Tag: Videogames

Bethesda and Symbiote Team Up For Toys

Bethesda has announced that Symbiote will be making a line of toys based on The Elder Scrolls, Dishonored, Doom, Quake, and Fallout franchises. Skyrim fans will want to pick up the Dragonborn figurine, which will be available later this month. QuakeCon 2012 attendees that ordered the Swag Pack will get the sweet QuakeCon Symbiote figure pictured below.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Dragonborn figure retails for $9.99 and is available for pre-order on Symbiote’s web site.

I’d love to hear your ideas for Bethesda Symbiote toys. Which Bethesda heroes or baddies would you like to see as a toy? Personally, I’d love to see real-life Bethesda and id people as toys. I would buy John Carmack, Todd Hollenshead, and Todd Howard Symbiote action figures in a heartbeat!

Coffee Talk #506: Have FFIII and OnLive Changed Your Opinion on Ouya?

Kickstarted-funded console-company Ouya recently announced two major partners: OnLive and Square Enix. The former announced that its streaming games service will be available for the upcoming console, while Ouya revealed that Square Enix’s Final Fantasy III will be a system launch title.  Those are two great partners to have. My question for you today is this: Have these collaborations changed your opinion of Ouya?

Welcome to Coffee Talk! Let’s start off the day by discussing whatever is on your (nerd chic) mind. Every morning I’ll kick off a discussion and I’m counting on you to participate in it. If you’re not feelin’ my topic, feel free to start a chat with your fellow readers and see where it takes you. Whether you’re talking about videogames, Microsoft’s shockingly good Outlook.com email service, Michael Phelps’ resemblance to Gheorge Muresan, or season-changing MLB trades made this week, Coffee Talk is the place to do it.

Kickstarted-funded console-company Ouya recently announced two major partners: OnLive and Square Enix. The former announced that its streaming games service will be available for the upcoming console, while Ouya revealed that Square Enix’s Final Fantasy III will be a system launch title.  Those are two great partners to have. My question for you today is this: Have these collaborations changed your opinion of Ouya?

On the plus side, OnLive brings a large number of games and several top publishers to the mix. Detractors will point to this partnership looking like a desperate and weak reaction to Sony’s recent purchase of Gaikai. Cynics will say that this is a case of a sinking company (OnLive) teaming up with one that will never make it out of the gates (Ouya).

Seeing the glass half-full, Square Enix is a marvelous partner to have. It’s possible that the relationship will lead to several classic games from Square Enix’s extensive library being available on Ouya. Seeing the glass half-empty, Final Fantasy III has been out for iOS since March 2011 and available for Android since June 2012. While the Final Fantasy name is nice to have, it’s not all that impressive that FFIII will be a launch title for an Android-based console arriving in 2013.

What do you make of Ouya’s partnerships with OnLive and Square Enix? Does having an established streaming games service and Final Fantasy III as a launch title change your opinion of Ouya?

Andrew Lloyd Webber Wii Game Coming in September

Coming in September is…an Andrew Lloyd Webber videogame?!? It’s true! Andrew Lloyd Webber Musicals: Sing & Dance arrives for the Nintendo Wii on September 14, packed with songs from more than a dozen of the composer’s musicals. According to the press release, the game will feature timeless hits such as:

  • “All I Ask of You”
  • “Any Dream Will Do”
  • “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina”
  • “Memory”
  • “The Phantom of the Opera”
  • “Superstar”

Featured musicals include:

  • Cats
  • Evita
  • Jesus Christ Superstar
  • Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
  • The Phantom of the Opera
  • Starlight Express
  • Sunset Boulevard

The game will feature separate song and dance modes, as well as a career mode that combines both.

Andrew Lloyd Webber Musicals: Sing & Dance is set to be published by Tubby Games and, quite sadly, is only confirmed for a UK release. I’m so jealous of British gamers right now. I love musicals.

