atarianer

Am 25. April 2015 fand die 9. Lange Nacht der Computerspiele in Leipzig statt.  Auf 3 Etagen fanden Ausstellungen, Studentenprojekte, Gesellschaftsspiele, Retro-Gaming, E-Sport, Vorträge und vieles mehr statt. Bei diesem Programm und freiem Eintritt, fand jeder etwas passendes. Die Veranstaltung ging von 14:00 – 1:00 Uhr. Unter anderen warten natürlich auch zahlreiche Atari Konsolen und […]

It’s a crying shame that the closure of Studio Liverpool means we may never get another awesome WipEout game.

Fear not though, for some clever boffins have extracted the models from WipeOut and WipEout 2097 and placed them in a browser. The end result is an amazing thrill ride that highlights just how good the track design was on these classic games.

Check them out at the following link, but be aware that we couldn’t get it working via Safari.

The Crissaegrim NES30 Pro isn't 8bitdo Tech's first portable iOS gamepad, but it's certainly the flashiest. Normally, I'd be skeptical that the NES30 Pro actually exists—the internet is littered with vaporware accessories gussied-up to look like old Nintendo products—but the Hong Kong-based company has other gamepads at a reasonable price on honest-to-goodness retailers, so I'll play along.

Two things immediately stand out about the: its slick design and its highfalutin' name. In a blurb on the company's site, designer Weilin Li explains that his gamepad's smooth edges and rounded corners were inspired by the Crissaegrim from Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, the game's strongest weapon. Li thought that a curved design would make a portable controller more comfortable, and the NES30 Pro's blue LED display is an homage to the Crissaegrim's attack animation.

The NES30 Pro features your standard issue face and shoulder buttons, directional pad, and analog sticks and connects to iOS devices via Bluetooth. From what I can tell, 8bitdo claims that their device natively plays all iCade and MFi games. With a bit finagling, i.e. downloading 8bitdo's app to a jailbroken device, the NES30 Pro also can also emulate touchscreen gestures and, assuming you have two gamepads, allows for local multiplayer, even on games without official controller support..

Lastly, this thing also doubles as a USB controller—OS X and Windows—and, strangely, a remote for the Nintendo Wii but not the newer Wii U. An internal CPU can be updated with firmware to support more devices in the future, 8bitdo says.

According to 8bitdo's website, the Crissaegrim NES30 Pro should be available this month, but I haven't found it at any of the company's American retailers yet. In the meantime, it's chunkier, blockier, and more authentically retro predecessor, the NES30, will run you $35 at Amazon and seems to stack up fairly well.

The Atari Jaguar is a system that divides opinion like no other. Some people consider it a joke, while others are fascinated by the missed opportunity it represents and the outstanding mess Atari made in handling it’s final platform. Meanwhile, others still continue to debate (at length) whether the system really is a 64-bit console. One thing that is certain though, is that the Jaguar - like the Dreamcast - is a console that has an extremely active homebrew scene and community. Indeed, the Jaguar and Dreamcast share several recent indie releases including Alice’s Mom’s Rescue and Elansar. On this note, one aspect of the Jaguar that many detractors are quick to point out is the console’s paltry library of official releases - only 67 official titles were released on cartridge, while a further 15 made their way to the system’s add-on, the Jaguar CD. Apart from the numbers, one other major criticism of the Jaguar’s library is that very little use was made of Atari’s extensive back catalogue of recognisable and important titles, and lack of backwards compatibility with software designed for previous Atari systems (possibly using an adapter) is seen as a complete own goal.

Although few have played it, some will argue that Hideo Kojima's greatest work isn't the Metal Gear series, but instead the cyberpunk thriller Snatcher. Starting out on various Japanese home computers before hitting the Sega Mega CD, this gripping visual novel is about to get one more port through homebrew efforts. Believe it or not but a playable demo of Snatcher has just hit the Nintendo Virtual Boy.

