International Game News

Star Wars: Battlefront, It’s back, looking more powerful than you could possibly imagine...

2015-05-28T04:29:00.000-07:00

Star Wars has returned. Spirits dampened by the prequels have been re-ignited by the new hope of a JJ Abrams-helmed, George Lucas-free trilogy, and Jar Jar Binks will soon be nothing more than a fading memory. What better way to celebrate than with a shiny reboot of classic multiplayer shooter series Battlefront?

Created by Battlefield developer DICE, the game will allow you step into the shoes of either the freedom fighters of the Republic or the Stormtroopers of the Empire and fight it out in online scraps of up to 40 players. The focus is on the planets, vehicles, characters and spaceships of the original trilogy, and the team have entered into a partnership with LucasFilm to make sure things are as faithful to the movies as possible.

Access to the hallowed LucasFilm vaults has allowed them to digitally scan the original props for the film into the game, and they’ve made trips to the locations where the iconic battles of Hoth, Endor and Tatooine were filmed. They’ve even had a rummage in the archives at Skywalker Sound and dug out every classic peeeeowww and vwwoooosh noise they could find. “Our vision is to deliver what we consider the most authentic and realistic Star Wars universe ever created for a videogame,” enthuses design director Niklas Fegraeus. ‘Realistic’ might be a bit of a stretch when you’ve got space wizards running around with laser swords, but we appreciate the attempt.

The latest footage certainly seems to back up DICE’s claims. It’s in-engine rather than truly in-game, so we would suggest taking it with enough pinches of salt to fill a Rancor pit, but it really does look like the original films. Blaster fire hits with a shower of pyrotechnic sparks, explosions send up startlingly spot-on plumes of smoke, and the spindly scout walker has the perfect herky-jerky, stop motion-style walk. It all ties nicely into Abrams’ new back-to-basics approach to the franchise DICE is trying to get as close as it can get to recreating the various practical effects and other old-school movie magic in-game.

You’ll be able to pilot that walker yourself, too, along with speeder bikes, snow speeders, and loads of other iconic Star Wars vehicles. There’s no space combat, but players will still be able to hop into an X-Wing or a TIE Fighter for in-atmosphere dogfights, and the developers have even confirmed a pilotable Millennium Falcon. The towering AT-AT walkers are, unfortunately, AI-controlled, as are the Y-Wing bombers, which can be called in for a handy explosive air strike.

In Vader
Gamers will even be able to get into the cockpit of… err… Darth Vader’s head. After meeting certain yet-to-be-revealed criteria in a match, one lucky player will be able to temporarily become one of the heroes or villains of the franchise, including everyone’s favourite bounty hunter Boba Fett, and Mr Tall, Dark & Wheezy himself. When one of these characters hits the field, the focus of the battle shifts with their super-powerful abilities (Vader, for example, can deflect blaster fire with ease,
and use his favourite employee-management tool, the force choke) they’re effectively boss encounters, and the enemy team will have to pull together to defeat them.

“Players Will be able to hop into an X-Wing or a tie fighter for in-atmosphere dogfights”

At least if you do find yourself face-to-face with the dark lord of the Sith you’ll have a buddy to back you up. The game’s partner system allows you to designate a friend as your online other half, meaning you can respawn at each other’s locations. Partners also share XP and unlocks, so you’re always on equal footing, even if one of you clocks in more game time than the other. According to the developer, this will, for example, make it easier for parents to play the game with their kids. It’s a nice idea, but we’re not sure if we’re ready to introduce our mums to online voice chat just yet.

Fett pack
Those unlocks will be the key to customising your character, as this entry ditches the classes of the original games. Instead you’ll be able to pick the weapons and gadgets you want in your loadout, effectively building your own class and tailoring it to exactly how you want to play. There’ll be plenty of toys to choose from, including a jetpack, and a portable force field generator for keeping your squad-mates safe.

Your character’s gender and overall style will be up to you too, and you’ll even be able to play alien races including Sullustans and Ishi Tibs (don’t recognise those off the top of your head? And you call yourself a fan?!). With the ability to switch between first- and third-person perspective at any time in-game, you’ll be able to admire your look even in the heat of battle though your team mates will
probably prefer you concentrate on firing your blaster. And yes, it’s official, for the first time ever there will be female Stormtroopers, though whether we’ll be able to tell under those helmets is anyone’s guess.

The game unfortunately won’t feature a single-player campaign, with its only solo content being a series of custom missions set on the multiplayer maps. These will also be playable in co-op, split-screen, or online. It’s understandable that the developer wouldn’t see any new stories to tell in this well-worn era of the franchise, but it seems a strange omission given that Battlefield’s single-player offerings have only grown in recent years. They’ll need to make sure there’s plenty of content in the
multiplayer to make up for it.

Colour us tentatively excited. DICE has the right attitude, but the studio’s got a lot to prove after the near-disaster that was Battlefield 4’s array of technical problems. We’re certainly ready for a great new Star Wars game to go with Abrams’ film. How likely is it to look as good as that amazing trailer? Hey, never tell us the odds…

Galactic battlegrounds
The four planets you’ll be fighting over

Tatooine
Thankfully there’s not a pod race or precocious child prodigy to be seen. We did spot a Jawa Sandcrawler in the distance those scavenging scamps have probably turned up to loot the bodies.

Sullust
This lava planet is where the Empire makes its weapons and vehicles, including the AT-ATs. It was mentioned in the films, but never seen, and DICE has been given permission to flesh it out to its own liking.

Endor
The Ewoks’ villages could provide good verticality to the maps; important with jetpacks on offer. You can even see some of the furry killers running around in the background in the announcement trailer.

Hoth
Here in the office we’re keen on the idea of riding a noble Tauntaun into battle. On chilly maps like these you may need one - in a pinch, those lovely, steaming guts are warmer than any winter coat.

Overwatch: Preview

2015-05-28T04:17:00.000-07:00

There is no deathmatch in Overwatch. Let that sink in for a moment. Here’s a first-person shooter wherein simply offing your opposite numbers for the duration of a match and then seeing at the end if your team has won or lost just won’t cut it. When you pick a hero or villain to participate in any of the game modes (of which currently two have been revealed), you’re very patently playing as part of a coordinated group. Blizzard’s aim is to drag your concerns away from your own kill/death ratio and focus them onto your co-players, to the point where the go-to game mode included in almost every multiplayer first-person shooter going is not only totally surplus to requirements, it would be actively detrimental to the game’s philosophy.

It all sounds very Team Fortress 2, doesn’t it? But, for Blizzard, pushing on from Valve’s long-running, one-of-a-kind team-based shooter and ushering in a new benchmark for the genre means throwing in the added spice of a huge roster of deeply varied characters and their intertwining abilities. Oh, and painting the whole shebang in more colour and verve than you’d find if Pixar were air-dropped in to sort out the costumes for the Rio Carnival.

“I would say there are two main things that sum up Overwatch,” says Jeff Kaplan, the game’s director. “One is the absolute focus on epic heroes that you love as characters. Heroes that have the coolest, craziest abilities that you never thought you would see in an FPS before.” You can judge for yourself over the next few pages as to whether or not Blizzard is succeeding in this regard (spoiler: it is).

“The second part,” continues Kaplan, “is an emphasis on team play. It’s not just about you going out and looking at the scoreboard to see if you’re at the top of it. We really want the focus to be: did our team win? Did we collaborate and achieve the objectives?”

“Heroes that have the coolest, craziest abilities that you never thought you’d see in an fps”

Trace’s High
The first of those two aforementioned game modes, Payload, sees attacking and defending teams battle over its titular mobile objective. Point Capture, meanwhile, is about taking or retaining critical locations across each map. These modes, as well as the maps themselves, are designed to inspire unique approaches depending on the characters each team rolls out with. In fact, when building the stages, Blizzard tests them constantly, running through them with each and every hero to ensure they contain satisfying traversal routes regardless of if you can jetpack, teleport, or, uh, gorilla-charge about.

Back to those character ability combos, though. One example of an inspired tactical approach, which Blizzard playfully dubs “the killdozer,” sees Swedish, turret-building bearded chap Torbjörn activate his Molten Core ultimate ability, encompassing him in a lava-tinted suit of protective armour. He then leaps down to quickly build a turret atop the mobile payload objective and leaps out again. With this done, the tank character Winston lobs a Shield Projector down, ensuring the turret is protected
from incoming fire by an arcing neon bubble as it travels towards its objective, obliterating any enemies it meets along the way.

Some perspective: this is a cross-character combination thrown up with just the two players acting together. With 14 characters announced so far, and more to come, each boasting four or five unique skills, there’s a startling number of ability combinations to consider, and as such a mountain of depth for you to mine.

Move Over Moba
This blending of co-operative skill combinations might sound familiar to veterans of MOBAs such as Dota 2 or League Of Legends, but Overwatch is set to follow Blizzard’s other attempts to open up traditionally hardcore genres to wider audiences. Much like Hearthstone did for the collectible card game and Heroes Of The Storm is currently doing in open beta form for the no-longer-humble MOBA, Overwatch is about taking the groundwork laid down by the likes of TF2 and opening the whole thing up like a rocket-hammer to a piñata full of other rocket-hammers. In fact, this focus on accessibility is an area which the team is constantly feeding back to itself on.

“One of the things that we learned is that we have to do a better job of educating people about team composition; that it matters. They [the players] get that it’s a team game. Now we need to do a better job of making it easy to play and communicate with your team, so that’s informed a lot of our decision making.”

Most importantly, Overwatch wants to make sure there’s a character and a combination of skills that will resonate with everyone, regardless of how good they might be at first-person shooting. “For us, it has nothing to do with player skill,” says Kaplan. “Players from all skill levels need an approachability ramp into the game. Even the hardest of the hardcore player needs some level of approachability.”

This inclusiveness spreads outward into the visual design of the characters, too. You don’t have to look hard to espy heroes from minority backgrounds and ethnicities you’ve not seen represented in gaming’s triple-A halls before.The game’s array of body sizes and shapes plants sticky explosives to the backsides of your tired, stereotypically white beefcake shooter protagonists.

Zen At Work
According to Kaplan there is no one approach when it comes to putting these characters together; ideas can spring from concept art, narrative writing, or a gameplay idea too good to not chase down.

“We have people like Arnold [Tsang, Overwatch’s lead concept artist] he draws some of the characters and it just blows us away. Sometimes he’ll draw a character and we will just say, ‘That has to be a hero. We don’t know what it’s going to do yet, but we’ll figure it out.’”

Take Tracer. The teleporting tearaway with spiky hair and a cockney cheek to her was the first character in the roster to be developed. “It all started with Tracer,” Kaplan reminisces. “She started off [as] a hero with a short-range teleport, that was the core design concept. Recall [an ability allowing her to travel back in time to restore health, ammo and position] came later, and Pulse Bomb [a time-delayed sticky explosive with a high-damage blast radius] came later still. And then the fact that she was Tracer, this time travelling former RAF pilot who’d gotten caught in a chronal rift. And then came Arnold’s beautiful character design.”

With Zenyatta, Overwatch’s debuffing-focused character, the whole foundation of his design sprung from a minor scribble in an initial internal design doc.

“Zenyatta was actually designed by [lead system designer] Scott Mercer; he was one of the guys who designed a ton of the Raid encounters on World Of Warcraft. And in his design doc he sort of mentioned in, like, a footnote: ‘Oh yeah, by the way, he’s a cybernetic monk.’ And then Arnold and Chris Metzen [Blizzard’s senior vice president] just really latched onto that concept and created who I think is one of our strongest heroes.”

The story of the game takes place about 30 years in the future, after a robotic rebellion has almost caused the collapse of humanity. To combat the rise of the Omnix robot race, the world’s best fighters banded together to form the peacekeeping Overwatch organisation of the game’s title. After their robotic foes were successfully defeated and time passed, however, the ties that bound them together began to fray...

Winston
The moon is inhabited by intelligent gorillas. No, really. Winston was a part of the Horizon Lunar Colony’s genetically-modified gorilla population, intended to test how shacking up in space for longer periods of time affected living habits. It all got a bit, uh, hairy, though, when the other gorillas staged an uprising, killing all the scientists, including Winston’s namesake mentor. He escaped and joined Overwatch.

