Tag Archives: Video games

Baseball Almost Had Its Own NBA Jam, And Now You Can Try It

Here’s Power-Up Baseball running in a forthcoming version of the MAME arcade emulator.
Gif: Midway / Incredible Technologies / Video Game History Foundation

Midway’s NBA Jam and NFL Blitz are two of the greatest sports game franchises thanks to how they both provide fun, over-the-top experiences that require little knowledge of the pastime in question. The company would eventually set its sights on hockey, boxing, and even professional wrestling, but it never quite got around to releasing a baseball game in the same vein. Or did it?

Thanks to the Video Game History Foundation, we now have a first-hand look at (and ROM downloads for) Power-Up Baseball, which was in development by Midway and Incredible Technologies in the mid-1990s. After discovering a prototype for the game among the belongings of late developer Chris Oberth (whose work the organization is helping his family preserve), VGHF co-director Frank Cifaldi spoke to several former Midway and Incredible Technologies employees about what happened to Power-Up Baseball.

“[Power-Up Baseball] was supposed to be over-the-top and extreme and all those good things from the ‘90s,” art director Alan Noon told Cifaldi. “So, the initial art style that I went with was what was pretty trendy at the time with like, shattered fonts and lots of paint splashes and things like that. That kind of look and feel ran pretty much throughout the game.”

The main goal behind Power-Up Baseball was to give America’s favorite pastime its own NBA Jam, combining the digitized graphics and sense of humor that made Midway’s basketball game such a hit with Incredible Technologies’ trackball expertise. But while the special pitches and swings would have definitely set it apart from the rest of the crowd, baseball’s pace didn’t gel with the fast-paced arcade action the two studios envisioned for Power-Up Baseball as well as basketball had in NBA Jam.

“It was too long,” programmer Brian Smolik explained. “We shortened it down to maybe three innings or something like that. And at some point you could buy one inning at a time. And who’s gonna play one inning, right? It was great if you could be there for a whole game. But that was like the length of two or three [NBA Jam games], and that’s tough for anybody to sit through.”

Power-Up Baseball was tested locally in Chicago, with several cabinets being built and sent to various arcades, but there just wasn’t a market for it. The passion for the project was there, but the developers had overlooked one important factor: how well it would make money for operators. Sadly, Power-Up Baseball was canceled, and only now is it finally seeing the light of day thanks to the diligent work of video game historians.

Be sure to check out the Video Game History Foundation’s full write-up on Power-Up Baseball for more details on how this recently unearthed project was created, not to mention all the requisite files to check it out for yourself. VGHF is offering full source code and ROM downloads for Power-Up Baseball, and even helped add support for the game to a forthcoming version of arcade emulator MAME. What a helpful bunch!

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What Are You Playing This Weekend?

Attractive anime people kicking ass and brewing bombs.
Screenshot: Koei Tecmo

This weekend is for calling up your broker on their day off and asking them to explain all this Gamestop nonsense. It’s also about going to the big city and practicing your alchemy skills in really short shorts.

Along with a game I can’t mention but am sure will appeal to at least nine of yous, my weekend shall be packed with material gathering, order filling, and monster killing, in that order. The latest game in Koei Tecmo’s long-running Atelier series has arrived, Atelier Ryza 2: Lost Legends & the Secret Fairy. It’s the first numbered sequel in the series since 2007’s Atelier Iris 3, and it is something else. The character models are gorgeous, they’ve added swimming to the game so the random swimsuit DLC finally makes sense. And the dynamic new combat system is really nice to look at.

Between this and that other game, I find myself with a glut of Japanese role-playing games. It’s a nice glut to have.

How about you folks? What are you playing this weekend?

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Fallout Mod Pulled After Artist Allegedly Posts “Animated Pedophillic Content”

Illustration: The Frontier

We only wrote about the big new Fallout: New Vegas mod The Frontier last week when it was released! And now we’re writing about it again, because the mod has been “hidden” (basically temporarily removed) from Nexus Mods and pulled from its own website after allegations that one of its artists posted “animated pedophillic content on their personal artist accounts”.

The full statement, posted on the mod’s page by the development team, reads:

Some deeply concerning news has emerged in the past few hours. We have been recently notified that one of our developers, ZuTheSkunk, had posted animated pedophillic content on their personal artist accounts. The items in question are deeply disturbing to the entire team, and we condemn them in the strongest sense. ZuTheSkunk has since been removed from the Development Team and banned off of our Community Discord. We will be conducting dialogue with members of the development team to hear their thoughts regarding the current situation and help make our decision more informed. We have stopped production and work on the mod to address the current events properly. More measures will be undertaken and a more detailed address will be posted soon.

The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed both in the mod, and outside of it, belong solely to the authors who write them, and not to the mod’s organization, community, or other group or individual.

ZuTheSkunk has a Deviantart account that’s still active, which is mostly made up of My Little Pony fan art, and which occasionally veers into sexual territory, though nothing of the magnitude alleged in the statement. There is, however, a now-deleted account at the more NSFW-leaning art website Fur Affinity called “ZuTheSkunk” that has been “deactivated by the owner”.

The mod is also unavailable on Steam, listed as simply being “Coming Soon”.

