Microsoft has announced that two more games and their corresponding expansions are now backwards compatible on Xbox One. All four titles are a part of EA's Command and Conquer franchise.
As is the case with most new backwards compatible games, the announcement was made via a tweet by Xbox Live director of programming Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb. The two new games are Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars and Command and Conquer 3: Red Alert 3. The former's expansion, Kane's Wrath, as well as additional content for the latter, titled Commander's Challenge, are also now backwards compatible.
In our Tiberium Wars review, Kevin VanOrd gave the game an 8.7/10, writing, "Not only is [Tiberium Wars] a great game, but it's a great example of a console RTS done right. If you've never played a Command & Conquer game before, there's no better time than the present." VanOrd did not offer as much praise in our Red Alert 3 review, but also remarked that the Xbox 360 version of the game has "enough good, crazy fun that it might just charm you into forgiving its flaws."
EA is currently in works with Petroglyph Games in development of a Command and Conquer Remastered Collection, which will include new versions of 1995's Tiberian Dawn, 1996's Red Alert, and both games' expansion packs. EA stressed that the collection would launch "without microtransactions" on PC, and will attempt to recapture the "authenticity" of the original games. No exact timeframe has been announced for when the Command and Conquer Remastered Collection will launch, but EA has hinted it will release on the franchise's 25th anniversary in 2020.
If you're curious as to what games are backwards compatible on Xbox One, we've compiled the full list. We've also highlighted our personal favorites if you want to know the best games to play.
By Anonymous on Jan 24, 2019 11:30 pm Dive in with us as we take to the skies in control of the Ranger, the versatile offensive jack-of-all-trades javelin suit. Anthem comes out on February 22, 2019. Captured on PC.
By Anonymous on Jan 24, 2019 11:30 pm We sat down with Ben Irving from Bioware to talk about Anthem's progression, leveling system, loot, and the endgame.
If you've yet to pick up a copy of Dragon Ball FighterZ, you can now try the game out for free on Xbox One. As part of Microsoft's Free Play Days promotion, Xbox Live Gold subscribers can download and play the critically acclaimed Dragon Ball fighting game at no charge this weekend.
The free period runs from now through 11:59 PM PT on Sunday, January 27. During that time, you'll have access to the full range of content in the game. To jump in, simply download Dragon Ball FighterZ from either the Microsoft Store or the Gold member area on your Xbox One's dashboard.
If you like what you've played, you can purchase a digital copy of Dragon Ball FighterZ at a discount. All three of the game's editions are on sale in the Microsoft Store until January 31. The standard edition is down to $24; the FighterZ edition, which comes with the game's season pass, is $47.50; and the Ultimate edition is available for $55.
Now's a good time to try the Dragon Ball fighting game, as this weekend, Bandai Namco is hosting the Dragon Ball FighterZ World Tour Finals. The publisher has teased that it'll have some big Dragon Ball news to share during the tournament, including the reveal of a new DLC character: the Pride Trooper Jiren from Dragon Ball Super.
Additionally, Bandai Namco has announced a new Dragon Ball Z action RPG is in development. The publisher hasn't shared many details about the title yet, but more information will be revealed during the Dragon Ball FighterZ World Tour Finals.
Midway through Alien, Ridley Scott's 1979 franchise-launching sci-fi horror film, the crew of the Nostromo hatches a plan to try to kill the deadly creature loose on their ship. After the loss of Brett, an engineer, the survivors realize the creature is moving around in the ship's air ducts. Captain Dallas heads inside the ducts with a flamethrower, planning to flush the creature out into an airlock so the others can blow it out into space. Back outside, the rest of the crew use motion trackers to identify the creature's location and guide Dallas through the complicated, pitch-black duct system.
Alien is a famously suspenseful movie, and possibly no other scene is as tense as Dallas' trip into the ducts. He's stuck in those tight tunnels, alone, exposed, and unsure of where the danger lies. Meanwhile, his crew outside can only try to warn Dallas as they helplessly watch the two dots on their motion trackers converge--one for Dallas, the other for the creature.
Alien: Blackout captures what makes the duct scene so fraught and frightening, distilling it into a game you play on your phone. A direct sequel to 2014's Alien: Isolation, Blackout makes for a strong companion to what remains the best Alien game ever made. Again playing as Isolation protagonist Amanda Ripley, you take on a new role in Blackout: Instead of moving through a space station, hiding from and avoiding the alien and receiving information from other survivors as you did in Isolation, Blackout puts you on the other side of the screen. You're watching cameras and motion trackers, trying to guide four other survivors to escape the alien. It's somewhat akin to the popular jump-scare horror series Five Nights At Freddy's, but the addition of more characters broadens the experience.
Information is your only weapon in Blackout. Armed with access to limited security cameras, a few room-spanning motion trackers, and a map of the facility, your job is to watch for the alien and provide warnings to the survivors as they try to repair their ship and get you all out alive. Using touchscreen controls to swap between the map and various camera views, you can give the survivors instructions, like telling them to hide or run or directing them through the facility. You can also remotely close doors between the creature and the survivors if they're lucky enough to be near one, which is often enough to save some lives in an emergency. But there are significant gaps in your awareness and the alien is fast and deadly--creating those same feelings of horror, helplessness, and dread drummed up by the movie.
