Take a look at the music in the Donkey Kong series, from the original arcade to the Donkey Kong Country games.
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Sniper Elite III Review
It’s really quite good. If you’re on a lookout for some class A sneakitude, especially if you miss crouchwalking with a silenced pistol in the original Splinter Cell games, this is a game you want to check out. AI and technical problems aside, if you dig the genre, you’ll dig the game. I recommend. Read more
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Dark Souls 2 Lore: Nashandra The Prisoner of Desire
This Dark Souls 2 Lore video primarily covers the Origin and happenings of Queen Nashandra of Drangleic and her interactions with King Vendrick and the Cursed Undead. Read more
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Scene Selection (2) – Resident Evil 3: Nemesis
This week on Scene Selection, we look at the spontaneous nature and fighting reality of video game AI and how Resident Evil Nemesis represents a transformation in horror gaming, and how we are never alone and always being watched…
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Finnish Hearthstone Tournament Prohibits Women From Competing
The Finnish video game convention “Assembly Summer 2014” is holding a IeSF Qualifier. The International e-Sports Federation has said that the qualifier is open to Finnish male players only. These are the rules within the IeSF, which is a global organization based in South Korea. When asked why exactly this is a thing that has to exist, they claimed that “The decision to divide male and female competitions was made in accordance with international sports authorities, as part of our effort to promote e-Sports as a legitimate sports.” Read more
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Styx: Master of Shadows 15 Minute Gameplay Trailer
Styx has returned! The sneaky goblin from the turn-based RPG Of Orcs and Men was one of two of the title’s protagonists; bringing a much needed ‘shady’ side to the game. I played Of Orcs and Men and thought it was a competent RPG with an interesting, new fantasy world. That being said, I thought the stealth mechanics were probably the weakest part of the entire experience. So without doubt, I was definitely surprised to see that Styx’s next venture into gaming would completely revolve not around a new RPG adventure but instead stealth action. Here you can check out that stealth action in this 15 minutes of commentary gameplay from the developers at Cyanide Studios. Read more
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Shovel Knight Video Review
Many 8-bit inspired games seem to pay a certain respect to the giants of the industry that came before them. But fairly often, retro-inspired games tend not to stand on the shoulders of giants as much as they tend to stand at their feet; clearly looking up to them and rarely developing into something greater than what has come before. Is Shovel Knight different?
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Comparison Theatre: Ducktales Remastered vs. Ducktales (NES)
How does Ducktales Remastered compare to the fantastic original? Read more
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Ninja Gaiden – Retro Review
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10 Things You Don’t Know About Dark Souls 2
In this ViiTCHA video we cover 10 things about Dark Souls 2 that you may or may not know. The video brushes over topics that are based in lore, game mechanics, and things that are just simply fun to know, but all of these Dark Souls 2 issues are either obscure or widely unknown.
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Does Link’s Gender Matter?
For a long time, ever since people first started commonly yelling about sexism online about video games, people have been hoping for a genderswapped version of the Legend of Zelda franchise. It’s common knowledge among fans that the era and the characters change between most games in the series, we are always looking at a different Link and a different Zelda. Thus, it wouldn’t be a big hit for Nintendo to change the genders, races or even personalities of the main characters throughout the series, which is why this series in particular has been getting a hard time over the fact that the main characters have stayed the same throughout the last 25 years or so. This added to the fact that The Legend of Zelda is a true classic, one of the biggest and most reckognizable franchises in the history of the industry, them trying to include more people and playing with these ideas would admittedly be hugely popular and make a lot of people happy. Read more
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Koji Kondo: The Man Who Composed your Childhood
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E3 and The Flood of Open-World RPG’s
I was told to write something about E3, which proved to be more of a challenge than I first expected. I went through the reveals again and I feel like 70% of the news I don’t have much to say about and the rest I’m just so excited about that I cannot put words together to form a coherent sentence. I tried writing about some of the stuff Nintendo revealed but everything I wrote was basically just me screaming incoherently in excitement over everything. After a lot of thinking however, I did find something I found merely interesting. Read more
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Watch Dogs PS4 Review
Some of Watch Dogs aspects are promising which make it standout in the open-world landscape. On the other hand though, some key aspects of the game rely too heavily on playing it safe. In doing so Watch Dogs doesn’t completely tap into the full potential this new, open-world, stealth-action Intellectual Property. Read more
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Bloodborne: Everything We Know So Far
E3 marks gaming as one of the industry’s most cherished and heavily watched conventions; promising gamers a glimpse into the future of what’s in store for the upcoming months and even years ahead. Among the announcements was a highly awaited and secretive title by developer From Software dubbed Bloodborne. The game’s working title, Project Beast, leaked a few months ago and the speculation began to mount in the Dark/Demon’s Souls community. This left many pondering if Project Beast was a new Demon’s Souls, Dark Souls or perhaps a completely new intellectual property all together. Well, here it is: the first look at From Software’s PS4 exclusive Bloodborne. Read more
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Character Profile (1): John Marston
This week in Character Profile, we explore the journey of John Martson and see how his search for justice contribute to making him the better man in the lawless Wild West.
