By Anonymous on Apr 01, 2015 10:30 pm
Developer NeocoreGames has announced The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing III for PC. The game will be the final episode in the Van Helsin trilogy, and will be released sometime in the second quarter of this year via Steam. The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing III takes place in Borgovia after the civil war has concluded. The city is beset with warring factions, criminals, and a cult which prophesizes that the end is nigh. The game follows titular protagonist Van Helsing in his quest to hunt down a "former ally turned into fearful archvillain" and unearth "the darkest secret about the birth of the modern Borgovia." The game will also explore the past of Lady Katarina. Like its predecessor, Van Helsing III will include tower-defense mini-game sequences. The game is a sequel to 2014's The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing 2, which was also developed by NeocoreGames. The game was well-received in GameSpot's review, earning an eight out of ten for its dense environment and quick, rewarding combat.  
By Anonymous on Apr 01, 2015 10:30 pm
 Peter Brown just played the latest build of Mortal Kombat X. So we quiz him and Erick Tay about the confirmed roster, and new brutality system.
By Anonymous on Apr 01, 2015 09:30 pm
GameSpot has already published two Dark Souls II reviews, one triumphant and effusive, and one disheartened and defeated. And neither one of them is wrong. This is the Souls series--as well as its cousin Bloodborne--encapsulated: grand trials by fire in which other games, with their boundless forgiveness, their comprehensive tutorials, and hand-holding linearity may be lifted and praised for their mercy or condemned for their patronization, qualities we have never received from the Souls games and likely never will. These games are brilliant, tedious, exhilarating, soul-crushing monsters, all. With that in mind, the Scholar of the First Sin Edition is what it looks like when that monster puts on its best, smiling face, and tries its absolute best to be warm and welcoming to one and all. That's a welcome extended to the folks who've sunk hundreds of hours into the game who think they know what they're getting with this version. It's a welcome extended to complete newcomers who've never played a Souls game. It's a welcome extended to the people who've been mired in Bloodborne these past few weeks. And it's a welcome extended to me, someone's who's gone into each of these games determined to slay the beast, and found myself cowed each and every time. This version is meant to entice, a Cheshire smile shared between From Software and all players, old and new, that can't hide its newly sharpened teeth.  The new edition entices the way many predators do: with the utmost sweetness and light. In previous iterations, the world of Drangleic where Dark Souls II takes place felt like a ruined, half-faded memory of a beautiful place, whose washed out, dismal details gave the sense that the world itself was quietly eroding into the dirt. Even the PC version, running at its highest settings, in its most grand environments, had this feeling of dulled luster. Stepping out of the first cave into hub world Majula this time inspires the sense of grandeur it was always meant to have. There's a new warmth and vibrancy to the place, a clarity that feels fully realized at last, serving to suggest the beauty that once was instead of accentuating the wreckage that it is. The graphical uptick has that effect on the whole game, offering a feeling of rejuvenation, that Drangleic is still alive. It is alive, and crawling with the undead like never before.    From Software's version of "Welcome to Drangleic" is a higher fidelity to the visual than ever before, but its version of "Welcome back to Drangleic," for veterans, is about walking into the Forest of Fallen Giants for the first time, turning a corner, and running right into one of those massive hippo/cyclops creatures. It's about trying to go to the Cathedral of Blue, and the Ring of Binding at its entrance, and finding it guarded by a fire-breathing wyvern instead of a single knight, and that's if you kill the sped-up spear-wielding white knights swarming in the Heide Tower of Flame area, and that's if, when you first get there, you get past the sleeping ones who no longer lay dormant if your level is high enough. It's finding out that The Pursuer is almost as common as the giant knights at the Tower of Flame, and there are no handy giant crossbows to make their appearance any easier. A new relentless Hollow NPC assassin, The Forlorn, now lurks among the hordes when you least expect and never want it. In that traditional dastardly way of theirs, From Software has revamped layout for NPCs, enemies, and items virtually throughout the entire game. Much of the game feels familiar, but you can hear the evil cackling of the developers trying their best to throw a wrench into any sense of comfort or routine in this new run. Enemies have been placed and replaced for maximum surprise factor--and unlike a new-game-plus, you may not have enemies performing new attacks, or have backup during boss fights, but you're also not starting with all your gear so you can deal with new problems when they arise. It changes the options for exploration in much the same way, where an area that was once accessible to everyone--well, as accessible as anything in Dark Souls can be--now has a bloody and brutal price of admission. Moments of respite at bonfires have either been moved, or now have an obstacle to surmount first. It doesn't necessarily make for a brand new game, but it does give it a different flow. Death still comes in Dark Souls with all the ferocity of its reputation, but its tone and timbre has been altered, for the grudgingly, frustratingly better.   