My Valentine’s walk of shame
[We post a lot of articles here at Destructoid. The endless, ouroboros news cycle has us burning the snake at both ends, which will ultimately push big news, thoughtful original pieces, and all sorts of other great content off of the front page. Check here every Saturday for my attempt to rectify that.]
I’m hanging out with a cool cat named Pico and a cool dog named Charlie somewhere on the French Riviera and encroaching jellyfish toppled the wifi last night so that’s why this post went up later today.
Hopefully the passing of another Valentine’s Day has dulled your expectations for finding happiness in life and you don’t mind too much. It’s the thought that counts, right? Sure, it may not be the most expensive or the most popular post, but it’s your post, and I made it myself, with my own two hands. That matters more than corporate wallet wringing and manipulation. Doesn’t it?
Here’s last week’s post. Let’s begin anew.
ORIGINAL CONTENT
Opinion: Lightning Returns is by far the best ‘XIII’ game – Chris Carter
Dale might have reviewed Lightning Returns, but you can bet your signed Betty White memorabilia that Chris Carter played it, too. The flow chart for whether Chris has played a game just says “YES” while “Roundabout” loops fifteen times in the background. Listen past that and “Owner of a Lonely Heart” plays once before looping back.
But for those who keep at it, they’ll find a wonderful action game buried within Lightning Returns‘ RPG veneer. It’s fast, it’s frantic, and best of all — it actually makes sense this time around, without forcing a cast of annoying characters down you’re throat. If this is how XIIIfinally ends, I’m perfectly okay with that.
Virtual Console Verdict: Super Mario RPG – Chris Carter
An excuse to write about Super Mario RPG? Chris will take it.
Super Mario RPGis not only a solid JRPG, but it’s a variety show that will keep you entertained every step of the way. Although it may not be the most challenging card in the deck, I’d recommend it to pretty much everyone out there — whether you’re a fan of the genre or not. It’s that good.
Podtoid 282: Don’t do your parents’ drugs – Conrad Zimmerman, Andy Dixon, Max Scoville
This week on Podtoid, Max Scoville, Conrad Zimmerman, and Andy Dixon warn about the dangers of consuming prescription drugs intended for your parents. Plus, talk about the reaction to King’s unsavory trademark actions, Double Fine’s Amnesia Fortnight jam, and Jazzpunk.
Get your exclusive Valentine’s card gaming gifs here – Jonathan Holmes
I had pistachio lamb on Valentine’s Day. I didn’t get it by gif giving, but maybe you gave some sweet (or sexy) gifs yesterday.
We want to show you, the Destructoid reader, that we love you. So please, take these Valentine’s Day-themed romance .gifs (transformed into .gif form by the lovelyRonin Usagiand Kevin Bacon) and spread them to all you hold dear.
John Steinbeck, Cave Adventures and more w/ Jake Elliott – Jonathan Holmes
Immediately after the show was over, I felt terrible. I was so in awe of Jake’s brain that I couldn’t help but talk about how weird I think it is. If you’ve played Kentucky Route Zero, you may have an idea what inspired my awe. Like the game he helped create, Jake seemed so casual and unaware of his surreal brilliance, like he didn’t notice that he was surreal or brilliant. He spoke of incorporating influences from real life American history, the work of John Steinbeck, America’s current Health Care System problems, instillation art techniques, the Great Depression, and the 1976 Zork-precursor Colossal Cave Adventure into the development of Kentucky Route Zero like it was something that anyone might do.
PREVIEWS
Preview: It’s four versus one in Turtle Rock’s Evolve – Hamza Aziz
You guys have the run of the place when it comes to Evolve coverage. You can watch Max’s solo interview, read Hamza’s preview, or listen to them talk about the game together. I mean, I’m not in any of those options, but that’s okay, I guess.
I loved playing as the Goliath. In my final match, I ended up killing all but the Support class player. I had less than a minute to finish him off, but he had a cloak ability so he was off in hiding. The Goliath has an echo-location type ability which helped me track down the area the Support player was in, and using my fire breath gave away his location, thus allowing me to kill him off before reinforcements arrived.
Preview: inFamous: Second Son lights up the sky – Dale North
Maybe it’s just being drowned out by Titanfall fervor, but Second Son is quietly looking like a blast. With The Witness on the way as well, there are actually some PS4 games to play.
Either way, I’m fine with more inFamous. The extra layers and the spit polish that I guess Sucker Punch has been adding since the game was pushed back are definitely appreciated, but the main draw here is being able to run around and blow shit up on my PS4. That’s all I really wanted. I’m glad to see that it looks like that is exactly what we’re getting.
Hands-on with the 3DS’ F2P Steel Diver: Sub Wars – Steven Hansen
The sub-header, “3Das boot” was probably the highlight of this post.
