“Boom shakalaka!” begins this post, indicating how out of touch I am with basketball. My American sport of choice was baseball, really. But I know enough about slamming a fierce jam and high dunking a score off the top turnbuckle to tell you that NBA 2K16 [official site] has arrived. What’s new about this year’s release? Oh, you know, the usual – it’s a Spike Lee Joint.
While most of us continue to be starry-eyed about MGSV: The Phantom Pain [official site], there has been no shortage of Internet Grumbles about its ending, and concerns that it wasn’t finished-finished (possibly related to Kojima and Konami’s latest round of spats?). I’m not going to get into OPINIONS on that stuff myself, primarily because I’m not personally invested in MGS lore, but yeah, there really was an original, longer ending sequence with MORE RIDICULOUS DRAMA and arguably a greater sense of closure, both for Big Boss/Venom Snake himself and in terms of closing the loop between the two main Metal Gear Solid timelines.
This other finale, set on a jungly island, was partially completed before whatever happened happened, and is included on the MGSV bonus disc from the PS4 collector’s edition. You can watch the whole, 18 minute sequence below. Spoilers, inevitably.
XCOM 2 [official site] is a hugely exciting prospect (so much so that I’m genuinely grumpy about the delay), but XCOM and X-COM are so very different things by now that it’s unlikely to slake anyone’s thirst for a true-blue, Gollopy experience. Fortunately, sounds like we might also be in for a sequel to unofficial X-COM spiritual sequel Xenoanuts [official site], 2014’s Cold War-set alien invasion strategy title.
… [visit site to read more]
Hello youse!
Oof! Just made it under the wire for the September Board Game News update. Honestly, I keep hoping against hope that there will be at least one month where there’s no board game news, but it just keeps on coming at this point. Games, games and more games, flowing at us like a cardboard river. And I just can’t fight the current. It’s too strong! I’m –
The current inhabitants of the Atari skinsuit have finally stuck a release date on their latest attempt to revive beloved management sim/construction toyRollercoaster Tycoon. Series creator Chris Sawyer is sadly not involved in Rollercoaster Tycoon World [official site], which is the fourth game in the main series, and rather worryingly the project has been through three different developers since its announcement last year.
… [visit site to read more]
BattleTech is/was the setting for the beloved MechWarrior series, but began life as a 1984 tabletop wargame, long before it was a mech combat sim. Though MechWarrior pops up again now and then (usually involving some tortured development process), the BattleTech name itself didn’t get a whole lot of use when it came to videogames – although Command & Conquer creators Westwood had a go at one. But now it’s getting its first non-spun-off time in the PC gaming sun since 1994, as a new turn-based mech tactics game being developed by Harebrained Schemes, of Shadowrun Returns fame.
BattleTech reached its $250,000 Kickstarter goal within around an hour of announcement. Blimey.
… [visit site to read more]
The Life Is Strange [official site] Episode 4 thoughts have been a long time coming for one reason and another, but I wanted to get something down on digital paper about it before episode 5 turns up and [presumably] ties some kind of a bow on proceedings. There will be spoilers, pretty much as soon as you click through and then constantly until the end of the article so, y’know, bear that in mind.
