Star Citizen is now sailing towards $64 million on its Crowdfunding, so as a thank you for all of the support the development team have suddenly decided to implement a variety of space pets.
The game did have a few robot companions but they did not seem to fill the space that a pet could and now like in World of Warcraft and plenty other MMOs the pets are coming.
“We have repair bots, we have fish, but we haven’t implemented a traditional pet system in Star Citizen yet, at $64 million, that changes. From Jones the Cat in Alien to the Battlestar Galactica’s Daggit, pets have a place on board starship and we want to give you that option in Star Citizen.” said a developer at Cloud Imperium.
Little is known about the pets, but it is known that some very strange and never before creatures will be coming to the highly anticipated space sim.
After a solid week of Dragon Age: Inquisition, I feel like I can talk about the game in some coherent manner, and it’s mostly good things. After sleepless nights and many a ram slaughtered in cold blood, Dragon Age: Inquisition is a good story driven Fantasy Role Playing Game with such a huge scope that any completionist could easily dump a few hundred hours on it, which is impressive in this era of gaming.
I wasn’t too sure how to take Dragon Age: Inquisition at first, the beginning of the game had a lot of action and information thrown at me whilst I tried to work out how to use the new combat system and the talents that just spring up from nowhere. After a few solid hours of gameplay the game just plateaued for some time and it took some old school RPG grinding techniques to get through it, but once that all passed it was like opening an oyster and finding a pearl inside.
Closing a Rift in Dragon Age: Inquisition
Interesting characters and a seamless flow of questing brought to life the rich lore and the humongous world of Thedas. When looking at the game with a critical eye different things started to feel quite bland and unnecessary when it came to enjoying Dragon Age. The starting area, The Hinterlands, starts out great when learning abilities and the basic tutorial, but the hand holding becomes tiresome and I found myself wanting more from an open world title.
I kept coming back to the question “is this actually an open world?”.
In any open world game you are punished for being too reckless or… stupid, I found that Dragon Age: Inquisition was more linear than I would have hoped. At the game launch, I was only able to play through the first area, acquiring a horse and fast travel markers; at home I was disappointed due to the fact that everything was split into sections which took away from the “open world” gameplay.
Dragon Age: Inquisition Boss fight
Looking past the promises of an “open world” game, travelling around the land was beautiful to say the least. Textures throughout the game made it great to look at when in combat or just riding around on Shadowfax, (my horse needed a good name). Everything looks great from the grass to the picturesque sky. It shows that the texture quality was given great consideration in the design of the game and this makes Dragon Age so easy to play for countless hours.
When it came to different environmental surroundings the designers really went all out, it didn’t just feel like a new texture pack when changing locations but a redesigned landscape with new dungeons and places to explore.
With great visual design of the game, the combat system is just as good. As a mage watching your magic fly through the air with great weight and visuals, RPG combat was made fun again. When attacks are visually pleasing it makes fighting the same type of enemy a little less boring and monotonous, watching them explode into shards of ice or just simply die from a stab wound is rather satisfying.
Adventuring through the lands of Dragon Age
When thinking back on how this game made me feel and the experiences I had with the title, nothing impressed me more than the casting of the characters. The voice acting is mostly fantastic; pretty much every character has a great script and story behind them. Meeting a new party member comes about with some nice story and different dialogue options that add to the encounter.
I found myself just wasting time with inquisition questions just to hear the voice acting at work and I don’t regret one second of that. When adventuring out in the wild, your party members will have conversations with one another which have been scripted for different character interactions. I usually kept the party members who had the most interesting dialogue sequences.
The war room was another highlight when discussing the unique RPG style of Dragon Age: Inquisition. Selecting council members to participate in the questing and exploring kept the game more interesting and dynamic. Missions that council members could go on sometimes ended in new areas becoming accessible for questing, levelling up and generating “power points”, Power points is what allows you to send council members on missions to gather information and unlock areas.
Although the war room is a good addition to the game I was left feeling like more could have been done with it. Something more on the lines of a chess-like mini game or dialogue choices that could fail missions instead of knowing you will succeed every time would make it less of a chore.
