News across the wire (well, it’s yesterday’s news, we at Tap-Repeatedly pride ourselves on the timeliness of our reporting) states that id Software, once-mighty creators of DOOM, Quake, and… well, of DOOM and Quake, has been acquired by the mysterious ZeniMax Media Group, the parent company that also owns Bethesda Softworks of Elder Scrolls and Fallout 3 fame. With this buyout, Bethesda will now be publishing all of id’s games, severing the longstanding relationship between …
By now, I’m assuming you’ve all heard about LucasArts’ The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition? No? Venture forth from the cave, people. It’s a brave new world! Okay, so it’s not going to stop chunky, middle-aged people from wearing low-rise jeans, but is it a reboot of a much loved classic adventure game – with voices, re-mastered music and new, improved HD graphics coupled with the ability to seamlessly transition between the classic and …
Recent game industry trade articles have been bandying about the very real possibility that GameStop’s lucrative used game sales are going to begin to tank as the digital distribution model grows. Is all that yummy buy low/sell high action going to just fade away? GameStop doesn’t seem to be too concerned. IndustryGamers reports on a recent study by Sterne Agee analyst Arvind Bhatia that claims that digital download technology won’t reach a critical threshold of …
Did I mention I’m a sucker for strategy games even though I lack the strategy gene? Unless clicking all around the menus adding buildings because they’re pretty is considered a strategy. Anyway, I spent most of this past weekend playing around with Related Designs’ demo of their newest entry in the Anno series – Anno 1404. (And because we’re an illiterate lot here in the U.S. and Ubisoft apparently felt sorry for us, you’ll find …
Good news for slackers, procrastinators, and ne’er do wells: Casual Collective’s Desktop Tower Defense Pro is now available, free, here. Enjoy 24 scenarios and a more robust tutorial, plus a bevy of other goodies, from new creep types to multiplayer mode. Hope you don’t have any afternoon meetings scheduled!
IGN has surprised us all with this review of Radical’s Prototype, one of the most anticipated and hyped games of the summer. A 7.5 may seem like a good score, but let’s remember that a 7.5 from IGN is a 1 from anyone with credibility. Moreover, the substance of the review is… chilly at best.
Jeez, people. They call this “E3 Day Zero” for a reason, you know. Nothing’s supposed to happen. Half the exhibitors are still setting up. And instead we get Valve announcing Left 4 Dead 2, to ship scarcely a year after the first? We get Remedy’s promise that Alan Wake is really really real, and will see a 2010 release? We get Microsoft’s Minority Report-inspired Natal Project, allowing us to poke our fingers at the air …
The Electronic Entertainment Expo officially kicks off tomorrow, but the press has already descended on Los Angeles and secret behind the scenes goings-on are have begun. While ESA Prez Michael Gallagher has insisted that this year is not a return to the huge and wild E3s of old, there’s definitely a sense that compared to the disappointments of the last two years, this show will at least try to recapture some of the event’s former …
Rock, Paper, Shotgun has an interview with GSC Game World’s Oleg Yavorsky on the upcoming S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat, which is due this fall (yeah right). While I know that opinions varied on Clear Sky – a game I now feel I was too hard on – I am a stalwart fan of the series and look forward to this latest installment.
One of the more interesting tidbits to come out of Gamasutra’s recent analysis of the state of GameStop was the huge profit GameStop makes selling used games. It’s not rocket science how they do it. They buy back nearly mint games from gamers for pennies on the dollar, slap a big price tag on the units and stick them up on the used game shelf. GameStop makes 48 cents on the dollar on used games, …
Reasons to buy that PS3 just keep piling up, as word from the ticker reveals that Demon’s Souls, a dungeon-crawler action RPG from Atlus, will be making its way across the Pacific to arrive on U.S. shores in the fullness of time. Apparently Eurogamer gave it a 9/10 and called it “absolutely compelling.” Even if they hadn’t, it’s from Atlus, and we have a feeling about Atlus here. What is it, Toger? How do we …
PlayStation LifeStyle, Sony’s web portal for all things PlayStation, has posted very early footage of Team ICO’s next game, Project Trico, destined for the PS3. The footage is just under 4 minutes, but in that short period of time managed to make me feel all warm and squishy inside… either that or I’m coming down with something. Since this is early days yet, the human character doesn’t have a lot of detail; however, the backgrounds …
It’s been threatening for some time now: first a bit of misdirection involving a possible sniper update, now revealed through clever internet chicanery to be the Spy. I don’t really play much Team Fortress 2 any more, but I do love these character movies. And so shall you!
Don’t lie: who among us doesn’t occasionally sit bolt upright in bed, drenched in sweat, eyes big as saucers? Our partner, lover, girl (or boy) picked up at the cheap bar down the street, and/or pet paws at us worriedly. “What is it?” they ask. But how can we communicate the terror to them? They’d never understand. Only those who’ve actually been through the horror – and the subsequent political fallout – can truly know …
The Local and GamePolitics report that Germany has banned paintball and laser tag in response to the recent school shooting in Winnenden that left 15 dead, including the shooter. Germany has a long and storied tradition of opposition to violent entertainment, the result of massive and not entirely misplaced sensitivity over the perception that any presentation of violence may awaken dark memories of Nazism. It will be many decades before time “heals” that wound, and …