Part of next week’s update is a new Tall Tale—the story-style quests that Sea Of Thieves now has. A big element of that adventure will be traps, Rare say. Some of the fiery variety and some of the slicey, it looks. In the video below, you can spot giant swinging axes, circular saws coming out of the floor, and a heck of a lot of flame jets popping out every which way....
As reported by VGC, the trademarks include a “Sega NFT” logo and one for “Sega Classics NFT Collection”. In a December management meeting, Sega president Haruki Satomi said that, “In terms of NFT, we would like to try out various experiments and we have already started many different studies and considerations but nothing is decided at this point regarding P2E.” Satomi then acknowledged the need to “mitigate the negative elements”, and to assess “what will be accepted and what will not be by the users....
Here’s the new trailer released during Gamescom 2021: Aiko’s Choice returns to Edo-period Japan for stealthy, stabby missions, this time focused on the game’s disguise expert Aiko. The trailer above does end with a surprise, however, announcing that the expansion will also feature a new adventure featuring Mugen, the original game’s samurai. The love for the original Shadow Tactics was pretty universal at RPS, with our Shadow Tactics review calling it “a fabulous game – a game I think I prefer to both Commandos 2 and Desperados....
Like the randomiser mods popular with all manner of Souls and Zeldas and all that, the Deus Ex mod can make something old new again by shuffling weapons, items, objectives, enemies, turrets, cameras, and even starting locations from their familiar spots into new places. And it can randomise passwords and keypad codes. And randomise how good augmentations and weapons are. And randomise how tough doors are. And… any familiar routines you’ve fallen into across myriad replays will not help you now....
Like its NES-ish predecessor, Shakedown Hawaii is a top-down GTA parody styled after that series’ earliest entries, painted in crunchy retro console visuals. Like Retro City Rampage, it’s also an endless parade of references - but unlike the often-tiresome parade of callbacks Alec lamented in his Retro City Rampage review, it does seem like Shakedown’s drawing from a more contemporary well. Prods at VR, hypercapitalism, gamification and streaming culture are the norm here....
The Anniversary Edition is essentially the Special Edition (which came out in 2016) with every piece of content from the Creation Club, a store where folks can buy mod-like bits from Bethesda and community creators. The devs say this stuff includes new quests, armour and game modes, as well as aquariums for your Hearthfire homes. Owners of the Special Edition will get four free things from the Creation Club without needing to buy the new version....
If you already own the Skyrim Special Edition, you can instead upgrade to the Anniversary Edition for a lower price: £16/$20/€20. The Anniversary Edition, if you don’t know, is a new version of Skyrim that’s gussied up with every piece of Creation Club content released thus far. The Creation Club is Bethesda’s source for officially sanctioned mods, which cost money to buy for the previously released Special Edition. It’ll add things like fishing and aquariums and a lot more....
I genuinely daren’t check in on any of those conversations today, because, honestly, it wasn’t a massive night for long-running franchises, and I don’t think I can handle the lamentations. And, while I’ll admit that my initial skim of the trailers for familiar names came up a tad short, I’m not at all disappointed, because it looks like 2023 is going to be a stellar year for devs doing something cool with a new IP while learning a lot from their older projects....
Whenever I’ve watched a Springwatch presenter hoist on into their arms, I always imagined a hedgehog weighs as much as maybe two sun-dried tomato, feta, and salad pasta pots. So fairly light, then. But having played Sonic Colours: Ultimate for preview, my theory has been trashed. Sonic’s a weighty hog, which is something I hadn’t expected. There was no mention of Sonic’s density in my preview, because otherwise it would’ve been all I touched on....
We’ve already glimpsed most of the new monsters in trailers, but this is the first time we’ve learned about their personalities. Developers Endnight Games told IGN that there’s a whole system at play, where some enemies “have leadership qualities that can influence the decisions of others and even promote ideas in their ranks, such as religion”. The mutants apparently all have “their own tastes, desires and proclivities”, though IGN reporter Dale Driver was very much told that rather than shown it....
