The Bard’s Tale 4 Aims to Put a Modern Touch on a Classic RPG
Not many realize it, but it’s true: The Bard’s Tale is one of the oldest franchises in gaming history. The dark-humor adventure/RPG began as a 1985 Apple II title under the direction of Michael Cranford with help from Brian Fargo, and Fargo has carried the torch ever since. In fact, the series has more or less returned from the dead twice: first as a hack-and-slash action-RPG for PS2 and Xbox in 2004, and then again for PC via Kickstarter in 2015 for The Bard’s Tale 4.
That Kickstarter was successful, and now The Bard’s Tale 4 is coming along quite nicely. I got a chance to play a brief alpha demo build, which showcased the Unreal Engine 4-powered visuals (a far cry from the Apple II’s sprites!) and a bit of its humor, but paid particular attention to the combat system. It’s structured similar to a turn-based tactical RPG, with a grid dictating which spaces your three party members can move to and attack from.
Disgaea 1 Complete Announced for PS4, Switch in the West
The HD remake of Disgaea: Hour of Darkness has been announced for the west.
Per PlayStation Blog, the remake, titled Disgaea 1 Complete, will launch this fall for PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch. Along with updated HD graphics, the game will feature English and Japanese audio options, as well as English and French subtitles. Also featured is the Etna Mode, which includes extra characters not found in the original release.
Fans can now preorder the $50 USD standard version or the $100 USD Rosen Queen's Finest Edition, the latter of which which will be available in limited quantities from NIS America's online store.
Fortnite Players Attempt to Destroy Tilted Towers
Last night, Fortnite's Tilted Towers became the site of a massive demolition fest and dance party to welcome a mysterious meteor the community has been tracking for a month. The meteor didn't end up striking Tilted Towers as anticipated, but the Fortnite community still got some excitement out of it.
Reddit user xsqoof posted to the Fortnite subreddit yesterday to plan the event, writing, "Today, at 6:00 PM EST we will all queue up at the same time into solos, and land at Tilted Towers to honor it’s greatness by destroying every single structure in the city. Every tree, every building, every car. Once everything is gone, we all have a massive dance party to pay respects to the city. Be there, to honor this soon-to be fallen location by standing united and in harmony."
SHIELD’s Ming-Na Wen is Getting a Guardians of the Galaxy Cameo, Kinda
We probably won't see a live-action crossover between the Guardians of the Galaxy and Marvel's Agents of SHIELD any time soon, but SHIELD star Ming-Na Wen is bridging the gap in animated form by voicing a character on Marvel's animated series Guardians of the Galaxy: Mission Breakout, which airs Sunday mornings on Disney XD.
Even better, she'll be playing a role that would be equally at home in the Guardians universe and on Agents of SHIELD. Get a sneak peek in the exclusive video above.
In "Happy Together," the first of two episodes airing Sunday, March 22 (beginning at 8 a.m. ET/PT), Wen will guest star as a ruthless Kree leader, Phyla-Vell the Accuser, who will stop at nothing to hunt down the Guardians after they unwittingly steal a mysterious item from the warmongering alien race. In the following episode, "Gotta Get Outta This Place," airing at 8:30 a.m., the Guardians find themselves imprisoned for their theft, all because of a set-up orchestrated by Howard the Duck.
Jurassic World 3 Will Be More Like the Original Jurassic Park
Jurassic World 3 will be close in tone to the original Jurassic Park, according to director Colin Trevorrow.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Trevorrow briefly shared some details about the third movie, saying it'll be a science thriller like Steven Spielberg's 1993 classic.
"If I could contextualize each film, I would say Jurassic World was an action adventure, Fallen Kingdom is kind of a horror suspense film, and Jurassic World 3 will be a science thriller in the same way that Jurassic Park was," Trevorrow said.
The director also teased there'll be some new faces from Fallen Kingdom who will appear in Jurassic World 3, along with the returning Owen (Chris Pratt) and Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard). "But there's other characters who we'll meet in Fallen Kingdom you'll realize are major characters," he said.
Fortnite Mobile Made More Than $25 Million in Its First Month
Fortnite has been live on iOS for a month, and the free-to-play app has already made more than $25 million, with players spending an average of $1 million per day on in-app purchases.
SensorTower reports that Epic's mobile battle royale title has grossed more than $25 million to date. The game launched on an invite-only basis in the middle of March, but still managed to top the iOS charts in 47 countries 24 hours after release. It made $1 million in its first three days and after it became available to download for all iOS players at the start of April, the mobile game's revenue totalled $15 million just five days later.
Star Wars: What Forces of Destiny Adds to Canon
When Star Wars: Forces of Destiny was announced at Celebration Orlando in April of 2017, fans were promised a bevy of new mini-adventures (about two to three minutes in length each) centered on many of the female Star Wars heroines, including Princess Leia, Rey, Jyn Erso, Ahsoka Tano, Maz Kanata, Hera Syndulla and Sabine Wren, and others. Even cooler, these 2D animated segments would also be canonical -- i.e. part of the “official” Star Wars in-universe history.
Forces of Destiny also includes books, comics, and amazing toys and collectibles, while many of the stars that bring these characters to life came back to do the voice work (Daisy Ridley, Felicity Jones, Ashley Eckstein, Lupita Nyong’o, Vanessa Marshall, and Tiya Sircar).
Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp Introduces Loot Box-Like Items
Nintendo has announced that Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp will now feature "fortune cookies" - which unhappy fans are pointing out seem a lot like loot boxes.
Announced on Animal Crossing's official Twitter account, Fortune Cookies are available in the newly-added Fortune Cookie Shop in the game's Market Place. When eaten, these cookies grant a random item of clothing or furniture dependent on the type of cookie bought.
The catch is that only some of these cookies will be available to purchase using Bells - the in-game currency - while others require Leaf Tickets, which can be obtained in-game by meeting certain goals but are more commonly acquired using real-world currency, with the highest-priced Leaf Ticket bundle costing $79 for 2.500 Tickets.
New Halloween Poster Revealed
Universal Pictures has unveiled the poster for Halloween -- the latest installment in the long-running horror franchise.
The poster features who else but Michael Myers looking grim as ever. The new film will bring back scream queen icon Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode -- a role she hasn't reprised since 2002's Halloween: Resurrection. The story will find her in a final confrontation with the masked killer who first came after her four decades ago.
Sega Confirms That Yakuza Dev Is Working on a New IP
Sega Sammy CEO, Haruki Satomi, confirms that the Yakuza Studio is already working on a brand new IP for consoles.
DualShockers reports that Satomi shared the news in an interview with Weekly Famitsu, saying that the company has plans for new IPs on arcade and mobile, and that a new IP for home consoles is being worked on by the Yakuza team. Satomi didn't elaborate further.
Yakuza 6: The Song of Life released this week on PlayStation 4. We gave it a 7.5 in our review saying that the "story provides a satisfying end to the Kazuma Kiryu saga...