It has been an interesting up and down week in gaming. So, as per what I do here is run down the interesting stuff that happened. I cover the game releases, news, and some entertainment news of the week. Please know that I look into and cover the stuff that caught my interest for February 10th to the 16th, 2019 and thought worth talking about.
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Game Releases:
Crackdown 3 –
An action adventure game where you are fighting over the city of New Providence, 10 years after the events of the second game. A terrorist attack has been linked to the city and you must fight your way through the gangs of the city to find out what’s going on. The game has had a troubled development cycle but now has released to PC and Xbox One from developer Sumo Digital and published by Xbox Game Studios. It released on February 15th, 2019.
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Metro Exodus –
Following the events of Last Light in game two years later, where you resume playing Artyom trying to escape the nuclear fallout of Russia and discovers that his superiors have been lying to him about how the NATO countries are doing. Worse as he travels to find the remains of the Russian government that things really are bleak for his country. Released on February 15th. 2019 for Xbox One, PS4, and PC by 4A Games and published by Deep Silver. The game has been under scrutiny for the handling of its release on PC due to signing an agreement to be exclusive to the Epic Game’s digital store for a year after having been available for Steam, but no longer is.
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Far Cry New Dawn –
A nuclear war has devastated much of the world including Hope County as you return to the world of Far Cry 5 to find it much changed. This game takes place fifteen years after the events of the fifth game and is in a ways a sequel spin off. As people try to rebuild it all comes under threat by those who want power. It’s up to you in this first person action adventure shooter to put a stop to the developing fight. The game was developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft and release on February 15th, 2019 for the PS4, PC, and Xbox One.
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Jump Force –
The many heroes from the many manga’s of Shonen Jump are coming together for a fast furious adventure in which they’ve been brought to the real world. This has happened because of an army of mind controlled villains led by Kane and Galena. The heroes of the manga’s join the Jump Force to put a stop to this but even that seems to have some weird underlying issues with it. Published by Bandai Namco Entertainment after being developed by Spike Chunsoft it released on Xbox One, PS4, and PC on February 15th, 2019.
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Tetris 99 –
A battle royale that no one expected! It’s a free to play puzzle game, for those that subscribe to Nintendo’s Online service, where you battle 99 players to see how good you are against them. It appears that the game will be receiving updates to add more game modes and so on. It was released surprisingly on Switch on February 13th, 2019 and was developed by ARIKA and published by Nintendo.
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Plane Mechanic Simulator –
Set during World War 2 as the Nazi’s prepare for the invasion of Britain, you are a pilot mechanic fixing up British airplanes and trying to keep them in the air. This is an early access title that came out on February 13, 2019 after being developed by Disaster Studio and published by Movie Games S.A. and PlayWay S.A. It is a PC title.
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Gaming News:
Activision after having another record year in sales according to their CEO, Robert Kotick, laid off about 800 workers. As a result King, which is owned by Activision, shut down their Z2Live studio who worked on mobile games in Seattle. This news came from Kotaku.com’s Jason Schreier.
Wow this is terrible even though they made record profits from basically only Call of Duty as Destiny 2 did not live up to sales expectations. I feel for those let go by the company and hope that they land on their feet soon. Something is really off at Activision and if they keep, as the public sees it, struggling to deal with themselves and their sister companies I don’t see how the CEO can stick around for much longer. Yes, they got record profits, but if the public continues to see the company fail to live up to expectations of it, well who knows what will happen.
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Nintendo held a new Nintendo Direct event to show off what’s coming this spring and summer to the Switch. There was quite a few surprises in store though, Animal Crossing fans were once again watched only to feel neglected. Announced was Super Mario Maker 2, Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening, Astral Chains, and Tetris 99.
I usually set my expectations for Direct’s to about zero so that I’m pleasantly surprised by them. I have to say this even was a good to great show case of upcoming games. Plenty of demos dropped, a new game released, new games were announced. It is sad that they haven’t talked about some of their upcoming games, but they have to save something for later direct videos and the games might not be ready to be shown. I know people want to see their favorite game, but sometimes it is good to just enjoy what’s in front of you right now. Link’s Awakening has me the most interested because of the unique almost claymation style of art, which is pretty cute and definitely very different from what most are used to.
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THQ Nordic is back to buying up more companies. This time they have acquired Kingdom Come: Deliverance developer Warhorse Studios. This was announced via a press release from THQ Nordic.
At this rate every small to medium sized game will probably be snatched up at some point by THQ Nordic. I don’t know if this is a good to have happen, but hopefully it leads to a resurgence in medium sized games that can do well for what they are.
