Nex Machina is a new twin stick shooter from Housemarque Games. It takes its inspiration from 80s arcade classics as well as from Eugene Jarvis, creator of Robotron 2048. The game is now available for both PC and PlayStation 4.
Nex Machina
In the game, humans are depending on machines and technology. However, machines are not just there to assist humanity. They have become sentient, reached consciousness and are far more intelligent than their creators. As a result, these machines have turned on humans in an effort to remove them from existence. One brave human defies them all: YOU.
Game features include:
twin stick shooter action
100+ levels, 5 different locations
secrets to be discovered
local coop
feats and achievements
community and friendly leaderboards
player ranks
monthly tournaments
spectator mode
Enter the zone, become one with the game, and pull off the most incredible feats. The game is packed with opportunities to create your own play style in order to best the tough challenges and ruthlessly competitive environments you'll experience. This is what arcade games deserve to be in the 21st century.
Console players can start slaying their friends now that Dead By Daylight has launched. The NA / SA XBox One and PlayStation 4 versions join the successful PC version. European players will be able to take part in the fun later this week.
Dead By Daylight
The game’s special physical edition is out at certain retailers in North American and South America. In addition, a digital version can be purchased in each console’s store.
The special edition features all of the main Killers and Survivors as well as two additional Killers and two more Survivors. Buyers will also receive a pair of outfits and two additional maps.
The game casts one Killer and up to four Survivors that try to survive a nightmare. Survivors play in third-person with a strong situational awareness to avoid being caught, tortured and slayed. The Killer plays in first-person, focused on hunting down and killing their victims.
June 30th is right around the corner, and Codemasters’ Micro Machines: World Series is gearing up for launch. Check out the latest trailer, delivered perfectly in 1980s commercial stylings, and catch a glimpse of the many game modes, cars, tracks, and Nerf gun tie-ins. Yes, that Nerf. The game will be on PS4 and XBOX One, and can be found on Amazon at the links below…
Mico Machines Game Features
Battle Mode – introduces all new Battle Arenas which allow you to wreak mass destruction on a miniature scale against your friends or AI
Competitive Multiplayer – supports up to 12 players online and 4 players on the same screen across a variety of racing and battling environments with unique weapons and abilities for each vehicle
Team Play – lets you work together using your vehicles’ unique skills in modes such as "Capture the Flag" and "King of the Hill"
Classic Racing – retains the manic social gameplay of the series, updated with stunning HD visuals showcased in the return of classic locations such as the garden, kitchen, workshop and many more
Just… LOOK at it. I played Hunt back when it was a 4-player co-op shooter RPG. I loved it then. But Crytek ran into its financial issues, and the game seemingly disappeared. Well, it came back in a big way at E3, and even won PC Gamer’s Game of the Show. Watching this footage, I can totally see why. Hunt is now a PVP shooter, but still with heapings of PVE as 5 teams of 2 players each stalk through maps, hunting down monsters and each other. It looks bloody marvelous. Hunt: Showdown is one to watch.
More about HUNT: Showdown
In this tense match-based first-person PvP monster hunter from the makers of Crysis, you will face off against unearthly horrors in the forgotten corners of the world. You will hunt, and you will die. But without risk, there can be no reward, and when the water runs with blood, you'd better hope it's not your own… Sign up for the newsletter on the website: https://www.huntshowdown.com
The Diablo 3 Rise of the Necromancer DLC will be released on consoles as well as PC on June 27th. The DLC will cost $14.99. However, the DLC cannot be pre-ordered. It seems that it can only be purchased on release day.
Diablo 3 Rise of the Necromancer
Players have a lot of good reasons to get hold of the DLC including the new Necromancer class. The class is a throwback to Diablo 2 in look and feel as well as in skills. Players will find familiar skills including Bone Spear and Corpse Explosion to name two.
Players who buy the DLC will gain access to the new class as well as receive the following:
2 new character slots
2 new stash tabs
the Golem pet
Wings of the Crypt Guardian
portrait, sigil, banner, accent & pennant
Console players can also take advantage of a special package. Called the “Eternal Collection” containing the base game and more including Reaper of Souls and the new DLC. PlayStation Plus members and XBox Gold members can buy the special edition for $40 for a limited time.
Q. What about all the other features coming in Patch 2.6.0? A. Challenge Rifts, The Shrouded Moors zone, Temple of the Firstborn zone, and the Realms of Fate are all free content—if you own the Reaper of Souls expansion pack, they are available for play without any additional purchases.