Like her or not, Lindsey Stirling has been extremely influential in bringing the violin out of the concert hall and into the mainstream as an instrument of modern music. Her fame has not only escalated from original works, but a number of her hits are melodies crafted from some of entertainment's most memorable series'. That being said, it's known by many fans of the  Zelda series that Stirling has a piece dedicated to it as well as a music video to go along with it.  Many of you have probably already heard the song, but you can check out the video above to see it "live". If you have never seen her perform on stage before...

Star Wars Celebration kicks off in just a few hours, but fans have already uncovered promotional art for Star Wars: The Force Awakens that would likely have been unveiled during the convention. Some of the images come from Facebook group Saga Skywalker. Others leaked out on Twitter.

The artwork gives us our first good look at Kylo Ren, the Sith warrior with the three-bladed lightsaber that appeared in the teaser trailer. We also see a variety of stormtrooper variations, TIE Fighters, and a menacing looking shuttle.

We'll have more on Star Wars Celebration as the day unfolds.

Mario Kart 8’s next batch of DLC will feature even more F-Zero teasing than the last lot, it would seem – the second pack features a new take on the classic Big Blue stage from the futuristic racer, along with a breakneck 200cc speed class to kick F-Zero fans right in the feels.

This joins the excellent Mute City course released in the first DLC pack, as well as the option to pilot the iconic Blue Falcon ship and even race as Captain Falcon himself by using the Amiibo figure to unlock his outfit for your Mii characters to wear in-game. Question is, is Nintendo actually using this content to gauge excitement for a brand new F-Zero game, or is this as close as we’re ever going to get to a follow-up to GameCube classic, F-Zero GX? Or perhaps this is just Nintendo in full-on troll mode? We’d like to think a new game could be on the cards (it’d basically be the best thing ever) but we’ll just have to wait and see.

In the meantime, at least we can pick the right combination of driver, vehicle, class and course in Mario Kart 8 and pretend we’re playing a new F-Zero. As substitutes go, that’s not a bad one at all.

Check out the video below for some all-new F-Zero love – an awesome live arrangement of the kick-ass Big Blue theme with a smattering of footage of Mario Kart masquerading as an F-Zero game. Wonderful stuff.

WayForward has unveiled their first Apple Watch video game, Watch Quest. The second adventure game made exclusively for Apple Watch (Runeblade was announced earlier this month), it will span across multiple iOS devices and is set to release alongside Apple Watch on April 24th. The iPhone serves as the player’s kingdom, while the Apple Watch represents a journey that spans several hours.

According to WayForward, the game comes free with one training quest, and follows a DLC model with additional characters and campaigns purchasable from within the iPhone app as Quest Packs.

Twitter user BitBlt Korry has recreated Super Mario Bros.' iconic menu screen using 14,000 painted toothpicks. Discovered by Kotaku, it's an incredible work of art and it took five days to complete.

For a closer look at the toothpick masterpiece and the process behind it, check out the video above and some images in the gallery below.

Looking for more fan-made video game creations? Check out this amazing Halo cross-stitch or this excellent Destiny drum cover.

Welcome to Kotaku's Sunday Comics, your weekly roundup of the best webcomics. The images enlarge if you click on the magnifying glass icon.

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Here’s the latest trailer for the new Fire Emblem, which Nintendo says will come to 3DS in North America in 2016.

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A new set of amiibos went on sale yesterday at GameStop, and it was a disaster. They’re already sold out. One day later, Nintendo’s acting as though nothing happened, and fans are pissed off.

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Seit 2010 kaufe ich mir jedes Jahr einen neuen Computer – häufiger als jemals zuvor. Die Laptops und Desktop-Rechner in den Jahren davor hielten im Schnitt immer 24 bis 36 Monate. Seit fünf Jahren muss es alle zwölf Monate ein neues Arbeitsgerät sein – ein iPad.

Das iPad rebootete für mich die bisherige Computergeschichte. Es setzte sie auf eine gewisse Art zurück. Hardware-Version 1.0, der gebogene Silberrücken, war zu seiner Zeit ‚magisch und revolutionär‘, rückblickend aber natürlich nur der erste (große) Schritt in seiner Evolutionskette, die bislang neun Geräte umfasst. Als damals die eigenen Finger zum ersten Mal das Glas berührten, sprudelte mein Kopf mit Ideen. Das Potenzial, das hinter dieser Scheibe schlummerte, schien endlos¹.

