Recently updated to the Godfall: Ultimate Edition, the game was first released as a ps5-launch title in November 2020. It’s an action looter developed by Counterplay Games and published by Gearbox Software. In it you play as Orin, last of the godlike Valorian Knight in the world of Aperion. Equipped with twelve Valorplates that alter his appearance, gender and fighting style, Orin embarks on a quest to save his kingdom from the hands of his mad brother, Macros.

In his original review, Adam said:

The combat is just so good, and the draw of smashing enemies with such thunderous force was always compelling. Yes, under it all it’s a grind-based loot game, but it’s a very good one and makes so few of the missteps its contemporaries make. Out of the box this game doesn’t need major loot overhauls, or huge redesigns: it’s not ashamed of what it is, and it does what it intends very well, and because of all of that, it’s one of the biggest surprises of the year.

Since release it has seen a number of updates, including the Fire & Darkness expansion and the Challenger Edition.

The Godfall: Ultimate Edition features all of the existing content as well as a plethora of new features and quality of life improvements. Not only can you instantly boost your character to max level and get stuck right into the endgame, you can also play through the entire campaign with new cutscenes, story beats, and dialogue that enhance the narrative.

The huge Exalted Update (launched for free alongside the Ultimate Edition) adds new features to combat, including a knockdown recovery move that keeps the pace high during fights. There’s also a host of new cosmetics for your weapons, armour and shield. New cosmetics for each of the twelve Valorplates allow you to customise your look to a greater degree.

Despite a mixed reception at launch, Godfall has gone onto great success, fuelled by consistent player engagement and regular updates and tweaks by the developer. Following the launch of Godfall: Ultimate Edition, GodisaGeek got the chance to speak to Game Director, Dan Nordlander of Counterplay Games, about Godfall’s post-launch success, as well as the future of the title.

GIAG: After a slightly rocky launch, Godfall has gone from strength to strength. What do you think has been the key factors in that success?

Dan: Godfall was a hugely ambitious game for us and it was a great honor to be a PlayStation 5 launch title, but we also heard the community when they offered us insight on how they would like to see the game improved. Listening to the fans, analyzing the data, and then of course going down our internal wish lists were the three factors that drove all of the changes and additions we’ve made since launch.

GIAG: Are there plans to extend the story campaign, in a similar fashion to say, Destiny 2?

Dan: Destiny is a live-service title, whereas Godfall is a more traditional, all-inclusive package. That said, we did broaden the campaign, world, and story with the Fire & Darkness DLC expansion released last year. Additionally, the free Exalted Update comes with a host of story enhancements like new cutscenes, more NPC interactions, contextual loading screens and new Macros dialog. At this time, we have no additional updates to share about potential further expansions to Godfall’s story.

GIAG: Where do you see Godfall in 3 years? Is it a universe you intend to expand on?

Dan: That’s something we’re talking about now so we don’t have news to share at the moment. All I can say is that our team loves this universe.

GIAG: How difficult is it to balance a game like Godfall and maintain a happy medium for both solo and co-op players?

Dan: We’re ultimately focused on letting players have fun and feel badass doing it, no matter how they choose to play the game. We think both the single-player and co-op experiences in Godfall succeed at exactly that.

For more experienced players we provide plenty of options to increase the challenge (and also the loot!), including harder difficulty settings, dynamic endgame modes, and the newly added Exalted Tower of Trials that has even our most hardcore testers sweating profusely [laughs]. For those looking for a more casual experience – Godfall’s missions do come with difficulty settings that decrease enemy health making the combat a bit more forgiving.

GIAG: Are there any plans to bring a PvP mode into Godfall?

Dan: No. Godfall was strictly envisioned as a story-driven single-player and co-op experience.

GIAG: Given the structure, people are surprised Godfall has no season pass? Is this something that’s likely to change or a deliberate stance?

Dan: This was a very, very deliberate stance. This is not a live service game. We have hundreds of cosmetics in Godfall: Ultimate Edition but they can all be unlocked by simply playing the game as you did in the good old days.

GIAG: Godfall looks incredible. What were the key inspirations for the aesthetic?

Dan: Godfall first and foremost built off the mixture of sci-fi and medieval that we really loved from our first game, Duelyst. So we took that and the vibrant colors to the next level to ensure they jumped off the screen on next-gen consoles and the latest range of PC graphics cards.

Beyond that, our team drew not only from our experience on titles like Destiny, Titanfall, God of War, and Halo, but also from beloved sci-fi and fantasy series such as Brandon Sanderson’s The Stormlight Archive, Joe Abercrombie’s The First Law, and Isaac Asimov’s Foundation.

GIAG: Will you ever introduce new Valorplates to the line-up? Or perhaps skins that change the appearance beyond colour schemes?

Dan: We have 12 Valor Plates in the game already, and our goal is quality over quantity. That’s why we introduced Valorplate Shards in the Exalted Update, which gives each Valorplate four unique skills, three passive abilities and generally makes each of them much more distinctive and rewarding to play.

As for cosmetics, we have a ton of skins in the game that are far more than color swaps. Our art and lore teams have done a fantastic job of creating some truly awe-inspiring alternate Valorplates models, including the all-new Ascended and Exalted Valorplates, to the point that it’s hard for me to decide what I’m going to wear for a night out on the town in Aperion. [laughs]

Godfall: Ultimate Edition is available on PS5, Xbox Series S & X, and PC via Epic and Steam

The post “Godfall was a hugely ambitious game for us” – Godfall: Ultimate Edition interview with Dan Nordlander appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

For those who aren’t familiar with how we do things, after over twelve hours of podcast recordings we have come up with the top ten games of 2021. Game of the Year is a time we take quite seriously, and if you want to hear the process, it’s there for all to see and hear. I say “see” because you can see the pain in our eyes in video form when someone tries to cut a game from a list. We all have our own personal top ten games of 2021 as well, and you can read those lists, and all the other content via this link.

Despite everything, games have offered a haven for many this year: us included. So here’s various members of our team talking about the top ten games of 2021 that we selected via our Game of the Year podcast deliberations.

10. Returnal

Mick Fraser: I found Returnal tough, yes, but something about its world and protagonist, the understated story and its compelling mystery, kept me going. I need to know why Selene was on that planet, why she was foreced to keep reliving death after death. And I was hooked, on the fluid, almost flawless movement and combat, and the stunning environments and enemy design. A true triumph for Housemarque and one of the PS5’s genuine must-have titles.

9. Monster Hunter Rise

Mick Fraser: Having come into this series with the advent of Monster Hunter World, I’m still considered a noob. A couple of thousand hours invested in this franchise is but a drop in the ocean to die-hard veterans. And yet, it says something that World, and by extension Rise, were the games that finally got their hooks into me. I sometimes wish Rise wasn’t developed as a Nintendo Switch exclusive. Seeing what was done with World in terms of graphics and performance is still a little awe-inspiring, and RIse feels almost held back by its hardware. And yet, it’s still dizzyingly fun to play, alone or with friends, and I can’t wait for the upcoming expansion in 2022.

8. Psychonauts 2

Chris Hyde: I hadn’t played the original Psychonauts game, but I was still intrigued to see how a sequel to a fifteen-year-old game would land. The answer is: incredibly well. Psychonauts 2 offers a bit of everything, there’s decent platforming, upgrade trees, collectibles, a hint of Metroidvania. But all that revolves around a story that was quite interesting even for me as a newcomer and characters that despite looking ridiculous, keep you engaged. It also deals with facets of mental health, emotions, and respect in a really sensible way, without ever letting its zany style stop or clash with it. It’s a delicate balance that somehow sticks the landing, creating an enjoyable, endearing experience. Well worth the 15-year wait!

7. Deathloop

Mick Fraser: This is Arkane at their finest, using skills they honed developing the Dishonored games to create a brand new world packed to the eyeballs with detail and personality. From the incredible aesthetic and soundtrack to the stellar writing, it’s an incredible adventure that sees protagonist Cole and his fasttalking nemesis Julianna do battle across an island caught in a constant timeloop that sees them living out the same chaotic conflict day-in and day-out. It’s a mesmerising, unique experience.

6. Halo Infinite

Adam Cook: Incredible combat in both the single and multiplayer components, gameplay that rewards skill and playing the objective: yes please. The campaign gives you that grappleshot which is just fun from the moment you first use it, until you hang up the controller and watch the credits roll. It doesn’t quite stick the landing, and has the issue that every power or ability after the grapple isn’t even close to as useful, fun, or frankly, good. But even then, if you can teach me a skill in minute one that I still enjoy using in hour 13, I’m a happy boy.

5. Metroid Dread

Adam Cook: ’ll make no secret of being a fan of the genre, but Metroid Dread is an absolutely marvelous example of why its beloved. Fast moving, both classical in how you get powers, but also developer MercurySteam varied up the order of powers for the first time. On top of that, the story gets wild at the end, with Nintendo allowing a third-party to write a tale that has massive ramifications for the entire series. The perfect length, the best feeling, amazing design work, and we didn’t even know it existed until halfway through the year. Awesome.

Chris Hyde: A game that no one knew existed until May this year, ends up careering its way towards the top of the list. Metroid Dread from Mercury Steam who after cutting their teeth in the franchise with Samus Returns, are back with a whole new entry in the franchise. And it’s clear they’re hitting their stride in this area. They clearly understand what makes a brilliant 2D Metroid experience: superb movement and dexterity, fluid, well-designed, interconnected levels, and combat that feels responsive and satisfying. All present and correct in Metroid Dread, but the experience goes beyond that.

4. Scarlet Nexus

Chris White: I’d not even heard of Scarlet Nexus at the start of the year. However, it was almost my favourite game this year. It offered two branching stories that intertwined with one another. The combat consistently evolved throughout the campaign and made full use of the controller. Every time I thought they’d perfected the fighting, something new was introduced. Not only is it so good to play, the story and characters felt fleshed out and so well-written. I was hooked until the credits rolled, and never felt bored. Not only that, but the monster design and environments were some of the best I’ve ever seen. I’ll champion this game forever, and it’s going to take something special to beat this as my favourite action RPG of all time.

Chris Hyde: It’s Devil May Cry type endorphins when it lands, and the great thing is Scarlet Nexus knows how to build it up over time. You’ll keep unlocking more combo or ways to tackle foes as you progress, giving you more options to take down these weird-looking enemies. It’s incredibly cathartic and hugely rewarding. Well worth anyone’s time who’s not yet jumped into this one.

3. Tales of Arise

Adam Cook: I have never liked a “Tales of” game before. I’ve tried, lord knows I have tried. They always look nice, and have all the JRPG stuff I usually am so in love with, but the combat just never did it for me. Tales of Arise is a ridiculous game. It’s a huge risk and it pays off in spades for Bandai Namco. The combat is more like Devil May Cry than it is Tales of Anything. Combos, movesets, and the fact you can play the entire game as whichever of your party — all of whom have WILDLY different combat mechanics — is just… mind blowing. Tales of Arise is a triumph in a similar way Halo Infinite is: it’s brave of a developer to take a phenomenally popular series and alter it, but it pays off. Bravo.

Chris Hyde: What elevates Tales of Arise is that it excels in so many areas. The combat is the first area to mention in that it feels so fluid, satisfying, and a real upgrade from what has come before in Tales games. What starts as a simple, ground and aerial combo mechanic, quickly becomes about identifying enemy weaknesses, and building separate meters to unleash powerful solo or coop attacks. All of which in the roaring heat of battle (supplemented by superb rousing music) are so satisfying to land, before you quickly, and seamlessly divert your attention to the next unlucky foe. In many ways, it’s reminiscent of Scarlet Nexus in its combat, but the way you can tailor and combine your experience across six unique characters makes Tales of Arise just that little bit more satisfying.

2. Forza Horizon 5

Adam Cook: It always makes me laugh when people say “but it’s just a driving game”. We can all be reductive sometimes, it’s never personal and it’s just the easiest way to use the language we’re given. But Forza Horizon 5’s language is simple, and one word: it’s the language of “fun”. It asks nothing of you other than to have a good time. Want to drive endlessly around Mexico doing nothing but listening to the radio? Cool. Not up for racing, and instead want to smash through everything in sight or break through speed barriers? Also cool. How about massive jumps, every discipline of race you could want, multiplayer that is fun even including a battle royale? Forza Horizon 5 is an astonishing achievement that is as perfect a racing game as I’ve ever played. Even after pouring over a day of my life into it, I’m not done with it. It’s just a racing game? Cool.

Chris White: The handling of each car offered just enough difference to make the 250 plus vehicles feel different. There are tons of races and challenges, an awesome soundtrack, and a great sense of community few games get right. The setting of Mexico was stunning, too. It was the perfect game to dive into for twenty minutes or twenty hours. You could spent as much time as you wanted with it and always find something to do.

Chris Hyde: Everything is so seamless and, frankly, allowed. There are no rules on how to play, when or what. You find your own fun, and options are literally around every turn. The car variety is superb, giving you plenty of options to mess around in, and you may have noticed but it’s bloody beautiful to look at too. Mexico is an awesome sandbox playground to explore with intense variety and diversity from lush jungles areas, to mountains, sand dunes or city streets. It’s been my go-to “chill out” game when I just want to relax and enjoy myself this year. So whilst this is my first Forza Horizon game, if they make more, it certainly won’t be my last.

Game of the Year: 1. It Takes Two

Adam Cook: This game should not exist. It’s the feeling I’ve had ever since I finished playing it the third time. I played with Chris White for preview, then review. Then I played it through with Chris Hyde, and Adam Carroll. I almost felt jealous hearing Lyle and Mick were playing it without me. This game is a truly, truly special experience. It’s up there with Super Mario Odyssey, and honestly, if I had to pick between them… well, I don’t know how I could do that.

Mick Fraser: It’s simple really. It has more heart, charm, and pure unadulterated love than anything I’ve ever played. And I don’t mean the love of the characters; I mean love for videogames. LIke Astro’s Playroom, It Takes Two feels like a love letter to the medium. Josef Fares and Hazelight didn’t set out to make just one game. They set out to make all the games they’d ever wanted to make in one go. It’s something that shouldn’t possibly work, a mish-mashed hodge-podge of titles and styles and genres that nerve stops delivering new experiences, new mechanics, new feelings. I played it through with my daughter in just four sittings and have never laughed or shouted as much through a co-op game. If its cliche or hyperbolic to refer to a game as magical, I’m sorry that I’m not sorry to say that It Takes Two is exactly that: pure, unbridled, video game magic.

Chris Hyde: It’s difficult to know where to start with It Takes Two, really. A co-op-only experience created by a team led by the sometimes Marmite Josef Fares could be enough to have some people tuning out. But what they’d be missing out on is one of the most enjoyable experiences of the year. It’s a compendium of superb individual moments that end up delighting and resonating with you long after they’re over. The attention to detail here is frankly staggering, often bordering on the unnecessary. Hazelight Studios demonstrate not only a high level of competency with It Takes Two, but a level of understanding and awareness of what games can and should be.

Lyle Carr: Perhaps the most impressive thing though about It Takes Two is how playful it is. Mini games you can play against your co-op buddy litter the fantastical worlds, from a simple Whack-A-Mole game to curling or even a full game of chess. Alongside all this joyful interactive optional content, playing through the game is a delight. The platforming is tight, the gameplay beyond varied, and the power ups you get encourage you to work together in truly wondrous ways. I know I’m going to be replaying this game with my partner regularly for the rest of my life, and I cannot wait.

Chris White: The story was at times heart-breaking, but it was also filled with a lot of hope. Divorces can be painful, especially for the children involved. Hazelight were sensitive to this, and highlighted how tough it can be for the children involved. As for May and Cody, their relationship evolves throughout It Takes Two. You see their flaws, their strengths, and that love that once burnt bright between them. To make such a remarkable game that can both be funny and moving takes real talent. It Takes Two deserves all the praise, and it fully deserves to sit at the top of many GOTY lists.

Thanks for all your support this year, here’s to a cracking 2022!

The post Game of the Year: The Top Ten Games of 2021 appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Bloober Team’s upcoming horror The Medium is without a doubt their most ambitious game to date, but it is also the first next-gen exclusive on Xbox Series X|S (discounting the PC release). With that in mind, we take a look at everything we know about the game so far, including what it’s about, the unique dual-reality gameplay, and the atmospheric soundtrack.

When does The Medium release?

The Medium will be coming to Xbox Series X|S and PC on January 28, 2021.

What’s The Medium about?

According to The Medium’s website, the official synopsis reads:

Discover a dark mystery only a medium can solve. Explore the real world and the spirit world at the same time. Use your psychic abilities to solve puzzles spanning both worlds, uncover deeply disturbing secrets, and survive encounters with The Maw – an entity born from an unspeakable tragedy.

You’ll play as a medium called Marianne who visits a hotel in Krakow, Poland during the late 90s. Whilst there, you’ll uncover the mysteries of a horrific tragedy that happened there whilst exploring both the real world and the spirit world through dual-reality gameplay. The main antagonist is The Maw (voiced by voiceover legend Troy Baker), a malevolent spirit who comes after Marianne in both worlds. We’ve seen some impressive videos highlighting who the characters are, and what they’ll be up to when the game releases later this month. Only a few days ago, Bloober Team released a live action trailer which does a great job of getting us in the mood to understand and enjoy the main premise of the game.

Why does the artwork look familiar?

Zdzisław Beksiński, the famous Polish painter, has played a huge inspiration in the game’s design as well as its dark undertones. In his own words, Beksiński called his paintings “baroque” and “gothic,” and after seeing some of them from his “fantastic period,” you can see why. Lasting for almost 25 years, he created some disturbing paintings filled with horrifying backdrops, macabre figures, and hellish creations.

What is dual-reality gameplay?

Bloober Team coined the term “dual-reality gameplay” as a way to describe what you’ll be doing whilst playing The Medium. Essentially, it means that you’ll be playing in both the real world and the spirit world at the same time. For example, when Marianne moves in the real world, picks something up, or interacts with a puzzle, she’ll do the same in the spirit world. To best highlight this, Bloober Team released a video earlier this month that showcases dual-reality gameplay in a 14-minute video.

Who has written the soundtrack?

If you haven’t already recognised the haunting tones of The Medium’s soundtrack through the various trailers, Silent Hill veteran Akira Yamaoka has created the soundtrack for The Medium along with Bloober Team stalwart, Arkadiusz Reikowski. This pairing promises some truly epic music, with both composers doing fantastic work in their respective genres.

Are there any pre-order bonuses?

If you pre-order The Medium on PC via Steam or Epic Games Store, you’ll receive the digital soundtrack and artbook for free. Unfortunately, there aren’t any pre-order bonuses on Xbox Series X|S.

Is The Medium coming to other platforms?

Right now the developer has said it’s only focusing on the announced platforms, but with previous games there’s been a period of 4 to 6 months of exclusivity. Blair Witch came to PC and Xbox One first, then later came to PS4 and Switch. Given that the studio is independent and has already recouped costs on the development, it’s highly likely the game will eventually come to PS5 as well, and we’d guess around halloween time, or perhaps 6 months after Xbox Series X|S release.

The post Everything we know about The Medium appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Hitman 3 is set to be the first big release of 2021, and there’s plenty of information about what to expect from the final entry in the World of Assassination trilogy. From what physical editions are available to locations to new gameplay features, we take a look at everything we know so far about Hitman 3.

When is Hitman 3 released?

Hitman 3 is coming out on January 20, 2021 for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Google Stadia, and PC via the Epic Store. It will also be available on Nintendo Switch via cloud streaming technology.

What physical editions are available?

There are two physical editions available for Hitman 3. The Standard Edition features the base game, whilst the Deluxe Edition comes with the base game and the Deluxe Pack. The Deluxe Pack includes Deluxe Escalations, in-game items, suits, the digital soundtrack, and more. Check out the image below for a full look at everything available in the Deluxe Edition.

Where is Hitman 3 set?

There are six locations confirmed in Hitman 3, taking Agent 47 around the world from the outskirts of Berin to the neon lights of Chongqing, China. The series so far has taken us to some amazing locations, such as Sapienza, Miami, and France, and the latest looks to be no different. Here’s a list of the full six destinations with official synopsis’ for each one, as well as when you’ll be able to visit them.

• Dubai – The game starts in Dubai, with Agent 47 literally on top of the world. Experience the grandeur and decadence of Dubai at the opening ceremony of the tallest building in the world. Join an excited crowd to witness the breath-taking scenery and explore the top floors of this exquisite building – both inside and out.
• Dartmoor, United Kingdom – After the events in Dubai, 47 heads to England. Travel to the historic Thornbridge Manor in Dartmoor for a mission with a murder mystery twist. Choose your own path to your objectives or take on the role of detective to solve a murder and eliminate your target. Two birds, one disguise.
• Berlin, Germany – At the mid-way point of the game, 47 is en-route to Germany. Head to the outskirts of Berlin, a city known for its fairytales, vibrant style and chaotic nightlife. Whether you’re looking for a place to reflect and recuperate or want to experience the dizzying adrenaline rush of an epic rave, Berlin will help you find both of those things and everything in between.
• Chongqing, China – As the story intensifies, 47 arrives in China. Under the flickering neon lights of busy cafes and amidst a flurry of small shops and food stands crammed into tight streets, Chongqing offers travellers a respite from the demands of everyday life. This megacity is a transportation hub with plenty of secrets off the beaten path.
• Mendoza, Argentina – HITMAN 3’s penultimate mission takes Agent 47 to Argentina. As one of the most well-known wine regions in South America, Mendoza is the perfect place to take in the beautiful sights and acquired tastes of Argentina. From the sloping hills to the modern vineyards, there’s plenty of opportunity to explore.
• Carpathian Mountains, Romania – HITMAN 3’s epilogue sees Agent 47 return to Romania. The final mission in the World of Assassination trilogy takes you to the Carpathian Mountains.

