New Silent Scope Game’s Opening Video Shows Off Its Characters
Konami recently announced that they’re working on the latest of the sniper arcade series, with Silent Scope: Bone Eater. They also just shared a look at the game’s opening video featuring its new anime-style protagonists.
While the game is similar to the ’90s shooter with zoom-in sniping features, it also has a networking feature that lets four machines link up. Also, the soundtrack definitely has some sort of Metal Gear Solid vibe going for it. Well, except that it’s more upbeat.
Silent Scope: Bone Eater is currently in development for arcades.
Read more stories about Arcade & Silent Scope: Bone Eater & Videos on Siliconera.
Read more at https://www.siliconera.com/2014/07/23/new-silent-scope-games-opening-video-shows-characters/#GVcQwl3KVocCh8wG.99
Phantom Breaker: Battle Grounds Coming To Vita On July 29th
Phantom Breaker: Battle Grounds will be available for PS Vita on July 29th in the U.S. and Europe, 5pb have announced. The game is a side-scrolling beat-em-up that lets you play as four characters from the Phantom Breaker fighting game.
The four characters you’ll get to play as include: Mikoto, Waka, Itsuki and Yuzuha. Additionally, Makise Kurisu from Steins;Gate will be available as DLC.
The game will cost $12 in North & South America and €10 in Europe. Meanwhile, the Makise Kurisu DLC retails for $6 (North & South America) and €5 (Europe).
Read more stories about Phantom Breaker: Battle Grounds & PlayStation Vita & Videos on Siliconera.
Read more at https://www.siliconera.com/2014/07/23/phantom-breaker-battle-grounds-coming-vita-july-29th/#6CbujyVSwAAuDPAw.99
Virtual-On And Shining Force Cross Exlesia Costumes Headed To Phantasy Star Online 2
Both Virtual On and Shining Force Cross Exlesia are coming to the Japanese Phantasy Star Online 2 in the form of costume. It’s part of the game’s second anniversary.
image: https://www.siliconera.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/pso22_thumb.jpg
Both of the former titles are arcade games, and will be adding costumes to the game. It’s hard to tell which is spiffier. To pick up Shining Force Cross Exlesia gear, you’ll need to defeat the Knight Gear, who will drop knight, er, gear. There’s also new 11 star weapons and a Knight Gear familiar from client orders.
image: https://www.siliconera.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/pso2_thumb.jpg
Virtual On gear will turn your character into someone who looks exactly like some of the various models from the robotic series such as the Temjin 747A 1P or Fei-Yen 1P.
image: https://www.siliconera.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/PSO2-x-SFC-Cross-Campaign_thumb.jpg
Phantasy Star Online 2 is available now on PC and PlayStation Vita. The English version is out in Asia on PC.
Read more stories about PC & Phantasy Star Online 2 & PlayStation Vita & Videos on Siliconera.
Read more at https://www.siliconera.com/2014/07/23/virtual-shining-force-cross-exlesia-costumes-headed-phantasy-star-online-2/#v4qGJy61MbV5HtDQ.99
Our 7-Year-Old Plays As Much Roblox and Minecraft As He Wants, and It’s Fine
We don’t impose screen time rules on our first-grade son, Apollo. He’s a hard worker, for one thing. He does his acceleration-program reading/writing homework every morning (even on weekends) and helps out around the house: sweeping the floors, cleaning up after himself, even mowing the lawn — with me right beside him, of course. Little Apollo deserves a little downtime, and now that he’s 7 (“and a half, Dad”), his downtime frequently involves screen time, usually in the form of Roblox or Minecraft.
“Daddy?” comes the call, typically from the couch in the family room. I will be doing anything except sitting down and relaxing. There are three of us, and we live in a house with a front yard, a backyard, and two hampers of laundry and a sink full of dishesthat replenish themselves when no one’s looking. I haven’t sat down and relaxed during waking hours in, oh, about seven and a half years.
“Yes, Apollo?” I reply.
“Daddy, how do you spell ‘McDonald’s’?”
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I don’t even bother asking why anymore. I stop whatever it is I’m doing, and head directly for his sheet, a piece of paper with certain special words on it. I lay it across the coffee table and grab a handy marker.