War Room missions
With a game like Dragon Age: Inquisition you need to be prepared to accept all the characters for who they are and this game really pushes the point with the development of different personalities of the game. Sera is – personally – such a fantastic character, she is a party member (if you choose her to be), a romantic interest (if you happen to be the right gender) and she is an Elven wacko. More fantasy games in the genre could learn a thing or two, or three when looking at the character design model that Dragon Age has.
It is clear that BioWare made this game, from the dialogue options to the story direction, Dragon Age: Inquisition has all the typical BioWare trademarks. Being able to have sex, say anything insulting you’d like and be as uncharacteristically nice for a change, it’s all in there.
Dialogue Choices in Dragon Age
Now let’s get into the nitty-gritty and nitpick the hell out of this game –
Full of story
The lore of Dragon Age is great, Chantry, the Maker, Templars and Mages, and most importantly demons and dragons. For most players, they will not discover a dragon until 10 hours plus in the game because the game is just that pack of dialogue and hand holding. For new players this can be seen as a ward against Dragon Age and it does not try and get the new player involved which is a shame to say the least.
Rushing through the game doesn’t help either. The game doesn’t want you to be the next Completionist but it wants you to explore every part of the map for you to get the most out of Dragon Age.
I wish there was more action and information about the happenings of Thedas in the first few hours, it would have been that push I needed to not sleep at all is the true sign of a great game. I like being a complete wreck when going to work in the morning with tales of triumph and defeat ultimately confuse coworkers.
Dialogue Choices in Dragon Age
Talented
The talent tree system is a little lack lacklustre. The three classes; rogue, mage and warrior all have pretty stock standard specialized abilities with one or two good ones thrown in for the fun factor. I feel as if a combat system built around an average talent tree is not good enough for a game that consists of over 100 hours of gameplay. Getting bored with the abilities of three classes shouldn’t really happen in a game like Dragon Age: Inquisition but it happens now and again.
The game suffers a little from the combat; fights never really go for a long period of time unless it is a boss or an impossible battle. Having fights that don’t allow you to use all of your combat skills to great effect is a disappointment and honestly as a mage, spells look great when casting them at a run of the mill enemy, but targeted at an oversized boss does not have the same effect but you are able to cast all of your abilities during the combat.
These sorts of things happen with most fantasy RPGs and I cannot wait for the day when a system springs to life to counteract this issue.
Invisible Walls
As mentioned before, the game does not feel like an open world RPG and one thing that really made me puzzled was the invisible walls everywhere.
Battles in Great Halls
Let me jump off a cliff – at a camp I came across during my adventuring there was a cliff which overlooked a grand valley. I tried everything in my power to jump off, but the game just did not want a bar of it. An open world should be, well, open. Not being able to jump off a cliff is one thing I really did not expect Dragon Age would have. If you do manage to jump off a cliff into the black void you are “magically” teleported back to your launch point after a fade to black.
All I am saying is that if you can die by sliding down the side of a mountain, it should be the same when jumping off into nothingness.
Overall 7.5/10
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The game is one of the greats of the Fantasy RPG genre. Putting the player into a world of magic and mystical lands, Dragon Age: Inquisition is a fantastic game to anyone who is dedicated enough to put in the endless amount of time and effort required. Venture forth, into Thedas where adventure, glory and an inquisition to rival all inquisitions will begin.
My personal issue with Dragon Age: Inquisition
I have decided to keep this part separate from the review mainly due to its specific nature. Dragon Age: Inquisition did not run as smoothly as I would want it to. I spent a whole day figuring out why crashes and performance issues were plaguing my playthrough of the game. My gaming rig is quite good, the game had set ultra high for most advanced graphical settings, but poor performance was a large issue.
It seemed (but not confirmed) that changing resolutions to a setting that was not native to the monitor really screwed up the game to a point where it become unplayable. This was a huge issue when capturing game footage. The reason that this does not impact on the review of such a good game is that the majority of people will not experience this issue and the problem was fixed by fluke.
It is safe to say “Yes, Batman can be more badass than we thought”.
New Batman footage has been released in the wake of the upcoming final game in the Batman: Arkham series. The couple of minute long video shows pretty much everything we need to know about the upcoming game.
The title of the video implies that there will be more parts to come:
Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and DC Entertainment today released the first of three new gameplay videos from Batman™: Arkham Knight, which features Batman learning about his new foe the Arkham Knight as he enters ACE Chemicals.
