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Super Joystiq Podcast Live: Best of 2014 [Update: Watch the replay!]
Starting at 3:30PM EST right here and on Twitch, it's JOYSTIQ DOME! Ten games enter! Ten games get robustly examined while 13 editors jaw at one another before examining the year 2014 in detail! Yes, it's the Super Joystiq Podcast Live! Thrill as Ludwig Kietzmann tries to defend Watch Dogs. Swoon as Susan Arendt and Anthony John Agnello defend Lightning Returns with the fury of a thousand burning suns. Chortle as Alexander Sliwinski tries to resist playing Hearthstone. Jess Conditt talks Walking Dead, Danny Cowan digs Shovel Knight, Earnest Cavalli loves Sunset Overdrive, Sam Prell digs into Dragon Age: Inquisition, Richard Mitchell bets on Bayonetta, Xav de Matos feels Far Cry 4, Sinan Kubba delights in Dark Souls 2, Mike Suszek survives Desert Golfing, and Thomas Schulenberg gives Super Smash Bros. for Wii U a what for all over again. And that's just how it starts. Tune in right here and on Twitch.tv/Joystiq at 3:30PM EST for a live, all staff round table discussion on the best games of 2014, our personal favorites, and a look back on the gaming year that was. [Images: WBIE]
PlayStation TV price cut at major US retailers
The PlayStation TV's price tag has been reduced to Black Friday levels by several major US retailers, including Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy and Gamestop. Gamespot took note of the unofficial reduction, which sees the core PS TV unit reduced to $80 ($20 off) and the controller-included bundle at $100 ($40 off). Sony's official site still has the device regularly priced. Positioned as PS Vita system alternative that plugs into any HDMI-equipped television, the system does feature some compatibility issues with games. Here is the latest list of compatible titles.
Sony delays PS4 in China
Sony put the brakes on the PlayStation 4's date with China, after delaying sales of the system just days ahead of its scheduled January 11 launch. In a statement provided to Reuters, the company said it was holding the PS4 back due to "various factors," and that a new date was yet to be decided. Additionally, Sony Computer Entertainment spokeswoman Kaede Bun told Bloomberg, "The [Chinese] government asked us for final adjustments, which will take some time, so we decided to delay the launch date." The PS4 was due to finally launch in China this week, after the country lifted its 14-year ban on consoles just over a year to the day. It's unclear from this morning's reports if the Vita, which was also due to launch on January 11, is to receive a similar delay.
Joe Danger 2: The Movie starts filming on Vita next week
Come January 13 - more than two years after it debuted on Xbox Live - Hello Games' stunt man-focused action-platformer Joe Danger 2: The Movie will appear on Sony's Vita handheld. As we mentioned last April, the leap to the Vita brings a few new faces to Joe Danger's vibrant world including Tearaway protagonists Iota and Atoi and LittleBigPlanet mascot Sackboy. These characters join existing cameos from earlier versions of Joe Danger 2 featuring the whimsically murderous Team Fortress 2 cast and Minecraft's generic block of a protagonist Steve. According to developer Hello Games, the Vita version of Joe Danger 2 is the largest incarnation of the game to date. "Hours and hours of play await across 85 levels, including 15 from the Undead Movie Pack, which comes included in the Downloadable Tours section - plus a total of 35 playable characters," states the developer's official description. Like the Vita version of the first Joe Danger, which appeared in September, the handheld Joe Danger 2 runs at 60 frames per second and features both online leaderboards and downloadable ghost racer data. [Image: Hello Games]
The Wolf Among Us down to $20 on Amazon
