Yooka-Laylee, a spiritual successor to legendary Nintendo 64 game Banjo-Kazooie, is now the most funded Kickstarter game in the United Kingdom.
The record was previously held by Frontier Development's Elite: Dangerous, which raised £1,578,316 when the Kickstarter campaign closed. At the time of writing, Yooka-Laylee has raised £1,611,343 (almost $2.5 million), and it still has 31 days to go until the fundraising campaign ends.
Today, Yooka-Laylee developer Playtonic announced that it has sold out of the limited edition "64-bit" package, which will give players the game on an Nintendo-64-style cartridge, box, and manual.
Yooka-Laylee is a "buddy-duo" game in the vein of Banjo-Kazooie, but instead of a bear and a bird, it stars a chameleon and a bat. The game is being worked on by a number of Rare veterans who developed Banjo-Kazooie, and is due to launch in 2016 for PC, Mac, Linux, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Wii U.
You can secure a copy of Yooka-Laylee by pledging at least $15. Backing at that level gets you a copy of the PC version, while you'll need to pay around $22 to get a console copy.
Operation Supply Drop, an organization that provides games to U.S. troops serving abroad, has kicked off its 8-Bit Salute mega game marathon this weekend.
"Since we started, Operation Supply Drop has used gaming as a catalyst to provide support for over 7,000 individual US and NATO troops through four major programs," the organization said. "Going into our 5th year, we are determined to set a new high score with $1,337,000 for this event, and with your help, we can absolutely do it!"
You can participate by either streaming your own gaming marathon or donating here.
If you raise or donate the following amounts, you'll also get rewards:
$50 - 3-Month XSplit License
$200 - Official 2015 8-Bit Salute tee shirt
$1000 - 1-month HeroCrate
$2,500 - 3-months HeroCrate
$5,000 - Custom OSD GAEMS Vanguard Case
At the time of writing, Operation Supply Drop has raised $146,928.
Sony thought that PlayStation 4-exclusive Bloodborne will sell well, but the game has apparently surpassed its expectations, the company has said.
"It did surprise us," Sony UK managing director Fergal Gara told MCV. "We had expectations to do well. We looked at the Souls series as a frame of reference, and we thought we could do better than that. We did—and then some. Relative to some of our sister territories, we were being quite ambitious, but even that proved to be conservative."
Gara said that this was in part thanks to good timing, as the game was released at a relatively slow time, and that while Sony was a bit behind in meeting demand, it was able to catch up take advantage of the opportunity.
Gara didn't share any new sales numbers, but last month Sony said Bloodborne sold through more than one million copies worldwide. Xbox executive Phil Spencer, the top gaming boss inside of Microsoft, has has even congratulated Sony on hitting that sales number with a new IP.
While Bloodborne is a new IP, it was made by Dark Souls developer From Software, and was marketed as being a very similar game.
Welcome back to GameSpot Q&A, a weekly section where we ask our staff and readers an interesting discussion question about video games. Look at this as a forum where you and others can discuss and compare your opinions of this beloved hobby of ours. So don't hesitate to let us know what your answer is to this week's question in the comments below!
This week's question is as follows:
What hugely popular game series have you never played?
With The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt releasing next week, there are likely to be a whole bunch of gamers who are going to be playing this popular series for the first time. Whether it be because of lack of time or even adamant avoidance, are their any popular game series that you have never played before? Below is what our editors had to say.
Final Fantasy X
Final Fantasy | Rob Crossley
I can understand why people love Final Fantasy, but for me, it just doesn't lure me in. I've never been a fan of the turn-based fighting mechanics, and I'd love to be wrong, but I look at some of the trailers and art and have little confidence that there's an interesting story to explore.
Nintendogs | Daniel Hindes
Nintendogs has sold 24 million copies and I've never played a single one. I'm more of a cat person. That doesn't mean I'm not open to teh concept of a pet simulator though. So I must ask: Where is Nintencats, Nintendo? Or would it be called Cattendo?
