Monkey Island creator, Ron Gilbert, addresses the burning question that die-hard Monkey Island fans have been asking for years.
This month we celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Monkey Island series, and the introduction to all our lives of Guybrush Threepwood in The Secret of Monkey Island. Yep, the first game in the Monkey Island series was released all the way back in 1990. Ron Gilbert has already kicked things off in style by writing a retrospective piece over on and you can read about it here. We've also put together 25 Fun Facts to Celebrate Monkey Island's 25th Birthday, which is well worth checking out.
There was a rather tasty, though slightly depressing, morsel of information towards the end of his blog. Gilbert addresses the possibility of making another Monkey Island, stating that he always envisaged the game as a trilogy. Sadly, don’t get your hopes up. Gilbert acknowledges that Disney currently own the Monkey Island IP and has shown no desire to sell it. So unless we can badger Disney into parting with the IP, I don’t think we’ll be seeing another Gilbert-branded Monkey Island.
If you’re interested, Gilbert teasingly blogged a few years ago what he would do if he made another Monkey Island. The best we can hope for in the near future though is the Monkey Island-inspired adventure, Duke Grabowski, which has industry legend and LucasArts alumni Bill Tiller at the helm. You can check out the link below for more information on this project.
Monkey Island creator Ron Gilbert waxes lyrical about how Guybrush Threepwood came to life some 25 years ago.
Could it truly be? Has it really been 25 years since the world was first introduced to Guybrush Threepwood, mighty pirate, in The Secret of Monkey Island? Well, close enough, according to legendary creator Ron Gilbert over on his Grumpy Gamer blog, stating he isn’t quite sure if the game hit stores in late September or early October of 1990.
In celebration of reaching this milestone, Gilbert gives a rather fascinating insight into the development process and how The Secret of Monkey Island came to be in our hands. The blog is well worth a read, if only to see how the world of game development has changed so remarkably over the past two decades. The source code itself resides on four floppy disks (see picture below). Yes, floppy disks! I dare say many of you reading this haven’t seen a floppy disk in your life.
Or check out the process for how games were manufactured back then:
“When the release candidate passed testing, it would be sent off to manufacturing. Sometimes this was a crazy process. The builds destined for Europe were going to be duplicated in Europe and we needed to get the gold master over there, and if anything slipped there wasn’t enough time to mail them. So, we’d drive down to the airport and find a flight headed to London, go to the gate and ask a passenger if they would mind carry the floppy disks for us and someone would meet them at the gate.”
I can’t express my amazement at this process better than Gilbert when he says “can you imagine doing that these days? You can’t even get to the gate, let alone find a person that would take a strange package on a flight for you. Different world.”
Towards the end of his blog, Gilbert mentions that one of the things he is most proud of in life is being involved with Monkey Island. But he doesn't say it in a self-serving, boastful way. Rather, he says it in such a way as to convey his genuine thankfulness at being involved with something that has touched so many people's lives. And we couldn't agree with him more.
Thank you Ron for introducing us to the wonderful character of Guybrush Threepwood and the universe of Monkey Island. The world is a far better place for having the insult “Oh yeah, you fight like a cow!”
The World Game is serviced extremely well in video gaming thanks to two competing titles, FIFA and PES. And we have the install size for the former.
A number of install sizes for upcoming Xbox One games have just been unearthed, and it includes FIFA 16, a title we're particularly interested in here at Grab It. On Xbox One at least, the game will cost you 21.84GB of space, which is sure to grow after launch as it updates every other week. No size has been announced for PlayStation 4 as yet, but it is believed to be around the same.
This should be an easy one to make some space for as you can just delete FIFA 15 to upgrade, but interestingly this follow-up is almost 10GB more than its predecessor. FIFA 15 launched at 12.67GB - so what gives? Is EA getting lazy with its compression? Have the assets nearly doubled in quality. Or has including 12 different women's teams added significantly more new data.
Predicting which Xbox 360 games are getting backwards compatibility on Xbox One is becoming quite the sport.
We've been following the coming Xbox 360 compatibility feature - due on the Xbox One this November - closely, and it would appear that one site has its finger on the pulse. For a number of weeks, Finder.com.au has been updating a growing list of compatible Xbox 360 games, which currently sits at 137. With the officially announced titles barely over 30, the other one hundred have come from a range of other sources, but these sources appear to be correct. The site already featured Borderlands on its list ahead of the reveal last week, and the Ubisoft titles just teased were on their weeks ago.
Perhaps this list is the best indication of what to expect out there. We'll continue to update you as news rolls in.
Aussie indie developer Tin Man Games lift the lid on its latest digital gamebook outing.
Prolific digital gamebook developer Tin Man Games is at it again, branching out into yet more unexplored territory. It's from a developer with a pedigree that includes everything from romantic supernatural adventures (Strange Loves 1: Vampire Boyfriends) to Shakespearian interludes (Ryan Norths To Be or Not to Be) to zombie apocalypses featuring a stuffed bunny protagonist (Zombocalypse Now). This time the Aussie studio is bringing us an entry in the Warhammer 40,000 universe called Herald of Oblivion, the first title in the newly conceived Legacy of Dorn series.
Here’s the description for Herald of Oblivion:
“You are a veteran Space Marine of the Imperial Fists Chapter. Equipped with powerful Terminator armour and armed with the deadliest weapons that the Adeptus Astartes wield, you are a symbol of the Emperor’s might. Trapped aboard the space hulk Herald of Oblivion and the only survivor of your squad, you must fight your way through the aliens and heretics that infest the star vessel and find a way to escape the horror and return to your Chapter.”
Fans should be rightly excited to hear that gamebook veteran Jonathan Green has penned the adventure. Green is well known for writing classic gamebooks in the Fighting Fantasy and Warhammer series, so we know the series is in good hands.