The first season of The Wolf Among Us can live among your gaming library at a discount today, as the episodic adventure game is currently $19.99 on Amazon. The 33 percent off sale is good for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions of the game, while Vita players can pick up The Wolf Among Us for $24.49 on the retailer's site. Developed by The Walking Dead creator Telltale Games, The Wolf Among Us stars Fabletown's Sheriff Bigby Wolf, formerly known as The Big Bad Wolf. Based on Bill Willingham's Fables comic book series, the game's five episodes follows Bigby as he maintains order in the small New York City community. Our review of the final episode, "Cry Wolf," noted that the game's first season "lays the groundwork for the series that is (hopefully) to come, getting us invested in these pigs, these trolls, these witches, these toads, these people." [Image: Telltale Games]
PSA: Players report sporadic PSN connection issues
Sony is currently investigating PlayStation Network connection issues affecting a number of users this morning, citing "heavy network traffic" as a culprit via its support page. "We're aware that some players are seeing drops on PSN," the official PlayStation Twitter account confirms. "Engineers are on the case and investigating." Today's reports follow up on the recent restoration of PSN service after a disruptive DDoS attack on Christmas Eve. A timeframe for a fix is not yet known. [Image: Sony)
Best of the Rest: Jessica'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. Threes Threes is ingenious. Its simplistic presentation belies beautiful, thoughtful design and butter-smooth mechanics. Threes isn't a matter of "less is more," it's fully encapsulated and pushed to the limits of what it intends to do, providing hours upon hours of repeated gameplay on that four-by-four tiled screen. On top of the brain-teasing numbers game, writer Asher Vollmer, illustrator Greg Wohlwend and composer Jimmy Hinson infuse Threes with personality, giving the numbers voices and faces, and tipping Threes from "Fun" to "Absolutely adorable. And, of course, fun."
PSN Update: Infamous First Light, Duke Nukem 3D
A new month means a new handful of games added to the libraries of PlayStation Plus subscribers. Beginning today, Plus members on PS4 can add the Second Son narrative expansion Infamous: First Light and indie darling The Swapper to their digital collection. Also as reported, Duke Nukem 3D: Megaton Edition is available for Plus users at no additional charge on the Vita, along with Whoa Dave! – from (rebranded) Bit.Trip dev Choice Provisions. DuckTales Remastered and Prototype 2 are this month's PS3 Plus offerings. Rounding out new content this week is Ubisoft's Rocksmith 2014, which continues to expand with a Rage Against the Machine song pack ($15.99) and various Linkin Park tracks ($2.99 each/$13.99 bundle), and new costumes and a Christmas Module for Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA F 2nd ($9.99 each). Pinball Arcade games and add-ons are this week's featured sale, with Season One table bundles reduced to as low at $14.99 on PS4.
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.
Best of the Rest: Susan'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. Framed Framed is so elegant and simple that it needs not a single word to teach you how to play. If you understand the basic function of the panels in a comic book and are able to poke things with your finger, you will swiftly understand the basics of how to make things happen in this brilliant mobile game. Arrange the panels one way, and your spy makes a daring escape from the police; position them another way, and he emerges from the wrong door right into the hands of the law. From the very first level, which uses just two panels to illustrate how switching the order of the comic can change the outcome of its events, Framed builds on its simplicity, adding more panels, directionality and timing to create more complex puzzles in its stylish spy-vs-spy thriller. Each page of the comic is a puzzle complete unto itself, making Framed perfectly designed for short bursts of inspiration, or restricted play time. It's one of those games that's so damn clever, you wish you'd thought it up yourself.
