GamesBeat weekly roundup: The original indie dev, The Last Guardian watch, and The Order: 1886 reviewed

Welcome to another weekly roundup of GamesBeat’s stories. This time, we look at Sonic’s worst games, we talk about how important a game’s length really is, and we look at Minecraft’s next update.

Happy reading, and have a great weekend!

Pieces of flair and opinion

• The DeanBeat: It’s time for the U.S. to wake up and support game startups

• Someone remade Call of Duty: Zombies in Trials Fusion

• Five bugs and jokes in The Sims that went on to become features — and two that did not

• A game’s length is one of its least important measures

• Master the trapper class in Evolve with our step-by-step guide

• The original indie dev: How one man made 22 games in 22 years, mostly from his basement

• What Sega should learn from Sonic’s worst games

• This U.K. mom drives her kids to school in a Need for Speed police cruiser

Above: Exploding Kittens.

Image Credit: Elan Lee

News

• World’s largest Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournament heading to Germany this summer

• Silicon Valley insiders’ favorite board game ‘Settlers of Catan’ to be turned into a movie

• Warner Bros. invests $24M more into game video site Machinima

• Here’s what’s new in Minecraft 1.8.2

• A card game called Exploding Kittens just made Kickstarter history

• Bitcoin can get you illegal drugs — but a game developer is using it to redefine digital ownership

• Brianna Wu’s Giant Spacekat pulls out of PAX East, blames GamerGate death threats

• World of Tanks is coming to Xbox One — with cross-platform play with Xbox 360 tankers

• Epic’s CEO touts a $5M fund to give grants to Unreal Engine developers

• Why the Shadow of Mordor developer is finally letting you fight Sauron

• Sega Networks acquires Marvel Puzzle Quest’s Demiurge Studios, invests in 2 Western developers

• Xbox One is finally getting screenshots in next update

• PS4 will outsell the Xbox One by 40% over the next 4 years, analyst bets

• Koei Tecmo taking baby steps into the PlayStation 4, Xbox One age

• Xbox Live down for many on Xbox One and Xbox 360

• Look out, HoloLens — Sony’s dorky augmented-reality glasses go on sale in March for $840

• Hurry: Wii U GameCube Controller Adapter is in stock at GameStop

• League of Legends, Dota 2 could push e-sports to make at least $465M in 2017

• Playtech buys GameMaker creator YoYo Games for $16.4 million

• Sony still says The Last Guardian is in development

• Nvidia’s Grid cloud gaming service will soon have 40 games

• Wargaming launches closed beta for World of Tanks Generals digital card game

• Nintendo’s New 3DS XL is selling out and difficult to find

• Shadowrun: Hong Kong studio finds Kickstarter is a viable business model

• The Order: 1886 is approximately 6 hours long, according to leaked video

• Day 1 players of F2P games are much more likely to still be there a year later

• Game streaming startup PolyStream completes its seed funding

• Sony’s trademark for The Last Guardian has expired again

• League of Legends continues its dominance as most-played PC game

Mobile and social

• Swrve aims to put an end to annoying push-notification spam on your phone

• Mobile gaming in public markets: Let’s take stock

• Puzzle game Line: Disney Tsum Tsum hits 40 million worldwide downloads

• Math Blaster is back — and it’s on Facebook

• Rovio taps Chinese developer to create regional Angry Birds games

• Upsight unveils real-time analytics and marketing platform for mobile and online marketers

• How one mobile developer says it has an ‘ethical monetization’ plan for its kids game

• App maker Biba and playground manufacturer PlayPower combine mobile games with real-world kid fun

• Spil Games gets new mobile-savvy CEO to oversee social-gaming transition from Facebook

• Angry Birds developer launches its latest third-party publishing game Jolly Jam

• Mobile-marketing company Leadbolt introduces ‘non-intrusive’ video ads for mobile

• Taking your social game to mobile is easy — taking your players with you is tougher

• Amazon releases its exclusive Saber’s Edge puzzle-RPG on Fire tablets

• China’s Tencent moves into Europe with investment in mobile and online game publisher Miniclip (exclusive)

• Firefly Games raises $8M to bring top Asian mobile games to the West

• Proletariat readies Thursday launch of mobile game World Zombination

• Nonprofit brings back Zoombinis educational game and launches Kickstarter

• Former Z2 Live execs form Mobile Game Partners consulting firm

• FreshPlanet follows up its mobile song-trivia hit SongPop with a sequel

• App Annie: Guns and advertising dollars led the mobile gaming charge in January

Above: What I think of when someone mentions Asteroids.

Image Credit: Atari

Previews and interviews

• Following The Sims and Second Life, Rod Humble’s third act takes on religion … in a strategy game

• BrightLocker makes a game out of making games

• Atari producer Peter Banks on Asteroids’ new direction

• Explore the mysteries of Saturn’s moon with Oculus Rift game Pollen

• Atari producer Peter Banks on Asteroids’ new direction

• Splash: Underwater Sanctuary will use Carmen Sandiego tactics to teach you about fish

Reviews

• Kirby and the Rainbow Curse is a finely molded touchscreen adventure

• The Order: 1886 is the best game from 10 years ago

• Hori’s PlayStation 4 Full HD Monitor is worth more than the $15 I paid for it

• Total War: Attila will bring out the barbarian in you

• Redux: Dark Matters evokes shoot-em-up nostalgia but offers nothing new

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