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Among the Sleep Review
While my experiences with Among the Sleep were mostly positive and there’s definitely a lot to like, I cannot turn a blind eye to the number of problems the title has, no matter how charming or technically impressive it might be. If you like these kinds of games, check it out when you can grab it for cheap. Read more
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Dark Souls II DLC Is a Thing Now
Today Namco Bandai decided to announce three whole downloadable add-on chapters for Dark Souls II. The first part of The Lost Crowns-trilogy is titled Crown of the Sunken King and will appear on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Steam on July 22. In it, you are apparently trying to reclaim King Vendricks crown in some kind of a cavern with pyramids inside. The next episode will be called Crown of the Old Iron King and that one will be released August 26. Read more
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ViiTCHA Dark Souls 2 Video Strategy Guide
Dark Souls II is an expansive game and like the games of the Souls Series that proceeded it, Dark Souls II also has many secrets, little-known tricks and not always the most straightforward means to achieve various goals spread throughout the world of Drangleic. If you’ve ever wondered how to complete the questline for Mild-Mannered Pate and Creighton, Lucatiel of Mirrah, Benhart of Jugo, Manscorpion Tark and Royal Sorcerer Navlaan then this is the video collection you’ve been looking for. There is also extremely useful tips for infinite soul gathering as well as a guide for farming an infinite supply of precious materials like Twinkling Titanite, Petrified Dragon Bones, Titanite Slabs, Chuncks and Shards. Finally if you’ve ever wanted to know how to join the most secretive of covenants — the Pilgrims of Dark — we’ve got you covered. Read more
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Dynamic vs Static Game Music
This week, take a look at dynamic and static music in games, and where each should be used.
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Transistor Review
SPOILER FREE: Footage used mostly from trailers and from the first hour or so of gameplay. Transistor’s actually pretty good, packed with content that’s fun and memorable. It’s more worth your money than most AAA-games. Read more
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Scene Selection #1: Jensen’s Apartment
In this week’s pilot of Scene Selection, we look at the significance of environmental storytelling and atmosphere in Adam Jensen’s apartment, the augmented protagonist of Square Enix’s cyberpunk, philosophical neo-thriller Deus Ex Human Revolution.
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Steam In-Home Streaming Now Out of Beta
Steam‘s fancy little streaming service is now available for everyone to see and use. Make your high-end PC run games and stream it to the machine of your liking! You can host a game on a Windows system and stream to a Mac, Linux, SteamOS or another Windows system. However, as of right now you cannot host a game on Mac, Linux or SteamOS to stream to other machines but that functionality will arrive “soon”. You can read all about Steam In-Home Streaming in detail over here and here! Read more
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GTA 5 And The American Dream
Rockstar’s controversial franchise can be accredited for it’s mass appeal as a sandbox criminal shooter. That said, have you ever stopped to consider the significance of it’s narrative?
GTA 5′s narrative contains themes of betrayal, partnership and greed. In this 2 part video series, we look in-depth at the significance of GTA’s portrayal of the American Dream – one of delusions and fantasy, with a realistic twist on the true outcome of criminal success. Read more
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Why is 8-bit music Catchy?
This video takes a look at 8-bit music and throwback game soundtracks and try to pin down on why it’s so memorable.
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Bound By Flame Review
Bound By Flame had promise of an ambitious title from French developer Spiders; a brand new Intellectual property set in a dark fantasy world with an action RPG backbone, but ambitions and realities don’t always align. Bound By Flame might not be the wholly satisfying experience you were hoping for but it might just be the title to tide you over if you’re starving for a passable role-playing game. Read more
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SUPERHOT Is Now On Kickstarter And You Should Look At It
I’ve been dying to talk about SUPERHOT for a long time. Ever since last August to be exact, because that’s when the concept was first made into a snappy little browser game you can play here. It’s an awesome little game with a great hook and immense potential. Since its first release to the public, I have personally completed this prototype several times and I am really happy I now have an excuse to tell everyone about it. Because it’s on Kickstarter! To quote their Kickstarter-page: “SUPERHOT is a unique, stylized FPS game where the time moves only when you move. With this simple mechanic we’ve been able to create gameplay that’s not all about reflexes – the player’s main weapon is careful aiming and smart planning – while not compromising on the dynamic feeling of the game.” Read more
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Musical Themes in Games
Music reinforces certain ideas or actions. This week, take a look at the various musical themes in games and how they serve as motifs in the soundtrack of the game.
