A Fighting Game That Even Max Would Enjoy

GAMEPLAY STARTS AT 2:05

This is Divekick. This actually started out as a joke based on the discussions of how powerful divekicks were in fighting games and how using divekicks is all you needed to do to win. Divekick is controlled by only 2 buttons. You don't even use a joystick/d-pad. 2 buttons, period. One button makes you jump, the other makes you kick. That's it.

This game is just too funny for me to pass up. We have to check this out. This will be coming out later this year on XBLA, PSN, and PC.

EDIT: Apparently, Microsoft is a pain in the ass and this game is not coming to Xbox in any form :(


MARCH 29th UPDATE by umo: The developers had the game on the Giantbomb livestream last night and you can see Seth Killian playing it as well as lots of smack talk. Dave Lang of Iron Galaxy who publish it is good friends with the Giantbomb crew so he's down for the craziness of playing the game with a Rock Band drum controller.


Watch on TwitchTV
SKIP TO 11:47 FOR SHOW

Bioshock Infinite Mega Deal

I'm seeing some good deals for Bioshock Infinite on the PC, maybe with the chaos of Sim City and the disappointment of the Aliens game people have been reluctant to put as many orders in for this over the last few weeks.

I feel this one in particular needs your attention. As it's single player anyway there's more reason not to get it on the 360. For the UK at http://www.greenmangaming.com/bundles/  it's £23.99 for 4 games. Bioshock Infitite (with the Industrial Revolution pre-order flash game and bonuses), Bioshock 1, A choice of 5 games (Civ 5, Mafia II, Bioshock 2, Darkness 2 or Spec Ops: The Line) plus XCOM, one of last years most highly rated games. Not sure of the exact dollar price but I believe in the US you also get $15 store credit too.

Steam have almost the same offer but a little more expensive, it seems GMG added XCOM to the bundle as a response to Steam including it, it makes it a superb deal though. They are all steam keys too I believe and work with a 360 controller (except Civ 5 I guess)

I picked the Mafia II bundle, but might not make use of it so I could use it for Steam trading in the future. No shortage of gaming for a while now.

Referral link: which adds £2 to yours and my account if you aren't already registered and decide to buy from them http://www.greenmangaming.com/?gmgr=culezeki

Oh, and here's a bonus Beetlejuice rollercoaster from Minecraft on the 360.

8-Must Not - Poker Poetry

8-Must Not

Here I sit, broke as hell - 

guess I didnt play to well:

 Raised it up with just an eight

 should have known that wouldn't rate

 Someone raised it up again

 I was lost, I knew it then

 But still I called, my "all in" play 

and tried to figure out a way 

Player one had taken two 

not a really vital clue 

Player two had taken one 

after opening under the gun 

Two players on my right took three 

and now that brings it up to me 

I stood pat with my 8-low 

which had hooked me from word "go" 

Now came time for the declare 

silently I said a prayer 

I went low and three others went high 

a bead of sweat dropped in my eye 

Half the pot looked almost real 

but then the opener swung a wheel

-Artie 

This is a poem written by my friend Artie in 1974 after a rough night of 5 card draw hi-low declare. He kept a printed copy for almost 40 years and gave it to me so I could put it on the internet for posterity. People dont play draw poker much at all these days, let alone hi-low with a declare, but this poem serves as a reminder that these games were once very popular. Being dealt an 8 low is a fairly strong starting hand, and with 3 players in the hand declaring for the hi half of the pot and only one declaring hi-low, getting scooped by a wheel is the very definition of a bad beat. Artie would know about bad beats - hes been playing poker for more years than most players today have been alive.

The Cave Shooting Collection

Cave is releasing their entire Japanese Xbox 360 library in one big collector's box with all games, soundtracks, superplay DVDs, and every single piece of DLC EVER for $275 USD on March 28th:

A) 10 Soundtrack CDs
Deathsmiles
Deathsmiles IIX
Mushihimesama
Mushihimesama Futari ver 1.5
Dodonpachi Daifukkatsu ver 1.5
Dodonpachi Daifukkatsu Black Label
Muchi Muchi Pork!
Pink Sweets
Espgaluda II Black Label
Akai Katana
 
B)7 Superplay DVDs
Deathsmiles Official DVD
Mushihimesama Futari Official DVD (Booklet included)
Mushihimesama Futari Black Label X Deathsmiles Mega Black Label Official DVD
Espgaluda II Official DVD (Booklet included)
Dodonpachi Daifukkatsu Official DVD
Dodonpachi Daifukkatsu Black Label Official DVD
Akai Katana Shin Official DVD
 
C)9 Game DVDs
Deathsmiles
Deathsmiles IIX
Mushihimesama
Mushihimesama Futari Ver 1.5
Dodonpachi Daifukkatsu Ver 1.5
Dodonpachi Daifukkatsu Black Label
Espgaluda II
Muchi Muchi Pork & Pink Sweets
Akai Katana Shin
 
D)1 DLC install disc
-Includes all gamer icons, premium themes, extra game modes for every game. 100% complete.
 