Clock Tower successor 'Project Scissors' becomes NightCry, gets live action teaser
The spiritual successor to the Clock Tower survival horror series, Project Scissors, has a new name and a new live action teaser. The game is now called NightCry, and the trailer is definitely creepy, if a little light on information. One thing that Clock Tower fans will be sure to notice, however, is the presence of big, bloody scissors. Or, to put it more accurately, big scissors that appear to be made of blood. The teaser is directed by Takashi Shimizu, director of the Ju-On horror film series and its American counterpart, The Grudge. Shimizu was revealed to be a part of the game project last year, along developer Nude Maker, which is led by the director of the original Clock Tower games, Hifumi Kouno. NightCry is planned for iOS, Android and PlayStation Vita. [Image: Nude Maker]
UK Charts: Captain Toad reports for duty in 16th
JAN 5 2015 JOYSTIQ THE INTERNET TREASURE TRACKER REPORTING SAFE AND WELL STOP WE SECURED CAPTURE OF SIXTEENTH REGIMENT THOUGH WE HAVE BEEN ON UK MAINLAND FOR SOME TIME ALREADY STOP MUST GO THAT IS MY BUS STOP CAPTAIN ARCHIE MONTGOMERY TOAD
Joystiq Discussion: How do you tackle your gaming back log?
January is when the sheer scale of it hits you, when you stare into the inky abyss of your Steam library and wonder: when the hell am I going to play all of these games? Every time the sale starts, the back log grows. Five measly bucks for a copy of Tomb Raider: The Definitive Edition! Who cares that I'm smack dab in the middle of three different RPGs? I can't let that pass me by! So the backlog swells, piling more and more games onto the proverbial, sometimes actual, stack. Recently I took stock of my own considerable back log, counting up all the vintage cartridges, discs, recent releases that went on sale, and downloads I'd amassed but never actually fired up to play. Turned out there were 27 games that I'd simply never turned on. In January, I'm trying to tackle them one at a time. Pokemon Y and Silent Hill: Book of Memories are first up! Once I've knocked them down, I'll move on to two more. It's not a perfect system, though. There are plenty of ways to tackle the back log. Do you take it slow? Do you not even bother and just let the back log grow? Or do you manage to keep up, finishing everything as you go. Take the poll, discuss below. How do you tackle your gaming back log? [Images: Nintendo]
Best of the Rest: Sinan'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. Dark Souls 2 I've been known to perch on treetops with many a RPG, but even by my standards this was a makeout-heavy year. Four of my five picks are of the role-playing variety, and I've put more than 250 hours into that quartet alone. 2014 was a super-solid time for the genre, and that's evidenced by the sheer range of RPGs in my Best of the Rest. The only place to start this round-up is Drangleic. It was always going to take something truly special for Dark Souls 2 to stay out of its predecessor's shadow, at least for me. We are, after all, talking about following on from my game of the last decade. That proves a challenge too far for From's sequel, despite the many tweaks and additions it brings to the table. Crucially, Dark Souls 2 diminishes that sinking-into-quicksand helplessness, that sense of being lost, in every sense of the word. It is still there, but just that significant bit less so. Yet Dark Souls 2 remains an all-encompassing adventure like few others this year. It draws from both Dark and Demon's Souls to juxtapose a deep, foreboding world against an elegant simplicity of swords, shields, dungeons and big bad monsters. There are more pretenders to the throne now, but Dark Souls 2 still stands out as an idiosyncratic, unpredictable experience. For all my criticisms I plowed at least 100 hours into the world of Drangleic, and I'll be back on the plow when Dark Souls 2 hits PS4 and Xbox One in April.
Sony to compensate PSN users with Plus extension, discount code
Sony's offering five days of extra PlayStation Plus membership as its way of making up for the recent network outage. The gesture of goodwill isn't limited to Plus subscribers, as all PlayStation Network users are getting a one-time 10 percent discount code for the PS Store. Sony's Eric Lempel said the company "wanted to show our appreciation" for users' patience after last month's PSN outage, which saw services like the Store and online multiplayer go AWOL. Both PSN and Microsoft's Xbox Live service went offline on Christmas Eve following distributed denial of service attacks.
Full PlayStation Plus line-up for January revealed [update]
Update: Sony's confirmed North America's PS Plus line-up for January is the same as Europe's. We've updated the post to reflect that and other details. We already knew Infamous: First Light and The Swapper were coming to the Instant Game Collection next month, but now we've got the full January PlayStation Plus line-up. The two PS3 freebies headed to the continent are Prototype 2 and DuckTales: Remastered, while the Vita duo is Whoa Dave and Duke Nukem 3D: Megaton Edition. The line-up hits the PS Store stateside on Tuesday, January 6, 2015. As ever, Europe joins the PS Plus party the day after.
