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Former Good Morning America child star, Tom spends his time these days writing lots of things for people to read. He's a fan of independently developed video games, and always roots for the underdog. Send him animated .gifs on Twitter: @tomscott90. He likes those things
  • Perseus 230 could be the hand to scratch our Star Fox itch
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    Perseus 230 could be the hand to scratch our Star Fox itch

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    Let's face it: Star Fox should have stayed in his cockpit. His initial two titles pushed the technological limits for what home consoles could pump out for players to experience, but after that Nintendo decided to make the Star Fox games a blend of on-rails shooting and a third-person action adventure. Personally it never sat right with me. The Nintendo DS's Star Fox Command did see the return of pure on-rails gameplay, but the game itself felt (and looked) like a game that should have come out between the Super Nintendo and the Nintendo 64 releases rather than in 2006. People enjoyed it, but it wasn't really a step forward for the franchise.With no new Star Fox game in sight, fans of the series are left twiddling their thumbs. Fortunately, a game by the name of Perseus 230 is shaping up to be just the game to tide us all over until the next iteration of Star Fox is released.
  • Ludum Dare 29 Winners Announced
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    Ludum Dare 29 Winners Announced

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    The winners of April's Ludum Dare 29 game jam and competition have been announced. The winners are divided into two categories, with one batch having entered the 48-hour solo competition, and the other batch having participated in the 72-hour game jam event. The 2,497 games produced during the Ludum Dare 29 event were judged over by the game developers themselves.Winners for best overall game for the 48-hour competition and 72-hour jam respectively: The Sun and Moon by Managore and Scuba Bear by _Rilem.Winners for most fun game for the 48-hour competition and 72-hour jam respectively: Hot Diggity by DragonXVI and Yojimbrawl!by Black Ships Fill The Sky.Winners for best graphics for the 48-hour competition and 72-hour jam respectively: Beneath the Cave by Feiss and LAIR M.D. by RetroEpic.
  • PC Gamer founder to write first standalone Star Wars film
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    • PC
    PC Gamer founder to write first standalone Star Wars film

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    On Thursday, Lucasfilm revealed on the official Star Wars website that the first standalone Star Wars film — one of the many planned to orbit the releases of the new trilogy - has locked in a director and screenwriter.Gareth Edwards (of 2010's Monsters and this summer's blockbuster, Godzilla) is set to direct, while Gary Whitta will produce the film's screenplay."From the moment I first saw the original movie as a wide-eyed kid," Whitta states in the announcement, "Star Wars has been the single most profound inspiration to my imagination and to my career as a writer. It is deeply special to me, so to be given the opportunity to contribute to its ongoing legacy, especially in collaboration with a film-maker as talented as Gareth, is literally a dream come true. I'm still pinching myself."
  • The Last Tinker: City of Colors Review
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    The Last Tinker: City of Colors Review

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    While 3D platformers in the vein of "collectathon" classics like Banjo-Kazooie and Donkey Kong 64 have faded over the past two console generations (if you're looking for slap-stick 3D platformers it's basically just the Ratchet and Clank and the Sly Cooper franchises keeping the tradition alive), there are a number of independent game developers currently working on games designed with this nostalgic style in mind. Leading the charge of the resurgence is Mimimi Productions with their 3D platforming adventure, The Last Tinker: City of Colors.Debatably, what led to the decline of the old collectathon games was how tedious they became after awhile. Finding every golden puzzle piece or golden banana felt like a chore, and players were literally locked out of new areas until they scrapped previous areas clear of these golden collectables.  The Last Tinker deals with this issue simply by not forcing players to find the golden paint brushes that are hidden within the game's environments. 
  • Aerena: Clash of Champions Review
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    Aerena: Clash of Champions Review

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    Aerena is a free-to-play game of strategy, where being two moves ahead of your opponent is the key to victory, much like Chess. But where Chess is a medieval-themed game, with knights and kings and queens, Aerena (or Ærena as the developers sometimes spell it) is a silly blend of steampunk and Saturday morning cartoons.With players selecting three out of ten characters as their champions, they must do their best to destroy the enemy player's massive battleship. Where chess is a calm game of strategy, Aerena is more akin to a Monster Truck Show, with champions blasting one another to pieces all while an announcer shouts out the entrances of additional champions to the fight.The reasoning for the titular "arena" misspelling is apparent as soon as the battlefield is glimpsed. Taking place in the aether, or Æther (get it now?), of the realm, the conflict is high above the earth, literally within the clouds. Each player has their own giant warship (currently there are five in the game to choose from) and must destroy their opponent's ship in the ensuing battle. 
  • 8 Indie Platformers Featured In Latest Humble Weekly Bundle
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    8 Indie Platformers Featured In Latest Humble Weekly Bundle

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    Launched just a few days ago, the latest Humble Weekly Bundle features eight platformers for $10. As always, portions of the proceeds from the bundle will go on to support charity (the American Red Cross or Child's Play), while buyers have the option to select how much of their purchase goes to the charity, the developers, or the Humble Bundle team. All the games come with a Steam key and all but one are available as DRM-free downloads too.The bundle is broken into three price tiers. Paying $5.99 or less gets buyers Shank 2, Blocks That Matter, and BIT.TRIP Runner. Paying between $6 and $9.99 gets buyers the previous three titles as well as BIT.TRIP Presents Runner2, Megabyte Punch, and Fly'n. Paying $10 or more gets buyers all six previous games plus King Arthur's Gold (read our review) and Mark of the Ninja: Special Edition.The soundtracks for Shank 2, BIT.TRIP Runner, Blocks that Matter, BIT.TRIP Runner 2, and Megabyte Punch come alongside their respective games.The deal lasts through Thursday, May 22nd.
  • Thomas Was Alone arrives on iPads with an overhauled control scheme
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    • iOS
    Thomas Was Alone arrives on iPads with an overhauled control scheme

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    Years after the geometric platformer released on the PC and Mac, and a few weeks after selling over a million copies, Thomas Was Alone is now available for iPads as well. The transition to the iPad comes with revised controls that the developer, Mike Bithell, designed specifically for the iPad in order to make playing Thomas Was Alone the most engaging experience possible.In an interview with Polygon, Bithell explained, why he chose to alternate the control scheme for the iPad release."On either side of the screen, we have these color balls that you put your thumb on in order to select which character you want to use. It's a really intuitive, easy thing that you can basically play the entire game without moving your hands."
  • Does Valve Even Look At What Games They Greenlight?
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    Does Valve Even Look At What Games They Greenlight?

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    My original intention for this article was going to be a "best of the bunch" summary to cover the seventy-five games recently Greenlit on Steam. However, as I sorted through the list I discovered that a good chunk of those games were pretty...unimpressive, to put it politely. Hardly any of the games jumped out at me as looking particularly fun, let alone something I'd spend money on. A few of the games are so debatably bad looking that it makes me think that Valve didn't even look these games over before they gave them the greenlight.For awhile now, Valve has been approving batches of seventy-five games, every two weeks. That's 300 games in two months. That's 300 games that will be released through Steam on top of the triple-A publisher-supported games that are lucky enough to bypass the Steam Greenlight toll booth.Recent batches have yielded some really great games, and there are a few really great looking games sprinkled within this latest batch. But for the first time in Greenlight's history, this time around I felt like the unimpressive outweighed the impressive.