Mccree
While trafficking arms on the wrong side of the law, Jesse McCree was captured by Overwatch as part of a sting. Seeing how useful he and his Peacekeeper revolver could be in a scrap, they gave him a choice: either kick his heels in prison, or join up with their shadowy Blackwatch covert arm. When Blackwatch turned bad, a reformed McCree took off by himself to become a gun-for-hire.

???
This mysterious cyborg ninja has so far only appeared in promotional artwork no-one knows his (or her?) name yet. Kaplan teases, “We’ve tried to do a good job at dropping some hints of things to look forward to. We were very deliberate in the fact that there were a couple of heroes there that we’ve never really talked about. We leave those out there as something for everybody to think about”.

Mercy
After losing her parents to war, brilliant surgeon Angela Ziegler became an advocate for world peace. While she came to loggerheads with Overwatch’s leaders due to their occasionally violent approach, Angela eventually developed her Valkyrie swift-response suit. When the organisation disbanded, she left to help those affected by crises around the globe, but still steps into her suit when she needs to.

Reinhardt
Encased in his Crusader armour, Reinhardt Wilhelm became known as a staunch and vocal champion for good. Adopting a code of honour similar to that of a knight of old, Reinhardt holds valour, justice and courage in the highest esteem. After being forced to retire, and then watch as the heroic force he once held dear capitulated, Reinhardt, now aged 61, has donned his armour again to defend the innocent.

Torbjörn
Weapons engineer Torbjorn Lindholm was often described by peers as paranoid for his deep distrust of intelligent robots. Overwatch looked to him and his weapons systems when said bots turned on their human masters. He and his creations proved essential to maintaining peace, but many of them fell into the wrong hands. Now he travels the world determined to prevent them from harming the innocent.

Tracer
After an experimental Overwatch flight program went wrong, former RAF pilot Lena Oxton, call sign Tracer, was left decoupled from time, disappearing uncontrollably for hours and days at a clip. She was saved by gorilla-in-arms Winston, who invented a clever device that keeps her anchored to the present and as a lovely bonus, allows her to manipulate the time-stream as she joins the good fight.

It can’t be a coincidence, right? That this studio, which once upon a time earned its keep putting together The Lost Vikings and Amiga ports, is now one of the few development behemoths in the world with nary a blemish on its back-catalogue. As Blizzard dances through action-RPGs by way of MOBAs and MMOs, however, it doesn’t explicitly look for a gaming hole that needs filling. The truth, according to 13-year studio veteran and game director Jeff Kaplan, is much more palatable.

“I would say the conscious effort is not [that] we want to tackle as many new genres as possible,” he says. “Rather than analysing the market and asking what are popular genres, or where do we see a big opportunity in terms of capturing market share… That’s just not how we work. The way that we’ve enjoyed success in the past is, as a company, we’re super passionate about a certain game type and just want to make a game in that genre. That’s what happened with World Of Warcraft, that’s exactly what happened with Heroes Of The Storm, Hearthstone and Overwatch. It was because we had a passion for other games that we loved, that led us to venture out into those genres.”

The path to Overwatch was not so smooth, however. It was born from the ashes of Blizzard’s attempt to craft another MMO in the wake of World Of Warcraft. But “it just wasn’t coming together as a game,” reflects Kaplan, who spent five years of his life working on this ill-fated project. Titan, as the mysterious MMO was called internally, inspired the team with “high expectations for what we wanted to do.” But the welcome burden of Warcraft’s incredible success proved too great.

“In a post-World Of Warcraft world, how do we make another great MMO? We let the expectations overwhelm us and overwhelm the project. At a certain point you just realise things aren’t coming together.” Even after so much time and money had been spent on Titan, they knew they had to pull the plug. That type of leadership, being able to kill something when you just know it’s not working, rather than forcing it out of the door, has sort of defined Blizzard over the years.”

“In a post-world of warcraft world, how do we make another Great mmo? the expectations overwhelmed us ”

What remains of Titan in Overwatch, though? Aside from the fact that it was to be set in a similar sci-fi world, Kaplan tactfully dodges this direct question, revealing instead how the development squad actively looked to all of the other teams and projects in the studio’s 4,000 person strong army of talent.

MMO Woe
“There’s definitely influence from Titan in the game… but when you have a broad reach of games behind you, you tend to pull from all of them in some ways. A lot of our environmental and world design influence comes from World Of Warcraft. The bright colours, you know nothing’s dark and dreary. We definitely look at the previous experience on other projects as a strength that we can leverage,” he adds. “We should be talking to each other and learning from mistakes so we don’t repeat them.”

Two successes in Blizzard’s back catalogue immediately spring to mind: Hearthstone’s free-to-play experiment coming good, and Diablo III’s console edition on PS4 and Xbox One. We put both of these before Kaplan, and ask if Overwatch will learn from them.

“We’re still working out the entire business model,” he says. “And as part of that, we’ll be looking into other platforms. Obviously we want our games to reach as many people as possible. You want to engage the community [on] any level that you can. But right now the only platform that we’ve announced is PC.”

You can read as much between the lines there as us. One thing we do know for sure: whatever it’s released on, Overwatch looks ready to follow in the footsteps of its raft of illustrious predecessors. Roll on the autumn beta…

Where next for GTA V’s single player DLC?

2015-05-28T03:52:00.000-07:00

We’re creeping up on the two-year anniversary since Rockstar Games launched GTA V on PS3 and Xbox 360. In the meantime we’ve had shiny new PS4, Xbox One and PC versions, and a glut of improvements to the Online side of things, including the epic co-op heists. But details of an expansion to the single-player game are rarer than a reasoned Trevor Phillips thought. By completing GTA V a bunch of times, combing Southern San Andreas for clues, we’re taking a stab at what that DLC will eventually entail.

The story of Antonia bottino
You rescue Antonia from two hillbillies who are about to bury her alive in a random event. She then spills information that may lead to a new storyline. Her papa, Sonny, is a member of the Gambetti family from GTA IV. They’re in los Santos under witness protection, but it appears they’ve been found. Cue potential drama for the Bottinos.

Grove street families rise up
We’re surprised by how little attention the GSF get. Franklin’s a member, but his eyes are firmly on the loot with Michael rather than the spats with the Ballas. However, there’s bad blood between the crews, and with lamar always one step from trouble, an old-school turf war would work. A reappearance of San Andreas’ CJ would bring lapsed players back in their droves.

Merryweather’s revenge
Donald Percival is a powerful man. He’s also not someone to mess with. Percival says this in a text message he sends to Trevor, Michael and Franklin, with an aggressive reminder not to cross him again. He knows who the trio are, so how long will it be before he decides to come back at them with hell’s fury? Percival and Merryweather would be a great new enemy to overcome.

Ferdinand kerimov returns
Ferdinand Kerimov is shocked, waterboarded, and has a tooth ripped from his jaw by the ever-manic Trevor Phillips. But despite being dropped off at the airport and told to get away from San Andreas, it looks like he decides against it. Instead of going toward departures, he stumbles down steps in the opposite direction. Kerimov could return with an Azeri crew to seek revenge.

Mrs phillips
Trevor’s mysterious moment with his estranged mother does two things. Firstly, it proves why Trev is unhinged as her abuse turns him into a quivering wreck. Secondly, the brief cameo and subsequent disappearance has us wondering if she’s ever going to return for that van full of Deludamol. Or is his mother a figment of his imagination? It’s a loose end we’d like tied up.

Alien invasion
There has to be a logical conclusion to all the alien appearances throughout GTA V. If they’re not found trapped under the ice, they’re abducting Michael in their uFOs. Rockstar could just be throwing us a curveball, but with a Horde mode being one of the most requested features from fans, aliens might just might land. GTA V: Independence Day DlC, anyone?

Casino heist
The casino in los Santos is currently closed, but it’s almost certain to open soon. It’s perfect for an Ocean’s Eleven-esque robbery, and fits the bill of a location that Rockstar likes to showcase their heists. It’s a matter of when, not if, it will become active. you can be guaranteed that as soon as it does we’ll have new gambling minigames. The crew are definitely sticking up this place.

San Andreas Comeback Tour
Just thinking of a whole new area to play around in sets off a fizz in our bellies. The idea of going back to GTA: San Andreas locations such as San Fierro (San Francisco) and las Venturas (las Vegas) is almost too exciting to contemplate. One thing is certain: Rockstar wants the campaign DlC to be a momentous occasion. Two fat packs containing these areas would fit this mould.

Total War: Warhammer looks set to be a fantasy fulfilled

2015-05-28T03:41:00.001-07:00

We haven’t yet seen a single second of in-game footage of Creative Assembly’s next project, and it doesn’t matter. If you spend your evenings hunched over miniatures, carefully drybrushing chainmail, or if you just love fantasy battles on an epic scale, there’s something here for you.

In terms of factions, details are scant. We know that the Empire of Man is in; for the unfamiliar, they’re the strongest human nation in the Old World, based on the historic Holy Roman Empire. There’ll be Greenskins senseless hordes of brutal orcs and sneaky goblins. Of course, it wouldn’t be a Warhammer game without beardy, grudge-bearing dwarves, who maintain a desperate hold on their mountain fortresses. Also confirmed are the Vampire Counts; an undead army of skeletons and zombies bound in lifeless servitude by charismatic, powerful vampires such as Mannfred von Carstein. Finally, there are whispers of “winds from the north”; this is Warhammer-speak for ‘Chaos is coming, prepare to get dead.’

“Colossal real-time battles and an addiCtive, turn-based sandbox Campaign”

We’re promised “a unique combination of colossal real-time battles and an addictive, turn-based sandbox campaign game of statecraft, politics and empire building.” If this means maintaining Total War’s elegant, established systems but adding dragons, that’s fine by us. And if you’re looking at that line-up and lamenting the lack of Elves, fear not: a trilogy of games is planned, and more stuff will be added in standalone instalments and content packs. That just leaves one question: why not ‘Total Warhammer’?

Vertiginous Golf: Review

2015-05-27T03:38:00.000-07:00

Veterans of other golf games will find something new when stepping up to the green; the game plays more like 3D snooker, emphasising trick shots and precision to land home without accumulating a stratospheric high score.

The game starts off on the cobblestone streets of a dark, rainy town. The only place to go is inside what looks like a barbershop, but as you step inside and see a combination of TV screens, posters, and padded chairs lining around you, it’s clearly anything but. Enter Vertiginous Golf, a game that takes you off the streets and into the sunny skies. You play as a golf-club of your choosing, moving a lightning filled golf-ball, and navigating the course, if you so wish, through the eyes of a robotic hummingbird.

The courses, as a whole, are hugely reminiscent of Bioshock: Infinite. The game eschews traditional courses entirely, playing on lumpy, sky-high grounds covered with spinning propellers, conveyer belts, and sweeping walls. While it only gives you a putter and a wedge, these tools are all you’ll need. It’s post-modern mini-golf.

The interface is minimal, displaying two meters, one for stroke power, another for the amount of energy you have. Energy is built up through each swing, and is used to rewind, or to influence the movement of the ball on a surface through the ‘influenza bug’, a firefly on the ball.

Playing Vertiginous Golf is an eclectic mix of aggravation and relaxation; the soundtrack is plaintive and soothing, at first, but after a while it sinks into the background like so much elevator muzak. The courses are thrilling to beat, but sadistically designed segments are painful to play. There are conveyer belts and ramps that lead your ball to nowhere, propellers which threaten to blow you off course, and limitations like using only the putter on the green.

Trying to tap a golf ball into a hole will make you feel less like Tiger, and more like Sandler

Putting is usually easy, but swinging can be unintuitive with the game turning the tiniest mouse-pushes into giant swings. Trying to tap a golf ball into a hole will make you feel less like Tiger, and more like Sandler. While the influenza bug can influence a shot, it often runs out of steam before it can really do anything. Most disappointingly, it’s nigh-impossible to hook a shot, making you rely more on ricochets and deflections.

The game also lacks a story, its multiplayer is currently non-existent, and none of the touted customization was seen in our many hours running through. It would do well with map editors and modding features. Does it need these? No, but it would be a better game for it, and would likely attract more attention to its fields.

