THE SOUL STILL BURNS: KONAMI ANNOUNCES NEW WIIWARE CONTRA
In a parallel universe, all the rampant Konami-Coded sites would have been viral prelude to this: Konami has just made the surprise announcement of a new WiiWare version of its venerable Contra series — the very game that made the Konami Code famous — due to be released in Japan next Tuesday, and, surely, the Western world not long after.
Konami offers few details other than saying the game will maintain its run/jump/shoot ‘guerrilla tactic’ core, which you can see in style — along with at least one larger-than-full-screen boss, via the developer’s newly opened site.
Contra Rebirth [Konami, google translated]
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FROM DRILLER TO DIGITS: SONY’S PS3/PSP NUMBER PUZZLER QRUTON
In other new overseas surprise announcement: after creating Namco’s original Offworld favorite action/puzzler Mr. Driller and moving on to Sony to work on that company’s own excellent Ape Escape series, director Yasuhito Nagaoka has been reunited with Driller designer Kaori Shinozaki for Qruton, a new puzzle game coming in June for both PSP and the PS3.
Beneath its cute-goth exterior lies an interesting take on number puzzling, with grouped digits rolling forward (or, with fours, back to one) and marked to explode if they lie next to similar digits, with a minorly brain-bending entire-screen combo viewable in the trailer above.
Sony’s been less consistent with bringing PlayStation Network exclusives to all territories, or at least in a consistently timed manner, so it’ll be a waiting game to see if Qruton makes the jump to the U.S. and UK stores.
Qruton [Sony, via andreasang]
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EXILE IN SIMSVILLE: THE COMIC BOOK SIMCITY MAXIS NEVER MADE
Maxis art director Ocean Quigley shows off this prototype for a post-SimCity 4 game eventually cancelled, then known as Simsville. Quigley explains the process, known as “impostering”, would have allowed for a freely moving camera around the city and much more detailed models than previously utilized, as the process renders out complex 3D objects as simple sprites.
And, of course, gives the game that wonderfully soft-shaded illustrative style.
Impostering in Simsville [Ocean Quigley]
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LISTEN: JE DEVIENS DJ EN 3 JOURS’S CHIPTUNE PULSEWAVE PERFORMANCE
Je Deviens DJ En 3 Jours do digital hardcore with a backdrop of glitched out pixel lovelies at the previously previewed Pulsewave show at NYC’s The Tank. Vimeo uploader Gideon captured most of the night’s performance, including several of the open-mic performers — see also: 8BK-ok’s 8-bit Rocky Horror show, and also: JDDJ3J’s MySpace, where he’s got the best low-bit version of Plastic Bertrand’s Ca Plane Pour Moi I’ve ever heard.
Je Deviens DJ En 3 Jours [MySpace, Gideon on Vimeo]
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THE SINCLAIR SOLUTION: BIOSHOCK 2’S FIRST MULTIPLAYER DETAILS
In its ongoing drip-feed of BioShock 2 details, 2K has let loose the first details of the game’s multiplayer campaign. For such a deliberately single-starring narrative experience as the original game was, multiplayer might have seemed an odd choice, but developer
2K says the multiplayer segment of the game will work in parallel with the single player experience that will be set “during the fall of Rapture,” prior to ‘Jack’s arrival in the first game, with users taking the role of test subjects for the then-experimental bio-enhancing Plasmids.
There, players will explore pre-wreckage environments seen in the first game like Kashmir Restaurant and Mercury Suites, and, taking a page from Call of Duty 4‘s multiplayer playbook, they’ll earn experience points that will grant access to better weapons, Plasmids and Tonics to be recombined to fit your style of play.
BioShock 2 is due for release in October for PS3, Xbox 360, and PC.
There’s something in the sea [2K]
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LISTEN: PREVIEW ALEX MAUER’S VEGAVOX II NES CART ALBUM
Above, a preview of the title screen and first song from Alex Mauer’s second Vegavox album, his third LP to be released on an actual NES cart. Mauer’s been previously mentioned for his musical work both on the NES ROM flier for April’s Pulsewave show and the PlayPower organization’s work on a cheap 8-bit computer for developing worlds.
The album will be out soon on Pause Records (previously noted for their +Plus series of free indie game soundtrack downloads), and while his second collaborative NES cart album, Color Caves (preview), is out of print, you can still get his first Vegavox album (preview) via his headlessbarbie site.
headlessbarbie [Alex Mauer, Pause Records, via Daniel Rehn]
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ONE SHOT: MACHINARIUM’S RUSTED IRONWORKS DECAYED ARCADE
From Jakub ‘Amanita‘ Dvorský’s forthcoming adventure game, Machinarium.
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BREAD AND CREAM: TALE OF TALES’ THE PATH HITS MACS
So it’s been some weeks since Tale of Tales’ Red-Riding-Hood-via-coming-of-age-horror game The Path first hit the digital marketplace, and I haven’t said a word about it since my IGF roundup, based on a build from a year earlier.
That’s not an intentional snub, it’s simply logistics, with my main PC now so horribly outdated it suffers under the weight of a Plants Vs. Zombies or a Today I Die, let alone anything taxingly 3D.
But those days might now be behind me, as Tale of Tales has just announced that The Path has just been released for the Mac — which hopefully will keep the MacBook happy — and alongside it, they’ve released their lengthiest and most ‘traditional’ trailer to date, which gives you just about everything you need to see to understand why it’s quickly become such a critical darling.
The Path for Mac is NOW available! [Tale of Tales]
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PIZZA CITY: PIXELJAM’S RETRO-MODERN STYLE COMES TO ADULT SWIM
In a move entirely coincidental with my tip of the hat to Rich Grillotti earlier in the morning, Adult Swim has released its latest web game, Pizza City, which so happens to have been created by Grillotti and PixelJam partner Miles Tilmann.
The game’s the Atari 2600 version of Grand Theft Auto we never got, if the game had necessarily been limited to GTA‘s delivery side missions and been stripped of all its violence (minus, that is, that toward clowns and mimes), but with all its hidden bonuses sprinkled around its open world.
If it seems at first glance that its pace and expansion are too time consuming for quick-shot web play, that’s because they are: though it’s not immediately apparent (it wasn’t to me, anyway), pressing ‘S’ inside the pizza shop will save your progress, meaning I can (and will) come back to grind my way to those better cars teased just outside your starting point.
Pizza City [adult swim, PixelJam]
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LITTLEBIGWATCH: HYMANATOR’S OUT OF THIS WORLD/ANOTHER WORLD TRIBUTE
LittleBigPlanet creativity seems to be on the rise lately: following yesterday’s electro-mega-mix, PSN user ‘Hymanator‘ has done up Eric Chahi’s classic Another World/Out of This World in style, with the full intro sequence, shadow-beast, cage-breaking sequence and all.
Hymanator (where he’s got more Robocop, Back to the Future tribute vids) [Synthasite, thanks Malcolm]
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