The gameplay footage highlights combat, the Batmobile and the story.
New Takedowns
A new form of takedowns focused at goons with assault rifles. Creeping through the shadows picking off enemies one by one.
Seamless combat to Batmobile maneuvers
Call upon the Batmobile at anytime with a radio signal. Dive in and out of the Batmobile with ease and pizazz.
Vehicle combat
Missiles, lock-on abilities and a damn tank. That is what you get when you roll up with a Batmobile.
Look out for the release of Batman: Arkham Knight when it hits store on 2nd June 2015 (3rd for Australia and New Zealand).
Far Cr 4 has struck a balance between keeping some loved mechanics from Far Cry 3 and implementing enough new to keep features to keep things interesting for those who are returning to the series.
Far Cry 4
Developer: Ubisoft Montreal
Publisher: Ubisoft
Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC
You play as Ajay Ghale a native from Kyrat who has returned home to spread his mothers ashes. His arrival stirs the tyrant of Kyrat, Pagan Min a bloodthirsty king who’s only goal is to wreak havoc on the people of Kyrat. As the various demos and trailers show the tyrant is very like Vass from the previous game in many ways, especially the way he goes dancing around bloody corpses. But despite the fact Pagan Min is the one of the most important characters in the game he rarely comes into the game making the story slightly less like a crazy playground for the tyrant and more like a revolution against the locals way of life.
During the first few minutes Ajay Ghale is captured by the radical resistance in the midst a regular raid to try and reclaim Kyrat from Pagan. You are instantly thrown into the games sandbox playground with the single goal to escape, and in the spirit of Far Cry games you fall in with these rebels and they will task you with taking down Pagan. However unlike in the past these rebels seem to have a past with Ajay which definitely adds new story elements to the game. Because of this the game is definitely more logical as it sees you climbing the rebels ranks to one day take the place of your father.
Shangrila is both beautiful and dangerous
As you climb these ranks you will be able to make important choices that control the flow of the war and the story. You can choose the decision that you feel is right or if you dont agree with the resistance the one that seems to benefit them the least. The decisions are already devastatingly difficult to choose but to add pressure the leader that you denied the help of will confront you and tell you what you have caused making you feel incredibly guilty.
The two immediate leaders are Amita and Sabal, these two will both offer you different choices that vary drastically. For example Sabal is concerned with maintaining Kyrats traditions meaning instead of advancing their civilization they are going back to denying people their rights and executing anyone who stands against them.
More to do
Like in the previous games side quests are available and you will likely have to take them on if you want to complete the campaign and the best moments in the game are the new Shangrila missions. These missions consist of taking you to out of reality and tossing you into an unworldly area, these moments will draw you back into the game time and time again. These missions will definitely stay in your mind as you experience intense hostage rescues resulting in you merely escaping the vicious militia.
In multiplayer animals can be your greatest friend or greatest enemies
Multiplayer
Far Cry 4 revives the map making feature along with matchmaking, the matchmaking pits Pagan Mins elite squad of soldiers against the resistance fighters, the resistance fighters will have advanced bows and the local wildlife at their disposal whilst ‘The elites’ will have highly dangerous weapons at hand that will take the resistance down with ease so if you are playing against the elites you will have to change your play style to stealth if you want to triumph.
Despite the fact that the opposing teams vary massively they are surprisingly balanced, this is because the enemy animals are not as durable as they are in the campaign and because of the addition of animals to their team pagan mins troops have less fire power and are usualy based on staying in the shadows.
Overall
This installment offers up so much and really builds on the last game whilst still staying true to its roots. Far Cry 4 suits a number of different groups of gamers because of the wide varieties of play styles.
\It also pulls the player in to the point where you will be able to marvel the beautiful wildlife before using your newly found animal friends to wrest an advantage.
Let me start out by saying this game is one of the better games to be released all year, atmospheric, suspenseful and hits home with such a strong message about how war can affect everyone. The first time I played through the game I actually choked up a little bit over the choices I had to make, I beat an old couple to death with a shovel just so I could survive another day.
My characters felt as I did, which added to the emotional roller coaster.
Ultimately, this game is a plate spinner, trying to make sure that you equally distribute resources to your war survivors without one of them crashing to the ground.