PlayStation Store sale extended following PSN downtime
Sony announced it's stretching out its PlayStation Store sales in response to the network woes endured over the last week. The storefront's Flash Sale now runs through until 12PM PT on December 31, 2014 (3AM ET on January 1, 2015), and the Holiday Sale now ends at 12PM PT on January 6, 2015 (3AM ET on Janury 7, 2015). The Flash Sale features a 30-odd variety of this year's big hitters including Destiny, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, Dragon Age: Inquisition and Middle-earth Shadow of Mordor. Not that the Holiday Sale is lacking on that count, with its discounted items including Diablo 3: Ultimate Evil Edition for PS4, Alien: Isolation and Danganronpa 2. On Saturday, December 27, Sony reported the PlayStation Network was back online following distributed denial of service attacks that began on Christmas Eve. However, as of last night, Sony says the service currently has "intermittent connectivity." Yesterday, Sony tweeted out a PlayStation Support page suggesting PS4 users try changing their MTU settings to restore connectivity. Several hours later, Sony said it had made network updates that should forgo users having to delve into the settings menu. At the time of writing, our UK PS4 signed into PSN and we were able to access the PlayStation Store without issue. [Image: Channel 4]
UK charts close out 2014 with CoD: Advanced Warfare as king
Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare is the last UK No. 1 of 2014, which isn't too surprising since this week's charts are nearly identical to last week's. You can check out that almost static top 10 below the break (along with the sometimes underwhelming but always customary music video). Meanwhile above the break, we're going to look back on a year of UK charts through the hallowed medium of statistics. And so: Joystiq's Somewhat Scatterbrained UK Charts Statistics of 2014 20 different games topped the charts in 2014 across 52 weeks 5 of those were re-releases, with 7 weeks worth of No. 1s between them Surprise surprise, FIFA 15 scored the longest run of consecutive No. 1s in 2014 (6) Between them, FIFA 14 and FIFA 15 held the top spot for a total of 15 weeks Add in Advanced Warfare and Titanfall, and that total goes up to 25 weeks The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was Joystiq's lowest-rated game to earn a UK No. 1 (2 stars) Grand Theft Auto 5 became the UK's all-time bestseller when it hit PS4 and Xbox One. No. of times we've badly shopped Chelsea footballer Eden Hazard a la FIFA 15 into images of other games: 3, including this week.
Joystiq's favorite races in games
It was revealed this week that the Heavensward expansion for Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn would introduce not only new jobs, but a new race for players to enjoy: the Au Ra. Featuring tails, scales and horns, the Au Ra blend humanoid features with those of dragons, and who doesn't want to be a dragon-person? The news also gave us a chance to reflect on our own favorite races in gaming, which we've collected here for your viewing/judging pleasure. Of course, not everyone will have the same taste in fictional species (though one does make an encore appearance on our list) so tell us: what's your favorite race in games? >>Joystiq's Favorite Races In Games<<
PlayStation Network is back online following Christmas Day attack
Three days after Lizard Squad's latest denial of service attack knocked the PlayStation Network offline (and Xbox Live, we'd add), the internet gaming service is gradually getting back on its feet. Sony now says that PSN should be up and running for all of its consoles. While the company warns that there might be some "intermittency" as it gets back into the swing of things, you theoretically won't face major interruptions during that big Destiny raid. It's not clear if Sony's infrastructure will be any better at weathering future digital assaults on this scale; given that the attack was supposedly three times larger than the previous record-setter, this probably isn't a permanent fix. However, it's good to know that you can squeak in at least some online gaming on that shiny new PS4 before the holidays are over.