That said, if there's one thing that experts have always driven home about Dark Souls II, it's that it has a rhythm. There's a pace and structure to everything. Dark Souls as a musical genre is prog rock. It's insanely dense and intricate, and while it might not be everyone's favorite tempo, it is still there to be appreciated. And for what it's worth, something about this new tempo finally struck the right note. By the game's count, 67 hours have gone into this particular run through, and 22 of the game's bosses have died by my hand. Where I am now feels like a urgent, furious push into the unknown, a never-ending series of fights for my life. Even with a giant sword that destroys most anything in my way, and a tower shield that barely budges, there's the feeling that missing my cue will still cost me my life. I feel like I've passed some threshold and met the core of Dark Souls, where I no longer fear every interaction, but anticipate whatever new devilry wants to test my mettle. It's an ongoing supply of new revelations, characters adding their particular dysfunction to the experience, and equippable items all with their own tales to tell. It's a time where the simple act of opening a chest feels like I'm gambling with my life. That said, it is, as of this moment, an incomplete experience, as the multiplayer servers on the PlayStation 4 remain closed, and the eponymous Scholar of the First Sin battle is explicitly tied to the endgame. I can't wait to meet him. I can't wait to look this ugly sucker in whatever passes for his eye and introduce him to my greatsword. I can't wait to collect up a horde of phantoms to lay waste to the demons in my wake like never before. God help me, I can't wait to die again.
By Anonymous on Apr 01, 2015 08:59 pm
 Upcoming action game Batman: Arkham Knight will have a series of content "exclusive" to the PlayStation 4 version of the game. As it turns out, this content--comprising extra missions and skins--will come to other platforms later, according to an Amazon advertisement for the extras.  A line from the ad reads: "Bonus content exclusive until at least fall 2015." This content will be available to PS4 players when Arkham Knight launches on June 23. However, it's unclear when exactly it will launch and what it will cost when it finally arrives for Xbox One and PC. The exclusive content is not the first example of Sony and Warner Bros. working together to give Arkham Knight PlayStation fans special treatment. Sony will also release a two special Arkham Knight-branded PS4 consoles for the game's launch this summer. Earlier today, we learned that Arkham Knight will output in native 1080p on PS4. This isn't the first time Sony has secured a time-exclusive DLC arrangement for a major multiplatform game. The company did the same thing with Activision's Destiny, offering extra content first on PlayStation platforms. This content was later released for Xbox. Via: Videogamer
By Anonymous on Apr 01, 2015 08:45 pm
 DeNA, the mobile game partner Nintendo chose to help bring the company's franchises to mobile devices, is expecting big things in terms of revenue. The Japanese company said Wednesday, in an interview with Reuters, that it's hopeful that its Nintendo games can generate over ¥3 billion ($25 million) per month.  "We want to create games that will be played by hundreds of millions of people," DeNA chief executive Isao Moriyasu told Reuters. Previously, DeNA said it was hoping to topple Candy Crush and generate more than 100 million daily active players for its Nintendo games. To do this, Moriyasu said DeNA will create a catalog of highly compelling Nintendo games. "We want to create multiple hit games rather than aiming to succeed with just one powerful IP element," he said. Regarding the $25 million figure, Moriyasu admitted that he hadn't discussed financial targets yet with Nintendo. All the same, he's hopeful that DeNA's Nintendo games will be big business for both firms. "We haven't talked to Nintendo about targets, but at DeNA, our best-selling game brought in ¥3 billion yen a month, and we want to surpass that," he said, referencing the smartphone game Kaito Royale. This game has since been spun into a TV series, Reuters notes. Nintendo and DeNA have not disclosed revenue sharing details for the upcoming smartphone games. However, analysts told Reuters that Nintendo is likely to make around 70 percent of all proceeds. The first DeNA-Nintendo mobile game will be released later this year. Nintendo has not announced any projects so far, but has pledged it won't simply port its console games to smartdevices. The company is also considering a range of business models, including free-to-play, which Nintendo president Satoru Iwata actually calls free-to-start. Nintendo's big move into the smartphone market has been received positively by investors, as shares of the company skyrocketed by more than 30 percent. The company also announced that it had started work on a new system, known internally as the "NX." This system, which Nintendo says it won't start talking about officially until 2016, aims to surprise and innovate. For more on Nintendo's smartphone plans, be sure to read GameSpot's editor opinion roundup on the subject. We're expecting even more Nintendo news during tonight's Nintendo Direct briefing, which starts at 3 PM PDT / 6 PM EDT. Check back then for all the news as it happens.
