Remember when Saturday used to mean just games all day? That was a point in time for me that I remember fondly. Now, Saturdays usually consist of a full work day, but I can still manage to get in a little gaming here and there and talk about what’s coming up. There’s not much in the way of new releases this week, but lots in the coming soon category.
Glu Unveils Gun Bros 2 With A Trailer
I know Glu mobile is not everyone’s favorite these days, but they still manage to pull off being pretty popular despite all the fierce competition as of late. So what’s a game development team to do with all these games hitting market? Well.. Glu thinks it’s a good time to unveil the sequel to their wildly popular top down shooter Gun Bros. On Monday, Glu Mobile announced the “coming soon” release of Gun Bros 2 by dropping a trailer on us. What a way to tease and entice your fan base. No real details have been released about the game as of yet, just that we’ll see it in Google Play soon. Gun Bros didn’t come with multiplayer at launch which is something to be expected as a launch feature this time around. As soon as we know anything more than what the video shows we’ll be sure to let you guys know what the latest is.
http://youtu.be/S6qiNogqHnw
Epic Citadel Comes To Android, No Mention Of Infinity Blade To Follow
Epic Citadel was first released for iOS to showcase the graphical prowess that is Unreal Engine 3. To that end, it does a first class job at displaying the graphics results it can produce and really immerse the user into a world that feels like their own in a way. By that I mean the realism. After taking a spin around the grounds of the Epic Citadel on my Nexus 7 I was able to see just how amazing the Unreal Engine really is. Although the app is fairly limited (it includes the ability to cruise the grounds and check out the entirety of the Citadel in complete exploration, as well as let the user run an added benchmark mode to see how well their device performs while using the app. It’s a good way to test frame rates and resolution to grasp what your device is capable of, however it seems more useful to devs than anything.), the goal of Epic throwing this onto the Play store was to hopefully make the process smoother for developers when creating games for the Android Platform and help protect against the widespread issue that we all know as fragmentation of the system. This is what Epic had to say about the demo:
Epic has now shipped an Unreal Engine app for Android, which means we’ve invested in plenty of QA testing against a wide range of devices, and we’ve executed the necessary profiling required for shipping Android games, etc. This means that any developer licensing the Unreal Engine for Android benefits from that process – all the work we do gets rolled back into the engine and shared with our licensees.
As you can gather from the statement above, the idea here was to make it easier for developers and game creators to utilize the tools Epic is giving them and make full use of Unreal Engine 3. Unreal Engine 3 is not new by any means, in fact it’s a few years old already, but despite its age it still kicks ass when it comes to games.
The only unfortunate thing coming out of this tech emo app coming to Android is learning that Infinity Blade is probably never coming to Android as Epic has no plans to port the game to the platform. Sad, I know, but at least we can hope for the same kind of results as when the tech demo was released on iOS back in 2010.
Gameloft Teases Team Fortress 2 Style FPS Called Blitz Brigade
Team Fortress 2 will undoubtedly never make its way to android in the traditional sense, (although this may change with project shield seeing as how you can play your steam games with it) but that doesn’t mean we still can’t have some fun with a similar style game. Gameloft for one has no intention of letting its gamer fan base down just because Valve’s popular FPS won’t grace android shores. So they decided to create their own game that has a similar feel to it. Enter Blitz Brigade, an action packed FPS title with a cartoon like comical flair that is hard to resist.
Just like they did with Valve’s popular MOBA game (DOTA & DOTA 2), and RIOT Games League of Legends, Gameloft is going to develop a game similar style game to Team Fortress 2 so we mobile gamers can have a taste of that action while we’re on the go. Blitz Brigade has no confirmed release date as of yet, just that it’s “coming soon”. Gameloft did see to it that we really got our minds fixated on the game though by releasing a teaser trailer for it. The trailer doesn’t show any gameplay footage unfortunately, but I’m alright with that considering how damn fun this game looks.
For those of you that have never played Team Fortress 2, (this includes me) Blitz Brigade will be a team based tactical FPS that will force you to work together to achieve the common goal of annihilating your enemy. There will be specialized classes and each will provide their own benefit to the team over all. It looks like there will be a multitude of classes judging from the video as well as vehicles thrown in the mix for some extra support or otherwise distraction depending on which side you’re on. Hopefully we’ll see a good line up of multiplayer modes including Death Match and a King Of The Hill style mode which I always enjoyed in Multiplayer shooters.
Blitz Brigade is not too far off, and is scheduled to hit ios, and Android platforms. Who’s excited about this? Has anyone played Team Fortress 2 or care to share their thoughts on the comparison?
Bad Piggies Soon To Be Update “Road Hogs” Just Over The Horizon
Not much time has passed since Rovio released their newest game Bad Piggies and already there is a planned update. The information was sent via tweet from Rovios Bad Piggies twitter page with a teaser image of the games update name “Road Hogs”. Based off of the image it’s a safe bet that the update will have a racing them to it. How the levels will play out is another question for another day. I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see until the update hits google play.
We do know that update is very close to hitting our devices, we just don’t know exactly how close. Expect an update though once Rovio releases more information if any. Until then maybe some due practice with the pigs is in order.
