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After Konami made a classic Konami decision and canceled PT, or rather the spiritual sequel to the Silent Hill series, it left many horror game fans with a rather bad taste in their mouth. In order to hopefully recreate even a glimpse of PT's glory many fan projects sprung out, though as you might expect they didn't last for very long. However, out of all the various PT inspired games there was one that actually showed a great deal of promise - Allison Road.
Unfortunately, Allison Road also ended up being canceled as the developers encountered a variety of issues with their publisher and simply had no means of continuing the project with their vision intact. Usually this would be the end of the story, but according to a recent interview IGN did with Allison Road's creator Christian Kesler it appears that development has started once more, though this time as a solo project.
If you're interested in what Kesler had to say I would recommend you read the whole interview, its fairly short, but here's the most interesting quote for all of you Allison Road fans:
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Disgaea 2 is a tactical RPG that originally released for the PS2 back in 2006 and is most famous these days for its absolutely insane sense of humor and a leveling system that allows you to infinitely advance your characters. Given that Disgaea 1 ended up being well received on the PC (after some patches anyway), it shouldn't come as much of a surprise to hear that the sequel will be making its way over as well.
According to the recently updated Steam store page, Disgaea 2 will bring with it all of the content from the PS2 and PSP versions, as well as a couple of little additions exclusive to the PC version. This includes things such as an updated UI, keyboard and mouse support, but also three new playable characters that never made their way to the West: Dark Eclair, Gig, and Miabel.
Here's the recently posted PC trailer to hopefully give you an idea of what sort of madness you can get up to with Disgea 2, and the series in general:
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The official remake/remaster of Pathologic was successfully Kickstarted back in 2014, gathering a rather sizable $333,127. Ever since then the developers were hard at work on building up a modern version of Pathologic, but as you can probably guess given the title, this was a harder task than anyone could've anticipated.
As such, the estimated delivery date of November, 2016 has been pushed back all the way to the autumn of 2017. Rather than leave you with absolutely nothing in the mean time, the developers have promised a playable demo in the next few months, and more interestingly, an official Steam page filled with new bits of info and screenshots. If you're wondering why exactly Pathologic is being delayed, here's a couple of choice quotes from the Kickstarter announcement:
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For those of you that might not be in the loop, Blizzard has recently unleashed a massive Overwatch patch upon the PTR (Public Test Realm). While the new Eichenwalde map is certainly an interesting addition to Overwatch's already substantial map rotation, it is the balance changes that have me excited the most as the PTR has seen the rise of many previously underplayed heroes, Hanzo being one of them.
However, some of these changes quickly turned from a blessing into a curse as the newly buffed Hanzo wasn't just shooting normal arrows, but rather entire tree trunks at people, essentially rendering any sort of strafing useless. Thankfully, Blizzard has quickly realized their mistake and have now released a second balancing patch onto the PTR, this time with a medium-sized nerf to Hanzo and a rather impressive buff to Soldier 76, a hero that went from being a consistent 50% pick in tournaments to someone that I haven't seen in competitive play for over a month.
Since the patch notes are heavily wrapped in developer commentary I'm just going to show you the whole thing so you can get a good understanding of what exactly is being changed, and more importantly, how its being changed:
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If you've been playing No Man's Sky over the past two weeks you've most likely come to realize that you aren't really steering your ship as much as you are giving it suggestions on where to go. The most aggravating example of this problem is the inability to see where in the world you're landing, simply because the game's autopilot system instantly "corrects" you the moment you angle your ship downwards.
Thankfully, a modder by the name of Hytek has taken it upon himself to fix what the developers could not, with the end result being the absolutely amazing LowFlight mod. As you might expect from the name alone, it removes the annoying autopilot and allows you to fly as close to the ground as you wish, and top it all off, it also gives you the ability to fly through caves and even underwater!
Words cannot being to describe how much nicer the flying feels after installing this mod, so I will instead show you a video that Hytek himself prepared:
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After being mercilessly teased and alluded to for nearly three years now, Valve has finally unleashed Underlord (aka Pit Lord, aka Abyssal Underlord) upon the Dota 2 world as a part of The Dark Rift update. Best of all, with Underlord now a part of Dota 2's roster we have officially achieved full hero parity with Dota 1!
So what exactly is Underlord all about? Well, according to Valve you'll be able to "conjure waves of abyssal flame to immolate enemies held paralyzed in your spiteful grip. Feast upon the carnage of battle, gaining strength as foes perish around you, their attacks diminished by your very presence. Tear a rift in reality to teleport yourself and your teammates across the map, delivering bloody retribution to any who would defy the will of Vrogros the Underlord."
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To put it simply, PlayStation Now is a service that allows you to stream PlayStation 3 games to your PlayStation 4... and apparently the PC as well! In other words, you will soon have the option to play PlayStation classics such as The Last of Us, Demon's Souls, God of War, Rachet and Clank, and so forth, all from the comfort of your PC.
I'm currently both shocked and surprised Sony has decided to actually go through with this because for a measly $20 a month you will soon be able to play the majority of PlayStation 3 games without having to own the console itself, something that would've been shouted down as heresy even a year ago. Its obviously not going to be ideal given that streaming games is finicky at the best of times, but I have to admit its still a whole lot better than never having a chance to play them at all.
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For an RPG fan like me The Witcher franchise is an absolute godsend as its one of the rare few modern RPG series that manages to have its story perfectly thread the "gray area". The characters are nuanced, the plot is intriguing, and the choices you have to make are never as simple as "save everyone because you're a true hero" or "kill everyone because you're a completely demented psychopath".
If you're interested in this sort of an RPG but have never actually played The Witcher series, I'm glad to tell you that the franchise is currently 50-85% off on Steam. Naturally, the biggest discounts are reserved for the older games, but they are all well worth playing regardless of their age.
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Two weeks have passed since Earth Defense Force 4.1 received Time of the Mutants, its first DLC pack, and already there is a second one available. While you certainly won't see me complain about games getting more content, Earth Defense Force has taken things to the extreme by nearly doubling in size within the span of a single month.
As for the newly released Mission Pack 2: Extreme Battle, it contains 23 new missions that will have you face off against every bug, robot and battleship the Ravagers are capable of mustering. More importantly, however, these missions are supposed to be some of the toughest challenges you'll face, so if you do decide to play them make sure you're aware of what you're getting into.
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[Update]: After many struggles, Warhammer 40k: Eternal Crusade has now closed its doors.
Eternal Crusade is a squad-based Warhammer 40,000 shooter where Space Marines, Chaos, Orks and Eldar vie for supremacy over a ravaged world. While Eternal Crusade was initially going to be an MMO shooter, something similar to Planetside 2, a variety of issues throughout development resulted in it become more alike your standard third person shooter, though with far more extravagant weaponry given the Warhammer 40,000 setting.
As I've mentioned in my review, Eternal Crusade is currently fairly intriguing as it has all of the elements of a good shooter, but also a whole lot of issues with polish, performance, balance and game design in general. Thankfully, its still in early alpha so the developers have plenty of time to fix all of that before release... or they would if they didn't just announce Eternal Crusade is officially launching on September 23rd!