So, I just finished my latest writing project, Maple Loves Senpai, and within a short while I will begin working on Psycho Bullet Festival 2: Bury My Children. And by work on, I mean outline, as I only have loose concepts and idea, a very basic structure, and a rough estimate of the cast. I hope to get this done in three months, as I will have lots of free time over that time period, but I’m not making any promises just yet. Anyhow, time for disposable talk about video game nonsense.
First off, something that I ignored last week, as it was a tertiary announcement of something that has been leaked several times over. Batman: Return to Arkham is a remastering of the first two Batman Arkham games, and it is being developed by Virtuos, who upgraded the game to Unreal Engine 4, which inadvertently made the game look… kinda worse. Lighting, various effects, and even some textures are either missing or altered in a way that makes the original versions of the game look more appealing, which is quite bizarre. Probably relating to the difficulties of this needless engine upgrade, when porting the PC versions to PS4 and XBO would have been preferable to this as well as cheaper.
Continuing by lumping all the negative piece of news together, a new Mega Man cartoon is set to debut in 2017, and the first few scant details on it have been revealed. In this version, Mega Man is actually a young boy named Aki Light who transforms into a super fighting robot with a design that looks… worse than any other iteration of the Blue Bomber. The art style, proportions, and color scheme all put me off, and even though the people behind the new series sound competent, I’m left wondering why this isn’t just a reboot of the classic Mega Man series.
Also, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the recent Mighty Number 9 Masterclass trailer. Apparently made by Deep Silver, the game’s publisher, the trailer’s focus, tone, and general presentation do little to assure confidence in the poorly presented project, which really does not look very good. The basic 3D models, shaders, and lighting all remind me of games like The Maw and ‘Splosion Man, which is not a compliment. Plus, the fixation on the dash mechanic looks, quite simply, boring and repetitive. It’s just another action that must be done to properly kill an enemy. Oh, and the trailer voice over directly insults anime fans, when this game is anime as heck. Here’s an example of a better trailer made by ‘Professional Artist, Entertainer, and BBW MILF idol’ Thomas Truong. Also, check out his music if you like dumb anime mashups.
On a happier note, remember Cat Girl Without Salad? That super ambitious game WayForward announced in 2013 that combined just about every genre in existence? Well, it’s actually coming out. Now, I’ve been convinced that this game has been in development for the past three years, and actually hearing that the game is coming out is… very exciting for me, but next to no details have been revealed about the game. Other than it will be distributed via Humble Monthly… Okay, that’s odd, but on the bright side the game’s due out in less than a week.
Also set to come out in 2016 is the sequel to the the acclaimed Steins;Gate on PS3, PS4, Vita, and PC two years ago, Steins;Gate 0. Which I really don’t have anything to say about. Steins;Gate has been on my list of games to play for a while now, and I keep forgetting about it. Mostly because it’s only sold through the publisher’s website. At least for now. On Friday, the Steam helpdesk listing for the game was updated, so maybe a wider release is intimate.
I’ll tell you what is imminent, a lot of things for Xbox One. Yes, there have been rumors about both a stronger and a slimmer XBO, and now a developer mentioned that they are making a VR game for the XBO (yes, I know most people call it the X1, but I don’t like that acronym). Both of these will likely be a major part of Microsoft’s E3 2016 presentation, which I should be covering in about two weeks from now. Yep, E3 is only a mere 15 days away. I have to say… I’m getting excited.
As a final bit of news, the ambitious space adventure game No Man’s Sky has been delayed. I’m hardly surprised. The game is massive, needs to be stress tested, the servers need to be working at all hours to maintain its procedurally generated world, and getting it to run properly on PS4 probably takes a lot of work. It is due out in August, meaning people won’t be able to spend their summer exploring another universe, and will need to go outside where it’s hot and filled with bugs.