| EA says no, your FIFA matches aren't rigged Posted: 20 Jun 2017 01:18 AM PDT  For years some FIFA players have suspected the game of cheating. They believe that buried somewhere deep within FIFA's code is secret scripting that helps players out if they're losing or makes the game harder when they're winning. It's a belief fuelled by frustrating goalkeeper parries that lead to tap-ins, top quality strikers missing open goals and dramatic last-minute equalisers suffered after you've dominated a game. The FIFA community calls this alleged scripting "momentum" - and players want EA to own up. While the "is it real or is it fake?" debate about momentum in FIFA has been on again and off again for years now, it sprang back into life five months ago when a Redditor claimed to have found mention of momentum in the FIFA 17 game files. This sparked a number of FIFA YouTubers to cry foul. There was even a failed petition. Read more… |
| Nex Machina review Posted: 20 Jun 2017 12:00 AM PDT  Good arcade designers often work with four words buzzing around in their brains: What Would Jarvis Do? Jarvis - and I hope I don't need to explain this - refers to Eugene Jarvis, and he's amongst the greatest twitch game designers of all time. With Defender, he created a coin-op legend, a game so overwhelming in its flair and complexity and sheer visual impact that people would drop money into its innards just to witness the explosion that erupted when they died. With Robotron, a broken hand lead to the creation of the first properly implemented twin-stick shooter system in games - you move with one joystick and aim with the other. No fire button needed, because Robotron was relentless. It was, and is, a beast. You spawn in the centre of the screen to find enemies all about you. These enemies have different behaviours: some are coming for you, some are bad news for the humans scattered around that provide the game's only collectable. Some are firing bullets, and some barely know that you are there. In the primordial soup of all this gloriously simple AI, magical emergent behaviour swarms and multiplies: grunts cluster in bait balls as they pursue you, enforcers work their ways into the corners of the screen. God, it is a hell of a thing. Smash TV coming years later picked up key threads while splitting the action across interlinked rooms, even chucking in a few bosses. A gloriously 80s plot had you fighting not for the last vestiges of humanity but for toaster ovens and other game show glories. Miyamoto might be gaming's Spielberg, but Jarvis is our John Carpenter: violent and angry and funny and oddly elegant all at once. He is well-deployed randomness. He is almost too much. Deep breath. All of which makes Nex Machina, the fruits of a partnership between Jarvis and Finnish Jarvis acolytes Housemarque, such a treat. I have no idea how deep the relationship went - Jarvis is listed as "creative consultant" - but as I play, part of the fun of this is trying to spot the point at which one arcade great influences the other. Read more… |
| Nidhogg 2's disgusting art style is growing on me Posted: 19 Jun 2017 03:51 PM PDT  Nidhogg 2's peculiar art style is a far cry from its pristine, pixelated predecessor, and I can't say I was a fan the first time it was revealed. Based on your comments from its announcement, it seems like most of you felt similarly. The series went from immaculate to revolting as disgusting Play-Doh creatures joust in a garish world of sentient trees and flying snakes with bulgy, bug-eyed faces serving as pure nightmare fuel. But now that developer Messhof has shown off a robust 18-minute developer walkthrough, it's all starting to to come together. Yes, it's gross, but it's also funny. The Homer Simpson-esque characters are whimsical and expressive as they emit hilarious scream of horrified shock as you somehow stab them to death through their knee, all the while their pastel viscera splatters about hypnotically with Splatoon-like gushy exuberance. Read more… |
| Cyberpunk adventure 2064: Read Only Memories is coming to Switch Posted: 19 Jun 2017 03:34 PM PDT  Acclaimed cyberpunk point-and-click adventure Read Only Memories will be coming to Switch in early 2018. 2064: Read Only Memories tells the tale of a journalist tracking down their kidnapped friend Turing, who just so happens to be the world's first sapient machine. Unlike most oldschool point-and-click adventures, 2064: Read Only Memories will contain multiple solutions to its puzzles and the way you choose to handle problems will reflect how the story progresses. Read more… |
| Take-Two shuts down GTA5 cheating tools, makes its creators donate proceeds to charity Posted: 19 Jun 2017 01:14 PM PDT  Grand Theft Auto publisher Take-Two Interactive has been widely criticised by fans recently over its legal threats shutting down popular modding software OpenIV. However, it also recently shut down some less benevolent GTA5 mods that enabled cheating in GTA Online. Weirder, the game publisher is making those responsible for these game-ruining experiences to donate their proceeds to charity. First reported by Kotaku, cheating software the Force Hax, Lexicon, and Menyoo have all been hit with this legal hadoken, and each have the following statement on their now shut down sites: "After discussions with Take-Two Interactive, effective immediately we are ceasing all maintenance, development and distribution of the [Lexicon / Menyoo / Force Hax] cheat menu services. We will be donating our proceeds to a charity designated by Take-Two. We apologise for any and all problems [Lexicon / Menyoo / Force Hax] has caused to the Grand Theft Auto Online community." Read more… |
