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PAX Prime schedule is live, already exhausting to look at

PAX Prime schedule is live
Going to PAX Prime? The organizers of the annual Seattle show, which runs from August 30 through September 2, have just posted the full schedule online and it's a doozy.

Peter Molyneux's story time session will kick off the show on Friday morning. Other notable panels cover how Naughty Dog pitched The Last of Us, a roundtable with Grifball experts, a Firaxis Games talk and the requisite games journalism panels that happen every year. Then there's the PAX 10, a gathering of ten top indie games as chosen by 50 industry experts, which will be showcased on the floor.

It's going to be a hectic show, so you'd best start combing through the packed schedule if you're planning on spending that long weekend bumping elbows with your fellow enthusiasts in Seattle.

Knights of Pen and Paper dev's new game Chroma Squad hits Kickstarter goal

Knights of Pen and Paper developer Behold Studios has successfully Kickstarted its new project, Chroma Squad. The game follows a group of stuntmen who open their own "sentai" TV studio, a base to film stories about costumed heroes teaming up to defeat big beasts a la Power Rangers or Captain Planet.

Chroma Squad passed its $55,000 goal with 16 days to go, and (as of this writing) has 2,505 backers who've pledged $60,870.

Player must manage the entire studio by purchasing equipment, hiring actors and enduring an inability to tell what is reality and what is part of the show. The game also features various role-playing game elements and tactical turn-based combat.

Chroma Squad is scheduled to combine its powers, connect the lions, and call upon Zordon in late 2013 on PC, Mac and Linux. While the game has a stint on Steam Greenlight, Behold Studios is planning a tablet version for iOS and Android in mid-2014, as well as potential console ports for PS4 and Xbox One in late 2014.

Battlefield 4's Battlescreen won't hit PS3, Xbox 360



Battlescreen won't work on PS3 or Xbox 360 versions of Battlefield 4, Battlelog Assistant Producer Jesper Nielsen tells Engadget. Battlelog for Battlefield 4 includes a Battlescreen feature that populates the player's current, live map on a tablet, smartphone or PC – but only when playing the game on Xbox One, PS4 or PC.

"Battlelog is powered by the web, and that has a lot of implications," Nielsen says. "There are a lot of different things you can do, things you can do faster, rather than building stuff in native code."

Battlelog for Battlefield 4 will feature regional leaderboards, will allow players to build weapons loadouts on a secondary screen before starting the game or during wait time between deaths, and will let players change servers mid-game, alongside the standard stats readings.

Gods will be watching you play Gods Will Be Watching


Gods Will Be Watching was a Ludum Dare game jam project that had players survive 40 days in a virus-prone, wintry forest with crew members teetering on the edge of insanity and no contact to the outside world – unless you fixed the radio. Maybe. Developer Deconstructeam took this original idea and expanded it into a full game of moral choices, torture and "just following orders," and asked for 8,000€ on Indiegogo. So far the team has raised 14,981€ and has 12 days to go.

The full version of Gods Will Be Watching will feature six levels, new cinematics and a fresh empathy system that improves the game's AI. The levels will include running a hostage situation, where players must maintain a balance of calm and terror in the hostages, and possibly kill one (or two, or three) as an example to the other victims. Another level gives the protagonist 48 hours to live as a virus works its way through his body and he tests experimental vaccines on his colleagues to find the cure. And, of course, there's the "survive 20 days of torture" level.

Play the original Gods Will Be Watching here for a taste of the moral and scientific conundrums facing players in the full game. Gods Will Be Watching should launch on PC, Mac, Linux and mobile with this funding, and the next stretch goal of 25,000€ will add online leaderboards.

Capcom announces Breath of Fire 6 amid slew of online games

Capcom announces Breath of Fire 6, other online games for 'mainly' Japan, Asia
Capcom announced a whole load of online games for "mainly Japanese and Asian markets" this week, but one in particular stood out: Breath of Fire 6 for PC, iOS, and Android.

For a decade Capcom brought the JRPG series worldwide to consoles, including the SNES, PS1, and PS2, but has since restricted the series to Japan-only mobile games. Breath of Fire 6 is the series' first numbered entry since 2003, and the first of those not announced for a console. As for it heading west, Capcom told Eurogamer it's "currently undecided." Either way, the game comes to Japan in summer 2014.