What is the story about?

Hitman 3 concludes the story seen throughout the previous two instalments, and ends the World of Assassination trilogy. When the game was announced, IO Interactive shared the following synopsis:

HITMAN 3 is the dramatic conclusion to the World of Assassination trilogy and takes players around the world on a globetrotting adventure to sprawling sandbox locations. Agent 47 returns as a ruthless professional for the most important contracts of his entire career.

Supported by his Agency handler, Diana Burnwood, 47 joins forces with his long-lost friend Lucas Grey. Their ultimate mission is to eliminate the partners of Providence, but they are forced to adapt as their hunt intensifies. When the dust settles, 47 and the world he inhabits will never be the same again.

It’s going to be sad to see the story end. The development team shared a video back in July called ‘The End of a Journey,’ where they talk about saying goodbye to Agent 47, as well as the tone and story of the game.

You’ll be able to play the entire trilogy through Hitman 3

What you might not know is that you can play the entire trilogy through Hitman 3. Players will be able to ‘import’ locations from previous games as long as they own Hitman and Hitman 2, allowing you to play all 20 locations within the same game. The Mastery Tracks progression system as seen in previous instalments will work across every location as well. All unlocks from Hitman 2 will carry over, meaning all that hard work won’t go to waste.

What are the new gameplay features?

What makes the Hitman series so fun to play is the multitude of ways you can take down a target. By using practically everything in the environment, you can use anything from an umbrella to a wrench to assassinate, providing plenty of variety and creativity in how you get your kill. Hitman 3 is set to feature the same unique brand of gameplay, but there are some new features that are set to make the world of assassination much more enjoyable.

• New multi-function camera – Thanks to a video featured on Game Informer, the newest tool in Agent 47’s arsenal is shown in all its glory. Players will be able to use the tool to open doors from a distance, search for evidence, and take photographs to aid in the assassination. Whilst it’s not a full-on photo mode, you’ll still be able to snap shots from inside the various locations and buildings.
• PlayStation VR support – For the first time ever, players will be able to look through the eyes of Agent 47 in VR. Whether you’re playing on PS4 or PS5, PS VR will allow you to enjoy the game in a brand new way. Not only that, but IOI is providing VR support to the entire trilogy, meaning you can go back and experience every level in VR.

What benefits PS5 and Xbox Series X|S provide?

If you’re going to be playing Hitman 3 on the newest generation of consoles, expect to enjoy 4K visuals, 60 fps and HDR with faster load times. For PS5 players, there is going to be full DualSense support, meaning every kill will be felt in your hands. Full details on how Sony will support DualSense functionality can be found in the official PS blog post. If you don’t own a new system just yet, purchasing on PS4 and Xbox One will offer a free upgrade when or if you decide to invest on the latest consoles.

Is there any optimisation for PC players?

In short, yes. IOI’s Chief Technology Officer, Maurizio De Pascale detailed their partnership with Intel, and discussed the optimisation with Intel Vice-President of Client XPU Product and Solutions, Roger Chandler.

The post Everything we know about Hitman 3 appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

E3 month is finally done and despite there not being an E3, there were loads of events and announcements across different online events. This month has some highly anticipated games arrive alongside ports of older games to newer platforms. If you missed last month’s game releases, read this. Here are the games to look forward to in July 2020:

July 1

Trackmania

(PC)

July 3

Marvel’s Iron Man VR

(PS4)

July 7

Catherine: Full Body

(Switch)

July 9

CrossCode

(PS4, Xbox One, Switch)

July 10

Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town

(Switch, PC)

Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2

(PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PC)

Deadly Premonition 2

(Switch)

F1 2020

(Ps4, Xbox One, PC, Stadia)

NASCAR Heat 5

(Ps4, Xbox One, PC)

Sword Art Online: Alicization Lycoris

(Ps4, Xbox One, PC)

July 14

Death Stranding

(PC)

Rocket Arena

(Ps4, Xbox One, PC)

July 17

Ghost of Tsushima

(PS4)

Paper Mario: The Origami King

(Switch)

July 21

Rock of Ages 3: Make and Break

(Ps4, Xbox One, PC, Switch, Stadia)

July 28

Destroy All Humans!

(Ps4, Xbox One, PC, Stadia)

Samurai Shodown NeoGeo Collection

(Ps4, Xbox One, Switch)

July 30

Doraemon Story of Seasons

(PS4)

Mobile Suit Gundam Extreme VS Maxiboost ON

(PS4)

July 31

Fairy Tail

(Ps4, Switch, PC)

What are you looking forward to playing?

The post Games of July 2020 – Ghost of Tsushima, Paper Mario: The Origami King, Fairy Tail, and more appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

It’s a common occurrence these days to see a game begin its life as a Kickstarter campaign and then move into Early Access at a later date, so that the developer can get a feel not only for what their customers want, but what their game needs in order to truly succeed. A successful crowdfunding campaign is only the first leg of a long journey, and while all manner of genres, whether multiplayer or single player, have begun to follow similar paths, the ones that benefit the most are undoubtedly RPGs. Often huge, complex beasts, RPGs require heavy testing of systems, mechanics, and environments to ensure that a delicate balance is achieved and maintained.

The Waylanders, from GATO Studios, is one such beast. Based heavily on Celtic mythology, it’s an action RPG with a unique battle system, gorgeous, chunky visuals and a rich cast of characters. It juggles terms and ideas oddly absent from video games but which students of Celtic folklore will recognise: the Tuatha deDannan, Formorian giants, Taliesin… It’s a lore base ripe with stories and legends, heroes and monsters, that rarely sees much attention.

Your protagonist, who can be of human or non-human descent, male, female or non-binary, and skilled in one of a handful of classes, begins the game – or what we’ve seen of it – aboard a ship carrying the King and his son across the sea with a group of lofty legends who will form your initial party. The gameplay is somewhere between Dragon Age: Origins and Kingdoms of Amalur, with actions to queue up and execute or trigger in real time. As is par for the course, different classes have different skills and abilities to unlock. Interestingly one of the selectable races is “Werewolf”, which in this mythology don’t transform at a full moon but instead exhibit lupine characteristics at all times. A little more colourful than elves and dwarves and halflings for the hundredth time.

What makes The Waylanders feel special and unique is the Formation system. It often throws a high number of enemies at you at a given time and you can be easily overwhelmed. Your party will get back up after an encounter, but if you get knocked out, you’ll need to reload a save. To mitigate this, you can select certain party members (at first you don’t have the ability, but Taliesin does) and trigger a formation, whereby everyone links together to attack and defend as one. This opens up new skills and abilities to deal extra damage and defend against stronger attacks, but it doesn’t last all that long so choosing when to activate it can be a tactical decision.

Druids and sorcerers can summon some impressive attacks, while warriors dish out higher melee damage and formations triggered by rangers and archers excel in ranged combat. At present the system feels a little fiddly – indeed there are bugs everywhere, and quite often the story skips chunks of plot which will be filled in later.

If anything I found some of the mechanics to be a little difficult to get to grips with. Because you’re working at ground level as default instead of the classic isometric viewpoint, and due to the way the characters move, it’s easy to forget this isn’t a hack and slash game, and I kept pausing the action instead of using an ability, and more than once I died because I couldn’t immediately remember how to activate a formation or use a potion. There’s a great deal of work to be done, for sure, but the potential is certainly there.

At this point all the issues are standard for developing a game of this scope and ambition, and what dialogue and cutscenes exist at this point are intriguing. The characters are well-written, the script feels mature and certainly deals with mature themes in a reverent way while also showing characters who act, well, human, even if they’re not. The main cast are an arrogant, highly skilled bunch, and watching them learn to take your lead will be interesting.

At the moment The Waylanders is very much an early access game, with placeholder assets in some areas, but it already looks beautiful and shows massive promise in terms of story and gameplay. The battle system is clever, and the Formations add a genuinely fresh angle to the combat and tactics. There’s a long way to go until the game is released, so I’m confident The Waylanders will be something special when that time comes.

The post The Waylanders puts a Celtic spin on party-based ARPGs appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

So, in the past week or so I have “done a micro-transaction”. I fully recognise that I am indeed part of a perceived problem that persists in the gaming world at the moment. But, I’m not sorry. Not one bit.

For anyone who knows me, it won’t take too long to guess which title has finally managed to make me (an honorary Yorkshire woman) part with her hard earned cash… Yes! It’s Sea of Thieves.

Fellow gamers, I have purchased a pet to travel with me as I do pirate things in Sea of Thieves. She is a pretty parakeet called Viola and I love her and would die for her. To be honest, I actually have died for her as I spent far too long trying to get her out of her cage on my sloop as another crew was pelting it with cannon fire. Whilst engaged with that, trying in vain to get the “pick up pet” prompt in that ridiculously cluttered space on the sloop, a dastardly pirate boarded my vessel and ganked me in the back like a true and noble hero. I just hope Viola managed to fly out of that gilded cage of hers as I faded to black and my boat sunk to the depths. Fly free, my pretty!

I did resist the lure of a pet in Sea of Thieves when they were first introduced, because if I’m honest I was in a bit of a huff that I couldn’t just buy what I wanted. Ancient Coins have been added to the game, a new currency used exclusively in the Pirate Emporium, the new vendor located above the Order of Souls in any of the outposts. My pretty Polly cost 499 coins to purchase, but then I saw that I could get her a little an outfit – an eye patch and a little waistcoat! OH MY GOD how cute she is, so of course I had to get that too. All in all to get my beauty and her outfit I had to purchase the 1000 coin pack and I now have around 300 coins left over, because of course I do. Fortunately though, I do have a chance to earn more coins in game should I happen upon an Ancient Skeleton bearing a sack filled with this currency and I manage to kill him. And, if I do ever find one, I might just have enough coins to buy something else.

Oh, and what fun I have had with her. In truth she is largely useless. She flaps about a lot, screeches whenever anything remotely dangerous happens near the ship and tends to sit around preening her feathers. She’s a very pretty girl. She’s also a greedy mare! She eats a whole pineapple in one go! Does she not know how scarce that particular fruit is? Only the best for Viola though, and any way she tends to vomit all over the poop-deck if I give her a worm.

So far with my little feathered friend I have had numerous photo shoots, even dressing my pirate in clothes that complement her plumage (no Parrots were harmed in the making of that hat), entered her into a “prettiest pet” competition to win yet more micro-transaction loot, and fired her out of the cannon several times (Erm… O…kay – Ed). I’ve danced with her, played her a tune on the hurdy-gurdy, settled down to a nap with her, and taken her on many voyages with me. I know that none of that sounds even remotely exciting, and yet like much of why I adore Sea of Thieves and can’t quite put my finger on, I’m having a lovely time with her. I’m still disgruntled that I have to purchase a pack of Ancient Coins, rather than just buying exactly what I want to buy, but Sea of Thieves has given me countless hours of joy over the past 18 months or so that I can’t stay mad for too long.

Basically, what I am saying is: Guys! I have done a micro-transaction, and I can’t guarantee that I won’t do one again! I mean, just look how pretty she is.

The post Why Sea of Thieves was worthy of my first ever in-game purchase appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Just outside of Kraków, Poland, this weekend saw the first major international tournament event for Apex Legends: the Apex Legends pre-season invitational, starring the latest battle royale phenomenon from Respawn Entertainment and Electronic Arts. 80 teams were invited to compete for their share of half a million US dollars in total prize money, which was to be distributed across all top 20 finalists and an $8,000 ‘predator’ prize for the top fragger. There was an air of experimentation around this tournament, with EA/Respawn wanting to dip their toes in the water and see if there’s an appetite for a large-scale Apex Legends tournament. With the winning team walking away with $105,000, second place taking $75k, and 3rd place nabbing $60k, this was no small fête.

Set in Alvernia Studios, this was truly an amazing venue to host a video games tournament. It has a wow factor that translates well onto the screen at home. Being there in person just adds another level to the awesomeness, it’s like you’re walking around a DOOM map. Spectator tickets were available for $25 but the audience size was very limited. These were more for the friends and family of the players than your average consumer. The real audience were watching from home as the event was being streamed live across all platforms.

Viewership hovered around 50k on Twitch throughout the event, reaching just shy of 100k views on the final day. YouTube live audiences were very low at around 10k live viewers, but have since hit 400k views for Day 3 VOD footage. There’s definitely a demand for this kind of online event. Interestingly, Mixer failed to hit four digit viewer numbers – perhaps something to do with their algorithm or lack of support for live events? EA/Respawn were promoting all channels equally, so it’s bizarre to see such a low take-up from the Mixer community.

The double elimination winners/losers bracket format can seem quite confusing at first, but it essentially means every team has multiple chances of making it to the Grand Finals. The top 10 teams from each round move up the ladder, and the losing teams shift from the winner’s bracket to the loser’s bracket. What we ended up seeing was an impressive number of teams in the Grand Finals who had fought their way back through the loser’s bracket, and boy did they earn it; some teams had competed in three times as many matches as those who clung on to the winner’s bracket. Third Impact, for example, dropped out of the winner’s bracket after round one, won in the loser’s bracket rounds 1, 2 and 3, followed by the loser’s bracket final, then ended up taking home $7,800 in the Grand Finals. Quite impressive.

Battle royale matches can be famously slow to start, with teams dropping into a vast world and scrambling for loot. The first ten minutes of a new round can arguably be skipped – this is your time to go make a cup of tea – but after that things do progress quite rapidly. If there’s anything Repsawn could do to speed up those first 10 minutes with an eSports mode that might go down well with audiences. You’re bound to get teams who play it safe and camp out, and the addition of the Wattson character doesn’t lend well to competitive eSports for that reason, but once the pace has picked up in the latter half of each round it’s a joy to behold. Again, there are elements of repetitiveness, with the same 3 weapons being used each game (namely the Wingman, R99 and Peacekeeper), but the playstyle of each team really comes into its own as the circle pushes them all closer together and tensions rise. Here we could see that players had a real knowledge of the map, trying to guess where the circle would end up and nabbing some really crafty spots.

The fact that some players were using controllers during the Apex Legends pre-season invitational – complete with auto-assist – while others were #pcmasterrace using mouse and keyboard was a slight point of contention but other than the occasional dig during the on-stage post-match banter it wasn’t really much of an issue. Crossplay is becoming incredibly popular in mainstream video games, and it looks like that could transition over to eSports too.

The most exciting part of the Apex Legends pre-season invitational was without a doubt the Grand Finals. This is a brand new format that is going to have a huge impact on eSports tournaments going forward. Teams needed to earn at least 50 points to be in contention to win. Eliminations earn 1 point each, then points are distributed for each team based on their placement in the round, as follows:

1st place – 12 Points
2nd place – 9 Points
3rd place – 7 Points
4th place – 5 Points
5th place – 4 Points
6th – 10th place – 2 Points
11th – 15th place – 1 Points
16th – 20th place – 0 Points

Once a team has earned at least 50 points they must then win a match in the Grand Finals to win the entire tournament. As the Grand Finals kicked off we expected to see 1 or 2 matches, perhaps 4 at most. Five and a half hours later we had just seen our 10th Grand Final match end with no sign of a winning team in sight. A majority of teams had earned themselves 50 points, but they just couldn’t quite grasp a win. TSM came extremely close to a solo win with Imperial Hal almost securing a clutch as last man standing, but it wasn’t meant to be. That didn’t stop them re-grouping and pulling off the final win a few matches later.

Team Solo Mod won the Apex Preseason Invitational with 100 points after 21 matches, including 11 matches in the Grand Finals! No one can say they didn’t put effort into taking home that $105,000, with a 6-hour Grand Final, starting at 5pm and not wrapping up until gone 11pm.

It’s worth giving an honourable mention to Team 789 who were fan favourites throughout the tournament, even coming above TSM in first place for the winners bracket finals. 789 are the first team with a female player, Elvira Terimova, to reach the final stage of the tournament, showing that anyone regardless of race, sex or gender can compete at the highest level of eSports.

We’ve no doubt we’ll see more from Apex Legends next year, with regular content drops and another competitive eSports tournament. As long as they keep that intense Grand Final format, we’re sure viewers will be in for a great time.

Publisher paid for travel and accommodation.

The post Apex Legends first major tournament went down a storm appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Mick has been playing some old games, mostly because the Elden Ring announcement got him interested in Dark Souls 3 again.

Check out the vlog below:

The post Vlog: Revisiting older games appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

With the surprise announcement during Nintendo’s E3 Direct that we’re getting a fully fledged sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, it’s got us thinking about what that could mean. Nintendo doesn’t tend to do direct sequels to its larger franchises, preferring to go for entirely new settings for each new release. We don’t know at this stage whether to expect a straightforward sequel with a few tweaks, like Super Mario Galaxy 2, or more of a spin-off game like Majora’s Mask following Ocarina of Time. Either way, that hasn’t stopped us speculating what we’d like to see in the latest instalment. So here are 6 changes we’d like to see in the Breath of the Wild sequel.

1. More Dungeons
OK, let’s get the obvious one out of the way first. A sequel to Breath of the Wild needs more dungeons. The original had four, that only served to do one thing – make the final boss fight easier. And while contributing towards the ultimate goal of our hero obviously has merit, it felt, well, a little bit disappointing. We’re even happy for Nintendo to play fast and loose with the term “dungeon”. It doesn’t need to be the old trifecta of map, compass and big key followed up with a boss defeated by an item you’ve just looted from a chest. Just a few additional contained areas to explore, be they caves, ruins or whatever, that take us away from the main overworld. And if their purpose could be more than a final boss difficulty setting, that would be great.

2. A story you are a part of
Due to the narrative of Calamity Ganon decimating Hyrule a century before events of Breath of the Wild, it’s hard to shake the feeling that you’re not involved in the most interesting parts of the story. Everything of note has happened before you take control and the main story beats are delivered through flashbacks. Sure, part of the intrigue was piecing together what left Hyrule in the state you find it in after your slumber, but this time around we’d like more involvement than a visual jigsaw to help us out. This needs to be rectified in the sequel. Actions that Link takes (whether linear or otherwise) should impact the world around us and the characters we meet. Ideally we’d like some twist and turns and maybe a couple of surprising story beats that leave an impact on us as the player.

3. A more fleshed out Link
Link has always been a silent protagonist in his games – we’ll ignore the “Excuuuuuuuse me Princess!” from the TV series – and it’s probably too much of a leap to ask for a fully-voiced hero in the sequel. Selective voicing would help particularly in cut-scenes, after Breath of the Wild had some ridiculously awkward moments because Link was silent. But even if the decision was taken to not voice Link for the sequel, they should attempt a broader range of emotions to go with the darker tone of the trailer. And while we’re at it, let’s have a Link character that’s fallible – it made Zelda infinitely more interesting last time out, so extending that to Link would be a refreshing change. Have him make mistakes, have regrets or carry a burden rather than his typecast “perfect Hero” role.

4. Make the weapons a bit more durable
Finding weapons from fallen enemies and using them against them was an element that made the first few hours of the original game truly magical. It amplified the feeling of discovery and rewarded you for trying out different methods to slay your foes. But we all shared the same eye-roll as later in the game became annoyingly focused on weapon micromanagement. You had to juggle between weapons breaking and having to make decisions on whether to swap in new ones you might find as your inventory capacity became full. We’re fine with weapon degradation, but dial it back for the sequel, especially on metal weapons which should be at least a little sturdier than a breadstick in the rain.

5. Give me some items
The Rune Abilities that Link discovers early on in his adventure were actually a bit of a master-stroke in design; providing players with most of their tools upfront and making the scope to use them very broad allowed for lots of experimentation. We’re still in awe at some of the videos online of people using them in combination to achieve absurd feats. However, for the sequel, these abilities will likely be known and need to be built upon. This is where adding items you can find throughout the game could be really interesting. There could be an item that gives you more precision on your bomb throwing over large distances or how about using a hook shot to grapple onto objects that you’ve sent flying using the Stasis ability? There’s definitely scope here without making the well-executed Rune Abilities redundant.

6. Give me a final boss I really want to kill
Perhaps one of the biggest downsides of the narrative of Breath of the Wild is the concept of Calamity Ganon just waiting at Hyrule Castle for you to come and beat him. It’s actually pretty ridiculous. Yes, through the backstory you are told he was a terrible being who slaughtered thousands and decimated a prosperous land. Dormant Guardians hint at the war that he created before your slumber. But for the sequel we want to really hate Ganon and want him to be a villain I can’t wait to put a Master Sword through. He should say and do things that make us detest him, even fear him, so that when we finally reach that encounter we’re as hyped as can be to finally take him down. It should be a climax to everything that has gone before, and the victory should feel like the end of something that is truly terrible. Ganon should be like Joffrey Baratheon but with less childish quips, more ginger hair and an unhealthy Triforce obsession.

So there you have it, there’s our 6 things we want to see in a Breath of the Wild sequel. How about you? Let us know what you think in the comments below.

The post Six things we want in Breath of the Wild 2 appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

While everyone has been getting hyped for the E3 announcements that always accompany this dry period in game releases, I have been quietly dipping my toe into some of the titles that Game Pass has to offer. The Xbox subscription service is already pretty great, with the opportunity to play all first party Xbox games, as well as some pretty big name third party games such as Alien Isolation, Tomb Raider, Monster Hunter World and many others; however I have been focusing my time a little more on some of the ID@Xbox and smaller indie titles.

Usually the summer drought of games gives me a much needed opportunity to make some headway into my ever increasing backlog, but because I’m a mad bastard and a glutton for punishment I have instead jumped feet first into Game Pass. Here are some quick thoughts on what I have found so far.