Smart design that plays to the strengths of smartphones and tablets helps Blackout convey plenty of tension. That's also largely thanks to the game's excellent production value. Blackout's cast of voice actors, including Andrea Decker reprising the role of Amanda from Isolation, sell the anxiety of the situation as they talk and argue while sneaking through Mendel Station's halls. Appropriately low-fi visuals capture Alien's slightly dingy future-via-CRT television aesthetic, and Blackout uses Isolation's excellent art design and creature animations, which were extremely faithful to what was created for Scott's film.
It's the sound design where Blackout really excels, though. Fans will recognize many of Isolation's sound effects, which were as good as its visuals, heightening the anxiety and fear the game already creates. Growls and roars of the creature echoing through the ducts aren't just unnerving--they signal when the alien has found Amanda's safe haven, forcing you to tear your attention away from the security cameras for a heart-pounding scramble to quickly locate which vent the alien is in and close the right door before it reaches you. The telltale beeping of motion sensors often notes that your crew has only seconds to find hiding places before the creature finds them. And the tinny screams over the radio as the alien discovers the survivors are frightful reminders of your failure. All those elements get visual designators too, so you don't need sound to play, but Blackout is at its best when you can use all your senses to keep you and your crew alive.
Levels are only eight minutes long--Amanda's racing the clock before her equipment runs out of power, leading to the titular Blackout--which is great for small doses of mobile horror. It also means that failure has you replaying an entire stage at a time, which wouldn't be such a big deal except you're stuck listening to Amanda and the survivors have the same conversations over and over again to set up each level's goals. Sitting through the same two minutes of discussion every time you lose gets old in a hurry.
The alien is also not quite as smart as one might hope. Though it definitely responds to your actions and those of your crewmates, the alien often has set paths and actions at certain points you'll learn through repetition. In a few stages, not knowing to close a specific door at a specific time will get people killed, but that's information you'd only really have if you already played and failed. That some of the alien's actions aren't dynamic can undercut those great moments in Blackout when you're frantically trying to intervene to save your people after the alien does something you didn't predict or shows up somewhere you didn't expect.
For a $5 mobile game with no microtransactions, though, Alien: Blackout is impressive. It's surprisingly fresh in its presentation and use of the platform, and it captures a specific, frightening Alien experience that, frankly, deserved to be turned into a game a long time ago. It's not the full-scale sequel to Alien: Isolation fans were hoping for, but Blackout is still a smart, spooky return to its world in a bite-sized package.
While BioWare has slowly been releasing more and more information about Anthem, its upcoming online shooter, that give a sense of how it'll play, one big question remains: What will its endgame be like? Similar MMO-like shooters that hope to keep players around with long-term experiences, such as Destiny 2 and The Division, have struggled in that department, especially at launch. As players blast through story campaigns and hit level caps, they often find themselves with nothing left to do as they wait for the games' next big content drop. Anthem has a similar structure, so how it handles keeping high-level players engaged week in and week out will be a big part of the experience.
BioWare invited GameSpot to play several hours of Anthem at its studio in Austin, Texas, and we got a little bit of a sense of what the endgame might be like during that time. Lead producer Ben Irving gave us the general gist of what to expect when you hit Anthem's level cap of 30: you'll chase better and better loot so you can play tougher content.
The main endgame features in the base game are Legendary Contracts and Strongholds, Irving said. Legendary Contracts are more involved, tougher missions you'll get from the various factions in Anthem's Fort Tarsis, the town that functions as your home base in the world, and Strongholds are like MMO dungeons that include multiple tough encounters with enemies and boss fights. Beating that content will earn you epic, masterwork, and legendary gear, the stuff that's the rarest in Anthem and carries the best properties. We learned a lot more about the progression system, which you can read about here.
You'll also be able to replay all that content on three higher difficulty modes that unlock when you hit level 30, dubbed Grandmaster 1, 2, and 3. Each amps up the difficulty significantly, but results in better loot drops when you complete the content. As Irving explained, a big part of Anthem after you work through its story will be replaying content on harder difficulties in hopes of finding the game's best, rarest gear, which carries special perks and abilities.
Beyond Level 30
BioWare isn't talking about other endgame specifics yet, but Irving did say the developer has plans for tougher things that will keep players coming back to Anthem.
"We do believe in aspirational content," Irving said. "I think in other games you can call that raids. So we do have plans for aspirational content and live service. We're not talking about that and what the details are yet, but we do recognize the idea that, hey, like, you want to do something a couple of times a week with a group of friends that is hard, that really pushes yourself. And then the rest of the time, you'll do all the other parts of the game to kind of get yourself ready for the next time you go into that aspirational content."
Irving also said BioWare is exploring other ways to keep players engaged as well. Anthem includes a social space we didn't see in our preview that'll let players show off their Javelins to each other, for instance.
"There's a whole lot of stuff to do and the way we've tried to plan it is, by the time people are kind of working through [content up to Level 30], will have more things to drop and more things to incentivize play," Irving explained. "Including things like--you know, where a PvE-centric game, but we believe in social competition. So beyond the content, the loot, the progression, the exploration, like, it's fun to compete in a friendly way with your friends. And so we're not announcing what any of those things are yet, but we have some ideas that I think will promote that, that kind of help... making sure players have things to do."