Capcom's unveiled collection of upcoming online games also featured the previously announced Deep Down for PS4, and Monster Hunter Frontier G for PS3 and Wii U. As for the newly announced online games, they're mostly restricted to iOS and Android, and as Capcom stated aren't on the whole likely to be released outside of Japan and Asia.

You can see Capcom's released list of upcoming online games, along with their platforms and release dates in Japan and Asia, here.

Fran Bow tells the tortured tale of a girl having a rough time



A "rough time" might be putting it lightly for poor Fran Bow – she stumbles upon the brutally dismembered corpses of her parents, runs into the forest with her precious black cat, passes out and wakes up in a dysfunctional mental institution for children: Oswald Asylum. Fran Bow is a psychological, horror point-and-click that offers players the ability to self-medicate as a mechanic, popping pills to uncover a "terrible hidden world" that might help Fran escape the hospital.

The two developers at Killmonday, Isak Martinsson and Natalia Figueroa, are seeking $20,000 on Indiegogo to finish up the game for its planned 2014 launch on PC, Mac, Linux, Android and iOS, and maybe Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8. Martinsson and Figueroa have been working on Fran Bow for seven months already and are just about done with the second of five chapters, their page says. It's also on Steam Greenlight.

So far Fran Bow looks like a classic story of personal hell and redemption, with vibes of Alice in Wonderland and Sucker Punch, sprinkled with a few extra shakes of the pill bottle.

Sonic CD travels through time, lands on Ouya

Sonic CD travels through time, lands on Ouya
Sega's time-traveling 16-bit platformer Sonic CD is now available for download via the Ouya's Discover store, joining previously released Ouya ports of Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 1 and Episode 2.

Originally released for the Sega CD add-on in 1993, Sonic CD arrived on Xbox Live Arcade, the PlayStation Network, and mobile platforms in 2011 as an enhanced port built using a custom engine. The Ouya version of Sonic CD offers the same set of features as the 2011 port, including widescreen support and the addition of Tails as a playable character.

The Ouya version of Sonic CD is priced at $2.99.

Temple Run 2 adds Usain Bolt, because it can and why not

Temple Run 2 adds Usain Bolt, because it can
Dev Imangi Studios announced it's signed up Jamaican sprint star Usain bolt to be a playable character in Temple Run 2, probably the biggest proof yet beyond hard figures that Temple Run is a completely massive thing. The world's fastest man and Olympic gold factory is available now as an in-app purchase of 99 cents, but only for a limited time.

Of course, being Usain Bolt, he has a unique power-up that combines the speed boost with the coin magnet; we're not sure there's a better analogy for his lucrative life. Meanwhile, Temple Run 2 has been a similarly lucrative record breaker for Imangi, taking just 13 days to become the fastest-ever mobile game to reach 50 million downloads.

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Shadowrun Returns review: Hack the planet


There is no single word in the English language more objectively radical than "cyberpunk." One could even describe the word as "awesome" or "gnarly" or any number of other terms that really should have died off around the time MTV stopped playing music videos. Cyberpunk may not have been invented in the 1990s, but it's the perfect symbol for the goofy excesses of the decade. At one point, the sort of techno-fetishist fantasy seen in the Shadowrun pen and paper game was the height of geek cool, and the newly released Shadowrun Returns either stands as proof that it is still is, or that we collectively spend far too much time pining for the Clinton administration.

The world of Shadowrun Returns is best described as a hybrid of cyberpunk noir and Tolkien-esque fantasy. Almost every important event takes place in or around the particularly-cool-circa-1994 city of Seattle, and you can expect to see orcs casting spells just as often as you'll spot elves who've traded half of their flesh for cybernetic implants. You play the role of a hardened "shadowrunner" (think: cyberpunk mercenary) who has been hired by a recently deceased friend to track down the people who killed him. For the most part the story follows traditional noir plot points from there on out. You investigate the scene of the crime, track down the victim's sister and uncover a massive conspiracy that wouldn't seem out of place in a Mickey Spillane novel (were it not for the horse-sized, immortal space bugs you periodically encounter).