GRAVEYARD KEEPER
Lazy Bear Games / tinyBuild

Graveyard Keeper was recommended to me by a “friend” who messaged me a while back via the Xbox Companion App (Smartglass was a way better name Microsoft – what are you playing at?). I say friend because whoever recommends this game is clearly some kind of sadist!

To be fair to my pal, he thought I might enjoy it because it seems quite like Stardew Valley and, on the face of it, first impressions certainly seem to confirm that, if Stardew demanded that you drain dead bodies of their fluids and bury them, that is.

Graveyard Keeper is a management sim wherein you prepare bodies for burial, but also harvest their “meat” for goodness knows what purposes. There is also a bit of a mystery associated with it, with a magical portal that needs reactivating and some shady characters lurking about, including a talking donkey and the disembodied head of the previous keeper.

My main issue with Graveyard Keeper is that everything seems awfully obtuse, nothing is really explained to you and to compound things you can only interact with certain key figures on specific days of the week which makes everything a bit of a relentless grind. It’s not bad though, I may well be poking my head back in to see whether my graveyard is becoming overgrown or not.

WARGROOVE
Chucklefish

Whereas Graveyard Keeper was recommended to me because it seemed similar to Stardew Valley, I downloaded Wargroove because of Chucklefish which published Stardew. Look, I like Stardew Valley! OK?

Wargroove is a turn-based tactical game, and I am going to be perfectly honest, turn-based games have never really appealed to me. I am actually unsure why this as, as I do tend to like tactical-based things, but I was immediately drawn to the visual style with all its lovely pixelated characters.

One thing I really like about Wargroove is that instead of controlling a party of particular individuals, you instead utilise squadrons of disposable units each with their own strengths and weaknesses – the archer unit for example can be extremely powerful, but you will need to position it in a suitable place away from the immediate combat and be aware that the damage is limited if they fire while moving.

My main criticism is that a lot of the missions can take quite a while to beat, and losing right at the end of a forty-minute battle can be a little demoralising, however, there are some great difficulty parameters that you can set which alter the damage you do, how much money you make etc., which allows you to customise the difficulty to a certain degree.

HEADLANDER
Double Fine Productions / Adult Swim Games

I’ll admit I downloaded this on a whim as it was part of the ID@Xbox qualifying games that formed part of the May rewards programme on Xbox. Headlander is a Metroidvania style game where you play as a disembodied head in a “groovy” 70s-inspired science fiction dystopia where humans have, for some inexplicable reason, chosen to abandon their fleshy bodies and instead implanted their consciousness into robotic bodies.

You (as a rocket powered head) zoom around the map vacuuming heads off bodies so that you can utilise them for opening doors and shooting at the various enemies controlled by the nefarious Methusalah, a rogue AI intent on not allowing you to recover your lost memories… or something.

It really shouldn’t work, but it’s great fun. I knew I was hooked in within the first five minutes as a cut-scene depicting your escape from the location you woke up in shows that you are the piloting head of a space-craft that looks suspiciously like a penis. Plus, it has an achievement called “Probing the Pleasureport”.

What can I say? I am but a simple woman, easily amused.

OUTER WILDS
Mobius Digital / Annapurna Interactive

I don’t really know how to describe Outer Wilds, but I do think I’m a teensy bit in love with it. The best description I can give is that it is an open-world adventure game where repetition is the greatest reward.

Essentially Outer Wilds is set around a 22-minute time loop. You play a character who is part of your home planet’s space exploration programme, but unbeknownst to you and your fellow inhabitants of Timber Heath your planet’s sun is about to go super-nova. If you die or manage to survive long enough to see the sun blow up you are reset, but maintain all the progress and knowledge earned from previous runs.

Outer Wilds is part exploration, part mystery game as you explore the different planets within your solar system for clues as to what went before and potentially how you can stop your seemingly inevitable fate. Its a beautiful game, both in its visual style but also in its use of death as a game mechanic, and how inevitable and meaningful each one can be.

Play it, I think it will feature heavily in game of the year discussions.

The post Four super interesting indies on Xbox Game Pass right now appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Never judge a book by its cover. You’ve heard that one before, right? You can say the same about all mediums, to be honest, especially video games. How many mobile games have you seen the artwork for and thought “Wow! That looks like my kind of party!” (or less cringeworthy words to a similar effect) only to look at screenshots or gameplay and throw up in your mouth a little bit in utter disgust? No? Just me? Right, well, moving on then.

But while cover-judging anything is more or less hard-wired into our tiny little pedestrian minds, there is a darker, greater evil at work. In fact, actually, let me re-tread a little. Forget book covers or game covers. Turn your ire instead upon the perfume commercial. This is, to me, the single most pointless and inane waste of money and effort in the whole of marketing. Never mind that they’re usually pretentious, self-indulgent wank, perfume commercials tell you absolutely nothing whatsoever about the product. Well, they show you the bottle. They don’t even say, “our perfume smells of this” because “this” is always some kind of lab-grown, hybridised chimera of smells and chemicals designed, when you get right down to brass tacks, to make you smell like you haven’t just rolled out of bed, eaten two slices of cold pizza and thrown up your mouth a little bit at the latest mobile game advert.

It’s usually some celebrity muttering vaguely arousing niceties in French or Italian and doing something fairly mundane in a comically meaningful way, like staring at the sky or getting on a motorcycle or walking towards the camera.

You know what the video game equivalent of a perfume advert is? A CGI fucking trailer.

This year’s E3 was utterly replete with the damn things. I watched a lot of them, and I’ll admit some of them were enough to get me interested. Halo Infinite, for example, and Elden Ring. But here’s the thing. My wife gets excited at perfume commercials, but that doesn’t mean she knows what it’s going to smell like.

CGI trailers are like this. They are usually around 2 to 5 mimutes of a developer staring purposefully at a sky full of fuck all, or getting on a bike they’re not going to ride, or walking purposefully at the camera when there’s nothing behind the camera except the boring old real world where their CGI trailer won’t mean shit anymore. I’m mixing metaphors here, but here are a few examples.

Deathloop features guns! And explosions!

Deathloop and Outriders, two games “showcased” by flashy CGI trailers that reveal almost nothing. Deathloop, from stealth wizards Arkane Studios, may show the apparent protagonists dying over and over again and being upset about it, but that’s nothing new in a game, and the VO reveals a bit about the potential story, but that’s it. And they look pretty cool and edgy, and it had a futuristic feel and everyone in the crowd cheered at the end, but I’m beginning to wonder if the crowds at these events aren’t given a stern heads up at the beginning that they’ve been wired to some kind of shock machine and if they don’t cheer at everything they’ll pay for it. Because what are you cheering at? A Pixar short? At least they have a plot.

People Can Fly’s Outriders reveal was just as bad, if not worse. What can you take from that trailer? It’s 3-player? There are guns and cool coats and you shoot monsters. Could just as easily have been a Destiny trailer. It has no identity. It could be a top-down, pixelated twin-stick shooter or a Doom-scale FPS. We don’t actually know from the trailer, do we? This is not a slight on either game, by the way. By all accounts, both dev teams have massive pedigree as far as I’m concerned. But I don’t know what these games are. I just know they both feature guns.

Outriders shows off its innovative gun-and-coat art style

I remember a few years ago when Guerilla Games dropped a picture on Twitter of what looked like a caveman fighting a robot dinosaur. I remember thinking “I don’t give a shit what that game is, I want it”. I knew nothing about it, but that one image did more to sell the identity of what was eventually announced as Horizon: Zero Dawn than a 2-minute video did for Outriders.

I may be part of the problem. I have a tendency to hype like a motherfucker. But then I got excited about the Halo Infinite trailer not because it was flashy, but because I already know some of what to expect from that franchise. It’s not going to shock me with its gameplay; I’m hyped to see the Master Chief front and centre again, hyped to rejoin the fight. To be fair though, all the Elden Ring trailer had to do was put the names George RR Martin and Hidetaka Miyazaki together on one screen and they could have saved themselves the CGI budget altogether. The knowledge of who has written that and who is developing it had me desperate to see more without a single frame of CGI.

Am I intrigued by Deathloop and Outsiders? Yes. Both are new IPs from respected studios and I have no doubt both will be of interest to my particular tastes. But I’m not excited by either yet because I have no clue what kind of games they’re going to be beyond “shooters”.

CGI trailers are flashy bullshit that tell the consumer very little, and convey no message subtler nor more intricate than “Our game is awesome and you want it”. They don’t tell you why you want it, why it appeals to you specifically, what genre or sub-genre it is. They don’t even really giveaway the art style a lot of the time. They’re just shiny half-truths. You could argue that you won’t know a game is really for you until you play it, so all trailers, gameplay or CGI, do roughly the same job anyway. But they don’t.

As a tool to tell you a game is in development and get you to anticipate more info, fine. Too get people invested in the world of an already-announced game, like Overwatch, okay. But as a thing to reveal your game, to show it off to the world like a ten year old with his kitchen-sink science project, desperate for applause and forgiveness for setting fire to the cat?

Yeah, not so much.

The post Opinion | Why CGI reveal trailers for new IPs leave me cold appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

It was about 9 months ago, when I was covering the latest Nintendo Direct with Gary Bailey. When Isobel from Animal Crossing appeared on screen we both assumed the obvious: this was the long-awaited announcement of Animal Crossing on Switch, surely. So you can imagine our collective dismay when Isobel went on to announce her involvement in the upcoming Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. We were both surprised, a bit angry and more than a little sheepish that we’d let ourselves jump aboard the hype train that so often ends up calling at the station of disappointment.

But, Nintendo – as is becoming abundantly clear – are wily old dogs when it comes to these announcements. It turned out that Isobel’s appearance wasn’t just to reveal her inclusion in Smash Ultimate, but was, as Gary and I had predicted, to reveal the new Animal Crossing title. A game incidentally that we now know is coming March 20, 2020 in the shape of Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Cue the second feeling of sheepishness as we’d been fooled twice in two minutes.

Fast-forward to this year’s E3, and I reluctantly admit that it happened again, although in my defence, Nintendo have clearly upped their game. Thankfully I saw through the “Banjo-Kazooie in Smash” reveal misdirection (because fool me twice, shame on me after the King K. Rool reveal shenanigans). That blink-and-you’ll-miss-it Jiggy hurtling across the screen was enough for me to give off an involuntary whelp of excitement. That and the satisfaction that I’d seen through their ruse this time around. No amount of Duck Hunt dancing was going to throw me off the scent.

Oh, how naïve I was. Nintendo always has the last laugh, it seems.

Nintendo’s holding pattern for Directs is to save a big reveal for the end, a crescendo, a final flourish, with the aim of keeping tongues wagging long after that final logo animation and click soundbite. So with updates on Animal Crossing and Luigi’s Mansion 3, my mind was racing as to what it could be. Would it be Bayonetta 3? Could it even be a first look at Metroid Prime 4? Would it be a new Star Fox or even an F-Zero title? (Yes, I know I’m probably the last one who wants it at this point, but a man can dream!)

Aa the camera panned out from some mystical green goo, it became apparent that this was looking incredibly similar to Breath of the Wild. And no sooner had I thought it, than two characters looking very much like Link and Zelda were there snooping around. The logical part of my brain assumed the obvious. “Oh, some meaty DLC content for Breath of the Wild?” I thought. My mind was awash with how clever this was given most people, despite spending maybe 100s of hours with the game, had probably bounced off it to other things, and this would bring them back. How this would satisfy those who were maybe bemoaning that the latest Zelda offering was a remake of a game that was over 25 years old. It looked a lot darker in tone as well, compared to the original (if you can call wholesale devastation “light”), so this felt like it would feel significantly different to what had come before.

In reality, it was all of these things and more. As the screen faded to black and simple text dropped a gaming bombshell, I was gobsmacked, completely blindsided by the words in front of me. Not DLC, but, crazily, a direct sequel to the best-selling game in the series. On that fact alone it’s not a ridiculous announcement, but a game on the scale of Breath of the Wild felt years away (and, in all likelihood, still is) hence why a reveal like this was so surprising.

The look of disbelief on my face became one of abject shock. It evolved from simple surprise at an announcement I most definitely wasn’t expecting to the growing realisation that I’d been tricked again. Nintendo had done me once more, by subverting my expectations, making me assume one thing only to reveal another. You’d think after all these years of following their Directs and E3 presentations that I’d be used to this by now, an expert at spotting the big twist. But I’m clearly not, and to be honest I’m glad of that. It keeps the magic alive, and is why I still tune into their Directs (particularly E3) with a sense of wonder. In that respect, Nintendo, please don’t ever change, keep us guessing always. That, and maybe a new F-Zero game OK?

The post Never try to second-guess Nintendo | E3 2019 appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

I’m not much of a comic fan these days. In my younger years I read DC, Marvel, Dark Horse; I sought out graphic novels by Alan Moore and dabbled in Manga. Recently I’ve taken to reading Saga and The Rat Queens, which are suitably mature and off-the-wall for me. My point is I haven’t really invested much time in the comic book versions of character we’ve been watching in the MCU for the last 11 years. I know the broad strokes, characters and alter egos, origin stories and villains. It’s the minutiae I fail on, and bow to those with greater knowledge.

As a result, if you say Tony Stark I only see RDJ, Chris Evans is Captain America; comic book Hawkeye looks ridiculous because in my head he’s the slightly-less-ridiculous-looking Jeremy Renner. There is no Natasha Romanoff but Scarlett Johansson, and Chris Hemsworth and Mark Ruffalo made their characters so much their own that it’s hard to even imagine anyone else playing them. I mean, who the fuck is Ed Norton, right?

My kids watch the Avengers animated series, which is pretty decent. The actors do a fairly good job of aping the MCU stars while the storylines and appearances are closer to the source material. When I watch it with them, I don’t give it much thought really. It is what it is on a Saturday morning.

But when I saw the new trailer drop for Square-Enix’s long-awaited Avengers game (first teased at E3 2017) I felt a little put-out. It was the video game equivalent of being catfished. I just wasn’t expecting what I saw: a group of characters who looked for all the world like people cosplaying the Avengers.

Crystal Dynamics have pedigree. The Tomb Raider reboot trilogy is pretty awesome bar a few missteps along the way, and they’re a developer who have been riding around this block for decades. I’m not overly concerned about what the gameplay will turn out to be. In this regard I have utter respect for, and faith in, Crystal Dynamics. But that’s not the issue here.

What I’m concerned about is having to retrain my brain to accept these characters looking and sounding so… bargain basement. The banter is there in the trailer, albeit a little forced and “me too”, and the tone of the story looks interesting, evoking similar themes to Age of Ultron. But the characters… Stark just looks weird. The beard is too thick, the hair is too long; he looks like a guy who built an Iron Man suit and drove cross-country to a convention 3 days away. Thor’s accent is just bizarre, while Romanoff has become an incredibly generic “female in a jumpsuit” and lacks any personality in the trailer. Was Hawkeye even in it? I honestly don’t remember seeing him, so this is yet another property that doesn’t give two hoots about Clint Barton. Why? The dude is awesome.

I know this is my problem. I sound like a whiny fan boy and will be corrected loudly by people who know better, but the whole trailer felt off. It showcased action that doesn’t look as compelling or exciting as we’ve seen in films that focused on the same characters. And it was, dare I say, charmless. There was zero chemistry and there were no wow moments.

Maybe the changes will turn out to be a good thing in the end. I mean, you can’t blame Square-Enix for either not wanting to, or not being able to, use the likenesses of the film cast. This is not a tie-in, after all – it’s very much its own property. So maybe it’s okay that the game is trying to make us forget what we already know a little. If it exists in a weird place where it’s not based directly on the characters from either the MCU or the comics, and instead is like a fresh take on the gang, then it gives Squeenix and Crystal Dynamics the freedom to go where they want with the characters and the story. And maybe the banter will be better in the full game, when it’s in context and we’ve (hopefully) got some character development to go with it.

The trailer certainly had its Easter eggs, not least a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it Hulk vs Abomination moment. Maybe not knowing exactly how the characters will act or what’s coming will be a major benefit. We’ll see. And hell, maybe it’s just that I’m seeing this trailer so soon after watching the Infinity Saga come to an end and being humbled by that achievement, as a greater fan of the MCU than the source. So maybe my argument is entirely invalid and I should just go stand in the corner and, y’know, STFU.

Either way, I need some convincing. I loved the Tomb Raider trilogy, I love the MCU, I love the universe Marvel have created over the decades. Chances are, I’ll love this. But right now I feel a little numb to it, and I’m hoping the gameplay is enough to balance out my apprehensions. I guess we’ll see in Spring 2020.

The post The Avengers A-Day trailer forced me to re-wire my brain appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

The Star Wars license has taken a bit of a drubbing recently from the gaming press and the general public alike, to the point where even mentioning a new Star Wars game in the wrong crowd would see you dragged out back and strung up by your ears. And a lot of that was in no small way owed to EA, who had managed to utterly besmirch the name with not one but two Battlefront games – games which by rights should have been like the second coming of Alec Guinness.

So how do EA attempt to combat this? The only way they know how to combat anything these days: by using Respawn’s good name and carefully-cultivated relationship with John and Jane Public as both sword and shield. Okay, maybe that’s a bit cynical, and let’s be honest, the Publics are hardly a welcoming couple. They’re more likely to greet their new neighbours with a big old pooh wrapped in newspaper and set on fire than a freshly-baked carrot cake. But then they’re also right to be wary. If you keep trying to stroke a dog that repeatedly bites you eventually it stops being the dog’s fault altogether.

In lieu of a decent segue, just swap “dog” for “Wookiee” in that last bit and we’re onto Star Wars: Jedi – Fallen Order, a title that sounds more like a string of Star Wars themed words than an indication of what it’s really about. But we’re excited nonetheless. Being massive fans of Star Wars and Respawn, there’s more than enough good feeling and bleary-eyed optimism at Godisageek to go around. That being the case, here are 6 reasons we’re excited for Jedi: Fallen Order.

1. It features new worlds and characters

The existing Star Wars canon has always been fairly free and easy with worlds and characters and races. Every property introduces some new planet, moon, alien race or cute little droid design and Fallen Order is no different. While the gameplay trailer takes place on the Wookiee homeworld of Kashyyyk, we’re also seeing new worlds like Bracca, which is where protagonist Cal Kestis begins his adventure.

Played by Gotham’s Cameron Monaghan, Cal is a young Jedi padawan who survived Order 66 and is now on the run. He’ll be joined by a handful of new characters including his droid BD-1, Cere, a former Jedi Knight who looks like she’ll be his mentor character, and the Second Sister, the Inquisitor hunting him down.

2. It has Metroidvania elements

As Cal progresses through the campaign he’ll unlock new abilities and knowledge which can then be applied to previously explored areas to open up new routes and possibilities, just like a Metroidvania game.

This makes a great deal of sense and is actually pretty exciting, as this presents a lot of possibilities for secrets, alternate routes and replayability.

3. It also has Soulslike elements

Nowadays this may be kind of ten-a-penny, but Cal must save at certain specific points, and can only heal by way of his droid, BD-1. With a limited number of curatives, only by reaching these save points can Cal replenish his stock.

Interestingly, this is also causes minor enemies to respawn, Bonfire-style. I doubt the Soulsy stuff extends to massive bosses and heavy metal album cover environments, but it’s still pretty cool.

4. Combat looks brutal, but thoughtful

A lot of people have compared the combat to God of War for some reason, possibly because you can throw your lightsaber like a bloody great axe, but it’s really its own beast in many ways. More likely the two games it will most closely resemble are The Force Unleashed and Jedi Academy, both of which did a sterling job combining lightsaber combat and force powers.

But Cal ain’t playing around. Watching the combat on display in the E3 demo, he’s quite happy to toss stormtroopers around like ragdolls, slicing people clean in half and basically being a badass. Actually the demo makes the combat look a little too easy – Cal is supposed to be a half-trained apprentice not a Master but, well, he’s a little overpowered.

We’ve seen powers like force push and force pull, as well as the aforementioned sabre toss. There is apparently a combo system but you can mash away if you choose. Respawn themselves have said the combat is easy to pick up but difficult to master. Director Stig Asmussen was director of god of War 3, though, so that makes sense.

5. There is a Hub are and the campaign is non-linear

Cal has a ship, or hitches a ride on someone else’s ship at least, called the Stinger Mantis, which allows him to travel between planets and moons. There are apparently no loading screens, and you’ll travel in real time between locations – which to me sounds like it could become a bit boring. I’m assuming you’ll use this time to catch up with your companions and such.

While you won’t have complete freedom and Fallen Order isn’t open world, you will be able to choose your path at certain points and revisit areas later. The ship acts as a hub area, too, where you’ll be able to apply upgrades and tweak your sabre (different coloured kyber crystals have been confirmed), and you’ll also be able to customise the ship.

6. There are no microtransactions or loot boxes

This is the big one for many people. Producer Blair Brown went on record on Twitter to say that Fallen Order has no loot boxes or microtransactions. This is a major deal, as EA pretty much besmirched the Star Wars name over loot boxes in the Battlefront game and, to a lot of people, this is a deal-breaker.

Having no microtransactions means everything is unlockable or achievable in the game, which is almost unheard in AAA titles and these days. It remains to be seen whether EA will fully honour this claim, but our fingers are well and truly crossed.

Star Wars: Jedi – Fallen Order is set for release on consoles and PC on November 15th, and we’ll try to keep you reliably informed until then. Personally, we can’t wait to experience Cal’s story for ourselves.

The post Force Majeure | 6 Reasons we’re excited for Star Wars: Jedi – Fallen Order appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

It occurred to me while playing Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice that I’m more of a Dark Souls fan than a FromSoftware fan – Bloodborne notwithstanding, as that’s possibly my second favourite game of this entire generation. But then, my love of Bloodborne feeds into the same minor epiphany.