Reshaping The World
The other major part of Anthem's endgame that BioWare has not yet detailed is its ongoing live service--the content that will pop up over time after Anthem's launch. The lore of Anthem offers a lot of opportunities for future events. It concerns a chaotic, uncontrollable force called the Anthem of Creation that, in conjunction with ancient artifacts from a long-gone race called the Shapers, can alter the world, tear open holes in reality, create cataclysms, and drop huge monsters for players to fight. (We've got more on Anthem's story right here.)
Irving said the underlying feature of the Anthem of Creation means BioWare can add all kinds of interesting changes and events to the game, both temporary and permanent.
"You have the Anthem that's always trying to create, and so there's this idea that part of the world is the Anthem is changing stuff, and can you use the Shaper technology to harness it to your benefit?" he said. "Sometimes that works in your favor and sometimes it doesn't, and we want to really lean into that idea that sometimes, like, you may just log into the game and go out into Freeplay and there is just something different. And sometimes that's more mysterious and you have to kind of work to find it, and other times like you'll step out of Fort Tarsis and look up and be like, 'Oh my God, what is that?'"
Keeping You Busy
Anthem's nature as an ever-changing world will help BioWare with endgame content, but as Chad Robertson, BioWare Austin's head of live services, explained, a big part of the live strategy is about seeing how people are playing and responding to Anthem.
The goal for the Anthem live services team is to be adaptable and dynamic, Robertson said, because it's impossible to predict how players are going to respond to the game or what's really going to resonate with them until it's actually out.
"You never know exactly what the thing that people are going to, you know, glom onto the most and enjoy the most. ...So ideally we've got everything right coming out of the gate, but we're going to be prepared if we don't, and we'll be ready to react very quickly if we don't. And I think that's the best thing you can probably do in this kind of climate rightly."
Robertson said BioWare plans to continue doing what it has been leading up to Anthem's launch--sharing things like developer live streams with players and incorporating their feedback, in attempts to be transparent and conversant with the Anthem community.
The answer to the question of whether BioWare's experience with games like Star Wars: The Old Republic actually helps it avoid some of the stumbles of similar games won't be answered until Anthem is actually in the hands of players, though. Until then, we're still stuck waiting to see exactly what Anthem will look like post-launch, and how it'll keep players coming back.
Editor's note: Electronic Arts provided travel and accommodations for this preview event.
Though it might not be obvious from all the gameplay videos that show off the flight and shooting mechanics, a big part of BioWare's Anthem, much like other online shooters, is chasing loot. As you push through Anthem's campaign, about a nation that hopes to control the all-powerful Anthem of Creation for its own ends and might end up destroying the world in the process, and into its endgame, you'll get to deck out your Javelin mech suit with some spiffy gear and some big, powerful guns.
BioWare recently gave GameSpot a chance to play several hours of Anthem at its studio in Austin, Texas, that included early and late-game content, which gave us a pretty solid sense of how it'll feel. But our snapshot didn't include much in the way of how the game's loot-based progression system will work. Lead producer Ben Irving filled in the gaps: you'll level up your Freelancer by earning experience points for completing missions and killing enemies, with the power level of individual Javelins tied to the strength of their equipped weapons and upgrades that you'll acquire via loot drops or crafting. You'll chase after the best guns and gear you can get by replaying content on harder difficulties, similar to other shooters such as Destiny 2 or The Division.
"So the core of the game is you're a pilot," Irving explained. "The pilot enters the Javelin. And so the pilot is a thing that has the levels in it. And so as you play the game, you level from one through to 30. That gets you through the bulk of the [story content], and then you'll do some other activities to kind of get to level 30."
As you level up your pilot, you'll unlock all four Javelin classes, and you'll also gain loot--new guns of various types, like assault rifles and shotguns, and new equipment for your Javelin that changes some of its abilities. That stuff can include different kinds of grenades with elemental powers, alternate weapons, and support abilities. For instance, on the Ranger Javelin, you'll start the game with a shoulder-mounted single missile launcher. Later, you might find an energy pulse cannon that can replace the missile. Equipping it changes how your weapon works and what it does. You get three active abilities for each Javelin, activated by pressing the left bumper, right bumper, and both together when playing on a controller, and your equipped items can change each one.
Your Freelancer's level determines what level of loot you can use, and the total power of your equipment is reflected as a stat called a Gear Score for your Javelin, which gives you a quick summary of your total power. Loot also has rarity levels, Irving explained, starting with common, then moving up to uncommon, rare, epic, masterwork, and legendary. The more rare the gear, the more useful and interesting it is, as top-tier gear in the masterwork and legendary categories has unique properties that might influence the rest of your loadout, or your role on a squad with other players.
There also will be an element of crafting in Anthem, although we didn't experience it much. Weapons you don't need or want can be "salvaged," or broken down into crafting components.
"You're collecting loot out in the world, it'll then unlock blueprints that will actually allow you to create and build the loot that you want, as well," producer Thomas Singleton said. And loot can also come with additional perks, called Inscriptions, that will make some versions of a piece of equipment a little different from others like it.
Upping The Difficulty
Getting better loot is a matter of playing harder content, Irving said. That comes in two forms: seeking out tougher endgame-type missions that become available as you approach Anthem's level cap, and playing on harder difficulties. Through much of what we saw, Anthem sported three standard difficulty modes--Easy, Normal, and Hard, with each raising enemies' health and damage output--that could be set at the start of any given mission. And more difficulty modes will unlock later, Irving said.
