The Exorcist franchise has one of the more fascinating Hollywood stories. Each film in the series has been interesting in its own way. After the smash success of the terrifying first film in 1973 (resulting in emotional scars for an entire generation), a sequel was cobbled together in 1977 that was so bad that it almost killed the franchise. In 1990, a third film, based on original author William Peter Blatty’s novel Heretic, arrived in theaters and recovered the series’ reputation. While only a moderate hit, the third film is pretty great, matching the mood and tone of the original film and featuring an amazing star turn by George C. Scott.

Then in 2004 and 2005, mirror image films Exorcist: The Beginning and Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist were released. Unsatisfied with legendary director Paul Schrader’s film Dominion, Warner Brothers tossed the keys to less-legendary director Renny Harlin, and had him remake the film in its entirety, with the same actors and the same script. When Exorcist: The Beginning crashed and burned at the box office, Warner went ahead and released the superior Dominion on home video. The world kind of mumbled “What the hell was that all about?” and went about its business.

After the prequel debacle, the franchise went quiet again until a television series appeared on Fox in 2016. While the series was unable to maintain the tone, the pilot is one of the best hours of television I have ever seen. The rest of the series isn’t awful, but that pilot is excellent. The series lasted two seasons before getting cancelled in 2017.

All of that is my way of saying that I am really into the Exorcist franchise, so I was shocked when I saw that an episodic VR game based on the series plopped on to PS VR on June 19^th. I had no idea that the game was coming, or I would have trumpeted it from the rafters. After my initial delight, I immediately became creeped out at the idea of actually playing the game. As a child of the 70’s (and having lived through the “Satan is everywhere” scare of the mid-80s), The Exorcist holds a special place in my heart as one of the few things in life that scares the crap out of me. Though, from what I can tell (and I have not confirmed this), the game series seems to be based on the license for the third film specifically, which (if I am correct) is a clever way to work your way into the Exorcist universe without licensing the whole enchilada.

The game has been developed by a team of sadists at British dev company Wolf & Wood, and published by a company with the innocuous name “Fun Train”. With a team that seems to consist of a solid mix of game designers and Hollywood horror veterans, I am deeply curious to see what this team has created. Just watching the trailers for each episode, it is clear that they dove into the franchise full force. I frankly don’t know if I can emotionally handle someone whispering “Why does your God swim in such filth?” to me while I am trapped in VR.

It should be noted that the series has been on Steam for a while now, and has a 9/10 rating from users. Three episodes are available immediately for PS VR on the PlayStation Store for $6.99 each, with two more episodes scheduled to be released. You can also purchase the entire series for $29.99, snagging the fourth and fifth episodes as they are released. Good luck with your soul!

Look PK Subban is my favorite non Blue Jacket player in the league.  Not only is he one of the best defensemen in the league but he has done a ton of charity work in Montreal and Nashville and he's one of the few players in the league that always looks like he's having fun on the ice.  That's why I'm super happy that he's going to be the cover athlete for NHL 19 this year.

Along with the cover announcement EA revealed the first footage from the game.  The footage is heavy on outdoor rinks which is new this year.  For a league that romanticizes pond hockey it's a bit surprising that this is the first time they've featured it in their launch footage.  

The game will be available September 14th for the PS4 and Xbox One.

Gaming Nexus is really happy to announce we are partnering up with Twitch streaming onWingsofWind to provide streaming content. We've had a Twitch channel for a while now, but we could never do anything with it. Well, that's going to change starting today.

onWingsofWind will be streaming some great games for us along with content from her own channel. We think we can really expand each other's audiences and help each other grow.

We'll be announcing on the news area here when onWingsofWind goes live as well as what she'll be playing. We hope you'll get a nice view of some upcoming games or perhaps some games you may not have heard of that might interest you. 

We're really excited here at Gaming Nexus to start something new and we can't wait to showcase onWingsofWind and all the new games in a brand new format for us.

Dan Smith, developer, designer, and lead "Dan Smith" at Dan Smith Games, announced the coming release of his new game The Spectrum Retreat with a recent post on The PlayStation Blog. According to the post, Smith has been working on this game since he was 15 years old (though we have no indication how old he is now, we have to assume that 15 was a while ago). After years of work, and a publishing deal with Ripstone, the game is now ready for prime-time.

The Spectrum Retreat is a slick-looking puzzle title that takes place in the mysterious Penrose hotel. Though Smith is keeping mum about the story, it seems pretty clear from the trailer and accompanying screenshots that individual rooms in the hotel hold environmental puzzles that involve pattern recognition and color manipulation. Smith promises to introduce new puzzle elements to the player organically through play and exploration, trying to avoid slowing down the action for tutorials.

I love the look and feel of this trailer. I don’t know about you, but I immediately felt that the pattern on the face of the creepy white-headed character will come into play somewhere along the line. We can all find out together on July 10, I suppose.

The Spectrum Retreat is available right now for the extremely reasonable price of $12.99, with PS Plus members getting a 10% discount. Folks that pre-order will also receive a free PS4 theme, which is always nice. Getting pretty sick of that Jessica Jones theme I've been rocking for the last two years.

