Classically animated platformer Cuphead will finally get its Delicious Last Course with the release of the expansion on Steam today. The DLC adds a new character, Ms. Chalice, the third beverage-container bonce you can play as. Once you’ve unlocked her in the DLC you’ll be able to play as her in the base game too. There's also a new island with mountains, icy tundra and desert to navigate. Watch the trailer below, although it’s getting on a bit now.
]]>After multiple delays, Cuphead - The Delicious Last Course finally has a release date. The expansion for Studio MDHR's 1930s cartoon-inspired platformer comes out on June 30th, 2022, and adds a new character to play and a bunch of new bosses to die to over and over again. You can see some of the newbies in the new trailer below from this evening's Game Awards, including a spooky witch and a donkey (mule? horse?) in shining armour.
]]>Netflix are hot for video games lately, with their number of animated and live-action adaptations now into double digits. Their E3 stream today brought news of even more, including announcements of a Far Cry: Blood Dragon cartoon and casting for their live-action Resident Evil. It has Lance Reddick! But by and large, their stream was a weird shrug with so little information that all they had on one show was a logo. But hey, here's what they had on Cuphead, Castlevania, Splinter Cell, League Of Legends, and others.
]]>You'll need to wait to continue the stylish adventures of our boy Cuphead, as the developers have delayed its expansion by another year. Adding a new island and playable character, The Delicious Last Course was previously due this year but nah, Studio MDHR say the whole pandemic has thrown them off course, and they'd rather do it right than rush it out.
]]>It is a weird circle for a video game based on vintage cartoons to get its own cartoon, but that's what's happening with Cuphead. The challenging platformer was last year picked up for a Netflix series, and now we have a teensy video peek at the animated antics and get to meet the voice cast.
]]>"It'll be easy," I thought to myself, when it was suggested someone do a nice, timely little post on the new-ish Steam Points system, and the various new goodies on offer through it. "Sure, no problem," I said, when Matt refused to write it because he thought Steam Points were "pointless", and I was the only other writer on the call with Graham. Matt was being negative, I figured, and I'd show him the error of his ways with my happy-go-lucky, anything-goes, good times attitude. I'd breeze onto the Steam store, have a browse of what points-purchasable things were on offer, and do a quickie piece highlighting some of the most chuckleworthy.
Well, turns out Matt was right, and I was not.
]]>Whether or not famously difficult games should have an optional easy mode has long been a point of contention. But many already do, albeit unofficially, thanks to modders taking things into their own hands.
Take the fella who goes by "n00bplatformer", for example. He recently created an “Assist Mode” for run 'n’ gun action game Cuphead. It makes simple tweaks to some of the game’s systems, like granting players six hitpoints instead of the usual three, and boosting weapon damage an extra 50% so that boss battles don’t drag on so long.
]]>While it was a long time coming, Cuphead dazzled me with its 1930s cartoon style, a callback not just to the old days of animation, but the individual techniques used by Fleischer and Disney in their earliest works.
]]>Deliciously bouncy boss-rush shooter Cuphead might just have sparked a retro cartoon revival. Today, Netflix Animation have announced The Cuphead Show, an official tie-in series based on Studio MDHR's debut hit. It seems that they've got the right people behind it too - they've tapped Dave Wasson as director (from Disney's similarly-styled Mickey Shorts series) as executive producer. They'll probably cut out the dozens of deaths per scene, for watchability's sake, but I'm still holding out for the occasional bit of finger-gun action in between the gags.
]]>The continuing adventures of Cuphead and co. will have to wait, as developers studio MDHR have delayed the pretty-pretty platformer's expansion until next year. Announced for a 2019 launch during E3 2018, now 'The Delicious Last Course' is pushed back to some time in 2020 and for good reasons. Basically, the devs say, they want to make it proper good but don't want to wreck themselves making it. Cuphead's lead developers once remortgaged their homes to finance the game--a gamble with terrible odds that will ruin most people, to be clear--so hanging loose for a while sounds sensible. For now, hey look, a new trailer.
]]>We've just passed the half-way point of 2018, so Ian Gatekeeper and all his fabulously wealthy chums over at Valve have revealed which hundred games have sold best on Steam over the past six months. It's a list dominated by pre-2018 names, to be frank, a great many of which you'll be expected, but there are a few surprises in there.
2018 releases Jurassic World Evolution, Far Cry 5 Kingdom Come: Deliverance and Warhammer: Vermintide II are wearing some spectacular money-hats, for example, while the relatively lesser-known likes of Raft, Eco and Deep Rock Galactic have made themselves heard above the din of triple-A marketing budgets.
]]>Microsoft had a lot of games to announce at E3 2018, but it's a little murkier this year to find out what was relevant for PC users. Some games were coming to both, others only to their Xbox One consoles. You could of course watch the entire conference right here, but for some there just isn't enough time to wade through the entire show.