Rise of the Necromancer, a new content update for Diablo 3 that introduces a brand-new class, will be available on June 27. This pack will be available digitally in-game on PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One for 14,99€ (£12.99 GBP). The pack will include two character slots, two stash tabs (PC Only), a half-formed golem […]
Crytek’s new IP, Hunt: Showdown debuted at this year’s E3. Today the developers of Crysis has published the very first gameplay footage so we can take a look at what to expect out of this intense and dark new game. In the video, which captures the drama and dark atmosphere of this title, Creative Director […]
The end date for PayPal's deal is 5th July, which is probably the end date for the Steam Summer Sale as well - last year's sale ran 23rd June to 4th July.
Capcom revealed 24 minutes of Monster Hunter World gameplay during a Japanese livestream earlier today.
YouTuber and Monster Hunter aficionado Arekkz Gaming offers an English language synopsis of the developer walkthrough after having seen the same presentation at E3.
In this upcoming entry to the fantasy hunting series, maps will be large and you'll be able to seamlessly transition around the field, unlike the series' previous entries where you have loading screen between each section of the map.
Blizzard has announced that the Rise of the Necromancer pack for Diablo 3, which adds the much-loved Necromancer character class from Diablo 2 to the younger game, will be released next week on 27th June.
The add-on will be available for PC, Mac, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions of the game, priced at £12.99 (€14.99). PC and Mac users will need to have the Reaper of Souls expansion installed (Diablo 3 isn't available on current consoles without it).
In addition, Blizzard will release a new digital edition of the game for consoles - Diablo 3: Eternal Collection - which includes the base game, Reaper of Souls and Rise of the Necromancer. Pitched as a jumping-on point for new players (or perhaps those who never moved over from the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions), the Eternal Collection has a standard price of £54.99 (€69.99), but will be available to Xbox Live Gold and PlayStation Plus subscribers at an introductory price of £29.99 (€39.99).
The beginning constitutes everything in the first location: two story missions, two Escalation contracts, more than 40 challenges and 17 Achievements/Trophies.
Crytek has released a gameplay video showing off Hunt: Showdown, it's new in the works multiplayer first-person shooter.
Hunt: Showdown emerged from the ashes of Hunt: Horrors of the Gilded Age, the co-op action game from defunct studio Crytek USA.
Crytek has suffered high-profile financial issues that has seen the German company sell off a number of its studios in a bid to raise cash to pay increasingly exasperated staff, some of whom went months without wages. The company now focuses on its CryEngine business as well as the development of Hunt at its main Frankfurt office and Warface at its Kiev office.
Can't wait for the Witcher Netflix series? This 30-minute Witcher fan film, Alzur's Legacy, looks surprisingly good. Perhaps it's because it's professionally made by a recognised Polish cast and competent crew - or perhaps it's because the main character isn't Geralt.
Alzur's Legacy tells an original story about the witcher Lambert - who you may remember from The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - in a timeline set "several dozen years" after the conclusion of the Witcher Saga of books. Well known characters Triss Merigold and Dandelion will play key roles.
Images of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered standalone have leaked online.
CharlieIntel.com received images of the game case, sourced from US shop Target, with a 27th June release date and a $39.99 price point (we don't know how much it'll cost in the UK).
According to the images, this standalone release is the base Modern Warfare Remastered game. It does not include the $14.99 Variety Map Pack that came out in March - but expect it to include the recently added supply drops for microtransactions.
"Unfortunately, as some of you may have already predicted, we are going to need to push back our planned release of Xen to later this year, in December," read a Black Mesa update on Steam.
"We know that this is not what anyone would want to hear, but after taking a long and hard look at what we want to achieve, we have decided that this is for the best. We do not want to compromise on Xen's quality in any way. That said, we consider December to be a do-or-die deadline."
The people behind gritty survival shooter Metro Exodus are designing the game to be the best of the Metro series and the best of the STALKER series - combined.
Metro Exodus was unveiled during Microsoft's E3 2017 media briefing last week with an eye-catching trailer that suggested the series had gone open world.
While it's not accurate to say Metro Exodus is an open world game, it does feature multiple large areas for players to explore alongside the more linear environments the Metro series is known for.
The demo we saw had a fairly straightforward mission to complete, along with a separate arena activity to try. Still, other folk at E3 decided to wander away from the mission bounds - and see more of Origins' open world.
I snuck a glimpse at the portion of Origins' unlocked for Ubisoft's E3 demo - it was just a tiny fragment of the game's overall, vast world. (Think Zelda: Breath of the Wild's opening Plateau area, versus the rest of the game.) The videos below are just from this.
