Playable Press

Haunted Temple and 17 Bit's turn-based strategy title Skulls of the Shogun has been making the trailer rounds for a while now, and with a playable version ready for the show floor at PAX it apparently seemed as good a time as any for the indy devs to put out another one. This time, the game's skeletal samurai take a moment to describe some of the specifics of multiplayer.

Off-the-wall marketing seems to be the way to go for smaller studios trying to draw attention to their games as of late. Retro City Rampage made a great show of it at E3, and now the folks who brought us Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP and Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes are doing just that to get more eyeballs on their latest project for Xbox LIVE Arcade, Super TIME Force.

Problems convincing a family-friendly company like Nintendo to carry a game about a young, naked boy fleeing for his life from his bloodthirsty, Bible-obsessed mother into an increasingly-unforgiving underground spiral of phantasmagoria haven't stopped Edmund McMillen and his development team from courting consoles, and now it looks like all of their hard work has finally paid off: McMillen announced via his Forumspring blog that The Binding of Isaac is, in fact, coming to consoles.

It's no secret that the free-to-play business model has become wildly popular for online games. Hell, we can hardly navigate two pages without tripping over a banner ad telling us how much FREE. IS. GOOD. It looks like someone at Microsoft finally received this news, because this week they announced their intention to begin hosting F2P titles through LIVE Arcade next month, creating a direct competitor (albeit a few years late) for Sony's Playstation Plus service.

We had a feeling that we were being a touch too optimistic in our reaction to the recent addition of a The World Ends With You-flavored teaser on Square Enix's homepage, and though the reality that this marketing stunt is in no way related to a sequel to the surprise Nintendo DS hit has just had enough time to sink in, the truth of the announcement is far from bad.

When Square Enix announced its intention to bring an SNES-style 2D entry of its hallmark roleplaying series, Final Fantasy, to mobile platforms, reactions were a bit confused but generally warm. After a three console generation-long wait it seemed that even the pickiest of fans were willing to meet the developer halfway. That wait will be over on August 31 when Final Fantasy Dimensions holds its simultaneous worldwide release, though the dent it'll put in your wallet may be a bit more than you expected.

It's been a little while since we heard anything substantial about the decidedly darker look at the Star Wars universe under direct development by LucasArts in Star Wars 1313, but with the first in a promised series of video documentary pieces finally out it looks like the developers are finally ready to start cluing us in on the details of the heavily anticipated project. Creative director Dominic Robilliard, lead artist Dave Smith, continuity designer Steve Szostak, and lead environmental artist Brian Recktenwald were all eager to pitch in with their thoughts on the title, drawing parallels to Dante's Inferno (the literary work, that is) over CG and concept art of the main character interacting with Coruscant's criminal underground in its literal underground.

Rockstar has punctuated their week teasing Grand Theft Auto V screenshots by releasing four more, richly detailed high-res stills. First we had "Transport," then "Leisure," and now we get the "Business." Just as with the previous set of images, there's really nothing that we don't know about the game that these new screenshots tell us. We've already seen cars, trucks, planes and helicopters. Perhaps it was a little disingenuous on Rockstar's behalf to name this update "Business."

A long time ago, some European guy you might have heard of posed the question "What's in a name?" Well, in the modern business world a brand name can mean a lot: A promise of quality, a sense of familiarity, a connection to previous products and an expectation for those yet to be released. Interplay knows this, and they're banking on it being worth the trouble of reopening famed Fallout development house Black Isle Studios.

We really hope your plans for the future weren't hinging on a new Wipeout title, because chances are looking slimmer than ever. Today Sony announced the closure of Liverpool Studio, which was responsible for the development of the sci-fi racer series as well as the publication of several other titles (Lemmings and Shadow of the Beast among them) since its inception in 1984.