Mittlerweile steht das iPad in seiner Klasse alleine. Man kann andere Tablets kaufen, aber keinen wirklichen Mitbewerber finden. Ein Surface (Pro) 3 sieht sich eher auf Augenhöhe mit einem MacBook, ein Amazon Fire ist in erster Linie ein Bildschirm für Filme und Bücher aus dem Amazon Store. Ein Nexus 9 oder Samsung Tab 4 sind weitgehend Android-Telefone mit größerem Bildschirm. Das iPad avancierte in wenigen Jahren zur allgemeinen Bezeichnung einer ganzen Produktkategorie, so wie der iPod stellvertretend den Namen für alle MP3-Player trägt.

Ausschlaggebend für das Image ist die Software aus dem App Store, die das iPad bis heute differenziert. Kein anderes Gerät hat ein Pixelmator, ein GarageBand oder ein Ulysses. Gesund ist das nicht. Ich wünsche mir Konkurrenz auf Softwareseite. Ich wünsche mir umwerfende Apps auf anderen Tablets, die Apple aus ihrer bequemen Position zwingt das iPad stärker vom iPhone zu trennen. Ich wünsche mir, das Apple die Türen für Entwickler weiter aufstößt, um das iPad deutlicher als PC-Alternative zu platzieren.

Wo ist der Split-Screen-Mode? Wo ist der schnellere Multitasking-Screen? Wo ist die systemweite Tastatur-Unterstützung, der drucksensible Bildschirm, der Mehrbenutzer-Login? Wo sind die Upgrade-Preise, die die Entwicklung komplexer Software dauerhaft finanziert?

Es ist an der Zeit, die Boxhandschuhe auszuziehen und auch den iPad-Nutzern zuzutrauen, sich ihre Fäuste nicht blutig zu schlagen. Ich fordere keinen Experten-Mode, aber ich denke man kann visierten Anwendern mehr geben und trotzdem die Bedienung einfach halten.

Ich arbeite unheimlich gerne unter Mac OS. An meinem Schreibtisch sitze stehe ich an einem Cinema-Display, der an einem MacPro aus dem Jahr 2009 hängt. Mein Powerbook G4 mit 400 MHz aus dem Jahr 2001 läuft immer noch – unter 10.5, Leopard. Selbst diese alten Geräte erlauben mir Dinge, die auf dem iPad heute noch unvorstellbar sind.

„Kann ein iPad meinen Laptop ersetzen?“ ist deshalb seit fünf Jahren die zentrale Frage. Es ist seit fünf Jahren aber auch die falsche Frage, weil sie impliziert, dass wir heute noch genauso arbeiten wie vor 15 Jahren. An nur einem Arbeitsplatz, Vollzeit, an Geräten ohne Simkarte und mit unveränderten Computerbedürfnissen.

Die Limitierungen von Windows und Mac OS fallen uns oft nicht mehr auf, weil wir sie verinnerlicht haben. Wir sitzen untätig für zwei geschlagene Minuten vor unseren Computern während sie hochfahren. Wir partitionieren Festplatten, installieren (Grafik-)Treiber, leeren virtuelle Mülleimer.

Fünf Jahre hat es gedauert bis durch die Bank weg verstanden war, dass man bestehende Software nicht einfach aufs Tablet portiert, dass Touch-Bedienung nicht die Computermaus ersetzt. Selbst Adobe und Microsoft haben mittlerweile nicht nur erkannt, das Software fürs Tablet neu erdacht werden muss, sie feiern es sogar. Word und Excel, Comp CC und Slate sind inzwischen Highlights im iPad-Software-Angebot.