Though run through with these shortcomings, Vertiginous Golf is a fun enough game, with a charming atmosphere, derivative but intriguing style and an interesting new take on min-golf style puzzling. A few more straightforward greens would have been appreciated as a lead in to the deeper puzzling, but otherwise it’s an interesting and fun stab at PC golf.

7/10

A Pixel Story: Review

2015-05-27T03:31:00.003-07:00

It’s pretty safe to say that PC indie gaming is currently in the grip of a serious nostalgia boom, with every second game released seeming to opt for 8 or 16 bit graphics, old fashioned platforming mechanics or something of the like. A Pixel Story stands out from the pack of nostalgia based games not so much for being original but for the sheer scope of the nostalgia packed into the 2D platformer. Rather than paying spiritual tribute to one game or style, A Pixel Story instead mines everything for reference, and a keen eyed observes can spot nods towards hundreds of games and movies if they’re paying attention.

Players take the role of the Pong pixel, anthropomorphized into a Rayman like sprite. It is the “Chosen One” destined to defend the system against the “Operator” and other things inspired by TRON. To defeat the Operator, the Chosen One must make its way through the four ages of gaming, starting as a simple sprite and working its way up to the shiny modern age. In addition to the ability to jump, the Chosen One has another tool at its disposal a very Mario-esque red hat with magical teleporting powers. The hat can be dropped anywhere in a level and the Chosen One can teleport to its location at the touch of a button. This location transfer ability is essential for solving the many rather fiendish puzzles that make up the core challenge of the game.

A keen eyed observes canspot nods towards hundreds of games and movies

Working out how exactly to combine the hat with regular platforming is simultaneously thrilling and hugely frustrating, as many puzzles not only require hugely precise movement but split second timing as well. Simple puzzles might see the player having to leave the hat at the highest point of a moving
platform so they can then teleport to a platform above it when it drops low enough that the hat sits above it, but later puzzles see the hat being used as a quick way of getting between switches that need to be activated near simultaneously and even then only give a few seconds to complete the task at hand. It’s these later puzzles that serve as a frustration rather than making the game more mechanically complex as the stages and thematic ages of gaming progress thee puzzles simply get harder, and not necessarily in a good way. Adding more variables to a puzzle is good, but simply making the timing more precise just renders it annoying.

Frustrations aside, there’s still a lot to like about A Pixel Story. The sheer weight of the nostalgia mined for reference is all but guaranteed to unearth fond memories in anyone who has played a game in the last 30 years, and the numerous characters met throughout the game are well written and often quite funny. It’s a pity that after the discovery of the hat there isn’t really anything new added in the rest of the game if there had been, A Pixel Story could have been genuinely great instead of just being good.

7/10

Crypt of the NecroDancer: Review

2015-05-27T03:25:00.001-07:00

Crypt of the NecroDancer is not the first game to fuse dungeon crawling and rhythm action the rather charming Sequence (Now known as Before the Echo thanks to a copyright claim) did it a few years back but it most definitely the most polished mashup of genres. Rather than the obvious differentiation of styles as seen in Sequence dungeon crawling followed by button matching rhythm action, Crypt of the NecroDancer instead integrates rhythm and music into every aspect of the game and is an absolute joy to play as a result.

The entire game is played with nothing but the arrow keys (or a dance pad if you have one and don’t mind looking like an idiot) but by no means does this render Crypt of the NecroDancer simplistic. It’s a remarkably deep game that not only contains some really wonderful dungeon crawling action, it also features a pretty great story that can only really be appreciated through exploration and multiple playthroughs. The beat is all important when it comes to action, as players and monsters alike can only perform an action on the beat. There’s a visual indicator of the beat down at the bottom of the screen but players will quickly find and flashing icon unnecessary as the flow of the music takes hold.

Integrates rhythm and music into every aspect of the game and is an absolute joy to play

The arrow keys control both movement and combat, with equipped weapons specifying the range of attacks. Like a traditional Rogue-like game, attacks are carried out by simply moving into an enemy but thanks to the movement being based on the beat there is an element of strategy in attacking, as knowing where an enemy will be on the beat is more important that where they are before the beat. Special attacks as spells are triggered by pressing two or more keys at the same time on the beat down and left to throw a bomb if one is equipped, for example. Knowing when and how to use special weapons or spells is key to completing the four distinctly different zones or mastering the fantastic boss battles. In addition to the offensive abilities, players also have a shovel that can be used to dig through certain walls and sections of the floor to reveal treasure, shortcuts and hidden areas.

Completing challenges and goals within the zones unlocks extra character that radically change the way the game is played. The Monk, for example, takes the whole ascetic lifestyle so seriously they die if they touch gold. Considering that the crypt is littered with piles of the shiny stuff and that most monsters are constantly spewing it out on death, the lethality of gold really changes up how the game is played.

There are some frustrations to be had with Crypt of the NecroDancer, mostly those that come with any procedurally generated game coughing up the occasional awkward layout, but any irritation is quickly forgotten when you give yourself over to the beat and start boogieing your way through dungeons, killing monsters, collecting treasure and dispatching bosses.

9/10

Tom Clancy’s: Rainbow Six Siege, Terrorists, your game is through

2015-05-26T03:52:00.002-07:00

When it comes to Rainbow Six Siege, one thing is for sure: it’s going to be completely different from the likes of Call Of Duty and Battlefield. Sure, those two titles have their differences, but Rainbow Six stands alone in the approach it is taking to realism and tactical gameplay and that makes it incredibly interesting.

There’s no health regeneration and if you get dropped in one of the game’s five-on-five matches, that’s it. You’re done. There are opportunities to revive teammates (unless they’ve been taken out with a headshot), but even then, they can easily be finished off by the enemy before you get to them and only come back with low health if you are successful. In other words, this is a shooter where mistakes aren't an option.

Siege is a more cautious brand of shooter, then. That goes double given that the level of destructibility the game offers means that you are never entirely safe. If someone spots you and sees you retreat through a doorway, they can still take you out by shooting through the wall behind which you’re taking cover. Barricaded in a room with a hostage and think you’re safe? The opposition might use a charge to blow a hole in the ceiling above you and rain down fire from up high. As well as being technically impressive, it should be evident that you can destroy anything leads to some intriguing gameplay possibilities.

The point of making Siege a game where anyone can be dropped quickly at any time, is to encourage you to approach it with the tactical frame of mind that’s necessary to get the best from it. That starts with the planning phase where, in Hostage Rescue mode, the terrorists have one minute to fortify their defensive position while the special forces perform recon. Teamwork is vital. If you’re playing as the defenders, there’s no point running around, barricading different windows and doors at cross purposes. You’re best off deciding how you plan to hold your position and working as a team to fortify it. The same goes when playing as the attackers. You’ll get the best results by working as a team trying to solo your way to victory is a sure way to get yourself killed.

“WE’VE SEEN TERRORISTS BARRICADING THEIR OWN TEAMMATES OUT OF THE ROOM THEY ARE DEFENDING”

This need to plan, support and attack as a unit is one of the coolest things about Rainbow Six, but it also presents some potential problems. In the game’s closed alpha, we’ve seen terrorists barricading their own teammates out of the room they are defending and good guys taking out their allies with hastily-slung grenades. If you end up playing with people that don’t work as a team, then, Rainbow Six Siege can quickly collapse. Even when people do try and work together, they’re not going to be able to properly do so without using voice comms. You need to be able to tell your teammates when and where you’ve spotted an enemy, you need to coordinate on when you’re going to breach a room and make your move, you need to agree on who is going to watch what door, and so on. If you end up playing with people who aren’t on voice comms, the game just isn’t going to be as good as it should be.

Granted, part of the cause for players not working as a team can be attributed to the fact that they’re new to the game and haven’t yet got their heads around it. That’ll get better after release. When it comes to the voice comms issue, this is something that you won’t have any problems with if you can get four other friends to play with you. If not, we’ll just have to hope that the game ends up generating a community of talkers.

What we’re seeing so far is a game that’s got a great concept and that looks like it could be exceptional once developer Ubisoft Montreal has ironed out some of the issues and players have gotten to grips with its systems. It’s a game with a true commitment to its core concepts. ‘Destructibility’ is not a gimmick in this game; ‘tactical’ is not being used as a buzzword. These things are key mechanics of Siege and, when they work as intended, lead to exciting moments. Will those moments emerge frequently enough to keep Siege engaging in the long run? That’s the question Ubisoft Montreal still has to answer.

Call Of Duty: Black Ops 3, War… war never changes

2015-05-26T03:38:00.002-07:00

If the main criticism of the Call Of Duty series is that it lacks originality, then the reveal of Black Ops III isn’t going to help matters. Our first significant exposure to the game came in the form of a trailer that could have been mistaken for a Deus Ex teaser. Indeed, it bore a remarkable similarity to the Sarif Industries live-action teaser that Square Enix released for Deus Ex: Human Revolution a few years ago. Introducing us to the themes that the game’s campaign will be dealing with, the trailer opens with the line, “Mankind’s greatest mistake will be its inability to control the technology it has created.” It shows us images of augmented humans and protests about scientists playing God. It’s no wonder that developers working on Deus Ex ended up poking fun at Black Ops III for ‘stealing’ its ideas.

Perhaps a look at the game itself can help Black Ops III shake the impression that it’s a copycat? Well, not really. With augmented soldiers leaping all over the shop, the game unmistakably brings to mind 2014’s Advanced Warfare. Add in the fact that its character design occasionally looks suspiciously Titanfall-esque and Black Ops III starts to look like a game that’s perilously short on inspiration.

That’s not necessarily a big problem for the game. It’s worth recalling that Advanced Warfare was labelled as a Titanfall rip-off and that did nothing to quell its success. The mechanics that made Sledgehammer’s COD debut in Advanced Warfare added enough flavour to the familiar fast food brand of gaming that COD has always offered to make it worthwhile. Black Ops III needs to do the same: add just enough to ensure that COD’s familiarity doesn’t topple over into crippling boredom.

“DEVELOPERS ON DEUS EX ENDED UP POKING FUN AT BLACK OPS III FOR ‘STEALING’ ITS IDEAS”

How is the game going to do that? Treyarch has talked of a new momentum system that ups the pace of combat in multiplayer for example, vaulting over obstacles is now automatic, doesn’t take control of your weapon away from you and allows you to aim down sights. However, beyond that vague and meaningless reference to a ‘chained movement system’ and the introduction of some new terminology designed to make old mechanics sound new such as ‘thrust-assisted jump’ there’s really nothing that makes Black Ops III stand out when it comes to multiplayer. That’s not to say there won’t be. We need to see more before we can judge whether talk of revamping COD’s movement is all bluster, or heralds a real change.

Treyarch has been a more forthcoming when it comes to what single-player offers. We really like the fact that the campaign will support up to four-player co-op. Our enthusiasm for COD campaigns has waned as we’ve become tired of the formula, but the idea of blazing though a spectacle- packed campaign with a few friends gives us fresh impetus to jump on in. There’s also talk of having more freedom with how you approach your objectives. That starts with the fact that you will be playing a character of your own creation. Treyarch is promising more open levels that offer you the opportunity to approach them in different ways, depending on your character build. But then, we get told that Call Of Duty campaigns are going to be more open every year. Guess what? They’re not. In fairness, though, co-op is going to make it difficult to make the campaign as linear as is normally the case in the series. Maybe Black Ops III will be the game that delivers on the promise of COD opening up.

As we all know, people play COD for multiplayer and it is on that basis that the game will ultimately be judged. Over the next few months, we hope that the game can prove that it has its own identity and show us what it is that’s going to make it stand out from the games from which it is seemingly borrowing.

Offworld Trading Company: Strategy’s strange new brother

2015-05-25T03:40:00.000-07:00

Video games are synonymous with combat. The most common cliché among uneducated players is that games harbour and promote violence and blood. It’s a cliché which, sadly, isn’t totally unearned. Even games with a seemingly innocent premise are filled with combat. It is, for better or worse, the main language of the medium.

But can a game without combat be violent? Offworld Trading Company, a strategy title developed by Cilivzation IV’s lead designer Soren Johnson, comes damned close. It also comes close to being something totally unique, which in a landscape filled with everything from triple-A publishers to a coder in a dirty garage, isn’t something to scoff at.

