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Best of the Rest: Danny's picks of 2014
ATTENTION: The year 2014 has concluded its temporal self-destruct sequence. If you are among the escapees, please join us in salvaging and preserving the best games from the irradiated chrono-debris. Fantasy Life Sometimes, you just wanna sidequest. For those times, there's Fantasy Life. Fantasy Life is fun in the way that checking off items on a checklist is fun. There's a solid action-RPG here from Professor Layton series creator Level-5, sure, but much of my time in Fantasy Life was spent completing sidequests, crafting equipment, and hunting down component items so that I could craft more equipment and complete more sidequests. You don't even have to kill anything to complete the game - you can smith, cook, sew, and alchemize your way to victory if that's the way you want to play it. Fantasy Life is an endless grind that remains compelling even after I've completed hundreds of its quests. If you don't fit into its niche, you'll be bored immediately. If you're a specific breed of completionist, Fantasy Life is impossible to put down. In either case, beware.
Best of the Rest: Thomas' picks of 2014
ATTENTION: The year 2014 has concluded its temporal self-destruct sequence. If you are among the escapees, please join us in salvaging and preserving the best games from the irradiated chrono-debris. Disney Fantasia: Music Evolved I love listening to music alone. When no one's looking, I'm free to tap out drum beats, put on emotional lip-synchs and flail in synch with a song's swelling heights. Playing Disney Fantasia: Music Evolved is a lot like those solo jam sessions in the way it grants a free pass to completely lose myself in a song's components. Sure, I look ridiculous, but I have to! Matching notes with halfhearted swipes and restrained punches just leads to broken combos, as if the Kinect is the all-knowing gaze of an instructor ready to belittle a cold, tired performance. Substituting instruments and creating remixes adds a welcome element of experimentation to Fantasia, but it's the core focus of moving with music that brings me back each week. It's increasingly difficult to ignore life's noise while playing a game as I grow older, but Fantasia's peak moments tune out every distraction, leaving me with an uninhibited excuse to enjoy twisted, endearing remixes of songs that I love.
Best of the Rest: Sam's picks of 2014
WildStar I grew up during what I'd consider "the golden age" of MMO games. I was there for the launch of World of Warcraft, as well as earlier titles like EverQuest and Ultima Online. The genre has a very special place in my heart, and WildStar felt like the last, major, "true" MMO (as opposed to games like Bungie's Destiny that possess MMO-like features) release that we would see in a long time, possibly ever again. A last hurrah, if you will. And what a hurrah it is. We don't really "review" MMOs here, but through a series of postcards, I chronicled my time with a game that is in no uncertain language a fantastic piece of craftsmanship. The visuals are bright and colorful, with a Pixar-esque personality evident throughout. The gameplay is fresh and fast, requiring constant focus instead of hotkey rotation memorization. And of course, the housing. Oh, how I could spend hours simply customizing my plot of land with various wallpapers, decor, even mini-quest objectives. WildStar is a thoughtfully-constructed game with a wealth of content. True that it relied a bit too much on large-scale endgame raids and the promised monthly updates fizzled shortly after launch, but I don't regret a moment spent on Planet Nexus.
Skrillex, Coldplay headline Fantasia: Music Evolved DLC
Harmonix revealed a slate of DLC tracks it has in store for its Kinect-powered Xbox One rhythm game Fantasia: Music Evolved, with Skrillex & Alvin Risk's "Try It Out," Soundgarden's "Spoonman," and Coldplay's "Paradise" premiering via Xbox Live today. 18 downloadable tracks will join Fantasia's catalog by the end of January, mixing classics like The Cure's "Just Like Heaven" and Talking Heads' "Burning Down the House" with newer fare like Justin Beiber's "As Long As You Love Me" and Maroon 5's "Lucky Strike." Add-on tracks are priced at $1.99 apiece. A list of all current and upcoming DLC for Fantasia: Music Evolved is after the break below. [Image: Disney / Harmonix]
Fantasia: Music Evolved review: The rhythm is gonna get you
If you've seen the movie Fantasia, you know the bit where Mickey, the Sorcerer's Apprentice, puts on his robe and wizard hat and tries to make magic happen, arms sweeping grandly through the air. Things eventually get out of hand, of course, but for a brief while, Mickey feels the euphoric glee that comes with mastering something really difficult, and in its best moments, Fantasia: Music Evolved makes you feel the exact same way. Pulling off its complicated combos makes you feel like an honest-to-goodness wizard, bending the forces of light and music to your mighty will. Best of all, no pesky brooms to clean up if you miss a beat. The game doesn't really bear all that much resemblance to the movies that shares its name, though cranky sorcerer Yen Sid does make an appearance. You are indeed his apprentice, but your job is to clean up the noise that's cluttering several different areas of the world after Scout, another protege of Yen Sid, accidentally releases it by trying to get a peek at her future. She'd be happy to clean it up herself, but she doesn't have the magic that you learned as the sorcerer's apprentice, so it's on you to restore the music to each location. As cleanup duties go, it's way more fun than mucking about with a bucket and broom.