From what we’ve seen so far, Herald of Oblivion will follow much the same format as Tin Man Games’ other gamebook adventures, though the dice-based system has been replaced with a first-person turn-based combat system. This seems like quite a natural feature to have in a game where tactical combat is likely to be important, rather than relying on random chance dice-based combat. The shake-up in the combat approach certainly worked for other Tin Man Games titles like An Appointment With F.E.A.R., or even Forge Reply's excellent Lone Wolf series.
We won’t have to wait too much longer either to rip into hordes of aliens, with Herald of Oblivion due to drop on PC, iOS and Android in late September.
For a massive feature on Tin Man Games and our Top 10 Digital Gamebooks on iPad, you can pick up Episode 6 of Grab It.
Wargaming's next big release is due out next week.
Update: Wargaming just revealed that World of Warships will be with us on September 17; keep an eye on our twitter account for pics and stories from the launch party, happening this Wednesday Sydney time.
Original Story: Wargaming is best known for World of Tanks, the incredible free-to-play tank warfare game that took the world by storm, gathering an army of over 100 million users in the process. World of Warplanes followed, and now the trilogy is set to be complete, with World of Warships locking in a launch date. Having existed in closed alpha testing since late 2013, the game moved into open beta in mid-2015 and is now ready to sail. We just received an invite to a "launch party" in Sydney, Australia, which is set for early September.
Fans of Wargaming and the previous titles should definitely pick up a copy of Episode 5 of our digital iPad magazine. The issue featured a huge exclusive making of feature on the World of Tanks phenomenon. With behind the scenes insights and images, as well as a full rich-media experience, it's well worth your time. You can grab it here.
Assault Android Cactus just received a September 23 release date on PC - with PlayStation 4, Vita and Wii U versions arriving in Q1 2016 - and you should be excited.
Wait calm down. We're not suggesting that Assault Android Cactus will rival the mighty Super Mario 64 for a spot in the video gaming hall of fame, but Australian developer Witch Beam's long coming sci-fi action-fest does remind us of Mario's genre-busting game. Nintendo did the unthinkable with that pioneering N64 title, taking the 2D sidescrolling platformer gamers treasured beyond all else, and seamlessly integrating it into a fully 3D world. At the time, gamers were gobsmacked, as not only had the company done the seemingly impossible, it wasn't even a sloppy job - it was incredibly solid.
Witch Beam has tried to do something similar with Assault Android Cactus. It takes the classic 2D vertical scrolling bullet hell experience into a 3D landscape, and it works. All the genre hallmarks are here, but by using controls similar to a twin-stick shooter and maximising an isometric viewpoint, the developer has managed to take that old school gameplay and make it feel just as frantic and dynamic from an all new perspective. We played the hell out of it ahead of our huge making of feature in Episode 8 of our iPad digital magazine Grab It, which we highly recommend you check out.
While the game is currently available in Early Release, the countdown is now on to the full launch on September 23, with console versions landing in early 2016.
Armello is out now on PC and PS4, and is hitting Android and iPad in 2016.
An exciting day today for fans of tabletops, collectible card games, deep strategy and Australian developers, as League of Geeks' Kickstarter sensation Armello arrives on PS4 and PC. It was one of the stars of Episode 8 of Grab It, which covered all 68 indie developers from PAX AUS in style, and we're incredibly excited to see this fantastic game released into the wild. To celebrate the launch, League of Geeks revealed that Android and iPad versions of the game are also in the works, and should be with us around March 2016. Fantastic news, as it appeared the planned mobile version had dropped off the radar in recent times.
While we love indie gaming on a global scale, being based in Australia also means we're pretty happy to celebrate a local hero when it's warranted. The land of Oz has been on a roll of late, with talented indies cranking out titles such as Framed, Screencheat, One More Dash and Crossy Road - a list which barely scratches the surface of the Australian avalanche.
Speaking of avalanches, just this week saw the release of Sleepy Z Studios' sequel to its 2012 hit - Ski Safari 2. Players in both Australia and France have been quick to jump on this little mobile gem, propelling the game's hero Sven (and now joined by his sister Evana) to the number one paid game in those App Stores. Did someone say paid games on iOS couldn't succeed?
Also Read: Our Look at the Top Ten iPad Auto-Runners in Grab It Episode 3
How did Sleepy Z Studios celebrate? Just this afternoon while practically free-falling down Penguin Peaks I was pleasantly surprised to find I'd been gifted a free green and gold scarf by the developers. Green and gold by the way signifies all things Australian for those of you reading from abroad. You're right, you won't find those colours on the flag, it's a little confusing, I know. Just run with it, we do.
We'll have a full review up on Grab It as soon as humanly possible, we have a team of trained professionals skiing around the clock as I post these words to screen. The inside word though is that it's a lot of fun. Ski Safari 2 has more of everything, including an awesome new photo mode, and even multiplayer over WiFi and BlueTooth. Yes, multiplayer!
Oh and did I mention the new photo mode? Here's a happy snap I took today of Sven riding a snowmobile down a wire carrying a yeti and a penguin, while being photo-bombed by an eagle. Weird.
Stay tuned for the review, check out the trailer below, and Grab the game right here. Stay frosty.
As November looms closer, more Xbox 360 games are preparing for backwards compatibility.
Backwards compatibility is coming to the Xbox One in November and while the final list of titles that will support the feature has yet to be locked in, the number of titles name-dropped is growing rapidly. This list of 133 backwards compatible games is the most in-depth going around, and three more titles were added to it today - Battlestations: Midway, Burnout Paradise and Crysis 3. So still no sign of the big hitters from Rockstar and Activision, but it's understood we might be getting a decent sized announcement from Microsoft later in the week. We will keep you posted.
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