“Street Fighter X Mega Man” Now Available!

Twenty-five years ago today, back on December 17, 1987, the first game in what became a huge Capcom franchise was released.  The original “Mega Man” was a game that really changed things up, giving players the choice to decide what levels they wanted to tackle, giving them new weapons for defeating foes, and presenting them with an interesting new futuristic world to fight to save.  The first game was popular enough to spawn six major sequels on the NES and then go on to cover titles on all the major platforms over the years.  Even if the series seems somewhat in limbo because of major changes that have happened over at Capcom here in the last couple of years, the company still claims that the character is important to them.

Throughout the next year, I’d like to do certain special highlights on different parts of the series, varying from discussions about the lore of the different series, showcasing different Robot Masters I like, and even doing some Let’s Play videos of various games in the series.  In fact, I intend to do a video of this recent game, “Street Fighter X Mega Man.”

But, enough of that!  As the title of this post implies, Capcom‘s little surprise for the Blue Bomber’s 25th birthday is now available for download.  This title, called “Street Fighter X Mega Man,” celebrates the anniversaries of both Mega Man and the Street Fighter series.  What started out as a fan-game quickly evolved into a full-fledged commercial product, albeit the game is free for everyone to enjoy.  With the cancellations of major titles like “Mega Man Universe” and “Mega Man Legends 3,” at least the company realizes that they owe the fans something.  And, execs at the company claim that this is only the beginning of special things we will see throughout the year for Mega Man!

Whether that is true or not will remain to be seen, but for now, head on over to Capcom-Unity, get the free game, and kick some butt!

R.I.P. “G4″ (2002-2013)

Recently, it was announced that the channel G4 was going to cease operations and be rebranded as the Esquire channel in the first-half of 2013.  While this was certainly news to some, this seemed something that was in the works for a while, especially considering that “Attack of the Show!” and “XPlay” were both cancelled in October of 2012.

The decision to rebrand the channel comes from a desire to aim it towards the “modern male” and therefore it will feature programs about travel, lifestyle, fashion, cooking, and, yes, gaming.

Was this change necessary, and how do others feel about it?

Reaction among members of the gaming community seems mixed so far, with some people going so far as to say that they never liked G4 in the first place, saying it was a dumbed-down version of Tech TV that was aimed at “brain-dead 12-year-olds.”  This reaction may be a bit harsh, but one thing remains clear: This is certainly a bold change and will likely cost that network most of whatever gaming audience they had.

“Street Fighter X Mega Man” Anyone?

As you guys likely know, I’ve been pretty worried for a while here that we wouldn’t see anything significant for Mega Man’s 25th anniversary (December 17, 2012).  In fact, this seems to be the general feeling that most of the fan community has had lately. Yet, today I saw a nifty post over at Protodude’s Rockman Corner that, upon reading, was quite shocking: Apparently, Capcom is releasing a free PC game on December 17 for all fans around the world to enjoy.

What kind of PC game, you ask?

Titled “Street Fighter X Mega Man,” this game is an 8-bit styled Mega Man game that pits the titular hero against characters from the Street Fighter series.  Sound familiar? Well, this project saw its origins in a fan game that was being developed by Seow Zong Hui (Sonic88 on Youtube), but when Seow approached Christian Svensson at EVO 2012 to show him the project, Svensson decided to get others involved and take what was originally meant to be a fan-game and give it the official Capcom seal of approval.

That’s a damn good feather in Seow’s cap, if you ask me.

The game, which is due out on December 17, will celebrate both Mega Man and Street Fighter‘s 25th anniversaries and will be free for all fans to download and enjoy!

Get Your “Minecraft” Tees from Threadless!

If you are a fan of “Minecraft,” you might be happy to know that Threadless has some pretty awesome fan-designed T-Shirts for sale that were inspired by the cult game.  These could make for something fun for you to wear or, if you know someone that loves the game but is otherwise hard to shop for, you could pick this up for them as a neat holiday gift!