It wasn’t necessarily the punishing difficulty or challenge I fell in love with when playing Dark Souls for the first time, or the sequels, or indeed Bloodborne. Yes, the difficulty is intrinsic, essential, and yes the Soulslike properties – bonfires and lanterns, respawning enemies, massive, terrifying bosses – are the foundation upon which those games stand. But for me the most important element is the lore. The world-building.

I spend hours watching lore master videos on YouTube, picking apart flavour text on in-game items for clues that make sense of a mystery that isn’t even integral to the gameplay. The macabre gothicism, and the sense that you’re a wayfarer in a world that is literally dying around you, held together by blood and fire and death. I lost that in Sekiro. The feudal Japan setting works fine for the story, it’s at the same time beautiful and commanding, and Wolf’s story is more linear, more personal and more fleshed out than we’re used to seeing from FromSoft.

When you play Dark Souls and every corner hides a potential secret, every NPC offers snippets of half-mad prattle to piece together, or when you play Bloodborne and spend a little extra time researching the link between boss Father Gascoigne and the little girl who speaks to you through her window. That’s what makes those games for me. The lore behind a weapon or set of armour, the hidden details you have to search for but which don’t cause the game to suffer if you miss them or ignore them.

I know Sekiro has them. I’m aware of how intricate the world is if you want it to be. But my problem was that Sekiro didn’t make me care in the same way. I mostly just wanted it to be over, despite the quality of craftsmanship and the beauty of the world.

This is on me. I’m not criticising From for not making me feel a certain way about their game. It’s still a tremendous game. But I preferred the world building and minutiae in Souls and Bloodborne.

Which is why my body is so utterly ready for Elden Ring.

Okay, okay, I’m hanging off the back of the hype train for dear life here, I know. But hear me out.

I’m a massive A Song of Ice and Fire fan. I’m a massive Game of Thrones fan too, but I the two entities were almost entirely disparate for the last 3 seasons of the show. I’ve always been more interested in the way George RR Martin crafts worlds. He cares about the minutiae, about the backstories of even small characters, about details in the world that don’t just present a fantasy history as a checklist of battles and Kings and events; he understands that prophecy is interpretive, and he writes epic, spectacular fantasy from human perspectives.

That world building talent, arguably among the very best in the fantasy genre, combined with the imagination and passion of Hidetaka Miyazaki could shake the foundations of what we expect from a Soulsborne game, or a FromSoftware game.

Elden Ring has my attention. We’ve not seen gameplay and it might seem cynical or even reductive to say that we probably know the gist of what to expect from gameplay, but I’m less excited about the mechanics and more about the story and the world. Aside perhaps The Witcher 3, no other fantasy world has drawn me in like Lordran or Drangleic or Yarnham. I’ve never been more deeply invested in the history and lore of a game’s setting. I want that again. The CGI trailer with its obscure monologuing, clever hints and gallons of speculation fuel is pitched perfectly to lure in people like me and it has worked, 100%.

Whatever Elden Ring turns out to be, wherever From and GRRM intend to take us in what their press release says is the largest world they’ve ever created, whatever horrors and nightmares and challenges lie in wait, my mind and body are ready to embark on that new odyssey into the macabre.

The post Why my body is ready for Elden Ring appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

As soon as Keanu Reeves stepped on stage to announce the Cyberpunk 2077 release date, I knew the Microsoft Briefing would at least roll gently downhill from there. And it did, in all fairness, as no amount of Gears of War and Terminator crossovers or indie trailers (despite some being amazing) could top.

But it was towards the end of the conference when we were introduced to a trailer featuring a jump-suited astronaut working feverishly to contain some kind of breech, that my interest piqued. I actually thought it was a new Aliens game, maybe even a new Dead Space. The tone was dark, ominous, as the astronaut fell to the ground and then appeared to age while playing a holographic message from his wife and daughter (signifying how long he’d been floating) that pulled at the heartstrings and made me think of games like Prey and Alien: Isolation.

And then came the distress call, designated as “friendly”. The astronaut, half-mad with grief after being alone so long, ran up to the cockpit, wiping freezing condensation off the screen to reveal not a ship, but Microsoft’s most enduringly iconic hero. My goosebumps had goosebumps. At that moment I was a teenager again, saving humanity from an ancient cosmic threat. It was a CGI trailer with no gameplay, but absolutely sizzling with the Halo atmosphere that I felt was missing during the bombastic Guardians reveal years ago.

Okay, it wasn’t the Halo 2 intro. It didn’t have the Master Chief surfing a massive bomb through a galactic firefight. But once again, our boy has come in from the cold. And the thing that really got me? What this character embodies now. As the engineer rigs his Mjolnir armour up to what amounts to a set of jump leads and shocks him back to consciousness, the Chief doesn’t ask for a sit down or a cup of coffee, doesn’t take five minutes to fret over his missing AI who, quite possibly, he’s going to have to destroy at some point.

He grabs a gun, seals the engineer in the cockpit, and heads right back into the breech. He says no more than 8 words in the whole trailer, but it’s all he needs. I’ve never come to the Halo games for the story. The books, spin offs, comics, yes. The lore is deep and rich and interesting. But the main series has always felt curiously detached from the greater lore, never more so than in Halo 5: Guardians, which required extensively knowledge of the extended universe just to make sense, and wound up feeling soulless, hollow and pretentious as a result.

I’m not suggesting Infinite is going to change all of that, and in fact the subtitle “Infinite” suggests even more scope and scale than we’ve seen before. But that trailer, muted, intimate, deliberately restrained, did more to capture the quintessential feel of Halo than the whole of Guardians’ campaign did. Not counting Reach (which I will argue was underrated until my final breath), the Halo franchise has always, always been about the Master Chief and Cortana. And it has lost something since Halo 3. The chemistry between the Spartan and his onboard AI is sorely missing; the band of heroes element that was present before Miranda Keyes and Sergeant Johnson were unceremoniously killed off; the sense of one soldier standing against the storm no matter the cost… Halo 4 and Guardians undid some of this groundwork, in my opinion, and while both are competent, enjoyable games, neither sparkled with the same Halo magic.

Will Infinite? Who knows? We know very little at this point. We know the Master Chief has no Cortana to guide him. We know she’s an immensely powerful God allegory with AI rampancy at this point, and so it’s going to take something monumental to recapture the spark they had and I’m praying that that’s the way it plays out – that they do recapture some of that old magic, somehow.

Because for the first time in a while, I really felt something while watching that trailer. I felt transported back. I felt young and hopeful again. And excited. I’m excited to see where this story is going. We’ve got a long time to wait, but something tells me the ride will be worth it in the end.

The post Why the new Halo: Infinite trailer gave me all the feels appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

This weekend I got a chance to play Bandai Namco’s new action game Code Vein, thanks to the Technical Test. Essentially a beta, the test offered several hours of action and adventure through the Prologue and a bit of side content designed just for the beta. Initial impressions are very positive. While it will be compared to Dark Souls and Bloodborne by everyone and his gaping dragon (Ed: beg your pardon?!), it’s fair to say that the studio behind it – headed by Hiro Yoshimura, the director of God Eater – wear their influences proudly on their sleeves. Actually “wear” is too light a term: they all but roll up said sleeve and nail their influences to their bare arm with a ruddy great sword.

That being said, they’ve taken pains to ensure that Code Vein has its own identity and, while it undoubtedly borrows several core concepts from the FromSoft playbook, the world and characters feel interesting and fresh. Having spent a good 10 hours in the beta (4 of which were probably in the excellent character creator), there’s 6 reasons Code Vein well and truly has my attention now (none of which relate to the camera angle on the lady in white… because bloody hell, lads, it’s 2019).

1. It’s about Vampires killing monsters

The world of Code Vein is a dark one. The protagonist and most of the good (and bad) guys are Revenants. That is, they’re dead, and reanimated by a parasitic implant held in check by feeding it “Blood Beads” drawn from special springs. Without regular blood, Revenants become the Lost, essentially mindless killers.

Trapped in a dead city by an otherworldly barrier, the last vestiges of humanity must forage for sources of blood without wiping out what’s left of the actual humans. Beyond this we don’t know an awful lot. Characters in the chunk we played talk about the Queen, who was defeated long ago and whose death created the barrier. The militant force your character works for are known as the Queenslayers, but it appears that early on you’ll separate from the main force and forge your own path.

Being vampires means most of your special skills and spells are drawn from or utilise blood, which makes for a gory and macabre moveset. It’s all very cool and a little bit gross.

2. It’s Dark Souls meets God Eater

It’s a crossover of styles you probably weren’t aware you wanted, but the fusion of fast-paced, combo-based combat with parrying, dodging, and punishing difficulty spikes present a weirdly compelling mix. The world design takes cues from FromSoft, too, with routes opening up to make backtracking and re-treading easier, creating a world you’ll kind of instinctively “learn” to navigate better than your own living room in the dark. And, of course, there are “bonfires”.

By now a staple of the Soulslike genre, the eponymous bonfires are here replaced by Mistles, buds of a bizarre world-covering plant that must be awakened in order to bear Blood Beads, the macabre fruit that nourishes the Revenants. With the world of Code Vein stuck in a constant loop of death and rebirth, awakening a Mistle brings all the Lost in the area back to (un)life and allows your character a brief moment of respite.

As we’re becoming accustomed to in this genre, there’s a good chance much of the story will be open to interpretation. As I ran around walloping the zombie-like Lost with my giant axe, I kept picking things up with names that made little sense out of context. How much will be explained is yet to be seen, but I’d keep your wiki open while playing if I were you.

3. It has an accessible learning curve

The beta has a fairly comprehensive tutorial that introduces you to the three primary Blood Codes (or classes), Fighter, Ranger and Caster. The Fighter is fairly straightforward, dealing with direct damage, heavy armour, and massive two-handed weapons. Players of Bloodborne will be instantly at home here, whether wielding a sword, huge axe or a pike (the three weapons I found in the beta, along with a giant hammer which was really just a hunk of concrete on the end of an iron bar).

The Ranger is the agile class, combining quick strikes with a ranged attack and primarily using a bayonet. This is the class I struggled with the most, but it’s the one that may offer the most utility when mastered. And finally the Caster is the mage class, able to draw devastating offensive spells from blood. In all honestly, the Caster felt a little overpowered, but it will all come down to how the game handles resource management and cooldown, etc, to create balance.

A key takeaway is that Code Vein doesn’t feel like you’re thrown into the deep end. While that’s something many Soulslike fans look forward to, allowing you to find your feet with the slightly complex classes and skill design (and there is a lot to understand) isn’t a bad thing. Yes, the opening hour, at least in the beta, feels easier than other games in the genre, but there’s a lot to learn going in.

4. It’s a brand new IP

I won’t pretend that new properties are particularly rare, but I will say that every one feels somewhat refreshing as it sluices out on the rushing river of sequels and reboots. Although it bares similarities to God Eater and has an Anime aesthetic that could have been pulled directly from an existing show, Code Vein is brand new.

Developed by the team behind God Eater 3, it looks and feels somewhat familiar, but the environments are more detailed and the combat more considered. How well it’ll do as a fledgling property remains to the seen, but there’s no denying the minds behind it have solid pedigree.

5. The world is potentially massive

The beta barely scratched the surface, and in fact had elements in it made purely for testing purposes. But we saw a glimpse of the potential size of the world. Given that the opening area is a destroyed cityscape held at bay by the dead Queen’s forcefield (we still don’t know what she was Queen of, if she was human, or if she was related in even a passing way to Freddie Mercury), it seems likely that the story will see you traveling beyond the forcefield and into other such biomes in the ruined world.

I only make this assumption because one dilapidated city area is going to become a little stale after 10 or 12 hours, let alone 20 – 40, and there are elements of Code Vein that suggest longevity. For a start you collect materials which will likely be used for crafting at some point, which combined with the interesting take on classes and skills hints at greater depth. Also, the game’s to which it pays homage are hardly short affairs. I could be hella wrong, but I get the sense that Code Vein will be a behemoth of a game.

6. The character creator is next level

Judge me all you want, but I spent hours and hours in the Black Desert character creator. Before that, I lost chunks of time to Skyrim – hell, even Saints Row. Its an essential part of the RPG experience for me and many others, and Code Vein boasts an impressive avatar builder. It might say certain things about me that don’t bear analysis, but I get really itchy and uncomfortable if I stride out to face the forces of evil in pants that don’t match the shade of my warhammer.

I was pleasantly surprised by the sheer number of options for hair and features, the numerous default outfit options (all of which is altered further by equipped gear), and the accessories. The Accessory part is actually very interesting, as you’re given a set amount of points to spend and can then choose from a bevy of accessories including chokers, gloves, hair extensions, belt chains, arm bands, glasses, hats, scarves, backpacks and tattoos.

Yes, I know it’s all cosmetic and largely pointless, but it’s still cool. My hope is that these are unlockable in-game or unlocked from the beginning as they are in the Test version, and aren’t tied to microtransactions. It’s a possibility given the current climate, but we won’t know for sure until launch.

The post Code Vein Beta Impressions | 6 Reasons why Namco’s Vampiric Soulslike has our attention appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Our guide to the Sea of Thieves Tall Tales concludes below with Part Four.

TALL TALE #9: SHORES OF GOLD

To begin this Tall Tale you will need to head over to Morrow’s Peak outpost in Devil’s Roar and speak with Grace the only person (apparently) to have been to the the shores of gold. There are ten journals to find in this tale, luckily they are all located on one island called Tribute Peak, but you will have to get there first… All journals are written by Briggsy.

JOURNAL #1: I FORGOT TO STOP
This is located near the southern beach at the shipwreck of the sloop. You will need to head into the back end of the wreck and the journal is resting on the ground.

Tribute Peak Location 1

Tribute Peak – First Journal Location

The text reads:

Well this is embarrassing. I’m normally a dab hand behind the wheel, and I don’t make a habit of wrecking my ship halfway up the beach. Still, what matters is that I made it here. Another first for Captain Briggsy! I should plant a flag, but all I have is these journals. I’m kind of disappointed that the shores aren’t really made of gold, but at least I won’t go blind once the sun comes up. The Shroud doesn’t seem to cover the island, just… wrap around it, I guess. That means it’s safe to explore, and exploring I shall go!

JOURNAL #2: LET’S NOT MENTION THIS
Tribute Peak is an enormous island. To locate this second journal you will need to head up the central path that leads towards the “compass” room. As you climb higher, and before the bridge you will see a ship mast with a tattered sail wedged between the rocks high above, just before this on the left is a stack of crates and the journal is resting between them.

Tribute Peak Location 2

Tribute Peak – Second Journal Location

The text reads:

Bah! Looks like I’m not the first to make it here after all. This stuff doesn’t look ancient, just old, and I’m sure it was made by pirates. I guess the island slips out of the Devil’s Shroud from time to time, and that’s when others came? Maybe even Ramsey got here in the end. Well, no point in sulking. I’m here now, and I bet I can find something they missed. A memento, to help remember this place. And when I tell this story, maybe I’ll conveniently forget to mention this little discovery. We’ll make it our secret, okay?

JOURNAL #3: DREAMS
Once you reach the compass room, go to your right and you will find the journal there inside a crate.

Tribute Peak 3

Tribute Peak – Third Journal Location

The text reads:

It’s still night, but I just woke up sweating. My first really bad dream in years. Maybe if I write it out, I can sleep. I was back in the tavern at Golden Sands, on the night Ramsey called parley. Trying to open on of those sealed chests. I couldn’t pick the lock. Couldn’t force it. Then suddenly, there’s the key in my hand. I smirk and throw open the lid… Nothing there. Seriously. Nothing, like looking into a chasm. A bottomless pit in a box. And suddenly, I feel hands on my back, shoving me! I think it’s one of Ramsey’s men, and now I’m inside the chest, falling – screaming out as the lid snaps shut overhead… Then I woke up. Ugh.

JOURNAL #4: NO SHORTCUTS!
On the western side of the island you will find a passageway lined with huge statues. Off to the left of those statues is a temple-like area with a number of switches you can stand on. There are some steps leading down into the ground blocked off by a cave in. The journal is located at the bottom of those steps.

Tribute Peak 4

Tribute Peak – Fourth Journal Location

The text reads:

This is a weird place. It looks like someone used powder kegs to blow their way down into whatever lies below this island. Maybe they managed it somehow, maybe not. Either way, the tunnel they left behind collapsed a long time ago. There has to be another way down. Ancient civilisations love putting secret passages in stuff. It’s a well-known fact! Ask anyone. Whatever it takes, I’m going to get down there. I want to see every last inch of this place before I leave!

JOURNAL #5: CLIMBING MASTERCLASS
This one is difficult to find as it is located on the arm of one of the statues and you will need to use a cannon to fire yourself onto it. The correct statue is the second one in on the right if you are looking towards the compass room, or the third one up on the left if you are working your way back from the entrance to the tomb.

Tribute Peak 5

Tribute Peak – Fifth Journal Location

The text reads:

You know how some people are good climbers? Well, I am a GREAT climber. That’s why I left this book up here, as proof. Well… I say “climb”. I actually used a cannon from the wreck of my sloop. But if you’re reading this, you must’ve had the same idea. This place has some amazing views, and I want to see them all! I do wish I had someone to talk to though… I hope you’re okay out there, Sudds.

The next five journals are all located inside the tomb once you have solved the various riddles to open it.

JOURNAL #6: WHY ARE YOU HERE?
Once you open the Gold Hoarder door with the coin you will see some crates on your left. The journal is inside one of those.

Tribute Peak 6

Tribute Peak – Sixth Journal Location

The text reads:

I am very much creeped out right now, not that I’d ever admit it to anyone. I finally made it on top of the throne and inside. I hadn’t gone far before I spotted a chest. One of the sealed ones people sometimes sell to the Gold Hoarders, but… open. It looked just like the one from my dream. Like, exactly the same. It sounds stupid but I didn’t dare go near it in case I fell in. As if I needed more clues, I spotted the Gold Hoarder emblem on a door, too. So. They’ve been here before. But why?

JOURNAL #7: WHERE THE GOLD GOES 
You will need to make your way down the stairwell. At the bottom you will see a mermaid statue, follow the right hand side round and the journal is resting on a rock near some glowing mushrooms

Tribute Peak 7

Tribute Peak – Seventh Journal Location

The text reads:

I don’t like Trading Companies. There were none when I first came to the Sea of Thieves, young and cocky as I was. I don’t blame people for working with the Gold Hoarders though. If you’ve found a chest you can’t open, why NOT take it to them? Well… Maybe because we should have been asking ourselves what they do with the treasure afterwards, when we’ve walked away. I think it comes here. I think it ALL comes here. That’s why this place is called Shores of Gold.

JOURNAL #8: I ONLY WANTED ONE
You will need to get past the balance beam section of the tomb, and before you move onto the next area check the crates on the left hand side.

Tribute Peak – Eighth Journal Location

The text reads:

I’ve made a huge mistake. I only wanted a little thing. Just a keepsake, something to prove I’ve been here. Just one little trinket from a treasure pile. I don’t feel sick, or cursed. I feel great! And that’s bad, because I haven’t slept or eaten in days. There’s a different kind of feeling inside me now, though. I don’t like it. I don’t understand it. But I know it’s getting stronger.

JOURNAL #9: ANSWERS
One of the trap rooms has a number of spikes in it as well as three levers. The ninth journal is in this room resting between some rubble on a wooden platform. You will need to use one of the torches to climb up there.

Tribute Peak 9

Tribute Peak – Ninth Journal Location

The text reads:

He was waiting for me, just as I expected. I thought he’d attack, but he seemed to understand. He says I can’t go back. I’ll be an outcast. A target. I know he’s right. If I agree to serve, he’ll share a cure one day. He’s probably lying. But what choice do I have? Briggsy died on this island, and I’m all that’s left.

JOURNAL #10: A LAST ACT OF FREE WILL
From the previous trap room head up the path and you will find a raised platform on the right hand side. The journal is resting on a crate up there.

Tribute Peak 10

Tribute Peak – Tenth Journal Location

The text reads:

I was commanded to destroy the relic. He doesn’t want pirates reaching here unexpectedly, when he might be sleeping. I have disobeyed. If there really is a cure for… what I am, now… I might need the Shroudbreaker to find it. One day. Instead, I’ll hide the gems that seem to focus it’s power. I know plenty of old places to keep them safe from fleshy fingers. The Shroudbreaker can go back to sleep in its vault to recharge. And I’ll start gathering treasures for him, as ordered. I’ll be a slave. I’ll be a villain. I’ll be a monster. At least now I know what the feeling inside of me is. Shame.

Part One: The Shroudbreaker and The Cursed Rogue

Part Two: The Legendary Storyteller and Stars of a Thief

Part Three: Wild Rose and The Art of the Trickster

Part Four: Fate of the Morningstar and Revenge of the Morningstar

The post Sea of Thieves Tall Tales Journal Locations Guide: Part Five appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Our guide to the Sea of Thieves Tall Tales continues below with Part Four.

Part One: The Shroudbreaker and The Cursed Rogue

Part Two: The Legendary Storyteller and Stars of a Thief

Part Three: Wild Rose and The Art of the Trickster

TALL TALE #7: FATE OF THE MORNINGSTAR

To begin this Tall Tale you will need to die and speak with the Ferryman on the Ferry of the Damned. He will give you a quest to help him save the souls of the crew of the Morningstar. The journals are all by the Ghost Hunter.

Finding these journals is made somewhat easier as they are all located on Old Faithful Isle.

JOURNAL #1: A GHOST WATCH
You will find this in the cave on the south eastern part of the island on top of a rock near a candle.

