Team NVIDIA has announced that Project SHIELD is no longer just a project and now you can pre-order the thing for your own very shortly. The open platform device holds a lot of promise, not the least of which being its ability to stream games remotely. The hardware specs are finalized and we’ve got them below – check it out:
Read more on SHIELD now available for pre-order. Nothing to do with the Avengers…
It must be Tuesday – it’s release date time! The folks at Her Interactive have released Nancy Drew: Ghost of Thornton Hall – a new mystery adventure exclusive to the PC and Mac. Before you pass up a $19.99 title, let me point out that this is a puzzle-based point and click adventure. For those of who grew up playing them, that should pique your interest! The game is the 28th title in the series – I’d suspect that you don’t keep making titles in the same vein if it’s not successful. Here’s what we know about the game:
Mad Catz has been in the mouse business for a while, and they are announcing that they’ve shipped the sequel to the R.A.T. gaming mouse – they are calling this little rodent the M.O.U.S.9. This mouse comes with some new goodies as well as support for smartphones, tablets, and other Bluetooth-supported devices. Here’s a nibble:
The team at CCP Games have hit their mark and launched their huge free-to-play multiplayer first person shooter, DUST 514. Exclusive to the PS3, the title has been a topic of discussion here at Gaming Trend quite a bit. (And there is something behemoth coming….just wait) The game is built on an platform that allows the CCP team to constantly evolve the narrative, again, all without cost. It also features a great deal of customization along with a full character progression system. Sony has repeatedly said that they’ll be taking a far more active role with the F2P market, and this is clearly a step in that direction. Here’s a nibble about the title:
Tower defense as a genre has gained a lot of traction in recent years, thanks in no small part to titles like Orcs Must Die, Revenge of the Titans, and Defense Grid: The Awakening making their rounds through Steam sales and indie bundles. The main gameplay mechanic of “here’s a wave of enemies, now kill them” is open-ended enough to be made to fit different settings, platforms, and demographics. Heck, even Plants vs. Zombies is a tower defense game in its own way. Apparently not content with making “just another tower defense game”, the team at Coffee Stain Studios have added in a unique twist with Sanctum and its successor Sanctum 2; the Sanctum series bills itself as the first tower defense/FPS fusion and for the most part, it lives up to the hype.
Ubisoft launched a new gameplay video today for the upcoming Rayman Legends entitled “20,000 Lums under the Sea,” which comes as a sea-salty follow-up to the very impressive “Mariachi Madness” that came out earlier this month. Like the previous video, this clip features some very endearing music, although it relies more on creative editing to give you a feel for the new level, as opposed to the straightforward level playthrough that was “Mariachi Madness.” In other words, this functions more like a traditional trailer, but it is no less entertaining to watch, and introduces some new costumes, including a Splinter Cell variant(!).
Last month, I got to take a look at New World Interactive’s Insurgency, a reboot of the popular Half Life 2 mod of the same name. Two weeks ago the game received official “Early Access” status on Steam, allowing gamers to pre-purchase the game and get access to the beta version ahead of its official release. I enjoyed the early version of Insurgency that I got to play with, so this news prompted me to boot up the game again for a second look to see just how much progress the Insurgency team has made in the past six weeks.
It’s no secret that Watch_Dogs is one of our most anticipated games of the year here at Gaming Trend. We got an official release date two weeks ago, and the screenshots released last week made us wish time would move a little faster. This weekend we got something even better; a video showing six minutes of Watch_Dogs gameplay. The game is running on a PC “with the power of next-gen consoles” and being played with an Xbox 360 controller. Check it out after the break.
Read more on New Watch_Dogs video reveals six minutes of gameplay…
Yes, that is a Samurai Bear working the holocontrols of her starship. You’re intrigued, aren’t you? Want to know what game that is? Listen to this week’s edition of the Gaming Trend Podcast and you’ll find out! Join Atlas and Victor as they discuss the biggest happenings in WoW, Diablo III, MechWarrior Online, Duels of the Planeswalkers 2014, and Injustice. If you’re interested in picking up a free copy of Forge, you can let us know by emailing us at [email protected], by leaving a comment below, or by rating us on iTunes!
Read more on Gaming Trend Podcast 05/14/13–Samurai Space Slivers!…
There are a plethora of “Tycoon” games on the market. The smartphone market is flooded with them, Steam has a ton, and there are new ones hitting the cheap deals stands at Walmart on a near constant basis. Lemonade Stand Tycoon, Airline Tycoon I and II, Chocolate Tycoon, Zombie Tycoon, DinerTown Tycoon, Offshore Tycoon, Hotel Giant, four Prison Tycoon titles, and Zoo Tycoon doesn’t even begin to cover 1% of the Tycoon marketplace. When Game Dev Tycoon hit the market, you can imagine that it didn’t even make it onto my radar because that genre is so saturated. You can imagine my surprise when some of my friends simply couldn’t stop talking about it. After more than a decade on this side of the fence, it was time to see how the other half lives – it was time to become a Game Developer. Much to my surprise, it was time to review a Tycoon title.
Read more on Game Dev Tycoon – far more fun than it has any right to be…
Treachery of the White Hand is the name of the latest content update released for Lord of the Rings Online, and it’ll feature a number of new areas for your adventuring pleasure throughout Middle Earth and beyond. In addition, the free download will provide revamped combat, “Hobbit presents”(!) that you get just for logging on each day, and VIP benefits that include your character getting to commission a custom portrait. I think it’d look great over the mantle, don’t you?
Read more on New Lord of the Rings Online content update goes live…
Show Me the Games is currently hosting a major indie game sale worth paying attention to. It’s a limited time deal on a wide variety of top notch indie titles (including Jets ‘n Guns Gold, a personal favorite of mine), with just under five days left to go as of this writing. Largely these are 50% off discounts, with the twist that these purchases are largely straight from the developers themselves – that means no middleman services in play, and the money you spend on these games goes straight to the developers. Now, I love Steam, and I think indie devs love selling through Steam, but an opportunity like this is nice all the same for those of us who love to make sure we’re fully supporting the actual teams creating these products.
Gaming Trend Podcast 05/14/13--Samurai Space Slivers!
