and their damn cellphones.

Sirtet reminds us why Tetris was great

Winning isn’t everything.

Now that Resogun is getting DLC, there's a reason to power on your PS4 again

We knew that somewhere, someway we’d have a good reason to fire up our PlayStation 4s again, and we were right, because Resogun is getting more content. It should be noted that we have no idea when, but let’s hope it’s soon, as we’re currently in the midst of a next-gen gaming drought the size of the Dust Bowl. When the PS4 launched in November, the slick shoot’em up offered an eye-popping tease of what the PS4 could do. Now we’re desperate for more, even if it’s just more Resogun. Although a few quality games launched alongside the system, since then it’s been slim pickings. Hopefully that DLC gets here fast.

We thought this headband that measures gamer rage was an Onion headline, but nope, it’s real

There is a growing problem among teenagers, if the website for this Immersion biometric ear-band is to be believed. (Hint: it shouldn’t be.) It seems millions of upper-middle-class, unbearably Caucasian male teens who use copious amounts of hairspray cannot control their gamer rage. But have no fear, moms. The Immersion will save us from the depravity of American youth screaming at their TVs because they keep getting no-scoped playing Call of Duty.

The ridiculous device is an electronic band that monitors the angry gamer’s heart rate when inserted directly into his earholes. (Judging from the webpage, it seems this phenomena exclusively affects dudes.) This white band corresponds with a low-rent shooter that gets harder when the player gets angrier, which seems predestined to trap said player in an infinite loop of blinding rage until his head explodes, a la Scanners. If this thing is a prank it's the most sublimely funny videogame-related joke since Bubsy 3D; if it's not, God help us all. 

La-Mulana 2 promises agony, confusion, and whip-cracking fun

The original La-Mulana was super-difficult doujin-ware made by a group of hobbyists from Osaka in 2006. It was never intended for mass consumption, a lovingly made yet punishingly hard throwback to the days of retro gaming, when games were abstruse, and tip-lines and the playground were a poor-man’s substitute for Let’s Plays. 

Well, now those hobbyists are going by NIGORO and are doing a sequel, La-Mulana 2: The 0th Body, The 9th Spirit, after the original found moderate success being remade on the PC and WiiWare last year. There's also a Vita port in the works. We don’t know much except that you will be regularly banging your head against the wall as you whip-crack through archeological ruins as a female Indiana Jones. The Kickstarter just launched today and it’s already raked in plenty of dough. 

Nintendo ponders a mobile future

By now you’ve surely heard that Nintendo is bleeding money, and that there’s pressure from investors for them to push their stable of properties—which include Mario, Yoshi, Diddy Kong, and Pikachu—to mobile phones. Historically speaking, this is something Nintendo doesn’t do. Nintendo has always been stubborn that only Nintendo systems would play Nintendo games. 

But at an investor’s meeting where the Japanese company revealed more bad news, (namely that they forecasted the Wii U selling a paltry 2.8 million units), President Iwata had this to say: "We are thinking about a new business structure. Given the expansion of smart devices, we are naturally studying how smart devices can be used to grow the game-player business. It’s not as simple as enabling Mario to move on a smartphone."

As a matter of moral principle, we don’t root against Nintendo. The company is certainly not in its death throes, but they aren’t winning either, to summarize Iwata, and it sounds like they are taking seriously the prospect of bringing their properties to mobile phones. This may sound like the beginning of the end, but it might not be all doom and gloom. 

Of course no one wants to see half-assed ports of Nintendo classics on their phone. Companion apps like Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag Companion on mobiles probably won’t turn the tides. But imagine the possibilities if they took an honest stab at it. Pokemon on mobiles would be HUGE. And the Zelda titles on DS sported some of the best use of touch controls, hands down. While nobody knows what will happen on the hardware side of things, Nintendo will continue to make great games because that’s what they do.

Broken Age teases at what’s to come, and looks great doing it

There will be pointing and clicking.

Tribeca and Games for Change puts a spotlight on smart indie games

This year, the annual Games for Change festival will be joining the Tribeca Film Festival in lower Manhattan, April 22nd through 24th. You may know Games for Change as the NYC non-profit that promotes do-good games, including small but incredibly important titles, such as Cart Life and Papers, Please. 

The film festival that Robert De Niro built has shown a keen interest in games recently, starting with L.A. Noire’s motion-capturing tech, which they highlighted in 2011. Since then, Quantum Dream’s Beyond: Two Souls and Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us have been given the limelight, among others. But up till now, it’s mostly been games built by major studios. By teaming up with Games for Change, lesser known titles from individual creators will have a chance to shine. 

This is a great opportunity for smart games to get recognition and publicity. While we’ve talked at length about the brilliance of such titles, the reality is that the majority of the world outside of the passionate, well-informed player (such as our wonderful readers) doesn’t know that games like it exist. That is to say people who don’t play games tend to think of them as Mario, Halo, and zombie game #7534.

As Games for Change President Asi Burak said in the press release, “Games are often discussed in the context of entertainment, but with this event, we’ll be able to share our message that this medium can be very powerful in creating positive change in the world.” And while it’s questionable if “creating positive change” is the best lens through which to examine an artform, it’s certainly a step in the right direction. 

Lethal Frag and the lonely, growing world of livestreaming

We’d all like to quit our jobs and play videogames all day. Here’s a guy who did it.