Katamari Damacy Featured in NY MoMA Exhibit

Namco Bandai has announced that Keita Takahashi’s Katamari Damacy will be featured in the NY Museum of Modern Art. The exhibit is called Century of the Child: Growing by Design and it will be on display from July 29, 2012 through November 5, 2012. Here’s an excerpt from the press release:

“NAMCO BANDAI Games’ KATAMARI DAMACY has touched countless people, from children to adults, and is truly a modern video game classic,” said Carlson Choi, Vice President of Marketing, NAMCO BANDAI Games America Inc. “The inclusion of KATAMARI DAMACY in this ground breaking exhibit is a testament to the creative designs embodied in NAMCO BANDAI’s games and shows the importance of video games in peoples’ lives in addition to being a validation of video games as a modern form of interactive art.”

Century of the Child: Growing by Design, 1900-2000, is the New York MoMA’s ambitious survey of 20th century design for children. The exhibit is the first large-scale overview of the modernist preoccupation with children and childhood as a paradigm for progressive design thinking. The exhibition brings together areas underrepresented in design history and often considered separately, including school architecture, clothing, playgrounds, children’s hospitals and safety equipment, nurseries, furniture, and books. KATAMARI DAMACY will be featured within a section of the exhibition that concentrates on toys and game design.

This is awesome news for Namco Bandai. I love that a videogame is being featured in a MoMA exhibit. However, I was a bit disappointed that Takahashi wasn’t mentioned in the press release at all. It’s fantastic that the game is being celebrated, but its designer should be as well.

New Characters Revealed For Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition

Overhaul Games has listed new features and a new adventure for the highly anticipate Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition. The big surprise was a trio of new characters (more on them in a sec). The company claims that it will implement more than 400 improvements, including new cinematics, gameplay features from Baldur’s Gate 2 (class kits!), improved multiplayer, and more. The new adventure is called “The Black Pits” and revolves around the machinations of a mad drow named Baeloth. (Aside from Drizzt Do’Urden, are there any drow that aren’t mad? Perhaps they all need more fiber.)

As for the new characters, here are excerpts from their descriptions:

Rasaad yn Bashir
Rasaad is a Calishite Monk demonstrating his monastic arts to the people of Nashkel. His quest ultimately leads into the highest reaches of the Cloud Peaks, where he must face an unexpected nemesis. Add him to your Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition experience to unleash the Monk’s extraordinary power.

Neera the Wild Mage
Neera is a half-elf wild mage slowly coming to terms with her enormous magical potential. Add her to your Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition experience and ignite your wild side.

Dorn Il-Khan
Dorn is a half-orc Blackguard whose otherworldly patron grants him terrible powers in the form of his black sword and unholy spells. Add him to your Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition and inflict evil to the last corpse.

I highly recommend heading over to the Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition web site for the full descriptions of these three characters and more details on the improvements mentioned above. The game will be available in September for Windows PC, Mac OS, and iOS, with an Android version coming at a later date.

As a huge Baldur’s Gate mark (played the game through 18 times!), I am so amped for enhanced version. I’m probably going to pick up both the OS X and iOS versions. This is one of my favorites games of all time and the only one I know of that prominently features a miniature giant space hamster. Hopefully these new characters understand the proper way to treat miniature giant space hamsters.

Any of you psyched for Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition? Any of the new characters catch your eye?

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Coffee Talk #504: Your Favorite Olympic Videogames

The 2012 Olympics begins today! Most of you have been feverishly anticipating the dramatic showdowns in the synchronized swimming and rhythmic gymnastics competitions. Please put those thoughts aside to talk about your favorite Olympic videogames! Whether you’re talking about the summer games vs. winter games or simulation vs. Mario and Sonic, there have been loads of Olympic videogames released over the years. What are some of your favorites?

Welcome to Coffee Talk! Let’s start off the day by discussing whatever is on your (nerd chic) mind. Every morning I’ll kick off a discussion and I’m counting on you to participate in it. If you’re not feelin’ my topic, feel free to start a chat with your fellow readers and see where it takes you. Whether you’re talking about videogames, your favorite summer alcoholic beverage, curtains vs. blinds, or if Tebow-mania will be better or worse now that he’s a bench player in NY, Coffee Talk is the place to do it.

