One example of the fun and macabre art style of Zombie Tycoon.

Zombie Tycoon is the latest casual title for the PSP by Canadian software giant Frima Studio. Built on the Vicious Engine, this beautifully illustrated RTS definitely has its share of strengths and weaknesses.

Zombie Tycoon boasts ten unique levels, each with its own goals, puzzles, and rewards. To conquer the living inhabitants of each stage, the player must wield three customizable zombie units, each consisting of up to eight zombies.

There are also a variety of trophies associated with different goals, ranging from challenge-based tasks like finishing a level within two minutes, to collection-based tasks  like dressing zombies up in unique costumes.  You should expect to spend anywhere from five to ten hours on the title depending on how far you’re willing to go once you’ve completed the ten levels of the main story. Continue reading »

Today Playlogic released the first of three Developer’s Diaries explaining the story behind the Fairytale slasher “Fairytale Fights”

You can purchase Fairytale Fights from our Amazon affiliate store for PS3 and Xbox 360.

Whoa, wait. what? Seriously?

Epic Games is giving away the full Unreal 3 engine SDK for free. The entire professional development framework is being offered for free to give users real tools for developing cutting edge games. This is an incredible move by Epic Games. And here we thought they wanted to abandon the PC platform…

Epic has launched a web portal for the Unreal Development Kit (UDK) where you can download the toolset, read documentation on the engine, see examples and showcases, and access the community, among many other things. The UDK comes weighs in at 563MB and comes with… well, everything.

The UDK is meant for non-commercial use, and is aimed at professionals and students alike who don’t have access to high-level game development toolsets. This is music to the ears of anyone who wants to dig into the likes of game development, character animation, digital filmmaking, 3D viz, asset creation, shader programming, and who knows what else—the possibilities are incredible.

If you’ve been wanting to dig into a high-end game engine and learn the trade of video game development, this is an excellent place to start. Everything you need to get started can be found at the portal. Now is your chance to make something Unreal.

GG Epic, GG.

Blizzard Entertainment, long opposed to the exchange of real currency for in-game items, has added World of Warcraft mini-pets to their online store for $10 a piece.

A mini-pet in World of Warcraft, for those who don’t play the game, is essentially a cute little companion. These non-combat pets offer no practical advantage to the user; they simply follow the player for vanity’s sake. However, now that Blizzard has established that they’re willing to take your money for a useless in-game pet, who knows where they might end up going with this?

Careful, Blizzard. Your zero-tolerance policy on gold sellers is now on awfully shaky ground.

Mario and Luigi are fighting some baddies inside of Bowser.

At its heart Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story is an RPG in which one follows two connected stories in the Mushroom Kingdom. The main plot-line for most of the game stars Bowser as the protagonist. Fawful, a laughing, grammar-challenged roboticist has taken over Bowser’s castle, and plans to take over the entire Mushroom Kingdom with the help of Bowser’s converted army. As part of Fawful’s plan to debilitate Bowser, he causes Bowser to inhale things uncontrollably, including Mario, Luigi, Peach, and many residents of Toadtown. When the characters arrive in Bowser’s body, they find themselves shrunken, and able to navigate and adventure within his various bodily systems.

Mario and Luigi need to help Bowser defeat Fawful from the inside, and most of the plot alternates between Bowser adventuring and fighting, while Mario and Luigi help from the inside. When Bowser needs to lift something, Mario and Luigi help power his arms; when he needs to remember something, they help put together the pieces of his mind; and when he nearly dies, they return his spark from the inside, causing him to grow to enormous size, and enabling him to crush his giant enemies.

Pursuit

Much of the game is classic RPG-style exploration and menu-based combat. In true Mario fashion, individual attacks and defenses are perfected by well-timed button mashes. Attack values can be tripled or even quadrupled by pressing the button at just the right moment, and almost all enemy attacks can by nullified with the right timing; many of them can even be turned around into an offensive maneuver.