"So at level 30, the three new difficulties open, that's Grandmaster 1, 2, and 3, and that again will increase the loot drop chance," he said. "So you get to a point where you really want those masterworks and legendaries. ...So when you really want lots of them, that's when you'll start pushing Grandmaster 1, 2, and 3, and you'll need to have, you know, at least a set of epics probably some masterworks to go in there again, depending on skill level and a bunch of things. But for those kind of high-end players, we want this almost infinite chase, that you can keep pushing harder difficulties for kind of bragging rights amongst your friends to try and get that better gear."
Irving said that BioWare will be paying close attention to how players engage with Anthem, particularly when it comes to difficulty, and that harder modes could be offered later. But he also said that BioWare is keeping accessibility in mind through Anthem's various difficulty modes. Strongholds are some of the toughest content in Anthem, but BioWare hopes the option for changing their difficulty will allow more players to experience them.
Better Together
Getting better loot with additional abilities and different properties all feeds back into how you can work together with teammates. We saw some of those capabilities in our playthrough, but at higher levels, teamwork will be an even bigger part of the experience.
The basics are that some abilities can "prime" enemies, leaving them open to another attack, and hitting them with a second ability can "detonate" them, dealing extra damage--a similar set of mechanics to those BioWare used in the Mass Effect and Dragon Age series. But which Javelin and gear you're using changes how those interactions will work. For instance, when a Colossus uses a detonation ability, it'll create an area-of-effect explosion that damages other enemies--great for crowd control. Ranger detonations do high damage to a single target. Storm detonations can spread status effects to multiple enemies, and Interceptor detonations give the Javelin an aura that allow you to afflict other enemies with status effects as you attack them.
"As you get on [further into the game], the teamwork question becomes more than, are we coordinating to set up combos, but also, like, who should combo, which is the most effective way to use up the detonator that you have available to you based on the combat space, and I think that's where we'll get interesting at higher levels on harder difficulties," Irving said.
Anthem has a lot of ways you can benefit your team offensively, but you can also add defensive and supportive abilities as well. For example, the Storm Javelin can create a wind wall that can block incoming projectiles as one option, or put up a dome that speeds up teammates' cooldowns when they're inside it. Choosing which loadouts and abilities you and your team want at the start of a mission adds another layer of strategy--do you want defense or offense? Is your gear better for priming enemies, or detonating them? Should you try to leave enemies with status effects or hit them with direct damage? Answering those questions will change which Javelins you choose, what loadouts you pick, and what strategies your teams employ.
We saw a lot of Anthem in action, but from the sounds of things, there's still a lot to uncover in terms of combining Javelins, skillsets, teamwork, and all the loot you can find along the way. Finding the game's best guns, and playing through tougher content to get it, is going to be a major concern for high-level players who want to get the most out of Anthem. We'll have to wait and see how Anthem's loot chase shapes up, and whether it's fun enough to keep players going after they finish the game's story campaign.
Anthem releases on February 22 for Xbox One, PS4, and PC. BioWare is running a VIP demo January 25-27 on Xbox One, PlayStation, and PC for EA Access members and pre-order customers. There's also an open demo February 1-3 that doesn't require pre-ordering to play. Check out the rest of our Anthem coverage, including what it was like to play the game for several hours from its start, and what we know about its endgame.
Editor's note: Electronic Arts provided travel and accommodations for this preview event.
The best way to sum up Anthem, BioWare's online third-person shooter, is to call it a cross between Mass Effect 3 and The Division. On one hand, it's a lot like other, similar shooters: you'll team up with other players as you blast away at various creatures, causing numbers to fly off their bodies as you work to take them down, hoping to get newer, better guns for your powered Javelin mech suits. On the other hand, Anthem is definitely a BioWare game, even if it's a pared-back version of the more complex and story-heavy RPGs the developer is known for. Anthem hits a middle ground that, on the whole, makes it feel unique among the shooters like it.
BioWare recently gave GameSpot a chance to play the first few hours of Anthem at its studio in Austin, Texas, starting from the game's opening missions, as well as some late-game content. That gave us a pretty solid cross-section of what Anthem offers--from its team-based gameplay that feels a lot like the multiplayer of Mass Effect 3, to the way the game delivers story through conversations with its various characters, much like in BioWare RPGs of the past. We got the best sense we've had yet of what it'll be like to play Anthem, at least through the main story campaign.
Becoming A Freelancer
Here's how missions and activities go in Anthem. Starting in your home base of Fort Tarsis, you pick your Javelin, one of the four Iron Man-like mech suits at the center of the game's combat. Most missions start with you traveling to wherever the action is, guided by your Cipher Owen, a partner back at Tarsis who provides you with intel about the situation at hand. Javelins can fly thanks to their rocket boosters, although not indefinitely; eventually your suit will overheat, forcing you to wait for them to cool down. Strategically dipping through waterfalls and lakes, or diving straight down to increase airflow through your jets, can cool the suit down. Exploring Anthem is almost as much a part of the game as fighting in it, and there are lore drops to find and ruins and other secrets to discover out in the world.
