EA is set to acquire Respawn Entertainment, the developers behind the Titanfall series
- By Ash
- in News
Three weeks ago EA closed down Visceral and restructured the previously singleplayer Star Wars RPG into some sort of multiplayer focused title, much to the public's dismay given how popular the original two Dead Space games were. With that in mind, it might come as a bit of a shock to hear that EA is now set to acquire Respawn Entertainment, the developers of Titanfall and Titanfall 2.
According to the brief press release, Respawn will continue to have their own culture and creative freedom, while EA will mostly provide the resources necessary to expand the scope of all future games. As lovely as that statement is, I can't help but feel a tinge of dread as EA has a bit of a history of meddling with their studios, with the end result usually being them bleeding all of their creative talent and eventually getting shut down. I can only hope this fate won't befall Respawn as well since the Titanfall series is just too damn awesome to go the way of Dead Space 3.
Obsidian has released the results of their recent DLC and gaming background survey
- By Ash
- in News
On October 4th Obsidian published an in-depth survey asking players about their preferences regarding DLC, as well as a bit about their gaming background, the type of games they play, and so forth. All in all, around 55,000 people from across the various online communities participated in the survey, bringing with them some rather interesting insights about the average cRPG player.
You can probably guess a few answers given the type of players attracted to hardcore RPG games, but even so its a bit surprising to see that 92% of the participants were male, while only 6% identified themselves as female. This result was probably a bit skewed given how the survey was advertised and spread, but even so its a bit out of the ordinary to have such a low female representation, especially when the average for RPGs is around 20% from what I remember reading a little while back.
The point and click adventure game Syberia is free on GOG for the next two days
- By Ash
- in News
While the recent Syberia 3 has received only mixed reviews, the original point and click adventure Syberia is still widely considered as a classic. So if you're up for a bit of a blast from the past, you'll be glad to hear that GOG is currently giving away the original Syberia for free, and yes, it actually works on modern systems!
It is important to mention that this promotion will only last for two more days (as of the time of writing), so if you're even remotely interested in Syberia you should head over to GOG as soon as possible. You don't even need to install it in order to secure yourself a copy. Simply add it to your GOG account and it will be yours to keep, a process that will only take you minute or two.
Hand of Fate 2 is an interesting hybrid between an action-RPG, a roguelike dungeon crawler, and a deck-building game
- By Ash
- in Indie Games
Hand of Fate 2 is a bit of a curious game. Its essentially a combination of an action-rpg, a deck-building card game, and a roguelike dungeon crawler. How it works is that each overturned card reveals some sort of challenge or effect, which can range from an action-orientated combat section that is very reminiscent of the modern Batman games, to a short minigame, or just some good ol' fashioned choose-your-own-adventure decision making. The most interesting part of this whole system is that the various different elements are interactive, so if you have a couple of armor and weapon cards, you can actually use them in the combat sections to give yourself an advantage!
As you can see, all of this is not exactly the easiest concept to explain through words alone, so allow me to instead share with you the launch trailer. Its not a very long video, but it should give you a pretty damn good idea of what Hand of Fate 2 is all about and how it plays. Have a look:
The PC version of Injustice 2 will be coming to Steam early next week
- By Ash
- in News
After already being available on consoles for quite a while now, NetherRealm's 'superhero' fighting game will finally be making its way to PC next week. To be a bit more specific, you can expect to see Injustice 2 on Steam this November 14th at what I can only imagine is going to be a €50-60 price tag.
If you're not exactly sure what to expect, allow me to share with you the console launch trailer. It doesn't feature a ton of gameplay, but it should still give you a general idea of what Injustice 2 and its combat system have to offer. Have a look:
Total War: Warhammer 2's latest update has now finally fixed the ridiculous Chaos invasions
- By Ash
- in News
Total War: Warhammer 2 was recently updated with the Mortal Empires campaign. It represents a combination of the campaign maps from Total War: Warhammer 1 and 2, as well as all of the Legendary Lords and factions they lead. By all accounts it is one of the best updates a Total War game has ever received, but while the new campaign is downright awesome, it is also plagued by some rather annoying issues.
The biggest and most annoying example of these problems is the bizarre behavior of Chaos and Norsca invasions. Instead of declaring war on everyone and carving a bloody path throughout the old world, all they would do is declare war on the player alone and send an absolutely ridiculous stack of armies at them. So if you weren't prepared to fight off 15 different Chaos armies over the course of three turns, your campaign would pretty much be over. As such, I am very glad to say that Creative Assembly has now finally released a fix for this, as well as a few other issues!
Overwatch will be having a free trial next week to celebrate the release of the 26th hero Moira
- By Ash
- in News
If you ever wanted to give Overwatch a try, but you weren't sure if its the type of FPS you'd enjoy, you're in luck as Blizzard has just announced a free weekend. From November 17th at 11am PT until November 20th at 11:59pm PT Overwatch will be free to play across all regions and platforms.
As with all of the previous free weekends, the upcoming one will give you access to all of the content besides Competitive Play, for obvious reasons. Most importantly of all, the free weekend will include the 26th hero Moira which is currently on the PTR! Whether this means she'll be patched in next Tuesday during the usual update period, I don't know, but Blizzard has clearly stated that the new players will have access to all "26 heroes", so look forward to seeing Moira and her accompanying balance changes in the near future.