Connect with us

Gaming

FusionFall, the Cartoon Network MMO, is Being Revived. And Remade.

blank

Published

on

blank

Yesterday, while the Internet geeked out over Guild Wars 2’s latest expansion, Path of Fire, another smaller MMO was released. Well, not so much released as entered an early-access alpha/beta test, but this other MMO is still worth talking about.

So, who here has heard of FusionFall? It was a short-lived MMO that was released back in 2009, developed by Grigon Entertainment, and published by Cartoon Network (yes, as in the television cable channel). The game had fairly simple combat mechanics, but it also had numerous platforming sections, which is something you don’t see very often in MMOs. However, what really sold FusionFall was its aesthetic; the game used an anime art style that, unlike other MMOS with anime art styles, actually stood out from the crowd. Moreover and more importantly, FusionFall featured a game world where almost every single Cartoon Network character lived side-by-side in (relative) harmony. If you could name the character, he or she (or it) was probably an NPC in the game. Dexter from Dexter’s Laboratory? One of the main protagonists. Ed, Edd, and Eddy from Ed, Edd n Eddy? They gave players quests. Mojo Jojo from The Powerpuff Girls? Surprisingly, he was an ally. Practically all Cartoon Network original programs, from Johnny Bravo to Ben 10 and even Megas XLR, were represented in the game in one form or another. All in all, FusionFall was an excellent MMO anyone could pick up and play, even children. Especially children. In fact, thanks to the game’s simple design and use of familiar characters (both old and new), parents could play FusionFall together with their kids. Sadly, the game shut down in 2013, but several dedicated fans are trying to revive it, which is where the previously mentioned alpha/beta test comes in.

Actually, claiming that the team of fans is only trying to revive FusionFall is a bit of an oversimplification. While the fan/developers will release an emulation of the original game in the form of FusionFall Retro, they are also currently working on a remake of the game that includes new models, textures, animations, lighting, NPCs, enemies, combat mechanics, and levels. While the emulation is currently undergoing extremely limited testing (you can download the client here), the remake, FusionFall Legacy, is a long way off and probably won’t be available until 2018 at the earliest. With luck, the emulation is almost ready — it was actually supposed to release yesterday, August 1st.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ff9nOqn6sIs

FusionFall was not the only MMO designed for children and their parents to play together and wasn’t the the first one either. The Walt Disney Company took a crack at MMOs in 2003 with Toontown Online. The game also closed down in 2013, but fans are keeping Toontown alive with their own servers, the most popular being Toontown Rewritten. However, while Toontown’s fans are content to simply re-release the game, the FusionFall Retro/Legacy dev team is going above and beyond to create the definitive FusionFall experience. I used to play FusionFall and even helped beta test the game, and I have to admit I am extremely impressed by the work of FusionFall Legacy’s new developers. These superfans clearly know what they’re doing, and I daresay the animations, locations, and characters shown off in the FusionFall Legacy trailer surpass the work done by Grigon Entertainment. I wish the new fan/development team luck in reviving this gem of an underrated and underappreciated MMO.

All you have to do to get my attention is talk about video games, technology, anime, and/or Dungeons & Dragons - also people in spandex fighting rubber suited monsters.

Gaming

Ubisoft says that future Assassin’s Creed games will need more time to be made

blank

Published

on

blank

As Assassin’s Creed Shadows is about to sneak up on people in November, Ubisoft says that the time between developing games needs to be longer to find the “right balance.” Shadows has been in development for four years, longer than any other game in the series up to this point. That includes the huge open-world epics Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla.

Shadows lead producer Karl Onnée (thanks, GamesIndustry.biz) says that the latest AC game took 25% longer to make than Valhalla. He says this is necessary to keep the quality of the series that it is known for: “It’s always a balance between time and costs, but the more time you have, the more you can iterate.” You can speed up a project by adding more people to it, but that doesn’t give you more time to make changes.

Onnée says this has as much to do with immersion and aesthetics as it does with fixing bugs and smoothing out pixels. This is because the development team needs time to learn about each new historical setting: “We are trying to make a game that is as real as possible.” We’re proud of it, and the process took a long time. In feudal Japan, building a house is very different from building a house in France or England in the Middle Ages. As an artist, you need to learn where to put things in a feudal Japanese home. For example, food might not belong there. Get all the information you need and learn it. That process takes a long time.”

You’ll have to wait a little longer for Ubisoft to work on each game. Are you okay with that? In what part of Shadows are you now? Is it interesting to you? Leave a comment below and let us know.

 

Continue Reading

Gaming

You can now pre-order Lollipop Chainsaw RePOP on PS5

blank

Published

on

blank

You can now pre-order Lollipop Chainsaw RePOP, a remaster that Dragami Games and Capcom both created. You can now pre-order the PS5 game on the PS Store for $44.99 or £39.99. If you have PS Plus, you can get an extra 10% off the price.

The company put out a new trailer with about three minutes of gameplay to mark the start of the pre-order period. Lollipop Chainsaw RePOP is a remaster of Grasshopper Manufacture’s crazy action game from 2012. You play as Juliet, a high school student who fights off waves of zombies.

The remaster adds RePOP mode, an alternative mode that swaps out the blood and gore for fun visual effects. It also adds a bunch of other features and improvements that make the game better overall. You can expect the graphics and sound to be better as well.

The game will now come out on September 12, 2024, instead of September 12, 2024. Are you excited to get back to this? Please cheer us on in the section below.

Continue Reading

Gaming

This Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 zombies trailer is way too expensive

blank

Published

on

blank

Is there really anyone who is following the story of Call of Duty’s zombie mode? We’ve known about the story in a vague way for a while, but we couldn’t tell you anything about it. It looks like the “Dark Aether” story will continue in Black Ops 6, but we don’t really know what that means.

For those of you who care, here is the official blurb with some background: “Requiem, led by the CIA, finally closed the last-dimensional portal, sending its inhabitants back to the nightmare world known as the Dark Aether, after two years of fighting zombie outbreaks around the world during the Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War timeline.”

Wait, there’s more! “Agent Samantha Maxis gave her life to seal this weird dimension from the inside out.” Even worse things were to come: senior staff members of Requiem were arrested without a reason by the Project Director, who turned out to be Edward Richtofen.

Black Ops 6 will take place about five years later, and it looks like it will show more about Richtofen’s goals and motivations. The most important thing is that you will probably be shooting an unimaginable number of zombies in the head. This week, on August 8, there will be a full reveal of the gameplay, so keep an eye out for that.

Continue Reading

Trending