MOBAs | Justin Haywald
Despite their undeniable popularity and incredibly fervent fanbase, I've never played a MOBA. It's not that they don't look fun; I might struggle to understand what's going on when I'm listening to shoutcasters commentate a heated Dota 2 match, but it's easy to get caught up in the excitement! But the high barrier to entry and the stories I always hear of and incredibly toxic player base have ensured that I kept my distance.
Diablo III
Diablo | Eddie Makuch
I adored Blizzard's genre-defining PC MMO World of Warcraft, so much so that with every new expansion I'm tempted to surrender my life back to it, but I've never played the developer's other major game--Diablo. Despite rave reviews from friends--and even family--I've never even given it a try. My defense had always been that I'm not a very big PC gamer. But with Diablo 3 now on consoles, I really have no excuse. Ahh!
Sports Games | Alexa Ray Corriea
Any major sports series I have not played and probably never will. I've never been into sports, playing or watching, so I have no idea how I would even begin to play the games. I'm way more interested in smacking trolls around with Firaga or whatever, but sportsball is just not for me.
Mega Man 10
Mega Man | Danny O'Dwyer
i've never played Mega Man. Mostly because I didn't grow up playing Nintendo. Growing up in Ireland some of my friends certainly had them, but my household was a Commodore Amiga household. It wasn't until I was a teenager that I bought my first Nintendo console. Not many people can say they fell in love with Nintendo via the Gamecube, but I loved that little machine. I probably would have picked up the Mega Man Anniversary Collection but sadly it was a North American exclusive.
Legend of Zelda Series | Zorine Te
The Legend of Zelda series. I did not own any Nintendo consoles as a child. For years, I thought the boy in green was named Zelda. I've tried to finish one of the games in recent years but never ended up venturing past the starter towns and could not find the drive to continue.
Total War: Rome II
Total War Series | Chris Watters
While I've experienced no shortage of virtual war, I have yet to engage in Total War. Perhaps I am intimidated by its totality? The idea of commanding legions is a bit daunting, but a game series doesn't get to be that popular by being totally obtuse. Indeed, the stories I've heard from friends of rousing, exciting conquests have piqued my interest now and then, but alas, I still haven't taken up the commander's call.
Fighting Games (and Sports Games) | Kevin VanOrd
Oh, a number of them! I don't really play fighting games, and though I have dabbled in Marvel vs. Capcom, Mortal Kombat, and others, I've never played a Street Fighter game. Shocking, I know! You can also throw most sports franchises onto this list; I haven't played a Madden game since 1997, and have never touched an NHL or NBA game.
World of Warcraft
World of Warcraft | Peter Brown
World of Warcraft. I played a lot of Warcraft,Warcraft II, and Warcraft III, but World of Warcraft never appealed to me. I've watched so many friends fall in love with the game, only to crash months later. Yet, despite realizing that they might not be enjoying the game for the right reasons, the same friends dove back in. It's an addictive game, and despite what '90s video game critics will tell you, that's not necessarily a good thing.
Mass Effect Series | Matt Espineli
I've played a fair share of RPGs in the past, but for some reason I've never gotten around to playing BioWare's Mass Effect series. I don't what it is that keeps me from that series because I really do appreciate its focus on its characters and lore. But I guess what's difficult for me is just the heavy weight of its decision-making and how that constantly effects what occurs throughout the series. I'm a bit of a perfectionist so whenever it comes to making choices in games, I always want the most ideal situation to occur. With a long series like Mass Effect, I find myself freaking out about my decisions at every turn. It's truly a terrible habit of mine that I hope to overcome someday so I can finally play these games.
Assassin's Creed Syndicate marks a turning point for the eight-year Assassin's Creed franchise in more ways than one. Ubisoft's Quebec Studio has chosen to abandon cover-based stealth for Syndicate, retool navigation when parkouring, and add a systemic vehicle system that will change how players interact with their environment. But perhaps the most critical addition to the game is Evie Frye, the first playable lead female in a main entry Assassin's Creed game.
