#92: Primitive Earthlings On Mars?

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Surviving the Aftermath announced by Paradox Interactive, out late 2020

Haemimont Games’ colony management sim Surviving Mars will be getting a follow-up: Paradox Interactive has just announced Surviving the Aftermath, to be released next year.

The Surviving brand is turning into a proper series, and this time you’ll be put in charge of rebuilding civilization after some catastrophe; possibly a near-extinction event. So far all we know is that the teaser shows comets or meteors raining down on a planet following what looks like a failed attempt to intercept them with missiles.
Surviving the Aftermath

Primitive Earthlings need Martian know-how

It’s not clear exactly what kind of aftermath you’ll be managing your way through, so it’s anyone’s guess: Nuclear strikes, meteor impacts, a global pandemic, climate change … Haemimont and Paradox are staying mum.

Surviving the Aftermath is launching on PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in late 2020, but Early Access versions will be available through Xbox Game Preview and Epic Games Store later this year. We hope we’ll be learning more about the game at PDXCON 2019 on October 19th, which we’ll be attending. Stay tuned!

Time For A Quick Daily Quiz?

Which actor did NOT return for Ghostbusters: The Videogame?

• Bill Murray
• Max Von Sydow
• Sigourney Weaver
• Annie Potts

The answer will be revealed at the end of this issue!

News Bits

New PlayStation 4 update doubles party size, adds Android remote play

The latest operating system update for PlayStation 4 doubles the size of multiplayer parties, from 8 to 16 players. The party feature will also have improved network connectivity, audio quality and various new accessibility features. Remote Play now also supports streaming PlayStation 4 games to any device running Android 5.0 or higher.

Forever Entertainment confirms signing House of the Dead remakes

Two House of the Dead remakes are happening: Forever Entertainment confirms that the dotted line has been signed and that the ink is dry on a deal to remake the first two House of the Dead games. No platforms have been announced and no dates have been given, but Switch seems like a very obvious candidate – and then there’s VR, of course!

Daily Fact

Konami kept Lords of Shadow from upstaging Castlevania Judgement

Mercury Steam’s quite excellent 2010 Castlevania: Lord of Shadows for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 (and eventually PC in 2013) was originally just named Lords of Shadow. Why? Primarily because Konami didn’t want to steal any thunder from 2009’s Castlevania Judgement for the Wii.

This little deception also helped them keep the series’ major change in direction under wraps, and apply some retroactive continuity magic to add some new dramatic flair. How dramatic? Well, they cast Sir Patrick Stewart as the charismatic father figure Zobek, who also narrated the whole brooding affair.

Daily News

Fortnite’s end of season event begins October 13, servers off shortly after

End of season events are usually not disruptive in Fortnite – you can usually play right through them. But this time, Epic Games will take down the servers afterwards to complete a big content update.

This has obviously caused some speculation about what kind of major change could warrant downtime: After all, this is the 10th season since the game’s launch, and since the update will be applied during the downtime, there are no preloaded files to mine for clues.

It’s the final countdown, for season 10 anyway

10 seasons is a big milestone for the world-dominating battle royale, and fans hope there’s something special in the works. Most of the speculation is about a major world update, since that would explain the scheduled downtime.

If you have any sentimental attachment to any of Fortnite’s landmark locations, you might wanna have one last look at them now – who knows what might happe nonce the Visitor’s rocket at Dusty Depot launches on October 13th?

Monster Boy creators Game Atelier and FDG “team up again”

Game Atelier and publisher FDG Entertainment and teaming up again for another project. Last time they produced Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom, a follow-up to Sega’s long-running Wonder Boy series.

Could it be a new side-scrolling adventure? Monster Boy was made in collaboration with Wonder Boy creator Ryuichi Nishizawa, who also worked on DotEmu and LizardCube’s Wonder Boy III: The Dragon’s Trap remake.

May we offer a drink while you wait?