Ein vollständiges Photoshop schafft es vielleicht nie² aufs Tablet. Das bedeutet jedoch nicht, dass die Finger nicht effizienter arbeiten wenn man auf die Abstraktionsebene der Computermaus verzichtet. Im Jahr 2010 fragten wir: „Was kann das iPad nicht?“ Fünf Jahre und 260 Millionen Geräte später erreichen wir endlich die Fragen: „Worin ist es gut?“ und „Für wen ist es gut?“

Fünf Jahre ist es jetzt her, das Apple die klare Trennung zwischen Mac OS und iOS zog und mit Continuity nun langsam beginnt die verbindenden Brücken zu bauen. Rückblickend war die harte Zäsur, die die Post-PC-Ära etablierte, die richtige Entscheidung. Der sanfte Übergang, so wie in Windows RT versuchte, fuhr brutal gegen die Wand. Das kostet Microsoft Zeit und Vertrauen. Der (Denk‑)Fehler in Bezug auf das iPad war, dass wir uns die Post-PC-Ära grundsätzlich ohne PCs vorgestellt haben.

Das iPad ist so reizvoll, weil es jedes Jahr mehrere Stufen nach oben springt. Weil jedes Jahr neue Dinge möglich werden, die vorher nicht funktionierten. Ein iPad Air 2 hat neben dem Namen kaum noch Gemeinsamkeiten mit einem iPad 2 – beide Geräte trennen aber lediglich dreieinhalb Jahre.

Und genau deshalb muss es für mich seit 2010 jedes Jahr ein neuer Computer sein – ein iPad.

Nintendo took the gaming world by storm in 2006 with their seventh-generation home console, the Wii.  The system’s intuitive motion controllers, spearheaded by the bundled killer app Wii Sports, capitalized on the potential mass-market appeal of gaming and proved to be lightning in a bottle for the company.  The Wii remained difficult to find on store shelves well over a year after its extraordinary launch and was nearly impossible to find during the first two holidays.

Many would say that the Wii was hastily abandoned due to Nintendo choosing to chase the prospect of third party support for its successor, the Wii U – a prospect that, clearly, did not go as planned.  Others would proclaim that the draw of motion controls was short lived and that much of that audience had moved on.

In any case, Nintendo shipped a respectable 15 million Wii consoles in 2010 - four years after its launch - falling right in between Sony and Microsoft’s shipments for their respective consoles that year.  The highly acclaimed Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Donkey Kong Country Returns were released this same year by Nintendo, and other games from the publisher, including Sin & Punishment, Kirby’s Epic Yarn and Metroid: Other M, kept Wii owners fairly busy (along with Xenoblade Chronicles in Japan), not to mention third-party titles such as GoldenEye, No More Heroes 2, Just Dance 2, and Epic Mickey.

Despite a profound lack of first-party software, which is widely regarded as the main selling point of Nintendo’s systems, the Wii still managed to ship almost 10m units during its fifth year on the market (2011).  To put that into perspective, the Wii U has yet to ship 10 million consoles over the course of its entire lifetime (two years and counting).  The lesson learned here is that you don’t promptly abandon your most successful console ever for a “grass-is-greener” scenario, regardless of whether or not the initial craze for it has dwindled.

Let’s rewind to the late 1980s, during the reign of Nintendo’s first home console, the Nintendo Entertainment System.  The year before its successor released, Nintendo still delivered quality software on the console without hindering the Super Nintendo’s respectable launch of first-party titles that included Super Mario World, Pilotwings and F-Zero.  Obviously the Nintendo Entertainment System had no shortage of third-party games the year before the Super Nintendo arrived; around 200 titles in fact, but strictly looking at first-party games alone, there was an undeniable level of quality still present with Dr. Mario, Punch Out!! (re-released, sans the Mike Tyson license), Startropics, and a little game called Super Mario Bros. 3, which went on to become the biggest selling stand-alone game on the console by far. 

Yet the Wii, a console that was at an astounding 81 million+ install base at the end of 2010, was all but given up on in 2011 and 2012 – the last two years of its life – and practically bereft of new releases from Nintendo outside of key titles like The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword and The Last Story. 

While it’s true that the games of today require far more resources to develop compared to 1990, consider the effect that New Super Mario Bros. U (developed by Nintendo’s EAD Group 4) would have had on the original Wii’s twilight years, particularly if bundled.  It would have provided a great swan song for the console, only lacking the higher resolution that it has in its current incarnation on the Wii U, possibly even giving the team more time to have Pikmin 3 ready for the launch of the new system.