Offworld is an economic strategy game. Or, as Johnson himself likes to say, “a strategy game without units”. Instead of conquering an opponent’s base, you attempt to grow your own company’s stock value. Once you buy out the other players, you win.

In brief, it’s an odd concept for a game, but as Johnson points out, it’s been tried before.

“The stock market mechanic…that’s lifted directly from Age of Kings,” he says. “I thought it was fascinating, and I’ve wanted to make a game about the mechanic.”

“We also took a lot of stuff from Railroad Tycoon the resource tree, for instance. Using materials, combining them and making other elements and so on.”

Johnson is referring to the main way in which you send your stock skyward. At the beginning of the game, players scout for resources, just like they would in Civilization. Iron, water, and other common resources are littered throughout the map. Players find them, harvest them, and use the bounty to both upgrade their own base and create new resources altogether. Control distribution and sell more expensive resources than your competitors, and you’re on your way to winning.

There’s some variety along the way, naturally. Each of the four playable classes have their own advantages, (robots don’t need water or food), and a black market allow for some nice sabotage.

But this is where Offworld’s strangest mechanic provides the best emotional thrills. The action is not in setting off an underground nuke, but watching numbers on the left-hand side of the screen. It’s a tension that ebbs and flows. Need some cash? Great sell your resources. Except now you’ve flooded the market, which drops the price, and now your stock price goes down. You’re a sitting duck.

At times this game is a living lesson in economics. Are your resources becoming cheap? Better pivot and start focusing on new ones. Better yet, monopolise an entire industry when you start detecting a shortage.

This tension allows for some fun additions the game has a hacking array which lets you fabricate market demand.

It’s Capitalism. The Game.

Offworld is weird. It’s not often you find your heart beat racing because of some numbers on a screen especially when the on-screen animations aren’t necessarily the most thrill-enducing. But it works, partly due to the thrilling way the game informs you of what’s happening at any stage, and that’s kind of a problem for Johnson. Offworld is a hard game to market to both real-time strategy fans and the Civilization devotees who no doubt recognise his name and would be attracted to the project.

“We get a lot of people playing who love RTS games, and they’re happy to see something different,” he says. “But there is a demographic coming from the longer-term economic games and they’re telling us this is unusual, and they’re not used to playing something so fast-paced.”

That fast pace is one of the game’s defining aspect and one of the most frightening. Things happen at a remarkable pace in Offworld, to the point where once you know you’re losing, you can’t do anything to stop it. The obvious benefit to this is that you can play multiple games in a short amount of time, and they’re never the same game twice. There are no opening build orders like StarCraft here Offworld is frantic and ultimately comes down to analytical and predictive skill. Which is probably why strategy nerds are already giving it a thumbs-up in the early access program.

Your ability to micro manage will not help you here. Offworld is a game of the mind.

“It’s almost good that you don’t know you’re about to die until you do,” says Johnson. “But at the same time, is it going to help people understand the game? They need to be able to do something about it.”

“I’m enjoying the skill differentiation so far, actually. Within a week we were already getting beat online.”

Despite the early attention, Offworld is still a year away from release. And Johnson says there’s some work to be done in that time his team, Mohawk Games, is still figuring out how to market the damn thing.

“I don’t think we’ve figured it out,” he says. “We knew it was going to be a challenge. I hope it developers its own community and goes from there.”

Johnson’s colleague, former Firaxis veteran Dorian Newcomb, says early feedback from testers was mixed. While they received emails with subjects like, “you’re mis-selling this game”, or, “wewere expecting it to b lik City Builder”, the testers just kept playing. And playing. And playing.

“Then, two weeks later we keep getting emails. They went from having concerns about what the game was really about to just enjoying it for what it is.”

“You don’t need to figure it out in the first five minutes.”

A tough ask for a market built for Whatever’s New. But a legitimate one Offworld is not an easy game, but it is a rewarding one. As with all the best perseverance is a virtue.

Sword Coast Legends: The return of the dungeon master

2015-05-25T03:23:00.001-07:00

It’s a bit of a crowded market for PC RPGs nowadays. In fact, there’s such a wealth of great stuff that it’s becoming hard to stand out from the pack. What can a dev do to catch the attention of consumers? Well, you can get the license of the granddaddy of all RPGs, Dungeons and Dragons. You could then opt for the Forgotten Realms setting, the host of many beloved campaigns and books not to mention PC classics like Baldur’s Gate.

But maybe that’s still not quite enough. What the game needs is something big, unique, and dynamic, a chance for players to truly experience the same sort of chaos and camaraderie that the best tabletop D&D sessions offer. Can a PC RPG accomplish that? If what we saw of Sword Coast Legends is any indication, the answer is a resounding “yes.”

Sword Coast Legends developers n-Space and Digital Extremes are obviously big D&D fans, and for this new title, they’ve partnered closely with Wizards of the Coast to make sure even the smallest details stay true to the setting. Many of the team’s staff members are quite experienced with the setting, having previously worked on the likes of Baldur’s Gate and Neverwinter Nights. That alone should be enough to get you interested, but there’s plenty more.

The game features a robust, fully-voiced single player campaign with a player-customizable party, of which we were shown a slice. Our demo had a team of adventurers searching for the powerful necromancer, the Ashen Priest. The party was to meet a contact within a city whose gates had been locked, and they needed to sneak in through the underground sewers. They fought their way through the underground (with classic pause-and-play style combat), looted a few corpses, fought Dead Rats bandits, chased down our (sadly deceased) contact, and eventually took on a zombie horde. It looked beautiful, it sounded great, and was plenty fun.

But that was nothing compared to what the game offers in multiplayer. What truly makes Sword Coast Legends so exciting is the fact that, for the first time in an RPG like this, you can play as a Dungeon Master and shape the adventure around the players. As the DM, you pick the size, number of floors, and creature set for a dungeon, then proceed to change the flow of the game dynamically using a resource called “threat.” Threat is gained by your interactions with the party, and can be used to alter encounters, spawn monsters, set traps, and more. Giving the party a good challenge but not being a complete jerk rewards the DM with more Threat and special “DM loot” like new monsters to use.

Sword Coast Legends isn’t due out until late this year, but what we saw of the game and the sheer awesome potential of DM mode was more than enough to get us hyped up. If you love classic PC RPGs and have always dreamed of crafting your own adventures, Sword Coast Legends should rank high on your watchlist.

Dreamfall Chapters Book Two

2015-05-25T03:16:00.000-07:00

It’s not easy being blue. Just ask the ten year old Marcurian kid whose parents have been sent to the islands for “re-education,” permanently, along with non-humans from an ever widening geographic area. This boy is plucky, though, and it is common that those Arcadians who are marginalised for their magic, bear their hardship with good grace and humour. With the Azadi exerting increasing control, Dreamfall Chapters Book 2 is a story of occupation, rebellion and the endurance of spirit.

As the chapter opens, Kian finds himself procured for some unknown, rebel purpose. In the Enclave he meets humans and non-humans, like Enu, a garrulous Zhid farmgirl and Lihko, a Dolmari warrior who, perhaps understandably, reminds Kian that he has sworn an oath to kill him during every second dialogue. “We must meet the mole to get our orders and then I will murder you in your sleep.”
Unsurprisingly, in the Arcadian context, “the mole” is literally a mole.

Magicals in Marcuria must carry passes and be checked for weapons if they leave the ghetto. There are Azadi guards at every narrowing of streets. Even the Godlike Abnaxus, with his ability to see all of time, seems uncomfortably hemmed into his pretty garden, at least at first. If you visit The Rooster and Kitten, however, you’ll find loudmouth humans drinking heavily, but also that magicals are quietly welcome. Elsewhere, they’re interrogated and harassed. Regardless of trouble, Oldtown’s market still shimmers gently.

Meanwhile, in Europolis, Zoe has to explain to intimidating robo-cops that she has a therapy appointment before they will let her leave her apartment. Their presence in Propast is suddenly more explicit, with citizens being interrogated at gunpoint and fl uorescent blue barriers ominously erected in pointless places, simply as a power play. I did experience the “sausaquences” of my lunch choice, though. They felt surprisingly weighty, as did many outcomes being followed from Book 1.

Back in Marcuria, remember Benrime Salmin? Really, she epitomised the soft, human approach to magicals in The Longest Journey and Dreamfall, being a Seer herself and welcoming all types to The Journeyman Inn. Now, ostensibly due to my reckless and very violent choice in an opening chapter, she has been placed in a dangerous situation. The Azadi aren’t mucking around and this is a reminder that players need to be very careful. The choice and consequence system engenders real fear.

Of course, though it is the magicals who are supposed to be sorry for being themselves, it is actually the men at women at the National Front rally who are concealing their faces. Those weird, wonderful, multicoloured or covered in fur, retain their pride for now. How long they might take to break is a compelling question. Can they be broken? As the Samare rebel, Shepherd, says, “I will do
anything to save my people.” It is that “anything” that we will wait patiently for, or possibly beyond, Book 3.

Sheltered: This episode of Modern Family just took a brutal turn...

2015-05-24T08:07:00.001-07:00

Games sure do take you to some grim places. Whether it’s nomming on your crew in Sunless Sea or robbing from pensioners in This War Of Mine, we’ve done some pretty despicable things in order to survive. In Sheltered, the latest Kickstarted title picked up as part of Team17’s indie-facing publishing initiative (which helped The Escapists find its feet), it’s worse still.

There’s no happy ending in this side-on resource management survival sim. No rescue force is coming to save you, nor is there a time when the dust-strewn apocalypse unfolding above ground dissipates long enough for your four-strong family to leave the confines of their bunker. you survive until you ultimately and inevitably die.

That not grim enough? Well, once one of your family members does kick the bucket say one of your children gets horribly ill Then you can use their earthly remains as a resource, bringing it to the bunker’s furnace for fuel. This brings to mind the particular level of Gods Will Be Watching, wherein losing a member of the group could often be a relief as they ceased to be a drain on your supplies. But when it’s a family? When your children are under your resource management-focused care? Guilt has rarely been served up to us this cold and stark.

Family matters
A lot has changed since the game’s initial Kickstarter. The pixelated graphics have been overhauled, with characters now smoothly animated and environments more atmospheric. New systems have also been implemented, like exploration, which sees you choosing a family member to send out for a trip into the wasteland. Do you send Dad, with his intimidating strength? Or Mum with her better bartering skills? Or gulp will you send one of your precious young ’uns outside?With full customisation of your starting household available, you’ll even be able to create your real-life family in-game. Which, judging by how dark things may get, we’re totally not going to do.

F1 2015: A grand prix-view of Codemasters’ most advanced racer yet

2015-05-24T08:04:00.000-07:00

The downpour pitter-patters a tiny cacophony on our helmet as droplets stream down the visor. It is, as you can guess, raining, but this isn’t any rain. F1 2015 has some of the best falling water we’ve seen in a videogame: wheels kick up thick white spray to cloud your vision, wind divides the deluge into misty sheets, and glassy puddles reflect the bright moon above.

We’re in Singapore gearing up for a 14-man race. It’s just three laps, which is eminently winnable in our nippy Mercedes, but conditions are treacherous. In fact, compared to last year’s somewhat sterile depiction the cars were too clean, the asphalt too uniform the stage feels more intimidating, with grit and smoke and smudged reflections.

The scene owes itself to EGO 4.0. Making its debut, Codemasters’ powerful current-gen engine not only fuels textured visuals, but everything under them, too. Dynamic tyre models see temperature, wear, and conditions all affect grip, while revitalised handling takes detailed account of aerodynamics, suspension, and fuel consumption. The realism is almost scary, and for the uninitiated it’s a lot to handle.

“The thin layer of water that forms between the wheel and the road costs us traction”

Baptism by tyre
But back to the race. With the distant Singapore Flyer ferris wheel gently spinning in the city’s bustling Downtown Core, we cut over the initial bend and feel the change in surface as tyre meets rumble strip, the aquaplane churn as a thin layer of water forms between the wheel and road and costs us traction. On the next turn we attempt a short drift. Bad move. Drifts, even very small ones,
have been dialed down this year as Codemasters bumps up realism.