Each Javelin type has its own strengths and weaknesses and work together in different ways. The Ranger is the middle-of-the-road class that specializes in single, high-power weapons like grenades and missiles, while the Interceptor is a faster, more agile Javelin that's good for close-range and melee attacks. The Colossus is a tank that lacks the recharging energy shield of other Javelin classes, which means it requires aggressively play and constantly grabbing health packs in order to be effective. Finally, the Storm generally floats above the battle, using elemental attacks to debuff enemies and aid other teammates.
All the Javelins also can carry two weapons, and you can equip a variety guns, from assault rifles to shotguns, rail guns, sniper rifles, pistols, and beyond. But in Anthem, shooting takes a bit of a back seat; using your Javelin's on-board abilities in smart ways is what combat is really all about.
In fact, the shooting portion of Anthem was sometimes a bit underwhelming, as the guns feel like generic shooter fare and never hit especially hard. Anthem's enemies are the sort of bullet-sponges that can make guns feel weak and ineffectual. It's clear that combining your different abilities together intelligently with other players is where BioWare wants you to put your effort in combat, and pulling off strategic moves with teammates to dominate the battlefield or escape a tough scrape is the best part of any fight.
Each Javelin has two abilities (on a controller, each is tied to a bumper button) that can be changed based on what you equip in your Javelin's four component slots. Grenades, missiles, and various other attacks can inflict status effects like freezing enemies or setting them on fire, and those effects can set up combos. Hitting an enemy "primed" by a freeze grenade with a missile, for instance, will "detonate" them, which can do bonus damage or pass the freeze status effect to other enemies.
The early part of the game demonstrated only easiest opportunities for combos, and they weren't especially exciting. As time goes on and you learn the strengths and weaknesses of each Javelin, though, the strategy of comboing looks to become a much bigger part of the game--it mattered a lot more, and was a lot more satisfying, in the high-level content BioWare demonstrated than the early stuff. BioWare told us a lot more about how progression and teamwork will come together in Anthem, especially late in the game.
Terminal Velocity
The other thing Anthem's combat has going for it is its sheer speed and fluidity. At any given moment, you can hop into the air and activate your jets to go flying away from a losing situation, find a shady spot to recover your shields, or get a better angle on enemy weak points. Much has been made about Anthem's verticality in exploration, but flying is also a huge part of combat and what makes it feel fresh. For instance, a Storm Javelin will mostly hover over a battle, somewhat out of harm's way, to rain down elemental attacks on groups of enemies and help control the battlefield. At the same time, an Interceptor can dart in and out of combat, inflicting heavy damage and bugging out before things get to hot. In all cases, using flight effectively and strategically is essential to winning fights and staying alive.
We faced several different missions during our time in Anthem. Some concerned Shaper Relics--powerful alien technology left behind by the race that created the world of Anthem, but has since disappeared. Those missions usually included the kind of sub-objectives familiar from other shooters, like defending a fixed position while a timer ticks down, or gathering items and bringing them back to a specific location--all of which were fairly generic activities you're used to seeing in shooters like this. The fact that you can fly around huge arenas helps break things up, but apart from the underlying combat and flight capabilities, most of Anthem's missions are the kinds of activities players will be very familiar with completing by now.
Other missions had us facing off against the Scars, an insect-like race of angry aliens with whom humans share the world of Anthem. The more interesting enemies were the Dominion, Anthem's main antagonists. These guys are human soldiers led by a big scary Javelin pilot called the Monitor, and they include fighters who are more comparable to the player, with Javelins that let them fly and some of the elemental powers that you can use. Their goal: grab Shaper Relics and try to control the Anthem of Creation for their own ends. They're ruthless and well-armed with powerful technology, and stopping their ambitions is what most of the story in Anthem seems to be about. (We've got a lot more information on Anthem's story here.)
Fort Tarsis: Your Story Hub
When you're not fighting weird creatures or the Monitor and his minions in your Javelin, you're hanging out at Fort Tarsis, the frontier town you call home. Tarsis serves the usual functions of a post-mission hub, allowing you to talk with faction leaders to accept missions or work on your Javelin at a station called The Forge.
You also pick up new missions from people in the town, including your contacts in the game's various factions, like Brin, one of the Javelin-wearing town guards called Sentinels, or Matthias, a member of the Shaper scholars known as the Arcanists. Both will give you missions that allow you to increase your standing with their organizations, which lead to more missions and better rewards.
The town is more than a compendium of shops and quest-givers, though. It sports a number of characters with whom you can hold lengthier conversations of the sort that feel akin to BioWare's traditional RPG titles. Some of these are just rundowns of what's going on before your next mission, but a few let you get to know the characters of Anthem a little better. Conversations all include a few choices, too, which allow you to shape your responses and your Freelancer's personality, at least somewhat.
Spending time talking to Owen, the Cipher character, revealed some of the strongest writing in what we saw of Anthem, as we dug into his past and revealed more of his character. Owen's funny, amiable, and pretty complex--the kind of character BioWare fans will expect to see--and is likely destined to become a fan-favorite akin to the companions of the Mass Effect and Dragon Age series. But even talking to quest-givers gives Anthem a chance to expand on their characters and make them a little more interesting and relevant than the next contract they hand over.