Combine that with other possible additions to the Wii’s library, such as a true Wii Sports 3 from Nintendo’s EAD Group 2, and perhaps tasking other companies to make new iterations of, say, Starfox and F-Zero for the Wii (similar to what Namco and Sega did, respectively, on the GameCube) and it would’ve provided the console with a good batch of games without keeping other in-house Nintendo teams from working on Wii U projects and coming to grips with their first HD console.

The Wii was, in some ways, the biggest phenomenon the gaming industry has ever seen.  Despite one’s stance on motion control gaming or how important high-definition visuals were at the time, the little system that could marked a smashing comeback for Nintendo and deserved to exit the market on a much higher note than it did.

Full Article - http://www.vgchartz.com/article/258625/why-nintendo-should-have-supported-the-wii-for-longer/

Several years ago an early preview of a Dragon Force II fan translation patch was released by Verve Fanworks. Although making the Sega Saturn title more playable, a lot of the dialogue was yet to be translated including the game's all important story. After what is thought to be eight years in the making, the fan translation group have finally released a complete English patch for this stunning title which unfairly missed out on localisation.

As a retro gamer you will have no doubt in your gaming life encountered troubles trying to get an older console to run on a modern display. From no signal whatsoever to disappointing quality, the sad reality is that our gaming past isn't built for HD Televisions - or is it? A new adapter is currently in development to bring a HDMI out port to the Sega Dreamcast, and potentially other consoles too.

Here we see data representing the global sales through to consumers and change in sales performance of the four home consoles and four handhelds over comparable periods for 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013.  Also shown is the market share for each of the consoles over the same periods.

Year to Date Sales Comparison (Same Periods Covered)

Market Share – 7th Generation (Same Periods Covered)

Market Share – 8th Generation (Same Periods Covered)

2012 – (Week beginning January 8 to March 11)

2013 – (Week beginning January 6 to March 9)

2014 – (Week beginning January 5 to March 8)

2015 – (Week beginning January 4 to March 7)

Total Sales and Market Share for Each Year – 7th Generation

Total Sales and Market Share for Each Year – 8th Generation

"Year to date" sales for 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2014 sales are shown in series at the top of the table and then just below a comparison of 2014 versus 2013 and 2014 versus 2012 is displayed.  This provides an easy-to-view summary of all the data.

Microsoft

Xbox 360 - Down Year-on-Year 25,167, Year to Date -52.3%

Xbox One – Up Year-on-Year 30,959, Year to Date 42.6%

Sony

PlayStation 3 – Down Year-on-Year 33,562, Year to Date -45.8%

PlayStation Vita – Down Year-on-year 20,977, Year to Date -20.2%

PlayStation 4 – Up Year-on-year 51,406, Year to Date -12.7%

Nintendo

Nintendo Wii - Down Year-on-Year 10,380, Year to Date -76.3%

Nintendo 3DS – Up Year-on-Year 53,292, Year to Date 31.9%

Nintendo Wii U – Up Year-on-Year 465, Year to Date 6.8%

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A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. Outside, in the real world, he has a passion for the outdoors which includes everything from hiking to having received his B.A. in Environmental Studies. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.

Full Article - http://www.vgchartz.com/article/253457/2015-year-on-year-sales-and-market-share-update-to-march-7/

Cloud gaming company OnLive is set to shut down on 30th April. As of today all games on the service are free to play until it shuts down at the end of the month, and subscription renewals are also free and those purchased from 20th March will be refunded.

The company's ~140 cloud gaming patents have been purchased by Sony for an undisclosed sum. Sony's Philip Rosenberg stated that "These strategic purchases open up great opportunities for our gamers, and gives Sony a formidable patent portfolio in cloud gaming... It is yet another proof point that demonstrates our commitment to changing the way gamers experience the world of PlayStation."

Source: [Eurogamer]

Full Article - http://www.vgchartz.com/article/253468/onlive-shuts-down-sony-purchases-patents/

Google has launched one of its annual April Fools' Day jokes a little early - you can now activate a Pac-Man mode for Google Maps.