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Players Unlock A New Secret Weapon In Assassin’s Creed Valhalla After Hitting A Pile Of Rocks

Screenshot: Ubisoft / Kotaku

Players have discovered a new hidden and powerful bow in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. All you have to do is find a specific pile of rocks and hit it a few times and reload your save. Though, this isn’t the intended way to get the weapon.

Players have discovered that a small, unremarkable pile of rocks in the northern area of the main Valhalla map holds a strange and powerful secret. If you hit these rocks… nothing happens. Unlike similar rock piles in the game, this pile won’t break. However, if you hit this pile of rocks a few times, save your game, and reload, well nothing happens. But repeat this a few times, for most players, it takes about three reloads, and eventually, you’ll unlock Norden’s Arc.

JorRaptor did a great video showing off the rock method, how players even figured it out and how powerful the bow is. (Spoilers: It’s very deadly.)

This hunter bow is an Isu weapon. The Isu were an ancient civilization of super-powerful beings who enslaved humans and… look, you probably don’t care and I don’t have the time to fully explain it. They were powerful and aren’t around anymore, but their relics and weapons still exist, like this bow. That’s the short version.

My new bow
Screenshot: Ubisoft / Kotaku

I gave this method a try and got lucky. On my very first reload it worked. Though I deleted the save. Because, while this method works reliably, it doesn’t seem like the way Ubisoft would have intended players to unlock this special weapon. It seems like a glitch.

This was confirmed earlier today by Darby McDevitt, the narrative director on Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. McDevitt explained on Twitter, in a reply to a JorRaptor tweet, that this method was a “clever brute force hack” that might be useful for speedrunners.

However, he clarified that there is an actual in-game way to unlock this bow, but didn’t say how. Though when someone pointed out that some player must have solved the secret by now, McDevitt vaguely responded “Someone almost has.

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Cyberpunk 2077’s Latest Patch Reportedly Added A Game-Breaking Bug

Screenshot: CD Projekt Red / Kotaku

Last night, CD Projekt Red dropped the first major update for its troubled open-world shooter, Cyberpunk 2077. “Major” is a relative term. While larger than previous updates, yesterday’s patch 1.1 focuses more on stability fixes rather than a wide-ranging overhaul. In fact, it may have even made the game worse—by introducing a potentially game-breaking bug.

Patch 1.1 addresses an issue in the mission “Down on the Street” where Takemura would not call, thereby preventing any progress in the mission. He’ll call now, apparently, but then won’t say a word. Some users say that reloading old saves or creating new save files doesn’t fix it either.

There’s at least one apparent workaround. First, try to call Judy before Takemura calls. When he does, hang up the line, then tackle a side job. (The player who reported this workaround tackled a Delamain side-quest.) Wait 24 hours in-game and Takemura should call in—with dialogue and everything—allowing you to progress in “Down on the Street.”

Kotaku has reached out to CD Projekt Red for comment.

I’m playing Cyberpunk 2077 on an Xbox Series X, where it performs better than it appears to on last-gen consoles but not, as one of my roommates likes to so frequently remind me, as well as it does on his high-end rig. Still, I’ve run into some bugs since day one. Usually, they’re garden-variety hiccups: NPCs floating in the air in ways they should not, or a weapon refusing to reload even though I’ve tapped “X,” like, eighteen times. Small potatoes.

I hope the funny bugs (see above) never go away.
Screenshot: CD Projekt Red / Kotaku

The bug that soured me on the game popped up during the “Stadium Love” side-quest, in which you meet up with a bunch of veterans, throw back bad vodka shots like you’re at a bad frat party (“What is this, rubbing alcohol?” V asks), and then engage in a shooting contest. In one attempt, I wasn’t able pull out my gun—pretty much an instant DQ in a shoot-off. In another, I was, but all of the veterans around me also would whip theirs out and then start shooting at me. That sucked too. I decided to shelve the game until it was in a better state.

“Stadium Love” is not listed among the dozen or so quests that were addressed in yesterday’s 1.1 patch. Against my better judgement, after downloading the 16.5GB (!!!) update, I tried the quest again. I was able to shoot my gun without issue. I also still got shot at. So, not perfect.

CDPR says yesterday’s update addresses an issue with the quest “M’ap Tann Pèlen,” where players could run into a roadblock trying to talk to the character Mr. Hands on the phone. I had no issue doing so today, but hadn’t tried the quest at all before downloading the 1.1 patch. Who knows if I would’ve hit a snag, say, three weeks ago.

In general, after spending some time with the game last night, I can say it feels pretty much exactly the same as it did before I put it down. Maybe those on last-gen consoles are seeing more benefits. Right now, social media seems to be loud with news outlets noting the patch exists or players pointing out how thin the notes seem. CDPR says this patch is “focused on various stability improvements and bug fixes” and “lays the groundwork for the upcoming patches.” Next one’s due in February, per a statement from December.

Ten days ago, CDPR released a video stating that January’s big update would release within the following ten days. Yesterday’s 1.1 patch, in the most technical sense, hits that mark. These are indeed updates that indeed address some issues with the game. It also landed at 5:00 p.m. ET (10:00 p.m. Warsaw time) on a Friday. Make of that what you will.

Is Cyberpunk 2077 “good” now, in the way No Man’s Sky clawed its way to greatness? No. Not yet. But this is one small step in the right direction. I’m eager to see what’s next.

Cyberpunk 2077 is in a cyberfunk



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