Old Faithful Isle: Cave

Old Faithful Isle: Cave – Journal Location

The text reads:

I made it, Dad! I know you told me my ratty old sloop couldn’t make it safely through the Wilds, but I’m here in one piece. And that’s good, I mean, this island is one of the most haunted places there is. They definitely don’t need my ghost here, too. I may not be much of a pirate, Dad, and you’ve never been afraid to say so. But tonight I’m going to finally do something right! My hands are shaking so much I can hardly write, but I’ve got to do this. I’m GOING to do this. Definitely not scared and definitely going to do this. Definitely. Right now.

JOURNAL #2: THE FRIGHT OF MY LIFE
On the south western side of the island you will find a Kraken skull. The journal is located near the right-hand eye socket of the skull.

Old Faithful Isle: Kraken Skull

Old Faithful Isle: Kraken Skull – Journal Location

The text reads:

The fog had already rolled in by the time I started hunting. You know how it muffles sound and makes everything strange? Well of course you know, Dad… You know everything. Anyway, my mind started playing tricks on me pretty much straight away. I got turned around, and started climbing, trying to get out the fog… Groping, blindly, hoping I didn’t walk straight off a ledge. That’s when my hand touch it. Polished bone, cold as ice and moist from the fog. I thought I’d be seized by skellies for sure! Lucky for me, the sun broke through just then. It was just a boring old kraken skull, not anything supernatural! Whew.

JOURNAL #3: HUNTING BY BONES
From the Kraken skull head a bit further up and into the island. You should come across an altar of skulls with the journal is lying on the rock to the left of the altar.

Old Faithful Isle: Skull Altar

Old Faithful Isle: Skull Altar – Journal Location

The text reads:

That kraken skull gave me an idea… I decided that if I were a ghost, I’d take notice pretty quickly if someone messed with my remains. I went around the island, gathering up all of the skulls I could find and piling them up. I found some candles, too, which is good. If I do meet an angry ghost, I certainly don’t want to do it in the dark. Also, now I can see to write down more of my adventure. Looks like a storm will be here by dawn. I miss the bed in my room, with all it’s familiar creaks. But I made a promise to myself. So…

JOURNAL #4: STILL NO LUCK
You will need to climb to the top of the highest point of Old Faithful Isle. The journal is located at the very peak of the rock near a skeleton.

Old Faithful Isle: Highest Peak

Old Faithful Isle: Highest Peak – Journal Location

The text reads:

This is crazy. I’ve met a dozen pirates who claim this island is haunted. Were all of them just teasing me? Laughing at me? I can’t accept that. I HAVE to meet a ghost! Talk to it, maybe. Find out why they never came back aboard the Ferry of the Damned. I have to know that there’s more, Dad. I have to prove it. I want to know, to make you believe, that someday we’ll get to see Jill again.

JOURNAL #5: GIVING UP
This one can be pretty tricky to locate. Head to the centre of the island where the fort is located. The journal is hidden at the end of a bridge that leads to a tower.

Old Faithful Isle: Bridge

Old Faithful Isle: Bridge – Journal Location

The text reads:

I tried every trick I could think of to stay awake, but I nodded off up on this bridge, amongst another group of skeletons. I dreamed there was a man standing over me, stern and smart. He reminded me a bit of that old captain Jill used to idolise… It was like he was trying to say something… and then KABOOM! Lightning strike. I woke up in SUCH a panic! My foot got tangled in some ropes and I started screaming. I tugged as hard as I could… and all of the cages toppled off the bridge. Oops. I’m done. Dawn is here and I didn’t see one single ghost. I’ll leave my books behind in case someone else has better luck. I’m coming home now, Dad. Once again, I’m coming home and Jill isn’t. Sorry.

TALL TALE #8: REVENGE OF THE MORNINGSTAR

To activate this tale you will need to head to Daggertooth Outpost and go speak with Sandra the Shipwright. These journals all belong to Eli Slate one of the crew you helped in the previous tall tale.

JOURNAL #1: ASSESSING THE ENEMY
You can find the first journal in a crate on a barrel on the western side of Boulder Cay.

Boulder Cay

Boulder Cay – Journal Location

The text reads:

“Know your enemy.” – Sun-Tzu, “The Art of War”.
Who is Graymarrow, the wretch that pursues us endlessly in our quest for the Shroudbreaker? Long ago, I crossed paths with a gaunt and pitiles fellow whose crew may as well have been his slaves. Can this be the same man, fallen victim to a curse that has hardened what little heart he once possessed? A man, at the George and Kraken tavern claims that he can tell me more…

JOURNAL #2: ACCEPTING THE IMPOSSIBLE
If you have been paying attention you will know that “The George and Kraken” is the name of the tavern on Sanctuary Outpost. The journal is located behind the crates in a corner of the tavern. Head through the door and turn left.

Sanctuary Outpost

Sanctuary Outpost – Journal Location

The text reads:

It seems that my suspicions were correct. The Skeleton Lord who now pursues us is a bitter rival from my past. I have met Gold Hoarders with skin like midas’ own, and they claim it to be a consequence of handling cursed coin. Can a healthy, flesh and blood man really be transformed, in such a fashion as to command legions of the undead? On this strange, unknowable Sea of Thieves, it sometimes seems as though anything is possible. I shall consider the matter further as we make for Cannon Cove.

JOURNAL #3: ON THE NATURE OF CURSES
The previous journal suggests Cannon Cove as the next destination, and you will find this particular tome on the highest cliff towards the south-west. It is resting on a tiny stool between two barrels and an ammo box.

Cannon Cove

Cannon Cove – Journal Location

The text reads:

There are whispers, low and fearful, that Graymarrow has begun to wield some fell powers of his own. To whit, he has found a way to ‘maroon’ – for want of another term – the spirits of those he bests in battle. Souls imprisoned by such a curse can never find their way to the Ferry of the Damned, and remain lost. We sail at top speed to Sunken Grove, out in the Wilds. I am taking night watch. I doubt that I could sleep tonight…

JOURNAL #4: AN ENDLESS PURSUIT
Head to the north-eastern part of Sunken Grove. Just offshore of the main island is a small islet, the journal is located on a rock next to a lantern and some barrels.

Sunken Grove

Sunken Grove – Journal Location

The text reads:

The more I learn about Graymarrow, the more certain I am that we must recover and reunite the Shroudbreaker’s pieces. At this point, escaping into the Shroud may be our only means of escaping him. We need rest. He requires none. Fontaine believes we should surrender the one Shroudbreaker fragment we do possess, and plead for clemency. I, however, fear it is far too late. This chase has become a matter of pride for Graymarrow, and he wishes us gone for good. A confrontation seems inevitable, yet still we flee, speeding to Marauder’s Arch as our last supplies run dry…

JOURNAL #5: A LITTLE TOO LATE
The final journey sees you travelling further north to Marauder’s Arch. The journal is located up high on the western side of the island near the cannon resting on some barrels.

Marauder’s Arch

Marauder’s Arch – Journal Location

The text reads:

He has a weakness! At last, here at Marauder’s Arch, I was able to seize orders scrawled by Graymarrow himself. By his own hand, I have learned that even Graymarrow must sometimes rest his wicked bones below the soil. If he could be taken by surprise, it might be possible to defeat him… but our food is gone. Our cannons empty. Instead, we must limp back to Boulder Cay, beach our vessel in the shallows there and make our final stand together. My crew are terrified, we but sail on. I could not be more proud, and can only hope that one day we shall be avenged.

The post Sea of Thieves Tall Tales Journal Locations Guide: Part Four appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Our guide to the Sea of Thieves Tall Tales continues below with Part Three.

Part One: The Shroudbreaker and The Cursed Rogue

Part Two: The Legendary Storyteller and Stars of a Thief

TALL TALE #5: WILD ROSE

This tale is picked up from Madame Olive, the representative for the Order of Souls based at Sanctuary Outpost. These are the journals of the young lovers that Madame Olive has asked you to locate.

JOURNAL #1: I WANT TO FIGHT! BY ROSE
This first journal is located on Rapier Cay next to some barrels in the middle of the island.

Rapier Cay

Rapier Cay – Journal Location

The text reads:

She was following us again all day. I could see her sails on the horizon. Just out of reach of the cannons. COWARD. I knew I wanted this life. Ever since I fell from my parents’ sloop as a nipper and got saved by Captain Briggsy herself! She looked me up and down and said I was going to be the sort of pirate who never let danger scare her away. And thanks to her I never have. But they all say it’s still too dangerous to take on Rooke. I guess to keep George happy I will just keep writing my feelings down instead of wasting all our ammo. Ugh. I wish things were simple again like they were back at Cannon Cove...

JOURNAL #2: HE WILL GET HIMSELF KILLED! BY ROSE
This second journal can be found on Cannon Cove under a barrel next to the campfire in the small bay of the island.

Cannon Cove

Cannon Cove – Journal Location

The text reads:

So we’re at Cannon Cove and there’s just gold sat there like a big dumb trap for idiots. Guess who runs rights up to it and gets jumped by an enemy crew lying in wait? YUP! I had to fight all four of them myself. Lucky I had Georges sword and mine also. I was angry though so it was an easy fight. He never realised it was him I was mad at. Let’s see if we can make it to Lone Cove without me strangling him. I say it’s 50 – 50.

JOURNAL #3: I THINK I LOVE HER, BY GEORGE
You’ll find this journal at Lone Cove on the eastern side of the large rock in the middle of the island.

Lone Cove

Lone Cove – Journal Location

The text reads:

We have stopped to rest on our way to the Lagoon of Whispers, but the only whisper I can hear is echoes of the question. Asked so plainly, the shock of it has completely dulled my senses, and I’m still no closer to the answer. It’s like that game where children pull petals off flowers one at a time. She loves me, she loves me not. Although it’s more like… I love her, I love her not, I love her… I love her… I… Oh dear.

JOURNAL #4: A KISS AND A MISS, BY GEORGE
Head to the Lagoon of Whispers on the eastern side of the island to find this journal sitting on a barrel.

Lagoon of Whispers

Lagoon of Whispers – Journal Location

The text reads:

Only the Captain’s Cabin affords any measure of privacy on a galleon such as ours. I knew that if I were to act, it would have to be while we returned aboard our rowboat. I leaned closer. Rose tilted her head, quizzically. With my heart in my mouth, I moved nearer still… My oar struck a sandbar just then. We touched! Or rather, collided. Rose’s forehead; my (now rather bloody) nose. I am dismayed, but not defeated. Once Quickshot is returned to the soil and we reach Sailor’s Bounty, I shall try my luck again…

JOURNAL #5: HE PROPOSED! BY ROSE
The final journal for this Tall Tale can be found on one of the small Northern islands that make up Sailor’s Bounty. It is next to a pile of barrels.

Sailor’s Bounty

Sailor’s Bounty – Journal Location

The text reads:

Today has been one of the best day of my life and one of the funniest too. My sides still hurt! George had been thinking (too much) about how to propose to me. Where to take me and how to stand and what to say. Too bad he forgot to look where he was walking! He turned and said “Rose will you marry aaargh!” He fell into a tree and got stuck upside-down swinging all day! Until we chopped it down anyway. Ha ha ha! Laughing again. But of course I said yes anyway. As if I could refuse my George after all of that!

TALL TALE #6: THE ART OF THE TRICKSTER

To pick up this tale you will have to locate Salty, the skeletal parrot from the Cursed Sails expansion. He is no longer located in the secret workshop on Wanderer’s Refuge, instead you will need to head to Plunder Valley and you will find him there near the wrecked ship next to a campfire on the eastern side of the island. These journals are all about the Trap maker.

JOURNAL #1: THE PERFECT TRAP
This journal is on Plunder Valley in the cavern. You can find it resting on the central rock inside the cave.

Plunder Valley

Plunder Valley – Journal Location

The text reads:

Even while being forced to work against my will – and don’t think I don’t know which bird-brain is responsible – I still have my pride. As the greatest Trapmaker the Sea of Thieves has ever seen, I must devise something brilliant to protect an equally brilliant treasure. How, then, shall I prove the effectiveness of my creation? Why, by using a few greedy, grog-addled gold-diggers as guinea-pigs! I shall begin my experiments upon Discovery Ridge. A few barrels packed with gewgaws should entice pirates into my game…

JOURNAL #2: BAIT & SWITCH
As the journal on Plunder Valley suggests, you will need to head to Discovery Ridge. The Journal is located up high on the north western side of the canyon resting on a barrel near the one of the Trapmaker’s white marks.

Discovery Ridge

Discovery Ridge – Journal Location

The text reads:

My first test relied on the curiosity of the participant. First, I primed the location with some supplies that might attract a passer-by. Next, a simple wooden lever was placed by the barrels. When utilised, it would strike a flint and so ignite a hidden powder-keg. I had rather assumed natural whimsy would see the lever pulled once spotted, and tucked myself away to observe what came next. The first pirate to arrive promptly wrenched my lever from its housing and absconded with it. “Nice hat stand”, I heard him remark. Subterfuge bests psychology when dealing with such avaricious crooks. I shall return to my workshop, and to the drawing board…

JOURNAL #3: MAKING MY POINT
The last three journals are all located in the Trapmaker’s workshop, which can be found on Sailor’s Bounty. The first of the three is resting underneath the workshop desk.

Trapmaker’s Workshop – Sailor’s Bounty

Trapmaker’s Workshop – Journal Location #1

The text reads:

Recently, I’ve been testing different kinds of blades to see which are the most useful for ‘deterring’ intruders. I’ve had some success with sword traps, as they look fearsome and have an excellent range. They’re expensive to make, of course. Saw traps use shorter, duller metal blades, and are definitely useful in confined spaces. Still, they lack a certain style… Or should I go back to the tried-and-tested “wall o’ stakes”? Though primitive, you can’t argue with the classics. Decisions, decisions…

JOURNAL #4: WE WANT PLATES
The next Journal on the list can be found next to the Anvil in the workshop.

Trapmaker’s Workshop – Journal Location #2

The text reads:

Some experimentation with weight and counterweights have allowed me to devise a new trigger, as well as protection for my workshop. Even working with wood, for metal is precious and in short supply, I can use the weight of any intruder to spring a nearby trap. As sensitive as these devices are, it is nearly impossible to disguise them entirely. Thus, they are best deployed in darker areas. Unfortunately, I have been unable to completely muffle the noise made by the mechanism when someone blunders onto it. A cunning criminal with sharp ears might, I suppose, get enough warning to save their own skin. Regardless, I am making progress…

JOURNAL #5: A WORTHY OPPONENT
The final journal for this Tall Tale can be found lying underneath the Trapmaker’s bed.

Trapmaker’s Workshop – Journal Location #3

The text reads:

The more time I spend with Briggsy, the more I wonder if all pirates are ultimately fated to be consumed by their own greed. Is the endless pursuit of gold and glitter, in and of itself, the greatest trap of all? As an experiment, I have decided to leave a trail that will lead to the very treasure I have been commanded to protect. They’ll be devious clues, of course. Ones that goad, deliberately mislead and test the mettle of those who read them. One last game, then, winner takes all. Is there someone out there on the Sea of Thieves worthy of the stone? We shall see…

The post Sea of Thieves Tall Tales Journal Locations Guide: Part Three appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Let’s face it, you generally know what you’re getting into before you even boot up a From Software game. It’s going to be punishingly hard, it’s going to be semi-roguelike, you’re going to die a lot and you’re going to swear so much you’ll invent new cuss words without even trying.

It’s such a masochistically popular sub-genre that it’s no wonder many other developers have tried to ape the core mechanics in an attempt to get a slice of that rage-inducing pie. But determining which are worth your time and money, and which are just pretenders is tricky, so we’ve rounded up 5 of the best examples available today.

5: IMMORTAL UNCHAINED
Toadman Interactive | 2018

Developed by indie studio Toadman Interactive, Immortal Unchained is a far-future sci-fi that attempted to subvert our expectations of a Souls game by adding guns to the mix.

Despite some technical difficulties and the challenge of working with a low budget, Toadman have done a decent job here, managing to inject some real atmosphere – as well as a few cool ideas.

Sadly, its challenge comes as much from iffy balancing as from design, resulting in a slightly uneven experience. Still, Toadman’s recent updates, as well its overall likeability, mean it’s worth picking up if you’re a fan of the genre. Besides, who doesn’t want to run around like a ‘roided-up techno-freak for a few hours?

4: THE SURGE
Deck 13 | Focus Home Interactive | 2017

The Surge is a game about a bunch of really angry robots getting upset about essentially being slaves to squishy humies, and going uniformally nuts. As a result, it’s probably the most grounded game on the list, if you ignore the endlessly respawning enemies and homemade mech suits, that is.

While it’s easy to doubt the efficacy of a human smashing robots to death with bits of scavenged iron and steel, The Surge is actually a pretty polished experience – barring a few rare bugs that will kill your progress completely, if course.

As sci-fi action games go, it’s certainly an enjoyable enough romp; it just doesn’t quite capture the magic of the titles it’s aiming to replicate.

3: LORDS OF THE FALLEN
Deck 13 | City Interactive | 2014

City Interactive was one of the first studios brave enough to attempt to dip their toes in From’s pool, as it were, with Lords of the Fallen, a pitch-dark fantasy about Harkyn, a man with all of his crimes tattooed on his burly body as a reminder of his tragic quest for redemption.

He’s a miserable bastard for sure, but also pretty handy, as you can spec him in three very different skills that genuinely make you play differently. Although too short and not as clever or nuanced as From’s games, Lords did come close to the crown for a little while.

Minor gameplay tweaks like being able to “bank” your XP, so you keep it on death but earn less as a result switched up the dynamic just a little, and God, some of it looked really nice.

2: SALT & SANCTUARY
Ska Studios | 2016

Being a 2D action platformer reminiscent of something like Super Ghouls ‘n’ Ghosts, Ska Studios indie darling had everyone fooled – until its release, when we all realised just how Souls-like it really is.

Shipwrecked on a mysterious island and shit out of luck, your protagonist must make their way through the shadowed under-belly and across the monster-haunted surface, braving dark forests, deep catacombs and trap filled dungeons in an effort to, well, survive.

But it became apparent in mere moments that Salt & Sanctuary is every inch a Souls-like, even down to the respawning enemies, dropping XP and currency on death, and the timing-based combat. It was one of the best games available for the PlayStation Vita, may it rest in peace, and the perfect example of an indie studio playing to its strengths.

1: NIOH
Team Ninja | Sony/Tecmo Koei | 2017

Doing “Dark Souls in Japan” before Sekiro was an itch in From’s jockstrap, Nioh remains the best available Soulslike not actually developed by the progenitors.

The story of Westerner William lost in the shadows of an ancient, horror-story version of Japan, Nioh features copious amounts of Oni, lots of supernatural goings – on, spirit animals and, of course, that old familiar death mechanic.

If you’re a fan of the genre at all, you really should have played Nioh – it’s worth checking out for its incredible combat, often bonkers art design, and undeniably confident swagger.

The post Ranked: Top 5 “Soulslike” games not developed by FromSoft appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

So the Anthem demos are over. We are now less than 3 weeks from launch, and frankly still a little unclear as to exactly what we’re getting on Feb 22nd. It’s like we’ve been given a free taster of a meal that went down fairly well but no one will tell us what the chewy bits were and no one’s seen Rover for a good few days. I’m not suggesting for a moment that BioWare intend to serve us dog, but I also can’t say with any concrete certainty that they don’t.

We’ve now had a glimpse at a vertical slice of Anthem, and we’ve been to events to see the endgame, such as it is, but here’s the thing: EA and BioWare are taking steps to control exactly what we know, and are straight up dodging the stuff they don’t like us questioning. Things like the microtransactions that they’re still being very cagey about and pretending they haven’t finalised for a game that’s gone gold. But what about the stuff we do know? Well, to be fair, we’ve got some questions about that too, and specifically about a handful of things – six, in fact – that Anthem is currently lacking, and really needs at launch.

1: A stats screen
This is a no-brainer. This isn’t even a no-brainer; this is what happens when you take a no-brainer and make it watch nothing but daytime soaps for 10 days straight. This is 101 stuff. The whole game is built on team synergy, teamwork, and gear builds, but I currently have no menu to check this. Anthem has more menus than a Chinese Takeaway, but just not this one. So if you forget which convoluted-scifi-named piece of planet-shaking ordnance you equipped before leaving Fort Tarsis, you’ll be useless when coordinating strategy.

2: Loadout stations
Likewise, there’s no way to change your gear or build in the world. This may be fine if you’re doing a mission and you’ve pre-prepared for 20 minutes, but if you or any of your friends screw up and bring the wrong gun (and that’s easy done because they all look the same) you’ll have to trek all the way back to Fort Tarsis, use the Forge, then load back into the mission. Also, in Freeplay, the objectives will be dynamic and varied (we hope) so not every job will be doable with the same guns. Except the Devastator sniper rifle. That thing is an utter menace.

3: Gun customisation
Why would you spend countless hours making your Javelin look like you built it out of two £100K sports cars and then go into battle with a gun that looks like you found it in a bin and fixed it with gaffer tape? If you’re the kind of vain, self-inflating exo-suit pilot who won’t go into battle without making sure none of your colours clash, why would you then pick up a battered old assault Rifle without giving it a similar makeover?

4: Player-to-player trading
Anthem has crafting. It also has material gathering and an economy. That leads us to believe there must be rare ingredients out there that you need to grind for in order to make the better stuff. So it stands to reason that you’d have people with busy lives and no time to grind and farm, and those with sod all better to do on a Friday night than loot alien spore pods for sticky goodies. Wouldn’t it make sense to allow players to trade goods, even if you limit that to avoid a gold-farmer situation. BioWare are giving us a meeting hub, so why not player to player trading?

5: A stable framerate
Let’s be clear, I really enjoyed my time with the Anthem demos, but it wasn’t the best showcase for the game. BioWare have repeatedly said that the launch build is better, and lots of YouTubers are saying similar things so I’m not hugely worried, but I am concerned that the demos were about as smooth as a horse’s bollockbag. If BioWare have managed to fix that framerate to a point where it’s not choppier than Jason Vorhese, kudos, but I’ll wait til I see it.