You start off with a couple of characters which you don’t have an automatic connection with but you soon realize that these people are in pretty bad shape. Playing through This War of Mine you soon realize that one mistake could cost one of your survivor’s lives.
I had a moment in the game where I didn’t have enough material to build two upgrades when they were needed. Raids on my home were becoming more frequent and the food shortage was getting pretty dire. These decisions make you feel accountable to these people and when one of them starts to die, emotions start to go crazy.
This War of Mine
Keep everyone alive
Managing your survivors is a lot like The Sims, making sure they eat, sleep and have emotional support. Differences in their personalities makes for a dynamic play through; each game will be different in that the people you start off with will be randomly generated along with the whole play through.
One game I was trying to help a girl and her dad find some medication and the next I was slaughtering old people just to survive to the next morning. There aren’t many games that can hit deep like this, This War of Mine really harnesses the emotional and shock value they were looking for.
A Fitting Style
The pencil sketch like art-style adds a sort of surrealism to the whole game and honestly, I think this was the right way to go about making this game. For a game of this genre to be too real looking may have turned people away, adding the pencil sketch style made it easier to play as a game.
This War of Mine
The environmental effects and background bombs generate that feel of war very nicely, hearing bombs go off in the distance or sniper rifle fire brought the game back into perspective. Every night one person would be given the choice of a scavenger mission to find resources such as food, building materials or water. These hunts are tense, the moments when you hide in the shadows so that squatters or the homeowners will not spot you are absolutely unnerving.
Ducking in and out of shadows to avoid detection can only last so long until you are given a choice of running or fighting. Fighting would always end up with a negative outcome, whether it is your character becoming wounded or depressed.
What better way to survive than moonshine?
Overall: 8.5/10
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As I said at the start this game hits home with a strong message, War is bad. There really is no “winning” at his game; the only outcome is that you do a little better each time you play it.
With a strong message and great gameplay I can recommend this game to anyone who likes to experience their games as well as playing them.
The Dead Island series has slowly but surely reverted to a decomposing series since the original game was released. And now with Yaeger taking control of the games “sequel”, Deep Silver decided to throw out one more spin off.
This game is one of the most devastatingly unfinished games I have ever had the misfortune to play through. The series seems to have lost what it is meant to be, what is is meant to be is a zombie survival game with a beautiful world that you are free to explore. This time the game has not only deprived gamers of free roam but it has also used the zombie apocalypse for Cliff’s more personal issues.
Setting Up
Escape Dead Island is set on Narapela which is a small island just off the coast of Banoi and, the story follows the slow but inevitable spread of the virus which will lead to the outbreak in Dead Island 2. The game seems to use the zombie apocalypse setting as a backdrop for the main protagonist Cliff and his slowly decaying mind.
The story is based around the fact that Cliff a young reporter wants to impress his dad so he decides to take his two friends, one a savvy journalist trying to get her big break and the other a not so enthusiastic writer on a boat trip. The boats destination is Narapela which is an island that the trio believe was the heart of the Banoi outbreak. However their arrival awakens the undead from their slumber and a fun trip turns into a journey through hell. The game begins with you playing as a secret agent sent to hunt down a scientist who resides in a ship that revolves around researching the zombie virus. The virus of course escapes, and you must to before the infected spread throughout the ship. However you are advised to collect a voice recorder that will likely reveal the secrets behind the mysterious virus before it can spread, unfortunately before you get any further you are grabbed by a horde and the screen cuts to black.
The most exiting parts of the game see you thrown into an unworldly trance causing you to experience some absurd things. Unfortunately these moments are few and far between despite the fact they are the lifeblood of the game.
Considering this is a zombie game there are, of course, going to be some incredibly large hordes, to deal with this the game implements stealth mechanics that will enable you to navigate through these large hordes of the brain munching undead. This mechanic does make the game alot more intense but once again this is incredibly underused. The game definitely has all of the mechanics that make a great zombie game but the developers just don’t use them correctly and it seems like these great mechanics into a blender.
A lot like many zombie games stealth is not always the best option, instead you could find some overgrowth that will house few zombies and use that path instead of the zombie infested main road. Fatshark have also made the environment easy to interact with allowing for some intense zombie action. For example if you are low on health and have no ammo at hand,you will be able to hunt down a radio or another distraction that will draw the zombies away allowing you to get past them with out to much trouble.