Bus Simulator 18 has released onto Steam as of June 13th, and it brings with it a whole lot of interesting features. Players will be able to play solo or team up with up to 3 people to create their own bus company. Aside from simply driving the buses, players will manage the company to make it as successful as possible. Stillalive studios has also said that there will be plenty of special events and future features to give players more to do even after they've finished the main game. Another plus in terms of replayability is the fact that the game will be releasing with a modding kit, allowing the community to build a whole host of expanded content for the game.

Bus Simulator 18, at its core, looks like another simulator game. That being said, stillalive seems to have put a good deal of focus on improving replayability as well as providing more end-game for players to engage in after they've completed the main story. Additionally, multiplayer and modding will help the community carve out it's own space, and in turn increase the longevity of the game.

Warhammer: Vermintide 2 has officially been given a release date on the Xbox One, set for July 11th. Additionally, the game has entered the open beta period on Xbox One, and is currently available to all users. The game is also marked as an Xbox One X enhanced title, so players can hopefully expect strong performance and better visuals.

Vermintide 2 released on PC in March of 2018 and continued to build on the tenets of it's predecessor. As a first-person action game, it's drawn a lot of comparisons to those in the same vein as Left 4 Dead, but offers satisfying first-person melee combat as well as a great deal of depth in the character building and itemization of each class.

Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden, a game that's in the running for a Longest Game Name award, got a little trailer today. It's a mix of cinematics and gameplay for this self-styled "tactical adventure." I love the seamless combination of real-time exploration and turn-based tactics. Like XCOM, minus the loading screens between HQ and the area of operations.

But also unlike XCOM, you're not sending dozens of soldiers through a meat grinder. You've got a permanent trio to wage war—explosively and stealthily—through the always-dark future. Dux, Bormin, and Selma crack wise (with sometimes funny, sometimes not-as-funny barks and quips) through the destructible post-human Earth. They're fighting mechs and ghouls armed with everything from pistols to flamethrowers. Looks like a good time, if the writers nail the punchlines a little more consistently. You'll also be 

If you like what you see, head back to April for a 30-minute developer-led session of gameplay.

Mutant Year Zero is coming to PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One sometime here in 2018, though the window for that vague release date is getting narrower by the minute.

Runbow has been a successful game on everything from the Wii U to the XBox One and now it is scheduled for PS4 and Switch - July 3rd. It's a fun, exciting party game where the object of the game is to win the race at ALL costs. Whether you knock someone into a rolling spike ball or make them fall helplessly to their demise, the run ends with getting to the finish line.

All multiplayer modes can be played by up-to 9 players simultaneously online, while it features 8-player local multiplayer madness on Nintendo Switch as well as 4-player local chaos on PlayStation 4.

Dig or Die, a survival game in the vein of Terraria and Starbound, has been in development for three years. Through constant iteration and a strong focus on implementing community feedback, the game has managed a 91% positive rating on Steam, with over 160,000 units sold. Now, Gaddy Games, the French development team behind Dig or Die, have announced that the project will be moving out of Early Access on July 10.

According to the press release, “As employee of CRAFT & Co., a space exploration agency, your latest contract has gone awry and you find yourself stranded on a distant planet. Your objective is to establish a base and accumulate resources in order to build a spaceship and find your way back home. When the daylight fades, however, you’ll have to fight back massive hordes of monsters who just like you, don’t take kindly to unwanted intruders. You will build your defenses, create barricades and turrets to protect yourself against your opponents.”

The list of Early Access features is robust, to say the least. I never do this, but I’m afraid I have to put some of this “under the jump” or “past the leap” or whatever you want to call it. Click the thing to see the features:

I have excellent racing and flight sim controllers, with one notable exception: my rudder pedals are junk. The reason for that is that until recently, junky rudder pedals were all you could get. Their motion is not smooth, they slide around on the floor, the pedals are too close together - the list of faults goes on and on.

Some of the best stuff I own comes from Thrustmaster. It used to be just about everything, but I happened across a good price on a used Fanatec wheel and bought new Fanatec pedals to go with it.  There was nothing wrong with the Thrustmaster racing setup at all, except that Fanatec is a bit better. When I heard the announcement that they had a new set of rudder pedals coming out, I knew two things right away: they were going to cost more then I really want to spend, and that I will eventually buy them anyway.

This is what they announced:

TPR Rudder System

Essentially ripped from the fuselage of an aircraft and made compatible for gaming systems, the TPR Rudder system is a 15-pound steel & aluminum marvel whose precision engineering and use of Thrustmaster’s proprietary PENDUL_R™ technology makes it the first-ever, mass-market pendular rudder systems and instantly becomes one of the most advanced products ever offered to fans of flight sims and flying games.

The TPR Rudder’s unique suspended pendular mechanics combine with minute HEART™* magnetic readings to provide unprecedented precision and fluidity on each of the three axes. In all, no detail has been spared from the chassis to the toe brake, so whether you’re dog-fighting for top gun honors in modern combat jets or warbirds, landing commercial airliners or private jets, or exploring outer space, the TPR Rudder system helps provide total control of your craft right down to the smallest details and adjustments.

I'm sold! Even with a projected street price of $500, I am sold! Thrustmaster will have them on display at the EAA Airventure gathering in Oshokosh, WI in late July and I will be there bright, early, and often trying them out.