6: A meaty endgame
Now, far be it from me to body-shame anyone’s endgame but if you’re going to release a looter-shooter with the content equivalent of a bony arse no one’s going to stick around for long. At this point we’ve been promised 3 Strongholds, one of which we all played several times in the demo, and a daily legendary bounty, which is a multi-part quest that you can only do one of per day. And that’s it. You can zip around the openworld if you like, but really that seems pretty thin on the content side. Even Vanilla Destiny had patrols and Strikes and the Crucible to keep people at least half invested, but the big worry is that we’ll all be kicking around in gaudily-painted 2-ton murdersuits with nothing to murder but the wildlife while we wait for BioWare to give us something new to shoot at. There’s a new buzz word right now which is “Aspirational content” meaning Raids and Shaper Storms and dungeons – but I hope there’s more coming, and soon, because, honestly, I’m counting on Anthem to replace Destiny 2 as my new hobby game.

So, there you go. Those are 6 things I think Anthem really needs to bring to its launch party if it wants any of us to dance. Right now I’m still very hopeful, but I want to be wowed – and I think Anthem still has the potential to do that. My big fear is that all the demos and reveals have watered down the hype, and made an already tough sell even tougher. Fingers crossed for February 22.

The post ANTHEM: Six things it needs at launch appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Welcome back, folks. It’s a quiet one this week, but that’s for a very good reason. Season 4, AKA Season of the Outlaw, is drawing to a close. That means you have but one week left to finish up your S4 specific Triumphs, as well as your rankings for Gambit, Crucible and Nightfall.

Season of the Forge begins on November 27th, followed by Black Armory, a DLC about a clandestine order of weaponsmiths, on December 4th. Even with details about the new DLC fairly thin on the ground, we’re still pretty excited, because there are lot of quality of life improvements coming, including changes to load times (Nine be praised!). We’re also getting a new old weapon class when heavy machineguns are reintroduced. Does this mean my Zombie Apocalypse FTW will return? Who knows? Bungie are telling us most of jack-shit right now, although this week’s TWAB should shed a little light on what’s coming up. We know there’ll be new gear, collections, triumphs and events, and we know that for the first time Bungie will be focusing on new weapon types and hybrids thanks to the Black Armory. I’m not expecting new weapon classes, but I am expecting more weird shit like Tractor Cannon, Coldheart, Wardcliff Coil and The Swarm. Bungie have already demonstrated imagination where weaponry is concerned and I’m hoping TBA pushes the boat out.

This new DLC is being co-developed by Vicarious Visions who worked on Warmind, which may be good or bad depending on your standpoint. I liked some parts of Warmind: I liked Ana Bray, returning to Mars and Escalation Protocol. I didn’t like the tiny, lacklustre story and lack of real monetary value. Still, I kind of think Vicarious Visions will nail this one.

During Season 5, we’ll also be taking part in the Dawning festival, which itself will bring some novelty quests, new gear and limited time events. This is a Christmas-themed event and should hopefully be a little more lighthearted than recent offerings. Don’t get me wrong, I like Destiny when it’s dark, but a little levity goes a long way.

So, to reiterate, Season of the Forge follows Season of the Outlaw, but will in turn be succeeded in Spring 2019 by the Season of the Drifter, in expansion Jokers Wild, which will not only explore the Drifters shady backstory, but will make significant changes to Gambit, including the introduction of new modes and Gambit-specific quests. I love Gambit mode, so any additions to it are welcome, especially if they give the mode greater legs. The Drifter, too, is a solid addition to the game’s cast, offering a replacement for Cayde-6 who’s as interesting, if not as likeable, as the fallen hero. Will they ever elect a new Hunter Vanguard? We’ll see.

Looking even further forward, year two will go out with Season of the Shadow and a DLC called Penumbra, which Bungie are describing as a “mystery box” of content which they want players to figure out for themselves. There have always been hidden quests, Easter eggs and secrets in Destiny, and an entire DLC based on the idea has me excited. There will be a Destiny vid doc going up on Bungie.net soon, detailing some of the upcoming changes.

News that Activision aren’t happy with Forsaken’s performance is worrying, but let’s be honest: no one was expecting Bungie to turn Destiny 2 around like they did. In fact, I think most people were absolutely expecting Forsaken to underperform. If only we didn’t have to base everything on sales figures, eh? Because frankly, Bungie have really upped their game since September, and it’s a great thing to see. Destiny 2 is now the game it always should have been, and this roadmap only gets us more hyped up.

So get grinding, guys and gals. Hit Gambit, rinse the Crucible, play your hearts out, and get ready to bid farewell to the Season of the Outlaw. Here’s to the Forge, and the future.

Until next Season, eyes up, Guardians.

The post Destiny 2: So long, Outlaws, Season 5 incoming, and here’s to the future appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

To get everyone in the mood for Halloween, we’ve spent some time in SoulCalibur VI‘s Character Creation mode and come up with some appropriately themed characters for the horror season.

So check out below our questionable and tongue-in-cheek attempts at some horror favourites. Let us know what you think!

Grim Reaper

Signifying death wherever he goes, the Grim Reaper is the archetypal horror character. With his decrepit bones, tattered shroud and hood, and wielding his traditional scythe, he is ready to usher those whose fate it is to die into the afterlife.

FUN FACT: When he’s not working his side job of harvesting wheat, Reaper enjoys a good rack of ribs at his local steakhouse.

Nemesis

Best known for rampaging through the soon-to-be-destroyed Raccoon City in pursuit of Jill Valentine in Resident Evil 3, Nemesis is as scary as he is unstoppable. Considerably stronger than anything else in the game, Nemesis is a formidable foe, even without considering he often arms himself with a rocket launcher just for fun.

Often you’ll find it better to just run from this abomination, for fear of your top half of your body ending up in a different place to your lower half, courtesy of Nemesis’ incredible strength. Definitely one to avoid.

FUN FACT: Has a self-programmed hatred for S.T.A.R.S. members, but loves the stars themselves. His passion for astronomy often leaves him feeling conflicted, leaving him to take out his frustration on nearby cable-cars.

Jason Voorhees

Often found running around Crystal Lake, doing his civic duty to prevent overpopulation, Jason Voorhees is one memorable character. Taking his killing streak from his mother, and donning his now-infamous hockey mask, Jason’s appearance is definitely iconic, and certainly not one you’d want to meet on a dark night.

FUN FACT: Due to an unfortunate superglue accident, Jason can’t actually remove the hockey mask. However it’s been so long now, that bringing it up makes for an awkward dinner table conversation.

Michael Myers

Few would argue there’s a more fitting a Halloween character than the main villain of a horror series of the same name. After killing his sister at a young age on Halloween, Michael escapes the Sanitarium years later to unleash his own brand of horror on his home town of Haddonfield.

Brandishing his infamous kitchen knife, and saving his killing for the spookiest night of the year, this is a character that requires the very best of Jamie Lee Curtis to overcome.

FUN FACT: Michael Myers starred in later films, including Austin Powers and Wayne’s World and became the voice of Shrek to millions of families.

Freddy Krueger

Having tormented children’s dreams for years, Freddy Krueger is literally the stuff of nightmare. Deadly nightmares. In his now infamous striped top and fedora hat conceal a heavily-burned body, making a close encounter even creepier.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, his bladed glove will finish you off for good. Sweet dreams.

FUN FACT: Has a keen interest in gardening. Considered starting a joint venture with Edward Scissorhands in a landscaping business.

Mr Blobby

Alongside Noel Edmonds, Mr Blobby has been terrorising residents of Crinkly Bottom since the 1990s. With a penchant for gunge, and a disrespect for personal space, there are fewer creepier sights in all of television.

During his heyday he was a prime-time regular and even had a booming musical career. Sadly(ish) for us, work these days appears to have dried up

FUN FACT: Him and Noel Edmonds were separated at birth, and his brother’s rise to fame enraged him so much that he turned pink permanently.

The post SoulCalibur VI Character Creations: Halloween Special appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Since its release, Rocket League has become one of the most successful and popular games on the market, offering exciting gameplay and a satisfying depth to its customisation as well. There’s a fierce world of online competition, and learning the basics can be tricky if you’re completely new to the game, but it’s not impossible to get to grips with, and once you’re familiar with how to play you’ll be scoring goals in no time. There’s also a lot to it beyond the games themselves, such as trading, earning keys, crates, and items, so we’re here to give you some tips to get you to grips with the basics.

Observe the pitch and be patient

It can become all too familiar to race around the pitch following the ball, but its important to play your position and use patience to get the upper hand. Whether you’re playing 1v1 or as part of a team, constantly following the ball around can leave the goal exposed, so make sure you watch its movements and take your opportunity wisely. Sometimes you have no choice but to race after the ball, but if you can, defend the goal, pick your moment to strike, and make use of the entire pitch.

Build up your boost

Across each pitch, there are speed boost panels that you can drive across to build up a boost. Try driving across multiple panels so that you have maximum power. It becomes essential for driving back to protect your goal after a failed shot, and also race faster towards a potential shot on goal. Even if the ball is further towards your opponents end, drive over some of these panels whilst you wait for your opponents offence just so that you’re covered with the highest possible speed boost.

Understand the science of jumping

There’s a science in jumping in Rocket League, and it’s all about angles and trajectory. Practicing where to hit the ball as you jump for it can make the difference between an accurate shot and a dud. When the ball flies high into the air, judge your potential hit with patience, as jumping too soon will mean you miss the shot. It won’t take long before you’re finding the right ways, but make use of practice mode so that you’re a beast on the attack.

Work hard for your look

There’s a lot of customisation in Rocket League, but you’ll need to play a lot to get some of the awesome Rocket League Items up for grabs. Whenever you play a match, you’ll unlock items and Rocket League Crates, earning you new decals, wheels, and more. They don’t really help you stat wise, but over the years Psyonix has added so many awesome looks it’s a real joy playing around in your garage to try and get the perfect look. There’re also a lot of different cars, with some being available to buy, and others available to unlock. Put in the hard work, win matches, and you’ll find that the more items become available. Work hard, play hard, customise harder.

Know the Rocket League Trading is the way to go

Waiting for that item you’ve been waiting for to drop can take a lifetime, so knowing how to trade and request items adds a brand new layer of fun. Fan sites such as Rocket League Garage and Player Auctions offer plenty of Rocket League Trading options, such as auctions to bid on items, and players offering potential trades. It’s a great way to get into the other layer of the game, and adds another layer of excitement beyond the actual thrill of the game.

The post How to Become a Rocket League Player with 5 Easy Tips appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

In a few days time, at a secret location in London, some of the top technology and gaming companies are meeting to discuss our Capital’s Internet access and the issues surrounding it. The meeting is titled: What London needs from broadband and how do we solve it?

Confirmed attendees at this meeting are: Vodafone, Talk Talk, TechCityUK, Gfinity, HyperOptic, Optimity and MEP for London Syed Kamall.

GodisaGeek have been invited to take part in this discussion and we’d like to pass on your thoughts, opinions and concerns regarding broadband in London, from a videogame lover’s perspective!

Let us know what annoys you, whether it’s lack of access, low speeds, high pings – whatever is getting in the way of your gaming. It’s not on and we want to put an end to it. Everyone should have the right to frag on a reliable connection, without packet dropping or shaping. The only thing standing in between you and the top of the leaderboard should be your skill level!

Please let us know your thoughts, in the comment section below, or e-mail broadband@godisageek.com.

The post Is your broadband getting in the way of your gaming? We’d like to know! appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

We’ve all played games that had a powerful emotional impact on us. Telltale’s The Walking Dead, for example: If you weren’t in pieces at the end of the first season then I’d perhaps consider invasive surgery to check whether you have a heart or not, but that’s a discussion for another time.

Over the past ten or so years, it has become much more important to developers to create titles laden with drama and emotion. Cutscenes, dialogue, plot: all of these are used to build a title that can keep a player engaged until the end. However, as hardware has become more powerful, developers have felt the need to amp up the dramatics to provide players with what they crave: a sense of awe. Playing games of yesteryear are great for nostalgic value, but we rarely find ourselves eating flies over the visuals and character connections.

Cutscenes in 1995 were overwhelmingly awkward, littered with uninspiring and rather robotic dialogue. Fast forward twenty years, and cutscenes in today’s video games can give Hollywood films a run for their money. A compelling plot line is now considered an essential within most AAA games, with everything from characters’ personalities to their relationships to their perceptions and opinions being put forward through dialogue and intense cutscenes. Journey turns that formula entirely on its head.

Journey, before we get started on anything else, is truly an achievement to behold. It could be described as one of the most compelling arguments that video games are art. Its dreamy desert landscapes, minimalistic control scheme and lack of dialogue differentiate it from a lot of other titles out there at the moment. What’s strange is this: Journey omits a lot of things that make AAA games so emotionally binding at times, yet still succeeds in achieving a similar player reaction — one which could be argued to be an entirely unique and wholly more genuine response than to that of big-budget behemoths.

The success of games like The Last of Us depends entirely on whether players would forge that instant emotional connection to characters. Fortunately for Naughty Dog, their stellar work had players tearing up within the first twenty minutes — but think about why. It begins with a relatable scene, believable and applause-worthy dialogue between the characters, realistically developed settings, before sticking the knife in with that scene.

Journey, while not exactly provoking such a strong reaction as dramatic titles, still emotionally binds its player to its silent(-ish) protagonist. In absence of dialogue, musical chimes are used to communicate. As other players join your world and accompany you on your journey, you feel personally invested in their companionship. Despite there being no actual conversation between you and the other players around you, you still feel able to distinguish what they’re trying to say by the pattern of chimes they input: a flurry of short notes to signal danger, and longer chimes to point out something important. This universal language is a testament to Journey’s ability to compel, acting as the single common denominator between players that ties us all together as we quest for the mountaintop. Dialogue does not exist, yet the sense of bonding makes us forget that. It is beyond fascinating to experience such parallelism with complete strangers, and continues to be an entirely soothing experience in second and third play-throughs. Had Journey featured some kind of dialogue, the connection between players would still probably have existed but not in the enchantingly primitive form that it currently does.

Another thing that Journey lacks is an unpredictable plot. It doesn’t branch out, or pull any fast ones with some crazy twist; it’s the same every time you play. But that’s alright. Knowing what you’re going to get is a tranquil and rather unexpected idea in today’s market, and despite the plot being an exact repeat of itself, that sense of wonderment lingers long after you’ve put the controller down. Its rather melancholic pace and simplistic concept runs totally diametric to a vast number of intricate and complex current games, yet it still succeeds. It keeps the storyline linear, the plot basic and lets the visuals carry the game along to its spectacular conclusion.

If you want it in one sentence: Journey strips away all the kitschy decoration, overwhelming thespian performances and complex control schemes and reminds gamers of the medium’s facile roots. It feels like a game that predates console gaming itself by reverting to such a basic structure. Its simplicity is what makes it so powerful, proving to players that games don’t have to be galvanised in grandeur to make a lasting impact – creating a classic that has aged well so far and will only become more meaningful as the years go by.

The post The Pilgrimage Revisited: How Journey Takes Gaming Back To Its Roots appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Sometimes, games are just plain bad. It’s unavoidable. They lack all charm, likability or anything resembling redeeming features. But sometimes, games are so bad they actually come out the other side and trick us into thinking they’re good, even if only for a short time. It’s not as rare as you think – there might be hundreds – but in the interest of brevity, here are ten of the best bad games out there.

10. 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand
Developer: Swordfish Studios
Publisher: THQ
Platform: PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
Released: February 20 2009
Metacritic Score: 71 (Xbox 360)

50 Cent: Bulletproof, eh? Oof. That was a bad game. It was so bad, in fact, that no one expected a sequel to ever see the light of day. But Fitty himself, the irrepresable badass that he is, was not to be put off. He, along with his G-Unit crew, returned to the world of video games a few years later with Blood on the Sand, a story about a bunch of foul-mouthed sociopaths who go on a murderous, blood-fuelled rampage. And that’s the good guys. Blood on the Sand is stupid, loud, mildly directionless and utterly devoid of subtlety – and yet, oddly, it’s hugely enjoyable. It relies on swearing and helicopter battles way too much, but let’s be honest, those particular issues are the least of its problems. The epitome of a game that’s just bad enough to be good, 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand is at least worth a wet weekend in front of the 360 or PS3.

9. FUSE
Developer: Insomniac Games
Publisher: EA
Platform: PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
Released: May 28 2013
Metacritic Score: 62 (Xbox 360)

Insomniac, the minds behind Ratchet and Clank, and… um… the other Ratchet and Clank games, first announced FUSE under the name Overstrike, a four-player co-op squad shooter with more than a faint whiff of OG Xbox classic Brute Force, and a fun, cartoony art style. Exactly what went wrong isn’t clear. FUSE should have been awesome: four governement-trained badasses on the hunt for a mysterious substance that could change the fate of the world sounds good on its own. Add in some outlandish weapons and a script that manages to be genuinely funny at times, and you should have a recipe for success – but, by and large, FUSE failed. If you’re a shooter fan who never played it, it’s well worth a bit of attention (and it’s under a tenner now, too), if only for one psychedelic, hallucinatory boss fight that makes the entire game seem worth it.

8. Inversion
Developer: Saber Interactive
Publisher: Namco Bandai
Platform: PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
Released: June 5 2012
Metacritic Score: 53 (Xbox 360)

Gears of War released to a hail of positivity, hype, general good-feeling and a slurry of cut-price copycats hell-bent on filling their brown and grey worlds with convenient waist-high walls, waist-high boulders, waist-high open car doors and waist-high bulletproof bushes. 2012’s Inversion took the concept of Gears of War wholesale: gruff hero and his Latin-American sidekick defend their world from lumbering alien brutes by running, bent-double, from cover-point to cover-point. Inversion, though, added a unique mechanic which, at the very least, let it stand apart from the herd: gravity control. Ignoring the two fairly blatant fingers it waved at the laws of physics, Inversion’s car-salesman-named hero cop Davis Russel cut an impressive upside-down figure as things like neon-signs and bolted-down chairs became cover-points instead of dustbins and car boots. Sadly, overuse of the clever mechanic was unavoidable, and the nonsensical plot and macho posturing didn’t help. Inversion is pretty crap, but unique, inoffensive and accidentally entertaining enough to be worth playing.

7. Fracture
Developer: Day 1 Studios
Publisher: LucasArts
Platform: PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
Released: October 7 2008
Metacritic Score: 63 (Xbox 360)

Like Inversion, Fracture takes an established genre (in this case, big guys with guns shoot aliens with guns- wait, that sounds familiar…) and injects with a wholly unique concept that more or less works for some of most of the time. In the case of Fracture, it’s terrain reformation (no, seriously), with which you can, well, reform the terrain, creating jump points and sinkholes and all manner of other interesting landscape gardening features for use when pointing a gun and squeezing a trigger just ain’t getting shit done. In all fairness, Fracture is actually pretty decent, even if the terraforming never feels like much more than a gimmick and the rest of the gameplay is terribly pedestrian; at least it’s something fresh. It’s not quite a “guilty pleasure” game, but it’s pretty much OK.

6. Rage
Developer: id Software
Publisher: Bethesda
Platform PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC
Released: October 7 2011
Metacritic Score: 79 (Xbox 360)

Rage is a weird one. Developed by id and published by Bethesda, the marketing and hype was geared to put you in mind of a kind of Doom/Fallout hybrid. Upon release however, what we got was a relatively hollow experience that attempted to dazzle us with its looks but fell flat everywhere else. In actual fact, even the ridiculously pretty visuals resulted in some appalling screen-tear and texture pop. So why does it deserve a place on this list? Mostly because it was a horribly straightforward affair that somehow managed to be likable. The fact that, a 100 years after the fall of the world, people who’ve lived in the same network of shanty towns all their lives are running around with Australian, American and Irish accents is concern enough, but there’s also the agonising emptiness of a game yearning for a leveling mechanic, a proper quest system, anything to make it not be just about failing to kill with point-blank headshots and driving around in sand. It’s a guilty pleasure game, that’s for sure.

5. Two Worlds
Developer: Reality Pump
Publisher: Topware Interactive
Platform: PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC
Released: May 9 2007
Metacritic Score: 50 (Xbox 360)

Narry! Forsooth! Verily! While the sequel went a long way towards making up for some of the original’s sins, nothing could excuse Two Worlds for the worst scriptwriting in the history of fantasy RPGs. A game stuffed full of content and ideas and things to do was rendered all but unplayable by a network of bugs and glitches, unwieldy controls, a meandering story and that terrible, terrible pigeon Shakespeare it kept spouting. And yet, despite its catalogue of shit, Two Worlds has become something of a cult hit since its original release. If you’ve got nothing else to play and you’re utterly, chew-your-own-arm-off desperate for a fantasy RPG to play, you can’t do a lot worse, but you might find yourself having fun with Two Worlds anyway.

4. Risen
Developer: Piranha Bytes
Publisher: Deep Silver
Platform: PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC
Released: October 2 2009
Metacritic Score: 60 (Xbox 360)

Replacing Two Worlds’ god-awful narrying and forsoothing with C-bombs and F-bombs, remarkably dull RPG Risen proved that developers Piranha Bytes have a bottomless chasm of ideas and inspiration, but nowhere near the budget or the bonce to bring it all to life. Risen 2 was no better, despite its pirate theme, and where the sequel is worthy of the hate directed against it (Piranha Bytes should have learned by now!), the original is just a hugely ambitious adventure whose reach exceeded its grasp. It’s not terribly awful: the unintentionally funny combat and awkwardly foul-mouthed script are worth a few hours, and the utterly dull personality vacuum that is the protagonist is so vanilla and generic he almost becomes endearing.

