psychonauts posts

Developer Double Fine's last game was the console-only title Brutal Legend (a game that really, really should have been made for the PC as well in our humble opinion). When a sequel for that game got canceled, Double Fine decided to do something different. Our sister site Joystiq reports that Double Fine's head man Tim Schafer has revealed the company has four smaller scale games in the works and all have publishing deals.

Speaking at the Develop conference this week, Schafer said that some of the games will be for retail release while others will be downloadable only game titles. Schafer also said that some might be released this year although he quickly backtracked on that comment, saying, "I see you writing that down. ... That was not a ship date." Let's hope that at least one of these four games is slated for the PC.

You may have seen some headlines this morning that Double Fine's founder and game design legend Tim Schafer called Activision CEO Bobby Kotick a "total prick" and a "dick". Which is nice and sensationalist and all but let's get to the important stuff. In that same interview posted on Eurogamer Schafer hints pretty strongly that there could be a sequel to Double Fine's first game Psychonauts.

The critically acclaimed platform action game released in 2005 by Majesco wasn't a sales hit but has generated a cult following and won tons of awards. It's PC version is still available for digital download at locations like GoG.com and Steam.

In the interview Schafer states that Double Fine has some game projects coming up that will be announced soon. When the subject of a Psychonauts sequel came up he states, "I would love to do another one." He added that the game was the first game title that he worked on that he actually owned. Therefore he said, " ... it's the first thing I could do a sequel to." When ask by the interviewer, "Why don't you do it then?" Schafer replied, "I didn't say I wasn't doing it." However he added, "The main thing that's stopped me is that we can only do one thing at a time. If we can get it to the point where we're making multiple games, then we can work on the sequel while we're exploring new IPs at the same time."

Yesterday we gave you the heads-up on a ton of weekend PC game sales including the first such weekend sales for Microsoft's Games For Windows Live client. Now a couple of other sales have popped up that we want to give your attention to.

One is for GoG.com who have put all of the games they sell from publisher Majesco on sale. From now until Monday you can get all four games (Bloodrayne 1 and 2, Advent Rising and the great Psychonauts) together for just $15.96, a 50 percent discount. If you already own one or more of the games you can get the rest for 50 percent off. If you just want one or two games you can get them for a 30 percent discount.

Direct2Drive has also added a game, the fantasy action-RPG A Farewell to Dragons from 1C Company, to their sales list. You can download and purchase the game for just $7.50 from now until next Friday.

Steam's mid-week sale this week is an especially good one. From now until Thursday the terrific platformer title Psychonauts has a price cut to just $2. Yep, just two bucks to get one of the better games of the last decade from developer Double Fine, founded by game god Tim Schafer.

It's also the last PC game that Schafer has made. After helping to make some of the best LucasArts adventure titles, Schafer left to form Double Fine which released Psychonauts in 2005. Despite low initial sales it's been praised as a unique and fun game and is certainly worth far more than the $2 price. Double Fine's console only game Brutal Legend came out in 2009 to mixed reviews and sales but hey it would still have been nice to have that game come to the PC too.

While Tim Schafer's latest game Brutal Legend has bypassed the PC completely, the last game his did for our platform has finally appeared over at the DRM-free download site GoG.com. Yes, Psychnoauts, the old platform game released in 2005 by publisher Majesco, can now be yours for the low price of $9.99. We can't recommend this game highly enough.

GoG.com has also added Advent Rising, the sci-fi third person action game that Majesco also first released in 2005. While not nearly as good as Psychonauts it was made by the team that now heads up Chair Entertainment and features a story developed by Orson Scott Card. You can grab it at GoG.com for just $5.99.

Tim Schafer's 2005 released platform action game Psychonauts from his development studio Double Fine may have been a sales bomb but the Majesco published game still has a huge fan following. Now Double Fine has taken the unusual move of launching an official respository of all things about the game in a Wiki style web site titled (what else?) the Psycho-pedia.

The Wiki style format allows fans of the game to submit and edit their own entries into the web site. There's even an entry on a (currenly imaginary) idea for Psychonauts 2. We can only dream can't we. Meanwhile, Double Fine is working on their next game, the console-only (sob) Brutal Legend.

[Via Joystiq]

Common wisdom has it that if you don't learn from history, you're doomed to repeat it. What, then, should we think of the recent trend in gaming to bring back, and in some cases revamp past video games? I'm thinking here mostly of Bionic Commando's recent upgrade to be both a completely new reimagining of the franchise (yes, now it's a franchise at last) and an update of the classic arcade hit which itself includes a version of the original. Developer Grin is covering all bases, giving die-hard fans what they want while at the same time bringing in new fans who may never have played the first release.

Is it a good idea to keep mining the past for the hits of the future? How much life do these games still have in them? Is it possible to revamp an old game sufficiently to make it feel new while retaining its old-school flavor? Let's take a look.

On this Independence Day weekend people are expected to go outdoors, go on picnics and maybe catch a fireworks display at night. Gamers, however, see July 4 as some extra times to sit in front of a monitor to blow stuff up. Our sister site Game Daily has decided to remind gamers of 25 free downloads of PC game titles they may have missed.

The feature links to demos and full games that are available to grab right here at Big Download. If you haven't tried out demos for games like Psychonauts (above) and World in Conflict or full games like Postal 2 multiplayer, FEAR Combat and America's Army this is a perfect way to check out some titles you may have missed

Deus Ex, an esteemed classic of the first-person-shooter genre, will join Psychonauts and Thief: Deadly Shadows on GameTap's list of free-to-play games next week. Even though it uses the original Unreal engine, Deus Ex has aged surprisingly well. It stands next to System Shock 2 as one of the deepest and most praised shooters in PC gaming.

GameTap offers a vast library of old to semi-recent games, which can be downloaded and played by members. Most of those games are only available to paid subscribers, but every once in a while a good one is made free for a while to promote the service. It used to offer gaming news and other editorial content, but that division was just shut down.

This week, new games available to subscribers include Ducati World Championship, Tortugo Pirates of the New World, and Brian Lara Cricket 2007. Ah, well; they can't be awesome every week.