By Anonymous on Apr 01, 2015 08:38 pm
Driveclub developer Evolution Studios is celebrating April Fools' Day with free DLC. Available now in the PlayStation 4 racing game is a special Wombat Typhoon buggy from the developer's other major racing series, MotorStorm.  "It's April 1st; drive like a fool in Driveclub," Evolution wrote on Twitter. Watch the trailer above to see the new vehicle in action. In other Driveclub news, the free PlayStation Plus version of Driveclub has not been canceled, but it's still without a solid release date. Recently, Evolution suffered potentially massive layoffs. For more April Fools' Day content, check out GameSpot's roundup of video game-themed gaming pranks here.
By Anonymous on Apr 01, 2015 08:18 pm
The PlayStation 4 edition of upcoming action game Batman: Arkham Knight, the conclusion of Rocksteady's Arkham trilogy, will run in native 1080p. That's according to the game's PlayStation Store product page.  This is not much of a surprise, as images and gameplay videos we've seen so far have looked gorgeous. The Xbox One edition's resolution, however, remains unconfirmed. We've reached out to Warner Bros. for clarification. Meanwhile, the system requirements for the PC version of the Caped Crusader game have not yet been announced. For more on Rocksteady's thoughts regarding graphics for Arkham Knight, check out GameSpot's interview with the team. In other recent Arkham Knight news, Sony just yesterday announced a new PS4 bundle themed around the game. Included in the $450 package is a steel-grey PS4 console featuring a Batman faceplate. Sony will also offer a $400 Arkham Knight bundle that comes with a standard, jet-black PS4. After its latest delay, Arkham Knight is now due to launch on June 23.                        
By Anonymous on Apr 01, 2015 07:48 pm
 More PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, and PlayStation Vita games are on sale this week as part of Sony's "Spring Fever" promotion, which now enters its fifth week.  The eight-week Spring Fever event spotlights "unique" games, with Sony releasing a new PlayStation game every week through April 21. Last week's new release was Metal Slug 3, while this week's is the Metroid-style Axiom Verge ($20). The game is available now on PS4, with the PS Vita edition to come later featuring Cross-Buy support. In addition, Sony has marked down numerous Warner Bros. games, including a handful of Batman titles and more. A variety of Batman movies are also on sale this week. All deals are good through April 6, and PlayStation Plus members can save 10 percent. The full list of Spring Fever deals are listed below. Don't see anything you like? Check back next week (and the two weeks after that) to see even more Spring Fever deals when they're announced. Looking for more deals? April's free PlayStation Plus games have also been announced; they go on sale next week. SPOTLIGHT SALE: Release Date
(Launch Week) | Title
(Platform) | PS Plus Launch Week Price | Regular Price | 3/31
(3/31 through 4/6) | Axiom Verge
(PS4) | $17.99 | $19.99 |
GAMES: [More here] MOVIES: | Title | SD Original Price | SD Sale Price | HD Original Price | HD Sale Price | | Batman & Robin | $9.99 | $6.99 | $12.99 | $8.99 | | Batman 1989 | $9.99 | $6.99 | $12.99 | $8.99 | | Batman Forever | $9.99 | $6.99 | $12.99 | $8.99 | | Batman Gotham Knight DTV 2006 | $9.99 | $8.99 | $17.99 | $12.99 | | Batman Returns | $9.99 | $6.99 | $12.99 | $8.99 | | Batman Year One Animation DTV | $9.99 | $8.99 | $17.99 | $12.99 | | Batman: The Dark Knight Returns: Deluxe Edition | NA | $8.99 | $17.99 | $12.99 | | DCU: Son of Batman | $14.99 | $12.99 | $19.99 | $16.99 | | Green Lantern First Flight DTV | $9.99 | $8.99 | $17.99 | $12.99 | Green Lantern: Emerald Knights –
DTV Development | $9.99 | $8.99 | $17.99 | $12.99 | | JLA Doom DTV Development | $9.99 | $8.99 | $17.99 | $12.99 | | Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox | $9.99 | NA | $17.99 | $15.99 | | Justice League: War DTV | $14.99 | $12.99 | $19.99 | $16.99 | | Superman Doomsday 2007 | $9.99 | $8.99 | $17.99 | $12.99 | Superman vs. The Elite
DTV Development | $9.99 | $8.99 | $17.99 | $12.99 | | Superman-Batman Apocalypse | $9.99 | $8.99 | $17.99 | $12.99 | | Superman-Batman Public Enemies DTV | $9.99 | $8.99 | $17.99 | $12.99 |
[More here]
By Anonymous on Apr 01, 2015 10:03 am