Talking on the Xbox Daily Show during E3, EA vice president Patrick Soderlund said (from 1:41:30 onwards): "[Anthem is] a social game where you and your friends go out on quests and journeys. It's a game that we've been working on for almost four years now. And it's a game that - once we launch it next year - will be the start of maybe a 10-year journey for us."
World Boss - Levantus Levantus is up this week! He drops item level 860 gear and a Blood Relic. Shaman can also get the The Warmace of Shirvallah hidden artifact appearance for Doomhammer.
Legendary Item Upgrades With the Tomb of Sargeras release, you can upgrade your legendary items to item level 970 by completing another collection quest.
Fixed a bug causing Soul Fragment of Azzinoth to inadvertently retain threat on a target after Enslave Demon breaks.
Items
Insignia of Ravenholdt should now work correctly with Toxic Blade.
Darkmoon Deck: Promises now provides mana reduction that scales like a secondary stat.
Darkmoon Deck: Immortality now provides armor that scales like a secondary stat.
Developers' notes: The power of these trinkets at item level 900 is identical to their previous scaling value, and will be stronger than before at lower item levels.
Player versus Player
Hunter
Marksmanship
T.N.T. (Honor Talent) will correctly only apply Concussive Shot to targets hit by Bursting Shot.
Warlock
Affliction
Demonic Gateway's debuff will now show the correct duration remaining when the Warlock has Gateway Mastery.
Professions
Inscription
Technique: Glyph of Angels is again obtainable from Mists of Pandaria creatures.
Quests
Fixed a bug where "In the Blink of an Eye" was not granted to players upon completion of "Illidari Allies" or equivalent.
World
Fixed a bug in the Cavern of Consumption that would erroneously teleport players back to the entrance of the cavern.
Blue Tweets
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
I know blizz are stubborn but you must realise faction arena titles was a huge mistake. Has there been any positive feedback? Quite the contrary, it is having the desired effect. For example, in NA the cutoff difference between each faction is very close. (holinka) What Im noticing is top players just camp an alt of their main class "2nd druid" on the easier faction. Even a 50 point difference is big. Probably a few but not the majority. Likewise we were told "everyone switches and switches back" but in reality, it wasn't the case for most (holinka) On Eu it feels kind of weird since for example last season people on horde got r1 with 100 Rating lower than alliance. We expect that gap to continue to shrink over time. (holinka)
what is blizzard trying to achieve then if its having its desired effect? A 3000 rated alliance player missing r1 and a 2900 horde gets it? Our intent is to distribute our best PvP players as evenly as possible between both factions as that benefits the game as a whole. (holinka) With each season since the change to faction based titles, we have seen that distribution improve. (holinka) No it doesn't, the most beneficial is when all of the best PvP players play 1 faction so they can all play with eachother. We fundamentally disagree on that point. (holinka)
is there anyway to track 150 wins after faction changing 2 times? i xfered horde played there then went back. @WarcraftDevs There isn't really and admit that it's a problem we need to correct for the future. (holinka)
Ghostcrawler Tweets Ghostcrawler still occasionally talks about WoW. Remember that he no longer works for or speaks for Blizzard.
Originally Posted by MMO-Champion
What is the best approach to rebalancing a particular ability/champion/class/etc. - to do one large, comprehensive balance pass over one update, or several smaller, incremental balance passes over many updates? All things being equal, I would advocate that it's better to do it once. Touching something in many updates just increases the chance of introducing bugs, makes it feel like balance is unresolved (and therefore perhaps not worth players' time to invest in mastering it), and can also get really wearying for players who play that character.
However, overdoing a change has all of these risks and even more. Overshooting a target and then having to revert changes adds to the sense that game balance isn't anywhere approaching stable and can feel ever crappier to players who love that character than slowly creeping towards a target.
It's one of those Price is Right deals - get as close as you can without going over.
Now sometimes we'll run into a situation where small +3% changes don't have a meaningful impact. In those cases, it's entirely possible that we don't even have a sense for the order of magnitude. We're tuning the dial by 3% when really it's going to take a 50% buff or nerf to solve the problem. That clearly could take a really long time.
If this seems to be happening, I would advocate for making a massive change - double the number or whatever. You will likely overshoot your target, perhaps by a lot, but at least you'll know where the endpoints of your continuum are so you can try to get things somewhere in the middle. This tactic works much better for internal testing where you can explain your goals (finding the extremes) than foisting it on players who have to suffer even more balance problems just so you can get your shit together. (Source)
Weekly Bonus Event - Battlegrounds
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
A new weekly quest and rewards are here—steel yourself for Battleground combat!