Mario and Luigi each have their own button, while Bowser has two different buttons for different move types, requiring the player to think about the timing and type of move necessary for each attack or defense. Continue reading »

Atlus has announced today an impending replacement program for the official strategy guide included with the deluxe edition of the publisher’s Demon’s Souls title.

The program comes after reports of unusual wearing or fading of the ink used in the guide’s cover.

“While it seems that not every copy of the guide is affected, and the specific cause of the issue remains unclear, Atlus always strives for nothing less than the full satisfaction of our customers. Therefore, we will soon launch a program to replace defective strategy guides,” reads the official release.

Atlus says users will be asked to ship the first page and cover of their strategy as proof of purchase, leaving buyers with a usable book while the replacement claim is processed.

The publisher advises affected users to visit their official forums where full details regarding the program will be posted next week.

Recently developer Infinity Ward announced that the PC version of the newest Call of Duty installment would not support traditional dedicated servers–instead favoring its own custom backbone for internet matchmaking. In no time flat, nerd rage ensued in the form of an internet petition demanding that dedicated server support be added to the game. As of this writing nearly 178,000 have typed in their digital John Hancock in the hopes that Infinity Ward might abandon their custom solution in favor of the archaic dedicated servers we have come to know and love. It’s much harder to abuse a system when not in control, and it seems many server admins are lamenting this revelation.

Infinity Ward held the announcement until gold masters were being shipped to manufacturing, knowing that the PC audience would be resistant to change and that the only way to get this over with would be a good old fashioned force feeding. Matchmaking over an Infinity Ward-supplied backbone is coming, whether you like it or not.

With all due respect, may we suggest that perhaps all 178,000 of our nerd friends are raging about the wrong thing, though? Continue reading »

Something strange may happen today when you log into Team Fortress 2…

Quietly, and without fanfare, the guys at Valve started a promotion bundled with pre-orders of Left 4 Dead 2—you will receive a special hat if you own Team Fortress 2.  The promotion, attached to both Xbox 360 and PC, was announced yesterday.

The other interesting thing mentioned in this announcement is a subtle allusion to a tenth class in TF2. First hinted at in Left 4 Dead, it has slowly faded into the background as time has passed.

It is also worth mentioning that this is the first official cross-IP content in any Valve game. Valve’s tactics of subtlety and humor continue as Left 4 Dead 2 launch day approaches.

Lego Rock Band

Our first feature this week is  the cross-platform release Lego Rock Band. This title essentially serves as a new engine through which one can interact with their Rock Band library, in addition to coming with a great, classic rock library of its own. Players will be able to move all the Lego Rock Band songs into their playlist for Rock Band 2, or they can play their entire Rock Band 2 library within Lego Rock Band. Some of the differences are obvious, like the addition of Lego-based avatars, but there are also some differences that make Lego Rock Band easier for younger players. While anyone will be able to play at the same Hard and Expert difficulties that they would be able to in Rock Band 2, there will also be a super easy mode available which is just like easy except that any button or pad can be hit for any of the notes, and a auto-pedal mode for players who cannot reach the bass pedal. In addition, while it will still be possible to fail a song, one will never “fail out”, no matter which difficulty they are on. Instead, players who fail will simply lose the Lego coins that they need to customize their avatar, instruments and digs. Finally, many songs played through Lego Rock Band will now have a radio-version mode to shorten them to a length that may be more comfortable for people with short attention spans, or who may not have the endurance for a long solo. Seems like this game would be perfect for any adult who wants to introduce a young person to the world of rhythm games without dumbing down the experience for themselves.

Battle of Giants: Dragons

For the DS this week, we’ll see Battle of Giants: Dragons appear on the shelves. Choose from one of four dragon types and explore the world of Tammabakku. Customize your dragon, find secret treasures, and engage in epic battles against other majestic giants in this unique RPG/brawler. If you have a DSi,  downloadable content will become available over the coming weeks adding new dragons and levels, starting with the Bronze Age pack, which hits at release.

