Retro City Rampage nearly here

Posted on February 20, 2012 10:46 pm by lartens
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Retro City Rampage coming soonRetro City Rampage, tank blowing stuff up
8 Bit indie gem Retro City Rampage has been in the making for what seems like an eternity, but with the rumour mill grinding away as it does, it seems that wait is nearly over. Creator Brian Provincniano told a well known gaming blog (not unlike our own, hehe) that the game will be coming in May, that’s this May, not May 2013, but May 2012, that’s right.

The game looks a lot like the top down original turtles game on the NES, or like commando, ikari warriors (maybe), paper boy, smash tv, that annoying level in turtles where you have to swim, and many other back in the day style. It is a parody of a large open world action game, with cameos of modern day tech/game journalist and nods to many retro pop culture geekdom. The action pits you the Player against the evil good guys as you hit the town with whatever carnage you can muster. Check the official video.

Retro City Rampage “Big News” Trailer 2012 from Vblank on Vimeo.

This Bad Ass is the must have game of 2012, especially if you’re over 25, pricing is looking aroung the $15 dollar mark, BARG, but wait i hear you cry, what platform? Fear not, as its XBLA, playstation Vita, PS3, WiiWare and PC/Steam. That about covers it, nobody gets left out. Unless you’re iPad/iPhone/3ds owners only, in which case maybe. Personally I’m going with XBLA, and if i get a Vita then that too, and if i see it on a steam sale via the new steam iPhone app then maybe then too. it just looks tooo good.

Pc owners can pre order for some extra bonuses on teh official site http://www.retrocityrampage.com/buy.php where along with the DRM free pc version as soon as it’s released, you’ll also get the steam version, some soundtracks, and a 20% off coupon for merch, and who doesn’t like retro 8-bit geek apparel eh?

Retro City Rampage -Swimming like a turtleRetro City Rampage screenshot, guy punching a copRetro City Rampage - paper Boy styleRetro City Rampage Commando lookingRetro City Rampage, tank blowing stuff upRetro City Rampage coming soon

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Minecraft snapshot, making some changes

Posted on February 15, 2012 9:48 pm by lartens
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Mojang have been releasing snapshots of their game Minecraft every week for those whom prefer not to wait for updates

This update process is like a public beta, you play early ideas and give feedback. All you have to do to get in on it is download the latest snapshot as a jar file, replace the relevant file in the install directory which is usually hidden see earlier post, and then play with the new features. The snapshots are available for both client and server, usually if there are any major problems Jens will update a patched version within a few hours to a day later.

The latest snapshot is introducing a new save format name “Anvil” that improves saving and data packets transfer, and prepares the way for some modding features. The new file format changes the order of the blocks stored from xzy to yzx.Though modders do not despair, as Jens has also included some source code for the converter to this new format to help you prepare for the the 1.2 release that will force the new saving format

Note the snapshot will also do this, but a backup of the old format will also be saved in case something goes wrong so don’t worry.

Check out the official post at mojang for link to the snapshot http://www.mojang.com/2012/02/15/minecraft-snapshot-12w07a/.

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Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch has been Delayed

Posted on February 15, 2012 9:05 pm by lartens
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ni no kuni title
Well we were all looking forward to it, some of us even updated our ps3 from the homebrew friendly 3.41 firmware to the nasty locked locked 4.0 in preparation for it too. But the english localization of Ni No Kuni has fallen from the early 2012 slot to late 2012, and thats North Americas ETA, Europe is looking at Q1 2013 according to the lates press release.

This is not all bad news, although english subtitles would of sufficed, and in fact be preferable to some players. Level-5 president and CEO Akihiro Hino expressed “it was important for me that players outside Japan also have the best experience of the game we can give them”.

The localisation will have both japanese and english voice acting, with subtitles in English, French, Italian, German and Spanish. My only request is to please not use any of the cast from sailormoon, although its a fantastic anime, the English voice acting was unbearable, the German dub is where its at folks, classic.

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Kinect for windows coming February, BUT all is not peachy

Posted on January 11, 2012 12:13 am by lartens
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Microsoft have announced over at their blog that Kinect for Windows is coming this February 1st in 12 countries including the UK, Japan, Australia, Germany, Spain, USA, canada, France, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, and New Zealand. Though i can see no listing for the hardware on amazon at this time, the price is said to be around $250, which will probably end up around £231 here (based purely on typical UK pricing, nothing official).

The reasons for the increased price are based on the lack of ecosystem and subsidising, after all Kinect for Xbox brings sales of Kinect games, and also helps sell Xbox 360′s. A lot of money went into the research and development of the kinect, and £100 price point of the original is still the cheapest by far for the technology, hence why it was so popular with hobbyists and hackers of robotics.