The offering allows you to scroll to the area of your choice and see it automatically turned into a map for Pac-Man to explore.

Roads become pathways for Pac-Man and the Ghosts, which then wrap around edges of the screen.

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In case your nostalgia for the 1990's, video games, and 1990's video games hasn't been sufficiently commodified, peripheral manufacturer Hyperkin has today's Internet curio: the so-called Smart Boy, an add-on that turns your iPhone 6 into, well, a Nintendo Game Boy.

The Smart Boy is still in the concept and design phase of production, but Hyperkin's goal is to create a peripheral that plays Game Boy and Game Boy Color games and pipes them through your iPhone 6 screen. As you can see in the concept art below, the Smart Boy is essentially a casing with an eight-way D-pad, two face buttons, and start and select buttons.

From there, you can (hypothetically) slide an iPhone 6 in the front and a Game Boy cartridge in the back. According to the Los Angeles-based Hyperkin, the Smart Boy will also house its own battery, which will (hopefully) last up to five hours.

In a press release, designer Chris Gallizzi explained that his company "wanted to create a retro device that can be easily adapted into any modern gamer's arsenal of devices." The idea was originally floated as an April Fool's Prank until popular reaction spurred Hyperkin into serious development.

Right now, Hyperkin's plan is to release the Smart Boy in classic grey first and release more colors, and support more types of iPhones, later. Hyperkin is also quick to point out that the Smart Boy's features and hardware may change by the time it's actually produced.

The rub, of course, is that Hyperkin is caught between a persnickety Scylla and Charybdis. On the one hand, current plans for the Smart Boy include an app which would need to be approved by Apple. (However, Hyperkin could follow ION Audio's lead: the iCade uses natively supported Bluetooth functionality instead of a separate app.)

On the other, Nintendo might decide to throw its weight around: the company recently announced a partnership with DeNa to develop iOS games and filed its own patent for a Game Boy emulator app for mobile devices late last year.

Novelty and nostalgia aside, there's also the practical matter of who might need a Smart Boy: it's not actually an MFi controller, changes in iPhone size and shape could be a problem, and there are already plenty of ways (legal and otherwise) to play Game Boy titles on more modern hardware, including Nintendo's own Virtual Console and eShop.

But, y'know, still: it's a neat little gadget, if only for the fact that it uses honest-to-goodness Game Boy cartridges.

Die Runden-Strategiespiele der Fire Emblem-Reihe sind in West und Ost sehr beliebt, der bislang letzte Teil Awakening heimste nicht nur bei GamersGlobal viel Lob ein (GG-Test: 9.0).

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The internet was on fire this morning when it was revealed that Unity developer Erik Roystan Ross posted a playable version of Super Mario 64 HD built in unity that runs inside your browser, provided you've got the Unity plugin installed, of course. It's a bit of a tech demo to showcase his Unity tool Super Character Controller which is a collection of functions that make animating characters easier. How easy? Well, easy enough to throw together the first level of Super Mario 64.

The cool part about being a Unity project is that Unity is super portable, which is why you see so many developers using it these days. The same project used to make Mario run around in your browser window with a little help from James Fietcher from Mobot who converted it into an iPhone project and added basic virtual controls resulted in Super Mario 64 HD running on my iPhone 6:

Now keep in mind this is nothing more than a fan-made tech demo with a little massaging from another developer with some spare time this afternoon, it's not any kind of sign of anything to come from Nintendo with their new partnership with DeNA... However, it does do a great job to whet your appetite of what could be possible, if Nintendo decided to go in that direction, anyway.

Fingers crossed someone from Big-N sees this and thinks, "Hey, we need to do that," but... I'm not holding my breath.

Der Bundesverband Interaktive Unterhaltungssoftware (BIU) hat erneut Zahlen veröffentlicht, die den Kauf von Computer- und Videospielen in Download-Form betreffen.

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What happens when you mix Puzzle Bobble, Puyo Puyo, and Tetris? Well, apart from a massive mound of multi-coloured blocks, bubbles and blobs, you'll end up with an all new homebrew puzzler for the Mega Drive. Doroppu is the latest title to hit Sega's 16-bit system, one which perfectly blends a variety of puzzle games into a unique twist - something which can now be enjoyed through the game's free downloadable ROM.