As always, all of this is more fun if you replace the word “metaverse” with, for example, “Habbo Hotel.” Basically, what’s happened is that Epic noticed that a lot of people were using Fortnite as a space to hang out with friends. The game of building and shooting was somewhat incidental to this, in the way shops are somewhat incidental to ’90s teens hanging out in malls. Online virtual hangout spaces have existed for decades, but calling them “the metaverse” makes it sound exciting and new to investors....
Here’s the latest trailer: SWOTS revolves around short rounds of play, each representing a day’s trading in an organ market driven by the needs of the space warlords. Some of the space warlords appear to be dogs with names like “Chad Shakespeare”. I dig the whole aesthetic, the green-on-black of an old computer terminal, and the strange aliens, stark colours and chunky menu buttons evoking games like Captain Blood. The kind of game you discover young, fail to comprehend, but which sears itself into your memory....
Today’s apology: I have no recollection of what I said in this episode, because I was too focused on the stress of playing to be conscious of my speech. I regret the moment in which I called the lovely pet pug a “stupid mutt”, but in my defence he was being very stupid. This is a good example for the power of jetpacks. Having it on my back made the game much easier, allowing me to fly over platforming challenges and zoom away from enemies....
Here’s a trailer for season 0: The update, which is available now, adds Contamination mode, in which one player is only able to use melee weapons and contaminates others by killing them. Contaminated players then switch sides and are able to contaminate others, while the dwindling number uninfected fight against them. It also adds Karman Station, a new map set in outer space with an open central area and a sniper tower in the periphery....
If you need a catch-up sesh on everything to expect when Stalker 2: Heart Of Chornobyl comes out, we’re here to help. Below we’ll walk you through just about everything you could ever want to know about Stalker 2, from its expected release date, platforms, and pre-order details, to information on story, gameplay, multiplayer, and more. We’ll also explore how the game’s development has been affected by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and how the devs are getting on now....
The wishlist function on Steam, in case you’ve never bothered to use it, is a handy little way to keep an eye on a game you might be interested in. You’ll get emails from Steam letting you know when a game on your wishlist is released and if it goes on sale. “Among 2020 Next Fest participants, the median game saw daily wishlist additions jump 421% during the fest, compared to the two weeks leading up to the event,” Valve say....
Golden Week begins each year on April 29th and groups together several holidays in Japan. The Steam sale will run a week from today, until May 6th at 10am PT/6pm BST. It’s easy enough to find big games via Steam’s landing page. We named Death Stranding one of our favourite games of 2020 and it’s £22/$24. Brendy found Ace Combat 7 an absurd delight and it’s £12.50/$15. Tales Of Vesperia and Tales Of Berseria are 80% and 85% off respectively, ahead of Tales Of Arise’s release this September....
Fast Travel seem to be going for a No Man’s Sky vibe, if that was entirely set in space in VR with no planetside action. You’ll be able to zip about in your star-going TV licence enforcement van in search for the elusive ghost signal, chatting with aliens, dodging massive floating beasties, and fighting other ships. There’ll also be plenty of research to conduct and scanning of alien things, because it’s science fiction....
Developers Flight School Interactive describe Stonefly as “Rogue One shrunk down to Fern Gully size”. You play Annika Stonefly, a young mechanic and mech pilot searching for her father’s lost mech. That search takes the form of exploration and combat in a mech of your own, interspersed with conversations with the members of Acorn Corp. It looks fabulous. I love its art style, particularly its use of texture. Some surfaces are almost flat colours, others have visible line work, and the mixture makes every scene so rich to look at....
Luke, Jamie, Ryu, Chun-Li, Guile, Kimberly, Juri, and me ol’ mucker Ken Masters are on the chinning roster for this second closed beta. Character creation is up for grabs too, but you’ll only get one go for the beta. Try to make something memorable for when you KO the opposition. Six stages will be there for you to pick from too, including Metro City Downtown, Carrier Byron Taylor, which I assume is a big boat with planes on it, The Macho Ring (nice), and, erm, Training Room....