Along with the release of the hardware, comes new software, the SDK (Software Development Kit) which is free, but the big tough Micro-soft are stating that non-commercial deployment is for the new hardware, and not the xbox 360 Kinect. the Beta SDK can still be used for non-commercial deployment, and the licence is supported until june 16th 2016. The commercial deployment is also for the new hardware. So, whos going to offer the competition for new drivers for the new Kinect, for non windows SDK use? i’ve got a limbo code i can gift on steam. just saying.
#####UPDATE######
A new blog post from MSDN suggests that the new SDK will still work with the Xbox 360 kinect, which makes the previous comment confusing to say the least, I’ll confirm when it’s out I guess.

So, i’m going to need to spend more money on a new Kinect, that any development is going to lock out the 18 million other xbox 360 Kinect users. though to be fair, i doubt many of them are using it on their windows machine anyway.

Lets see how it goes

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Minecraft Pocket Edition to get survival mode

Posted on January 8, 2012 4:34 pm by admin
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Mojang, the company behind the hugely popular (and main reason we get any visitors) Minecraft, have announced that the pocket Edition of Minecraft that is currently available on Android an iOS is going through some changes, bassed on feedback form the fans who wanted more than just creative mode.

Apparently the Pocket edition has been design/coded in a way that makes this not quite as simple as you might believe, but it will make its way to us. A February date has been named for submission to the respective market place and app store, where we can expect some mobs, though not so much of the crafting yet, as the GUI would have to be changed.

There was no word on weather they would allow login to you normal minecraft servers eventually, which is really what i’d like, though in all honesty, i never get the time to play anymore, and i personally don’t think the mobile edition is worth the time, unless its to view creations while on the go.

The best part about minecraft is mining for resources, only that doesnt matter in multiplayer as you can give yourself anything, and in creative you already have a whole bunch of stuff. i’d like the limitations of 1 player mode, but in a multiplayer world, where you have to earn what you build. Yeah i could just not make myself an op, buuuut, i don’t have that kinda will power, just wish that was what was the official game. Oh well.

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its a block eat block world out there, figuratively speaking

Posted on January 7, 2012 12:17 am by lartens
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I take a break from my evening grind of catching up on tech/game news to mention 2 interesting blocky games in development, both of which where tweeted by @notch, so if you follow him on twitter no doubt you’ve already seen the gameplay videos, but in case you haven’t there is the blocky rpg “Cube World” which you can follow the blog of development at http://wollay.blogspot.com/. Even though the title isn’t available for download, the developer has shown off some video of his cute blocky world and it looks pretty, with some clever questing and fighting thrown in. The indie dev has using c++ as the programming language and direct X, the latter means it will not be a simple port to other platforms but he has said a future version for mac is planned. Though quite when is another story as the developer is about to start at Mojang, the company founded by @notch the creator and publisher of Minecraft. If you like what he’s doing in Cube World don’t be too disappointed with his new employment though, he has said he will still be working on his indie title.

The second game is Castle Story, a game by 2 Developers from Canada, see http://www.sauropodstudio.com/. This little gem is a Real Time Strategy (RTS) style mine and build game set on floating islands in the sky. In the sampler video one of the developers walks us through sending men off to build a wall, and some others to mine for the materials, then he hsows us a castle he made earlier and then blows it up. So castles in the sky, reminds me of something hehe. It looks really good, and is one too look out for.

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XNA for xbox maybe more hidden, but Microsoft haven’t forgotten us

Posted on January 4, 2012 10:40 pm by lartens
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In a surprise post on the msdn blogs, the might Microsoft have listened to feedback from the XNA creators club app hub community, and finally upped the maximum file size form a mear 150MB to 500MB, not only that but the 80MS prove point can now be on files up to 150MB, before anything over 50MB had to be 240 or 400.

This is great news along with another new maximum, the number of games a developer could publish on XBOX Live Indie Games used to be just 10, if and developers had anymore games they would have to setup another subscription for the development platform, but this threshold has been doubled to 20 titles, how’s that for high digs.

Of course the grigorigs own developers “Aminal Team”/”Team Aminal” only have 1 game published, that i don’t recommend getting until i update it, but there’s more in the pipe line, like a beach volleyball game with manga style girls, oh yes, call that one exclusive scoop for the grigorig team. There’s also the chu chu rocket rip off that i started at uni, let’s just sweap that one under the rug for now. Unfortunately this new found full time employment thing has crippled the game creating/playing/bloging/and everything else duties i was once almost on top of, but i’m sure eventually it will be done.

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iTunes match is in the UK Now

Posted on December 15, 2011 11:23 pm by lartens
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Excellent news this pre Christmas, Apple has released iTunes Match outside of the US earlier than what was reported.

iTunes Match is where for a subscription of £21.99 a year, iTunes will scan your music, and find it in its database, where it will then allow you to download a drm free 256kps AAC file which is supported by Apple devices. Not only this, but if your music collection has something apple does not, it will allow you to upload these files so that you always have them across any device you wish to download to, that is linked to your apple account of course.