Of course, there have been female assassins in Assassin's Creed before, but Evie's position is unique. Assassin's Creed III: Liberation was a spin-off of ACIII's world, with players following Creole heroine Aveline de Grandpre. But it was released on PlayStation Vita at a time when the handheld was still struggling to find its footing, which in turn limited its audience. The recently released downloadable-only title Assassin's Creed Chronicles: China also features a female protagonist, Shao Jun.
What sets Evie apart is she is fully playable in the main story. Ubisoft says players will control her along with her twin brother, Jacob Frye, and that for most story missions you'll be able to choose which sibling to play as. They'll both have their own unique missions as well, giving them character development apart from one another but still connected to the story. Some may gripe that Ubisoft could have simply made one playable assassin and not split the story between two. But I'd argue that the dynamic between siblings--often a mix of playful rivalry and unwavering support--is a much more interesting lens through which to tell a story than through one person alone. There's something charming about two siblings discovering and conquering the world together, working within the context of blood ties rather than romantic ones.
The presence of women in Assassin's Creed seems to be increasing significantly for Syndicate, which features not only a female hero but female villains running the seedy underbelly of London's boroughs and female grunts carrying out their work. In the brief bits of Syndicate footage Ubisoft has shared, we've seen Jacob take out every gang member in his path. I don't ever recall playing an Assassin's Creed game where a good number of the NPCs engaging the player character in combat are women; these ladies, clad in some seriously spiffy suits and bowler hats, come at Jacob with knives, revolvers, and fists, carrying out their criminal duties. And Jacob, in turn, stabs them, punches them in the face, drops crates on them, and knocks them out in the same way he would any other combative NPC. It's violence against women in a video game, and it's violence within context.
The crime lord Bloody Nora.
To understand what that really means, we need to look at AC Syndicate's setting, 1868 London. London in the midst of the Victorian era, at the height of the Industrial Revolution. England was the hub of technological evolution, with the city of London at its core. Thousands of people moved from the countryside into the city looking for work, starting as early as four-years-old and often working until an untimely death around 30. Only one fifth of adult males could vote and women couldn't vote at all, and most of the population couldn't afford modern medicine, or even be bothered to name their children.
It was economically necessary for many women, both single and married, to work in order to survive. These women often became domestic employees, such as nannies or maids, or found positions in textile factories and coal mines. Everyone in these lower tiers of London's society faced hardship.
Women who left home unsupervised or went out on their own were often fretted over, and societal conventions frowned on the idea of a woman alone without a companion to guide her. People who couldn't find a place within proper society turned to organized crime as a means to survive, and it is here that many women found their footholds--and something meaningful to belong to.
Between the pressures of finding stable work and wages, a place to live, and unfettered autonomy, it's not surprising that women fell in with London's criminal underground and called it home. In current gameplay previews of AC Syndicate, we see Bloody Nora, a Templar and the gang leader of one of London's boroughs. Given the oppressive restraints and demands put on London's women at the top of society, seeing one turn to a prominent position at the bottom as a crime lord is believable. And having one of her biggest opponents be a scrappy young woman from the country who was born and raised as an assassin shouldn't be hard to swallow either.
"...A setting that created violent, powerful women in the real world."
Assassin's Creed Syndicate, with the setting it chose, has the potential to break a lot of ground with its representation of women. For the series, it could be a game changer. We often rail against violent interactions with women in video games, but in real-world Victorian London, this was how people behaved. These women live in a world of broken dreams and abandoned hopes, driven to crime and bloodshed by humankind's desperate desire to survive. Syndicate's developers have spoken at length about wanting to bring Assassin's Creed into the modern era, and I can't think of a better way to do it than kicking the move off with a setting that created violent, powerful women in the real world.
Evie Frye.
Back to Evie. When I look at her, I can't help but think of another fictional figure born from London's poverty: Nancy, from Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist. Nancy, unlike Evie, is an abandoned woman in 1800s London who becomes a prostitute and eventually a caretaker of the orphan Oliver. With no options available to her, she takes the only job she feels gives her any agency over her fate. I imagine this is the same way with Evie, who is born into the world of an assassin and grows up within its cause. I recognize Ubisoft isn't sharing much information on Evie at this time, but from the brief scenes we've seen--her formulating plans with her brother and a fellow assassin, and shooting a gun out of Bloody Nora's hand--she already seems like a woman of agency. She's not a follower. And when Jacob stands up and announces to the defeated gang, "We are Jacob and Evie Frye," his inclusion of her, that "we," makes me believe they are equal in narrative importance.