Seven Days on the Battlegrounds All this week, heading to the Battlegrounds will net you some extra Honor along with bonus loot for completing this week's quest. To enter the fray, open Group Finder (default hotkey: I) and then select the Player vs. Player tab. Next choose Casual, select Random Battlegrounds, and hit the Join Battle button—you'll be matched up with other players and sent to one of the 11 battlegrounds.
Weekly Quest Before you get started, Archmage Timear near Violet Hold in Dalaran has a quest for you. Win four random Battlegrounds, and you'll be rewarded with 5 Marks of Honor, a Badge of Honor (1000 Honor), and a Glory of the Melee Artifact Power token (base 500 AP).
Battleground Buff This week you gain 50% more Honor in Battlegrounds.
A New Event Every Week The Bonus Events system consists of a rotating schedule of different activities, currently scheduled to run each week beginning on Tuesdays. Each Bonus Event grants a passive bonus to a particular game activity and offers a once-per-event quest with a noteworthy reward for accomplishing a related goal. The in-game calendar can serve as your one-stop reference for the event schedule. The Adventure Guide also offers a direct link to active Bonus Events, allowing you to easily accept any associated quests.
Diablo 3 - Rise of the Necromancer Pack Arrives June 27! The Necromancer is almost here! Check out Diablofans for builds and more details.
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If you're spotting fewer deals in recent days on GPUs, particularly of the GTX 1070, RX 480, and RX 580 variants... you're not imagining things. Cryptocurrency mining is all the rage with skyrocketing prices on Ether, Bitcoin, et al. and they are inadvertently driving up demand and stock of these high/mid-range GPUs as well.
Today, Best Buy is offloading two CyberPowerPC gaming desktops, one of which is incredibly attractive in pricing. The now $679.99 Gamer Ultra Desktop comes with an AMD Ryzen 5 1400, a Radeon RX 580 (rebranded higher-clocked Polaris GPU), 8GB of RAM, a 1TB HDD, and plenty of ports and outputs you'd expect from a new desktop (USB 3.1, DisplayPort, even an ancient PS/2 port (uh what) are included.
Considering the Radeon RX 580 is currently selling for over $400 on eBay, this is a pretty good deal - whether you keep the GPU or part it for inflated value thanks to the mining craze.
Conversely, Best Buy is also offering a FX-4300 equipped desktop with a RX 460 as a budget gaming machine. It's not a bad price but we think you'll get a much better bang for your buck by going with the $680 Ryzen 5 + RX 580 combo.
Supplies appear to be limited, but in general, if you live in a major metropolitan area you should be able to order online and pick-up in store - that's our recommend step to secure a unit before it goes invariably out of stock.
To help promote the upcoming Layton’s Mystery Journey: Katrielle and The Millionaires’ Conspiracy for 3DS, Level-5 teamed up with SCRAP (real escape games) to make a "puzzle-solving event that challenges users around the world to solve 50 puzzles that appear on the internet and in special locations in 10 countries, including Japan, the U.S., the U.K., South Korea, and Australia" from June 20 to September 21, 2017.
The first puzzle is about the viral video PPAP (Pen Pineapple Apple Pen). The event has already begun and you can get started from the Layton World website. There was also a regular ole game trailer showing off the game's story and some puzzle gameplay. It looks more interesting than the original Layton games, and not only because it features a talking bloodhound (but that may be one of the larger reasons).
[Normally I'd pooh-pooh someone hoping for a game to be bad, but Manchild makes too damned strong of a case for Bubsy being butt-garbage that I can't make a reasonable argument against him. If you're going to revive a series, why change what it's all about? So sit back and take in all the shitty platforming nostalgia! Wanna see your work on the Front Page? Write a Cblog, dang it! - Wes]
I've been waiting my entire adult life to write an article about a new Bubsy game. I just never knew it until today.
I'm going to keep this short and sweet. If the new Bubsy doesn't suck ass, I'm quitting video games forever.
You probably know Days Gone as "the game with the absurd zombie hordes." Me too.
That was the big talking point a year ago, during last E3, and we covered it in-depth. This year's show brought another hands-off demo opportunity and a different angle. Literally!
Behind closed doors, Sony Bend Studio showed the same mission you saw during the on-stage presentation (embedded below) but played it during a different time of day, with different weather. Those changes had far-reaching repercussions on the mission's ebb and flow and its overall pace.
This year's talking point? The game's dynamic weather isn't just for show (though it does look great).