While there’s no guarantee there’s a new Monster Boy on the way, both studios have talked about a game named (believe it or not) Wonder Boy: Monster Boy and the Wizard of Booze, until some killjoys complained about it.

Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom launched for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Switch on December 4th last year, and shifted 50,000 copies in less than a week. The vast majority of sales were for Switch, according to publisher FDG: More than eight times the sales on PlayStation and Xbox combined.

Game Spotlight

Ghostbusters Remastered on Switch makes us feel very good indeed

(Saber Interactive – Switch/PC/Xbox One/PS4)

Sure, Batman and Star Wars are great, but you know what really gets my blood pumping? Ghostbusters. Maybe because there’s so little of it? Three movies across 35 years, a couple of cartoons, some videogames – and only one that’s really good.

That’s Ghostbusters: The Videogame, which is 10 years old now, and was just remastered and re-released. I’ve been playing the Switch version, and pretty much everything about it makes me a very happy puppy. It’s Ghostbusters, plain and simple. There’s not much more to it, but that bustin’ feels good.

I ain’t afraid of no port

Ghostbusters: The Videogame is pretty much Ghostbusters 3: Scripted by Dan Ackroyd and Harold Ramis, voiced by most of the original cast (including Bill “I’m the reason the movie didn’t get made” Murray), and a story that follows the Gozer saga from the first two movies.

In terms of gameplay, it’s not dissimilar to Gears of War. You play as an unnamed Rookie (unfortunately no character creator) who handles the Ghostbusters’ new equipment, meaning a bunch of new “weapons”. These include the classic proton stream, a slime thrower, a shotgun-like blaster and some explosive ordnance.

The additional weapons are used to defeat corporeal enemies, while ghosts need to be caught and trapped with your trusty proton cannons – which is really what Ghostbusters is about. Fortunately, it’s just as fun and thrilling every time.

Mass hysteria

The game is surprisingly tough, and it’s best played on normal difficulty if you’re just looking to have some fun. Ghosts can knock you out pretty easily and while your companions can get you back on your feet again, you sometimes operate in pairs, which can get pretty dicey. Particularly the later cherub enemies are annoying, and the boss battles can be really tough. This is a proper, old-fashioned videogame, folks!

The only real complaint is that it peaks a bit early: The fantastic early battle against the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man is a high point that the game never quite manages to top, and it feels like it should have been saved for the finale.

Nevertheless, the game is 100% Ghostbusters and treats its source material with exceptional respect: Very few videogame adaptations capture their subject matter as thoroughly as Ghostbusters: The Videogame, and the remastered version is a great way to experience it again – or for the first time.

News Bits

Marvel’s Iron Man VR has original story as Tony Stark fighting Ghost

You wanna wear the Iron Man suit, right? Come on, admit it. Yes? Well, you can’t, because it’s not real. You need to grow up.

Or you can wait for Marvel’s Iron Man VR, which lets you pretend to be Tony Stark in his Iron Man suit as much as you want. Featuring an original storyline where Iron Man fights Ghost and drives the story via dialogue choices, Marvel’s Iron Man VR is out for PlayStation 4 on February 28th, 2020.