3. Aliens: Colonial Marines
Developer: Gearbox Software
Publisher: SEGA
Platform: PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC
Released: February 12 2013
Metacritic Score: 43 (PlayStation 3)

Ignore the blatant face-slappery of retconning Hicks back to life (win) only to dismiss the reasons behind it completely (fail), ignore the fact that they reduced the lethally intelligent xenomorph to a zerging moron, ignore the fact that the very best part of the game is the first five minutes and it’s immediately crap from then on, and ignore the fact that the script still thinks its 1986, and Aliens: Colonial Marines is so laughably bad that it manages to become B-Movie enjoyable at times. And if nothing else, they nailed the sound of the M41-A Pulse Rifle, amirite?

2. Duke Nukem Forever
Developer: Gearbox Software, Piranha Bytes (mutiplayer)
Publisher: 2K Games
Platform: PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC
Released: June 10 2011
Metacritic Score: 49 (Xbox 360)

After spending almost a decade in development Hell, Duke Nukem Forever was eventually released, proving – along with the above game – that if Gearbox aren’t making Borderlands, they’re just making shit. Buggy, loud, crass, stupid, sexist, piggist and relentlessly behind the times, DNF is widely considered to be one of the very worst games of the last generation. But – bare with me here – it’s not really all that bad when you’re playing it. Yes, it’s ugly and dumb, but it’s absolutely stuffed with things to do. From such immense epicness as repeatedly flushing a turd to racing a shrunken Duke around a warzone in a toy car, Duke Nukem Forever at least keeps its content varied.

1. Deadly Premonition
Developer: Access Games
Publisher: Rising Star Games
Platform: PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC
Released: February 23 2015
Metacritic Score: 68 (Xbox 360)

Before Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, the only place to go for real-time beard growth was Access Games’ Deadly Premonition. A Twin Peaks-style paranormal mystery game, it casts you as Francis York Morgan, a detective on the trail of the elusive Raincoat Killer. Switching between the town of Greenvale and the ominmously-titled “Other World”, York investigates various murders connected to the killer while his own sanity slowly unravels. Unashamedly weird, Deadly Premonition is also ridiculously compelling, despite its mountain of flaws, and if you’re the sort who can be swept along by a powerful mystery then you’ll fall in love with it. Utterly bonkers at times, it polarised critics like no game before or since, and continues to enjoy a dedicated fan-base. Deadly Premonition might be the epitome of “so bad it’s good”.

Any we’ve missed? Any you don’t think should be featured here? Let us know in the comments section. As always, remember: if you’re nice to us, we’ll be nice to you.

The post Ten Bad Games That Are Still Worth Playing appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

James ‘Greensheep’ Luo is the youngest member of the Dignitas Hearthstone team at only 17. Yet already he has cemented himself as one of the best pro players from the UK having made it to last years BlizzCon World Championships and taking victories and high places finishes at multiple smaller tournaments. However the one thing that has so far eluded him was a victory at a major tournament, but that all changed this past weekend when he breezed past most of his opponents on route to winning the DreamHack Valencia Hearthstone tournament and a cool cheque for $5000.

After his victory we caught up with Greensheep to see how he felt about his victory and what his plans are for the future.

God is a Geek: How did it feel to finally get that first major tournament win?

Greensheep: “Feels great, I have been underperforming lately due to having to balance school and HS but now that it’s summer all my time is dedicated to HS and the results show for it.”

The Geek: I think it’s fair to say the tournament wasn’t exactly the most difficult bracket in the world so were you expecting to win, or at least reach the final before the tournament started?

GS: “Before the tournament I didn’t realistically expect anything since although there weren’t as many big names as other events, the competition was still very hard since there were a lot of good players who are recognized by the pro scene who were attending. Even making it out of groups alone would mean you would need to not drop a game.”

The Geek: You didn’t drop a single game until the final, was this down to you playing really well or your opponents not being up to scratch?

GS: “I think that the decks I brought were the best decks in the meta right now while my opponents brought what I think to be weaker decks, I’d been practicing a lot with the decks that I bought so I felt confident that I could play them well.”

The Geek: What tactics/decks did you rely on during the tournament and were any of them new for Dreamhack?

GS: “I think that most people don’t recognize aggro paladin as a viable or top tier deck as well as zoo, these two decks are very underrated but I think that both of these along with patron warrior are tier one.”

The Geek: Will you continue using the decks/tactics you used at dreamhack or can we expect something different from you next time out.

GS: “It will depend on how well I read the meta, a lot of preparation and thought comes into the lineup’s that I use at tournaments so I can’t say what I will bring next time.”

The Geek: In the final you came up against your team mate Blackout. Were you confident you could beat him or would you have preferred to face another of the competitors.

GS: “I think that I’d have preferred to play another opponent since we are team-mates and we know each others decklists card for card since we prepared together and we know each others play styles while with other opponents I feel that my choice of decks would just be superior and that would make me more confident.”

The Geek: Do you and the other Dignitas players regularly play against each other/did you have a good idea what to expect from Blackout?

GS: “Yes, we have a large practice group where we discuss deck ideas and play so we play together and know each other’s decks.”

The Geek: Who is the best Dignitas player?

GS: “I think that we all are similar skill level, that’s why we are a team. A team wouldn’t be good if everyone thought they were that much better than each other but in terms of results, Chakki has achieved the most.”

The Geek: What is next for you tournament wise and how well do you think you will do?

GS: “I have this tournament in Malaga and i-series upcoming. I think Malaga will be as hard as dreamhack but I think I can do well at i-series.”

The Geek: Looking a bit further ahead what is your plan for the rest of 2015?

GS: “Winning Blizzcon.”

The Geek: How does it feel to be able to travel the world and play games for a living?

GS: “It feels great to be able to do this, I enjoy travelling the world and meeting new people and meeting up with old friends I’ve met through my career.”

The Geek: Is there anything else you would like to add?

GS: “I’d like to thank Team-Dignitas and everyone in it who have helped me and also the people who support me every tournament.”

The post We Spoke to Hearthstone Pro James ‘Greensheep’ Luo About His Victory at DreamHack appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

If we learned anything from the last few generations of gaming, it’s that attaching a big license to a new game is barely worth the hot air it takes to announce it if the developers and publishers don’t know how to treat said license with respect, or how to squeeze every last ounce of fan-pleasing potential out of it.

It’s fair to say that EA and DICE know Star Wars pretty well. The former are mostly responsible for the semi-success of MMORPG The Old Republic, while the latter are famous for bringing us the previous Battlefront games. The worry is that neither experience is going to amount to much in the current market if the recently-revealed Battlefront threequel (which confusingly drops the numbered denomination) is to be a success. And I’m not talking about sales, here – we know it’s going to sell like Evian in the desert straight out of the gate. I’m talking continued, sustained success, measured by how many people are still playing three months on.

Its not a question of what they need to do, but rather of what they need to avoid. These are five things Star Wars: Battlefront needs to steer clear of.

1: Over-representing Episode 7

Don’t get me wrong, the impending release of The Force Awakens is exciting. Actually it’s not just exciting, it’s… thrilling, it’s… well, a word needs to be invented for how ridiculously hyped the fans are ever since Han Solo gave us that lop-sided smile and announced that he and his legendary Wookiee co-pilot were, indeed, home.

But for many fans, a new Star Wars movie is a worry. Lucas’ prequel trilogy destroyed our faith in the franchise’s big screen future. While we will almost certainly see elements of Episode 7 in Battlefront, from characters to locations and battles, they won’t be nearly as iconic as those established by the original hallowed trilogy, or even the hit and miss prequels. While the previous movies were featured heavily in the first two Battlefront games, we need that stuff in the new iteration. After all, this many years since the last and on a new generation, it may as well be a reboot. So reboot it right.

2. Hiding the most wanted stuff in a Season Pass

Titanfall‘s business model was nothing particularly new or shocking for EA: new IP launches amidst avalanche of hype, turns out to be content-light but promising stacks of additional maps and unlocks as DLC. What we got in the long-run turned out to be fairly underwhelming once the initial excitement had died down, but it’s indicative of the route EA will go with future online-only shooters.

And it’s a bad route. DLC is a necessary evil – most of us have accepted that – but while promising us extra maps and vehicle/weapon packs is fine, please, EA, don’t hide characters like Vader or, Force forbid, game modes behind a pay wall.

3. Being stingy with unlockable content

Which feeds into the next thing they need to avoid: giving us sod all to chase. To use Titanfall as an example again, the loadout and mode variety in Respawn’s wall-running mech shooter is still paltry, and was even more spartan at launch. I’m fine with Battlefront feeling bare-bones at the beginning, but I’d sooner DICE pack it with modes, characters, vehicles and weapons to unlock through play as opposed to riddling it with microtransactions and content “coming soon”.

The key to keeping people playing is giving them things to chase, XP levels, loot, unlockables, whatever. EA and DICE understand it in Battlefield, and they need to remember it in Battlefront if they want to maintain their player base.

4. Keeping us on the ground

Having already confirmed that Battlefront won’t feature space battles (boo!), DICE need to give us more than just ground battles. The trailer shows X-Wings, speeder bikes, AT-ATs assaulting Hoth. The worst thing they could do here is confine us to the ground. 40-player battles with X-Wings and Imperial Walkers would be about the coolest thing ever, but a mass team dogfight like the Battle of Yavin-4, complete with the trenches, would be mind-blowing.

Star Wars was never just about the pitched land battles, and DICE would do well to give is the airborne bombast we crave.

5. Not letting us do the cool stuff from the movies

If the engine doesn’t let me attach a grapple line to the underbelly of an AT-AT, climb up it and lob a grenade in, I’m out. I want to slice speeder bikes in half with a lightsabre and trip Walkers over with freshly cut timber. Star Wars’ set-pieces are uniformally awesome (well, except that one with the giant fish eating the other giant fish), and they need to be replicated and topped in Battlefront. If we’re just expected to shoot lots of stuff, I’ll be disappointed. We know DICE can implement vehicular combat and combine that with ground fighting to staggering effect, and the vehicles of Star Wars offer unprecedented potential for tactical teamwork. We want it all.

So there you go. We really aren’t asking the Earth, here, we just want EA to not be quite so… well, EA-ish with such a beloved IP. Is there anything you’re hoping they do or, more importantly, don’t do with Battlefront? Let us know!

The post Five Things Star Wars: Battlefront Needs to Avoid appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

NIS America has localised and released so many great games over the last few years. We saw the rise of Danganronpa last year, and any fan of strategy RPGs knows about Disgaea. I had the pleasure of talking to the Director of Localisation, Yoko Nishikawa and the Assistant Producer and Marketing & PR Manager, Alan Costa, about NIS America’s games and more.

“htoL#NiQ: The Firefly Diary” (that’s its full title, seriously) is a very unique game and something I didn’t expect NISA to localise at all. According to Alan, there’s an interesting story about what led to the game being developed and localized. “The Firefly Diary is from our parent company, Nippon Ichi Software. There is a lot of young talent at the head office and in order to foster that, President Souhei Niikawa created something called “Internal Indies.” The staff broke up into small groups and created their own small game plans and then showed them to everyone in the office. There was an internal vote and the winner of that contest The Firefly Diary. We really appreciated the dark aspects of the game and spirit in which it was made. We felt that it was definitely something NISA fans would enjoy.”

NISA also looks for specific things in games released in Japan. Games need to offer something special to be localised. ”We always have our antenna up for games that are coming out in Japan,” Alan explains. “We specifically look for games that are uniquely Japanese and offer players a special experience – whether that be through gameplay, story, art or atmosphere. If we feel a game lives up to our standards in those areas, we try for it whether it’s an established IP or something brand new.”

Japan had both Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc and Goodbye Despair released together as a single retail game. We in the West got to play them one at a time with a gap between both releases. Alan says, ”We wanted to test fan reaction when we first brought out Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc. Fan reaction was very positive, to say the least, and that fan enthusiasm made the decision to bring over Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair quick and painless.”

Danganronpa also introduced us all to Monokuma and his despair. Unlike in Persona 4 where Kuma became Teddie, NISA decided to stick with Monokuma as the name. ”We did actually come up with an English name at first, but we ended up sticking to Monokuma, mainly to respect the wish of the original creators to do so,” Yoko tells me. “It wasn’t hard to agree with them to stick to it, since the name is original and unique enough that it stands out, but it’s also easy to say and remember. I think staying consistent between regions was the best decision we made, because the character has become so popular and known worldwide as Monokuma.”

On the quality of voice acting drastically improving from Danganronpa 1 to 2, Yoko said that they are always looking to improve and learn with every new release. “It makes me happy when someone recognises our effort. When working on a sequel, compared to when working on a brand new IP, there are usually more reference materials, knowledge, and a better grasp of the series within the team, so that helps a lot. The theme and feel of the title is already developed from the start, so the team is able to focus on building on that and making improvements, rather than working on establishing everything from the ground up.”

Danganronpa has been consistently praised by critics. Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls was announced for localisation and it is a very different game. On what fans can expect from it, Yoko says: “We are going to do the best to live up to the expectation, and hopefully everyone will enjoy it as much as they did playing the main two titles. The gameplay is a bit different, but it’s still packed with the dark, nutty theme that the Danganronpa series offers. It looks like an action game at first, but you’ll soon realise that it still has the deep storyline that lets you get to know each character and their story.”

On whether sales numbers make a difference to decisions to bring Japanese games to the West, Alan is candid: “Not all that much, to be honest. As I mentioned above, we are interested in bringing fans uniquely Japanese experiences regardless of how well a title may have charted in Japan.”

Danganronpa Trigger Happy Havoc is available on mobile platforms in Japan. Unfortunately NISA confirmed that there are no plans to localise it for iOS and Android in the West, but Alan sounds hopeful: “If there are enough fan requests, who can say…?” You heard the man. Get on that.

Yoko had some interesting thoughts on the approach to localising games like Danganronpa versus say a hardcore dungeon crawler like Demon Gaze. “Whatever kind of titles it is, I think what’s key is choosing the right people to work on it. We’re always enthusiastic about working on any title, but each of us has a genre we’re more familiar with than others. So understanding each of my team members’ strength and forte, and assigning them to titles that let their skills really shine is important.”

NISA is set to release Operation Abyss: New Tokyo Legacy this June in North America and Europe. Alan tells me what fans can expect from the game: “Operation Abyss: New Tokyo Legacy is a title developed by Experience, Inc. who also made Demon Gaze, which we released last year. To me Experience is the foremost studio for Japanese style DRPGs. That is, in-depth, Wizardry influenced dungeon crawlers that also feature a prominent story and characters. Operation Abyss is no different – the game has about as rock-solid DRPG features as anyone could want, but also offers a compelling narrative and interesting characters. Players will delve deep into dungeons in near-future, sci-fi Tokyo with a party they create themselves with classes based on historical mythological figures.”

NIS America is also bringing Disgaea 5 on PS4 to North America and Europe this fall. It is the first current generation Disgaea game. On how this will be different from Disgaea 3 and 4 that were ported to Vita recently, Yoko says: “You can expect more of everything that has made the Disgaea series so beloved. There’s more customisation, better graphics, an extensive story, crazy skill animations, way more characters in battles than we’ve had before, and of course jokes. This is by far the biggest Disgaea game we’ve had. This iteration also has a bit of a darker and more serious story than the past Disgaea games, so I think that will be really interesting for new fans and grinding veterans alike.”

Censorship in games is something fans hate. Criminal Girls: Invite Only is a recent title that has been on the receiving end of rage from fans for its censorship. Yoko explains the reactions from fans and why these things are done: “All the reactions from fans are understandable, and trust us: we expected all the negative responses (we learned our lesson the first time). There’s a reason why we didn’t bring the title over when it was originally released on the PSP, but we wanted to find a way to let people in the West experience the game because it does offer great gameplay and a deep storyline that are very enjoyable. When the option was bringing the title over with the changes we made, or not bringing it over at all, we thought that it was better to at least give fans the option of playing the title in English.”

I tried to pry some unannounced games from Alan to no avail. “Unfortunately, we can’t go letting any prinnies out of bags yet. During negotiations for any title, a lot of things are in a state of flux and some things aren’t decided until the very last minute, so if we were to announce without having everything all squared away, it could cause a lot of headaches and ultimately be a disservice to the fans. Believe me though when I say that there is a lot of cool stuff that I wish I could tell you. We are always cooking something up!”

On the all-eclipsing subject of where each man keeps his ketchup, Yoko’s response is unlike anything we have heard so far. “Do we even have an office ketchup bottle…? If anything, I’m pretty sure our editor Steven would have some at his desk. He loves ketchup. He told me years ago that if I suspect someone is trying to disguise as him, I should ask him to drink a bottle of ketchup on the spot. If he doesn’t, then that’s how I’ll know it’s not really him.”

Thanks to Alan and Yoko from NIS America for their time.

The post NIS America Interview: Localising Danganronpa, Disgaea 5, and More appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

There aren’t too many publishers in gaming that get me as excited as Atlus USA. They have been consistently releasing games that interest me over the last few years, like Persona Q and Shin Megami Tensei IV. Recently, I got to have a nice long chat with Atlus USA’s Nich Maragos and John Hardin about localisation in the industry, Etrian Mystery Dungeon, Persona Q, and more. Nich is a Localisation Editor and John is the PR Manager.

Nich Maragos made the jump from game journalism to game localisation after losing his job at 1up.com. “I got to know people at various game companies including an editor at Atlus. You meet tons of people at E3. I got to be friends with Tom from Atlus (USA) at the time and liked his work. When I had gone freelance, he told me about an open position so I applied. I took the tests and they brought me out to Orange County. It has been 9 years since I joined Atlus USA now.”

Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor Record Breaker (out this May in North America) will be the first Megami Tensei game Nich has not worked on at all since joining Atlus. “The first game I worked on was Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. The Soulless Army. Yeah, that’s the full title. It was a lot of fun. I remember talking to my parents, one of whom is Catholic Deacon and mentioning my first game title to them. I said Devil Summoner.”

Atlus has released a lot of games in their popular Megami Tensei franchise since Nich joined, including Persona 3 FES, Persona 4, and Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne. An average day for Nich involves a lot. “I work closely with the translators myself. When I get into work in the morning, I talk to them to see what’s been prepared for me to work on. They do the actual translating and I get the raw translation to work on. I look over everything they have done and make rewrites and changes as appropriate. I also usually ask them about what’s going on in a particular scene or what the broad purpose is since they have a better grasp on the meaning than I do. Once I feel like I have a firm understanding on the meaning of the line, I have enough to make changes so I can get my meaning across very clearly in English.”

A lot of people assume everyone involved with localisation plays the games they work on. Nich doesn’t play the games himself. “I don’t actually play the games and the translators play them multiple times. They need to see all the content. In some of the older Shin Megami Tensei games that involved demon negotiation, the negotiation text is usually almost as long as the main story. A lot of the time, I don’t even do that text because we have an editor for that. His job is just to handle negotiation text.”

John tells us about one of the most coveted job positions at Atlus. “Demon Negotiation Localisation Editor is a very coveted title at Atlus, and also a fun job. The craziest stuff in the game is in there.” Nich worked on the negotiation text in Shin Megami Tensei: Soul Hackers, which was one of the last games that had the demon negotiation mechanic.

Games are also usually assigned to localisation editors based on resources available. “If there’s a game I really want to work on, I’ll ask Bill, our director of production, to put me on it. It can’t hurt to let your wishes be known but they are usually assigned without our choice.”

On the barrier of entry into localisation the situation is a bit tricky right now. “I feel like the localisation industry has reached an equilibrium point. There haven’t been a lot of new companies coming around. You have your Atlus, XSeed, Aksys, and a few others. It has been steady and we haven’t seen less or more projects undertaken. I think it makes sense to just wait right now. The hardest route to take to get into localisation is to try and contact small Japanese publishers and developers, showing interest yourself in their projects. Things that other, bigger companies might not bother with. The other way is to just wait for a position in the bigger publishers to open up.”

On the topic of fan translations, John has some interesting thoughts. “The worst way to get noticed is to try and relocalise a game that has already been released in some form. It is a terrible idea. Please do not do that because it opens you up to a lot of copyright lawsuits.” Nich agrees. “Responsible fan translating can be one of the good ways to get noticed. If there’s no localisation at all that is. Be responsible. If a publisher announces a localisation for a game you’re working on, drop it immediately. There are tons of games that need your help instead of something already being worked on. Final Fantasy Type 0 HD is a great example of a responsible fan translation that isn’t responsible anymore.”

Localising games isn’t just about text, and in many cases visuals need to be redone. “We usually get 3 sets of files when it comes to localisation. The raw text in the form of actual scripting files used in game, the voice script which often contains dialogue not mentioned in the text, and finally all the graphic text that shows up as images or textures and sprites. We work on each of these separately. Graphic text is something we work on first because once we’re done, it’s more time consuming to implement. All the images need to be remade based on our specifications, so we make a spreadsheet explaining the changes.” Atlus USA doesn’t do any development in house. The changes are either done by Atlus Japan or a third party.

Many games in Japan make use of a lot of references that won’t be too familiar in the West. A good example is Persona Q’s 4th dungeon, involving strong men carrying an arc seen in festivals. “In the case of Persona Q we added a lot of dialogue that explains some things. This let us be accurate to the true tone of the game and get the meaning across.”

Some words remain unchanged, like Takoyaki in Persona Q. I had no idea what it was when I played the game until I looked it up. John explains: “It’s a matter of taste. We try and stay close to the origins. You probably have seen the comic strip featuring Phoenix Wright. The changes get more and more pronounced. There’s a frame showing him wearing a kimono and eating sashimi, while the bubble says ‘Eat your hamburger Apollo!’ or something to that extent. We want to avoid that. We don’t change things if we don’t need to. You can see Takoyaki in the visuals so we didn’t want to make it so that Junpei would ask Rei about a hamburger instead of Takoyaki.”

