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Listen to the entire Guild Wars 2 Super Adventure Box soundtrack
Enjoying your Super Adventure Box groove in Guild Wars 2? Then you've probably noticed the kicking 8-bit tunes as well. ArenaNet Composers Maclaine Diemer and Leif Chappelle put together 26 minutes of brand-new (and old-school) music tracks to power the super adventure, and you can listen to the whole shebang on SoundCloud. "It's not easy reducing a lush, bombastic orchestral piece into just the four channels we have available to us for 8-bit music," Diemer said. "After the initial statement of the theme, a galloping rhythm and bass line with more of a classic Zelda feel kick in, followed by a new melody that bridges the gap between the Guild Wars 2 we know and love and the world of Super Adventure Box." What's even better is that each of the tracks has composer notes attached to them, so if you're interested in how the duo came up with these catchy tunes and what inspired them, your curiosity shall soon be sated.
April Fools: Journey gets a trailer for Rocket Death Match DLC
thatgamecompany is probably the last group of folks we expect these shenanigans from; They're always so artsy and sincere! But there must be a few yuksters around Sony's studio in Santa Monica, because the studio created this faux trailer for April Fool's Day, threatening to invade the serene landscape of Journey with some raucous Rocket Death Match DLC. Then again, maybe it makes sense. Getting vaporized with an across-the-map rocket shot in Halo might not be the same kind of emotion that we felt at the end of Journey, but they can both be pretty tearful experiences.
April Fools: Dishonored creators lie about everything in their own game
Every year on April 1, the barrage of joke videos and announcements roll in, and every year, there's a clear winner in the "Oh, man, that's good" category. This year's frontrunner is a subtle, hilarious walkthrough video from Dishonored co-creators Raf Colantonio and Harvey Smith. Watch in wonderment as the pair spout off inaccuracies about their own game, all delivered in calm, professional tones.Listen for a few of our favorite lines, such as, "The thickness of the air is simulated," "This is the player's love interest," "The plants grow at real-time in the game," "For the rest of his life he has no legs," and the conversation about Fabrice's door-lighting expertise.
April Fools: Pokemon Mastery degrees
Today, the Pokémon Twitter account delivered a heartwarming anti-college message as its April Fools joke, highlighting a fake course schedule for a Pokémon Mastery degree, with a link to a page saying that "Every Pokémon Trainer knows that the road to becoming a Pokémon Master cannot be duplicated in the classroom. There's just no substitute for personal adventures, Gym battles, and friendship."It's only in the fantasy world of Pokémon that leaving home and wandering the woods from town to town at age 10 – basically becoming a tween drifter – is a sensible career move. Stay in school, kids! And drink your milk.
April Fools' Day around the virtual world
If our awesome Massively Online Kickstarter project didn't clue you in, it's April Fools' Day and liars, fibbers, and jokesters are everywhere. Some might be annoyed with the constant misdirection, but we find that it brings out a lot of creativity and humor in an industry that often needs more of both. You probably saw Guild Wars 2's incredible (and playable) Super Adventure Box, but that's not the end of the pranks that went around in the virtual world. There are strange new offerings in DDO's store, The Repopulation has an insane list of patch notes, SWTOR announced dance combat, and Puzzle Pirates is allowing players to sail... a barrel. Then there's Super Hero Squad Online's Bag-Man, World of Warcraft's Crabby, World of Tanks' zombies, EVE Online: Odyssey's new features, Razer's Mousephone, and TERA's small-ass monsters trying to get you to turn that frown upside-down. Those musically inclined will undoubtedly enjoy RuneScape: The Musical, and those in need of a bedtime story should turn to The Elder Scrolls Online. And if you haven't played League of Legends: CHEW, then you haven't lived. Just saying.
April Fools: Minecraft 2.0 is finally coming
No, it's really not, but in the ridiculous pranking tradition of April Fools Day, Mojang has curated a batch of fan-created trailers for a fictional Minecraft sequel. The videos feature update suggestions from Mojang, including death by chickens, exploding farm animals, floating sheep, horses, a "Hostile" game mode, six new decoration blocks (including Slime) and many more changes, listed here.Mojang teases that Minecraft 2.0's announcement comes in celebration of the PC series nearing 10 million sales. And no, that one isn't a joke.
