Added: 21.01.2014 17:16 | 9 views | 0 comments


"Capcom UK took to social media to announce Resident Evil 4: Ultimate Edition, headed to PC and Steam next month. Aside from the HD facelift previously seen in the XBLA and PSN ports of the game, the game will boast 60 frames per second and a slew of Steam goodies, including achievements, Steam Cloud, Trading Cards, leaderboards and full controller support. All the extras seen in previous releases of the game, such as the Separate Ways epilogue, will be present, alongside subtitle support in English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Japanese and Polish The game will be made available digitally on Steam worldwide and will run you $19.99/19.99, with a retail Windows version also slated for release in Europe, all slated for Feb. 28, 2014." - Patrick Kulikowski

Added: 14.01.2014 15:20 | 2 views | 0 comments


"Despite the header image, there will be no mention of Sean Diddy Combs or the cosmos as we know it. Just wanted to make that clear to all the East Coast cosmologists that listen to the show. This edition of The Pixelitis Podcast will, however, have a ton of Starbound discussion thanks to this weeks third chair, Stephen Hilger. That, coupled with the return of resident videogame music guru Patrick Kulikowski from this years MAGfest round out another solid show hosted by Andrew Martins. In this weeks show, the trio get right down to business, discussing the major gaming news coming out of CES 2014 in Las Vegas, along with other newsworthy tidbits. Were also giving away ten free download codes for Square Enix VGM folk cover band The World is Squares debut album, No Phoenix Down Can Save You Now. If youre interested in that, be sure to hit play below to find out how you can enter to win." - Pixelitis Staff

Added: 14.01.2014 14:16 | 12 views | 0 comments


Patrick at GameCloud writes: "A Link Between Worlds isnt the most inspired game in the Zelda franchise, or even of last year. However, in saying that, it certainly charmed its way into my personal list of favored titles by simply being good at what it does. Thats not something that too many games can say these days since many of the AAA titles that have GOTY awards flowing out of their ears, usually have a laundry list of mechanical, narrative, and design flaws. This game knows what it is, plays to those strengths, and makes no attempts to spread itself out into other styles of gameplay or genres. Essentially, unless youre not a fan of classic hacknslash adventure titles then the game should never never overstay its welcome. Above all else, it manages to accomplish some level of innovation by changing up the conventional design, and one can only hope that this is a sign of whats to come!"

Added: 14.01.2014 14:16 | 11 views | 0 comments


"Despite the header image, there will be no mention of Sean Diddy Combs or the cosmos as we know it. Just wanted to make that clear to all the East Coast cosmologists that listen to the show. This edition of The Pixelitis Podcast will, however, have a ton of Starbound discussion thanks to this weeks third chair, Stephen Hilger. That, coupled with the return of resident videogame music guru Patrick Kulikowski from this years MAGfest round out another solid show hosted by Andrew Martins. In this weeks show, the trio get right down to business, discussing the major gaming news coming out of CES 2014 in Las Vegas, along with other newsworthy tidbits. Were also giving away ten free download codes for Square Enix VGM folk cover band The World is Squares debut album, No Phoenix Down Can Save You Now. If youre interested in that, be sure to hit play below to find out how you can enter to win." - Pixelitis Staff