We've been angry with Ubisoft in the past for the way it treats women in Assassin's Creed. Last year's storm regarding comments about animating women was loud and harmful, and while Unity did have a prominent female figure, Elise, she was not our hero. She was a lover, and this time around developers are keen to avoid the romantic plot because it "sucks everything out" of other important narrative elements. This modern setting, this 1868 London, is the perfect storm of setting and time for packing genuinely strong women into every level of importance in the series. Maybe the French Revolution just wasn't the time, or the Renaissance didn't offer the best options for believably running up against violent female NPCs. For a franchise that prides itself on its representation and accuracy, Assassin's Creed Syndicate is looking very promising as both an entertaining video game and a window into history.
It may not have been Evie's time up until now. But Ubisoft has done its research, and I think we are ready for, and should be excited, about Evie Frye.
After nearly four years of development, CD Pojekt RED's The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is finally coming out next week on May 19. So here's a round-up of all the information you need to know in order to jump right into its world!
"Where The Witcher 2 sputtered to a halt, The Witcher 3 is always in a crescendo, crafting battle scenarios that constantly one-up the last, until you reach the explosive finale and recover in the glow of the game's quiet denouement. But while the grand clashes are captivating, it is the moments between conflicts, when you drink with the local clans and bask in a trobairitz's song, that are truly inspiring." -- Read the full review here.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt will launch for PS4, Xbox One, and PC on May 19. So are you excited about The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt? Let us know in the comments below!
Virtual reality gaming has gained momentum in the last few years, with the Oculus Rift, Sony's Project Morpheus, and Valve's HTC Vive each pitching forward their own take on the virtual space. As VR hardware draws closer to a consumer launch, which are you most interested in picking up? To help out, we list and compare the specifications and game library of the Oculus Rift, Project Morpheus, and HTC Vive.
The Oculus Rift is traditionally supported by a PC, although Oculus VR vice president Nate Mitchell has not ruled out the possibility of bringing the hardware to the PlayStation 4 or Xbox One. Oculus has confirmed that a rather "beefy" PC rig will be required to support the Rift, and will release a list of required PC technical specifications in the lead-up to E3.
Oculus VR was purchased by Facebook in March last year, which expressed plans to extend the hardware's use beyond gaming to "communications, media and entertainment, education, and other areas."
Here's a list that includes games that currently have full support for the Oculus Rift:
Sony's Project Morpheus will be supported by the PlayStation 4 and, allegedly, the PlayStation Vita. Games that have confirmed Morpheus support include Project Cars, Surgeon Simulator, and Among the Sleep.
At past events, Sony has showcased Project Morpheus running demos that included a special re-worked version of Thief, EVE Valkyrie, a game from Sony's London studio called The Deep, and a game titled The Castle. Early builds incorporated usage of PlayStation Move controllers.
Sony has confirmed that Project Morpheus will be able to support online multiplayer and local couch multiplayer. Some of Sony's first partners for Project Morpheus include Epic Games, Unity, Crytek, and Autodesk. God of War studio Sony Santa Monica has created a prototype that allowed the user to become Kratos. Sony has also partnered with NASA to create a demo that places the player on the surface of Mars.
Sensors: Accelerometer, Gyrosensor, laser position sensor
Connection: HDMI, USB 2.0, USB 3.0
Games
Valve's Vive headset will be powered by SteamVR software, with games to be available "soon" through digital distribution platform Steam.
Microsoft Flight Simulator X developer Dovertail Games, The Room developer Fireproof Games, and Cloudhead games have already signed up to make content for the device. Google, Lionsgate, and HBO have also been confirmed as content partners. At GDC this year developer Owlchemy Labs debuted one of the first games designed specifically for Valve's SteamVR, titled Job Simulator.