April Fools: Sega's new surround sound is the greatest of all time
Sega is updating its classics with new "HD 3D surround sound," adding unbillyvable realism to its back catalog. Make sure the baalance on your speakers is set evenly, so the subtle ungulations of the surround sound come through.
April Fools: Football Manager 1888 edition announced
Chalk this April Fools joke up as cruel, because Sports Interactive's announcement of Football Manager 1888 today leaves us with a game we know doesn't exist that we want to play so badly. The developer says the fake game gives players "the option of taking over any of the original 12 clubs involved in the 1888/89 season and guiding them to league and cup glory."Screens of the management game's interface are sepia-toned and weathered, giving the game an "authentic" 1888-era look. "You will experience real life problems of the era, such as: players being called up to the army leaving you with a hole in your squad and players having to retire from football with immediate effect following a serious injury," the announcement reads.With the Football Manager modding community being as active as it is, we hope this mode will exist in some capacity in Football Manager 2013. Until then, it's just another one of today's April Fools jokes.
April Fools: WayForward's 'Cat Girl Without Salad' has everything but salad
Cat Girl Without Salad! is the newest game from WayForward, combining "elements from several gaming genres, including puzzler, platformer, shmup, action, shooter, adventure, strategy, fighting, rhythm, arcade, horror, tactical, RPG, TPS, RTS, and visual novel" into one game, due this fall "exclusively" for 3DS, DS, Wii, Wii U, XBLA, PSN, PC, Vita, iOS, and Android."Cat Girl Without Salad! stars space bounty hunter/chef Kebako and a team of "Calamarites," fighting the 'notoriously-tardy NekoNekoNeko Clan." Or it would, if it were real. This cacophonous omnigame is WayForward's April Fools' Day gag, to the great relief of our attention span.
April Fools: Deus Ex: Human Defiance augments triangles into pixels
The Deus Ex: Human Defiance news teased by Eidos Montreal yesterday turned out to be an appeal for fan support for a pseudo-8-bit sequel, which uses the greatly reduced budget required for graphics to add two new cities, Montreal and Moscow.This is clearly an April Fools' Day joke – and the winky-face Facebook response makes that even clearer – but it resulted in some real news. "Deus Ex: Human Defiance" was trademarked by Square Enix Europe, and related domains were registered by CBS Films, but the developer revealed in a comment on its Facebook page that "the Human Defiance name was registered on the off-chance it we might need it, but it was decided later that it wouldn't be used." Thus, it was repurposed for this joke.
Groove Coaster Zero adds its first horror story level
Taito's Groove Coaster Zero usually has players tapping icons to the tune of electronic music, but for today only, a new track explores a different genre: scary stories. If you load up the free-to-play iOS game between now and midnight PST, you'll get to play a new level set to a ghost story, narrated by Groove Coaster music director COSIO.Yes, this is an April Fool's Day joke. But it's the best kind of April Fool's Day joke, in our opinion, because they really did it. Now, the other joke, a special installation of the Groove Coaster arcade machine called Groove Coaster DX, isn't real, and it's for the best. You'll see why after the break.
Your guide to Guild Wars 2's Super Adventure Box
April is almost upon us, which means that the first day of April is almost upon us, which means that April Fools' Day is almost upon us. In the past, the folks at ArenaNet have proven themselves fond of celebrating this occasion, which has given fans high hopes for continued trolling in the world of Guild Wars 2. Since March's patch, strange things have been appearing that all seem to hint at some sort of April Fools' joke: Super Adventure Box achievements on the hero panel, mysterious Continue Coins falling out of chests, and a new range of weapon skins added to the sPvP weapon pane. Of course, it's been pointed out to me that perhaps the most delicious joke of all would be to put in all those clues and then have no actual prank. I can almost taste the rage of fans who had compulsively run characters through jumping puzzles for days in an attempt to stock up on Continue Coins that suddenly turned out to be worthless. Fortunately (or not, depending on your sense of humor), that's not the case at all. The Super Adventure Box is real, and it's almost time for you to start playing it. Let's talk about it, shall we?