Totes download the Disney Fantasia demo on Xbox today
Fantasia: Music Evolved, the music experience game from the studio behind Rock Band and Dance Central, has a demo out today on both Xbox One and Xbox 360 platforms. You'll be able to conduct the full game on October 21. Unlike the film series' focus on classical pieces, Fantasia: Music Evolved features a mix of full orchestra pieces and those pop beats all the kids are boppin' and groovin' to these days. Music Evolved's modern songs include a selection featuring Bruno Mars, Drake and the ever wholesome Nicki Minaj.
Fantasia's full set list includes Gaga, Jimi Hendrix, Flaming Lips
You won't know exactly what Fantasia: Music Evolved's set list will sound like once you put your own twist on it, but at least now you know what you'll be working with: Harmonix shared the remainder of Fantasia's tracks at PAX Prime today, with the final portion including Jimi Hendrix's "Fire," Lady Gaga's "Applause," The Flaming Lips' "Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots, Pt. 1" and contributions from Imagine Dragons, J.S. Bach, New Order, Liszt, Inon Zur and Missy Elliot. Yup, the sampling is still all over the place. You can remind yourself of Fantasia's previously-announced songs with a full bulletpoint set list after the break, but if you want more than the base offering, placing a pre-order will earn you three more songs: OneRepublic's "Counting Stars," Demi Lovato's take on Frozen's "Let It Go" and Avicii's "Lay Me Down." [Image: Harmonix]
Phil Spencer: Consumers love Kinect, they'll still buy it
Microsoft's recent, unexpected decision to offer an Xbox One without a mandatory Kinect camera peripheral will not drive developers away from the device, according to Xbox head Phil Spencer. "A Kinect game relies on the successful Xbox One installed base," Spencer told GamesIndustry. "I need to, as the head of Xbox, make sure that we've got a platform and a product offering that millions of consumers will love, and I stay focused on that." "We see millions and millions of people using Kinect today. We've had over a billion voice commands used," Spencer added. "Consumers love the device; they love the experience. They'll buy it. They'll either buy it at launch when they buy their console, or they'll be able to buy it after the $399 console; they'll pick it up and add it on later. And we'll continue to make sure that experience is great." Despite Spencer's assurances, reactions from Kinect developers have been less than positive. Staff at Harmonix, developer of Disney Fantasia: Music Evolved, responded to the news with sarcastic glee, before officially stating, "As game makers, this platform change doesn't affect our strategy - it reinforces that we must continue to focus on building innovative, compelling and well-designed motion experiences to motivate consumers to buy our games."
Joystiq Weekly: GOG's Galaxy, Murdered: Soul Suspect review, Homefront's combat and more
Welcome to Joystiq Weekly, a "too long; didn't read" of each week's biggest stories, reviews and original content. Each category's top story is introduced with a reactionary gif, because moving pictures aren't just for The Daily Prophet. E3 doesn't technically start until June 10, but with all of this week's announcements and E3 trailers, you wouldn't really know it. Forza Horizon 2 will let you drive recklessly later this year, Homefront is due for a return in Homefront: The Revolution, and the thinly-veiled Mortal Kombat X tease is finally over. And that's just the early stuff - we're about to get trampled with news and hands-on demonstrations as the convention itself kicks off next week. Don't worry though, we'll survive by channeling Simba's light-footed evasive maneuvers. Just ... y'know, without the tragic loss immediately preceding our exercise. You don't have to stick around and watch us warm up though - this week's highlights are waiting for you after the break. There are release dates for The Witcher 3 and Disney Fantasia: Music Evolved, reviews for 1,001 Spikes and Tomodachi Life, and an exploration of combat in Homefront: The Revolution. It's all awaiting you neat and orderly-like after the jump!