“See?” I say, writing and sounding out “M-C-D-O-N-A-L-D-S,” shoehorning it in awkwardly between “Spider-Man” and “Walmart.”ADVERTISEMENT
“Thank you,” my son says, now alternating his attention between the sheet and his iPad.
“You’re welcome,” I say, but not before I catch a glimpse of the screen. With brown skin (like my son’s) and long blond hair (definitely not like my son’s), a blocky avatar wearing purple sunglasses and, on his back, twin katanas in an X-shape is greeting customers from behind a cash register. Right above this totally rad dude is my son’s screen name.
Before you accuse me of setting the bar too low — fast-food cashiers are a sturdier breed than I’ll ever be — just know that in this universe, pretty much anything in realities both real and fictional can become a role-playing game.
My son was playing Roblox, though he also dabbles in the similar Minecraft. Between the two games, they essentially rule the role-playing universe. Just type a noun or proper name into the search bar — “Hockey”? “Target”? “Big Mac”? “Air”? — and Roblox has a world for you and your changeable avatar. Though I wouldn’t know if it’s any fun, having never played either game, my son derives quite a few hours of pleasure per week from — what’s he doing now? — building houses out of lava blocks.
Normally, my wife and I let Apollo play Roblox or Minecraft on his own. Normally, we don’t worry. Normally, though, Apollo isn’t an independent reader and writer. Now that he is — and he’s a pretty decent hunt-and-peck typist, too — my wife and I are considering changing our social-gaming rules. Both Roblox and Minecraft allow players to talk to one another, which, I admit, is pretty scary. You wonder how many creeps are out there pretending to be kids to lure actual kids into, at worst, revealing their locations and, at best, discussing adult topics. There’s no way to tell who users are chatting with or what they’re chatting about unless you watch over their shoulders, and who has time for that when another 400 dirty dishes have just materialized in the sink?
My wife and I have taken the wait-and-see approach, but only because our son is trustworthy and honest and would tell us if something weird was happening. For other parents, whose children may have a sneaky side or whose kids seem to thrive on negative attention, the only answer is to drop in unexpectedly whenever he or she is playing and check. It may be rude, but it’s your child’s life you’re talking about. (In our house, Apollo can close the door to his room or the bathroom anytime he wants, but Mom and I can also waltz in any ol’ time we want, too.)
The only potential downside, for my son, that I can see is that he begins to equate screen time with reality — with actual playing. Again, we’re not worrying yet, because we know that he still loves to play stuffed animals with me and work on his arts and crafts. And also play outside and practice tae kwon do.
As for upsides, there are a couple: he becomes better at communicating and, as strange as this may seem, he becomes better at problem-solving, because in both Roblox and Minecraft he’s confronted with obstacles to overcome, whether they’re actual obstacles in a race or a large number of Big Macs to be cooked and served.
While there isn’t conclusive evidence that excessive screen time is bad for kids’ health, we don’t want to try it and find out. If it gets to that point, we’ll tell Apollo to put down the devices (after putting down our own phone for a minute) and encourage some old-timey fun, like doing puzzles or playing charades. Or playing Harry Potter with a stuffed beaver, giraffe, and Snoopy.
The other day, Apollo mentioned something about Facebook and getting a lot of “likes.” Where he heard this, my wife and I have no idea, but we suspect it’s at his after-school program, where he’s in the same room as several fifth graders. As wait-and-see about things as ever, I told my son that he can “wait” until he’s 25 before he will ever “see” a social media app.
Anthony Mariani lives in Fort Worth with his wife and son and is the author of the (tragically though not unexpectedly) unpublished parenthood memoirLittle Man: A Semi-True Story. Don’t follow him on Twitter @Anthony_Mariani.
Spider-Man Has His Own Zen Pinball Table, But Now It’s Venom’s Turn
Spider-Man already has his own Zen Pinball table, but Venom is getting one, too.