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint review round-up

• Jeuxvideo.com (Score 17/20) – ”The authenticity and the survival, central to the experience, accentuate the urgency of the situations and this oppressive feeling of being the prey, and no longer the hunter, on Auroa.”
• Windows Central (Score 4/5) – ”Ghost Recon Breakpoint is a good game, and one that I didn’t expect to like as much as I did. I found Ghost Recon Wildlands to be an incredibly boring experience, and Ghost Recon Breakpoint redeems itself with a better story, voice acting, and gameplay enhancements.”
• PC Invasion (Score 6/10) – ”Ghost Recon: Breakpoint has a solid foundation, but is let down by poor design choices and braindead easy gameplay.”
• Push Square (Score 6/10) – ”For the most part, Ghost Recon: Breakpoint is an enjoyable open world excursion, provided you know what to expect — and let’s face it, you probably know exactly what to expect. Its loot and gear score systems seem more than a little tacked on, but much like many of Ubisoft’s other open worlders, there’s a moreish quality to Breakpoint that’s difficult to deny. In co-op there’s potential for a lot of fun, and the freedom that you’re given in both building Nomad and tackling missions is the game’s greatest strength. However, an eye-watering number of microtransactions leave a sour taste, and a parade of annoying bugs give the release a disappointingly rough feel. Robust but bloated, Breakpoint is a mishmash that has its fun moments, but its identity is MIA.”
• GamesRadar+ (Score 2.5/5) – ”Despite hewing close to its predecessor, Ghost Recon Breakpoint feels like a step backward for the franchise, with mechanics that hew too close to its open-world cousins.”
• Xbox Achievements (Score 60/100) – ”Not as good as Ghost Recon Wildlands, Ubisoft Paris’ follow-up has a few new ideas up its sleeve, but is ultimately lacking. Sadly, Ghost Recon Breakpoint feels like it’s been hastily gaffer taped together, then kicked out of the door, bugs and all.”
• PlayStation Universe (Score 4.5/10) – ”Ghost Recon Breakpoint is a game crying out to be more straightforward, more-focused, but instead it’s added one more wafer thin gameplay mechanic after another, flying in the face of common sense, and now its bloated frame has exploded because it simply can not hold all that mess in and still function. A dull, frustrating misfire.”
• EGM (Score 2/5) – ”Looting for better gear is a trend that’s taken over gaming, but it’s never seemed as unnecessary and as cynical as it does in Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint. Turning the game into an amalgamation of Wildlands and The Division, Breakpoint’s gear system ruins any immersion you may have felt in pretending to be an elite spec ops soldier. If that was the game’s only issue, it might have still been salvageable, but its predictable story, graphical infidelity, and obnoxious open world make this a failed experiment at marrying two or three different properties from the same publisher.”
• VGC (Score 2/5) – ”In stark comparison to previous Ghost Recon iteration Wildlands, Breakpoint feels as though it has no real sense of what it’s supposed to be or what players want from it.”
• VG247 (Score 1/5) – ”I really wanted to like Breakpoint. Ubisoft has a habit of making mediocre games – Assassin’s Creed, Watch Dogs – really shine with a sequel, but this is a significant step back. I would rather play Anthem – at least traversal doesn’t make me want to put my head through a window in that game.”

Quiz Answer - Did You Get It Right?

Which actor did NOT return for Ghostbusters: The Videogame?

Answer: Sigourney Weaver!

As we discuss in today’s Spotlight, Ghostbusters: The Videogame is pretty much Ghostbusters 3: Scripted by the writers behind the first two movies and bringing back the original cast – ranging from the usually-resistant Bill Murray to Max von Sydow appearing as Vigo and Annie Potts as Janine.

Unfortunately, there were two actors who refused the call: Rick Moranis has pretty much retired from acting, so it’s not exactly surprising that he didn’t return to do Louis Tully for a videogame, but Sigourney Weaver’s Dana Barrett was an important part of both films. Sadly, she turned down the opportunity to return – and came to regret the decision when she realized that the humble videogame was pretty much a reunion of the original cast!

Weekly Giveaway

Surviving Mars on Steam

For this week’s DailyBits giveaway we’re all heading to the red planet! We are giving away 5 Steam keys for Surviving Mars, the strategy-management game from the developer of Tropico – where you have to help the first Mars colonists survive everything their new home can throw at them.

We’ll include the Season Pass too, because we’re good like that.

All you have to do to enter the sweepstakes is to email us at team@dailybits.news with the subject line ‘Surviving Mars giveaway’. We will choose five random entries over the course of the week, and each will receive a Steam code for Surviving Mars on PC! It couldn’t be any easier.

DailyBits Feedback

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