#Gaming NEWS! Deck13's upcoming titles

Here's some gaming news from the old world for a change.
Today's program, Deck13's upcoming adventure games!
Deck13 Interactive is a German video game company who's been making lots of fun adventure games for this past decade, while American companies quickly lost interest in the genre and only got back in it a couple years ago.

They're the guys behind such games as the fun Ankh series, the fantastic Jack Keane and the original Venetica more recently.

Their upcoming title, Haunted, will be released by the end of the month (in most of Europe, that is).

This supernatural adventure will be darker than Deck13's previous titles, but still retain some humor here and there throughout the adventure.
The story is set in the 19th century, in London. You play as Mary, a girl that was being part of some strange experiment but ran off. She has the ability to see and itneract with ghosts.
All in all, it's a pretty classic point and click game, featuring the usual inventory system, various difficulty settings for experienced and beginners alike (through the difficulty set, the game will offer clues, etc.).
 Mary will obtain different ghost companions to help out resolve puzzles, which will add a little gimmick gameplay in this classic forumla.
Also, other Deck13 speciality, like Jack Keane tried to offer in the past, the game will contain an entire bonus scenario in the form of sidequests that are optional. A nice bonus for an adventure game (which tend to be pretty linear usually).


Here's some screens!

 Looks promising!
A definitive must play!


~


The other fantastic news is that their previous hero's coming back in Jack Keane 2!
The original game was a great tribute to old adventure games and adventure movies such as the Monkey Island series, Indiana Jones, the original The Mummy movie, etc.
The game was long, fun and a great example how to make a modern "classic" point & click adventure game.

This new adventure is called "Jack Keane und das Auge des Schicksals"/"Jack Keane et l'oeil du destin" (aka Jack Keane and the Eye of Destiny if they keep the same title in English).


Things are looking mighty promising so far, it's looking great! It really shows Deck13's worked on graphically more complex games since the original, but thankfully the game will still retain the original's art style and direction.
The new episode will introduce new characters, revamp the old ones, and the new adventure will take Jack from city backdrops to more exotical places such as jungles, islands (again!) and even Egypt it seems...


Check out these concept arts and first in-game screens:

Can't wait for this one!
Love Jack Keane! (the theme song was so epic and catchy~)

#Screenshot: Broken Sword

Here's a classic quote from the original Broken Sword - Broken Sword - The Shadow of the Templars!
Just to be a more obscure, I decided to take it on the (not very well known) GBA port of this classic adventure game:

Being both an English and French speaker - bilingual - I always found this scene quite hilarious.

Basically, the beginning takes place in Paris, France.
People in the street use little bits of French in their dialogue. And this guy above says something that sounds so silly and stupid in French, yet perfectly correct grammatical. (it is an UK based game studio, Revolution Software, and they usually don't butcher non-English language unlike their American counterparts)

"Quelle bitte!"

MusicBox - "Jojo the Monkey"

Here's a very memorable musical piece from Monkey Island 2.

Some people dare say that in the old "retro" age, video games didn't have good music. But I dare to ask those same people this below isn't a fantastic composition!



RIP Jojo, the monkey.

XD

Pic of the day - Tim Schafer and Al Lowe

Here's something epic!
Mario & Sonic together at last-level of epic.

It's Tim Schafer (from LucasArts' classic Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle, etc.) and Al Lowe (From Sierra's classic Leisure Suit Larry, Freddy Pharkas,..) next to each other!

Photo taken at this year's DICE 2012. (a game developer expo)

Both adventure games legends finally met while while filming an episode of The Bonus Round today.

Tim's doing pretty okay at the moment, at Double Fine. What with raising money for a brand new modern point & click game and going to finally produce a sequel to Psychonauts.

Meanwhile, Al Lowe's still trying to finish his adventure game Sam Suede and his currently overlooking the remakes of the Leisure Suit Larry games.

Gamin' NEWS! Shooters and adventurers, ahoy!

On today's program, sequels!
Hitman is finally back, The Darkness gets a numero dos, and Larry will come back soon...
Hitman is BACK! Looking mighty badass in Hitman: Absolution!



I can't wait to see Agent 47 back in full HD glory this time around.
I loved the previous games, besides some technical problems that prevented me from ever finishing Contracts, they were very good games worth exploring.
You could playing it guns ablazing or more tactical like a professional stealth assassin. Great games!


Here's a sequel nobody was asking for, from a game most didn't even knew about...
The Darkness II is a sequel to 2007's The Darkness, which was in fact an adaptation from a Top Cow comic. The original game was a pretty good title developed by Vin Diesel's own gaming studio Starbreeze. This time around 2K Games got Digital Extremes to make this one, and it's scheduled to be released in February 2012.



Looking pretty fun actually!


On the Adventure side of gaming genres (sounds like a mouthful, right?), here's a new trailer for the upcoming Jurassic Park game:



This one has a lot on its shoulders. Not regarding to its quality. But the fact that most games based on JP thus far have been solid pretty good titles in their own.
From the 8 bits to the 16 bits and even the park builder title on PC from a couple years back, most of them if not all have been fantastic games so far!
Will this be the weak link of the family?


And finally, Leisure Suit Larry.

The popular classic Larry franchise from the good ol' Sierra On-Line days will make a come back in our HD era.

[Above: More than two decades and seven Windows OS later...]
Replay Games  was able to obtain the rights to the Leisure Suit Larry franchise, thanks to the fact that Activision didn't pick up the rights back after the closure of Vivendi Universal.
And they will re-release the original series, as well as start working on all new adventures, beginning in 2012, the year that marks the series’ 25th anniversary.

And if that wasn't enough, they even brought back series creator Al Lowe on board!
You can read more on Lowe back on the series here on EGM Now.

After Vivendi Universal took the rights off Al Lowe hands after the successful LSL7, they made one simpler cheaper LSL: Magna Cum Laude and another even worse LSL: Box Office Bust that made the former look like an award winning AAA-title game in comparison...
Will the series be back in right and due form?

Check out the first screens of this remake!

BEST NEWS of the year!! Yeah!
I hope it's well animated, as good or better than LSL7 was.
I'm fearing a cheap flahs-like budget remake...

The first of these remake is scheduled for release sometime early next year, on most system (so I'm guessing, Wiiware, Xboxlive, PSN, Steam, iPhone/Pad/Pod, etc..) and the sequels will follow depending on the success of this one.