Alien VS. Predator: Evolution Hitting Android Soon
Fox Digital Entertainment and Angry Mob games have been teasing us with ultimate Alien VS Predator deathmatch showdowns for quite some time now. Alien VS. Predator: Evolution is the upcoming game from Angry Mob Games and Fox Digital Entertainment that will let you play as either an Alien or Predator race, and follow the story of the elite super predators that have enslaved the aliens to help then hunt down and kill the original predators (the jungle hunters).
Playing through the game as an alien will allow you to see it evolve through its life, then end up bringing down the hammer essentially on the jungle hunters you have been ordered to get rid of. If you choose to play as predator, you will be playing as the jungle hunters and must withstand the onslaught that will be brought upon you by the super predators. I have to say Alien VS Predator: Evolution looks pretty good and sounds like it will be a lot of fun once it’s released.
The game is expected to release sometime within the first quarter which means it will be soon. Not soon enough though.
Dungeon Quest Beta Now On The Play Store
I wrote about Dungeon Quest a couple days ago for the Game Spotlight. I wanted to feature this game because of the sheer fun that I had while playing it. If you like Dungeon Crawlers, you will want to try this out. Dungeon Quest is basically a dungeon crawler where you play as a wizard and battle it through multiple floors and multiple acts while gathering tons of loot along the way. There are five floors in total per act and four acts. While that doesn’t seem like much, I assure there is much more to it. Hundreds of levels through multiple difficulties will keep you entertained as you level up your wizard and become the most powerful.
The loot is random, the dungeons are random, and the fun is immense. You can upgrade your weapons to make them more powerful, and once you become the ultimate wizard, you can boast about it on the online leaderboards. The game is still in beta so there is only the wizard to play right now, but the development team has said they will be adding content frequently all the way up to final launch of the game which is pretty soon. Definitely at least give this game a go, it was pretty fun and at the least it can serve as a good stop and go kind of game for time passing.
Cubes VS. Spheres Is The Ultimate Battle Between Shapes
If you thought you left Geometry behind when you graduated high school, well throw that idea out the window because Cubes VS. Spheres is bringing it back. Unleash your spherical bad assery against an army of Cubes that want nothing more than to wipe you out and be the sole remaining shape. Not if you have anything to say about it though.
Cubes VS Spheres houses 40 levels for you to play through, while harnessing the power of 6 different types of Spheres to do your bidding. There is also an achievement system in place with 37 in all for you achievement whores out there. Ahem… (*points at self-*), guilty as charged. You can control the game using the accelerometer, but if that’s not your style or you just absolutely despise it you can use the touchscreen as well. It’s quite the take on a physics based game, cubes will be coming down on you from all angles, so flick or fling your spheres any which way to knock them back from whence they came.
The game is not much for eye candy, but still looks pretty good. It’s simple in theory yet more complex than you’d expect. However it’s not hard to play at all. Complete the levels to gain points and unlock more spheres, than repeat.
If this sounds like a bit of fun you can roll on over to the play store (see what I did there.. Roll. Cause of the spheres. Get it? anyway…) and pick it up for a cool $0.99. Yep that’s right, ShockPanda Games is letting us have this little gem for under a buck. No IAP in sight. Enjoy!
Shadowrun Returns Delayed, But More Information On The Game Surfaces
Unfortunately Shadowrun Returns has been delayed, shedding its January 2013 release for a much later may/june launch date. This is a little bit of disappointment for all those who pitched in for the kickstarter and anyone that was excited to just see this reborn onto Android, but fear not because the game is still coming and will be here in time for summer. The push back is because the games development team wanted to add in more features. That being said, it’s a good reason for the delay and im sure it’ll be every bit worth the extra wait.
Shadowrun Returns is based off the original game from back in 1993 which hit the super nes as a deeply rich RPG title. A couple of other unrelated Shadowrun games came to market afterwards, one in ’94 for the Sega Genesis and one in ’07 for windows vista. This new title which started as a kickstarter campaign reached its goal of $400,000 in just 28 hours which is extremely impressive, and managing to reach a total amount of $1.8 million in funding a couple of months later. This just goes to show how popular and loved the original game was and how much its fans as well as newcomers want to see it deployed onto Android.
Shadowrun Returns is being worked on by the same developer as the old pen and paper Shadowrun game that spawned the SNES title. This is good news because you know that love and passion is going into the making of this title and it will undoubtedly be a game to contend with. The game is basically a turn based strategy RPG that has everything from Greedy power hungry corporations, magic, and anything else you could want in an RPG. It will have an immersive storyline and plenty of character development which is just what an RPG should have, along with plenty of classes to choose from including some of the originals like the hacker, adept, and combat mage.
The new game will have a definite retro feel, but all new 3D rendered graphics for a more modern look and new experience. So far from the images the game looks really good and I can’t wait to be able to try it out as this will be my first time plunging into the Shadowrun universe. The PC and Mac versions of the game will include a level editing system but it is still unknown whether the Android and iOS versions of the game will get the same treatment there.
After the release of Shadowrun Returns, the developer will also set the stage for the release of Shadowrun online, which allow you to import your characters from Shadowrun returns to use in the new game. The story for Shadowrun Online will supposedly take place about 20 years after Shadowrun Returns but that is really all the detail that is known at the moment. If you were a backer from the Kickstarter campaign you can expect to receive your just rewards in the form of a game that ties the original SNES title and Shadowrun Returns together. Makes me wish I would have thrown some cash at it. If you’re looking forward to this release, keep your browser tuned right here as we’ll be sure to update you as more information is cranked out.