THQ’s Not So Humble Bundle Rakes in $2.5 Million and Counting
THQ and Humble Bundle surprised everyone this week when they put up seven of the publisher’s biggest and best games up for the low, low price of whatever-you-feel-like-paying.
The games in question are Company of Heroes and it’s two expansions, Darksiders, Metro 2033, Red Faction: Armageddon (okay, so they’re not all winners). Those that pay over the average purchase price also get a copy of SideQuesting’s number two 2011 game of the year, Saints Row: The Third.
Just a few days after putting the bundle up for sale, the games have earned just under $2.6 million. At the time of this write-up, the second-to-top contributor is actually President Jason Rubin.
With Darksiders 2 already out (and vastly under-appreciated) and Metro: Last as well as Company of Heroes 2 right around the corner, now would seem like a pretty good time to hop on this bandwagon, if you haven’t already. And hey, you can even choose to give any money you spend on the bundle to charity.
[Source: Humble Bundle]
Steam Greenlights a Fresh Batch of Winners
Steam got around to approving it’s third batch of Greenlight games this week. Specifically, the digital distributor has approved the very promising looking StarForge and Primordia, as well as the PC version of the tried-and-true metroidvania iOS game Waking Mars.
StarForge appears to be a hybrid of Minecraft and sci-fi combat. Or, put another way, it looks like Terraria in 3D. Oh, and the final version promises seamless surface-to-space travel.
Primordia, on the other hand, is the next SCUMM-style science fiction adventure game from Wadjet Eye Games. Like the company’s previous efforts, Primordia looks and sounds amazing with its old-school aesthetic and top-tier voice acting.
The fact that the game had to go through Steam GreenLight at all is a bit strange. The studio’s previous adventure games were accepted in the traditional manner, with Resonance (their last game) being accepted immediately.
Steam Greenlight really seems to be picking up, well, steam. With games as high-quality and ambitious like this hitting the service, Valve is doing a stellar job of validated the program.
[Source: Eurogamer]
‘Xbox 720’ Reportedly Releasing by Holiday 2013
The headline pretty much says it all with this one. Bloomberg has received reports from anonymous sources supposedly close to the development of Microsoft’s new console saying that the company is prepping for a release sometime before Thanksgiving of next year.
Microsoft is supposedly still trying to decide whether to officially announce the colloquially named Xbox 720 at next year’s E3 or at some other press event.
If these stories are true, it would be an uncommonly fast turn-around between the system’s official announcement and release. That being said, reports of dev kits making their way to developers have been floating around for quite a while now. It’s possible that Microsoft is just taking a page out of Apple’s playbook and keeping their official statements and final releases closer together to keep eventual hype at a maximum.
We’ll probably just have to wait this one out and see what happens.
[Source: Bloomberg]
Steve’s Game of the Week – Persona 4: The Golden (Playstation Vita)
If you haven’t been following my Twitter feed in the past few weeks, you might not know that I’ve been playing Persona 4: The Golden. A lot.
Try to imagine a Japanese social/dating sim with traditional JRPG dungeon-crawling wrapped in the context of a fantasy murder mystery and you’d still be far off from understanding all that Persona 4 has to offer. The original game on the PS2 was filled with literally over a hundred hours of worthwhile content, and the new Golden remake adds even more incentive to get lost in the town of Inaba.
Persona 4 is a very difficult game to put into words. So I’ll just say that it’s an absolute must-play for anyone that’s even remotely interested in RPGs. With the recent spat of Vita deals putting systems in gamers hands, I consider it a public service announcement to tell those new owners that this should be the first game they buy.
Go play it.
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