Added: 14.01.2014 1:31 | 10 views | 0 comments


Once more with feeling. Ubisoft cranks out a brand-new Assassin’s Creed game once a year. I should know. I’ve played every single Assassin’s Creed to date, blazing a trail of silently stabbed corpses in marathon play sessions, hungrily gobbling up every twist and turn in the franchise’s convoluted narrative. I was there with a pre-order receipt when the series kicked off under Patrice DeÄ‚Ĺ‚silets, who left for THQ which got bought by Ubisoft, who eventually Patrice all over again. I was there when Kristin Bell got written out of the franchise on a cliffhanger ending. I was there when a multiplayer mode that no one wanted turned out to be pretty damn good. Being the diehard ’s season pass, Freedom Cry, offers enough new gameplay while retaining a lot of what made the main game so good. Ubisoft also smartly dodges the overarching narrative in favor of AdeÄ‚Ĺ‚waleó’s dedicated tale. And what a tale it is. Being a freed slave himself, AdeÄ‚Ĺ‚waleÄ‚Ĺ‚ wastes no time in charting a course for liberty and freedom for his fellow man. On the way, he equips himself with a few brand-new weapons, including a crowd-clearing, shotgun-styled Blunderbuss and a quick and nasty machete. These weapons go a long way in attacking and liberating plantations, one of my favorite new gameplay loops. Players can launch full-blown and bloody assaults or they can treat these as stealth missions where any single set-off alarm can cost dozens of valuable human lives. If players make too much noise on a plantation, the enemies there will start to execute remaining slaves which plays heavily to the narrative motivations I had as AdeÄ‚Ĺ‚waleÄ‚Ĺ‚, but also to the completionist in every gamer as rewards and upgrades get tied directly to the number of slaves freed. Ultimately, plantations and slave-trading centers will only accomplish so much. Utilizing high-seas combat abilities in Freedom Cry’s open waters will net a lot more freedom a lot faster. AdeÄ‚Ĺ‚waleó’s high-seas adventure feels a lot more high-stakes than Kenway's did in , but this is primarily thanks to the way combat draws a fine line between liberating and sinking ships carrying large numbers of slaves to traders in the region. AdeÄ‚Ĺ‚waleÄ‚Ĺ‚ has to eliminate the slave ship’s escorts before boarding and freeing the slaves themselves. Lining up shots that don’t have a chance of connecting with precious cargo gets harder and harder, but that’s exactly what I hoped for after finishing the main game. Combat, stealth, looting, and naval battle mechanics have changed just enough to keep things interesting while retaining accessibility. That said, the story missions can feel a little too similar to those Edward did in the main game—pursuit missions, assassination missions, eavesdropping on targets. The story will only last about four hours, meaning similar objectives won’t keep players from enjoying the emergent gameplay present in Assassin’s Creed’s constantly expanding worlds. In the end, gamers will enjoy Freedom Cry as much as they did Black Flag, assuming they enjoyed mixing sea-legs and sandy-shore excursions. Some moments might leave players feeling like the lives they save serve only to tally up towards a new ship upgrade or a new weapon, deflating the narrative power behind play, especially play as heavy-handed and emotionally powerful as a slave freeing other slaves. Still, fans who've been with the franchise and have played enough of Black Flag to consider buying the season pass will know what to expect from Freedom Cry. AdeÄ‚Ĺ‚waleÄ‚Ĺ‚ has his moments, but the real draw here is in the expansion of free-form gameplay both on land and at sea, meaning Freedom Cry succeeds at what it set out to do. Code provided by publisher. Review based on PS4 version. Also available on PC, XONE, PS3, and X360.

Added: 11.01.2014 2:16 | 9 views | 0 comments


"Like many festivals, MAGFest 12 is full of things to do, whether its attending a plethora of game music concerts or roaming the vendor and arcade areas in search of new experiences. If you did the latter, chances are you came across a pack of dedicated Mega Man fans that were marathoning the classic Capcom series for a good cause. Half Empty E-Tanks second annual Mega Man-athon took place during the entirety of MAGFest 12 and ended up raising $3,193.10 in donations, with $1,305.68 going straight to Childs Play. Those who donated were able to amass a healthy collection of digital albums from videogame music artists like Mega Ran, The Megas and X-Hunters. I got a chance to catch up with Half Empty E-Tank main man and marathon organizer Bryan Belcher and find out how things have improved in comparison to last years event. Hustle on over to the video after the break." - Patrick Kulikowski

