17-Bit’s Skulls of the Shogun has been a highlight of indie festivals and competitions for a few years now. The turn-based strategy game is, even before release, known for its pick-up-and-play nature and subtle tactics. Its transformation into a multi-platform, Windows-8-and-Windows-Phone-showpiece project has caused it to take a bit longer to get to our hands, and also raises inevitable concerns about development priorities. We’re happy to say that it had little effect on the game itself, and that the full release of Skulls delivers on a lot of the promise of that earlier work. READ MORE
Fire Emblem: Awakening, the latest from Intelligent Systems, strikes a tough balance. It’s at once a celebration of the series’ peculiar quirks and a friendly introduction to newcomers, a reinvention for the modern age and a reminder of days past. That it does it so gracefully is a testament to the developers’ attention to detail, and the resulting game is one that can be different things to different people. READ MORE
Sports games are a topic I’ve danced around for a while. They comprise a majority of released local multiplayer games, in all likelihood, but still manage to be the black sheep of the field. It’s a tough topic to take on alone, so I called on Brad Woodling, friend of the site and sports columnist for Retroware TV, to help me talk about the genre’s challenges and bright spots.
So first: Sports games hold a strange place in the local multiplayer scene. Often they’re the quickest and most likely to embrace such things, with almost every large release supporting four or more players. That said, I’m not sure they’ve found a successful formula for doing so, with the possible exception of soccer titles. Why do you think that is?
Brad Woodling: And just to clarify, we’re talking local multiplayer, not Connected Careers or Online Dynasty stuff. Strictly the features given to sports games with two or more guys or girls in front of the same TV. READ MORE
On this episode, Andrew tells us about DmC: Devil May Cry and Anarchy Reigns, Shawn leads us through crazy news like Nvidia’s Project Shield and XSEED’s Pandora’s Tower localization, and Graham recruits us all to the Wake-up Club. Plus: discussion of what hardware lies ahead from Microsoft, Sony and Valve.
Check out the show here, check us out on iTunes or use the RSS feed in your favorite podcast aggregator. Let us know what you think! Email podcast[at]snackbar-games.com.
Hosts: Andrew Passafiume, Graham Russell, Shawn Vermette. Music: Podcast theme by Tom Casper.
Shawn’s been super-sick this week (get better, Shawn!), but the rest of the crew weighs in on the latest rumors about The Witcher and Pokemon, and wraps up a lot of the results for their previous predictions! READ MORE