Got a screen your boss can't see? You'll be fine then, just have a spreadsheet or something ready to pull up sharpish.

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The first Disneyland in Anaheim, California opened its gates almost 60 years ago, on July 17, 1955. As part of an upcoming anniversary celebration Disney released raw, time-lapsed footage of the construction that happened under the direct supervision of Walt Disney himself.

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For the month of April, Xbox Live Gold members will receive six new free games (double the normal amount) on Xbox One and Xbox 360 as part of the Games with Gold program.

On Xbox One, Xbox Live Gold members can download Pool Nation FX ($13.99 ERP) AND Child of Light ($14.99 ERP) for free during the month of April.

  

On Xbox 360, starting Wednesday, April 1st, Gears of War Judgement ($19.99 ERP) and Terraria ($14.99 ERP) will be free for Xbox Live Gold members through April 15th. Then on April 16th, Xbox Live Gold Members can download Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag ($19.99 ERP) and Army of Two The Devil’s Cartel ($19.99 ERP) for free through April 30th.

Read more about April Games with Gold titles over at Xbox Wire.

*Titles are available as free downloads for qualifying Xbox Live Gold members in all markets where Xbox Live is available. Some regions may offer different titles depending on market availability.

The post Xbox Live Games with Gold for April 2015 – Double the Games appeared first on Xbox Live's Major Nelson.

While you might normally think of a project titled TIE Fighter as a part of the excellent Star Wars space combat game series, but it's also the name of the exceptional fan film in the YouTube video above.

The film's art and animation is the work of one man, Paul Johnson, who created this side story "over 4 years' worth of weekends," according to the video's description. But he got some help on the music front from "the living guitar solo Zak Rahman and sound design by up and coming audio technician Joseph Leyva."

You can see a poster for the film from Johnson's DeviantArt page below, which draws inspirations from "those really classy oil/acrylic-painted movie posters by folks like Drew Struzan."

Despite the work and the amazing end product, Johnson isn't asking for money. He writes, "Don't support me on Patreon, because I don't have one! And don't donate to my Kickstarter, because I don't have one of those either. Instead, if you enjoyed this, give someone at your workplace, uni, school or whatever a random bar of chocolate or can or Coke or something. Seriously, it'll probably make their day. That would totally make my day."

If the game stoked your nostalgia for inside-the-cockpit action, the online storefront GOG.com released the original Star Wars TIE Fighter and X-Wing games last year. And we're expecting to hear more information on Star Wars Battlefront next month.

Nintendo President and CEO Satoru Iwata has told Time that their Amiibo figures aren't just copying Skylanders or Disney Infinity. They rather bring something new to the table.

"At first glance it may look like we’re a trend follower with amiibo," said Iwata. "But really what we’re doing is, we have introduced amiibo in a way that is new and where amiibo do things in our games that they can’t do anywhere else. From that perspective, we feel that we are a trendsetter."

"It’s true that if you go into a retail store, and you see the retail shelves, that from a retail perspective, we’re leveraging the structure that’s in place for how the toys to life category is being sold. That’s a hurdle that’s hard to overcome in terms of differentiation. But in terms of how the amiibo are used in games, we do feel that we are taking the lead in terms of broadening what toys to life can be."

"What’s interesting about the Smash Bros. games, is that the Smash Bros. games do not represent the Nintendo characters fighting against one another, they actually represent toys of Nintendo characters getting into an imaginary battle amongst themselves," added Iwata. "And frankly that has to do with a very serious debate that we had within the company back then, which was, ‘Is it really okay for Nintendo characters to be hitting other Nintendo characters? Is it okay for Mario to be hitting Pikachu?"

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A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. Outside, in the real world, he has a passion for the outdoors which includes everything from hiking to having received his B.A. in Environmental Studies. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.

Full Article - http://www.vgchartz.com/article/253407/iwata-amiibo-isnt-copying-skylanders-or-disney-infinity/