Game News stub

Game News: Metroid 2 Remake, StarCraft HD, Pokemon Uranium

Posted on August 12, 2016

We're concluding our trip in England already -- spending equal time on planes as in another country, at this point -- and will be posting several in-depth content pieces next week. In the meantime, we turn to gaming news for a few interesting remakes on PC, including Master of Orion, AM2R (Another Metroid 2 Remake), the potential for StarCraft HD, and the new "Pokemon Uranium" game from indie devs.

GN script writer and video editor Keegan Gallick has had some hands-on time with AM2R, and was saddened to learn that the title received orders from Nintendo to remove download links. No official C&D has yet been dispatched, but DMCA notices were issued. Check the video below for more (or the script, if you prefer writing):

Game News Script

The first item in game news this week is Master of Orion -- a game we covered at PAX East earlier this year. Wargaming.net announced the release date and price of the 4X franchise’s relaunch, following an extended Early Access time, with the company targeting a $30 launch on August 25th. We’ve previously talked about some of the new features to the Master of Orion series with this release, such as espionage and economic victories, and also detailed the game’s all-star voice cast, including Mark Hamill, Alan Tudyk, John de Lancie, Michael Dorn, and Nolan North.

Our next bit of news moves us to the world of fan remakes. Earlier this month, AM2R got traction for the launch of their Metroid II remake for PC. “Another Metroid 2 Remake” was designed to bring the game to PC without the use of an emulator and to update the graphics to the look and feel of more recent games in the Metroid franchise. As might be expected, the remake hadn’t been online long before all the hosts for the downloads and AM2R received DMCA notices from Nintendo. Most of AM2R’s site is still available, sans the download and media pages, and a new blog post discussed Nintendo’s actions. So far, AM2R has not received any cease and desist letter, and the creator is still planning on updating the game and fixing some of the bugs players have encountered, but whether or not he’ll be able to publish his fixes has yet to be seen.

In other fan-made game news, Pokémon Uranium has finally released. This title features a brand new region and over 150 completely custom-made Pokémon. Like the official Nintendo titles, this game has 8 gyms in the new Tandor region. The game was made on RPGMaker XP, and uses entirely custom Pokemon in an attempt to bypass potential C&D issues..

There are rumors of yet another update on an old title. This time, however, it's (supposedly) being made by the original publishers. According to Korean iNews24, Blizzard is going to reveal Starcraft HD this year, either at Blizzcon in November or at the Starcraft II World Championship in September. According to iNews24, the source of this rumor is someone with “knowledge of Blizzard's internal plans.” The rumor states that the gameplay will be the same, but with updated graphics and a better UI.

The last bit of game news today comes from nVidia. The company has announced that they plan to leverage their resources to support indie game developers with their Indie Spotlight. NVidia is going to begin packing indie games with their hardware the same way they've done with AAA games for years now. In addition, they are going to include indie titles on their nVidia NOW streaming service and promote them on social media. The implementation of this plan by a major company in the gaming world shows another sign of how indie games have grown in recent years.

Check back for some major coverage next week, as we return from England and look into No Man’s Sky, new benchmarks, and the Titan X Pascal card.

Article Intro & Host: Steve “Lelldorianx” Burke
Video & Script: Keegan “HornetSting” Gallick