After years of constant warfare, my orcish hordes were on the precipice of victory. Countless nations fell beneath the tread of their boots as they subjugated all manner of fantastical races. In their quest to conquer the unhallowed--an evil empire of the dead--the orcs had brought every mountain and every shore under their control. They had harvested every crop, mined every ore, and collected every artifact they found on their campaign. Yet, something was missing: despite being at the height of their power, these orcs had become wracked with boredom Despite the fantastical premise, Worlds of Magic commits too many cardinal sins to count. As a game of fanciful wizards and creatures, you'd expect it to be vibrant and alluring. Instead, its landscapes wholly lack imagination. The excitement of battle is ground to excruciating tedium, buried under mindless tasks and micromanagement. Worlds of Magic can't even claim a decent feeling of progression or power escalation--a key piece of any proper 4X strategy game--to drive engagement. The result is a tepid mélange of half-baked ideas and pointless hindrances. These soldiers are literally fighting on tar.Worlds of Magic begins, as these affairs so often do, with you selecting a civilization to lead to victory. The choices seem diverse enough. Standard humans, elves, orcs, and dwarves are there, as well as dragon people, insects, and the undead legions. The potential breadth of play styles should be a great platform upon which to build a game, but here it just isn't. Except for the unhallowed, none of these races has anything unique about how it plays. No matter whom you pick, the similarities are too obvious, slashing potential replayability and depth. After picking your race, you select a sorcerer lord to lead your armies. You may choose a pre-built one with specialized traits, or you can create your own and customize him a bit, though either way, your choices lack impact or import. I, for example, chose as my first leader R'jak, a powerful lich. By his description, he should be a powerful undead monstrosity with an abject hatred for everything living. In play, he's like any other leader, custom or not: He has a few spells that do a little damage, and a few more with minor utility. The problem here is twofold. Firstly, leader choice is disconnected from race selection, so it's weird but possible to have an army of normal humans led by an undead warlock. Secondly, many of the sorcerer lords have plenty of overlapping spells, again diminishing the effect of picking any one for his specific powers or abilities and robbing him of any uniqueness. Instead of playing the strengths of the undead against R'jak, they each need to be able to function independently for the sake of balance. That leaves either choice without any personality of its own. Most of your time with Worlds of Magic is spent managing resources, building up your armies, and conquering. In an ideal world, these separate systems would work together to create new opportunities for players to flex their tactical muscles. At every conceivable turn, however, Worlds of Magic finds a way to strip every intricate layer strategy game designers have implemented over decades' worth of genre evolution. Because even on a world of sand, we need oceans… made out of sand.Cities are at the heart of Worlds of Magic. They are your only means of border expansion, production, and resource generation. Cities are also the source of most of the problems. In a normal 4X game, cities are somewhat malleable. You found them, build a few structures or improvements nearby, and tailor them to what you need at any given point. Worlds of Magic doesn't permit such flexibility, however. You still found cities wherever you please, but their borders never expand, you can't construct any tile improvements, and you can't micromanage any piece of them beyond how many citizens are dedicated to food, production, or research. City buildings also follow a complex unlock tree that require you to build too many structures that don't relate to your chosen focus. It is feasible, for example, to build a city near a rare resource and then push a city towards economic output. Doing so, however, requires that you build structures that offer no benefit beyond unlocking buildings that you need, making them effective dead weight. This also only serves to highlight another of the game's fundamental flaws: There's no associated cost with having dozens or even hundreds of settlements. Your citizens build up a degree of unhappiness, but it's a local issue and not tied into a single global resource, like happiness, that you need to manage. Moreover, if you don't maintain positive food and gold income at all times, your units begin to disband and your buildings are decommissioned. Since cities usually generate positive income, and since the number of municipalities you control is your sole production cap, the whole system forms a disastrous feedback loop. You build more cities so you can build more settlers so you can build more cities. In each of those new towns, you erect the same buildings and manage them in the same way. This is one of the only consistently viable ways to win, but it also means burdening yourself with tons of repetitive work wholly devoid of actual strategizing. I found myself wanting to quit games not because I didn't have the ability to win, but because it had become a chore to manage it all. What's worse is that tedious management is so critical in the early game, it was common for me to skip 50 turns or more just waiting for my population to build up. That's not OK: It's grinding without any tangible reward. Most turns should somehow require your attention so