Against The Storm provided some of the most fun I had playing a citybuilder last year. That was in part because, despite being set in a dark fantasy world in which you must satisfy an unyielding Queen, and despite being in early access, it’s remarkably graspable. It’s the kind of citybuilder where, if you place a building in the wrong place, it simply lets you pick it up and move it at no cost.
As of its latest update, there’s now a new customisable game mode that lets you make your expeditions even more relaxed – or much harder.
“It was originally supposed to be more linear, like Dracula X”.
Publisher The Arcade Crew and developer Joymasher have just launched their latest retro-inspired title Vengeful Guardian: Moonrider, an homage to classic 16-bit action platformers like Shinobi III and Hagane: The Final Conflict. The game is a remarkably authentic retro experience that puts the focus firmly on quick, replayable sessions with hidden items and branching pathways. We were particularly enamoured with the game in our review, awarding it a solid score of 9/10; be sure to check that out if you’re interested in adding Vengeful Guardian: Moonrider to your Switch collection.
I’ll start this with a confusing admission: My favourite thing in the world is a trip to an aquarium. I could spend days gazing through the curved glass of a tank, watching sharks glide past me, pressing my hand against the smooth, white underbelly of a stingray, and taking note of the clownfish darting in and out of the swaying mass of a sea anemone. Aquariums are my happy place. They’re fascinating, beautiful, entrancing, and for a kid who grew up pretty far away from the ocean, basically magic.
So why do I dislike fish Pokémon so much? It’s precisely because they have nothing in common with those actual fish in an aquarium, or in the sea. Let me explain.
With the Christmas chocolates finally dwindling in number, we think it’s fair to say that 2023 is well under way. And as the year kicks off, so too do we see the return of gaming news — nature is healing, people!
It’s set to be a massive year for the Zelda series with the sequel to Breath of the Wild launching this May. As excited as many fans are about the future, many can’t help but reflect on just how long it’s now been since the original game’s iconic reveals.
Google Stadia is officially shutting down on January 18, and the team behind the video game streaming service has gifted the world Worm Game, the final title that will be released for the platform and one that was used to test many of Stadia’s features before it launched.
Worm Game can be played now by anyone with a Google Chrome browser, and it is very much inspired by the classic game Snake. It’s not the most advanced game graphically, but it does have multiple levels, the ability to change the color of your worm, and four modes – Campaign, Arcade, Multiplayer, and Build.
It’s also important to note that, if you’d like to try Worm Game, you need to do so by January 18 as it will become unplayable when Google Stadia is officially shut down.
It’s a rare glimpse behind the curtain of game development, and it is a fascinating look at how the team helped bring Stadia to life.
“Play the game that came to Stadia before Stadia came to the world,” The Stadia Platform Content team wrote. “‘Worm Game’ is a humble title we used to test many of Stadia’s features, starting well before our 2019 public launch, right through 2022. It won’t win Game of the Year, but the Stadia team spent a LOT of time playing it, and we thought we’d share it with you. Thanks for playing, and for everything.”
Alongside Worm Game, the Stadia team has one other surprise in store for those who invested in the failed platform, as it will be releasing a “self-serve tool to enable Bluetooth connections on your Stadia Controller” next week. We don’t have the exact details as to how it will work as of yet, but those will come “on release.”
Google Stadia launched in 2019 and is a cloud gaming service that allows users to stream video games, including such AAA titles as Cyberpunk 2022 and Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, to devices that have Google Chrome. It doesn’t matter how powerful the device is either, as everything is run on Google’s cloud service.
The pink puff Kirby is still kind of celebrating his 30th birthday and to close the celebrations it seems there’ll be a special panel taking place this March at the 2023 Game Developers Conference.
According to the official website, this panel will be a “design session” featuring developers Shinya Kumazaki and Tatsuya Kamiyama. It will focus on Kirby and the Forgotten Land and how it made the leap into the 3D world, along with the new features it adds to the long-running series. This also lines up with the game’s first anniversary.
Pre-order Shoulders of Giants today on the Xbox Store, available January 26
After almost three years of development, we’re overjoyed to announce that Shoulders of Giants is now available for pre-order. The game will be released on January 26, 2023, on Xbox! Check out the newest trailer above featuring a mix of single-player and co-op mayhem.
One of the very first ideas we had when we started making Shoulders of Giants, was the silhouette of a smaller character riding on the back of a much bigger character. And then we thought, what if you could control both of these characters at once? How would that work? Would that be fun?
It took a lot of experimentation and prototyping to find the sweet spot, and an experience that felt fresh yet familiar. We thought, what if we split up types of combat between these characters, one character does all the melee, and is a big powerful mech? And the other character perched atop its back a small, nimble, gun wielding frog?
Once we found this combination, we knew we had found the core of the game. The next question we asked ourselves was, what type of world would these characters be in? What would their goal be in the game?
We have always been huge fans of science fiction, and knew we wanted a world where there was a dark force these heroes had to overcome, the classic theme of dark versus light. But how could we actually take this theme and create an interactive way for the player to experience it?
We imagined after an intense boss battle having the entire world transform from barren and dark, to vibrant, lush and full of life in a cinematic way. We experimented with real-time ways the player could do this, and found it to be fun and exciting and it became a pillar of the players abilities.
Speaking of abilities, the last core idea behind the game was that we wanted Shoulders of Giants to feel like a colorful playground with a huge arsenal of sci-fi gadgets and weapons for the player to explore and tinker with.
Players encounter weapons and abilities like a firework-shooting grenade launcher, a giant stomping shoe, a surfable shield, and much more. The core combat is all about experimenting with different combinations of equipment to find that amazing combo that keeps things feeling fresh and exciting.
While combat is the main gameplay pillar, we knew that we wanted a story for the game to take place in and for the characters and world to feel grounded too. The forces of entropy have taken over the universe, it is the players job to combat this dark force and to restore order and balance back to the universe.
As you beat more levels and save more worlds from the forces of entropy, you will build up your heat meter, allowing you to access increasingly difficult levels. As you pass certain heat thresholds, you will unlock special story boss encounters as you make your way to the final boss.
Along the way, you will acquire new weapons for both Froggie and the heroic Robot of the Galaxy as well as new pieces of armor, XP to spend on your skill tree, and dyes to further customize the look of your characters.
While you can customize your own frog and robot with dozens of cosmetics that are unlockable in-game, the four above can only be acquired as a bonus for pre-ordering the game:
This pre-order bonus includes four color sets, so you and up to three co-op friends can save the universe in style right from the start of the game.
Even better, the game is 20% off during this pre-order period. For more information, check out the game’s store page and official website, or join our discord.
Simultaneously control a sword-wielding robot and a gunslinging space frog in Shoulders of Giants, an explosively colorful sci-fi roguelike. Play alone, with a friend, or as part of a four-person team, cutting through waves of enemies on a quest to rescue the galaxy!
The forces of Entropy are spreading chaos through the stars, corrupting living planets and urging on the heat death of the universe. Led by the psychic Owl, one scrappy team of space survivors are fighting to restore the balance. A mysterious mech! A sharpshooting amphibian! Together they must cut through waves of enemies and restore light and life to the galaxy!
Pre-order the game for access to limited-edition dye sets with special visual effects. Dazzle your friends!
Against The Storm provided some of the most fun I had playing a citybuilder last year. That was in part because, despite being set in a dark fantasy world in which you must satisfy an unyielding Queen, and despite being in early access, it’s remarkably graspable. It’s the kind of citybuilder where, if you place a building in the wrong place, it simply lets you pick it up and move it at no cost.
Bloomberg report. The FTC 
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