Remember, these cars are taking tight corners at 70mph, and at such high speeds the margin for error is understandably tiny. Driving aids can of course be customised apart from during the new Pro Seasons mode, in which assists are off and your view is locked to cockpit cam for the ultimate challenge of motor maintenance. Codemasters is packing in the entire 2014 World Championship for fans to speed through, too. Not content to be the prettiest in the series, F1 2015 is also set to be the most complete.

Heroes of the Storm: Is Blizzard’s MOBA the Nexus big thing?

2015-05-24T08:02:00.003-07:00

This take on the not-so-humble MOBA genre has reached the final stages of its long-running beta phase. As the full game preps for launch, complete with a suitably filling roster of 30 characters to play as from the Warcraft maker’s repertoire, 130 skins to decorate them in and seven battlegrounds to bash minions across, we settle in for a look at the newest combat arena, the Tomb Of The Spider Queen.

This small yet deceptively labyrinthine map consists of the tried and tested three lanes to push, but rocks a unique mechanic whereby players have to work together to collect gems. By sucking up these enemy drops and then handing them in to a vendor, teams will be able to call upon the map’s titular royal arachnid to lend a hand. Do so and web weavers will spawn to rush up your lanes, summoning melee minions of their own to your push for victory.

Weave it out
The tactical implications are immediately obvious, as felled player foes also drop any gems they happen to be holding, which will only be recoverable by their fellow team members.

This provides ample opportunities to distract enemy groups with tempting gem hordes and, on the flip side, you’ll have to determine whether or not to risk abandoning lanes in order to help recover some precious stones for your pals. It all feels very different from what other genre bastions have attempted, and thus makes Heroes a touch more likely to do for the MOBA what Hearthstone has so successfully done for the card game.

Star Wars Battlefront: fully armed and operational Battlefront

2015-05-24T03:25:00.003-07:00

A long time ago, in a gaming-verse not so far, far away, Free Radical Design’s Star Wars: Battlefront III died an unceremonious death, reportedly cancelled by LucasArts at the eleventh hour “for financial reasons”. Millions of fans cried out in terror when Battlefront III concept art and pre-alpha gameplay footage leaked online, which teased the game that could have been. The leaks showcased alternative takes on beloved heroes, such as a Sith Kenobi, alongside an enticing all-new gameplay mechanic that would have allowed players to travel from space battle to ground combat in a single, united map.

While Battlefront III went the way of the Bothan spies that leaked information about the second Death Star, the dormant series has reawakened at EA Digital Illusions CE (DICE). We were fortunate enough to see a behind-closed-doors gameplay preview, which we were told won’t be revealed to the public. That latter point is actually a shame, given how beautiful the publicly released gameplay trailer is and how some people thought that, despite its beauty, Battlefront can’t look as good as what the in-engine trailer depicts.

This is exactly what we thought as we watched what appeared to be a tech demo that shifted out of free-roaming camera to first-person perspective. Niklas Fegraeus, design director of Star Wars Battlefront, described what we were seeing as “footage taken from live multiplayer gameplay”, and it was hard to contemplate given how pretty it was. What’s more impressive is that it was PlayStation 4 gameplay, meaning the pretty factor should be boosted for the PC version of the game, which appears to be what was used for the publicly released trailer, as well as the well-rounded screenshots.

Despite the noticeable absence of antialiasing during the gameplay presentation, the in-game rendering of Endor, the forest moon from Return of the Jedi, was breathtaking. The wind blew through the trees and impacted the foliage seemingly at a micro level, with real-time shadows moving realistically in turn. In order to create an authentic Star Wars universe, DICE visited the real-world locations such as Norway (Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back) and the redwood forests in Northern California to digitally recreate the Endor level for the gameplay demo.

DICE’s goal in terms of visual fidelity is to push for photorealism, a lofty aim that’s being partially achieved by the implementation of the union between hotogrammetry and physically based rendering (PBR). Photogrammetry is a technique that involves Matrix-like camera work, wherein an object is photographed from every conceivable angle, and those images are fed into specialised software for lifelike rendering.

Fegraeus mentioned that DICE also was allowed “unprecedented access” to the Lucasfilm archives, which means that everything from blasters and stormtrooper armour to X-wings and AT-ATs look like they were pulled off set and put into the game. Scratches, dints and other imperfections add a level of detail that would be painstaking to achieve if rendered manually, and the results are picture perfect.

Physically based rendering has been implemented into the Frostbite engine so all future titles powered by the engine will have the option to use it. For Battlefront, PBR increases the potential for photorealistic objects thanks to a combination of the lifelike rendering of the physical properties of material, combined with how light interacts with the object in real time. It’s a technology that’s being used in Star Citizen and, as far as our eyes could tell, it made for a stunningly believable recreation of the Star Wars universe.

The other all-important immersive factor for playing out a Star Wars fantasy is the soundscape. Given DICE’s pedigree with sound in the Battlefield series, it was unsurprising to hear how well audio was utilised in the presentation. John Williams’ iconic soundtrack was put to fantastic use during the peaks and troughs of the battle between Rebel soldiers and Imperial stormtroopers. That being said, DICE has readily admitted that its dynamic presentation during the demo may not make it through to the final product, even if that is its intention. The soundtrack will be there for sure, though.

As for the rest of the soundscape, nothing was out of place. The range of blasters sounded exactly like they do in the movies, the appearance of an AT-AT provided the kind of weight you’d expect from the mammoth walker, while chatter between soldiers added to the fantasy of being caught
up in a hectic battle between the Rebellion and Empire. Speeder bikes zipped through the trees on Endor, an AT-ST stomped around in an attempt to not be surrounded by flanking Rebel troops, and there was even a Wilhelm scream in there for good measure as a stormtrooper fell to his death.

Endor wasn’t just the setting for the gameplay demo, either; it seemed to take place during the prelude to the battle against the second Death Star, given the noticeable presence of the radar-dish shield generator in the background. Fegraeus revealed that the gameplay was part of Walker Assault mode: a 40-player battle between Rebel and Imperial soldiers that includes a combination of infantry combat, vehicular devastation and heroes.

According to our one-on-one interview with Sigurlina Ingvarsdottie, senior producer on Battlefront, Walker Assault’s 40-player count is as big as it gets. While this may disappoint fans of Battlefield’s 64-player modes, it’s one example of DICE’s efforts to delineate between a Battlefield experience and a Battlefront one. From what we saw of the mode, there didn’t appear to be any shortage of action once the blasters started firing, aIlbeit we acknowledge the sequence was shown under specific controlled conditions.

Battlefront has a scoring system similar to Battlefield, with 100 points allocated per kill. On top of this was a running killstreak counter for the player character, the impact of which was not disclosed. Similarly, points were allocated as part of a nemesis system. Like Battlefield, the overall player score appears to be linked to an unlock system, with the player character unlocking a missile launcher in an unmissable front-of-UI pop-up revelation.

The Rebel soldiers didn’t appear to have access to vehicles at this point of the mode, while the Imperials had no shortage of them. Speeder bikes harassed the Rebel troops as they stormed up a hill, only to be greeted by aIn intimidating AT-ST. Interestingly, the player’s primary-weapon blaster was able to deal damage to the chicken walker, albeit not enough to take the vehicle’s health down from full to empty.

What did make short work of the AT-ST was a rocket launcher which, unlike the sci-fi renderings in past Battlefront games, followed the Star Wars film approach of adding a sci-fi touch to World War II-era weapons. It looked like a modified American bazooka, which you may notice in the screenshots. It only took a single rocket to destroy the mostly healthy AT-ST, as the Rebel soldiers cheered the result.

When the player collected a rocket launcher and used it on a bigger threat, the mammoth AT-AT, the rocket didn’t even scratch the paint because of the thick armour. There was a red player name above the AT-AT indicating that it was being, at the very least, partially controlled by a human opponent, but we’re wary as to whether this will translate to full control in the final game.

The AT-AT was stomping up a shallow creek bed towards the Rebel soldiers and, during its short lifespan, didn’t alter direction, despite its swivelling head that was making short work of the Rebel soldiers around the player. There wasn’t a whole lot of Frostbite’s trademark environmental destructibility on show, despite an abundance of explosions, which may mean that bigger vehicles such as the walkers can’t forge their own path through the splinters of felled trees on Endor.

The AT-AT also appeared to act as a lumbering spawn option for Imperial troops, who were dropping like Rebel pilots at the Battle of Yavin, yet there never seemed to be a shortage of the white-armoured foes. There was also evidence of a customisation system, with an assortment of familiar alien races for the Rebels, alongside the presence of female soldiers, as well as concept art for Imperial snowtroopers and stormtrooper variants. On top of this, there was a variety of weapons and special equipment on offer.

That aforementioned Wilhelm-screaming soldier was camping out on an Ewok-forged bridge, high in the trees. When he was shot, he fell with his sniper rifle, which the player character collected and put to good use popping headshots courtesy of the rifle’s enhanced zoom. His regular blaster had a scope, too, albeit with reduced range. The time to kill with the character’s primary weapon didn’t appear to be terribly long slightly shorter than what you’d expect from accurate fire in a Battlefield game despite the supposed armour of the Imperial stormtroopers. It will be interesting to see if armoured Imperials enjoy a health advantage of unarmoured Rebel soldiers in the final game, but it didn’t appear to be the case during the demonstration.

The player character’s UI had four slots, one of which was blacked out and may be for a secondary weapon. As for the other slots, one was occupied by the effective primary-weapon blaster, while another had the familiar thermal detonators (grenades) with delayed fuses. Whether these can be cooked before throwing is yet to be seen, but the one we saw explode took out multiple stormtroopers.

The third occupied slot held five personal shields, none of which were used by the primary character, but we spotted another player running past in the background, with the personal shield activated around their head and torso as accurate incoming fire deflected off the protective bubble. A larger version of the shield was used in the public reveal trailer, and appeared to provide heavier cover for multiple soldiers beneath its protective dome.

A jetpack was the other main piece of equipment used during the gameplay preview. A Rebel soldier used it briefly to gain a temporary height advantage, possibly scouting out the area ahead, before returning to the ground. It’s unclear at this stage whether the jetpacks will only offer short-use possibilities, or whether they can be used to hold a player in the air for longer, or to access otherwise inaccessible heights.

One argument against the likelihood of this latter mechanic is the reality that Boba Fett will be a playable hero character, and it’s reasonable to expect that his jetpack will be more powerful than the regular unlockable variety. In the reveal trailer, he was seen battling on Tatooine, but Fegraeus explicitlymentioned Fett would also be playable on Hoth, which lends itself to the idea of randomised or multiple heroes per map. According to Fegraeus, players will be able to spawn in for a single life as a heroic or villainous character whose power has the potential to turn the tide of battle.

The hero mechanic is tied to a collectable power-up system which, according to Fegraeus’ teasing explanation, involves various pick-ups scattered around the map. DICE was unwilling to confim whether this takes the form of old-school Quake-style weapon/buff pick-ups or randomised drops. Fegraeus said that heroes are the “biggest” power-up, but he also mentioned “huge shields, massive explosives, your own X-wing or your own walker”. The shields most likely relate to the team-friendly one depicted in the reveal trailer, and the massive explosions could refer, in part, to the Uplink Station that was activated to call in a Y-wing bombing run that flattened the AT-AT in both
trailer and gameplay presentation.

As for the references to the vehicles, they may be as simple as determining the player that gets to control the AT-AT in Walker Assault, while the X-wing may be in reference to another yet-to-be-named mode that involves aerial dogfighting. While space combat won’t be present in Battlefront, players will be able to duke it out in planetary dogfights in iconic craft such as X-wings, TIE fighters, and we spied a TIE interceptor during one of the slides of the presentation.

To help stand further apart from Battlefield comparisons, Battlefront will not have a class system. Instead, players will be able to freely pick weapons and equipment at their discretion. Similarly, it appears DICE is encouraging more of an individual player experience withine the team structure, with a so called 'partner system’ that lets two players on the each other, track one another on the
field and even share unlocks.

For those wishing that Battlefront would be Battlefield in the Star Wars universe, this isn’t necessarily the game you’re looking for. Instead, DICE has taken what worked best about the preceding Battlefront series and combined it with what works in Battlefield to forge an enticing first-look at a sci-fi shooter experience that’s poised to tick all the right boxes.