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Nvidia Shield review

Nvidia Shield review
If necessity is the mother of invention, then the Nvidia Shield is a parentless enigma.

The Shield is an interesting marriage of analog and touch-based tech, a $300 device with a clamshell design housing a "retinal" display – a 720p multi-touch OLED – all on top of a hefty dual-analog control setup beneath it. It's an impressive piece of technology, one that can stream PC games, play Android games and output anything to a TV via mini-HDMI.

The Shield accomplishes a great number of tasks but, outside of PC game streaming, it doesn't fill a need that isn't already being fulfilled elsewhere by cheaper devices.

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Guitar Hero veterans form interactive fitness studio, Blue Goji

Guitar Hero veterans form interactive fitness company, Blue Goji
Charles and Kai Huang, founders of original Guitar Hero producer RedOctane, are venturing into another aspect of the physical gaming industry – exercise. Blue Goji is an "interactive fitness company" that aims to make cardio exercise a social experience with games and by tracking individual work-out goals on mobile devices.

Blue Goji will attach to smartphones and tablets on treadmills, elliptical machines and stationary bicycles, specifically. The team is accepting developer applications.

Charles Huang is also CEO and co-founder of Green Throttle, a peripheral company announced in November focused on bringing smartphone games to the big screen. Now that Chales Huang has "blue" and "green" covered, we're looking forward to his next venture, "Pink Elephant."

'Puzzle and Dragons' pushes GungHo sales to $763 million through June

GungHo
GungHo sales from January to June 2013 were $763 million, up 946 percent year-over-year, Dr. Serkan Toto translates from the company's financial report. Its net income during the period was $287 million, up 2,609 percent from 2012. Between April and June alone, GungHo brought in $4.9 million a day in sales, for a net income of $161 million.

GungHo's main source of all this magical cash is Puzzle & Dragons, a mobile RPG puzzler. Sales from Puzzle & Dragons tallied $113 million in April, earning $3.76 million daily. The game currently has 17 million players in Japan.

GungHo operates other games, too, and it expects overall July sales to hit "just" $138 million, bringing the daily average to $4.5 million per day, down from the April - June average of $4.9 million. Puzzle & Dragons is on its way to 3DS in Japan this winter, and it should hit the UK and Australia this year for mobile platforms.

Ouya CEO: 27 percent of Ouya owners have bought a game

Thus far, it doesn't seem that Ouya developers have been raking in the money, with only a few developers reporting sales in the thousands of dollars. Ouya CEO Julie Uhrman defended the console, telling The Verge that sales have been "better than expected" and adding that it's "too early" to judge the platform's success.

Regardless of the money being earned, a full 27 percent of Ouya owners have purchased a game, she said. Furthermore, 13 of the top 20 Ouya games have earned an 8 percent conversion rate, a number she said many developers would "kill for" on such a young platform. She predicted that by the end of 2013, "we'll see a few developers telling us they've made more than a million dollars on Ouya."

Shadowrun Returns developer to Kickstart 'Golem Arcana' tabletop game in August


While the majority of Harebrained Schemes is still knee deep in developing content for its Kickstarted strategy-RPG Shadowrun Returns, which just launched today, a small team has already begun work on the developer's next project: Golem Arcana, a smartphone/tablet-assisted tabletop game.

As explained by founder Jordan Weisman, Golem Arcana is set in a world where powerful Golems do the bidding of their creators, who infuse organic materials with magic in order to create obedient, deadly homunculi. A Kickstarter campaign will be launched sometime next month in order to fuel development, though Weisman did not say how much money the team is looking to raise.

Golem Arcana's gameplay takes place on a physical battle map with figurines representing the golems, but the gameplay mechanics are calculated and implemented by a smartphone or tablet running an associated app. Using a proprietary stylus, players tap on the battle map or the figures to summon relevant information in the app. During battle, taping an ability and targeting a figure initiates combat inside of the app, which then spits out results and information about the turn.