| GTA5's recent Steam reviews are "overwhelmingly negative" amidst mod controversy Posted: 19 Jun 2017 11:49 AM PDT  Grand Theft Auto 5 publisher Take-Two Interactive has found itself in the crossfire after sending a cease and desist letter to the lead developer of popular modding software OpenIV. In fact, people are so unhappy with the company that GTA5, a game that's typically been very widely acclaimed, now has a recent Steam user rating that averages as "overwhelmingly negative". To arrive at this score, Steam averaged the user rating across the last 41,343 reviews, so this anger towards Take-Two is more widespread than a vocal minority of frustrated modders. Looking at the game's overall user rating, across a staggering 231,073 reviews, it's come out as "mixed". Read more… |
| TopWare responds to Two Worlds 2's sudden microtransactions update seven years after launch Posted: 19 Jun 2017 08:44 AM PDT  Last week Two Worlds 2, a seven-year-old role-playing game, got an expansion. But the PC version got something else too, something unwanted: microtransactions. In a new Marketplace section of the game's main menu - screenshots from a Reddit thread - were optional purchases for in-game skill books, materials, crystals, cards and money, each ranging in price from $0.50 to $2. Exacerbating their surprise inclusion was the removal of the game's console commands - a place where you could type cheat codes and spawn exactly the kind of content now being sold - although they have since been reinstated. Read more… |
| Clearing up confusion surrounding Crackdown 3 destruction Posted: 19 Jun 2017 07:45 AM PDT  When Microsoft showed more of open world blow 'em-up Crackdown 3 during its E3 2017 Xbox media briefing, it did so with a trailer that starred American actor Terry Crews. The only problem was, we didn't get a good look at gameplay, nor did we see any of Crackdown 3's ambitious destruction. This sparked a number of questions about the destruction in Crackdown 3. Had it been ditched? Is the game still using the fancy dedicated server tech to make blowing up buildings ultra realistic in the open world? It turns out Microsoft decided to focus on Crackdown 3's campaign at E3, and the dedicated server-powered destruction is limited to multiplayer. There is basic destruction in the campaign, but not the kind that raised eyebrows back in 2015. Read more… |
| Life is Strange: Before the Storm dev on Ashly Burch's absence, season pass kerfuffle and more Posted: 19 Jun 2017 04:37 AM PDT  When word first broke that beloved teen adventure Life is Strange was getting a prequel, many of the game's hardcore fans were less than convinced. Life is Strange: Before the Storm is being made by a different developer - the unproven US-based Deck Nine Games - compared to the original's team at Dontnod in Paris. Dontnod is now working on an entirely new Life is Strange 2, and many fans considered the studio's original tale completely wrapped up. Any attempt to go back and revisit those characters, especially by a different team, felt like a huge risk. And then there was the unwelcome news that Chloe Price voice actor Ashly Burch would not be returning, along with word that the game's Season Pass would not include the season's bonus episode. But then Before the Storm was officially shown off at E3, and suddenly the conversation changed. Aoife saw the game first, and reported back with positive impressions. We had both been pretty sceptical of the project, and she told me to go see it. I found time on the show's last day and found myself similarly impressed. Our friends at Outside Xbox also felt similar - we've embedded their video below. Read more… |
| How Call of Duty: WW2 handles swastikas and female soldiers Posted: 19 Jun 2017 04:11 AM PDT  By setting the next Call of Duty in World War 2, Activision charged the developers at Sledgehammer Games with coming up with a philosophy for dealing with Nazi iconography and the possibility of playing as non-German male soldiers when the game puts players on the Axis side in multiplayer. Sledgehammer's approach was to treat the campaign very different than the multiplayer side of the game. In an E3 interview with Eurogamer, Sledgehammer Games co-founder Michael Condrey told me swastikas will appear in Call of Duty: WW2's campaign, but won't be present in multiplayer. Read more… |
| This War of Mine dev shows Frostpunk gameplay in screenshots Posted: 19 Jun 2017 03:03 AM PDT  Up until now we haven't seen what Frostpunk, the new survive-the-frozen-end-of-the-world city builder by Polish developer 11 bit Studios (This War of Mine), will be like to actually play. But new screenshots from E3 have given us our clearest look yet. The screenshots show a user-interface and with it the mechanics of the game. Of particular significance appears to be red Discontent and blue Hope sliding scales. There are objectives of the same colour; presumably fulfilling these affects the scales, tipping them one way or the other. Is it game over if your Discontent bar fills? I doubt it's a good sign. We also see the screen where you get to pass laws for your city. The Sustain Life law pictured has the description, "We can't cure the gravely ill but we can at least keep them alive. We will not experiment on our sick," which sounds grizzly. Read more… |
| Arms held back from chart top spot Posted: 19 Jun 2017 02:21 AM PDT  Switch exclusive Arms has failed to hit the UK chart top spot. Nintendo's colourful fighter is the fourth-largest launch on the console to date, behind Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and launch day mini-game compilation 1-2 Switch. Last week's top spot was taken by a resurgent Horizon: Zero Dawn, which had its price cut in sales. Read more… |
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