CERTAIN POINT OF VIEW
Fans of the original Battlefront games should be relieved to hear that DICE’s Star Wars Battlefront game will allow players to switch between first-and third-person perspectives. While the majority of the demo was played out in first-person view, it jumped to third-person perspective at certain points for a fitting old-school Battlefront feel.

3D SOUNDSCAPE
Part of the Battlefront demonstration was dedicated to showcasing the audio advantages of the new Dolby Atmos technology. Fegraeus confirmed this feature would be exclusive to the PC version of Battlefront, and if the demo was anything to go by, it’s bound to add a level of immersion on par with the impressive visual fidelity.

UNITED BATTLEFRONT
The DICE developers went out of their way to emphasise that Star Wars Battlefront is, first and foremost, a multiplayer title. There are specific solo or cooperative missions on offer, but it’s refreshing to hear that DICE is sticking to what it knows best: team-based competitive multiplayer with a mix of vehicular and infantry combat.

NO DISINTEGRATIONS
The official EA Star Wars Twitter account has eluded to the fact that destruc-tibility in Star Wars Battlefront might not be on par with recent Battlefield games. “We’re using destruction where it make[s] sense but also working to create something that is authentic to the universe.”

Elegy for a Dead World

2015-05-24T02:40:00.001-07:00

Elegy for a Dead World challenges you not to play it but to write it. Think of it as a muse, or a quiet invitation to get creative, set in a game-like place. You’re simply an enigmatic, space-suited person and can say what you believe most poignant, given context. Based on the visual impression of a planet, know your words, clumsy or lovely, will serve as its legacy forever. Who has died here? You owe them a beautiful end, so create it with care.

Further, for a challenge, you can follow the form of the Romantic poems referenced, by Byron and Keats. If, like me, you’re not incredibly au fait with these poets, comparing your work to theirs can be intriguing, and hilarious. Will you fill in the blanks provided, rhyme and find a merry meter? Or will you eschew the suggested path and invent your own form? There is no correct approach, only experimentation and words.

As to content, again you can simply let the artwork inspire you how it will. I found I most enjoyed unravelling the mystery of what had happened in each place. At face value, my favourite context involved ice, a long, cold civilisation, evacuation and some kind of machine targeting the sun. I thought I’d captured what had happened there. Of course, you then read someone else’s interpretation of events and it is completely different. They will have referenced details you never even saw.

Structure or context, the game provides just enough of a prompt to compel you to want to write. You don’t have to share the results with the world, but your words are so beautifully presented with little peepholes to the original artwork provided, why wouldn’t you? The final result is to be proud of. I know I find it difficult to publish my creative writing. It is much easier to share within this framework and next to other similar pieces.

The visual contexts are relatively similar to each other. These are worlds evidencing varying cultures and technology, but the narrative output should usually be science or speculative fiction. This doesn’t prevent you from writing a letter, a shopping list or an homage to the colour pink, if you want to, but writers do often thrive when working to stimulus. The process relies on the artwork being beautiful and it really is.

After a few hours, I did notice myself longing for these game narratives to be something I remembered playing in actual games. It was an odd feeling because it didn’t undermine the enjoyment I experienced in writing them myself. It just left me wishing these settings were more real. Perhaps that was the point, I’m not sure. Either way, this is a gorgeous way to get creative. It’s the kind of experience that makes you want to buy a copy for everyone in your writer’s circle, to discuss over your next coffee and cake.

Armikrog: Feat Of Clay

2015-05-24T02:35:00.001-07:00

When we got the chance to grill Ed Schofield about Armikrog, one question loomed larger than any other: If claymation is such a difficult process to get right, why use it at all? “Clay is awesome! The inherently physical properties of clay lend itself nicely to the hand-crafted, bare-knuckled approach to stop-motion animation. But as fun as this is, it’s not for everyone. Clay and stop-motion animation is a very time intensive process we pose and photograph a puppet 30 times for just one second of on-screen movement! If that’s not crazy enough, before we even shoot our first frame of stop-motion animation for the game, we hand draw the animation and backgrounds and put them in the game to test. We do this because it’s much easier and cheaper to change a drawing than it is to change finished stop-motion animation or handmade, sculpted backgrounds.

“Once we get things working and tested in the drawing phase, we then move on to the final phase of physically building sets and creating the stop-motion animation. It’s a lot of work, but we love the process and through this process we end up with a very unique look and feel that you just don’t find in other games.”

Armikrog is a spiritual successor to The Neverhood, which, for all its charm, was rooted firmly in the Jane Jensen era of puzzle design. Thus we felt compelled to ask if there would be a re-run of the puzzle where you literally have to walk through a corridor for half an hour. “Ha! No long corridors in Armikrog! In some ways our core philosophy on game design is the same as it was when we made the Neverhood: make the game that we personally enjoy. We believe that if you’re making a game that you really like, it will show though in the end. We spend a fair amount of time at the studio brainstorming ideas, with the main goal of trying to make each other laugh. We’ve been very intentional to make sure each of the puzzles in Armikrog are rooted in the story and lore of the world in which they exist with their overall purpose being greater than the sum of their parts.

“One aspect of design that wasn’t available to us back on the Neverhood is being able to have Armikrog beta tested by our Kickstarter backers. Getting feedback directly from our target audience has been a great addition to the production process. The backers have been providing feedback on the game and even making suggestions for new features some of which will end up in the final game.”

There are some definite advantages to being a blind alien space dog who is willing to eat just about anything!

Another significant change is that you now control not one character, but two: a sarcastic blue collar astronaut and his wise-cracking, omnivorous space pooch. “In terms of backstory, Tommynaut and Beak Beak have a very long history together as friends, confidants and drinking buddies. And while they differ in their personal motivations, they both share a spirit of adventure. During gameplay, Tommynaut takes the lead and is utilised to accomplish most of the game’s core features. However, Beak Beak does possess skills that the player will call on to collect clues and solve puzzles that Tommynaut isn’t equipped for. In Armikrog, there are some definite advantages to being a blind alien space dog who is willing to eat just about anything!”

The characters also boast another significant upgrade: they can talk. “For the most part, Klaymen never spoke in the Neverhood. This worked perfectly for his childlike and innocent nature. In Armikrog, having the main characters speak is part of our evolution as game designers and artists. Tommynaut being able to speak has opened up a lot of avenues for us to expand on both story and gameplay, and given us a chance to develop the main characters in a new way. Michael J. Nelson (Tommynaut) and Rob Paulsen (Beak Beak) have had major influences on solidifying the personalities of their characters. Michael was a perfect fit for Tommynaut’s ‘straight-shooter’ personality mixed with some very subtle sarcasm, while Rob proposed giving Beak Beak a Brooklyn-esque accent.

“Aside from being two of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet, both Michael and Rob are hilarious and love to improvise which inevitably leaves us laughing hysterically on the floor in a pool of our own urine.”

Another common thread with Armikrog’s predecessor is the blues music of Terry Taylor; an odd choice for a science fiction milieu. “We first worked with Terry on the Neverhood back in 1996. For that game we wanted a Dixieland jazz feel. Terry’s blend of silliness and musical sophistication culminated into a unique soundtrack that not only brought an additional depth to the Neverhood world, but also stood on its own apart from the game. When we began production on Armikrog, we called Terry and he was very excited to do the music for Armikrog. Terry is very collaborative and draws a lot of inspiration directly from the projects he’s involved with, so we sent him some concept drawings and test animations, along with some musical influences like the Flaming Lips ‘Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots’ and The Beach Boys ‘Pet Sounds.’ Terry took everything in and infused it with his own personal style.”

It would be quite a feat to fund a project this bonkers via a conventional publishing model, hence the use of Kickstarter. The campaign was a success, raising close to a million dollars; yet Ed described the experience as being both exciting and humbling. “One of the key things we learned was that as an indie developer, it’s really important to stay connected with your fan base. From the moment we launched our campaign, people began to reach out to us, wanting to hear all about Armikrog and the process of making a hand crafted game, and to share stories about their Neverhood adventures. In addition to fund raising, Kickstarter allows this direct communication between us and our fans in a
way that we had never experienced before.

“It’s really been an honour, and this type of relationship changes the way we think about production we’re no longer creating a game for the general public, but we’re now creating a game for a group of people who we have gotten to know over time: gamers, fans and entrepreneurs who have come along side of with us to create a game that would never have happened without their support.”

This distributed approach extended to the development process itself; talking to Ed about the problems that entailed, we soon got a rough idea why Armikrog is almost an entire year late. “One of our biggest production roadblocks was underestimating the amount of latency that can occur when working with a virtual team. Our core team is here at the Pencil Test Studios office, but we have programmers, artists, musicians, and sound designers spread out all over the world that we needed to synch up with our in-house production. Scheduling work to flow across multiple time zones was something we really had to perfect in order to get production to move smoothly.”

Gangly yet barrel-chested, Earthworm Jim, Klaymen, and Tommynaut are superficially similar. Yet beneath the surface, Ed’s team has been pushing the envelope. He asserts that Armikrog by far has been his most artistically satisfying project to date. “Around the studio, there’s a healthy competition and a lot of encouragement to do your best work. We still consider ourselves students of the arts, realising that no matter how much you know, there’s still always so much more to learn.

“While there are similarities between the art styles of Armikrog and the Neverhood, we’ve veered away from the “clay only” techniques of the Neverhood and incorporated a mixed-media approach with Armikrog. In addition to clay, we’ve used wood, foam, moss, sculpy, paint, cardboard, hot glue, and kitbashing techniques (a process of repurposing old bits from toy models, games or electronics to add additional details to a set) to make Armikrog one of the most unique worlds you’ll ever see!”

And when the game is finally out the door, what next for Pencil Test Studios? “Of course, we may take a day or two off after Armikrog ships, but we haven’t made any final decisions on what our next project will be. We’re definitely open to TV and film and we’ve got some game ideas that we’ve been kicking around that incorporate more stop-motion techniques, as well as games that go back to our hand-drawn platformer days.” Could that mean more Earthworm Jim? We wait with bated breath.
“At the end of the day, it will be a fun and funky project that we really feel passionate about, and something that we’ll really enjoy making.”

Armikrog is due to launch Q2 2015.

Redout: We’re accelerating into the future

2015-05-23T03:12:00.001-07:00

The future isn’t quite what we’d expected, if we’re being honest. It used to be a given that when a new Sony console was on the way, there would be a WipEout game in development to accompany it, showing off an exciting vision of futuristic racing. But Studio Liverpool is long closed and it seems that Sony has left its stalwart series behind for now, so we’ve had to wait a good while for our first taste of anti-gravity racing on the PS4. And while Redout might look a lot like the classic futuristic racing series, the developers at 34BigThings are striving to carve out a distinctive identity for their own game.

High-speed racing is Redout’s core offering, with impressive tracks undulating through surreal environments. In single-player, this is all done through the framework of a career mode in which you’ll work your way through the Solar Redout League. This involves collecting credits to upgrade your ship and, interestingly, pleasing your sponsors is an important job, with more lucrative contracts attached to bigger demands. Seven event types are used, from standard races to more exotic variations such as the Arena race, in which you can win without crossing the finish line so long as you’re the last racer alive.

“PLEASING YOUR SPONSORS IS AN IMPORTANT JOB, WITH MORE LUCRATIVE CONTRACTS ATTACHED TO BIGGER DEMANDS”

Though you can obtain ten upgradeable power-ups, they’re all based on racing turbo boosts, advanced grip and more. This is because 34BigThings has gone for a combat-free style of racing, though as your ship can still be destroyed, we’re expecting that some of the game’s 25 tracks should devilishly test your skills as a driver.

First impressions of Redout are encouraging. The developers have obviously done their research and already managed to create a distinctive look for the game, while seeking to differentiate it from its most notable influence by omitting combat. We’re intrigued by the prospect of the deep career mode that’s being touted, which could be excellent if there’s enough meat to the upgrade system and sponsorships. We’re surprised by the fact that online multiplayer isn’t in as standard, but it’s a decision that makes sense for an indie team. 34BigThings has promised a big game, but with no PS4 release date set it’s clearly early days yet, so only time will tell if the team can deliver.

Star Ocean: Integrity And Faithlessness, Remember when game titles made sense?