Band Hero

Another Band game, the cross-platform Band Hero will also be hitting the stores. This game is a boiled down version of Guitar Hero 5’s party mode. Allow the game to play during a party, and let players pick-up whatever instruments they want, and just start playing. Any band combination is possible, as long as one has the instruments. Want three singers and a drummer, four lead guitarists, three drummers and a bass player? Great. The game also comes with an all new playlist of top-40 pop songs featuring Taylor Swift, so that everyone in your party who owns a radio will already know all the words to the songs.

Dragon Age: Origins

Finally, our Spotlight feature this week is the major cross-platform release Dragon Age: Origins. This single player game is a party-based RPG with pause-and-play combat, similar to Bauldur’s Gate, its spiritual predecessor. Players will explore and fight their way through the turbulent kingdom of Ferelden on the continent of Thedas. Each character will start as one of three base classes, and specialize as they go, with rules of advancements similar to Bauldur’s Gate. The visuals and story line are purported to be gritty and dark, against a bloody and ruined backdrop. Decisions that the player must make will not always be clearly along one alignment or another, and the world, the characters, and especially the ending sequences can change dramatically based on the decisions made. This one is shaping up to be a must-try for RPG fans, especially those who felt that NWN had too much focus on multiplayer content. If this game is successful at all, expect it to be only the first of the Dragon Age franchise.

As always, if you’d like to purchase any of these games, you can do so through Icrontic’s Amazon game store and help support the site.

Following is a list of this week’s announced releases for North America: Continue reading »

Apollo skin only available to pre-order customers

Sony announced today that pre-ordering God of War III or God of War III Ultimate Edition from select retailers will not only net you early demo access, but also an in-game Apollo skin.

Of course, the Apollo skin will only be available after a complete play-through of the game.

While pre-ordering just the game will still net you the early demo and the Apollo skin, the Ultimate Edition looks to be full of amazing swag:

• Sculpted “Pandora’s Box”
• High-quality God of War art book
• Exclusive DLC Combat Arena mode
• Exclusive “Dominus” skin
• Full length movie documentary called “God of War: Unearthing the Legend”, narrated by Peter Weller
• God of War Trilogy soundtrack CD–all music from God of War I, II, and III
• God of War “Blood and Metal” EP, featuring exlusive God of War-inspired tracks from Killswitch Engage, Dream Theater, Opeth, Trivium, and Taking Dawn

God of War III is the kind of game that will sell systems, and if you have the cash and are a fan of the franchise, the Ultimate Edition seems to be… well, Ultimate.

You can order either the standard or Ultimate edition through our Amazon store link.

It is the hallmark of Futuremark’s products: Feats of real-time graphics that push visual and performance boundaries alike. Futuremark has made a serious name for itself with their 3DMark benchmark–a product that is notorious for making hardware weep with cutting edge graphics techniques.

All of the assets in 3DMark’s scenes are made exclusively by Futuremark, and those scenes typically consist of intense shootouts in space. Who hasn’t thought to themselves while watching these sequences, “I would love to play this”? Futuremark has finally delivered on that dream with Shattered Horizon, and they brought along their trademark visuals to remind us of how weak our hardware is.

Shattered Horizon is a futuristic, multiplayer, first person shooter set in space. A tragic mining accident on the moon resulted in an explosion that has shattered the lunar sphere. The two affected space organizations–the International Space Agency and the Moon Mining Cooperative–are fighting for control and survival. Sounds real original, doesn’t it? Don’t check out just yet, because the game has some serious tricks up its sleeve.

Shattered Horizon throws a curve ball with its unique mechanics. The entire game is played in the zero-G locale of open space, and gives the player control of all axes of orientation. This radically new approach to FPS game play completely redefines how we look at the genre.

Continue reading »

As we reported back in May, American McGee has been hard at work on the sequel for Alice in his new Shanghai studios. EA Games unleashed the teaser site called “Return of Alice” and trailer over the weekend.