As for the gameplay itself, the four on four multiplayer will be filled with bots if need be. Otherwise, it plays as if you’re piloting the sub in first person. You set your engines to forward or reverse and manipulate your orientation with the circle pad as you putter around and try to shoot off missiles at other sandwiches (I’ve written “subs” too much).
World of Speed: A free-to-play online racing MMO – Dale North
World of Speedcertainly looks great already, and I’m all for Slightly Mad’s strong ideas that work toward encouraging cooperative play, but it’s still way to early to make a call on the actual gameplay itself. I don’t think that pulling it out will be a problem for the team behind so many quality racing games. If they can get this together,World of Speedsounds like it could be a really good time for people who love cars and competition
Why Titanfall will be my next big gaming obsession – Hamza Aziz
While the beta has probably done a better job, Hamza tried to explain to the rabid doubters just why Titanfall is radicool. Why does no one say radicool?
I’m getting into Titanfall for multiplayer, and with the way things are looking for the rest of the year it looks like Titanfall may be one of the only major competitive FPS games launching in 2014, giving it the potential to really grow a player base. It will at least hold me over until Destiny is released in September. No idea if the multiplayer will be any good with that one, but it is Bungie after all.
Preview: South Park: The Stick of Truth is ambitious – Alessandro Fillari
Everyone involved with the game seemed pretty much on the same page. One of the key takeaways from both the creators of the television series and the developers at Obsidian, and Jordan Thomas, was the desire to make South Park: The Stick of Truth the definitive South Park experience, across all media. And judging from my time with the title, they certainly have made something unique to the series, that will speak to fan’s love for the franchise.
MLB 14 The Show gets a big visual boost from PS4 power – Dale North
Dale previewed a sports game, bless his heart.
See those hairs in the image above? Pretty gnarly, right? That’s a real beard if I’ve ever seen one. In the PS3 game, this same player is clean shaven (a flat texture map), as the system doesn’t have enough power to draw manage the whiskers we see here. On the PS4, there’s more than enough power. We learned that the PS4 will allow up to 40,000 individual hairs per character, allowing the developers to make spot-on bears, goatees, and more. Each hair was hand-crafted individually, too!
Cloudbuilt: It’s like Mega Man & Mirror’s Edge had a baby – Chris Carter
Oh my god it’s like a color pencil scrawled Gravity Rush. Gimme gimme gimme.
There isn’t much that I’d change with Cloudbuiltif given the opportunity. Although I’ve only played a handful of stages, it’s evident that there’s a ton of depth here that will keep any action fan busy for long periods of time. I was blown away by the level of depth within the boosting system alone, and the final build can’t come soon enough.
Rusty’s Real Deal Baseball: Haggle a dog to buy games – Steven Hansen
The NSA is doing it’s job because a baseball-themed minigame compilation where you haggle a dog shop keeper on game prices is exactly what I wanted from Nintendo. Good looking out, security state.
Rusty’s Real Deal Baseball is not a baseball game. Rather, it’s a compilation of baseball-themed minigames. There’s a hitting minigame, for example. Perched at home with a bat, you eye a pitching machine at the slab. Then it erupts from the ground and you find that it is a man in a suit with a pitching machine for a head that pitches you the balls to hit with his man arms. Also, there’s a dog whose wife left him and you have to haggle with him to buy more minigames with real world money.
HOTTEST, SLIMIEST NEWS OF THE WEEK
Microsoft investors want new CEO to kill Xbox – Steven Hansen
Microsoft’s new CEO Satya Nadella is under pressure to turn Microsoft around. According to The Washington Post, to “[t]wo influential Microsoft shareholders,” this means scuttling the Xbox, Surface, and Bing in order to focus on what the company was built on, selling software to businesses.
Arkham Origins progression blocking bugs won’t be fixed – Wesley Ruscher
In a recent post on the Batman:Arkham Origins support forms, it has been stated that there are no current plans to fix any more of the numerous progression blocking bugs that have yet to be addressed. Instead, all efforts by the game’s development team are centered on finishing the upcoming story DLC that current season pass holders have been waiting for.
Holy crap, Sesame Street Fighter is an actual game now – Hamza Aziz
It’s not quite a fighting game in the traditional terms. Sesame Street Fighter is more like Typing of the Dead in that you have to type out words to fight your opponents. So there’s an educational angle still there at least.
Zero Escape not profitable in Japan, trilogy end on hold – Steven Hansen
Series writer and director Kotaro Uchikoshi kindly took to a newly-made English Twitter account to explain the situation this morning to English-speaking fans. According to Uchikoshi, “‘in Japan’, 999 and VLR are in the red. They are not selling more than people think.” Because of this, funding for a the third game cannot be secured. “I’m so sad, but all the companies exist for profit-making purposes. If the profits can’t be expected, naturally, the project isn’t approved.”
Ciao, amiche.