Not to worry though, here are all the trailers and news for you in one place. There's a surprising amount of variety in the announced titles: from an old favourite making a return, much celebrated developers showing off their new series, to even a completely free game launching very soon. The games below aren't in any particular order but you're in for a long ride.
]]>Charming shoot-o-platformer Cuphead is getting an expansion next year, developers Studio MDHR announced today. Named 'The Delicious Last Course', it'll take Cuphead and Mugman to a new island for new adventures with a new friend--and playable character--Ms. Chalice. Ah, just watching the announcement trailer gets me bopping in my seat.
]]>The awards ceremony at this year’s GDC was fun. At least, that’s what John told me from his seat in the crowd, where he saw the winners mount a stage some would consider too colourful for this planet. The Independent Games Festival Awards and subsequent Game Developer’s Choice Awards saw a range of trophy-grabbers, from indie students to adventure game veterans. Unfortunately for them, I was hiding backstage, skulking behind a black curtain and holding a voice recorder like a cudgel. I had one question to ask them all: If they had to give their award away, who would get it?
It’s like re-gifting, except you worked really hard for the gift and now you have to hand it over three minutes after your acceptance speech. Life is pain.
]]>We've already seen which games sold best on Steam last year, but a perhaps more meaningful insight into movin' and a-shakin' in PC-land is the games that people feel warmest and snuggliest about. To that end, Valve have announced the winners of the 2017 Steam Awards, a fully community-voted affair which names the most-loved games across categories including best post-launch support, most player agency, exceeding pre-release expectations and most head-messing-with. Vintage cartoon-themed reflex-tester Cuphead leads the charge with two gongs, but ol' Plunkbat and The Witcher series also do rather well - as do a host of other games from 2017's great and good.
Full winners and runners-up below, with links to our previous coverage of each game if you're so-minded. Plus: I reveal which game I'd have gone for in each category.
]]>Another year over, a new one just begun, which means, impossibly, even more games. But what about last year? Which were the games that most people were buying and, more importantly, playing? As is now something of a tradition, Valve have let slip a big ol' breakdown of the most successful titles released on Steam over the past twelve months.
Below is the full, hundred-strong roster, complete with links to our coverage if you want to find out more about any of the games, or simply to marvel at how much seemed to happen in the space of 52 short weeks.
]]>This year it has felt like there's been a string of quality games releases. Games that I’m proud to support, whether it be for their tackling of serious subject matter or excellent writing or unique concepts that push the industry forward. Games that are already redefining preconceived standards of play.
In short: next year has a tough act to follow.
]]>Cuphead’s fetishisation of difficulty and the air of smugness perpetrated by some of the louder parts of its community unfortunately put me off the finger-gun platformer, but if anything could have made me give it another chance, it would have been the ability to summon an army of anthropomorphic cups. Lamentably, this bug, along with many others, has been squashed in the latest update.
]]>Sundays are for writing The Sunday Papers - mostly. Another fortnight has gone by since I last did so however, for which I can only apologise. Let's me make it up to you with... links to articles about games.
Yussef Cole at Unwinnable wrote about Cuphead and the racist legacy of the animation period it references. This is great criticism.
]]>Once more, we've made it to the very middle section of the week - right there in between a weekend and another weekend. What better time to indulge in some digital video game niceness? Incidentally, this also happens to be the week before the international commerce festival that is Black Friday 2017. We've already got a guide to the best PC gaming Black Friday stuff on the site, take a look at that and maybe bookmark it, why don't you.
Before that all unfolds, there is already a batch of fairly nice deals on digital downloads available right here on the good ship Internet. So, consider this another convenient mid-week digital deals roundup if you like. Let's get to it, shall we?
]]>In a week in which Assassin's Creed Origins has managed to break the charts to such a degree that it somehow not only appears three times, but also stopped Feedly from being able to display the rest of the games in the correct order, we also see a few other new entries. But absolutely no new names.
]]>People, people of Earth, for the second week in a row GTA V isn't in the Steam Charts! And for the first time in human history, this week nor is Counter-Strike: Global Offensive! What's happened? I'll tell you what's happened. Everyone's got a copy now. Phew.
So instead, here are eight other games and Plunkbat, and one plastic box, in ascending order of dollar-eyes.
]]>Wotcha gang. Your old chum Alice here for this week's charts, as everyone else has been fired. Out of a cannon. Blown into a jillion little pieces. Hence the Apocalyptic yellow tone to the skies today. Hold your breath when outside, and hold your breath while we count down last week's top ten of the top-selling games on Steam.
]]>Are you strong enough to read the Steam Charts? Do you have what it takes to read all the way to the end? Can you defeat the Plunkbat final boss? NO! NO YOU ARE TOO WEAK!
