- By Ash
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Minecraft has just recently been expanded with "The World of Color" Update, bringing with it exactly what you would expect. Pretty much all of the colored blocks have been updated in order to give players a more diverse set of colors to mess around with, and there's now also colored concrete, colored beds, and glazed terracotta for those of you that want to be extra fancy.
Besides the color explosion the update has also brought with it the recipe book and a whole new advancements system. If you're a long-time player chances are this won't affect you very much, but it should be a great help for new players throughout their first adventure. If you're interested in the details, I'm afraid there aren't any, but I can share with you the rather short list of patch notes. Have a look:
- By Ash
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Like most things in human history Steam Greenlight started off with a noble idea: to offer indie developers an easy way to gain an audience and eventually get their game onto Steam's storefront. Again, much like most things in human history Steam Greenlight ended up being a horrific failure once people realized they can game the system and essentially push through unfinished, unpolished, or just straight up copy-pasted 'games'. If you need an example of what exactly I mean, simply try browsing through the low-priced part of the FPS section and see how many times you can spot the exact same jungle map.
As such, I am very glad to say that Valve has now finally shut down Steam Greenlight! If you're a developer that still had a game in Greenlight when the big button was pressed, worry not as Valve will be manually going through all of the games in order to ensure any even remotely good ones get through unscathed. As for any future applications, those will be handled through the upcoming Steam Direct program.
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Mirage: Arcane Warfare is the spiritual successor to Chivalry: Medieval Warfare, though with the highly armored and constantly screaming knights replaced with magic-wielding madmen. It released on Steam a little while ago, and much like the original version of Chivalry it has received fairly mixed reviews due to bugs and some unfortunate balance issues. Its not without potential, and its most certainly enjoyable in short bursts, but its most definitely flawed.
If you would like to give Mirage a try and see if its the type of game you might enjoy, you're in luck as its currently having a free weekend on Steam. The free trial period will last until 1pm PST on June 11th, so do make sure to jump in as soon as possible, lest you find yourself running out of time.
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As you might expect given its Monster Hunter influence, Dauntless is an upcoming RPG that's all about hunting down gigantic monsters with equally gigantic weapons, cleaving them in half, and then using their spikiest body parts to create even more ridiculous weaponry. Obviously Dauntless has plenty of features to set it apart from Monster Hunter, but the concept is pretty much the same.
If you're wondering how similar the two games truly are, check out the recently posted E3 teaser right below. It showcases some of the locations you can visit, some of the monsters you can annoy, as well as what combat looks like. Have a gander:
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Total War: Warhammer took well over a year to finally appear on Mac and Linux, and that wasn't even a simultaneous release given that the Mac version was delayed for quite a while due to an important update. Thankfully, the same does not apply to Dawn of War 3 given that both Mac and Linux versions have arrived today, a little over a month after the original PC launch.
As with the majority of ports these days Dawn of War 3's Mac and Linux versions have not been handled by the developers themselves, but rather by Feral Interactive. You might know them from their work on the Mac and Linux versions of XCOM 2, Tomb Raider, Deus: Ex Mankind Divided, Total War: Warhammer, and the list goes on.
- By Ash
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As I've said numerous times throughout my review Yooka-Laylee's biggest problems are technical in nature. The camera is wildly inconsistent and often annoying to deal with, the voice acting is profoundly irritating and extremely slow to skip, and some of the mini-games control so badly I was left genuinely impressed at how atrocious they are.
Thankfully, most of these things will be getting fixed through the upcoming Spit 'N' Polish update! The patch notes are fairly concise and to the point, so if you're interested in all of the details you will find the full list down below, along with some of my highlights points towards the most important changes. Have a look:
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The Elder Scrolls Online's Morrowind expansion brings with it a bunch of new locations to explore, a new bear-taming class to mess around with, as well as a brand new storyline filled with political intrigue and (unsurprisingly) backstabbing. The expansion itself arrived a couple of days ago to those that have pre-ordered, and after a brief exclusivity period it is now finally available for everyone.
As is tradition, there is also a Digital Collector's Edition available for those of you that enjoy fancy cosmetics. It features an 'exclusive' Grey War Bear skin for the new Warden class, an Armored War Horse mount to explore Morrowind with, a tiny Dwarven Spider pet to keep you company, a Morag Tong themed armor set, as well as a variety of character emotes. None of this has any effect on gameplay, so if you don't care about cosmetics feel free to completely ignore the bundle.
- By Ash
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Summer is now well and truly here: its unbearably hot and the mosquitoes are everywhere, but at least there's plenty of upcoming Summer sales to fill out our backlogs and give us an excuse to not venture outside! The reward for the very first big summer sale this time around goes to GOG as it currently has more than 1500 games on sale, many of which are on an extremely deep discount.
If you're interested in checking out all of the deals you will find what you seek over at the official website. On the other hand, if you don't know what to buy and you love RPGs almost as much as I do, here's a couple of suggestions based on the game's quality and the depth of its discount:
- By Ash
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ELEX is an upcoming post-apocalyptic open-world RPG from the creators of the Risen and Gothic series. As with all of their previous games ELEX is going to allow you to play in whatever way you wish, befriend or become enemies with whichever factions you choose, and most importantly of all, let you decide how to solve each and every problem.
And what better way to showcase this freedom of choice than through a disjointed, minute-long gameplay trailer set to some truly horrendous music! While the video unfortunately won't give you an idea of what ELEX plays like, it does at least showcase some of the different environments you'll get to visit, armor sets you'll get to wear, and jetpacks you'll get to pilot straight into a tree. Have a look, and trust me, turn down the volume:
- By Ash
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Despite launching with some severe problems Battleborn has never been a bad game. What was bad about it, however, was the marketing that closely linked it to Overwatch despite the two games being about as different as two shooters can possibly be. While Overwatch is a pure team-based shooter Battleborn is more of a hybrid between a shooter and a MOBA, with all of the mechanics and gameplay ideas based around that fact.
As such, I am very glad to say that Battleborn has finally gone free-to-play, which should hopefully revitalize its constantly declining playerbase. To be more specific, Battleborn is not free-to-play, it just has an infinite Free Trial that has all of the elements of a free-to-play game, but with a much more misleading name that might push new players away for no reason! Battleborn may have changed for the better, but its marketing remains as bizarre and misguided as it ever was...