E)1 download code for Guwange from XBLA
 
F)All manuals of all of the games bound into one large book 

The only things missing from the list? Ketsui and Daioujou because of licensing issues. It's only available through Amazon Japan and they do not ship to the US, so you'd have to call on a friend in Japan to grab one for you.

EDIT: PS - Don't forget about Saidaioujou coming to 360 in May!

A Very Special Message From Kaz Hirai

          "WE PROMISE THE PS4 WONT SUCK"

I just received a personal email from none other than Sony's own president and most public figure, Kaz Hirai. In a remarkable display of humble and frank words, Mr Hirai went right to the point:

"Chronic, Im here to promise you that the PS4 wont suck. Although with the PS3 you displayed bravery and true loyalty to our PS brand by purchasing an enormous $700 dust magnet with a laughable 20GB HDD and no launch titles to speak of, we acknowledge the epic failure that the PS3 launch was and aim to make the PS4's launch not quite as disastrous. It took us years to attain the basic features and high sales numbers of the Xbox 360, (and even then we are still considered 2nd class), so we felt we needed to bring out the PS4 right now, TODAY to show you how serious and committed we are at Sony to the Playstation brand. We won't be beaten to the punch again by some whiteboys from Seattle who think they are slick. Hell no. We might be hemorrhaging millions on the Vita, but we maxed out all our Bank of Tokyo credit cards and really put a lot of work and money (mostly money) into developing the PS4. It is going to be better! I am sure of it.

Sure, you might remember the PS3 launch with our hollow, empty promises of 60FPS with native 1080P for every game, the 6 years of development it took to finally release GT5, the truly spectacular debacle that PS Home is, or the fact that we allowed Russian hackers to steal your user credentials and download naked pictures of you from your PS3 HDD. We are truly sorry about that. But we know you will forgive us, Chronic, because we know you are a real Sony fan. We know that you will be thrilled about exciting, new features, like Amazon Video and Netflix Instant coming to the PS4, or exciting, all new games like Killzone, God of War, Little Big Planet, Infamous, and Gran Turismo - which while they likely wont be available for launch, should be coming anytime in the next few dozen months or so.

There are some great features we cant fully talk about yet - like "True Game Security" - which prevents anyone from ever stealing your games and playing them on their system. THAT wont be possible on the PS4, haha!!! The only person who can ever play your games is you Chronic, on your own PS4 console. This represents a true breakthrough in user game security, because we know the only person who deserves to play the great products we create is the very first person who buys them. I'd love to tell you more, but I have a press conference to go to. Thanks, and give all your blog readers a big high five from Kaz!!!"

Retro 2013: Russian Spectrums and Nomad Souls

Thinking of the imminent PS4 launch I happened to be looking back at "Omikron - The Nomad Soul" on the Dreamcast, which I only just realised was Heavy Rain developer Quantic Dream's first game. They are rumoured to be announcing something at the launch.

Probably not a sequel to this, but it was a really atmospheric game. From the intro you see above, it broke the 4th wall from the start and asked you to give them your soul just to begin playing. And you thought having to sign up to an EA/Ubisoft account was bad?

While looking I ended up finding some videos from the ZX Spectrum (Timex Sinclair in America) which was one of the very first home computers. It was a games driven device but once you had one, you could start programming your own stuff too and 'poke' around to see the innards of games.

In Russia and Eastern Europe the Spectrum obsession never really died and people would retro-fit all kinds of crazy stuff to run on them, so we get things like this:

Just a demo of what is possible, not the full game. The reason I've posted it though is the music, also the music on the Spectrum 128k version of Wolfenstein 3D is equally awesome.

GT Antichamber Review

Antichamber

Rather than waste your time by posting an Aliens: Colonial Marines review (cliff notes: it blows monkey chunks), I am posting GT's review of a game I havent played yet but will shortly: Antichamber. This is a Portal like 3D puzzle/platforming game for the PC with a spartan, yet visually compelling graphical style and brain twisting game mechanics. The game has scored very highly on Metacritic and it has tons of people playing it now on Steam. My advice is rather than wait for it to go on sale next December, plop down $20 now and support the guy who spent years of his life making this totally unique experience.

The development started out as an accident: "The developer, Alexander Bruce, hit upon the idea when making a rookie coding error while making [another game]. The error resulted in a geometry far more abstract than a 2-D plane. Bruce said in a 2011 interview with Kotaku that 'the game started off as being all about geometry...I needed to find a way to represent that [non-physical geometry] to players...so I needed to work out why we would need this non-physical geometry in the world and it took me a couple years but after combining geometry and space and perception, I realized that the real reason that this game is interesting and is working is because it's about psychology.'" - from the Antichamber Wikipedia page