- By Ash
- in News
Squad is a 50 vs 50 tactical multiplayer shooter that aims to be as realistic as it can possibly be. So if team-based strategies and methodical FPS gameplay sound like something you would love to mess around with, you'll be glad to hear that Squad is free to try out for the next two days!
Simply head on over to Steam, click on that giant green "Play Game" button, and you'll be getting riddled with bullets in no time. If you need a bit more information before diving in, however, allow me to share with you the relatively old "Introduction to Squad" video. The gameplay might be outdated, but it should still give you a pretty damn good idea of what to expect from Squad. Have a look:
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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:
- 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!
- 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.
- By Ash
- in News
Guild Wars 2's Path of Fire expansion released a little over a month ago, bringing with it some massive changes to all professions, as well as entirely new Elite Specializations to mess around with. As you might imagine, this many drastic changes and additions quickly resulted in some very wonky PvP balance. Not exactly ideal considering the expansion launched in the middle of a PvP season!
As such, I am very glad to say that Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire's first balance update has now arrived! You'll find the full patch notes over at the official website, but if you can't be bothered to go through all of the changes, just know that most of the classes have received some much needed balance tweaks and quality-of-life changes. This goes doubly so for the Mirage Elite Specialization as ArenaNet has finally removed some of the annoying delays between the various Axe attacks!
- By Ash
- in News
A little while ago the future of Hitman and IO-Interactive seemed to be quite grim, though thankfully that entire episode ended with IO-Interactive becoming an independent studio and Hitman getting a bunch of new content to mess around with. And now, with the Game of the Year Edition successfully launched, the developers have come out to announce their continued support of Hitman.
However, instead of simply revealing a second season with new maps and events, it appears that IO-Interactive is working on an entirely new Hitman game! The details are still unfortunately lacking, but according to the brief announcement the developers are making great progress on some "exciting new features and franchise firsts".
- By Ash
- in News
[Update]: The next big Sonic the Hedgehog game will focus on open-world exploration.
While its initial announcement was met with a resounding "meh", the public opinion on Sonic Forces changed considerably when Sonic Mania ended up being not only good, but downright amazing! It really seemed like the Sonic Team knew what they were doing, that they were finally going to bring Sonic back into the spotlight as more than the butt of a joke.
With that in mind, I am extremely glad to say that Sonic Forces did not end up being a disaster like Sonic Boom, but unfortunately it did end up being just as disappointing. The core gameplay is quite fun, don't get me wrong, but the whole campaign is ridiculously short. Each mission takes only a couple of minutes to beat, while you can blaze through the entire game within a couple of hours. You'll probably want to repeat some of the missions because they are quite the spectacle, but I highly doubt it'll be enough to keep your interest for very long. Not exactly ideal for a game that costs €20 more than Sonic Mania.