Newshit: 6th May

 

The world keeps on turning and shit keeps on happening. For as long as these two criteria are met, there will be news. This is that. Plus some other stuff.

Toothy fucking hedgehog

Let’s start with the horror show that is the Sonic adaptation trailer released last week. It was about as god-awful as I would have expected and does seem to finally answer the question “can I hate a comedy film starring Jim Carrey?”. The buddy-movie-cum-superheroes theme was cringey and the only positive was seeing Carrey visually transform into Robotnik at the end of the trailer… but it still wasn’t enough to make me want to watch the movie.

After the trailer dropped, the rest of the internet also seemed to object to it, given that they also have eyes. The enormous backlash sparked a change in heart from the director, Jeff Fowler, who told Twitter that Sonic would be changed (unfeasibly fast if it wants to keep the November release date).

 

Whether some visual tweaks would drastically improve the film for me, I’m not sure. Those teeth need to go for sure, as well as some changes to the scale and proportion of his body. Whether the overall tone and storyline for the movie will be remotely interesting is unclear. I’ll be keeping an eye out for future developments though, just to see how wildly different it is for the final release.

 

The Boss Key

An unlikely candidate was inducted into the World Video Game Hall of Fame for 2019 – alongside Colossal Cave Adventure, Mortal Kombat and Super Mario Kart – in the form of Microsoft Solitaire. While it might seem an odd choice at first, the game was installed on virtually every Windows PC for over 20 years means that billions of people may have owned or played this title.

The game also acted as training software for the newfangled mouse device which was all the rage at the time and had such simple gameplay that just about anyone could pick up and play. The game’s sneaky feature to quickly display a fake spreadsheet using the “boss button” was another bonus which endeared millions to this casual title (and which might have been considered bloatware at one stage).

Of course the other titles are more clearly identifiable as gaming giants – with Mortal Kombat currently riding the high of a new title and Mario Kart being one of the classic Nintendo staples nowadays – the nod to the classic Colossal Cave Adventure was also welcome.

 

What are your predictions for next year’s Hall of Fame inductees?

 

Epic Balls

This week also brought confirmation that Epic Games are acquiring Psyonix, the developers of esports ballsfest Rocket League. This prompted a wave of concern from fans who know only too well how Epic likes to operate. The developers rushed to issue a statement clarifying that Steam users would still be able to play the game and receive support… so Epic will probably wait a few weeks before making the game exclusive to their store.

 


Adding Psyonix to the Epic brand does make sense, as they are trying to capture the market and bring as many titles onto its store as possible. I completely understand the concerns of the player base though – Rocket League has had a rocky few years with issues surrounding cross-play on consoles – so adding in another potential split to the mix might cause lasting damage to the game’s appeal.

 

We’ll just have to watch this space though – Epic might handle this one well and let the game live on through the Steam as well as the Epic store… or possibly they have their sights set on the inevitable successor which could get locked down to their store alone.

What are your thoughts on the Rocket League news?

 

New Shit

 

Now we spend a few minutes taking a look at the new releases for this week – including a couple of funky re-releases for your enjoyment.

TitleFormatPublisherRelease Date
Shards of InfinityAn/iOS/PCTemple Gates Games06/05/19
Puyo Puyo ChampionsNS/PC/PS4/XOSega07/05/19
CookieRun JellyPopAn/iOSDevsisters08/05/19
Infected ShelterLin/Mac/PCDark Blue Games08/05/19
Legend of the TetrarchsPC/XOKemco08/05/19
Reverse CrawlPS4Digerati Distribution08/05/19
Pax NovaPCIceberg Interactive09/05/19
Yakuza Kiwami 2PCAtlus09/05/19
Blazing BeaksNSQubicGames10/05/19
Dragon PinballNSEnjoyUp Games10/05/19
Goblin SquadPC34BigThings10/05/19
Lovecraft’s Untold StoriesNS/PS4/XOBadland Publishing10/05/19
Reverse CrawlNS/XODigerati Distribution10/05/19
Saints Row: The Third The Full PackageNSDeep Silver10/05/19
TwinCopMac/PCFinite Reflection Studios10/05/19

 

The Wins

 

Finally a quick roundup of some other things that happened in the past week or so, all delivered via our customary stupidity filter.

Matt Tiernan

 

Matt Tiernan
Follow Matt
Latest posts by Matt Tiernan (see all)

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.