The Venom table will be available for all of Zen Studio’s pinball games on PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PC, Mac, iOS, Android, and Amazon the week of December 8. That includes:
Zen Pinball 2 on PS3, PS4 & Vita: $2.99/€2,99/£2.49, North America December 9, Europe December 10
Zen Pinball 2 for Mac: $2.99/€2,99/£2.49 on December 10th
Pinball FX2 for Steam & Xbox 360: $2.99/€2,99/£2.49 on December 10th
Pinball FX2 for Xbox One: $2.99/€2,99/£2.49 on December 11th
Zen Pinball 2 for Wii U: $2.99/€2,99/£2.49 on December 11th
Zen Pinball / Marvel Pinball for iOS: $1.99/€1,79/£1.49, December 11th
Zen Pinball HD / Marvel Pinball for Android & Amazon: $1.99/€1,79/£1.49, December 11th
Read more stories about Android & iPhone & Marvel Pinball & PC & Pinball FX2 & PlayStation 3 & PlayStation 4 & PlayStation Vita & Xbox 360 & Xbox One & Zen Pinball 2 on Siliconera.
Read more at https://www.siliconera.com/2014/11/24/spider-man-zen-pinball-table-now-venoms-turn/#3AX1zRsgR063KaVT.99
JD.com purchases rights to Minecraft: Education Edition in China
Company’s cloud service, JD Cloud, using licensing agreement to move into educational sector
Chinese e-commerce company JD.com has purchased the rights to Minecraft: Education Edition in China in an effort to expand its business into the educational sector in the country.
Technode reports that the educational version of the popular title will be handled by the company’s cloud computing branch, JD Cloud.
JD Cloud will endeavor to partner with both local governments and various education institutions in the same way that Minecraft: Education Edition is implemented elsewhere in the world. The Education Edition of the game is specifically designed to educate K-12 students on STEM subjects, and includes content that teaches students to code. Currently, it is in use in over 100 countries around the world.
The standard version of Minecraft has been published in China by NetEase, and had reached 150 downloads as of last October.
Latest Minecraft Bedrock update brings crossbows and lanterns, adds new Xbox Achievement
The next major update of the Minecraft Village and Pillage series of upgrades is already out now for the Bedrock Edition of the game. Several note-worthy new features have been added, including Shields, which have long been in the Java edition Minecraft since version 1.9 more than 2 years ago.
The crossbow is now also fully available in the game. Previously, it was an experimental feature that had to be manually turned on in the game settings. Now, it appears that the weapon’s development is finally complete, as anyone can enjoy the feature without having to turn it on.
Additionally, for all those Xbox One users out there, a new achievement can be earned in the game. Titled Fruit of the Loom, a player can earn 20 Gamerscore points for creating a banner using at the Enchanted Apple Stencil.
There are also many other new features in the update, such as the new cat skin which has been named Jellie by the developers. The new skin was part of a contest in which players voted before the best one, and Jellie proved to be the winner in the end.
Other noteworthy new features include Lanterns (which have also been removed from the Experimental Gameplay settings), Looms for additional banner pattern creation, Lecterns for allowing multiple players to read the same books, and the new hostile mob called the Pillager (which strangely is only available in creative mode for the time being).
The update is available today and will roll out to all the operating systems that the Bedrock Edition is available on, including the Xbox One, Windows 10, Android, iOS, and the Nintendo Switch. For users on mobile devices, the devs recommend not using any HD textures right now, as there is presently a bug in the game that causes it to crash when using them.
Virtual-On And Shining Force Cross Exlesia Costumes Headed To Phantasy Star Online 2
Both Virtual On and Shining Force Cross Exlesia are coming to the Japanese Phantasy Star Online 2 in the form of costume. It’s part of the game’s second anniversary.
image: https://www.siliconera.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/pso22_thumb.jpg
Both of the former titles are arcade games, and will be adding costumes to the game. It’s hard to tell which is spiffier. To pick up Shining Force Cross Exlesia gear, you’ll need to defeat the Knight Gear, who will drop knight, er, gear. There’s also new 11 star weapons and a Knight Gear familiar from client orders.
image: https://www.siliconera.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/pso2_thumb.jpg
Virtual On gear will turn your character into someone who looks exactly like some of the various models from the robotic series such as the Temjin 747A 1P or Fei-Yen 1P.
image: https://www.siliconera.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/PSO2-x-SFC-Cross-Campaign_thumb.jpg
Phantasy Star Online 2 is available now on PC and PlayStation Vita. The English version is out in Asia on PC.
Read more stories about PC & Phantasy Star Online 2 & PlayStation Vita & Videos on Siliconera.
