- By Ash
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Need for Speed 2015 has received its fair share of criticism, mostly due to it being a surprisingly boring experience, but even games completely panned by critics can sometimes be quite enjoyable. Unfortunately, trying such games out is often impossible as demos have long since gone out of favor and the price tags rarely drop below that dreaded €60 mark.
However, in a bit of a fortunate turn of events for you racing fans, Origin announced today that they are offering a 10-hour free trial for Need for Speed 2015! If you ever wanted to test it out, or just outright beat the entire game for free, now would be your chance.
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In a recently posted development update, Blizzard has announced the arrival of two new heroes to the Nexus. The first one is the Fel Warlock Gul'dan, an Ork so awesome Blizzard was willing to completely mess up World of Warcraft's story just to bring him back to life. The second, and only slightly less impressive is Auriel, the Archangel of Hope whom you might know from the Diablo series.
While the release dates for either hero are currently unknown, Blizzard did recently post a hero spotlight for Gul'dan, so I'd imagine he's coming within a week or so. If you're interested in what this life-tapping ranged assassin can do, here's the video:
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In a recently posted press release, Sega has announced their acquisition of Amplitude Studios, the developers whom you might know from their work on the "Endless" series. In other words, the developers of Endless Legend, Dungeon of the Endless, Endless Space, and the upcoming Endless Space 2.
While it might not be the most creatively named thing in the world, Endless Legend is one of my favorite 4X games simply due to the sheer amount of unique units and mechanics present within. The balance might be completely out of whack and the end-game often devolves into a big ol' mess, but at the end of the day I can't say I was ever bored with it.
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Romance of the Three Kingdoms 13, a historical RPG/RTS hybrid with a focus on "human drama", has been available on Steam since January 2016, though only in Japanese and Chinese. Today's big update, however, has finally made it fully available in English as well.
While that should be cause for celebration, the unfortunate reality is that the reviews are currently less than favorable, and it does appear that Romance of the Three Kingdoms 13 is a deeply troubled game that might not appeal to the majority of RTS fans. Here's the launch trailer to hopefully give you an idea of what its all about:
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Over twenty years have passed since the original Worms game, and ever since then Team17 has tried everything from 3D to Pinball, but outside of a few exceptions it was the classic 2D Worms gameplay that stood the test of time.
In celebration of its 21st anniversary, and in an effort to create "the best version of the game yet", Team17 has set to work on creating a modern remake - Worms W.M.D. It will contain the same classic Worms physics and gameplay, though spiced up with modern graphics, new features, and a massive assortment of both new and classic weaponry. Here's the recently posted trailer showcasing exactly that:
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From the very moment it first released Paragon featured a Daily Quest system, and while it certainly offered a generous bounty of items it also required you to win a game every single day. While this isn't usually a big deal, there are days when you just lose every single round or simply don't have enough time to play, in which case you know for a fact that you are going to be missing out on X amounts of loot, and that is something that never feels good.
Thankfully, Epic has listened to community complaints and has recently issued a rather large revamp of the quest system. Daily Quests have been replaced with Victory Chests, and the newly added Weekly Quests are here to provide a nice little bonus for the most dedicated of players.
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During the recent RTX, a gaming convention hosted by Rooster Teeth, Halo Wars 2's brand new campaign trailer has been unveiled. Unfortunately, it doesn't showcase any new gameplay footage, but at the very least it does add a bit of context to the all-out brawl between humans and aliens.
You will find the video right below, though be prepared for some slight audio issues as this was recorded from the audience and is by no means official footage:
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Even though the Naruto series is of dubious quality, there's no denying the fact that its one of the most popular anime around. With that in mind, it shouldn't come as much of a surprise to hear that there is an official MMO being released later this month.
What might surprise you, however, is that its almost impossible to find any information about it, and even the Bandai Namco website seems to shy away from even mentioning it. From what I've gathered its been available in a couple of regions for a few years now, though mostly in a beta state, with July 20th being set as its official Western release. Here's the trailer, though don't expect to see more than a sliver of its turn-based gameplay:
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As you can expect with pretty much any new system, Overwatch's Competitive Play turned out to be a rather glorious mess. If you're interested in the details, I've done on a full rundown on all of the issues and how to fix them, but to put it simply, the system hates seeing disconnects so much its willing to practically negate the entire match, no matter who disconnected, or even if they came back within a few seconds.
The end result of these issues is a ranking system that might statistically be perfectly fair, but in reality feels like an absolute slog to go through. You can win three games in a row and barely gain any rank, then lose one single game with a leaver on your team and find yourself going down an entire rank because the system switched into "punishment mode". If you've encountered issues like this, you'll be glad to hear that Blizzard is aiming to have them corrected at some point this week, as noted by Jeff Kaplan:
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Summer Games Done Quick is a community organized event where speedruners from all over the globe gather together to completely break the games you know and love, all in the name of charity. This year's SGDQ will last all the way till Sunday, July 10, and all of the money gathered throughout the week will be donated to Doctors Without Borders, a charity organization dedicated to providing medical aid where its needed the most.
If you've never watched any of the Games Done Quick marathons and as such have no idea what all of this "speedrunning nonsense" is all about, here's a Youtube recording of one of my favorite runs from last year's SGDQ. Skip to around 8:30 if you're not interested in the pre-game banter and setup: