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Steam weekend deals: Walking Dead, Fez, Mars War Logs
Some good deals are lurking in the Steam weekend sale section. Telltale Games' The Walking Dead headlines this weekend's deals, offering up its entire first season for $6.24. The 400 Days DLC is also half-off during this promotion, bringing it down to $2.49. Polytron Corporation's Fez has also slashed its price in half: The standard game is $4.99 while the bundle including the soundtrack is down to $7.49. Rounding out the weekend discounts are select games from Focus Home Interactive, including Mars War Logs for $10, The Testament of Sherlock Holmes for $10.19 and Game of Thrones, available on its own for $7.49 or in a bundle including a bunch of DLC for $10. All weekend deals are available until the Steam store updates on Monday, September 9 at 10am PT.
Mars: War Logs brings the resistance back to RPGs
This is a weekly column from freelancer Rowan Kaiser, which focuses on "Western" role-playing games: their stories, their histories, their mechanics, their insanity, and their inanity. I probably wouldn't have noticed Mars: War Logs except for the PR email I received which included a line about how it had been influenced by the French film "Army Of Shadows." This piqued my curiosity for two reasons: first, it seems utterly astonishing to me that a game would advertise itself as being based on a 45-year-old foreign film that was buried for decades due to its politics. Second, after I discovered it via a feature on cult films, I watched it and enjoyed it, and have come to cite it as an excellent example of one of my favorite types of narrative: the resistance story. Role-playing games have a long and storied association with resistance stories. Many of the classic JRPGs of the 1990s began with the premise that an evil empire or corporation was taking over the world (and probably awakening an ancient evil), and only you and your ragtag band of spiky-haired misfits could stop it. Final Fantasy 6's Returners and Final Fantasy 7's Avalanche were two of the most famous resistance groups of their era, but they weren't alone. The Suikoden games, The Secret Of Mana, Wild Arms, and Grandia all had the equivalent of evil empires of their own. It's not limited to that era and type: there are also modern JRPGs like Radiant Historia, as well as classic PC RPGs like Ultima 5, Ultima 7 and The Magic Candle 2.
This Mars: War Logs trailer shoots lightning
This trailer for Mars: War Logs shows the struggles of Roy Temperance on the fourth planet from the sun, conveniently set to a cool song called "Feel the Sunshine." The Spiders-developed game is coming to PC, XBLA and PSN in Spring 2013.
Mars: War Logs coming to XBLA, PSN and PC in 2013
Of Orcs and Men co-developer Spiders is sending your ass to the red planet. In the vague future of 2013, the developer will release Mars: War Logs – a cyberpunk action-RPG for Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network, and PC.Despite our wild imagination, the Silk Engine powered-Mars: War Logs isn't a futuristic reboot of that one Ren & Stimpy commercial parody, nor is it a Twin Peaks character simulator in space. "Mars: War Logs offers a wide variety of quests, dynamic tactical combat, and extensive character specialization through different skill trees and a complete craft system," a press release from publisher Focus Home Interactive revealed.Mars: War Logs takes players to the red planet "over a century after the catastrophe that threw the planet and its colonists into chaos." In the game, companies are warring over the limited supply of water found on the arid planet's landscape.As protagonist Roy Temperance, players can customize their combat style by selecting from "dozens of skills and perks," fighting in real-time against the creatures on Mars. Our suspicion is that the final boss will take the highly-evolved form of NASA's Curiosity rover.More details on the game, including an outline of features, can be found in the press release after the break.