If you're interested in Mortal Kombat X's Jason Voorhees but aren't sure if the DLC character is worth the money, you can take the character out for a spin for free this weekend.
Making good on its promise to let players try DLC characters without actually buying them, developer NetherRealm Studios is giving Jason Voorhees his own challenge tower, which is available to all players until Monday.
Mortal Kombat X's challenge towers, which rotate regularly, test your skills in a series of fights with special conditions. The Jason Voorhees Premiere Tower includes six matches, and will give you two shots with each of the character's three fighting styles.
Some other DLC characters you can expect to show up in the Premiere Tower for free include Predator, Tanya, and Tremor. If you decide you want all of them (along with some extra skins), you'll be able to pick up the Kombat Pack for $30.
Mortal Kombat X enjoyed a record-breaking launch back in April, and came in at the top of NPD's chart for physical sales for the month. Earlier this week, the game got a new patch for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions, which makes numerous gameplay fixes, character-specific changes, and introduces the Klassic Reptile costume.
Mortal Kombat X scored an eight in GameSpot's review, praised for its solid fighting mechanics and the challenges offered, but criticized for its monetization model.
Developer Double Fine's Halloween-themed role-playing game Costume Quest is getting a cartoon, animation company Frederator Studios has announced.
"Since the cat's out of the bag (how'd that happen?), it's okay for us to tell you we're teaming up with the geniuses at Double Fine Productions to produce an 11-minute cartoon based on their exceptional Costume Quest game," a post to Frederator Studios' official website said. "Zac Gorman (Magical Game Time) is writing and storyboarding and Pat McHale (Over the Garden Wall) is directing. We hope you'll enjoy watching it as much as we are making it."
Even if you're not familiar with the name, you've probably seen some of Frederator Studios' previous cartoons. The studio worked on shows like The Fairly OddParents and Adventure Time.
Costume Quest was originally conceived during Double Fine's "Amnesia Fortnights" event, during which the studio rapidly tests prototypes before it commits to turning one of them into a full game. The game was successful enough to warrant a sequel, Costume Quest 2, which was released in 2014. The game's original creator, Tasha Sounart, left Double Fine in 2011 to work at Pixar as the lead franchise artist.
For more on the game, check out GameSpot's previous Costume Quest coverage.
Xbox One Outsells PS4 in April: A surprise, perhaps, as NPD data for April released on Thursday showed that Microsoft's Xbox One console outsold Sony's, in the United States at least. The PlayStation 4 remains the cumulative sales leader for the US, however, but Microsoft appears to be narrowing the gap.
Assassin's Creed Syndicate Revealed: Ubisoft formally announced this year's game this week, slating the 1868 London game to arrive for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC on October 23. Read this roundup post for everything you need to know about the game.
The Witcher 3 Gets a Perfect Score: Becoming GameSpot's ninth ever perfect 10 out of 10 is CD Projekt Red's open-world RPG The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Read Kevin VanOrd's review here and check out this post to see all the games that we've given perfect scores to in our history.
THE OTHER STUFF:
The folks behind excellent YouTube series Did You Know Gaming have published their latest video, this one talking trivia about Nintendo's uber-popular Wii console. Check it out.
Streaming giant Twitch continues to spread to new platforms. It's now available on streaming box Roku, the company announced this week. The service is already available on more platforms you can say in one breath, including Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Chromecast, and Amazon Fire TV.
Blizzard Entertainment has announced the first-ever global Heroes of the Storm tournament, which offers up a total of $1.2 million in prizes. Get all the details about the new event, which kicks off in the coming months and culminates with the final round at BlizzCon in November, right here.
A new update for PlayStation 4 racing game Driveclub coming later this month will raise the game's level cap to 55. The update, 1.15, also adds new cars and lots more. But there's still no word on when the free PlayStation Plus version will arrive. Get all the patch notes here.
What? How? Are you kidding me? Yep.
IGN has the scoop on a canceled Rock Band spinoff called Rock Band Sessions. Get all the details in this story here.