Read more at https://www.siliconera.com/2014/07/23/virtual-shining-force-cross-exlesia-costumes-headed-phantasy-star-online-2/#S2oWTmfsf2SIW5p1.99
How Atlus Saved Citizens of Earth
I first saw Citizens of Earth at an indie press event. The game’s quirky humor and Earthbound vibe immediately caught my attention. In Citizens of Earth, you play the Vice President of the World and lead everyday people like Baristas and even your Mother in your party. All of the townsfolk in the game can be recruited.
About a year later, Eden Industries tried fund the game through Kickstarter, but unfortunately weren’t able to reach their goal even though they had a neat playable demo.
“It’s hard to get the word out. There are so many Kickstarter projects and it is hard to hit that critical mass for coverage. People just don’t know about it. We’ve had so many people come up and say ‘Oh, there was a Kickstarter I wish I would’ve known about it,” lead designer and Eden Industries co-founder Ryan Vandendyck said to Siliconera.
image: https://www.siliconera.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/COE_3_thumb.png
Enter Atlus, the RPG publisher behind the Shin Megami Tensei series and also indie games like Zeno Clash from Ace Team. Atlus picked up Citizens of Earth after the Kickstarter campaign ended and will release Eden Industries humorous RPG. “We were very fortunate. I had met Atlus and have been talking to them even before the Kickstarter. We didn’t have any deal yet, but we were in talks. After the Kickstarter failed, Atlus reaffirmed how much they loved the game and they were sad to see it fail. They said we would love to work with you. We would love to get this game made. They very generously stepped in and helped us out,” said Vandendyck.
I asked, “How else has Atlus helped, aside from funding Citizens of Earth?“
“Funding was a big one,” Vandendyck answered. “They have helped with the marketing of the game. They made a really cool website. We didn’t have a ton of experience making dialog for games. They helped us with an editing pass and with dialog with the game. They brought the game to get voice acting, all of the characters have voice acting, which is really cool. They’ve been really great at lending their eye to it and giving us design feedback. They’ve been a great partner.”
image: https://www.siliconera.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/COE_8_thumb.png
Atlus also hosted a contest where fans could vote on a citizen and the Beekeeper came out on top. She will be made into a citizen who can join your party in the game. The Beekeeper can use honey to heal characters and send bees to attack enemies.
What other citizens are in the game? “One of my favorite characters is the School Mascot. This is a person dressed up as the mascot of the school in town and you never see who is inside,” Vandendyck explained. “He’s a fun over the top character. Everyone in the game has a day job and he gives everyone a cheer. That translates to changing the difficulty in the game. If you raise it up you get more rewards, it’s similar to The World Ends With You if you’ve played it. In battle, he can keep people’s spirits high to do more damage. He’s great at manipulating stats like buffing characters.”
Citizens of Earth is slated for release this October on Wii U, Nintendo 3DS, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, and PC.
Read more stories about Citizens of Earth & Nintendo 3DS & PC & PlayStation 3 & PlayStation 4 & PlayStation Vita & Wii U on Siliconera.
Read more at https://www.siliconera.com/2014/07/23/atlus-saved-citizens-earth/#ao8msE7gSow4f33j.99
Monster Taming RPG Band of Monsters Is Free For A Limited Time
A while ago, we noted that Kemco came out with a new RPG in Band of Monsters. It usually costs $7.99, but is currently free as part of a celebration for Machine Knight hitting one million downloads.
image: https://www.siliconera.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/bom_thumb.jpg
The game’s unique twist to draw players in is with its music taming aspect. Monster tamers are awash in the world of Band of Monsters. You, as Zara, can tame them using the power of song by “tuning” yourself to them. You’ll then be able to use said monsters during fights.
image: https://www.siliconera.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/cap_03_thumb.jpg
The Pokemon/Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker aspect comes in with collecting the sheer variety of some 170 different enemies, and then cross-breeding them Shin Megami Tensei style into entirely new creatures.
image: https://www.siliconera.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/cap_01_thumb.jpg
Band of Monsters also has an online component, where players can take their party online to fight against other players. Being free would certainly help you find some opponents.
Band of Monsters is available now on iOS and Android. Grab it while it’s free!
Read more stories about Android & Band of Monsters & iOS & Screenshots & Videos on Siliconera.
Read more at https://www.siliconera.com/2014/07/23/monster-taming-rpg-band-monsters-free-limited-time/#lk8jUxhK1udIR6Vu.99