You're gonna want to stick your dick in the popcorn for this one: A new study published in the Medical Journal of Sexytime Medicine suggests that people who "chronically abuse" videogames are less likely to bust a groove prematurely, but overall these guys will crave less sex than their non-gaming bros. In an interview with Vice, the lead researcher (who is a gamer) believes the stress caused by intense gaming makes us less likely to want figure out the vaginal pythagoras after emerging from the man-cave. Hmm.
The study was conducted by scientists in Italy, who definitely know about these things because Sex and City taught us that those guys can fuck like magical ligers. They surveyed a few hundred men who responded to two respected online survey methods, where the findings were then correlated for causation. Here's a data bloop from the study:
From June 18, 2014 through July 31, 2014, 599 men 18 to 50 years old completed the questionnaires. One hundred ninety-nine men reported no sexual activity during the previous 4 weeks; four records were rejected because of inherent errors. The remaining 396 questionnaires were analyzed, with 287 “gamers” (playing >1 hour/day on average) and 109 “non-gamers” providing all the required information. We found a lower prevalence of premature ejaculation in gamers compared with non-gamers (mean PEDT score = 3.57 ± 3.38 vs 4.52 ± 3.7, P < .05, respectively). Analysis of the IIEF-15 showed no significant differences between gamers and non-gamers in the domains of erectile function, orgasmic function, and overall satisfaction. Median scores for the sexual desire domain were higher for non-gamers (median score [interquartile range] 9 [8–9] vs 9 [8–10], respectively; P = .0227).
Interquartile Range sounds like where Squirtle and the fam go on hay rides.
I've been hooked to Volition's Saints Row series ever since it underwent a major tonal reboot with Saints Row: The Third. The series may have been a victim of diminishing returns as of late -- you can only jump over the proverbial shark so many times -- so I was hoping the spin-off, Agents of Mayhem, would be the boost this formula needed.
Reading Steven's preview a few months ago, I was excited to play the game myself during E3. After spending an hour with it, my excitement has tempered a bit. Despite the admirable reach of its gameplay, Agents of Mayhem feels like an insular experience.
Starting today, Overwatch aficionados can claim a free golden loot box if they're signed up for Amazon Prime. As part of Twitch's Prime Loot program, anyone who's linked their Twitch and Amazon Prime accounts together can claim the loot box, which is guaranteed to contain at least one Legendary cosmetic item for Overwatch.
To claim the loot box, you'll need to click the crown icon on your homepage at Twitch.Tv and click "Get Code." You'll then need to head to Blizzard's code redemption page and log into your Blizzard account. If you're attempting to claim the code for PS4 or Xbox One, you may need to link your console version to Battle.net. The golden loot box is only available for a limited time, though I wasn't able to find a hard end date.
This isn't the first time a Blizzard game has been part of Twitch Prime's promotion, as the program launched with a HearthStone cosmetic item. Twitch's blog page promises that eligible members will also receive five free normal Overwatch loot boxes in both August and October, and additional promotions for HearthStone and Heroes of the Storm are in the works. Unfortunately, the gold loot box won't contain any seasonal items, but I noticed mine didn't have any duplicates for a change. Good luck!
It's hot in the UK, right now. Damn hot! So even though this is the third wintery game I've played already, right after Kona and The Wild Eight, I'm actually okay with it as long as the illusion keeps me cool.
Luckily, Distrust also happens to be a neat concept that has kept me entertained for hours. Even in its current demo form, Distrust's mix of This War of Mine survivalism and FTL's forceful progression makes for an interesting B-movie horror game.
We're rolling along, matching colors and fighting gravity in this week's episode of Retroid. Tonight's topic will be puzzle games, stuff like Tetris, Columns, Puyo Puyo, Dr. Mario, Bejeweled, basically anything where blocks or blobs are shuffled or falling into a container.
If you'd like to leave us a question you can do so below in the comments or send them via twitter @RetroidPodcast. And please let us know what other topics you'd like us to discuss, as this week's show topic was suggested by a listener.
Remember those Crash Bandicoot TV advertisements in the 90s, the ones where a guy wears a Crash Bandicoot costume? I do, and so does Vicarious Visions who decided to take a nostalgia trip in the latest advertisement for Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy,
As many times as I saw those commercials, I never actually owned or even rented Crash Bandicoot when I had the original PlayStation. I mostly used it play 2gether and WWF CDs and occasionally played Spice World and the first level of PaRappa the Rapper (because I couldn't beat it). Some part of me wants to say "they're just doing it as a gimmick to get more press" but sometimes it's best to stop being so cynical and just enjoy things.
