Press Start: We be besmirchin’

Have I already written an intro where I apologise for it being a ‘quiet news week’ and then try to make light of the situation and appear witty and insightful by pretending that I know lots about the video game industry? I have? Damn. Well, somehow the games industry has managed to stay quiet throughout NYCC. Go figure. The nether realm is upon us and reality has collapsed into itself. I don’t believe in anything any more.

Darkstalkers Are Not Dead sounds so punk it hurts

Looks like Capcom have been dipping into the imagination of Suda 51 for this teaser: showcasing what may turn out to be a brand-new Darkstalkers game. There were rumblings on NeoGaf that Capcom would be announcing a brand new entry into the franchise: a prospect which instantly distracted me from anything of genuine importance in my life. Imagine my disappointment when I awoke to the news of there being an XBLA/PSN re-release of two of the original Darkstlakers titles on the horizon: in smudgy, stretched HD. Then, if you don’t mind me hi-jacking your mind again, imagine my excitement when I came home to this teaser! Oh, the joy! How it poured out of me.

This looks like some Street Fighter IV influenced goodness right here and I’m hoping that they’re going to bring with it some solid, one-on-one, traditional gameplay that’ll help me forget how terrible I am at Street Fighter X Tekken. If this is just another cruel tease, well, I still get to enjoy that guy loudly proclaiming his love for Yoshinori Ono at the end of the clip. Ono is the grown man in the Chun Li costume, by the way.

GTA V is finally being shown to the press

OK, so I’m writing up a piece that does nothing more than inform you that we may all be possibly better informed sometime in the near future. It’s bullshit and I’m so sorry. However, this is the video games industry: where teasers for teasers are commonplace and 96% of the gaming population lose their minds over so much as a sniff of anything GTA.

Game Informer editor-in-chief Andy McNamara wrote on Twitter today that he’s at Rockstar, checking the next Grand Theft Auto game out for the magazine’s December cover story.

What does this mean for us lowly peons? That we’ll probably be hearing a lot more about the game come early November. That brings our total knowledge of the game up from nothing up to a reassuring little bit. Put that one in your diaries. While we’re on it though: hats-off to Rockstar for their continuing vice grip of the collective balls of gamers. No other company gets to swagger about like they do, revealing dick-all about their most awaited titles and still having us all beg for scraps at the foot of their table. Bravo.

Blizzard planned Diablo for the Game Boy Color

Oh sweet Jesus, can you imagine if this had become a reality? Pokémon has a lot to answer for with regards to my stunted development (adulthood still pending) and the special kind of headaches that you will only find at the end of a 6 hour play session. Back then, the only thing stopping me getting hooked on the likes of Diablo was the lack of a decent PC. If they had actually made a Game Boy version then I’m sure that the combined addictive quality of both franchises would have finished me off for good.

“Taking a page from Pokémon’s book, the team wanted to release three cartridges, each packing a different hero in the warrior-rogue-sorcerer vein as well as items that players would have to trade for in order to collect.”

I doubt that this would have even made a dent in the Pokémon behemoth and that’s probably why it never saw a release, but it’s an undeniably cool prospect. Don’t shed a tear though: just remember that one little boy’s life was saved as a result of this never seeing the light of day and that’s something that we can all be thankful for.

PETA besmirch Pokémon

Whilst we’re on the subject; Pokémon has been making the news itself lately, with PETA’s latest campaign featuring a Pokémon parody flash game to highlight the abuse animals suffer at the hands of humans. Yo, PETA, calm down. It’s bad enough that you picked on Mario for wearing fur, but this craziness has got to stop! Admittedly, they’re probably not making a point that Pokémon itself is cruel, but whenever you hijack a franchise this well-loved, there’s going to be a few vocal naysayers.

Chris here, is my hero of the week. This Ash Ketchum die-hard has single-handedly reminded me of my love for Pokémon and made me want to get into conversations that allow me to drop ‘besmirch’ like it was going out of fashion. I know headline-grabbing and spreading awareness are the objectives here, but picking on Pokémon just feels wrong. It’s like punching an otter in the face: damn cruel.

Metro: Last Light drops multiplayer

It’s reassuring to see a game getting it right for once. Out there, somewhere in the world are marketing managers and producers that will tell you that your game won’t sell unless it has multiplayer. Despite most multiplayer modes being phoned-in, half-assed features, these misguided souls have convinced themselves that they can draw gamers’ attention away from the likes of Call of Duty, Madden or FIFA. Resources get diverted from the single player element and, low-and-behold, you end up with a sub-par game with two half-finished modes.

“Right now we’re 100% focused on the single player campaign and not thinking beyond that,” revealed the studio. “We don’t like throwing away work though, it’s a project we could potentially return to after Metro: Last Light ships.

“We are gamers at the studio and really wanted to bring the world of Metro to life in a multiplayer environment. It was a decision made by us at 4A from the outset and THQ have since been supportive every step of the way, including our decision to put multiplayer on hold”

Publicly announcing their decision to drop the multiplayer aspect of their game has convinced me that Metro: Last Light’s developers are one of all too few companies that get this. Bioshock didn’t need it and I doubt Metro does either, hats off to these guys.

 

Count those stories. That’s five pure gaming news nuggets that I sifted out for your reading pleasure this week. I’m not looking for your thanks, just your forgiveness. One day, a real news week is going to come and wash all this bullshit off the streets. Until then: courage. See you next week.