Apex Legends' Season 13 has added Newcastle, tweaked Storm Point, and reworked ranked play
- By Ash
- in News
[Update #2]: Apex Legends' Season 15 Eclipse is bringing Catalyst as a new legend along with a “stellar” new map.
[Update]: Apex Legends Season 14 Hunted is bringing in the sniper-focused Vantage and reshaping Kings Canyon.
After a brief round of teasers and previews, Apex Legends' Season 13 - Saviors has now finally been released. It brings with it Bangalore's brother Newcastle as a brand new and defense-focused legend, a couple of fun locations to mess up on the Storm Point map, as well as a whole bunch of new cosmetics to collect.
Most importantly, ranked play has received yet another rework. This time around the goal behind the tweaks is to incentivize teamwork and playing for the win, and the various sources of RP have been shuffled around in order to make that happen. The topic's a bit too complicated to easily summarize, so if you're looking for all of the details you can find what you seek over at the recent developer update.
Stellaris' freshly launched Overlord expansion has reworked vassalization and spiced up the mid-game
- By Ash
- in News
[Update]: Stellaris' Toxoids Species Pack has added noble knights, poisonous baths and bad breath.
After quite a few teasers and previews, Stellaris' newest expansion Overlord has now finally been released. As the name might imply, Overlord is all about offering you new ways of projecting your power and asserting your will over the universe, be this for the betterment of all or merely yourself.
What this means in gameplay terms is that the whole vassalization mechanic has been reworked to be more interesting for both parties, and this even includes cases where your empire ends up on the wrong side of a galactic tyrant! There's also new mid-game megastructures to play around with, three new enclaves to butter up for major benefits, as well as five new origins to give you a new perspective and challenges to overcome.
MTG Arena has once again banned Tibalt's Trickery and Winota, Joiner of Forces
- By Ash
- in News
[Update #2]: MTG Arena's June 2nd update is adding new cards and long requested quality-of-life improvements.
[Update]: MTG Arena is getting the Commander focused Battle for Baldur's Gate set on July 7th.
As the very first step on the long journey towards Pioneer, MTG Arena recently added the Explorer format which features all of the currently available cards from Return to Ravnica and onwards. However, since the fledgling Explorer format doesn't have the same breadth of cards and strategies as Pioneer, Wizards of the Coast pledged to balance it separately in order to make sure no deck becomes too dominant.
Good thing too, because only two weeks have gone by and already Wizards of the Coast has felt compelled to issue some bans! The first of these should come as no surprise given that we're talking about Tibalt's Trickery, the bane of pretty much every constructed format in MTG Arena. Tibalt's Trickery is being banned not because it's too powerful though, but rather because it creates a large amount of non-interactive games that are decided by pure random chance. Those games also tend to be incredibly boring for both sides, so good riddance as far as I'm concerned!
Gotham Knights' newest Nightwing & Red Hood preview is sadly looking quite janky
- By Ash
- in News
After going through a rather lengthy delay, the co-op focused Batman spin-off Gotham Knights has recently been pinned for an October 25th, 2022 release date. I can only hope that's going to be enough time to get everything polished up and ready to go, because if the latest gameplay preview is any judge, there's still a lot of work to be done!
Before I babble on, however, allow me to share with you the freshly posted Nightwing and Red Hood gameplay demo. It showcases some serious flaws, there is no denying that, but there's a lot of good stuff in here as well. Have a peek:
Souls-like action RPG Salt and Sacrifice has now landed onto PC and PlayStation
- By Ash
- in Indie Games
Salt and Sacrifice, sequel to the flawed yet highly enjoyable 2D Souls-like RPG Salt and Sanctuary, has now been unleashed onto PC and PlayStation. Much like its predecessor it brings with it a large world filled with treasure and secrets, an assortment of tricky enemies that will happily smash you into the dirt if you don't pay attention, as well as a variety of different gear and upgrades to help keep things interesting.
What all of this looks like in actual gameplay, as well as what the story is even all about, that you can get a glimpse at through the freshly posted launch trailer. Have a gander:
Crowns and Pawns, a Broken Sword and Syberia inspired point & click adventure, has now arrived
- By Ash
- in Indie Games
Inspired by the classics like Broken Sword and Syberia, the freshly released Crowns and Pawns: Kingdom of Deceit is a point & click puzzle-adventure. As you might imagine given that brief description alone, Crowns and Pawns is all about solving a variety of tricky problems, navigating obstacles in a way that no ordinary human would ever even consider, as well as chatting up an assortment of amusing characters along the way.
What I find the most interesting, however, is that Crowns and Pawns not only allows you to customize your character, but that the way you look actually plays into the puzzles themselves and how people respond to you. It's not a particularly complex system, so don't get any big ideas, but it's still a neat little touch to help you get immersed into the story.
Six years after its launch, the boss-battling action game Furi is getting a brand new character
- By Ash
- in Indie Games
[Update]: Onnamusha Rider has now arrived, and so far her playstyle really does seem to offer a fresh and unique take on Furi's gameplay!
In announcement that comes completely out of nowhere, The Game Bakers team has just unveiled a brand new DLC for their 2016 boss-battling action game Furi. The Onnamusha DLC brings with it a brand new character that features her own unique assortment of moves, gameplay mechanics and approaches for each boss.
Onnamusha Rider, the titular character, will be a powerful fighter that alternates between two different stances in order to best approach each situation. You can go fast and agile in order to strike at the bosses in the rare few moments they're not spewing attacks towards you, or go for the riskier approach that involves slower yet far more lethal attacks. Either way you'll be building up the special Star meter in the process, which can then be used to unleash some serious damage upon your foes.