I always knew Funky Student would become a fine gentleman. Too bad he lost the ‘fro.
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There’s no telling what’s happening on that laptop, but at least a bunch of questions got answered.
After all, that’s how you keep yourself from being pegged in the shins.
By now, you already know you should play Saints Row: The Third, so I won’t say it again, even though I just did.
Saints Row: The Third was one of Giant Bomb’s most beloved games from 2011, and a press release from THQ today discussing the company’s movement away from games aimed at kids also notes that Volition’s totally nuts sequel has shipped 3.8 million copies worldwide. The company expects to ship between five and six million copies.
That’s shipped, not sold, which means retailers have purchased 3.8 million copies of the game, not consumers.
Now, if only Volition would roll out some new story-based downloadable content. Jeff’s response to Genkibowl VII was…not so good.
Social games king Zynga has been accused of not-so-subetly borrowing from other games in the past, but no developer made its argument as succinctly as Tiny Tower developers NimbleBit has.
Nimblebit has passed around an image comparing Tiny Tower and an upcoming iPhone game from Zynga called Dream Heights, alleging that NimbleBit “wanted to thank all you guys [Zynga] for being such big fans of our iPhone game of the year, Tiny Tower!”
Apple named Tiny Tower as its iPhone game of the year in December.
The image from NimbleBit has a humorous tone, but the three-man company isn’t shying away from accusing Zynga of taking a little more than its fair share of inspiration from Tiny Tower.
I’ve contacted NimbleBit and Zynga, but have yet to hear back from either company.
The move from Nimblebit has come under some scrutiny for Tiny Tower’s own inspiration from Sim Tower, which was released by Maxis back in 1994. Sim Tower has since been ported to iOS, as well, but under the name Yoot Tower, playing on the name of the game’s creator, Yoot Saito.
In an interesting twist, NimbleBit designer Ian Marsh pointed out that Zynga once tried to acquire NimbleBit.
Cloning and iteration is common problem in mobile and social games. Super Crate Box creator Vlambeer famously raised a stink over its Radical Fishing being cloned, and will be exploring the issue at the Game Developers Conference with a panel called “Clones: Advancing the Discussion.”
Of all the console announcements one could have maybe, possibly predicted for this day, I sincerely doubt a new Neo-Geo system would have been atop anyone’s lists. Or even in the middle somewhere. And yet, here we are.
Andriasang has the translation of a report from FamicomPlaza that debuts the new system, which essentially looks and sounds like a brand-new Neo-Geo Pocket with 20 Neo-Geo games built right in. In no particular order, those games will be the North American versions (with English text) of:
Guys? Today just got really, really weird.
- WORLD HEROES
- ULTIMATE 11
- TOP PLAYER’S GOLF
- SENGOKU
- NAM-1975
- MUTATION NATION
- LAST RESORT
- KING OF MONSTERS
- FRENZY
- CYBER LIP
- FATAL FURY SPECIAL
- ART OF FIGHTING
- SUPER SIDEKICKS
- LEAGUE BOWLING
- METAL SLUG
- MAGICIAN LORD
- BASEBALL STARS PROFESSIONAL
- SAMURAI SHODOWN
- KING OF FIGHTERS ’94
- FATAL FURY
The system itself measures 170x72x15mm (slightly larger than an iPhone), has a 4.3 inch screen, and two gigs of internal storage. As you can see from the above picture, the system uses a kind of analog „nub” as a control stick, and includes four face buttons. There are also four shoulder buttons (which you can see in the screens below), and ports for headphones, A/V out, and SD cards.
There are no reports yet on pricing, a potential release date, or exactly which regions are planned for release. Heck, we don’t even know who the hardware manufacturer is. All we know is that somebody teamed up with SNK in 2012 to make a new frigging Neo-Geo Pocket, which is completely insane, and potentially kind of awesome–provided it isn’t, as our own Jeff Gerstmann is predicting, „just a crappy audio/video playback device that happens to have 20 old Neo-Geo games built-in.” That would kind of suck.
Whether or not it receives a worldwide release, you can bet your bootlegged copy of Art of Fighting that Jeff Gerstmann will import this thing and tell you all about it, because that’s just the kind of thing Jeff Gerstmann does.
Don’t be fooled. This cuddly blob of space Jell-O will explode you without hesitation.
Not unlike the hardworking parent who regrettably has to break the news to their adoring children that this year, with so many important things going on at work, they won’t be able to take the kids to Disneyland like they’d done every year prior, Blizzard today tried to very gently break it to the company’s most enthusiastic fans that no, there won’t be a BlizzCon in 2012.
This guy is about to be one saaaaad Pandaren.
The reason? It’s apparently as simple as there just being too much stuff going on with the company these days. In addition to the (eventual) releases of Diablo III, the World of Warcraft expansion Mists of Pandaria, and Starcraft II expansion Heart of the Swarm in 2012, the company also announced that it plans to hold a competitive gaming event it calls the 2012 Battle.net World Championship, an event that it describes as „a major global eSports event featuring some of the best pro-gaming competition in the world” that will feature competition in both Starcraft II (naturally) and World of Warcraft’s Arena battles. That event will take place somewhere in the rather large continent of Asia in 2012. For those taking bets on where, put me down for a sawbuck on South Korea.
Amusingly, most of Blizzard’s announcement focused on the Battle.net World Championship and the many, many titles Blizzard plans to release this year, as if to try and soften the blow to any die-hard fans who were eagerly anticipating the opportunity to finally have that ridiculous Pandaren costume they’ve been trotting around for the last few years really mean something. It’s like the aforementioned parent trying to salve the wounds of their heartbroken brood by telling them they’ll get a couple of extra presents once their birthday rolls around, and maybe they’ll take them to a baseball game one of these days…in Asia.
Blizzard plans to release more info on both the Battle.net World Championships and the 2013 rendition of BlizzCon „in the months ahead.”
Brad Muir finds a way into our office once again, this time to showcase some Iron Brigade DLC.
Sharing the conclusion of your epic journey live on the Internet is the only way to get the best ending.