that you are engaged and invested. Tellingly, I made a macro to auto-skip turns while I walked off to go make myself dinner. And again, I stress this is the most successful strategy in Worlds of Magic, by far. The other main option is to build units and construct buildings early on, but the upkeep cripples your resource production, making you decommission units you just ordered. The whole thing is an absolute mess. After a while, the game just starts naming cities "ORCS1," "ORCS2," etc.In what must have been an attempt to make these worlds seem denser and more interesting, the land is dotted with swarms of high-level monsters. They don't spew forth and attack you, but they're intended to be among the first things you find on any given map. They often have valuable treasure or can net you a powerful monster of your own. Because they are so well-guarded, you can't do anything with them until the mid-to-late game, so they sit there, taking up space. Your only other opponents are AI-controlled races and countries. Given that there are at most seven of them scattered across several planes which, in turn, can only be accessed via special portals containing the same high-level monsters, there's nothing to do in the early game. Over time, your units get stronger and you get better, but for that to be satisfying, you need an idea of your early limitations. Worlds of Magic trades that for a mad rush to the late game so you can do anything of note, and problematically, those late-game units need more gold and food for upkeep, reinforcing the city grind. An alleged selling point of Worlds of Magic is its tactical battle system. Should two opposing units meet, you jump into a turn-based tactical mode to maneuver your troops around. Battles are functional, but together, the tactical system and strategic one kill Worlds of Magic's pace. It's nice to defend a city against an attack with only a handful of troops and some clever positioning, but tactical battles require you to take five or ten minutes away from a game already bogged down by the worst kind of micromanagement. There is an auto-resolve feature that helps with the monotony, but it does a poor job of actually mimicking the results you would expect to see should you manage these battles on your own. In my testing, I found that even when I had many more units of ranks far higher than my enemy's, I would often inexplicably lose fights. Granted, choosing auto-resolve means playing the percentages, but when two basic enemy soldiers defeat five or ten veterans, there's a problem. Worlds of Magic doesn't just have issues with its strategy mechanics, either. It suffers from an array of bugs, glitches, and crashes, and its frequent texture pop-in makes it an absolute eyesore. During some of the tactical sections, maps fail to load entirely. On at least four occasions, my computer locked up and I had to restart the machine. Countless tiny bugs can also cause certain attacks to miss, actions to not work, and the user interface to become completely unresponsive. Sometimes, the map won't even load in. I could forgive some, though not all, of these issues if Worlds of Magic had something intriguing to show. Part of the appeal of fantasy worlds and settings is that they show you the special, the unreal. Worlds of Magic only ever offers the mundane. In Worlds of Magic, there are several magical races strewn across disparate worlds, each with its own governing element. The leaders of these races are powerful wizards that bring world-buckling sorts of magic to bear on their foes. These sorcerers are a force unto themselves, and they dominate everything. The premise plants the proper seeds for an enchanting adventure, but Worlds of Magic doesn't cultivate them. As one of these grand wizards, your spells are feeble at best, and every plane--no matter the element--features similar mountains, oceans, and other topological features. Yes, the shadow plane uses tar pits instead of water, but that's nothing more than a palette swap. In contrast, Warlock and Warlock 2 have the same structure and purpose as Worlds of Magic, but they are executed with far more skill. Warlock's plane of life has tiles that heal you and weaken the undead. The plane of fire has dozens of volcanoes and lava that have real effects on how you play. Your spells, too, can reshape vast swaths of land, raising valleys or wiping away mountains. In that series, there exists a sense of agency that unfolds as you explore the bizarre settings. Worlds of Magic has none of that mystery. Its fantasy world is undercut by bland artistic direction and a lack of conviction. Choices about your leader and civilization that should matter lack weight in favor of same-ish armies and leaders that blend together. Grand-scale strategy that should make any player feel powerful, or at the least clever, gives way to the dullest slog. Worlds of Magic tries to mimic the cleverness of its superiors, but reaches far beyond its ability to perform.
Recent Articles:
|
No comments:
Post a Comment