Wandering around Fort Tarsis and engaging in some of these deeper, more involved conversations felt like Anthem's answer to Mass Effect's Normandy: it's a place where you hang out between missions and learn about the other character with whom you share Anthem. While you won't engage in anything like the deep conversations that make up other BioWare games, Fort Tarsis changes the feel of Anthem compared to games like The Division or Destiny 2 by making the story and its characters feel a lot more close and personal.
Gussying Up Your Javelin
Working through missions will earn you better gear for your Javelin, and as you reach the higher levels, you'll start to find guns and Javelin pieces that have special properties and change your loadouts. Bringing loot you find in the game back to the Forge in Fort Tarsis allows you to check it out and equip it, or salvage it for crafting.
You can play Anthem solo, but it's obviously built for teamwork. Combat incentivizes working together and bringing a variety of Javelins into any given situation, and there's also the Alliance system, which rewards you for playing with others. Whenever you play with other people, whether they're friends or randoms you group up with as you work through the game, the Alliance system passively awards you and anyone you play with Alliance experience points. Those points get tallied at the end of the week and converted into Anthem's in-game currency, Coin--so playing with more people earns you, and them, more money.
There's also a surprisingly large amount of customization possible when it comes to Javelins. You start the game with a variety of paint options you can apply to your Javelins that can make it look pretty slick and unique, and there are more customization options you can purchase in Fort Tarsis as well. Anthem will also include a premium currency you can purchase with real money, and that currency can be used on additional customization options. But BioWare has previously said that premium currency will only be for purchasing cosmetic upgrades, and that you'll never buy things like blind loot boxes--you'll always know exactly what you're getting when you spend real money.
Early play in Anthem was fun, if a little similar in some respects to a lot of what's already available in shooters like it, specifically in areas like mission objectives and gunplay. It's the late-game and endgame content that's the real question at this point. Our chance to play the high-level Stronghold BioWare showed off at E3 2018 suggested what Anthem can do when it really pushes players to work together and coordinate. But BioWare hasn't revealed much in the way of details about endgame or live content yet, and if there's one big concern about shared-world shooters, it's how well they'll be able to keep players engaged once the story campaign wraps up.
What we've seen of Anthem so far shows that BioWare's online shooter is pretty familiar, but the elements it adds to the formula might be enough to make it stand apart. Verticality and speed from flight in particular make combat feel different from many of the things that are out there right now, and it's more character-focused approach to storytelling has the potential to make its world much more engaging than lore entries in an in-game codex--although Anthem has those, too. Our time with Anthem shows that BioWare has the moment-to-moment gameplay down pretty well in the early going, and there are a lot of good ideas in the game that might be enough to let it carve out a space in a genre of persistent shooters--as long as it can keep people playing long-term.
Editor's Note: Electronic Arts provided GameSpot with travel and accommodations for its preview event.
Note: This post contains spoilers for Alien: Blackout and Alien: Isolation. Read on at your own risk!
Alien: Blackout might be a small-scale mobile game you can finish an hour or two, but it still contributes to the larger story begun with Ridley Scott's 1979 film Alien. Blackout is actually a direct sequel to the 2014 video game Alien: Isolation, which added a new character to the story: Amanda Ripley, the daughter of film protagonist Ellen. And while the tale of Blackout isn't as involved as what's in the films or in Alien: Isolation, it does provide a little context for Amanda Ripley's continuing story.
The interesting thing about Alien: Isolation is that it fills in a portion of the Alien timeline that was previously unexplored. The game jumps 15 years into the future from the end of Alien to tell Amanda's story, in which she heads to Sevastopol, a space station in the middle of being decommissioned. That's where a salvage crew has brought the flight recorder from the Nostromo, Ellen Ripley's mother's missing ship, which Ellen blew up in order to kill an alien that got on board and murdered the crew. Amanda joins a team from Weyland-Yutani, the company Ellen worked for, that's heading to the station to recover the recorder and find out what happened to the Nostromo and her mother.
Isolation fits nicely in the Alien canon thanks to the movie's 1986 sequel, Aliens. In that movie, Ellen Ripley is rescued after escaping the Nostromo, only to discover she's been in hypersleep for 57 years. In a deleted scene in that movie, Weyland-Yutani executive Carter Burke reveals to Ellen that Amanda had grown old and died in the years before Ellen was rescued. The Ripley women are never reunited.
Amanda was previously only mentioned in that one scene, so Isolation takes the opportunity to open up her story. When she arrives on Sevastopol, she discovers the salvage team also accidentally brought back an alien from LV-426, the same planetoid Nostromo visited. By the time Amanda and her group reach the station, a full-grown alien is picking off the people trapped there one by one.
Amanda works with survivors to try to eliminate the alien, but she soon discovers that it has created a whole hive, birthing more and more creatures in the bowels of the station. And like in the films, Weyland-Yutani is hoping to capture an alien from Sevastopol, even if it means everyone on the station dies in the process. Eventually, Amanda circumvents Weyland-Yutani's efforts and escapes the station before it's destroyed, but she's the only survivor. Isolation ends with Amanda entering the Torrens, the ship that first took her to the station, only to discover an alien has made it on board and killed the crew. She opens the ship's airlock, sending both her and the alien into space. It seems she's doomed to die in her spacesuit, before a final shot of a spotlight passing over her face--suggesting a ship has discovered Amanda and can save her.