Unfortunately these mechanics only have a part in the first couple of hours and after that Cliff will have acquired a weapon of mass destruction and will be gunning down entire hordes as if it was nothing to him.
Shambling back and forth
The level design is a lot like Alien Isolation, I say this because the game requires you to backtrack countless times and for what, a weapon you forgot to pick up. Thankfully the game compensates for these long treks with a beautiful soundtrack that is matched only by the delightful scenery. Despite the fact many zombie survival fans would think it an obvious addition to the game to be able to explore this vast map, the developers have placed countless obstacles in your way to stop you doing exactly this. And since you will be restricted to a single mission area players will not get distracted by other things which will severely shorten the play time.
Conclusion: 6/10
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Escape Dead Island tries to be more of a psychological stealth action game rather than a free roam survival horror game that fans of the series expect. However the various dream sequences throughout the game make up for the lack of free roaming but the game still doesn’t deliver what it was meant to be which is a survival horror game with psychological elements.
The game isn’t terrible for a zombie game but it does contain its fair share of issues and will likely disappoint fans of the previous games.
The 10th anniversary for Blizzard’s MMO World Of Warcraft and to commemorate the games creation the developers will be handing out plenty of great gifts.
Included will be a unique deathmatch that revolves around the tension between Southshore and Tarren Mill and will be split in two. One will be for level 90 to 99 players and one for level 100 players. Completing this deathmatch will earn you a unique new title which will be either Southshore Slayer for the Horde or Tarren Mill Terror for the Alliance.
Blizzard have also revealed that the game will be getting these gifts today and they will last all the way up until January 6th next year. Players who are online for the anniversary celebration will be getting a Molten Corgi pet which is as the name says a lava puppy.
Another celebration is a raid in Molten Core for level 100s and will reward the participants with a beastly core hound mount that will have 100% drop chance.
eSports Player of the Year: – (To be voted on by fans)
Martin ‘Rekkles’ Larsson (League of Legends)
Xu “Fy” Linsen (DOTA2)
James “Firebat” Kostesich (Hearthstone)
Christopher “GeT_RiGhT” Alesund (Counter-Strike: GO)
Matt “NaDeSHoT” Haag (Call of Duty)
eSports Team of the Year: – (To be voted on by fans)
Samsung White (League of Legends)
Evil Geniuses (DOTA2)
Edward Gaming (League of Legends)
Newbee (DOTA2)
Ninjas in Pajamas (Counter-Strike: GO)
Trending Gamer: – (To be voted on by fans)
Evan “Vanoss” Fong
Jeff Gerstmann
PewDiePie
StampyLongHead
TotalBiscuit
Best Fan Creation: (To be voted on by fans)
BEST Zelda Rap EVER!! By Egoraptor
Luigi Death Stare by CZBwoi and Rizupicorr
Mine the Diamond (Minecraft Song) by Tobuscus
Minecraft — TITAN City by Colonial Puppet
Twitch Plays Pokemon by Anonymous
The Game Awards will be Live December 5th and watchable through a number of distribution partner’s including: Wii U, Xbox Live, PSN, Steam, Twitch and YouTube.
Just Cause 3 is coming to PS4, Xbox One, and PC next year, and despite the fact the multiplayer “mod” for the 2nd game in the series was an unprecedented success, Avalanche have decided not include it with the game.
The developers however have admited that one day Just Cause 3 may come into the multiplayer world but that time is not now. The PC mod is sanctioned by Square Enix meaning that they probably support a multiplayer mode for the game.
A developer at Avalanche stated “We don’t expect the fans to make the multiplayer for Just Cause 3, but at some point you have to make a choice on where your focus is.”
Grave is an open world survival horror game which pits you against the harsh wasteland and the murderer you are tracking down. The game was already confirmed for Xbox One and PC but luckily for PlayStation 4 owners it is now available.
“We are excited to announce that Grave will be coming to the PS4 alongside the Xbox One in 2015. This means Grave will be available on Steam, for PC/Mac/Linux and available for digital purchase for Xbox One and PS4.”
The game is crowdfunded and the reason the developers thought it would be unavailable for PS4 is because they fell short of their target goal. However, Sony has revealed that Grave will come to PS4 sometime in 2015.