Disney Fantasia: Music Evolved debuts on Xbox this October
Disney Fantasia: Music Evolved will bring its imaginative sound sorcery to the Xbox One and Xbox 360 on October 21. Developed by Rock Band creator Harmonix, Disney Fantasia explores the vivid imagery and music of Disney's symphonic film, but with a modern spin and a conductor-like wave of the arm in front of Kinect. As part of its release date announcement, Harmonix is showing off another one of Fantasia's hub environments, through which new songs can be discovered and brought into the world. "The Neighborhood" is a surreal glimpse at a 1980s New York, with a pastel sky bursting behind skyscrapers. As you poke around the city and complete songs, such as MIA's "Galang" and "The Real Me" by The Who, billboards and graffiti creatures come to life. And if you look in the right place, you can teach some cool vegetables how to be street performers. For more on Disney Fantasia: Music Evolved, head past the break to see the newest batch songs and footage of what it's like playing the game.
Harmonix lays off 37 staff
Harmonix announced that it is undergoing an organizational restructure, resulting in the loss of 37 full-time positions. The news comes just one week after the developer successfully raised $844,127 on Kickstarter to create a successor to its 2002 cult favorite PS2 music game, Amplitude. "Harmonix is in the process of restructuring our organization to bring it into alignment with our current and future product development plans," a Harmonix spokesperson told Joystiq. "Unfortunately, this means making the difficult decision to reduce the number of full-time staff." The layoffs will not reportedly affect any of the games Harmonix currently has in production, namely Amplitude and Fantasia: Music Evolved as well as ongoing support of Record Run. Part of the company's restructure will result in studio head and CEO Alex Rigopulos stepping into the role of Chief Creative Officer while Steve Janiak will become CEO. Janiak was previously the head of Harmonix's publishing and business operations division. "We sincerely appreciate the work of each and every one of these employees. Harmonix is working to ensure that those affected are well taken care of as we make this change," the spokesperson added. The layoffs are said to be unrelated to Microsoft's recent decision to unbundle the Xbox One from the Kinect. Harmonix's most recent franchise, Dance Central, is dependent on the device. [Image: Harmonix]
The first Fantasia trailer in a long, long time (about a month)
Harmonix's Fantasia: Music Evolved is a motion-controlled song-conducting game with tunes from a range of classic and modern artists. The latest trailer gives us a taste of Elton John's "Rocket Man." If anything, watch it just to hear a lovely melody. [Image: Disney]
Harmonix reacts to Kinect-less Xbox One in tweets, statement
Harmonix is the studio behind Xbox One Kinect game Disney Fantasia: Music Evolved, plus Xbox 360's Dance Central franchise, which also relies on Kinect – so Microsoft's announcement of a Kinect-less Xbox One hitting the market for $100 cheaper in June could have a direct impact on how Harmonix does business. Today, we see two reactions from Harmonix: gut and official.
Fantasia: Music Evolved adds Rocket Man and Ffffff-orget you
Harmonix's Disney Fantasia: Music Evolved wants you to rock out with your Amadeus out. The Kinect rhythm game has revealed that Peter Gabriel's "In Your Eyes," Gorillaz'zs "Feel Good Inc," Cee Lo Green's (sanitized) "Forget You," Elton John's "Rocket Man," and the original rock star Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik" will be added to the previously revealed track list. Our German is a little rusty, but we believe that Mozart song translates to: "A Little Pimpin' in the Night." If you'd like to see what Fantasia is like, check out our own Reviews Director Richard Mitchell playing it at GDC in this flailtastic video.
