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Tower of Guns opens to PS3, PS4, Xbox One fans in early 2015
Tower of Guns, a bullet-hell-style shooter that's sprinkled with roguelike elements like procedurally-generated rooms and loot, will open fire on the PS3, PS4 and Xbox One (via the ID@Xbox program) early next year. The upcoming ports were announced in a post from Terrible Posture Games cofounder Joe Mirabello, which added that Grip Digital will be handling publishing duties. Cross-buy compatibility will be supported for the PS3 and PS4 ports, with the latter version running at 60 frames per second in 1080p. A Vita version sounds unlikely however – Grip Games' Jakub Mikyska explains that it was attempted, but Unreal Engine games don't run well on the handheld. Mikyska also noted that the device's CPU isn't quite up to handling Tower of Guns' clouds of projectiles, adding that even getting the PS3 version to work was difficult. PC users have been dodging Tower of Guns' bullets since March on Steam and GOG, with the latter store currently offering a 50 percent discount on the frenzied ascent. [Image: Terrible Posture Games]
A City Sleeps review: Bullet purgatory
PC, Mac A City Sleeps marks a bold new direction for developer Harmonix. After spending the last several years working on the big-budget Rock Band and Dance Central franchises, Harmonix is now scaling back its internal studio culture, forming small independent teams within the company to encourage new gameplay concepts that can be fleshed out quickly. A City Sleeps is the first project to launch in the wake of this major shift for the studio. While it doesn't require any musical instrument peripherals to play, the finished product retains much of Harmonix's signature charm, skillfully implementing rhythm-driven gameplay elements in the context of a side-scrolling, arcade-style shoot-'em-up. A City Sleeps succeeds on many fronts, but its short length and uneven difficulty curve make it a tough prospect even for hardcore shooter fans.
XBLIG bullet hell shooter Aeternum lands on PC for $3
Aeternum has been shooting up Xbox Live Indie Games for one year, and it's now available on PC for $3 via Humble, Desura and IndieGameStand. Aeternum is a sidescrolling bullet hell shooter starring Ellica, a student of Demonic Magic at Aeternum Academy. When Ellica's schoolmate disappears (not with an invisibility cloak), she must put aside schoolwork to find her friend. Aeternum features five levels complete with boss fights, and the PC version gets five difficulty settings, ranging from Easy to Lunatic. Legend has it that developer WastedBrilliance can't beat Lunatic mode, so ... have fun with that one.
G.rev's Mamorukun Curse! shoot-em-up arrives on PSN July 16
Japanese developer G.rev (probably best known as the co-developer of Ikaruga with Treasure) has announced that it will be bringing its cartoony shoot-em-up Mamorukun Curse! to North America, courtesy of publisher UFO Interactive Games. As you can see in the trailer, there's some serious bullet-hell action, with the big innovation being that scrolling up the screen is manual rather than automatic. This version will also include the Japanese DLC, which means two new maps, two new characters, and full Trophy support. Mamorukun Curse! showed up in Japan back in 2008 as Mamoru-kun wa Norowarete Shimatta!, but it'll finally arrive in the US on July 16, at a price of $19.99.
Deathsmiles iOS getting update August 6, see it on Ustream August 5
The iOS version of Cave's delightfully spooky/cute and incomprehensibly difficult bullet-hell shooter Deathsmiles will be receiving its first major update on August 6. In addition to new costumes and music, Cave will also be importing new weapons from two of its other shooters, Guwange and Dodonpachi Resurrection. At the moment, it's unclear whether or not these items will be included in the update, or will appear as for-pay DLC. The full update will be showcased on Ustream on August 5 by producer Masa King, who will also be making a "surprise announcement" of some kind. Our guess? Deathfrowns.
Cave developing shooter for Windows Phone 7
As far as Deathsmiles developer Cave is concerned, Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 platform can go to hell. Bullet-hell, that is! Makoto Asada, head of Cave's Game Development Department, has announced via dev-blog that the company is currently developing a shooter for Microsoft's burgeoning smartphone OS. Beyond the fact that development is somewhere between 20 and 30 percent complete, details are scarce. No screenshots or other information have been given, though the announcement refers to the game as an original title, which more than likely means it won't be a port of Cave's recent Deathsmiles release for iOS (above). It's also safe to assume that the game will be bewilderingly difficult.
Bullet Soul to show Japanese 360 owners what's shmup
We know the idea of a current-day shmup where the player spends more time firing bullets than avoiding them is pretty crazy, but that's actually the gameplay mechanic of 5pb's Bullet Soul. The look of this retail Xbox 360 title is the work of Bakemonogatari character designer Akio Wantanabe (any anime fans guess that before reading this far?), while on the soundtrack side, the team of Kenji Ito (Romancing SaGa) and Kouta Takahashi (Klonoa) are composing and arranging the tunes, respectively. Bullet Soul is due out in Japan this winter.
Over 800 Sketch Nation Shooter games created so far on the iPhone
Ever since I first played Sketch Nation Shooter back at GDC, this is what I've been waiting for -- a chance to see what the masses are doing with this wacky little game creation tool on the iPhone. In the app, players can make up their own graphics and assign their own rules to enemies and items within the top-down shooter genre, eventually creating their own full shooter game. And with over 800 games out there in the app, you can see that things are already getting creative in the video above. I love the bug spray one, and the magnet one is pretty brilliant, too. And there's even a "bullet hell" tribute in there -- that kind of game isn't my thing, but it's very interesting that these games are running the gamut from super casual to very hardcore. Creator Nitzan Wilnai says he's been overwhelmed by the response. He says that an update to the game is coming which will allow these games to be shared on Facebook as well, so we'll probably see even more of these come out in the future. If you haven't bought the app yet (it's 99 cents on the App Store), all of these games are both created by and playable in the app, and you can even share them with friends and rate them yourself. Very cool idea -- it'll be interesting to see if Wilnai eventually comes up with some more "Sketch Nation" genres. It'd be wild to use this system to design a game around some dungeon crawler or racing game rules.
Knights in the Nightmare heading to PSP
According to Siliconera, the latest issue of Famitsu brought great news to the loyal fans of Sting-developed strategy-RPGs: Knights in the Nightmare, a former DS exclusive, will soon be ported to the PSP. New features for the port include an animated opening title sequence and some much-needed tutorial missions. There's no official release date or word of an US localization for the title just yet -- we contacted Atlus to try and discern these details, but received a "No Comment" in return. We're as excited by this news as anyone else -- but all that multitasking in the game was pretty difficult to keep track of on two screens. The thought of trying to manage Knights' utterly perplexing combat system on a single screen is downright terrifying.
New shoot-em-up coming to 360: Raiden IV
Top down scrolling shooters have had a short but strange history on the 360. Despite being a port, Ikaruga has managed to become the most popular game of the genre on the system. So when DoDonPachi and Ketsui weren't allowed onto the Live Arcade we thought that MS simply didn't like the bullet hell shooters as much as the rest of us. While the aforementioned classics likely won't see any form of full retail release, we're glad that someone out there (Moss Ltd) sees fit to release another game like this.Raiden IV is currently set for Japanese release in September, with the developer expressing interest in following up with a Western release (oh please, oh please). The game has most all the bullet points one would expect from a great shump: vertical screen mode, recordable replays, and worldwide leaderboards, but sadly no co-op. Partly thanks to the increase in the "standard" graphical fidelity of games, older gameplay styles seem to be slowly dying out. We just hope that our favorite hardcore genres don't end up going the way of the dodo.