2015-05-23T03:07:00.000-07:00

Whoever said all the good game titles had already been used might have been onto something. The early days of gaming gave us some absolute belters of tongue-twisting titles as bedroom coders looked to make their efforts stand out from the pack Escape From The Planet Of The Robot Monsters, Horace Goes Skiing and Hard Cheese are three cracking examples to toss into the faces of rose-tinted morons who suggest that old games are simply just better. But as gaming found the mainstream, titles grew more sensible, more self-explanatory (if you can get more elf-explanatory than Horace Goes Skiing), names slowly shrinking into single short words in an effort to make them easier to deal with. Halo. Gun. Haze.Pure. Blur. All the good ones got taken. But then along came the mobile copycats, with canny devs snapping up any variant of popular game titles they could get their hands on, to the point that we fully expect Call Of Honor: War Commander to be an actual mobile game. Like snappy band names, all the good, simple game titles are gone. It’s larger numbers in suffixes and convoluted subtitles from here on out, people. Get used to it.

If its ludicrous moniker didn’t draw enough attention to this new JRPG for you, there’s also the amusing fact that it follows directly on from the third game in the series, Till The End Of Time. Granted, Till The Next Game would have been a far weaker title (plus it’s probably already taken damn mobile vultures) but it’d at least have been more accurate. If nothing else, it’s still something to discuss next time one of those nice robots calls you up to chat about the accident you had recently or the PPI you were mis-sold. It’s not just the game names that leave this fifth Star Ocean game with a burden to bear, either character names have a lot to live up to. Till The End Of Time gave the leading role to a dude called Fayt Leingod but somehow, 2009 prequel The Last Hope managed to trump that by engineering the single most JRPG name ever crafted: Edge Maverick. Drink that in for a second. It’s almost too perfect. Impossible to follow, even. And sure enough, Fidel Camus is a letdown in almost every respect.

“THE OLD-SCHOOL RPG IS A DYING BREED AND WE’LL TAKE WHAT WE’RE GIVEN”

Well, that’s not entirely fair. Our new leading man hasn’t really had much of a chance to shine, given that we’ve not even seen (or heard) him in action yet. His starring role so far is limited to several appearances as Generic Anime Swordsman in these stills and a handful of bullet points. We’ll gladly give the lad a fair crack of the whip traditional old-school JRPGs are even rarer these days than they were last generation (and even then, we ended up playing both Till The End Of Time and The Last Hope against our better judgement) where every team was trying to push the format in different directions. We do know, though, that our boy Fidel keeps somewhat strange company. A terrifying purple-haired elf-girl-thing that looks like a haunted egg has taken over a child’s body and has eyes so big that windscreen wipers would be more effective than eyelids; another swordsman, this one resembling The Witcher’s Geralt enjoying a little Final Fantasy XII cosplay; a spiral-haired witch whose latticed outfit seems to have had every other panel cut out of it in a bid to win the Most Ridiculous Battle Attire Of All Time award (she’s a runaway favourite for it, too). It’s an odd bunch to be sure, and this is before we even set eyes on the inevitable ‘comic relief’ character it is an unwritten, yet sacred, rule that every classic JRPG has to have one and given what we’ve seen so far, we are not sure we’re ready, to be honest. We’re not sure we’ll ever be ready.

To its credit, Star Ocean’s setup has always been pretty cool, and we’re actually kinda up for taking spaceships to underdeveloped planets and impressing the plebs with our superior grasp of technology again. The narrative side of things is neat, too, although multiple endings isn’t quite the selling point today that it was when the series first landed on PSone. And it does look pretty as well, with stills making it look like photos of anime toys taken in a back garden and splattered with Photoshop after-effects, so hopefully it manages to retain this playful style in motion. Whatever the case, we’ll play it as we say, the old-school JRPG is a dying breed and we’ll take what we’re given. It’s only confirmed for Japan right now but seeing as how all the other games in the series have made it to the West, localisation seems bound to happen at some point we’re not sure when, though. Bonus points if Haunted Egg Girl is voiced by Troy Baker.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Review

2015-05-23T02:54:00.001-07:00

Providing an initial sense of purpose is something that grand-scale RPGs have historically struggled to do. For all the merits of The Elder Scrolls, Dragon Age and Final Fantasy, it’s not unusual for their opening hours to be marked more by a sense of loss and frustration than awe and wonder. This comes down to how they decide to introduce you to their worlds, using narrative clichés that force you to search for both a purpose within it, and to work out exactly who you are. JRPGs tend to give you amnesia, Western ones often have you break out of jail… with amnesia.

In both instances, you’ve neither any idea about why you’re doing what you’re doing, what the wider plan is, or who you are. As a result, you feel lost; searching for a reason to exist as opposed to feeling like an important player in the world.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt makes no such mistake, relying on direct and decisive storytelling to draw you into its setting and plot from the instant you begin. It’s a show of confidence that persists throughout the rest of the adventure, developer CD Projekt Red clearly more at home than ever in its ability to weave an engaging narrative across what is a world of simply breathtaking scale and diversity.

Protagonist Geralt has, over the course of his previous two outings, always felt like a more robust and interesting character than anyone else to have taken centre stage in modern fantasy videogaming. The fact that he is an authored entity, rather than the result of avatar creation tools, gives The Witcher’s writing team a great deal more creative freedom when it comes to putting him in situations and under
stresses that allow his personality to shine through. They don’t need to worry about what kind of person people are playing as, and as a result they’re able to throw much more engaging storylines at the player.

“Decisive storytelling Draws you into the setting and plot from the instant you begin”

It’s a direction that allows us to instantly get under his skin and understand his motivations and worries, and it’s this that The Witcher 3’s opening hours does so well. After the first couple of missions are completed, not only do you have a very clear vision of what needs to be achieved but you understand why it needs to happen, where Geralt’s emotional attachments come from, and how the myriad other characters in his world will be affected by it.

Wicked Witcher
To say that this is a game that feels like an ‘adult’ experience thanks to exactly that is an understatement. Where Dragon Age et al can often feel like comparatively childish playgrounds in which you’re free to (within limits) do as you please, The Witcher 3 immediately besets you with responsibilities and makes certain that you understand just how much others are relying on you. Yes, you’re free to wander the world and taste all that it has to offer, but at all times your grander purpose is made clear.

In large part that is achieved by the way in which inane side-quests have been removed and replaced by examples that make every effort to further inform and expand upon the primary narrative. Playing-spaces this large are frequently filled with missions asking you to ‘collect five of these’ or ‘kill eight of those’, but they’re so few and far between here that you’re genuinely shocked when they do occasionally pop up.

Extra-rated
It’s not unusual at all for what seems like an extracurricular quest to spiral on for hours, evolving into a new and important plot that ultimately goes on to greatly alter your perspective on the characters that populate the world. What this does is make you excited about every new quest that you stumble upon, as you’ve no idea about where it might take you and how it will help you further understand the bigger picture.

Again, this is an expectation that is set up extremely early and carries itself through the entire journey. Without wanting to overstate the achievement or put too much pressure on The Witcher 3’s future genre peers, a new benchmark has been set when it comes to the creation of a complex web of narrative threads that take every opportunity to overlap and interact with one another. Considering the sheer volume of content on show here, few people would have complained about the inclusion of fetch quests or typical assassination missions. The reluctance to cut such corners, however, has made for a far more interesting and satisfying game.

“The characters are so well drawn that they start to feel like genuine friends”

Ultimately, it’s the quality of the characters and the skill of the writing team that prevents Geralt having to take part in such lows. In the majority of cases, quests are interesting because the personalities involved feel like real people, with real problems, and that makes you want to understand them and play a part in their lives.

Emotional attachments
Rarely do you come across anyone that feels wholly ‘good’ or ‘evil’, with different character traits revealing themselves the more you interact with individuals. A baron that you’ve heard nothing but bad things about might court your sympathies once you take the time to understand him and learn about his past, while a seemingly dependable ally could be revealed to be rather less trustworthy through an action that seems initially incidental. This kind of character development is often stretched out over the course of many quests, adding yet another level of long-term intrigue and helping once more to deliver something that feels genuinely adult in nature.

Some of the characters are so well drawn that they start to feel like genuine friends, to the point that you find yourself making excuses for them when they do act in a way that hurts others or undermines your own goals. For a game to be able to make you want to defend someone who is making your life more difficult is a rare feat and, again, it’s an area in which other RPGs (fantasy or otherwise) have some catching up to do. And this connection between Geralt and the rest of the cast is heightened enormously by the strength of the acting. Almost every character in the game is voiced, and any that you converse with directly certainly are. This dedication to providing everyone with their vocal
chords means that very few non-playable characters feel like second-class citizens, and it’s even easier for you to establish those emotional connections.

Further, different accents and quirks of speech make some regions feel like genuinely foreign lands; not least when you first arrive and are taken by surprise at a turn of phrase or voice pattern. Geralt himself sports his trademark husky, monotone speech (think Solid Snake from Metal Gear Solid 4), which serves to make everyone else sound more interesting by comparison.

Plunder and lightning
Speech is far from the only detail that has been given such care and attention. A full day/night cycle sees not only the light levels change, but also the weather. Stormy nights can morph into sunny days, only for the following evening to bring a wind that looks as though it’s going to snap the trees.

This prevents any given location feeling like a superficial, two-dimensional place. Novigrad might be an enormous, bustling city that exudes great strength and authority at every turn, but even it seems to cower under the force of torrential rains. Similarly, rural retreats such as White Orchard are picturesque regions in which to take a stroll under the heat of the sun, but the gloom that accompanies incoming grey clouds makes you long for a comforting interior.

Combine this with a population that goes about its day as you wander past, and a system of interaction that can see your decisions in one place have drastic consequences elsewhere, and you’ve got a world that seems truly alive. Too often RPGs can commit the mistake of making you feel as though their environments cannot exist without you, that if you weren’t completing quests then life as you know it would stagnate. That’s never a problem here. Geralt feels like a part of the world just like everyone else, rather than the reason for its very existence.

“The sheer size and power of the monsters requires planning and skill to overcome”

That sense of belonging is further aided by the intimately crafted and believably structured layout of the environment. Villages stand in the catchment areas of cities, rivers drop down mountains and weave through forests, blocks of ice surround snowy islands, and all manner of animals roam about seeking food and shelter. A big part of the reason for the world not feeling as though it revolves around Geralt is because it mimics so closely the workings of our own Earth, at least on an aesthetic level.

Hunting party
That said, there is empowerment found in the fact that it often feels as if only you can make a difference to people’s lives. Away from the main narrative, one of the most rewarding acts that you can undertake are Witcher Contracts, the best of which ask you to dispatch a monster that has been terrorising the locals.

It’s here that some of The Witcher 3’s most difficult challenges can be found, the sheer size and power of the monsters requiring serious planning and skill to overcome. A great deal of such contracts require you to investigate scenes and interrogate witnesses with a view to unearthing your prey’s location, acts that provide you extra insight into the psyche of the populace and give you more reason to help them.

Upon finding the monster you’ll have to combine all the knowledge you have of alchemy, spells, melee combat and equipment-crafting to win out. Taking the time to understand its strengths and weaknesses can pay huge dividends, and allow you to load up on the right kind of potions and come up with strategies regarding which types of magic to use before the fight begins.

Knowing if a beast is susceptible to fire, or whether it can be easily trapped in a force field that slows its movements, can save your life in the heat of battle, and prevent you from wasting valuable resources. By the same token, something as basic as planning different angles of attack for ground-based and flying enemies allows you to spend your crafting materials on the right kinds of weapons. Your crossbow might not do a huge amount of damage to land targets, but it’s crucial when it comes to dropping aerial foes from the sky.

Besting these contracts is a great way to level up, acquire new skills, and find rare and powerful items. Interacting with the monsters themselves also has the added advantage of providing more context to the environment, opening your eyes to just how magical of a place this is, and how difficult life can be for its less fortunate.

On the level
Said new skills are unlocked by collecting experience points and progressing Geralt up through a standard character levelling system. There’s simply no chance of unlocking everything before the end of the game, so it makes sense to concentrate your efforts on a number of key areas; split between alchemy, melee, magic, and ‘general’ traits such as improved health and better stamina.