The 2012 Olympics begins today! Most of you have been feverishly anticipating the dramatic showdowns in the synchronized swimming and rhythmic gymnastics competitions. Please put those thoughts aside to talk about your favorite Olympic videogames! Whether you’re talking about the summer games vs. winter games or simulation vs. Mario and Sonic, there have been loads of Olympic videogames released over the years. What are some of your favorites?

As for me, I’m going to take it back to the Commodore 64 era. I have fond memories of playing Epyx’s Summer Games and Winter Games with my friends. Back then, multiplayer consisted of passing around the joystick or taking turns on the keyboard. Between the multiplayer fun and the wide variety of events, I’ll never forget playing Epyx’s awesome Olympic games.

How about you? What are some of your favorite Olympic games?

What Are You Playing This Weekend?

The parts I need to fix my television haven’t arrived yet, so it’s possible that I won’t be able to use my consoles this weekend. That sucks since there are a bunch of games I want to play. The good news is that my iPad is serving me well for television and gaming. Between the HBO Go and Time Warner Cable apps, I haven’t really missed any of the shows I usually watch. As always, I’m playing a ton of Civilization Revolution. That’s been joined by several rounds of Skylanders Cloud Patrol. If the parts for my TV don’t arrive this weekend, I’ll be perfectly content playing several iPad games and watching videos through apps.

How about you? What’s on your weekend playlist?

NBA Baller Beats Soundtrack Listing

Majesco has revealed the complete soundtrack for the upcoming NBA Baller Beats. The game features a diverse group of artists including Cee Lo Green, Common, LMFAO, Queen, Young MC, Lady Gaga, Run DMC, Onyx, Kanye West, and more. NBA Baller Beats surprised me at E3 2012. I love the idea of a Kinect basketball game that’s controlled with an actual basketball. What I saw during the demo was lots of fun. Check out the video above to learn more about the game and see it in action. Now onto the soundtrack!

NBA Baller Beats full on-disc track list:

  • “Access Hollywood” – Consequence
  • “Autobiotics” – Calling All Cars
  • “Canon” – Justice
  • “Championship Fever” – Najee
  • “Disparate Youth” – Santigold
  • “Don’t Sweat the Technique” – Eric B. and Rakim
  • “Get Ur Freak On” – Missy Elliott
  • “It’s Ok” – Cee-Lo Green
  • “Music Makes Me Feel So Good” – Static Revenger
  • “Night By Night” – Chromeo
  • “O.N.E.” – Yeasayer
  • “Roll Up” – Wiz Khalifa
  • “Satellite” – Rise Against
  • “So Good” – B.o.B.
  • “Surf Hell” – Little Barrie

Previously announced tracks:

  • “Amazing” – Kanye West ft. Young Jeezy
  • “Another One Bites the Dust” – Queen
  • “Bangarang” – Skrillex ft. Sirah
  • “Blue Sky” – Common
  • “Bust A Move” – Young MC
  • “Chillin” – Wale ft. Lady Gaga
  • “C’Mon Catch ‘Em By Surprise” – Tiesto vs. Diplo ft. Busta Rhymes
  • “It’s Tricky” – Run DMC
  • “Let It (Edit Remix)” – Machine Drum ft. Melo X
  • “New Fang” – Them Crooked Vultures
  • “Obstacle 1” – Interpol
  • “Party Rock Anthem” – LMFAO ft. Lauren Bennett and GoonRock
  • “Slam” – Onyx
  • “Stylo” – Gorillaz
  • “Tightrope” – Janelle Monae

South Park: The Stick of Truth Screens

Here are a bunch of screenshots from South Park: The Stick of Truth, an upcoming RPG being developed by Obsidian Entertainment and set to be published by THQ on March 5, 2012. It plays like an old-school RPG, features the distinct South Park art style, and is being written by South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone. On paper, this game should be awesome. I can’t wait for it! How about you?

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