Their collection is pretty large, so if you are interested, head to their “Threadless Loves Minecraft” page and take a look!

Will Disney Save “City of Heroes?”

With the long-running MMO “City of Heroes” scheduled to shut its doors on November 30, a very large and vocal group of fans have risen to the occasion to encourage NCSoft to keep the game running or, failing that, to find someone else who would be willing to take the rights of the game, revive it, and take it to new levels.  In a world flooded with MMORPGs, many of which are mediocre, it’s easy to see why a company might choose to fold one game that was only marginally profitable, or which was deemed to have reached its fulfillment, and focus on new, more modern projects.  Yet, “City of Heroes” is a game that really changed how some people viewed online games by changing the mold a bit.  Even though “Champions Online” proved to be a decent successor to this original title, the game still has a strong and dedicated following more than eight years after its release.

On November 27 it was revealed that the “Save City of Heroes” campaign had tapped author Mercedes Lackey to write a letter to the Walt Disney corporation to see if they might consider picking up the rights to the game.  After all, she says,  “We believe that Disney and City of Heroes are a perfect match; Disney now owns Marvel and two impending Marvel MMOs which are slated to be mirror opposites of the cooperative, community gameplay fostered by City of Heroes.”  Lackey goes on to say that Disney does a great job with community relations and fostering a loyal fan-base, something, she says, that NCSoft has failed to do.  While no one would likely argue against Disney being good at fostering loyalty, some might take issue with stating that ArenaNet and NCSoft didn’t do that good of a job with it as they seemed to handle “Guild Wars” and “Guild Wars 2″ quite nicely.

Will fans be able to convince someone to pick up the game so that it doesn’t go away forever?  That’s hard to say, but Disney does now own Marvel, so it would seem that a super-hero MMO wouldn’t be bad for them to pick up.

For more information on the “Save City of Heroes” campaign, visit their website at:

http://www.savecoh.com

Correction to the Zelda Timeline!

I was looking through some old posts I had made regarding the Zelda timeline, particularly as it related to the timeline presented in Hyrule Historia (due out January 29, 2013 for those of you who are interested in buying it in English!).  As I skimmed through these, I realized that I had made an error.

First, though, let’s recognize that there are indeed three distinct timelines discussed in the upcoming book:

BEFORE THE SPLIT:  Skyward Sword -> Minish Cap -> Four Swords -> Ocarina of Time

TIMELINE 1: Ocarina of Time ->  A Link to the Past -> Oracles of Ages & Seasons -> Link’s Awakening -> The Legend of Zelda -> Adventure of Link

TIMELINE 2: Ocarina of Time -> The Wind Waker -> Phantom Hourglass -> Spirit Tracks

TIMELINE 3: Ocarina of Time -> Majora’s Mask -> Twilight Princess -> Four Swords Adventures

The error that I made, though, was in relation to what caused these timelines.  Here is what seems to be the proper explanation:

When Link draws the Master Sword as a child, he is transported (in the interest of keeping things simple) to the “future.”  Thus, in his own contemporary time, he is not present to defeat Ganondorf.  This, apparently, eventually leads to the “Imprisoning War” that eventually leaves Ganon in what becomes the Dark World, having been sealed there by the Seven Sages.  From this point, we get Timeline 1, which consists of all of the 2D games.

Once Link defeats Ganon in the future, he departs, returning to his childhood.  Thus, when Ganon returns eventually in this post-apocalyptic future, no one is there to stop him and eventually the people plea to the gods to have Hyrule sealed below the seas, thus leading to Timeline 2.

Finally, the “new past” that Link returns to and warns Zelda of Ganon’s evil (thus leading to him being eventually sealed in the Twilight Realm) is what leads to Timeline 3.

Hopefully this clears things up a bit!  Of course, everything will be much clearer once this book hits press in English this coming January!

