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Planet Coaster, the theme park creator and management game, launched around a week ago to overwhelmingly positive reviews. But rather than sit back and enjoy their success, the developers have instead decided to release a rather significant update.
The boringly named Update 1.0.1 brings with it a new and much 'harder' challenge mode, a variety of new blueprints to toy around with, and most importantly, numerous optimization and stability improvements. Given that the biggest problems currently plaguing Planet Coaster are performance and difficulty, I hope you can now understand how positively delightful it is to see this patch arrive so quickly after release!
As for the patch notes themselves, here's the full list, though keep in mind that most of the 'important' stuff is hidden in between the lines:
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Ubisoft is celebrating their 30th anniversary, and in order to get everyone else into the festive mood they have decided to offer a brand new mystery gift every single day until December 23. And as an added bonus they are also currently giving away Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon, though it isn't technically a part of the "30 Days of Giveaways" promotion.
So if you're up for grabbing various gaming knickknacks, but also fully fledged games, head over to the Ubisoft website. Do bear in mind that you will need a Uplay account in order to claim these rewards, but other than that there is no catch. And if you're wondering what exactly you missed so far, or what's coming in the near future, here's the full list of rewards and their corresponding dates:
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Even though its competitive scene might not be as booming as it once was, there are plenty of interesting things going in with Starcraft 2 right now. The third mission pack for the Nova Covert Ops solo campaign just recently became available, a couple of new co-op missions have been added to spice things up, and after years of begging there's even brand new unit cosmetics to mess around with!
The only thing left to round out all of the content was to also release a significant balance update, and as it so happens - Blizzard recently recently did just that! Given that I haven't played Legacy of the Void in quite a while I won't even begin to guess how impactful these changes will actually end up being, but for what its worth, there sure is a lot of changes on display. You can find the full patch notes over at the Starcraft 2 website, but if you're just looking for the balance changes, here's the list:
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Endless Space 2, the turn-based, 4X strategy game currently in Early Access, has just recently received its first major update. It has added a brand new major faction by the name of The United Empire, as well as three minor factions and a whole array of quests related to them. But perhaps most importantly, the turn limit has been increased, so you will now be able to continue playing even after achieving victory at turn 100!
And if you're wondering what this new "The United Empire" faction is all about, here's a rather Starship Troopers inspired trailer. The message is far from subtle, but I have to admit this is one extremely well done propaganda video! Have a look:
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If you're a fan of pointless award ceremonies that are nothing more than a popularity vote, you'll be glad to hear that Valve is as well! But don't worry, they're not doing this completely straight-faced. I mean, one of the categories is literally called "I Thought This Game Was Cool Before It Won An Award", so what do you even say to that?
As silly as the whole concept is, I still have to admit that I actually went through the 'massive' trouble of filling all of it out. Perhaps its the ridiculous nature of it, and perhaps I'm just insane, but deciding which games to pick has been a surprising degree of fun. Its not every day that you get to ponder which game has made the best use of farm animals after all!
If you feel like joining this parade of madness, also known as the Steam Awards, here are all of the categories:
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After a rather long break from any sort of meaningful updates ArenaNet launched Guild Wars 2's Living World Season 3 story campaign back in July. A couple of months have passed since then, but their pace has not slowed down in the slightest, and as such I am glad to announce that Episode 3: A Crack in the Ice is now available!
If you're wondering what "A Crack in the Ice" is all about, both in terms of story and in terms of shiny new items you can collect, ArenaNet has prepared a brief preview video going just that. Have a look, and don't worry about spoilers, there's very little new lore in here:
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Ubisoft's The Division has just recently received a rather sizable boost in content through its second major expansion/DLC - Survival. It brought with it a brand new Survival mode which will test your ability to stay alive without relying on overpowered weaponry, a supposedly powerful and mysterious enemy that will try to hunt you down when you least expect it, and naturally, a whole bunch of new guns to shoot people in the face with.
If you're wondering what this new Survival mode is all about, here's a brief video going over the general premise. Before you jump in do bear in mind it features slight 'story' spoilers, but its such a generic introduction that I highly doubt you're going to lose much if you know it's coming. Anyway, here's the video:
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Despite seemingly being a perfect fit for video game tie-ins, poor Conan has not had the best track record so far. There is, however, a chance for redemption on the horizon as the open-world survival game Conan Exiles is quickly nearing its January Early Access release date.
If you're wondering what exactly this might look like, wonder no more as Funcom has just recently posted a decently sized announcement trailer. There's hordes of people destroying buildings, a giant snake destroying buildings, and there's even an actual giant destroying buildings! Anyway, have a look:
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As I've noted in my review when Paragon first launched in Early Access - there is a ton of potential for greatness here, but its unfortunately all hidden by gameplay mechanics so rough they're almost impossible to look past. Back then I wished for a massive update that would rework the combat, the general movement system, and even how many of the heroes function, and as it so happens this is exactly what Epic is currently doing!
Once the Monolith Update makes its way to Paragon on December 6 you'll be able to explore a new and significantly smaller map, as well as toy around with much faster and more action-orientated gameplay. But most importantly, you're probably going to spend a couple of days in utter confusion as every single hero is being updated... every single one!
While Epic hasn't released all of the details for this update just yet, they did take the time to at least explain why and how they are planning to achieve all of this. You can read the full article by heading over to Paragon's website, but if you're feeling particularly lazy here's my brief summary:
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If you ever thought that Saints Row IV just doesn't have enough ridiculously over the top weaponry, you'll be pleased to hear that Volition has just added Steam Workshop support! In other words, the ability to create, share, and download custom weapons, clothing, scripts and cheats, and a whole variety of other gameplay changes. The Saints Row IV Workshop only just launched so there isn't much available right now, but someone has already taken the time to make a flamethrower guitar... because why the hell not!
On the other hand, if you prefer to create rather than to simply use what others have built, you can find a basic guide and all of the necessary tools by heading over here. Do bear in mind that learning all of this is going to take you a little while, but should you manage to do it, the sky itself will be the limit!