]]>In my review of Cuphead [official site], I praised the inclusion of a much easier ‘simple’ mode that also strips out some of the game’s content. It’s true that Cuphead could have just had a single difficulty setting, and the game is better for simple mode’s inclusion. But what would have been lost if simple mode included everything, and just made the game easier?
]]>Cuphead[official site] first appeared way back at E3 2014, where it wowed everyone with its gorgeous 1930s style cartoon aesthetic and promise of tough as nails platforming action. It finally came out last Friday and boy, does it deliver on that promise.
]]>Some have doubted the power of the Steam Charts to change people's lives. Those people are dead now. Belief in Steam Charts, RPS's greatest, longest-running, and most industry-revered column, is literally the only thing keeping you alive right now. Don't be a dead one. Love us. LOVE US.
]]>Our cup runneth over, then it runneth away to shooteth enemies. The mighty Cuphead [official site], a shooty platformer with smooth jazz and a gorgeous hand-animated style using techniques of 1930s cartoons, is now out. After several years of shouting CUPHEAD at each other, we can finally play. Don't mistake its fun style for an easy game, mind, as Cuphead will drink you up and spit you back out if you're not careful.
God, CUPHEAD!
]]>You probably recognise Cuphead [official site] because you’ve been hearing about it for years. The action platformer was first announced at E3 2014, and it’s finally out on September 29. In between, the developers at Studio MDHR quit their jobs, remortgaged their homes and essentially rebuilt the game.
]]>On September 29th, Cuphead [official site] will cease to be the game that I most look forward to seeing at E3 every year because it'll actually be released. Even though I'm looking forward to playing it, this makes me sad. Since its first appearance, it has become a reassuring presence, a cheeky wink from a place and time far removed from the regular trailer diet of sound and fury.
It's all very cupsetting.
]]>As Old Father Time grabs his sickle and prepares to take ailing 2016 around the back of the barn for a big sleep, we're looking to the future. The mewling pup that goes by the name 2017 will come into the world soon and we must prepare ourselves for its arrival. Here at RPS, our preparations come in the form of this enormous preview feature, which contains details on more than a hundred of the exciting games that are coming our way over the next twelve months. 2016 was a good one - in the world of games at least - but, ever the optimists, we're hoping next year will be even better.
]]>Flip me, Cuphead [official site] still looks gorgeous. The run 'n' gun platformer is styled after 1930s cartoons, see, with the beautiful bouncing hand-drawn style and horrific anthropomorphisation of everyday creatures and items that always unsettled me as a child. Always nice to revisit childhood horrors, yeah? Alas, we'll need to wait a while longer. Cuphead was expected to launch some time this year but developers Studio MDHR have now delayed it into "mid-2017". They want it to be finished and good, yeah?
]]>Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.
Weirdly I wrote this several days before today's announcement that Aladdin and other 90s Disney platformers have been re-released on GoG. Spooks!
There's a black hole in my memory regarding Aladdin. I know I played it, and I know that I owned a boxed copy of it - I remember typing in specific words from specific pages of the manual in order to pass the copy protection. But I can't remember why I would have owned a legit copy. I couldn't afford many, if any, games back then, so the last thing I was going to do was drop cash on a bloody Disney game. That said, I do remember that Aladdin got its hooks deep into me.
]]>The last time we saw Cuphead it was at E3 2015 and the game, styled like an early 20th century cartoon, was all about defeating devious boss characters. Now E3 2016 looms and the game has returned, only now it's not just about beating bosses but about jumping and bopping heads across traditional platformer levels. And it still looks amazing.
]]>E3 2014 saw us awfully excited about Cuphead [official site], a run 'n' gun platformer styled beautifully like a 1930s cartoon. After seeing a new trailer, you know what, yeah, I'm still really jazzed for it this year.
CUPHEAD
]]>The triple A team of Alice, Alec and Adam have spent the last 24 hours absorbing every trailer and piece of footage that has emerged from E3. Now they gather together with Graham 'G-Man' Smith to discuss their findings. Does the imminent arrival of a GTA V port please them? Are any of them still wearing socks or has No Man's Sky blown them clean off? Is Cuphead really the game of the show? And will Valiant Hearts' dog-in-a-war bring tears to their eyes? Read on for answers to all of those questions, and remarkable insights into the Oculus Rift and much more besides.
]]>CUPHEAD. Just to say its name is to feel unbridled joy. CUPHEAD!
]]>Cuphead splits me right down the middle. It's a run-and-gun game about one-on-one fights, which means it's about learning attack patterns, dodging enemies, and striking back through multiple waves to eventually destroy them. It's inspired by the likes of Contra and Mega Man, games which aren't really my thing.
It's also using hand-drawn cel animation, watercolour backgrounds and live jazz recordings to mimic the style of early, 1930s cartoons. In its videos, it looks like a controllable, early Mickey Mouse cartoon with a lot more fighting. It's exactly my kind of thing.
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