Classics Return in Realms Deep, Minecraft gets VR

Realms Deep 2020 round-up

3D Realms’ hosted their online event Realms Deep 2020 this weekend, focusing on their specialty: Retro first-person shooters.

“Realms Deep 2020 gives us the chance to highlight what we’re working on while showcasing all the badass projects our friends are cooking up. It’s been a strange year, but we want to treat this as an awesome casual hangout with our fans and friends,” said 3D Realms’ Frederik Schreiber.

The show featured a veritable who’s-who of first-person shooter stars, including Cliff Bleszinski, American McGee, Jon St. John, John Romero, Chuck Jones and Time Willits.

You can watch the streams on 3D Realms’ Twitch channel, and find some bargains in the Realms Deep Steam Sale.

Highlight Announcements

• Graven– Slipgate Ironworks/3D Realms/1C Entertainment – Reveal Trailer / Gameplay Trailer / First 30 Minutes Gameplay – TBA 2021 – PC
• Core Decay – Ivar Hill/Slipgate Ironworks/3D Realms – Announcement Trailer – TBA 2021 – PC
• Kingpin Reloaded – 3D Realms/Interplay – Before / After Teaser – TBA 2020 – PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Switch
• Fallen Aces – Trey Powell/Jason Bond/New Blood Interactive – Reveal Trailer – TBA – PC
• Postal: Brain Damaged – Hyperstrange/CreativeForge Games/Running With Scissors – Announcement Trailer – Late 2021 – PC
• Ultrakill – Arsi “Hakita” Patala/New Blood Interactive – Early Access Launch Trailer – Out Now – PC

Who voices wisecracking cowboy cultist Caleb in FPS classic Blood?

1. Jon St. John
2. Charles Martinet
3. John William Galt
4. Stephan Weyte

The answer will be revealed at the bottom of today’s issue. Join up with our community on Twitter and Facebook to discuss what the answer could be.

Punch-Out!! was the first Nintendo DS

Nintendo’s 1983 arcade version of Punch-Out!! used two screens in its cabinet. How come? Well, Nintendo had a big stack of surplus televisions at their arcade assembly plant in Uji after overestimating demand for arcade games following the success of Donkey Kong.

“The televisions were not being used,” according to Nintendo’s Genyo Takeda, and the obvious solution was to figure out a way to use more televisions. The second screen simply featured match information and player portraits.

Join up with our community on Twitter and Facebook to discuss today’s fact.

Role-playing and storytelling ahoy

Tuesday and Thursday are good days for game narrative, starting with Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-reckoning, a remastered version of the classic RPG, and continuing with the next chapter of Tell Me Why and blood-sucking visual novel Vampire: The Masquerade – Shadows of New York on Thursday.

Tuesday – September 07

• AVICII Invector for Switch
• Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One
• RPG Maker MV for PlayStation 4 and Switch

Thursday – September 10

• Metal Max Xeno: Reborn for PlayStation 4
• Tell Me Why: Chapter Three for PC and Xbox One
• Vampire: The Masquerade – Shadows of New York for PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Switch

Epic calls Apple ban a death sentence

The legal tussle between Epic Games and Apple continues, after Apple pulled Fortnite from the App Store and cut off Epic’s access to Apple’s development and publishing tools.

“Epic and its customers will suffer irreparable harm if Apple is permitted to continue its retaliation,” Epic declared to the federal court in California. Apple claims Epic is in breach of its development and publishing terms, and that they are within their right to block Epic from using Apple’s tools and channels.

Workaround: The lawsuits started after Epic launched its own in-app store for Fortnite, allowing players to make purchases outside Apple’s app store – and bypassing Apple’s 30 percent fee on transactions. In response, Apple removed Fortnite from the App Store, prompting Epic to sue and Apple to retaliate by revoking their developer and publisher license.

Monopolistic: Epic CEO Tim Sweeney called Apple’s actions a “potential death sentence” for his billion dollar studio. “In the real world, when one store makes a crappy decision about which products it stocks, it’s not a big deal – you just go to another store and buy it,” he tweeted (https://twitter.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/1301967436430880771) . “Under Apple’s monopoly, a decision not to carry a product is a death sentence to that product and shuts out all its iOS users.”

Brave Browser rewards you for surfing

Maybe your internet connection is fast, but what about your browser? Ads chew away at your bandwidth, not to mention all the tracking cookies snooping on your online habits.

