'We Happy Few' is One Part Pleasantville, One Part They Live

Compulsion Games has released one of the most intriguing (and terrifying) trailers of PAX East with the announcement of their next major game, We Happy Few. Little is known about the title aside from it taking place in an alternate-history 1960's Dystopia filled with crazed perma-smiling psychopaths, weapon crafting and open-world exploration.

But from the looks of the trailer, the game definitely looks like one part Pleasantville, one part They Live, with a generous amount of Invasion of The Body-snatchers just to round it out. We Happy Few has definitely left a favorable first-impression that could last them until its projected release sometime late next year(?).

And maybe a smidge of The Stepford Wives because, hey why not?

The theme of deceptive geniality of early 1960's Americana is one of the most alluring and well-traveled settings of modern gaming, with titles such as Bioshock, The Bureau: XCOM Declassified and the Fallout series blazing the trail.  We Happy Few appears to be another installment in this recurring aesthetic, a world of tie-dyed bell-bottoms and nightmarish cults of majority pulled straight out of a Shirley Jackson novel. The game is still early in development, but we here at Awesome-Robo HQ are anticipating it all the same!

Ghost in the Shell Online May Be The 'GITS' Game That We've Always Wanted

Masamune Shirow's Ghost in Shell series has had a rich history of video-game adaptations with diminishing returns dating back all the way to 1997. This all may change (and oh god I hope it does) with the announcement of Studio I.G. and Nexon's Ghost in the Shell Online First Connection, a free-to-play online FPS currently scheduled for a closed beta sometime in 2015. The title is currently only scheduled for release in Nexon's home country of South Korea, but I'm crossing my fingers hard that it'll make its way stateside some day.

Aside from a number of "spiritual contemporaries" in way of Bungie's 2001 ONI and Deus Ex: Human Revolution, not to mention games like Blacklight: Retribution and the exquisite tactical mod-shooter NeoTokyo°,  no developer seems to be quite willing or able to give the venerable cyberpunk cornerstone the game that its premise so richly deserves. First Connection's first trailer looks like a step in the right direction. That recreation of Mamoru Oshii's iconic opening shot fills me with the hope that even if this doesn't turn out to be the game that fans of the franchise want it to be, it may in some way lead to it down the line.

SUPERHOT Launches Kickstarter, The Internet Rejoices

SUPERHOT is a frantic, ingenious first-person shooter where time moves only when you move, turning every mute-toned level into a deadly maze of criss-crossing bullet trails and patience.
The game's prototype was released last year to critical acclaim and became one of the fastest titles to be approved through Steam's Greenlight publishing system. Now the team behind the original is back, with a brand new Kickstarter page and tons of kick-ass new footage.

While so many other shooters rely on flashy non-interactive cinematics to make players feel like a bad-ass through association, SUPERHOT delivers on that euphoria by never taking you out of the action; combining the frenetic chaos of a firefight with the methodical cunning of a puzzle game. I know I've got this one backed!

The Stanley Parable demolishes player choice, releases Oct. 17

The Stanley Parable was originally released in 2011 as a user-created mod for Half-Life 2, inspiring both an outpour of critical acclaim and confused head-scratching from fans, critics, and detractors alike. Since then Davey Wredren, the one-man team behind the original, has enlisted a small team of dedicated modders to remake the game entirely in the Source engine for Portal 2.  Now, after nearly two years of development, The Stanley Parable will finally be released in its full, stand-alone form on October 17th over Steam.

The Stanley Parable, at its most basic level, is a first-person exploration game about choice and consequence. You play as Stanley, a man whose life is narrated by a mysterious disembodied voice that can predict almost everything that he does or is about to do. The game is a total mind-f*ck, but that's to be expected when a game's mission statement is, "You will make a choice that does not matter, You will follow a story that has no end, You will play a game you cannot win."

Personally, I loved the original, can't wait to see what the remake offers, strongly believe that it's one of the most "important" games to come out in the past decade and seriously, why are you not playing this game right now?! Wreden's team have released a demo for the game which can be downloaded here.

First Person Mario: Endgame

After taking a measly 50 days of rendering FreddieW has something rather awesome to show us. The original, which was released well over a year and a half ago was neat but Freddie Wong and team has gone above and beyond with Endgame. Possibly my favorite part of this entire video is the addition of the the sidescrolling version of the level in the top left corner. Being able to jump back and forth between first-person and a 2D sidescroller really adds a lot of depth and I often found myself rewinding to see what the hell was actually going on.