So if you have a bunch of 128kps mp3′s you ripped nearly a decade ago when the average hard drives were like 40-80GB in size, and the ipod mini had a meager 4GB space, then you can get a new shinny audio file that takes up more space but sounds better, all with minimal fuss. Huzzah, there’s one slight problem, we may not have 40GB drives anymore, but some of us have ssd’s in our macbooks which almost put us in the same position we were in back then, a 256GB SSD split between Windows and Mac, plus Lions restore feature, the multitude of development tools, and the World of Warcraft we never play, means we still do not have space. personally, after just installing xcode 4.3, i now have 2GB space remaining, *sigh. For me i shall be using a different account anyway as you need to have a credit card tied to the account, as it stands at the moment i use only pre paid cards. It’s to limit spending, and although it will ties me out of some of the benifits, i needded the tracks on my desktop anyway, this seems like the best solution without re ripping cd’s, and that s just for the one i do have.

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3DS update ahoy

Posted on December 9, 2011 12:07 am by lartens
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The November update for the 3DS is upon us, this December 8th, hey it could of been worse, the big updates are the 3D video recording which is just as bad as the 3D camera so i’ll skip that one, but the most important feature is transferring 3DS data from one 3DS you own to another 3DS you own before you sell your old, you know because you bought the limited edition zelda 3DS, even though you already had both the console and the game. Sucka.

So being a sucka myself, i can confirm that it does go smoothly, but you are limited to once in 7 days, and have a limit of 5 times a device can be involved in transferring, hopefully there won’t be much need for this. Look on the bright side, at least old ds titles work on the 3ds, unlike paying for your old psp games to be on the vita, and thats only some of them, what a gyp. And yes, i will be getting a vita, and don’t ask me why, i’ve got over 2 months to justify it.

Oh, theres suppose to be some better dlc integration too, and updated mii pass goodness. I haven’t mii passed anybody since the Zelda concert, which i still don’t think i’ve reviewed, in case i don’t get round to that, it was phenomenal, and if the opportunity arrises again, its well worth 150 dabloons, and they were as cheap as £63, if that seems steep to you, it won’t after you’ve experienced video game music in an orchestra live. The CD with skyward sword didn’t do it justice. Speaking of which, be careful for a game stopping bug whe you complete some desert stuff first and then talk to a particular goron twice, Nintendo have news of it apparently, i haven’t checked, just be careful, or go visit nintendo to be sure.

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xbox, play, play PLAY!, PLAAAAAAY!!!!!!!

Posted on December 7, 2011 11:49 pm by lartens
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XBOX Dashboard update, going metro like windows phone 7 and the upcoming windows 8. Once you get passed the agreements, you can almost use kinect for the interface, maybe you could do that before? i don’t know, i mean who uses a Kinect on xbox anyway?

In all seriousness though the voice control of kinect isn’t too bad considering, except when trying to play a video, “rewind” fine, “faster” fine, but “play”, “PLAY” is a freaking nightmare. At least that’s been my experience so far, think i’ll be keeping that controller handy for the more advanced controls.

Love Film was also included in the update (XBL GOLD members only), as a first time subscriber to the service i started off with some “Happy Feet” streaming, which was the perfect movie after watching BBC’s Frozen Planet over the last month. Unfortunately i lost xbox live connectivity twice during the movie which was frustrating, both times were whilst rewinding the video and yelling at the xbox, maybe i hurt its feeling hehe. I’m unsure if this is a LoveFilm service problem or XBL, as Ben has had similar trouble streaming from zune in the past. The good news is i was able to resume where i left off in the video, though i had to do a search for the movie to start playing it, there was no quick easy access of previous or recently viewed which is a bit of a let down. The video quality is SD sadly, but it was adequate enough, but i’ve also put Captain America and Thor on my blu-ray request list. There was a deal coming from the amazon site of a £15 amazon gift card and a month free trial of lovefilm for new customers which is great, had to sign up with a credit card though, but its ok to cancel before the months up so long as any rentals are returned.

Other new features of the update are inclusion of cloud storage for save games, something that will benefit those who visit their friends a lot and who don’t keep their saves on a usb drive.

The apps section is pretty slim, with LoveFilm and Zune as the only ones currently listed on the marketplace, though sky and last.fm are still available on xbox anyway.

The real kicka though is how far down indie games are now buried, you have to go to the main “Games” header, then game marketplace then another “Games” header, then select “Game Type” which will give you “arcade”, “games on demand”, “indie games” and XBOX originals.

So i’m not too disappointed with the new update, it has though caused me to either waste time watching stuff on LoveFilm and renting movies, or waste money on not having the time to do those things. I definitely wouldn’t of bothered with the service if it wasn’t on xbox. But as someone who generally fears change, i don’t mind this update at all.

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