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Daylight Review
From a marketing point it probably seemed like the greatest idea in the history of ideas. A combination of the successful ideas of procedurally generated games and the shitty let’s plays of horror games. That’s amazing. Shitty let’s players can make endless videos promoting our product! Fantastic! Sadly, there is more to art than marketing, and Daylight (Zombie Studios) ends up failing in every way imaginable. The potential was there, behind the crazy idea. But they just couldn’t live up to it. You can frantically click at everything below to watch my appropriately shitty review of this shitty game.
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Rumor: Demon’s Souls 2 Possibly Leaked As ‘Project Beast’
Over the weekend rumors started to flare across the Soul community; rumors of a leaked project that developer From Software, the creators of the Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls franchises, was working on a secret game codenamed ‘Project Beast’. There are screen shots and very broad quotes from a supposed witness to this supposed working title. Those images and quotes can be found here on NeoGaf.
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Game Music Setting the Mood
Music changes the way people see things. This week, take a look at some examples of music changing the perception of things and the types of music in games.
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You can watch a 30-minute Mario Kart 8-Commercial
Nintendo just released a 30-minute Mario Kart 8 direct, which is basically people just telling you how great Mario Kart 8 will be. To be fair, that’s every pre-release presentation of a game. If you don’t mind spending the running time of an episode of The Equalizer watching a commercial for Mario Kart 8, this is a pretty good time, detailing many aspects of the upcoming kart racer. I’m honestly pretty happy to see Nintendo doing stuff like this. I couldn’t care less about them not doing an E3 presentation. When it comes to these Direct-presentations, Nintendo seems to have a ton of fun with them, making jokes, being (hopefully) intentionally cheesy and overall just enjoying themselves. It does make watching a 30-minute commercial much easier. I mean, the video includes the line “Even when the road of life gets all… Bumbity bump bump…” Come on. Read more
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10 Things You Don’t Know About DoTA 2
A Gazillion hours of gameplay later and there’s just too much to still learn about the amazing game DoT 2. Ever wonder how to tank Roshan with illusions or how to do massive damage with Medusa? How about the intricacies of Meepo and his Bloodstone? Let us help you out, here’s a video on 10 things about DoTA 2. All these topics are either obscure, largely unknown or just plain fun to know. Sit back, relax and enjoy. Read more
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Game Music in the 90s
This week, take a look at video game music in the 90s, how it worked, and the technology that made it possible.
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Dark Souls 2 Lore – The Story
Time to learn about the story of Dark Souls 2, and what exactly happened to cause Drangleic to be the way it is. Warning: Spoilers, not recommended unless you’ve finished the game.
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Dragon Age: Inquisition Gets A New Trailer And Release Date
If you’re anything like me after you played Dragon Age 2 you thought to yourself “Okay, if Dragon Age: Origins was the spiritual successor to Baldur’s Gate… then what the fuck was this the spiritual successor to? Dynasty Warriors?” I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with Dynasty Warriors, Dragon Age 2 just seemed like a complete departure from the RPG masterpiece that was Dragon Age: Origins. Needless to say after Dragon Age 2 I’ve had the future of the Dragon Age franchise under a critical microscope of caution and reservations. Well, I’m still attempting to do that, but damn if developer Bioware isn’t making it hard as hell to curve my expectations and enthusiasms. But, my words can only carry so much weight, see for yourself by checking out this new trailer. Read more
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Civ and Borderlands Move From Gamespy to Steamworks
The classic (and in my mind extremely frustrating) online matchmaking client Gamespy will be closed on May 31st. This is bad news for titles that use Gamespy in their online play as they either have to move to another client, or accept the reality that the game will have no more online matchmaking. Gladly, after the news about the demise of Gamespy came to light, most worthwhile studios did say they are moving their games to another client so people can keep enjoying them. EA, Activision, Epic Games, and Bohemia Interactive previously said that some or all of their games will stay online, even after the GameSpy shutdown. Read more
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South Park: The Stick of Truth Review
South Park: The Stick of Truth the game, very much like South Park the television show, is not afraid to use ideas from other sources no matter if they’re inspirations, parodies or appropriated from pop culture. In doing so, The Stick of Truth will feel extremely familiar to both RPG fans and South Park fans, but if you happen to be both then you’re going to get the most out of the experience. Read more