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Hollow Knight: Silksong which was originally meant to be a downloadable expansion to Hollow Knight will no longer be DLC. It has taken on the form of a full independent game and is being described by developer Team Cherry as a sequel. The release is planned for Switch, Linux, Mac, and PC. There may be a port at a later date to other consoles but since they’re a three person team, these are the versions they’re concentrating on right now. You can check out the trailer below and the Team Cherry blog post on the announcement.
It looks like a fun game and with all of the content they appear to be adding, it certainly went beyond the scope of just DLC. They’ve kept the amazing art style and hopefully they improved what didn’t work on the original game so that they can deliver a finely tuned experience.
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Blizzard has announced that they have no major games coming in 2019. This shouldn’t come as a major surprise as they aren’t known as a prolific studio who turns out games. But it will also disappoint fans, who were hoping that the studio would give them something like say a new Diablo. This news is from Polygon.com who has the full story.
This is of course sad news as gamers always want games from their favorite developers. Sometimes this happens as development of a game can take a long time to get from idea to full release. And with as much bad press that Activision-Blizzard has gotten lately, it is not a surprise that they don’t want to set off anyone with early announcements or poorly launched games.
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The Outer Worlds got a new preview thanks to Game Informer. The developer showed off game play and answered questions in a video. Obsidian wanted to show off the combat and to let players see what it looks like to play the game. You can check out the story on GameInformer.com if you’re interested in it.
Overall the game looks and feels Fallout 3-ish which isn’t a bad thing as clearly the developers of Fallout New Vegas would come across that way. Visually it isn’t an impressive looking game yet, and I hope it winds up looking a bit better. That said, as long as the visuals are there, I think it should be good game play wise.
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A new small multiplayer co-op game was announced by Daedalic where you must build train tracks with the help of your friends. Also the train is steaming down the tracks so it is best to build quickly and figure out the best route to take. It is called Unrailed and currently is planned for early access in the summer of 2019.
If I had any friends this seems like it would be the perfect little game to play at a party. That and it also seems like a great game for YouTuber’s to play with a group of people. It looks like a nifty little game that should do well if it is priced well.
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Alfonso Riberio the actor who sued Epic Games over what he claimed to be the “Carlton Dance” on the game Fortnite has been turned away from copyrighting the dance by the U.S. Copyright office. The reason being is that they feel that it might not be him who has a claim to the copyright of said dance. It may be Dancing with the Stars or NBC who aired Fresh Prince of Bel Air that has the copyright claim. There may also be an issue with the fact that the simple moves that the dance contains might not be enough of a choreography to constitute a claim for copyright. This news came from TheHollywoodReporter.com.
This will likely put a damper on the lawsuit, and it remains to be seen if he will withdraw it from the courts. I don’t know what this will mean for the other lawsuits but it does probably hamper a lot of them. Many people will argue that Epic is profiteering from this dance moves and that they should give a cut to the originators, but if these dances are not copyrighted or are public domain then it would only look bad for the company should the creator suddenly decide to sue because they feel like they aren’t getting a fair share. It’s a fine line for any company to have to walk.
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Entertainment News:
Stephen Chow the creator of the much beloved Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle has said that he’s working on Kung Fu Hustle 2. It will be more of a spiritual sequel taking place in modern day and will likely have a whole new cast of characters. Chow is set to direct the movie. If you’re curious about this potential news check out Maactioncinema.com who reported the news.
I would love a sequel to Kung Fu Hustle I’m just not sure if I believe that this will actually happen. Plus, it doesn’t feel like it needs a sequel as much as I’d love one. Plus none of the original cast? That just makes me a bit sad. All in all I feel kind of like what’s the point of this movie? I do hope its good and that Chow has a really good story to tell cause that’s what would bring me back around to this.
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The omens are around and abound. Good ones and bad ones, and also Terry Pratchett’s and Neil Gaiman’s Good Omen’s finally has a release date of May 31, 2019 at least that is the U.S. release date. No word on when the show will be hitting elsewhere. Amazon who is handling the U.S. distribution and funded the project released the weird yet interesting opening title sequence to the series.
I’m greatly looking forward to this mini-series. I hope it is a riot especially with the stellar and amazing cast that they have got. Benedict Cumberbatch was even recently announced to be playing Satan for the series. I hope the series can live up to my mad expectations of it.
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Well I think that shall do it for another round of blogging about video games and entertainment stuffs. Thank you for stopping by. If you have any suggestions, comments, and or lovely questions I welcome them below in the comment section. You can also email me at Lostvideogamesblog@gmail.com or business contact me Honoremihcael01@gmail.com. There is of course also Twitter where you can find me at @Snipehockey. And with that I shall say goodbye for now.
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Lost Video Games 