Alien: Blackout picks up sometime later, although it's not clear how much time has passed since the end of Isolation. The game takes place on Weyland-Yutani's Mendel Research Station, and starts with the arrival of the USCSS Haldin, a ship carrying two crew members, Saito and Studwick, and two people from W-Y: Yutani--an executive and second cousin to the company's namesake--and Thorncroft, a scientist. When they board the station, they discover Amanda, who warns them that an alien is loose on the station and that everyone else is dead. Amanda has only survived because she's slipped into Mendel's air vents, where she's connecting into the computer system to use motion sensors and cameras to keep an eye on the alien--and stay one step ahead of it.
Most of Blackout is concerned with the moment-to-moment attempts to keep the survivors alive, and the story is pretty simple. But the game does give a few larger hints about the Alien world. Amanda tells the crew that the alien on Mendel Station was born there, and she blames Weyland-Yutani for it. Both Yutani and Thorncroft say they've never heard anything like the alien, though. The Alien franchise is full of Weyland-Yutani conspiracies to try to get the alien at any expense, but apparently, nobody brought either of them into it.
Amanda's discovery that there's another alien on Mendel Station is a significant change what we've seen in most of the Alien film canon. In Alien, Alien: Isolation, and Aliens, the creatures all come from the same place: LV-426. In fact, dialogue in Aliens states that after the Nostromo is destroyed, no one encountered the alien across "more than 300 surveyed worlds." And in the intervening years, LV-426 becomes home to a small human colony called Hadley's Hope--and people live there successfully for years. It's not until Ripley reports back to Weyland-Yutani about what happened to her crew that the company sends colonists out to see if the creatures are still there.
So if Mendel Station had an alien of its own, that suggests there's another source of the creatures that the company has discovered between Alien and Aliens. There's some precedent for that idea in recently released Alien novels that expand the story. In 2014's Alien: Out of the Shadows (which takes place between Alien and Aliens) and Alien: Sea of Sorrows (which takes place years after Ellen Ripley's death in Alien 3), more aliens are discovered on other planets--but they tend to kill everyone who knows about them. With Ripley and her crew the only survivors of Mendel Station, that might explain why Aliens suggests nobody knows about the creatures: everyone who ever encounters them, save the Ripley women, winds up dead.
Like most Alien stories, Blackout has another wrench from Weyland-Yutani: Special Order 941. When Amanda and the survivors try to escape the station aboard the Haldin, they find they're blocked by the station's artificial intelligence under the company's orders. The special order echoes similar instructions that diverted the Nostromo to find the creature (Special Order 937) and the instructions to protect the alien at the expense of the humans on Sevastopol (Special Order 939). We still don't know who specifically is issuing those particular orders.
Blackout ends with Amanda escaping Mendel Station, along with any of the survivors you manage to save, before the station blows up with the aliens on board. She notes in her log that the group's next stop is KOI-125.01, a manufacturing colony, and that she plans to go on to Earth after that. If Yutani survives, she also mentions plans to make a full report of everything that happened.
We don't know what happens at KO1-125.01, but Amanda, at least, makes it back to Earth. This week, Fox's official Alien Twitter account announced the launch of Aliens: Resistance, a four-comic series that continues Amanda's story back on Earth. In it, Amanda teams with a former Colonial Marine, Zula Hendricks, in an attempt to bring down Weyland-Yutani and expose its alien bio-weapons program. Resistance links the story of Isolation with the greater Alien comics world: Hendricks was a protagonist in the 12-issue series Aliens: Defiance, in which she also encountered the alien, lived to tell about it, and discovered Weyland-Yutani's evil plans. So Resistance looks to be a sequel both to that series and to the Amanda Ripley games so far.
The description of Resistance suggests that what Amanda found in Blackout is just one of several facilities where Weyland-Yutani is trying to weaponize aliens, which means there could be a lot more going on for Amanda. That might also be another clue to the situation 40 years later in Aliens: if Amanda manages to take down W-Y's alien program, it would explain why the company is still desperate to get hold of aliens decades later.
There's also a lot of leeway for additional stories, as Isolation, Blackout, and Resistance are showing. After all, most of the information in Aliens about what happened to Amanda and the creatures comes from Weyland-Yutani themselves, and the company has never been especially trustworthy. Maybe Blackout and Resistance suggest more games starring Amanda Ripley could be part of the Alien-infested future.
In the Resident Evil 2 remake, you'll play as either Leon Kennedy or Claire Redfield and experience their unique perspectives on the viral outbreak that's hit Raccoon City. Their different stories are further enhanced by the game's differing scenarios, which swaps their roles in the overall story and results in a total of 4 unique campaigns between the two protagonists (Leon A/B and Claire A/B).
In my review, I mentioned that it took me about 15 hours to complete both of Leon and Claire's first stories--which each character's scenarios running at 6-7 hours each. Keep in mind, this was the initial attempt and the ensuing runs after that were shorter due to having familiarity with the game. While many events and puzzles are similar to the original game, allowing you to get a better handle on what to do, the overall structure and pace is quite different. In order to get the elusive S rank, you'll need to finish a particular character's story in less than 4 hours.
As stated earlier, Resident Evil 2's campaigns are structured out through isolated scenarios. After finishing the story for the first character, a new option in the main menu called New Game (2nd Run) will open up. Carrying over from the original game--formerly called the Zapping system--the first character you pick will essentially be the lead of the story, with the other protagonist experiencing their own encounters as they tie up the overall plot's loose ends. Depending on who you played as before, you'll start the second scenario with the other character.