There’s no right way to go about this. If you’re skilled enough in swordplay then there’s little reason to rely on magic, and vice-versa. Mirroring your options when it comes to deciding which missions to undertake and how to resolve them, there’s no direction whatsoever when it comes to levelling up and combining skills. That’s all left to you, and it’s wise to spread your first few ability points across
broadly different categories to allow yourself the chance to understand different approaches to combat.

Not all of the abilities are equally enthralling, though. The one major niggle, aside from the implementation of horse riding (see: ‘On Your Horse!’) is the reliance on Geralt’s ‘Witcher sense’. At the press of a button you can highlight points of interest in your immediate vicinity; quest-specific items glowing red, loot crates and reading materials yellow. The idea is sound and similar systems have been used to great effect in other games, but it’s employed all too frequently here. It’s somewhat disappointing, given the diversity and individuality of the narrative’s characters and various story arcs, to see a single game mechanic relied upon so heavily.

Ultimately, such a complaint is minor when compared to the qualities on show here. Rarely has a game exuded quite this much charisma and sense of place. Even rarer is a game capable of tempting you into such engaging emotional connections with not only its protagonist, but those characters around him.

It’s those personalities, and that narrative structure, that make The Witcher 3 the shining experience that it is, and cement it as one of the finest fantasy RPGs ever realised. Without doubt this is the grandest example of its genre available on the latest set of hardware, and the one that, whether you’re a fantasy fan or not, you really owe it to yourself to experience.

On your horse!
A new, annoying, four-legged best friend
Roach, Geralt’s horse, is an essential companion within a world that is simply too large to be traversed exclusively on foot. Not only a means to go from point A to B more quickly, his speed prevents you from having to fight every battle that presents itself. However, he is also a source of frustration. Too regularly he gets caught up on scenery, making you an easy target and undermining what is otherwise an impressively polished game. This hiccup was so irritating that we came to rely on the atmosphere-breaking fast travel, Roach relegated to being more ‘good idea’ than ‘reliable ally’.

Mutagenic Transformations
Do-it-yourself genetic engineering. Why not?
Acquiring and enhancing Geralt’s skills is a case of spending ability points earned (primarily) for progressing through character levels, and there are simply too many abilities to unlock everything on offer in one playthrough. Therefore, specialising in your preferred type of skills is better than being a jack-of-all-trades.

Each ability point alters Geralt’s genetic makeup, mutating his body and unlocking a new skill or enhancing an existing one. These range from gaining extra moves in melee combat, to improving his magic or gaining more from potions.

Geralt’s ability list is split into four individual segments, within each of which can be assigned a core mutagen type. It pays to take care when applying mutagens, as you receive a stat bonus if you assign them to segments containing abilities of the same type. For instance, if you assign an alchemy mutagen to a segment already housing alchemy skills, then Geralt enjoys a significant boost in health.

As only 12 skills can be assigned at any one time, you find yourself paying very careful attention to what you unlock. You must make sure you’re levelling up certain abilities to take advantage of the bonuses provided by your mutagens, but you don’t want to focus so much on one skill type that you leave yourself woefully exposed elsewhere.

9.5/10

Call Of Duty: Black Ops 3, ROBO OP

2015-05-21T03:26:00.001-07:00

Cybernetic enhancement, nanotechnology and combat androids you’d be forgiven for thinking we were talking about the new Deus Ex game (flip that page!) rather than the latest Call Of Duty. Keen to one-up last year’s Advanced Warfare, Treyarch is taking the reigning champ of first-person shooters further into the future than ever before. And that’s not all that’s changed. In a first for the series, Black Ops III’s campaign will be playable in co-op, with up to four friends online, or two locally.

Each player will bring in their own, fully customisable character you’ll be able to pick your soldier’s look, equipment, and gender, with both male and female options fully voiced and integrated into the story. You and your buddies will also gain experience points as you progress that can be spent on abilities and weapons, allowing each of you to specialise in a different role. You’ll even be able to replay earlier missions with your new unlocks, approaching them differently and, we’re told, getting a fresh perspective on events and characters.

Set 50 years from now, the game takes place during an international war (surprise, surprise!), sparked in the wake of the devastating terrorist attacks of Black Ops II. Soldiers on both sides have been augmented with futuristic weapons technology, rendering them more machine than man and connecting them to their squad-mates in a neural network. Don’t worry, we’re sure there’s no way an evil maniac could hack into it and take control…

“Soldiers on both Sides have been augmented with futuristic weapons technology”

The good news is that those fancy cybernetics will make you more mobile than ever. In both the campaign and multiplayer you’ll have unlimited sprint, and be able to wall-run, powerslide and thrust-jump, while still aiming and firing your weapon. You’ll even get to fight underwater though with all those electronics you’ll want to make sure you’re not voiding your warranties.

Acrobotics
You won’t be zooming around as a nameless spod, mind. This time you’ll be picking from Specialists in multiplayer, rather than designing your own character. Each allows you to choose either a unique weapon or a special ability, with a timed recharge that speeds up after every kill.

Sneaky archer Outrider can equip either a bow that fires explosive arrows, or take the power to see through walls; burly bruiser Ruin can have a powerful speed boost, or two ‘gravity spike’ melee weapons that give him an area-of-effect ground-pound; criminal assassin Seraph chooses between a score multiplier or a one-hit-kill revolver; and the robotic Reaper can teleport or transform his arm into a minigun.

We’re hoping all these changes add up to something genuinely new, rather than just another fresh coat of paint on a formula that’s starting to tire. At least we won’t have to wait until 2065 to find out Black Ops III is coming to PS4, Xbox One and PC on 6 November.

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, man vs cyborg in the grim dystopia

2015-05-21T03:18:00.001-07:00

Having a robot arm would be brilliant. Just imagine: giving your enemies a super-strength slap in the chops, winning every arm-wrestle, lifting even the heaviest bag of shopping with ease endless fun. Perhaps less so, however, in the world of Eidos Montreal’s Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, where cyborgs have become a persecuted underclass living in a kind of robotic apartheid, and stripped of their basic human rights.

Coming to Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC, the game follows on two years after the end of 2011’s Deus Ex: Human Revolution. You’ll be stepping back into the stylish metal boots of certified cyberpunk Adam Jensen (and yes, he does still sound like Keanu Reeves doing an impression of Batman). Our part-mechanised hero is now working for a new branch of Interpol called Task Force 29, where he’s given the job of hunting down the cyborg terrorists who are rebelling against government oppression of their kind though given that his sunglasses are built into his face and his limbs can all turn into guns, we suspect there’s a chance he might find himself sympathising with his enemies’ cause before the game is through.

“A particularly snazzy device lets Adam teleport fist-first into groups of enemies”

Jensen’s got more bells and whistles than ever, in fact, including a stun-gun that extends out of his fist, an indestructible metal shield that can cover his whole body at a moment’s notice, and a particularly snazzy device that lets him teleport fist-first into groups of unsuspecting enemies. All-in-all there’ll be around twice as many augmentations to choose from as in the previous game, and this excites us greatly.

Future shock
You’ll be able to use them rather more, too. The segmented energy bar of Human Revolution is gone, with it now seeming that you can recharge to a greater extent without using energy cells (or their equivalent), so less guards will be able to escape your wrath.

In what we’ve seen so far there’s been rather a lot of robo-biffing and very little in the way of sneaking, but Eidos promises the game will feature more freedom and openness than ever before, allowing players to approach their objectives with as much or as little subtlety as they like. It’s also been confirmed that the entire game, including boss fights, can be ghosted. It’s definitely not looking like a big departure for the series even the black-and-gold colour scheme is back but considering how good the last game was, more along the same lines is a-ok by us.

Shadow Of The Beast: Indie dev brings a forgotten classic back for PS4

2015-05-21T03:12:00.002-07:00

Shadow Of The Beast, the tough-as-leather Amiga side-scroller last seen in its second sequel in 1992, is getting a PS4 reboot. The Heavy Spectrum-developed title is a side-on, ultra-violent mix of ’80s era platforming and score-based bloodletting. So kind of like what would happen if Abe’s Oddysee and GOW had a gorgeous, but horribly ferocious, child. Oh, and we’ve played it!

Tearing up the scarred landscapes of Karamoon or rather, the squishy bits of the various creatures that inhabit it is smooth and satisfying stuff. There seems to be an awful lot of depth hidden behind the two main attacking buttons Square for a guard-breaking swipe and Triangle for a meatier, more painful-looking, heavy strike. It feels especially rewarding when you’re faced with waves of foes approaching from either side and you can mow through them one-by-one like they were unfortunate extras in a 300 movie.

“Like what would happen if abe’s oddysee and GOW had a horribly ferocious child”

Savage gaiden
The enemies we came across were varied enough to keep things interesting, too, from shielded foes requiring timed blocks and baited attacks, to fast-moving blighters who are especially fun to pluck out of the air and eviscerate with malice.

But when it comes to moving about outside of a fight things get a bit hairy, as your protagonist Aarbron stomps about with little grace and can feel a bit clunky. But hey, this is a very early alpha version we’re talking about here. We expect the team at Heavy Spectrum, including the almost oppressively passionate Matt Birch who’s heading the project, to work a few more wonders yet, besides bringing back this forgotten classic at all.

Firewatch: Burning questions abound in Campo Santo’s debut

2015-05-21T03:06:00.000-07:00

It’s lonely in the wilderness. All the more so when the only people you encounter lack the respect for the environment that you dearly cherish, instead littering at will, playing loud music, and even ransacking your watch tower for vandal kicks. For such a remote location, there’s little want for drama in this sun-parched region of Wyoming.

Nor fireworks, apparently. Our first order of business during the time we spend with an early build of the game is to investigate rumours of that most virulent of complications: youths. yeah, you know them, unkempt dealers of disorder, so they are. We’re told over the radio by our supervisor, Delilah, that a murder of free-spirited ne’er-do-wells are launching rockets amidst the dry, crispy woodstuff that makes up the forest we’ve been entrusted to protect. So, after a small bit of a hiccough during an abseil (hey, it’s a relatively new job, okay?), we set off.

Tree’s company
What’s most striking (apart from our newfound desire to guard against forest fires) is how good the controls feel. From a glance, the game resembles the subgenre of first-person games derisively labelled ‘walking simulators’ by the terminally unimaginative. But while Campo Santo’s narrative focus and menacing undertones recall the likes of Dear Esther and Gone Home (no bad thing, may we stress), it boasts the kind of chunky feedback you’d expect from something more action led.

“We follow the trail of underwear down to the lake and find two teens skinny dipping”

Don’t expect to parkour your way through all the crevices and ravines, though Firewatch is all about drinking in the atmosphere, the environment, and the objects within it. When we reach the source of the fireworks we find a smouldering campfire strewn with empty beer bottles, some posh-looking whisky, and a bra dangling unceremoniously over a branch. you can pick up and examine most objects, and every time you do there’s the opportunity to radio in to Delilah and report your findings and progress.

But it’s far from the binary system that this might suggest: Campo Santo has worked hard to finesse the way you navigate dialogue trees. On our controller that entails holding the left trigger to bring up a selection of actions or responses, and then cycling through them with a few quick squeezes of the right trigger. Release the left trigger at this point, and you’ll make your selection. It’s an elegant and clever system that prevents any break in your immersion by functioning as an unobtrusive overlay that neither pauses the game nor prevents you from continuing to explore while you ponder your retort.

Splash damage
And you’ll certainly want to take some time to think about what you’re going to say, as Delilah’s opinion of you will change according to the way you behave and the manner with which you handle situations. For example, once we follow the breadcrumb trail of underwear down to a lake, we discover two teenagers skinny dipping near a small island at its centre, the devil’s rock music blaring from a boombox on the shore. They dash out of sight as we shout over some gentle but sage advice on the relative merits of launching rocket-propelled explosives in what is essentially acres of kindling, but their dismissive response does little to convince us of any contrition. They could just be uncomfortable at being undressed in the presence of a stranger; this is understandable. But we do what any reasonable person would in our shoes: toss their stereo into the water and walk away while yelling that we hope they drown.

Of course, it didn’t have to go that way, and we could have been more polite and reasonable about the whole thing. But Firewatch’s willingness to let you express yourself in a way that you choose and the brilliantly funny and warm dialogue that goes with that is a big part of its draw. We can’t wait to unravel the deeper mystery at the core of the game, but more exciting than that is finding out how the human relationships at its centre play out.