The development path of the fan made Half-Life remake, Black Mesa, has been rocky. Being greenlit on Steam years before actually appearing on the service, Crowbar Collective, the dev team behind the game, has been promising to add the infamous "Xen" levels from the original title for almost as long as the mod has been in existence. While they are still dedicated to doing that, it looks like we won't be getting them during their originally planned summer window.
According to a post on the Steam community forums, Black Mesa's final content update should arrive sometime in December. The devs shared some screenshots of their work in progress and made note of a few updates coming to the game today.
Most of that is relegated to better lighting and some color correction to unify all of the different chapters of the game, so its not the most exciting read. Its still wonderful that Valve has allowed this game to exist when so many other companies are insistent on shuttingdownfanprojects. Hopefully for Crowbar, they can finally put an end cap on their tribute to one of gaming's most influential titles.
Any MMO or hardcore MOBA player is probably aware of, or has used, some form of third party voice chat like TeamSpeak or Discord at some point. It seems like every new raid group I jump into has a preference, and Discord is one of the programs that I see pretty frequently.
As you may have heard the Switch voice chat situation is a bit of a mess right now, and Discord wants to step in to provide an app for the system. When asked by a fan a rep responded " I hope so," and that they want users to upvote the concept on their feedback forums, presumably to show Nintendo for leverage.
That said, the idea of having any sort of third-party chat program on the Switch is slim at best given that Nintendo wants people to pay for the service. Yes you read that right, chat options are spliced into their paid online system that's set to go premium sometime in 2018.
For now you can probably just stick to using a third-party app on your smartphone anyway.
Last September, I hit rock bottom as a games writer. Against my better judgment, I let Ubisoft strap a fart machine to my face for a demo of South Park: The Fractured but Whole. Bad call. Terrible. Just awful, really. Deals are not my art form.
I saw South Park again last week at E3. This time proved to be less invasive but somehow entirely more ridiculous. When I say that, I mean it kept with the trademark South Park humor in a perfectly on-brand way. "Yeah, Classi with an I and a little dick that hangs off the C which fucks the L out of the ASS." You know, that kind of stuff.
I don't know if I'm being selfish when it comes to what I want to see on the Switch. The fact that so many indie developers flocked to the Wii U and not enough big studios is what ultimately led to its demise (among other Nintendo related reasons). The Switch is off to a much better start so it's way too early to predict how the market will go, but for now, there's a healthy mix of both worlds.
Another genre is set to make a mark on the system soon -- shoot 'em ups (shmups). Developer Doragon Entertainment has announced that Danmaku Unlimited 3 will arrive on the Switch sometime this year, sporting 60fps visuals, an ultra-wide mode, and everything else from the PC edition that's currently on Steam.
Would you believe that Doragon is a Canadian-based operation mostly consisting of one individual? It's crazy how far indies have come, and how well westerners have co-opted genres typically reserved for Japanese studios.
I've never been too fond of simulator games since I tend to ruin everyone's virtual lives in The Sims, or set out to create death coasters in Roller Coaster Tycoon. God games never quite have enough of an emotional draw to keep me invested for more than an afternoon, so I'll check out completely once I've pushed the game environment to its extremes. 11 bit studios' Frostpunk aims to change that.
When the virtual environment is already dealing with extremes, Frostpunk asks whether or not you'll get attached enough to care about the remnants of society. While I'm still not sure about that yet, what I did glean from my hands-off time with it at E3 was that I really dig the idea of a game letting me write all sorts of new child labor laws.
If you've been dying to try out Hitman, you'll now get the chance to do so without dropping any cash. IO Interactive has announced that the Prologue chapter will be going free to celebrate their newfound independence. You'll be able to grab it on PC, PS4 and Xbox One, so if you own some form of gaming console or a competent PC, you're in luck.
The CEO of IO, Hakan Abrak, had this to say: "I'm proud to announce that our first hello as an independent studio is to invite all gamers to play the beginning of HITMAN for free. There is a lot of love out there for HITMAN and with this offering we hope that many more will fall in love with the game. We believe that this is Hitman at its best. So jump in and give a try."
VR is such an untamed wild right now, and a lot of people don't want any part of it.
Where else could you find a first-person dungeon crawler that takes place in the same universe as Bard's Tale, and sort of bridges the gap between the third and upcoming fourth iteration?
Konami might not be the same company it once was, but it went out with a bang with Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain: A Hideo Kojima Game.
It's also currently half off (now $9.99) as part of a Konami PSN flash sale, which also includes a few other gems like the Metal Gear Solid HD Collection (or all three entries broken up into bits), Zone of the Enders 2 HD (PS3), Metal Gear Rising, and Hard Corps: Uprising.