PSA: Prince of Persia - The Shadow and the Flame out on mobile


The updated mobile version of Prince of Persia 2, rechristened as Prince of Persia: The Shadow and the Flame has made the leap to availability. You can find it now, clinging to the edges of iOS and Android stores, clutching at a price of $3.

Prince of Persia Classic HD dev Ubisoft Pune is once again the team behind a regal remaster, this time bringing a visual and audio makeover, a fresh combat system with new weapons, the choice between gesture or virtual joystick touch controls, and leaderboards to fight over as well - as if the prince didn't have enough things to climb.

New Nexus 7 tablet coming July 30, carried by GameStop

New Nexus 7 tablet coming July 30, will be sold at GameStop
A new version of the Nexus 7 tablet is coming to market on July 30, anxious to show off its thinner and lighter summer body to the world.

The new Nexus 7, which sports an increased 1,920 x 1,200 resolution and upgraded innards, will retail for $230 for the 16GB model and $270 for the 32GB model. A $350 model supporting LTE will be available "in the coming weeks." The latest version of Android, Jelly Bean 4.3, is on board the 7-inch tablet.

Just as it did with the original Nexus 7 tablet, GameStop will be selling the updated Nexus 7 tablet - both online and in-store. "The original Nexus 7 was a great success for both GameStop and Google, and we are excited to continue this success as the 7-inch tablet and Android market continue to grow," said GameStop's VP of mobile, Joe Gorman, in an announcement. Anyone who comes into GameStop and trades in goods toward a new Nexus 7 will receive an extra 30% in credit for a limited time.

Battlefield 3 Premium subscribers over 4 million, Origin exceeds 50 million

EA has dusted off the Numbers Trumpet™ and is celebrating subscriber milestones for both its Battlefield 3 Premium service and its digital distribution platform, Origin.

Battlefield 3 Premium subscribers have surpassed four million in total, up from the 2.9 million subscribers reported in January. As of January, EA secured $108 million in revenue from the shooter's content service, though no update on that figure is available in the latest financial report.

Over 50 million users have registered accounts on Origin, an increase of over 20 million users since October of last year. EA's DRM and content delivery service was introduced in June of 2011 and, according to comments from EA VP Andrew Wilson earlier this year, is currently shifting away from a means of driving transactions into "a service to gamers."

Double Fine's Dropchord on Leap Motion now, other platforms dated


Double Fine announced that its Leap Motion-powered rhythm-action game, Dropchord, is now available for Windows and Mac, with ports for Ouya, iOS, and Android set to launch next week.

The Leap Motion is a movement-sensing USB peripheral that tracks individual finger joints and player gestures. Created by a team of developers who previously worked on Double Fine's Kinect Party, Dropchord challenges players to manipulate an on-screen light beam using their fingers, dodging obstacles as they collect notes and build upon a backing music track.

Dropchord is priced at $2.99. An Ouya version will premiere on July 31, and ports for iOS and Android will arrive on August 1.

Nvidia Shield shipping on July 31 to hands near you

Nvidia's Android-powered handheld gaming system Shield will ship July 31, Nvidia announced. The system was originally expected to launch June 27, but shipment was pushed back to July due to a mechanical issue found during the console's QA process.

Our hands-on time with the Shield found some similarities to the Xbox 360 controller, with a little more bulk than a PlayStation Vita, thanks in no small part to its 5-inch, multi-touch, 720p display.

Star Ocean: Material Trader is social, card-based RPG

Star Ocean returns in social game Material Trader, series fans weep
The next Star Ocean game, Star Ocean: Material Trader, will incorporate the series' universe of characters and items into a social-oriented, role-playing card game, according to Siliconera's translation of Gamer's report. Series Producer Yoshinori Yamagishi is working with Circle of Mana developer Hippos Lab, Square-Enix's smartphone division, to lead Material Trader's development. The game will reach iOS and Android devices this year.

Players help the game's protagonist Tina by collecting "star shards," tackling quests, gathering experience and hoarding money. Hunting for materials and characters while exploring seems to be essential to boosting odds of success in the game. The series' trademark Item Creation mechanic also returns, allowing players to create and equip powerful accessories to their favorite cards.

Those who register before it releases will get a special card of Star Ocean: Till the End of Time's Peppita Rossetti.

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