Joystiq Weekly: Facebook buys Oculus VR, Bioshock Infinite DLC review, GDC videos and more
Welcome to Joystiq Weekly, a "too long; didn't read" of each week's biggest stories, reviews and original content. Each category's top story is introduced with a reactionary gif, because moving pictures aren't just for The Daily Prophet. If GDC and this past week has taught us anything, it's that almost no one's happy with the present state of reality. Virtual reality headset Oculus Rift now has a pretty cushion-y parent company, the comparable Project Morpheus potentially has Sony's developers behind it, and Microsoft might be toying with their own ideas for augmented reality. The common consensus seems to be "let's reach the future, even if it means strapping displays to our faces." We're starting to wonder what Nintendo's non-wearable health technology is going to look like. If it's not something to block out our primary reality, and if it's planned to launch through Nintendo's fiscal year of 2016, will it be something to supplement devices we already own? Maybe we'll face a line of AdventureTrek treadmills, where we run and jump our way through iconic Nintendo universes. Maybe it will involve a Pokemon MMO played with pedometer devices like the Pokemon Pikachu, with dungeon raids consisting of a dozen people throwing their devices into dryers for the best possible attack speed. Or maybe neither of those ideas! Because they're garbage. What isn't garbage is the slew of news, reviews and original content we've lined up for you in this week's Joystiq Weekly. Even if you don't care about VR, there's news of a legal tussle between 3D Realms and Gearbox over Duke Nukem, a hint of The Last Of Us reaching the PS4 and a review of Bioshock Infinite's Burial at Sea Episode Two. There's also video features from GDC for Fantasia: Music Evolved, Goat Simulator and Videoball, in case you like moving pictures with your words. We've summarized all that and more for you to delve into after the break!
Fantasia: Music Evolved picks up David Bowie, Nicky Minaj, White Stripes, Lorde and Dvorak
The track list for Harmonix's Disney Fantasia: Music Evolved has expanded again, this time leaning a bit more heavily on modern music. New songs that will be featured in Kinect rhythm game include David Bowie's "Ziggy Stardust," Nicky Minaj's "Super Bass," The White Stripes' "Seven Nation Army" and Lorde's ubiquitous "Royals." Classical music fans will also be happy to know that Anotonin Dvorak's "Symphony No. 9 from the New World" has also made the cut (now you can associate it with something other than Asura's Wrath). We got to spend some time with Fantasia at GDC, and we enjoyed every minute of it.
Fantasia: Music Evolved video preview
We haven't been shy about praising Harmonix's Disney Fantasia: Music Evolved thus far. Based on our experience with it at GDC 2014 last week, that's not likely to change anytime soon. We tried the latest version of Fantasia, running on Xbox One, and the Kinect-powered experience was delightful from top to bottom. Whether you're intuitively creating your own synthesizer solo in "Ziggy Stardust" or ringing bells hanging from the horns of a giant stag – no, really – the level of creativity and craftsmanship on display is always apparent. You can witness the magical madness yourself in our video preview. Disney Fantasia: Music Evolved is slated to arrive this year on Xbox 360 and Xbox One.
Harmonix's 'Fantasia' gets a multiplayer mode, new songs
Harmonix is letting us in on a few more details about its upcoming game Disney Fantasia: Music Evolved. During a demo last week at GDC the company showed us a new discovery realm of the game called "The Hollow," a new multiplayer mode and took the wraps off of six new tracks coming to the colorful music-conducting game. Similar to the underwater world we saw at E3, The Hollow is a part of the game meant for exploration rather than structured gameplay -- and the forest scene has a ton to explore. Much like the other discovery realms in the game, parts of world start to come into color the more songs you play, with a little taste of your completed songs incorporating itself into the world. Areas of The Hollow we saw had magical mushrooms that you could play (not that kind of magical shrooms; these), as well as fairies you can interact with and an elk with playable bells in its antlers. It all looks pretty amazing, and is something we could definitely see ourselves spending hours exploring.
Fantasia: Music Evolved rings in a new realm, The Haven
The newest realm in Xbox One's Fantasia: Music Evolved is a wintry wonderland called The Haven, and it features songs from Kimbra, Fun and Vivaldi, along with two remixes of each track. Players will awake a singing yeti and explore dark caves, all in the name of conducting music.
Fantasia: Music Evolved scores Fallout 3 composer Inon Zur
Fantasia: Music Evolved will not only feature the imposing presence of sorcerer Yen Sid, but the original works of Inon Zur, a wizard of a different sort. Zur has a long history of composing music for video games, having accompanied players across irradiated wastelands in Fallout 3 and beneath besieged castles in Dragon Age: Origins. Disney has announced Zur will conjure the original soundtrack to Fantasia: Music Evolved and produce new orchestral versions of classic songs by Vivaldi ("Four Seasons: Winter: First Movement") and Mussorgsky ("Night on Bald Mountain"). He also arranged the orchestral mix of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody," one of several contemporary songs that players can reshape in the game. Fantasia: Music Evolved is a motion-driven music game being developed by Harmonix for Kinect on Xbox 360 and Xbox One. Look and listen for it sometime in 2014.
