January 3, 2024
Happy New Year!
“Carlos’s News Speedrun” capped of 2023 with a record-breaking two posts in a year and here’s hoping that I can break that record post-haste!
First Up…
- Just like with the wicked take on Winnie the Pooh, Nightmare Forge games has personally seen to “twisting the now-in-the-public-domain Steamboat Willie into something much scarier.” And not without it’s share of controversy right off the bat…
- The co-op shooter, Infestation 88, immediately about-faced the title as good internet folk started insinuating that the “88” referred to “Heil Hitler.” Ouch. It will now be called Infestation: Origins. Of little reprieve for Disney, the original copyright holder, I’m sure.
My take: It’s fascinating to see how all these companies — game devs, filmmakers and the like — were just waiting to pounce on the salivating thought that they’d some day get a chance to corrupt childhood memories once the “Sell By” date expired for these properties. And to turn them into B-movie style knocks offs and “adaptations.” How original!
Speaking of Disney…
- The media conglomerate’s park division let out that Star Wars Outlaws — the next AAA game in the franchise — drops in the fall of this year. A “fact” which, upon further questioning by Stephen Totilo, was corrected to give a more broad “2024” release, but…c’mon. We’ll be seeing this baby drop around the holidays. Pending no further delays into 2025, of course.
The Small Bytes…
- 🥽 Right off the heels of mentioning VR’s potential death spiral in last week’s Speedrun comes confirmation that Firewall: Zero Hour developer, First Contact Entertainment, is shuttering due to a lack of support within the industry. It’s too bad as that franchise is one of the better titles for the original PS VR — and came with a nifty toy gun to boot!
- 🥋 Tekken 8’s director, Katsuhiro Harada, has come to the defense of the game’s alternate display modes saying that detractors have “misunderstood the accessibility options.” The option under fire? The colorblind filter that causes those who suffer nausea and migraines to become ill and potentially fatal seizures.
- 🧩 A 13-year-old Tetris expert triggering a crash at level 157 with the NES 1989 release to “beat” the game has got me thinking about that scene in “King of Kong” where an interview subject goes around talkin’ ‘bout: “Kill screen coming up! Kill screen coming up!”
- ❌ Bobby Kotick is finally out at Activision Blizzard. Part of me wants to say: “Hey, he built the company up into the behemoth that it is today!” On the other hand? The guy was kind of terrible when it came to outright dismissing misconduct at the company. Here’s hoping that Microsoft cleans up any lingering issues at ActiBlizzy in the years ahead….
Carlos, Watchu Been Playin’?
🔫 I was able to game tape solve Control since the last Speedrun and the game ended on quite the cliffhanger — to which the DLC did very little to resolve and whose aggressive difficulty broke me enough to rage quit. Still, Control proper gave me enough context to finally get started with Alan Wake 2.
But not before dipping into Fortnite’s 40-or-so minute “Alan Wake Flashback” experience. Its cute graphical underpinnings gave me a decent enough summary of the titular character’s Dark Place residency. I’ve never been much of a Fortnite player, but Epic might just be on to something by allowing these playable story recaps for other games on their mega-platform going forward.
We Got Comms! 