When thinking about movies that could inspire fun pinball tables, the Alien series is second only to Indiana Jones, and even then just because the former has that iconic scene with a giant ball.
But while we wait for Doctor Jones to get his butt in gear, we can enjoy the new Aliens Vs Pinball Pack for Zen Pinball 2 (PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Vita), Pinball FX 2 (Xbox One, Xbox 360, PC), and Zen Pinball (iOS, Android, Amazon). Well, for the most part.
With a name like Alienation (PlayStation 4), and a release date of 4-26, you might think Housemarque’s new shooter might not be serious. Or that it’s connected to the Alien movies. Turns out that neither are true. Instead, Alienation is a new, and rather interesting arcade shooter that layers the genre’s classic and still viable tenets with some creative mechanics not normally associated with this kind of game.
At dinner, some people don’t want to eat their entre, they just want to skip to dessert. And it’s the same with gaming; some people don’t want to have to fight their way through tons of grunts just to get to the boss battle. It’s for those people that The Game Bakers are making the upcoming third-person action game Furi (PlayStation 4, PC). Earlier this week, I had a chance to see the game in action, and to ask Emeric Thoa (the game’s creative director, producer, and game designer) and Audrey Leprince (its executive producer and writer) about how the game is played, what story it’s going to tell, and how they got Takashi Okazaki — who wrote and drew the original Afro Samurai manga and worked on both animes and the first, but not the second, Afro Samurai game — to design the Furi‘s unique-looking characters.
In anticipation of the third-person sci-fi shooter Gears Of War 4 being released for Xbox One on October 11th, Microsoft and The Coalition are holding an open beta for the game’s multiplayer modes starting April 18th for those who bought the Gears Of War: Ultimate Edition, and for everyone who has Xbox Live Gold status beginning April 25th.
Because most video game remakes only improve the graphics, and even then only slightly, they’re usually pointless for anyone who’s already played the original. But the good people at Insomniac have thankfully bucked this trend, and in a big way, with this upgraded and (more importantly) updated version of Ratchet & Clank (PlayStation 4).
Dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov once said, “Fundamentals are the building blocks of fun.” It’s something I wish the good people at Remedy Entertainment had heard before they started working on their new third-person sci-fi shooter Quantum Break (Xbox One, PC) because the game’s flawed fundamentals are what keep it from being as much fun as it could’ve been.
Multiverse have announced that they’ll release a series of Street Fighter toys later this fall.
Funko have announced that they’ll release water bottles a cup for the video game Five Nights At Freddys this May.
One day, someone will write a tell-all book about what it’s like being a video game journalist. But today is not that day. Which is good because I’ve been writing about games for more than twenty years and I’m getting bored just thinking about it.
Instead, today is the day you get to read about what it’s been like for video game journalist Russ Pitts to write his second memoir, Sex, Drugs, And Cartoon Violence: My Decade As A Video Game Journalist (paperback, digital). The follow-up to last year’s Eagle Semen: The Story Of TechTV Employee Number One, the book chronicles Pitts’ ten year stint at Polygon (where he was one of the Founding Editors and their former Features Editor) and The Escapist (where he held multiple titles including Editor-in-Chief and Editorial Director), as well as his time contributing to IGN, Gamespot, Kotaku, and other gaming outlets.