Among all of the other big budget stars I feel like I need to pitch Hard Corps, which was developed by Arc System Works (and helmed by the great Daisuke Ishiwatari). It's one of the most beautiful 2D shooters I've played in years, and deserves to be in the general gaming conversation more than it is.
The latest issue of Weekly Famitsu has revealed Hatsune Miku: Project Diva Future Tone DX for PlayStation 4.
Currently set to be released in Japan for November 22, the game will be receiving a physical release, and will contain the songs and modules from Hatsune Miku: Project Diva Future Tone along with additional new content.
Lots of people who I just know would dig The Talos Principleslept on it. Whenever puzzle games come up in conversation, I try to sell them on the idea of a philosophical first-person puzzler about AI and eternal life, and the words never seem to flow correctly. They don't quite get the appeal, and I don't blame them. It's one of those games you kind of need to discover for yourself, of our own accord.
I'm hopeful The Talos Principle VR can win over new players. The calm, contemplative, non-linear nature of this game is an inherently good fit for VR, and it's also quite long. We could use more substantial virtual reality titles. Based on my hands-on at E3, things are headed in the right direction.
While initial fan reception to Diablo III wasn't exactly glowing, people seem to have come around to the game after the release of its expansion, Reaper of Souls. Much to my surprise, the Necromancer class wasn't added to the game for that expansion. How do you leave out such a pivotal player from Diablo? That just feels wrong.
Thankfully next week, on June 27, players will finally be able to raise the dead with Diablo's prematurely greying corpse re-animator. The Necromancer will be priced at $14.99/14.99 € and will require the Reaper of Souls expansion on PC to play (PS4 and Xbox One players don't need to worry about that bit). The pack will also grant access to additional character slots, some new stash tabs on PC, a portrait, banner, sigil, accent and pennant, a brand new pet and some cosmetic stuff for your pets.
Ah, system updates. The great flood of "miscellaneous fixes and improvements," that essentially boil down to "we fixed a security exploit." But not this time. No, Nintendo has a real live update for the Switch in the form of version 3.0.
Now you can sign up for a news channel for a specific game (Miiverse is back in an undead PR type of way!), better friend list concessions, a "find controllers" option, more user icons, external audio options, and a fix for a pesky HDMI input change bug.
Take a gander at the full patch notes below if you're not satisfied. As for me, I mostly just want the Virtual Console, a better, faster eShop, and true folders.
Ubisoft is doing some genuinely cool, surprising things with The Crew 2. As someone who dug the heck out of the flawed but rewarding free-form original, I couldn't be more pleased.
For instance: that world-bending Inception shit from the cinematic trailer? That's actually in the game! (In a limited capacity, as shown in the embedded video starting at 2:53.)
Not only can you drive cars, bikes, boats, and planes, but you can also freely swap between them at any point without pausing or losing your momentum. This sequel's potential as a sandbox built for goofing off with friends or strangers is ridiculous. In terms of story progression, there are headquarters for street racing, pro racing, off-road, and freestyle. You won't need to do them all.
At one point, I flew my plane over a highway, morphed into a car, and went for a sick landing. Things did not go well for me. But they could have! That's the beauty of a game like this. You can get dumb with it.
I went hands-on with the open-ended racer at E3 and it made a great first impression. It's still set in the United States (albeit a redesigned US), and you can still roam from coast to coast with other players, but everything's so much prettier, more fully realized, and faster. It felt like a do-over.
The zoomed-out map looked familiar at first, but closing in on New York City brought out new details with a 3D cityscape to browse through. Picking a spot and then teleporting to it took no time at all. It's a substantial step up. There's an across-the-board feeling that you're always on the move, with little to no downtime between exploring, events, setting up a crew, or swapping out vehicles.
My main takeaway from 15 minutes or so with The Crew 2 is that this is the game fans originally wanted along with some extras they didn't know they needed sprinkled on top. There are still ways it can all go wrong -- nailing the vehicle handling across all the disciplines won't be easy, and the last game's loot system and story weren't too hot -- but man. Man. I'm looking forward to playing this in a real-world setting, because even Ubisoft's "guided tour" style hands-on demo was great fun.
There are a lot of other racing games due out between now and early 2018, but I kinda just want to hold out for The Crew 2. I can't see myself having anything other than a good time with it.
I still have no real idea what Futurama: Worlds of Tomorrow is actually going to play like, but I will continue to write about it since publisher Jam City keeps putting out awesome trailers for it.