A Teaser of “The Lost Shores”

For those not fully in the know, there is a major update to “Guild Wars 2″ coming on November 16, but what’s more, you can currently see hints of what all this will entail in Lion’s Arch now!  Yes, the city now has posters, new ships, some kind of travel office with nautical charts of the Sea of Sorrows, and an unactivated Asura Gate for you to check out.  The posters actually are very fun to read, and thankfully people have actually gone and translated them into English from New Krytan.

Fun times, eh?

To see some more information about this update and to see translations of the posters, check out this link here.

Would an “Elder Scrolls” MMORPG Suffer a Similar Fate to TOR?

Ever since the May 3 announcement of an Elder Scrolls MMORPG being in development, I’ve had to wonder about a couple things.  Initially, I thought it might be really neat to see an MMORPG in that universe.  After all, the games are so incredibly well-done and the universe they are in is so rich that it practically lends itself to an MMO.

Or does it?

The more I’ve thought about this and discussed the idea with people, the more I am becoming convinced that an MMORPG in that series would probably end up being much like “Star Wars: The Old Republic.”  Don’t get me wrong: If you are thoroughly enjoying that game still and love its single-player approach to an online game (odd concept, right?) then by all means continue to enjoy it!  On the other hand, if you have your doubts about the style of TOR and its overall execution, likely you’d have the same issues with this proposed game.  After all, the Elder Scrolls titles are so immersive and really draw you into their worlds perhaps more than almost any other game.

But wait: Doesn’t TOR derive from a series that also did the same thing?

I have a strong feeling that one of two things will happen to an Elder Scrolls MMORPG: It will either be a pay-to-play single-player experience quite similar to TOR or, in order to prevent that, they will fall back on the old tried-and-true (and boring!) models games have these days and just be “another MMORPG” set in the Elder Scrolls universe.

It’s very likely the game won’t be seen until at least later in 2013, if not later than that.  Still, I’d love to hear some of your thoughts on the matter!

“The Elder Scrolls Online?” Yes, Please!

Today, Bethesda Softworks announced that a new project in The Elder Scrolls series was under development.  You might think that in and of itself was cool enough, but it gets better: The next game will be an MMORPG!  Indeed, the previous games possessed a massive open-world feel to them that made them feel as if they were online games without other real players there (heck, the NPCs were incredibly dynamic!).  So, it seems that the developers have finally chosen to play off of that idea and construct a truly deep and vibrant world to be enjoyed with countless people worldwide.

According to their official press release:

The Elder Scrolls Online is being developed for PC and Mac under the leadership of industry veteran Matt Firor, who has spent the last two decades working in online game development. Details about the game are revealed in an exclusive cover story in Game Informer®’s June issue, which ships to subscribers and newsstands this month.

“We have been working hard to create an online world in which players will be able to experience the epic Elder Scrolls universe with their friends, something fans have long said they wanted,” said Matt Firor, game director of The Elder Scrolls Online. “It will be extremely rewarding finally to unveil what we have been developing the last several years. The entire team is committed to creating the best MMO ever made – and one that is worthy of The Elder Scrolls franchise.”

The game is set to take place 1,000 years before the events of “The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim” and although a release date has yet to be announced, 2013 is likely the target release year.

SOURCE: Bethesda Softworks

“Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning” Launches its 1st DLC!

“Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning,” a critically-acclaimed RPG, releases its first downloadable content pack today!  The DLC, entitled “The Legend of Dead Kel,” is available on the PlayStation Network, XBox Live, Origin, and Steam.  According to Electronic Arts, “the extended gameplay features an enthralling tale of intrigue, danger and dark magic on the island of Gallows End with mysterious characters, a host of new side quests, treacherous battles with new enemies and exciting new challenges. The Legend of Dead Kel gives players access to Gallows End, a gigantic new landmass to explore where players can claim ownership of a vast personal estate and experience new weapons, Twists of Fate and other perks against new enemies.”

For those of you who have already finished the main game, “The Legend of Dead Kel” will give you more to enjoy.  The add-on is available for $9.99 USD.

SOURCE: Electronic Arts