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What We Know So Far About Borderlands: Pre-Sequel
2k Games is working on a new Borderlands game to enter their first-person shooting RPG series, Borderlands: Pre-Sequel. Somewhat surprisingly the new game will be exclusively on last-gen consoles like the Xbox 360, PC and PS3. This could actually be a brilliant decision because both systems have extremely established audiences and 2k knows they too have an established market for their beloved and stylish FPSer on those platforms. Keeping the game on last-gen systems for now will allow the Xbox One and PS4 to grow with console owners, and in the meantime 2k delivers a game fans want while developer Gearbox can bide time to develop a next-gen title of the franchise. This may also be the reason why the game does not push the story further, instead the title says it all and Borderlands: Pre-Sequel will take place between the events of Borderlands and Borderlands 2. Read more
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Transitioning from Bastion to Transistor
I sit in a dark room with a cold beer in hand. I snap it open as the clock on my desktop hits 1:25am. I’m staring at an empty word document. It mocks me. The soundtrack of Bastion plays through my headphones. The jawdropping melodies of Darren Korb fills my head with memories; fighting my way through a post-apocalyptic world, exploring the history of this mysterious land with the relaxing narration of Logan Cunningham in the background. I close my eyes and tilt my head back, trying to find words to verbalize my experience in text for the people of the internet. But instead of words, I get a vision of the future. It’s a hopeful vision, based purely on trust and will. In this vision I sit on a computer much like the one I am looking at right now, also with a beer in hand. I’m listening to the soundtrack of Transistor, trying to verbalize how much it meant to me, playing it all those years ago. Read more
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Dark Souls 2 Review
Dark Souls 2 is an amazing game, more than likely many fans of the series will never argue over that fact. Instead, I believe in the same way some people prefer Demon’s Souls over Dark Souls and vice-versa, that many will debate over which title is the most extraordinary out of the bunch. This is because at its core, Dark Souls 2 is technically and mechanically a very similar game to both Demon’s and Dark Souls but it actually finds a harmony between the two; taking ideas from the past Souls franchise and building on that to create yet another superb entry into this hard-as-nails action RPG. Read more
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Peter Molyneux Has a Brain – Calls Xbox One’s Kinect “Unnecessary”
In an interview with Edge, Peter Molyneux says that “I actually wish Kinect wasn’t a requirement”. The man behind many 90′s classics and 00′s mediocrity tells Edge that “It feels like an unnecessary add-on to me. Maybe it’s because we’re in England, and it doesn’t really use the TV stuff, but it feels more and more like a joke. My son and I sit there saying random things at it, and it doesn’t work. They could cost-reduce it [by removing Kinect]. I’m sure they’re going to release an Xbox One without Kinect. It would be unthinkable that they wouldn’t”. As the amount of Kinect-supporters in the developer-community keeps on rising, the opinion of this 22Cans creator hardly matters in the grand scheme of things. When you’re talking about Microsoft, you are going to need much more than Peter Molyneux to change their mind. Read more
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The Last Tinker: City of Colors Preview
I had the privilege of playing the preview build of this charming little title The Last Tinker: City of Colors and it sure seems to tackle an interesting combination of gameplay elements thrown in with aesthetics I can appreciate. The preview-build basically consisted of what I imagine is the tutorial-area of the game itself, so the amount of story-, world- and character-building was understandably fairly low. You might not first catch it, looking at the colorful environments or goofy characters, but something strange is afoot in Tinkerworld, a world where anything can apparently be built from “basic materials as long as the idea behind it is strong enough”, in practice this means a world build with color, paper and glue. Read more
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A New Dark Fantasy RPG: Bound By Flame
Developer Spiders has been building quite the portfolio over the past several years among the fantasy and role-playing game community. The developer has brought several quality titles in those years such as Of Orcs and Men and Mars: War Logs. Both previous RPGs offered interesting, character driven stories and intelligent combat mechanics ranging from free-flowing action to team-based, pseudo turn-based tactical bouts. Read more
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10 Secrets About Dark Souls 2
In this ViiTCHA video we cover 10 things about Dark Souls 2 that you may or may not know. The video brushes over topics that are based in lore, game mechanics, and things that are just simply fun to know, but all of these Dark Souls 2 issues are either obscure or widely unknown. Read more
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