Added: 09.01.2014 23:49 | 5 views | 0 comments


I’m hungry. If you haven’t finished the first Lords of Shadow game spinning Castlevania’s lore off into Spanish developer Mercury Steam’s wickedly twisted world, then much of this preview will spoil that game’s story for you. In fact, the first game’s cliffhanger ending had us dying for more, but the more recent Nintendo 3DS sequel left a lot to be desired. For at the end of our hero Gabriel Belmont underwent a startling transition. It seems that the Castlevania franchise’s 3D hopes have undergone their own transition. Where entries in the series that wandered outside of the classic 2D plane used to be riddled with land mines for fans, Lords of Shadow 2 joyfully double-jumps over any such danger in a fully realized modern gothic world. Remember, spoilers for the first game follow. Obviously with Konami’s protagonist taking on the role of Dracula, the typical Castlevania boss, players might be confused as to what Gabriel Belmont’s motivations are. Even with my hands-on time, details remain scarce. After destroying the Lords of Shadow in the first game, Gabriel sits down on Dracula’s throne until the scene jumps to a modern-day setting where Gabriel is confronted by his old ally, Zobek (voiced by Patrick Stewart). The voice acting in Lords of Shadow 2 is once again top-notch and the soundtrack sounds fantastic as well, but the biggest leaps are easily in graphics and gameplay. First, Mercury Steam has optimized its engine for high-end PCs. The game is landing on Xbox 360, PS3, and PC meaning next-gen console owners might have to wait for a port, but overall the new PC-facing engine allows the development team to create a much more detailed world. The devil was certainly in the details in the first Lords of Shadow game. With a linear structure, players lost the kind of back-tracking and measured exploration usually associated with the Metroid-vania genre. In the end, this meant that environmental details and musical throwbacks kept the Castlevania spirit alive while the gameplay only barely got off the ground. In , players have Dracula’s epic castle and the modern world around it to explore in addition to plenty of massive bosses to fight. When Konami presented the game, they showed off one long puzzle and a boss fight that followed it. The player had to select the correct puppets to complete a play, but once that was completed the castle itself fills the arena with evil. Once Gabriel defeats the boss, he can claim the relic or key he needs to move forward, but it’ll take all of a player’s dodging and damage to overcome the blood pouring out of the castles very walls. One thing Castlevania fans will know is that the evil spirit antagonizing the Belmont clan doesn’t just live in Dracula, but in the parapets and bricks that make up the castle itself. If you think that means you can expect towering bosses with multiple stages of attack and defense, you’re right. Even the E3 demo which I got a chance to play without spoiling much of the game’s early narrative features a massive mechanical monstrosity. Gabriel uses varying attacks and energies to keep up damage, health, and magic meters as you go. All in all, Lords of Shadow 2 feels like a much larger production and that’s probably thanks to the supportive relationship between Konami and Mercury Steam. With the first Lords of Shadow, Kojima Productions assisted on some aspects of design and progression, but Mercury Steam is flying solo with Konami’s full support on this effort. The studio is looking forward to trying its hand at creating a brand new license, but speaking with Konami producer Dave Cox, it would seem the studio is all too eager to fulfill every Castlevania fan’s wildest dreams. That was certainly suggested by the inclusion of Alucard in the new game’s cast. The , but the role Alucard has is much larger than a cameo here. As Gabriel’s story wraps up, we’ll have to see how the extended cast wind-up and whether Konami wants to continue this successful Castlevania offshoot in the future. While I saw Dracula explore both inside and outside the castle walls, the narrative remains a mystery beyond those opening moments. You’ll smash Gabriel’s enemies with flame gloves and an ice whip, and combat seems to play fast and loose with improvements made to dodging and switching weapons, but ultimately its the narrative that has me hooked. Brilliant turns on old Castlevania lore have already proven Mercury Steam’s strongest asset, but with a new engine and improved gameplay mechanics Lords of Shadow 2 might just be the best reason to hold on to your Xbox 360 or PS3.

Added: 09.01.2014 17:16 | 16 views | 0 comments


"MAGFest 12 has sadly come and gone, but the memories of bonding over videogame music and rocking out to a variety of bands will carry on. In addition to chatting with some well known composers, such as Tommy Tallarico. His name has become synonymous with games like Earthworm Jim and Color a Dinosaur, and perhaps most recognizably with Video Games Live!, which would eventually grow to become one of the biggest and most successful game music concerts in the world. The main topic at hand in this interview lies in Tallaricos recent Kickstarter campaign for a third Video Games Live! studio album. The project, entitled Video Games Live! Level 3 successfully passed its target goal of $250,000 in early Sept. and will include music from games like Diablo III, Skyrim, Silent Hill 2, Shadow of the Colossus and Beyond Good Evil." - Patrick Kulikowski