Hello lovely Circle people! Jon here, back with your weekly Roundup!
For this week’s news around the Circle, we have Nintendo, a high-powered gaming laptop (will desktops finally be dethroned one day?), fresh fits, evil turtles in blinged out top hats, a VR game that uses your farts, and penile combat.
One of those things is not in the Roundup. If you want to learn which one, you’ll just have to read my Roundup. You’ve just been clickbaited.
Outside of the Circle, we have a game developer that lost $4 million in refunds (and is totally cool with it), a mod that has most assuredly become the sleeper hit of 2017, and more.
And with that, here’s the Roundup!
Gita Jackson rated the best dressed characters of E3, greatly validating the concept artists who churn out hundreds of fashion variations for characters which goes unappreciated by the greater gaming public. The clothes make the (wo)man, and it takes a ton of research to get the feel of a character just right, especially if they inhabit a fantasy/sci-fi world. Check out Gita’s breakdown of E3 2017’s best fits here.
Joshua Rivera reported on Genital Jousting, a game about ramming dongs into other dongs which also have orifices for some reason. Free Lives, a South African developer, has spent the past year perfecting this saucy premise and has spoken at length about how the game will be received in various communities. While the game started off a joke, it eventually became a title about deconstructing patriarchy and deconstructing traditional ideas of masculinity. Read Josh’s article (which surprisingly avoided any dick jokes — you are a better man than I, Josh) here.
Matt Gerardi reports that the rumors are true — the mini SNES is very much real, and it’s launching in September 29 with 21 pre-installed games. It’s $80 bucks and comes with two controllers, but that none of this news is the best part. The best part is that it will ship with Star Fox 2, one of the most famous pieces of vaporware in gaming history because the game was fully completed yet never released. Read Matt’s report here.
Austin Walker caught up with Reggie Fil-Aimes at E3. They talked about fan remakes, Nintendo’s push into the mobile phone market, third-party production, opening up the Nintendo IP for cross collaboration with other IPs, and more. Listen to Austin’s interview here.
Alex Cranz reviewed the Asus ROG Zephyrus, designed under Nvidia’s newly announced Max-Q Design philosophy. The Zephyrus is marketed as the thinnest gaming laptop on the market, which Alex found to be an amazing feat and wonderfully convenient, except for the part where you actually have to play games on that thing. But for all its tactile flaws, the laptop runs great and this Max-Q Design thing might have a future. Reach Alex’s review here.
And now for news outside of the Circle. . .
343 Industries has given Installation 01 a full green light. Installation 01 is a fan project remaking the first Halo game’s multiplayer for a modern audience. It’s a little sad out uncommon this sort of corporate grace is now in videogames, especially when fan projects defined PC gaming in the late 90s and early 2000s. Team Fortress, Dota 2, and Counter-Strike all began as fan projects. Read more about Installation 01 getting 343’s blessing here.
Facepunch Studios has lost $4.3 million dollars refunding copies of Rust, but studio head Garry Newman is not too miffed about it. The way he sees it, those refunded copies were basically people trying the game out as a demo, and the refunds only accounted for 6% of total sales. The lack of worry is understandable, considering he probably tweeted all this swimming in the pool of money he made from making Garry’s Mod (yes, he’s THAT Garry). Read about it here.
Speaking of fan projects, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (or PUBG) began as a mod of DayZ, and DayZ itself was a mod of ARMA II. Brendan “PlayerUnknown” Greene caught the eye of an adventurous Korean developer called Bluehole Studios. They flew him out to Korea, gave him a bunch of money, and right now we are witnessing history in the making. Despite still being in early access, PUBG has sold over 2 million copies and Bluehole announced that it’s made over $100 million in sales. The game has only been available since March, and it’s already shot up to the top 4 viewed games in Twitch, swiftly dethroning Hearthstone and Overwatch. Quite a feat. Read this interview with executive producer Chang Han Kim and see what’s in store for the game’s future here.
Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite was hotly anticipated back in 2015, but the hype has considerably died after its formal announcement last year. On the esports side, the fighting game community’s attitude remains grim after the chilly reception of Street Fighter V. On the casual side, Maximilian Dood has shared why he’s worried about MvC Infinite — to put it simply, it seems like they’re abandoning their core audience. For example, the fact that series’ favorites like Wolverine and Magneto weren’t returning to MvC Infinite and Capcom’s defense of their omissions were deeply concerning to Max. Watch it all here.
Not even the prophets could have foretold of this day. As mentioned before, Star Fox 2 is getting an official release. This is such a shock to EVERYONE, including the team that made the damn game. Brush up on the game’s history by watching a helpful documentary from Beta64 here.
And that’s it for this week’s Roundup. Be sure to tune in next week!