Finally, Angry Birds is coming to virtual reality. I'm skeptical about a lot of VR games, but this one sounds particularly interesting. Get the full story over at Road to VR.
What a lovely day. The team behind upcoming post-apocalyptic indie game Bedlam this week released a new poster inspired by the Mad Max franchise, which has returned to theaters with Fury Road. Check out the poster below, and read more about Bedlam at the game's website here.
Is Microsoft preparing to announce a 1TB Xbox One? It appears that way, as a retailer listing suggests the console will be released in June, just days after E3. Hmmm. Of course, Microsoft already already offered a 1 TB console through last year's Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare bundle, but this would be something new.
Here's something to make you feel old. This week marks the ten year anniversary of the Xbox 360 announcement event in May 2005. Elijah Wood was there! The Killers were there! It was quite the spectacle. Re-live it through this video.
The New Yorker has a terrific interview with Sean Murray of Hello Games about the developer's ambitious PlayStation 4 project No Man's Sky. Grab a cup of coffee and put your feet up, this is a good read.
The World of Warcraft Leeroy Jenkins video is now a decade old. That's right, it was ten years ago that Ben Schulz charged into battle and launched one of the best gaming memes. Re-live the video through this Eurogamer story and video.
Here's something to hold you over until The Witcher 3 launches next week. GameStop has launched a new promotional page for the game that lets you hunt down monsters in Google Maps. Pretty cool! Check it out here.
The English translation of Nintendo president Satoru Iwata's earnings presentation was published this week. In it, he talks about Nintendo's plans for smartphone games, the new NX console, the company's new theme park deal with Universal, and lots more. Read the full Q&A here.
Someone has cosplayed as the kid holding the baguette from BioShock Infinite. That's amazing. Check out the photos below and here:
Resident Evil publisher Capcom has outlined a new takeover defense plan. But it's not as ominous as it sounds, though. Check out the full document here.
Remember that selfie at the Oscars two years ago? Here's what it would look like with Naughty Dog characters. Amazing!
The Rockstar Editor is being put to good use. Someone has now re-created Breaking Bad's famous parking lot scene (don't click if you haven't watched!) in the game. It's really good.
UPDATE 10:05 PM PDT -- Sony's online services should now be back online.
UPDATE 7:45 PM PDT -- The official AskPlayStation support twitter's last message reads: "We appreciate your patience as we continue working to resolve the PSN issues."
We appreciate your patience as we continue working to resolve the PSN issues. For current status: http://t.co/0H0knweLYq
And as many people in the comments below have reported, attempting to login online prompts Sony to send an "update your password" email.
The original story appears below.
Are you having trouble logging into your Sony PlayStation Network account? You're not the only. The service is currently down across both the web and consoles.
According to the , the outtage is far-ranging and affects everything from account management on the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 3 to access to severices such as Vue, Video, and Now.
The message on the site currently reads, "You may be experiencing issues related to launching games, applications, and/or social features such as trophies, messaging, or friends list. We appreciate your patience while we address this."
We're currently looking into causes for the problem and when a fix will be incoming. We'll update this story with more details when they're available.
It's a good sale all around. You can check out all the deals (which run from now until May 18) below, or check out the PlayStation Store hubs for PS4, PS3, and Vita games.
PS4:
Title
Platform
Sale Price
Original Price
Don't Starve: Console Edition
PS4
$4.95
$14.99
Don't Starve: Console Edition + Reign of Giants Expansion
"While our free offer to upgrade to Windows 10 will not apply to non-genuine Windows devices, as we've always done, we will continue to offer Windows 10 to customers running devices in a non-genuine state." Myerson said in a blog post published today.
"Non-genuine Windows has a high risk of malware, fraud, public exposure of your personal information, and a higher risk for poor performance or feature malfunctions," he added. "Non-genuine Windows is not supported by Microsoft or a trusted partner."
Myerson did, however, tease that Microsoft is preparing some kind of incentive to get people with non-genuine Windows copies to switch over to a legitimate copy of Windows 10.