In this latest one, we get to see Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Bill Nye the Science Guy, Stephen Hawking and George Takei get in an argument over how important they are to the series. Oh, there is also a release date of June 29, but I'm more jazzed about new Futurama animation.
Mistwalker has had a history of mixed success in its roughly 13 years as a studio.
Although its produced acclaimed works like Lost Odyssey and Blue Dragon, some of its projects never hit the level of financial success that founder (and creator of Final Fantasy) Hironobu Sakaguchi dreamed of. That all changed with the wildly popular Terra Battle on mobile devices, much to the chagrin of the hardcore RPG community. Well, for those of you who were hoping that Sakaguchi would go back to his roots and deliver another epic JRPG, you'll have to wait a while longer -- his new project was just confirmed by Famitsu as Terra Battle 2.
That said, "Terra World," was teased in the same breath, which could very well be a PC/console RPG. Given that the full reveal is coming very soon on June 22, we'll know more then. Until that time, let this simmer.
Back before SAO was the talk of the town, there was .hack. All the way back in the early 2000s this PS2 era RPG series leveraged the MMO angle all the way to the bank as Bandai gave us an anime and four games to consume. Along with the Square Enix-esque naming conventions came a lengthy narrative that spanned multiple games, and it's coming back in the form of the .hack//G.U. Last Recode remaster on PC and PS4.
Confused yet? Just remember that this is the G.U. trilogy, the series that followed the OG .hack games, and that even though the term MMO is thrown around at will it's actually a single player game. If you've played them in any capacity before you'll probably dig the remastered trailer below -- otherwise you're likely just going to come out more confused than ever.
Bandai Namco has announced that it will be coming to PS4 and Steam later this year in the west.
Today's Overwatch patch brings some big changes to the game, apart from the new Horizon Lunar Colony map that's now available on all three platforms. It seems that every major patch also tinkers with the hero balance, and this one's no exception.
The biggest change is the welcome addition of a new map to the rotation. In Overwatch's lore, the Horizon Moonbase was a peaceful research facility working on all manner of scientific pursuits, including primate intelligence augmentation. We first saw the facility way back in March 2016 when the "Recall'" short film was released. Unfortunately, the monkeys became smart enough to question why they should be experimented on and overthrew the scientists, taking over the colony for themselves. It's where Winston grew up, but he chose to side with humanity and left his fellow primates behind when he escaped to Earth.
The new map is an assault type with two capture points, similar to Volskaya Industries or the Temple of Anubis. Attackers begin in a room with an enormous telescope pointed at Earth, and every character has something to say when they look back at home. Most of the facility is indoors, but there's a small section where the heroes can head outside. This section has lower gravity and muffled sound, and offers a significant change to the status quo. It's a shame this section isn't larger, as some interesting strategies open up when every jump takes you 30 feet in the air. Fortunately, low-gravity options are being added for those who want to experiment with the feature in custom games, and it's also being added to the Arcade mode temporarily as a new brawl type.
In addition to the new map, a few tweaks were made to Roadhog, Reaper, and McCree. One's better, one's worse, and one stayed about the same.
There's a new patch for Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor and no one seems to know what it does. Update 1.10 released today and it's mostly substantial in size -- reports indicate about 6GB on PS4, 2.27GB on Xbox One, but only 8.1MB on PC. Most curious, developer Monolith and publisher Warner Bros. haven't made any mention of this patch's function.
For context, Shadow of Mordor released in September 2014. Its most recent update on PlayStation was in October of last year when it received 4K support for the PS4 Pro. Ever since then, it has been all quiet with regard to this game.
Of course, Monolith has been busy with another Lord of the Rings title, the upcoming Shadow of War. This is rampant conjecture, but this update might be affiliated with Shadow of War in some way. The most obvious reasoning would be that it allows for imported saves from Shadow of Mordor, so that players can continue the battle against their most memorable nemeses.
This idea is more than just a pipe dream for a semi-weird reason. At the time of the Shadow of War reveal, GamesRadar interviewed Monolith creative vice president Michael de Plater. When asked whether the new game would allow for imported saves, Plater said "Oh, I don't remember what we're allowed to say about that" before asking a nearby PR rep. When he returned, his official comment was "We're not saying anything at this time."
Given the full picture, it's easy enough to infer that Shadow of War very well may support legacy saves. If it's true, it's the kind of thing that's likely being saved as a marketing beat and who knows when that might be. We reached out to Warner Bros. representatives about the 1.10 update and they hadn't responded at time of publishing. (To be fair, we emailed them very late in the day.) We'll update this post, if/when we receive a response.
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