While both characters will experience similar events and explore the same locations, the choices and impact of each scenario are totally isolated from one another. With the original game, there were key moments where you could decide which character should take certain items over the other--that has since been removed in this game. In another big change from the first game, completing the first two campaigns will open up all 4 campaigns. So if you want to jump straight into the other second scenario, without having to play the other scenario that precedes it, then you can do that.
I greatly enjoyed my time with Resident Evil 2. Seeing how much the original game's plot and structure had evolved with the remake was a pleasure to see play out, despite how nerve-wracking it could get. If you want to learn more about the game, go ahead and check out my review in which I state:
"Resident Evil 2 is not only a stellar remake of the original, but it's also simply a strong horror game that delivers anxiety-inducing and grotesque situations, topping some of the series' finest entries. But above all, the remake is an impressive game for the fact that it goes all-in on the pure survival horror experience, confidently embracing its horrifying tone and rarely letting up until the story's conclusion. Though Resident Evil 2 has its roots firmly in the past, it reworks the familiar horrors into something that feels brand new and all its own."
For more info on Resident Evil 2, be sure to check out our helpful Beginner's Guide on how to survive in Raccoon City, and along with our recap on the story so far with the survival horror series.
The Dude is coming to the Super Bowl. Whether the arrival of one Jeff Lebowski is a matter of circumstance for the sellin' of goods--and that's something we've come to expect from the Super Bowl almost more than the actual sport it's supposed to be about--or the portent of some greater, less-knowable purpose, well, it'll be February 3 before we find out for sure, I guess.
Jeff Bridges, who played The Dude in the Coen Brothers' 1998 stoner detective comedy, tweeted a short video teasing his return to the role some 21 years later. The video doesn't show much--just that nothing about The Dude seems to have changed, except maybe his hair color--and ends with the cryptic date of February 3, 2019. You might recognize that as the date of Super Bowl LIII.
Now, the thing about The Dude is, his story has become what might be known in some circles as a cult classic. So much so, in fact, that there's been at least one attempt to expand that story, by looking into the lives of the fellers who populated it. One of those hombres was Jesus Quintana, who also goes by the handle The Jesus, played by John Turturro in the movie.
Turturro wrote and directed Going Places, a movie that sees him reprise the role of The Jesus. It also stars Bobby Cannavale (Ant-Man, Homecoming) and Audrey Tautou (The Da Vinci Code, Amelie). That movie is complete according to its IMDb page, and though it was originally slated to see the light of day in 2017, that page now says its release is coming this year. So might be The Dude is out here ready to shill for his brother bowler.
Then again, maybe not. You might recall from The Big Lebowski that, at least according to one Walter Sobchak (John Goodman), The Jesus was a sex offender. According to Walter, The Jesus did a stint in the big house for exposing himself to a kid. And seeing as The Big Lebowski has become a pretty well-loved comedic gem in some circles, a revisit to those characters to tell the story of somebody like that--well, it does seem at least a bit ill-advised. Then again, Walter's not exactly the most trustworthy of sources as relates to facts.
Guess it's not for us to know, though, at least not until the big game. It is nice to see The Dude wander back in, even if does end up to be about slingin' some product. If I had to lay a wager, I'd say maybe the folks at Kahlua might be responsible for all this. After all, The Dude loves himself a White Russian.
By Anonymous on Jan 24, 2019 10:30 pm Battlefleet Gothic: Armada 2 has a faction for everyone. The stalwart Space Marines or Imperial Navy, the fast Eldar and Corsairs, the technoligically superior Tau, or the brutal Orks. For this demo we opted to play as a Tyranid hive fleet, devouring enemy ships, as well as the Mechanicus of Mars shredding Xenos vessels with powerful nova cannons.
The PlayStation Classic was pricier than some other retro consoles at $100, but bargain hunters who were waiting for the right price may want to take advantage of it now. The mini-console is down to just over $50 now, half off the original price.
Amazon has the system listed for $54, which is likely a temporary price. Other stores may be willing to price match depending on their policies, so check if another one could be more convenient for you. This is the lowest price we've seen yet on the mini-console, though just after the holidays it was marked down to $60 across the board.
The PlayStation Classic packages the mini-console with a controller and 20 games, including bona fide classics like Metal Gear Solid, Resident Evil Director's Cut, and Final Fantasy VII. The library on the whole was marked as a disappointment in our review, and the emulation quality and UI presentation is uneven.
"I'd like nothing more than to tell you that the PS Classic is a pleasant surprise, that it will match your excitement and then some," wrote critic Peter Brown. "This sadly isn't the case, and short of Sony refreshing it, or the hacking community breaking it open and reconfiguring it, the PS Classic may never be more than a puny PlayStation with good looks."
PlayStation Classic Full Game List
Battle Arena Toshinden
Cool Boarders 2
Destruction Derby
Final Fantasy VII
Grand Theft Auto
Intelligent Qube
Jumping Flash
Metal Gear Solid
Mr Driller
Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee
Rayman
Resident Evil Director's Cut
Revelations: Persona
Ridge Racer Type 4
Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo
Syphon Filter
Tekken 3
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six
Twisted Metal
Wild Arms
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