"In partnership with some of our valued OEM partners, we are planning very attractive Windows 10 upgrade offers for their customers running one of their older devices in a non-genuine state," he said. "Please stay tuned to learn more from our partners on the specifics of their offers."
As Mary J. Foley of GameSpot sister site Zdnet points out: "Non-genuine Windows copies are not always pirated copies. Sometimes users unknowingly purchase Windows copies that certain resellers or retailers are passing off as legal, which are counterfeit and/or tampered with. Sometimes there are false positives, via which legal copies of Windows show up as illegally licensed."
Per the terms of Microsoft's free Windows 10 upgrade offer, all PCs running Windows 7 and 8 will be eligible for a free upgrade to the new OS for the first twelve months following Windows 10's launch. Microsoft has not yet announced how much Windows 10 will cost after this period.
In just about four days' time, the Kickstarter campaign for Bloodstained--the new project from longtime Castlevania developer Koji "IGA" Igarashi--has raised more than $2 million. That's four times its initial goal, and as a result, a number of stretch goals have been met, and more are close to being met.
Thanks to raising enough money to hit various milestones, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night will pack a number of features it wouldn't have otherwise. These include local co-op, Boss Rush mode, cheat codes, voicework from David Hayter, and more. Assuming the crowdfunding campaign continues to rake in money--it has until June 12 to add to its current $2,026,550 total--we'll soon see two more tantalizing features.
At $2.25 million, Bloodstained will get a retro level. This area of the castle will feature retro-style graphics that the developers say approximate to those of a 16-bit game (or slightly newer).
Following that, at $2.5 million, is something called Classic mode. Here, portions of the game will be reworked into a linear experience that "reward[s] timing and survival instead of backtracking and exploration."
"IGA and company are still too early in the planning process to promise anything, but right now he's envisioning six punishing stages," a Kickstarter update reads. "In grand classic platformer fashion, you'll be weaker and the enemies will be stronger, and forget about saving yourself by grinding--no RPG elements here.
"If you've always preferred your castles punishingly difficult, straightforward, and scrolling from left to right, this is the stretch goal for you."
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg may not have gotten into programming had it not been for video games, the 31-year-old billionaire said this week during a town hall Q&A meeting. As part of his presentation, Zuckerberg advised parents to let their children play video games.
"Letting them play around with stuff is one of the best things you can do," Zuckerberg said, as reported by USA Today.
Zuckerberg grew up in upstate New York, which typically gets hammered by lake effect snow. He shared that, because his sisters wouldn't have snowball fights with him, he decided to build a snowball fighting video game. "It was a terrible game," he said, but pointed out that working on such projects is what inspired him to get into computer programming.
"I do think this dynamic around kids growing up, building games and playing games, is an important one because I think this is how a lot of kids get into programming," he explained. "I definitely would not have gotten into programming if I had not played games as a kid."
"Most of the engineers I know, who are some of the best engineers in the world, are self-taught," he added. "We need to work on this to get more exposure out to people."
Also during the Q&A, Zuckerberg revealed that Facebook's overall goal for its Oculus Rift headset is to eventually update the design over time to look more like "normal glasses." The Oculus Rift consumer model launches in the first quarter of 2016, meaning it should arrive before April 2016.
Facebook paid $2 billion to buy Oculus VR, developer of the Rift headset, in March 2014.
In addition, Zuckerberg talked about the potential for augmented reality technology like Microsoft's HoloLens. Though Microsoft may have a working prototype at the moment, Zuckerberg said he doesn't foresee technology of this nature truly taking off for years.
"It's going to take five, seven, 10, maybe 12 years to build that out, to have something that really works and is cheap enough for everyone around the world to use," he said.
What do you make of Zuckerberg's comments? Let us know in the comments below.
Video Gamers United and GameSpot are teaming up for their second annual VGU-CON. GameSpot will be the official Media Sponsor at this years event. The convention will take place August 1st and 2nd at the Washington convention center in Washington DC. GameSpot is super excited about this partnership and the role that we will have at this years convention. For more news about VGU-CON visit: http://www.vgu-con.com.
Stay tuned as more exciting news will be announced in the coming weeks!
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