Tweets from GameXplain, who recently had a chance to play a demo version at a press event, confirm that Tropical Freeze runs at 1080p. David Wise composed the entire soundtrack for the new Donkey Kong, the outlet confirms. Additionally, as was revealed earlier today, Funky Kong runs the item shop.

Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze’s first five worlds are known as Lost Mangroves, Autumn Heights. Bright Savannah, Seabreeze Cove, and Juicy Jungle.

Source 1, Source 2

More: Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, Retro Studios, top

Ubisoft says Watch Dogs’ engine was originally built for Driver

Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 0 comments

North American Ubisoft president Laurent Detoc North American shared an interesting Watch Dogs development tidbit while speaking with IGN as aprt of a new interview.

According to Detoc, Watch Dogs was originally built for the Driver series. The initial project was initially scrapped after Ubisoft wasn’t satisfied with its direction. Eventually, the company took some of the work that had been used for the cancelled game’s driving engine and used that for Watch Dogs.

Detoc’s comments in full:

“Watch Dogs wasn’t started as Watch Dogs. They were working on a driving engine, working on something. We had the Driver license. This was years ago. Then we were thinking, ‘no, this is not the way we want to go with a driving game,’ so we cancelled that and restarted. It’s not like Watch Dogs started as Watch Dogs. The Watch Dogs project was initially another game. At some point it changed. That’s at least three years ago, and then the Watch Dogs project reused some of the work that had been done on this driving engine.
It’s not that Driver became Watch Dogs, so much as the driving game we made was a driving game. The decision was made that there was another driving game being made and this one should be an open-world game where the guy comes out of the car and does other things. Then the team decides to reshuffle itself entirely. A few other people come in, a new creative director, and then they start a new game. I wouldn’t say that Driver became Watch Dogs, because that’s not true. That’s not really what happens. What happens is that a game gets cancelled, and then you take pieces of that game to make a new one. We could have had another driving engine from another team in another place, and then it would have been used by the Watch Dogs team.”

Source

More: Driver, Laurent Detoc, Ubisoft, Watch Dogs

GameStop ad (12/18 – 12/24)

Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, Images, News, Wii, Wii U | 0 comments

This week’s GameStop ad has gone live. You can find the retailer’s full circular for the week of December 18 below.

More: GameStop, sale

Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze details

Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 0 comments

Update: You can find even more details in the video below!

Polygon has gone live with a new preview for Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze. We’ve rounded up details from the report below.

– Always control Donkey Kong in single-player
– Cranky can also take out enemies with a long-ranged attack
– Cranky throws his dentures unlike Diddy’s pop-gun or Dixie’s bubblegum attacks
– Swipe enemies with Cranky Kong’s cane on dry land and underwater
– Game’s levels are “balanced” for players to get through with any buddy
– Certain buddies will allow players to open up new paths
– Ex: in one area, a special puzzle piece is only accessible by bouncing through a spike field with Cranky’s pogo stick
– The difficulty of some levels will change depending on which character you use
– Ex: Battling the viking seal boss with Cranky allows you to bounce off the level’s spiked fish and knock them out completely
– Don’t expect an automatic advantage with Cranky Kong

And a few words from project development Todd Buechele…

“He’s been in the series since the very beginning. We’ve alluded with the way he interacts with DK: ‘I’m the best. You youngsters don’t know how to do things.’
“We thought the natural progression was to go ahead and get him in there. He is a fan favorite. When we started to actually create him, it just took on a life of its own.”
“I don’t want to say [Cranky Kong] ups the difficulty, but it does make it feel like more of a traditional Donkey Kong Country game.”