The Brave Browser is built from the ground up for speed, privacy and providing an ad-free Internet. Brendan Eich is behind the project, who founded Firefox and invented Javascript, and It’s completely free to use for Windows, macOS, Linux and mobile.

You can opt-in for ads that respect your privacy, and even earn rewards. It’s quick and easy to use, featuring the same comforts and conveniences you expect from a modern browser, including built-in support for Tor onion-routing, which offers true anonymity.

If you give Brave Browser a go via our link DailyBits earns a small commission, so you’ll be helping us too!

Super Rare Games is a fine purveyor of only the best quality physical editions of the greatest indie games for Switch. They also try to avoid scalping by limiting each customer to two copies of their rare prints.

Their releases often feature spectacular collector editions featuring full-color manuals, soundtrack CDs, artwork and other swag. If you just want a nice little cartridge to call your own, the standard editions give you just that.

Chroma Squad is one of their latest releases, and the collector edition features a full-color manual, stickers and trading cards in addition to the game itself. The 4,000 copy run is almost sold out, but we had one copy for a lucky reader!

Today we’re happy to reveal that the winner is:

• Paul Silvester From England, UK

Congrulations to our lucky winner! Check back tomorrow for our next weekly giveaway!

Counter-Strike coaches banned after match spectator exploit is discovered

Tournament organizers have discovered that Counter-Strike: Global Offensive coaches may have abused a bug that allows them to spectate any part of a map. ESL Gaming has banned three coaches so far: MIBR’s Ricardo “⁠dead⁠” Sinigaglia, Heroic’s Nicolai “⁠HUNDEN⁠” Petersen, and Hard Legion’s Aleksandr “⁠zoneR⁠” Bogatiryev. Teams discovered cheating must forfeit any prize money, and will also lose their ESL Pro Tour points.

The Esports Integrity Commission has warned teams that they have until September 13th to admit to exploiting the bug and anyone found cheating after the grace period will be punished more severely. The exploit has been in place since 2016, and the Esports Integrity Commission is planning to inspect over 25,000 recorded demos of games to detect cheaters. Valve fixed the bug within days of it being reported, but have yet to comment on the situation.

South Korea delays military service for successful esports professionals

The Korean government is considering letting esports professionals delay their military service, as men between 18 and 28 are expected to complete compulsory military service. Successful esports professionals may apply to increase the maximum age of enlistment to 30 in order to foster further support for Korean esports.

Steel joins 100 Thieves’ Valorant team

Former Counter-Strike: Global Offensive player Joshua ‘steel’ Nissan – famous from a match-fixing scandal during his time with iBUYPOWER – has joined 100 Thieves’ Valorant roster. Nissan is permanently banned from participating in Valve game tournaments, but Spencer ‘Hiko’ Martin and Nicholas “nitr0” Cannella clearly want to give him a second chance.

100 Thieves’ Valorant team was originally composed of Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds players, but the new leadership is bringing in fresh blood from Counter-Strike: Global Offensive after the team suffered a series of humiliating defeats. Nissan has worked his way back up the ladder playing for minor teams, before eventually settling at Chaos last year and leading his team to victory at the ESEA Premier North America last July.

• EA responds to backlash after adverts appear in UFC 4 by promising to remove the ads
• Physical copies of Super Mario Bros. 3D All-Stars appear on Ebay before Nintendo has even closed pre-orders
• Tony Hawk completes real-life Pro Skater challenge on his ramp and finds ‘secret tape’ congratulating him on the remastered launch
• Sony’s PlayStation VR spotlight starts with a sale featuring Arizona Sunshine, L.A. Noire and Until Dawn
• Mojang adds PlayStation VR support to Minecraft for PlayStation 4 making the game fully playable in virtual reality

Who voices wisecracking cowboy cultist Caleb in FPS classic Blood?

Answer: Stephan Weyte!

Blood might not enjoy the same mainstream recognition as Duke Nukem 3D, but it also had a lovably bonkers main character.

Blood was another Build engine game riffing on the then-popular FPS-with-pop-culture-references formula popularized by Duke Nukem 3D. Blood was a horror pastiche starring the blood-thirsty cowboy Caleb, who had a penchant for showtunes, maniacal laughter and ultra-violence.

Stephan Weyte’s performance earned him cult status, and he also appeared in games like DUSK, Iratus: Lord of the Dead and now the just-announced Graven. Weyte might not be as famous as Jon St. John, but he’s certainly got just as memorable a voice.

Today’s issue of DailyBits was written by Gavin Herman, Erlend Grefsrud, Simon Priest, and Jamie Davey.