Nich said they don’t change the game design or mechanics while localising. “I remember there was some discussion about Etrian Odyssey 1’s difficulty. People thought it was too hard. We decided to trust the designers and not mess with it. I can’t think of any game that had specific changes in difficulty or design when it got localised.”

Sales numbers in Japan make no real difference to a game’s localisation in the West at Atlus USA. John: “Japanese sales vs western sales are like apples and oranges. We look for games that fit our brand. A game could be a hit in Japan and have a niche audience here. Both regions have different audiences with different play styles. A publisher could release 1 or 2 games a year but we’re localising 4 games in a quarter or 6 months. We have a lot more titles on our plate at all times. Look at Etrian Mystery Dungeon: it releases in Japan tomorrow and it will be out in the US a month later. Our projects are rarely affected by Japanese sales numbers. “

On his hardest localisation project till date, Nich talks about Growlancer: Heritage of War. “It was an old game and really hard for a lot of reasons. The files themselves were hard to work with and we weren’t too familiar with the developer. Preparing files to start work took really long and it was just rough overall.” On the other side of the spectrum, Radiant Historia is mentioned. “Radiant Historia is my favourite project. It isn’t well known but the subject matter and characterisations were so different from what I usually work on. It was a breath of fresh air that let me stretch some writing muscles I don’t normally use.”

Sometimes, character limitations in the game’s interface can cause problems for fans. “In Persona Q, we had to make do with the space limitations for the name. There wasn’t enough room for 8 character names. We really felt bad about that. A lot of fans would want to use Yu Narukami or whatever else for P4Hero. Unfortunately, we couldn’t do anything about that.”

Last year saw the surprise release of Shin Megami Tensei 1 for iOS. This is the only official translation of the game. On the possibility of Shin Megami Tensei II or if…, Nich says: “I was happy to work on it. Its possible for those two but currently nothing is planned.”

With only a one month gap between the Japanese and North American releases of Etrian Mystery Dungeon, it is obvious that Atlus USA was working on it for a long time. “It isn’t our fastest turn around time for sure. Dragon’s Crown and Persona 4 Arena were a week apart. When you want to release something this soon, you have to start working on it before it is completely finished. It is kind of a hassle for us because we might need to redo work because some changes can be made on the Japanese team’s end. This might make us have to redo some files that were completed. I think the extra work we endure is worth it in the end for the fans. They get to play things so soon after Japan.”

Etrian Mystery Dungeon is the second crossover game Atlus has done in recent times. Persona Q is a crossover between Persona 3 and Persona 4 characters and Etrian Odyssey. It even gets the Q in the name as a throwback to Etrian Odyssey’s Japanese name. Etrian Mystery Dungeon takes Atlus’ Etrian Odyssey franchise and brings it together with Spike Chunsoft’s Mystery Dungeon games. “EMD is pretty different from any Etrian game, even if you’ve played all of them. It is a Mystery Dungeon game. When I say that I mean rogue-likes. The genre where you go into a dungeon that is randomly generated and don’t know what to expect. The enemies, the structure, everything changes. What you have to do is make the best of your trip. You may find a great sword that gives you an advantage or you may not and end up being poorly equipped for a powerful enemy. You have to figure out how to handle each situation and escape if needed. It is a very different setting and plot style to what RPG fans are used to. The whole mindset of getting strong enough by grinding to kill a certain enemy won’t always work.”

Games like Persona Q or Etrian Odyssey Untold let you grind enough to steamroll over enemies. John: “In Mystery Dungeons, you’re presented with situations where unfortunate things will happen. You can’t do anything about it because it is never predictable. Your tank might step on a sleep trap, causing him to not taunt enemies and your medic gets killed in 2 hits in a room full of monsters. You either watch your party die or have the foresight to see a hopeless situation and escape while you can”

The strategy in EMD is very different from an Etrian Odyssey game. Nich: “When you run into a strong enemy and die in an Etrian Odyssey game, you look at your party and skills or tools and come up with something to beat it. In Mystery Dungeon, when you die you have to think of what you could have done in that situation. Whether you had something in your inventory that could help. You will die often for sure. You could even say EMD is our party to help Nintendo sell more new 3DS consoles as people might fling their old ones out the window in frustration (laughs).”

Saving is super important in JRPGs and many games let you exploit save spots or save files. EMD’s difficulty doesn’t stop in the dungeon. There is only a single save file and it auto saves whenever you enter or leave a dungeon. “That’s a big deal in mystery dungeon games and rogue-likes. It auto-saves. All your mistakes and deaths are all saved. There’s no reload to avoid something. You have to figure out a way to come back. This is more forgiving than other rogue-likes that make you start over from the beginning if you die. Here you get to keep skills and characters but lose items, and this can really hurt.”

Speaking of rogue-likes, Nich has some thoughts on Rogue Legacy. “I like it a lot. I played through two loops of the game but could not get past new game++. I had a great time with it. It is different from what we’re doing in EMD. It doesn’t have that feel of permanent loss. You never really lose anything in Rogue Legacy but that particular character and you even come back with the HP and what you put money into there. You will still have things unlocked. I like that system a lot but it isn’t what I’m looking for in rogue-likes. I’m a huge fan of games like Nethack and Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup.”

EMD does have a lot from Etrian contrary to what has been seen in combat. John confirms: “There are no maps because everything is randomly generated. Etrian’s Skill tree and class system is here. When you run into a DOE in EMD, you get that quickened heartbeat you get when you run into an FOE in Etrian IV. EMD also features the crafting style seen in Etrian games with minerals and plants to build the next big weapon.” Nich tells me: “One thing you get here that you don’t get in other mystery dungeon games is the team synergy from Etrian Odyssey. It isn’t just about classes and skills but putting together a good team. You have a 4 person team here and not 5 or 1 like in other rogue-likes. There are a few challenge dungeons later that send 1 single person into a dungeon though. The main game is figuring out the best team you can put together and that’s very Etrian to me.”

On how much worse DOEs are compared to FOEs, John chimes in with bad memories. “Every single encounter I’ve had with a DOE has resulted in tragedy. I remember I was playing through Etrian IV and I didn’t have to get too far over level to take out an FOE. I think it is one of those things where once you get to the point where you can take on and defeat a DOE, you’re really understanding EMD’s systems. Between skill binds, arm binds, head bind, etc, being able to manage damage with a protector, this is when it really starts to click with people.” Nich backs this up: ”The only situation in the game that lets you have an 8 person party is when a DOE attacks. You really have to make use of the fort system.”

The fort system is a new mechanic not previously seen in Etrian Odyssey games. “Forts are good for a lot of things. You can build one on the staircase of a dungeon and once you have it in place, the structure of the dungeon is frozen. This way you can kind of know what to expect for the rest of the dungeon. You know the pathways through it. This can be something you have to learn rather than take in everytime. Forts also protect you against DOEs. Once the DOE reaches the fort it will ask if you want to come back and fight. Even if you refuse, an empty fort is good protection. The DOE will just trash it and go back to the bottom floor of the dungeon. You can use an unmanned fort as protection.” John thinks it is a great idea to protect your town. “It stops your town from getting wrecked and you do not want your town damaged. Search forts are better than the standard ones as they can see DOEs sooner. They cost more but help. It makes sense to build another fort in front of the search fort and let the DOE wreck that one.”

Difficulty is something that a lot of people love or hate about Etrian games. I’ve been playing EMD for a few weeks now and it is quite something. John explains: “I think it is right in line with the other Etrian games in terms of difficulty. A lot of veterans will struggle initially because of the drastic change in mechanics. You have to worry where everyone in your party is on the grid layout. Are they diagonal from the enemy when being attacked? You need to make sure the synergy is there. Swap leaders making sure everyone is protected and positioned well. Once you get the hang of these things, the difficulty kind of lowers a bit. It isn’t super hard like Etrian 1 or 2, but not as forgiving as Etrian IV or Untold. The random element will contribute largely. None of your traditional RPG thinking will work here.”

Etrian Mystery Dungeon launched in Japan early this month with a bunch of free DLC that was added to make the game a little more forgiving for newcomers. John plays it coy when questioned. “Nothing confirmed yet, but hopefully we will have something about that very soon”

On how Atlus USA is one of the few publishers still doing first print bonuses on 3DS games in the so called digital gaming age, John had some interesting thoughts. “Personally as a gamer, I love the convenience of having everything on a single device. I put in a 1TB hard drive on my PS4 and didn’t look back. When you look at 3DS titles, especially Atlus ones, our fans really enjoy physical media. The games we release aren’t the most popular in the world, as much as I’d like to believe that. We don’t do huge print runs. Those first run bonuses or preorder bonuses really do become special. It is strange how we see the used games market and while not many titles we release soar in value, they usually hold their value strong. I think the Catherine box set we did is one of the best ones ever released. It is nice to have some of them with so many extras. You can’t always have a printed manual, but we try and include at least a mini artbook or extra soundtrack for the fans.”

I’ve noticed the soundtracks in releases go from full 2-disc soundtracks like in Persona 1 Portable to 4-disc arrange albums in Persona Q. Nich has some thoughts on this situation: “A lot of the changes are because of what happens in Japan. The bonuses we give are usually similar. P1P had the full OST there. In games where the soundtrack is a full retail release, it limits what we can give away as a preorder bonus for free.”

Atlus games have some amazing music but almost all of it is super hard to buy and many releases aren’t even available physically let alone digitally now. On whether we can expect the soundtracks from games like Persona 4 on digital platforms, John says: ”It is a sticky situation. Fans have been asking for this for a while now and we have been trying to figure it out internally. I haven’t heard anything about it. These are Japanese artists and video game contracts are crazy enough as it is. If we start looking into music contracts I don’t even know what will happen. I have no idea about a time frame but hopefully this happens soon. I honestly would love for our fans to just be able to buy the music they want to easily. It isn’t easy. If it was, it would have been done already.”

No God is a Geek interview would be complete without the ketchup question. “We keep ketchup in the refrigerators,” says John. “There are 2 of them and one bottle in each. I also keep ketchup packets in my desk.”

Thanks to Nich Maragos and John Hardin at Atlus USA for their time.

The post Atlus Interview: Localisation, Localisation, Localisation appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

I’ve never made it a secret that I’m a fan of Ninja Theory’s games. In fact, I feel that, often, their games don’t get rewarded with the sales they deserve – nor do they get the respect they deserve. Speaking to Dominic Matthews (Product Development Manager), it appears he doesn’t agree. Even as they are drafted in to help on games like Disney Infinity 2.0, it appears they feel very much loved.

“We absolutely get the respect that we deserve. A day doesn’t go by without the studio receiving an email, letter or tweet from someone thanking us for making game that they really enjoyed playing.”

But would he agree, at least, that they’ve been unlucky? Critical success is one thing, but DmC had a violent backlash.

“We haven’t been unlucky. It is a reality that critical success doesn’t always lead to commercial success. There a long list of games that have been incredibly well received but that haven’t had the sales to match. I feel proud of the games that Ninja Theory have made. We’re fortunate enough to have had a lot of people play our games and lot of those people enjoy them. We’re a developer that people care about, one way or the other, which is a privileged situation to be in. I’d rather that than be making games that no one took any notice of at all.”

It’s great to hear that ethos, and on the back of the superb DmC: Definitive Edition, what are Dom’s hopes for this new version of the game?

“I hope that players will enjoy all of the improvements that we made to the game for the Definitive Edition. Aside from the visual improvements, 1080p resolution and 60fps there are a whole load of gameplay changes. These range from new modes like Vergil’s Bloody Palace and Turbo Mode through to small gameplay tweaks. It was important for us to review player feedback from DmC and address it in Definitive Edition. There is a lot in Definitive Edition that is there because the community asked for it.”

Were there any difficulties working with the new hardware?

“For Definitive Edition, and also the PC version of DmC, the technical move onto new platforms was handled by a partner of ours called Q-Loc. Our focus was on improving the gameplay. But I’m pleased to say that any tricky issues have been dealt with very well by our friends at Q-Loc!”

Having spoken to a few indie devs on our weekly podcast, it seems that PlayStation Plus has been a real help. Having your game in that promotion seems like you’re giving it away for free, but often it’s the placement that helps create awareness. Have Ninja Theory experienced this (DmC was in on PlayStation Plus on PS3 a while ago)?

“There is an audience of players that skipped DmC the first time around for whatever reason and have subsequently played it as a result of the PlayStation Plus promotion. There isn’t any doubt that PlayStation Plus boosts the awareness of your game. However, I don’t know if this played any part in the decision to make the Definitive Edition – you’d have to ask Capcom on that. Creating Definitive Edition for us was an opportunity to revisit the game and improve it. So it was really a no-brainer.”

As someone who adored DmC (there’s plenty of us out there), I’ve long hoped for a sequel, but it appears that ball is very much in Capcom’s court.

“We’re not working on anything else DmC related nor is anything planned. Devil May Cry is Capcom’s IP, so whether they draw a line under DmC is up to them.”

It’s time to get real. It’s time for that question: Where does Dom keep his ketchup?

“Cupboard. If you pick it up from a shelf in the supermarket I don’t see why you wouldn’t keep it on a shelf at home. Eggs being an exception to the rule of course.”

Sticking with the real talk, it’s time for a big question, one that yields a heart-breaking response. If Dom could have Ninja Theory make a game for any existing IP, what would it be?

“Enslaved: Odyssey to the West. Personally, I’d love to revisit that world and story.”

I did tell you it was heart-breaking. Ouch. Anyway, it occurs to me that (of course) the team are also working on Hellblade, which is a new IP. After the reception of most recent new IP, The Order: 1886 was, well, interesting, how do they feel about it right now. Isn’t it much safer to just reboot than create anew?

“It is very difficult to create a new IP in the AAA market right now; The sheer number of players that a $60 game has to be sold to in order to be justified means that only the safest of bets will be placed by publishers. Players want more creativity in their games, more genres and more new IP but the reality is that an established IP comes with an audience whereas a new IP has to build one from scratch. New AAA IP has to be backed to a phenomenal level to stand a chance and there aren’t many publishers willing to do that in the current market.

The difference between Hellblade and any AAA development is that we’re attempting to deliver AAA quality but under an independent model. We have a far smaller budget and a far smaller team. But because our costs are lower we don’t have to sell to millions of people to justify the investment. Hellblade needs to sell around 300,000 copies for it to break-even vs the many millions that a $60 retail AAA game needs to sell in order for the development costs alone to be covered. ”

With the YouTube generation seemingly split from more traditional games media, how does Dom feel about the role of the media these days?

“The media is very important to us. Every games writer that I meet has one thing in common. They are passionate about games and passion is contagious. Games media is going through a transitional phase, with traditional media trying out new ideas and new media disrupting the established structure of games reporting. Awareness is very important to the success of games and passionate people in the media are very important in gaining it.”

Thanks to Dom for his time, and Capcom for arranging this interview.

The post Remakes, New IP, DmC and more: A Chat with Ninja Theory’s Dominic Matthews appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Destiny was undoubtedly one of last year’s biggest titles. Bungie’s new sci-fi shooter divided opinion massively, with some people still playing it every day even now, six months after its September release, and others trading it in within three weeks. I was a part of the latter camp. I’d owned Destiny for a grand total of twenty days before I finally bit the bullet and trudged to a local videogame store to try and desperately recoup some of the funds I’d spent on it.

Thing is, however, I really wanted to love Destiny. I’d been looking forward to it since its initial reveal, enjoyed my time in the beta massively and was frothing at the bit to get my hands on it once again. But I was left feeling hugely underwhelmed when it was finally released.

Of course, that’s all on me, and I know some people really do love Destiny and have been addictively shooting aliens for going on hundreds of hours now. I do appreciate all that Destiny got right: its shooting mechanics are second to none, and it’s a great game for people who just want to jump in, do their daily bounties and leave. It’s also a very good game to just have on and zone out to. But alas, it just didn’t grab me. However, I still have a big interest in Destiny, and believe that the inevitable sequel may just turn things around for me. If the game made these few changes in the next iteration, then I’d definitely give it another go.

1. A Proper Story

Probably the most obvious thing of all, but yeah: Destiny really needs a story. They’ve done all the ground work! They’ve got a beautiful world, a compelling concept and tonnes of really interesting lore that I’d love nothing more than to learn while actually playing the game (not going on to some app to read effing Grimoire cards). Just give me a solid 8 – 10 hour single player campaign, with a compelling, memorable story, some cool characters and I’ll love the game. A really interesting narrative would pull me into the world, and then I would want to play everything else the game has to offer, I would want to go through the really complicated levelling system, I’d do all that because I’d be invested in the world. I loved the Halo stories despite disliking the actual games, and that’s what makes it even more infuriating: we already know that Bungie can do it.

2. More Interaction with the World

Bungie created such a beautiful, intriguing world in Destiny, but you can’t interact with it unless you’re shooting it. Shall I tell you the most fun I had in Destiny’s world? It was genuinely the time I spent kicking a football about in the Tower. I found it cool that I could just chill and kick it around for no good reason. So give me more things to interact with in the real world. Give me more interesting places to find, give me interesting things to find. Let my adventures in to some rocky alcove be meaningful, not just end with me facing a wall.

3. More Gimmicks!

The most fun I had while actually playing Destiny, by an absolute mile, was when I got to slice aliens to tiny little pieces with a big fucking sword. So why wasn’t there more of that? I confess, I didn’t make it much further into the game than that point, and I’ve been told that you can now get hold of the sword quite regularly on the Earth and Moon, which is great. However, I wanted more of it from the off – and not just the sword, either. The sword may have been quite gimmicky, but it gave me something different to do after hours of robotically plastering alien brains over the walls, and it was a great change of pace. In fact, why can’t I carry a massive melee weapon with me at all times as my primary weapon? Because I sure would; I’m a player who loves tense, close quarters combat, so I’d love it if my main means of dealing death was a big fucking sword. Variety is the watchword here.

4. Raids for Lower Levels

I completely understand that the Raids are a reward for players who earn the right to be there, and I also the get that the point of them is that they are really hard, so a higher level is needed, but on many accounts the Raids are the best bit about Destiny, so why would you keep them behind such a high boundary? I really wanted to experience the raid, but there was no way in a million years I was ever getting to the level necessary because the game just didn’t interest me enough to carry on that far, and so I never got a chance. But had I been given a Raid to play, even one that was a lot easier and wasn’t as gripping as the Vault of Glass, but still contained all the puzzling and the need for coordinated team work, I may just have been compelled to press on and reach the level required to play the harder Raids.

5. Improved Multiplayer Balance

I loved the Crucible initially. I thought the multiplayer was fun, action packed and best of all I was half decent at it. But then a weird switch seemed to be pressed and suddenly I was continuously getting pummelled. I then realised that I was getting totally annihilated by players who’d already reached level 20 and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. I specifically remember multiple incidences where I was shooting an enemy for a good five seconds square on, but every time they were able to waltz towards me and kill me. It was infuriating. Maybe that is all on me, maybe I’m just an atrocious player, but either way, to me it felt really unbalanced and as if I was at a complete disadvantage to those of a higher level than me, and that made it a whole lot less fun. I also hear, however, that a lot of work has gone into tweaking the multiplayer since last I played, so I may well go on to try it again in the future.

So they’re the changes I’d like to see implemented in the next Destiny game, and if they are, it will definitely get me interested in the game again. Do you agree with me? What changes, if any, would you like to see in the Destiny sequel? Let me know in the comments below.

The post Five Things Destiny Really Needs appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

I recently sat down with Hans Lo, Producer on Mortal Kombat X, to talk to him about NetherRealm’s new game. Being a direct sequel to 2011’s Mortal Kombat semi-reboot, I wanted to know whether MKX would be accessible for new players.

“I think it is very accessible to a new player,” Hans told me. “While it does play on the history of Mortal Kombat and is a direct sequel to the last game, it takes place so far in the future that you could jump in as a standalone and pick up some of the wider story in the flashback sequences – enough to know what’s going on. From a gameplay standpoint I think it is quite accessible; you can pick up the controller and quickly be pulling off some simple combos. For a first timer, this is definitely something they can jump into.”

In a recent interview with GamesTM, Brian Goodman, Marketing Manager for Mortal Kombat X, likened the story to that of a film, something Hans agrees with. “Yeah I definitely agree with that. I think this is our most visually stunning game to date – we’ve really pushed the limits of the looks, of the characters, of the environments, in the story mode as well as in gameplay. The story is unique, we’ve gone off in a different direction from the story people may have known of Mortal Kombat, with the reboot that happened back in 2011 we kind of retold the story of Mortal Kombat, of the events that happened in Mortal Kombat 1, 2 and 3, but with a twist, with a slightly different ending, and because of that we’re now able to explore brand new areas that we’ve never gone through before, so it’s like creating a new chapter of lore for the universe.”

Aiming for this filmic feel has been a bit of a departure for NetherRealm, but Hans is keen to stress this is still very much an engaged experience; you won’t be sat watching hours of cutscenes. “It’s a little different from what we’ve done in the past,” he explains. “While visually it’s much more stunning, we also have some interactive cinematic moments, so it’s not just sitting back and watching a movie. You watch some movies, you have some fights, but there are moments within the story where you can change the story a little bit to your tastes, be a bit more involved, so it’s not as passive.”

Beyond the story, one of the key new elements is Factions War, where players from all versions of Mortal Kombat X pick a side and compete on a single scoreboard. According to Hans, “You can get faction points anywhere in the game, so playing the game in the way you want to play will contribute points to your faction. On mobile, on console, it’s actually all tied to your WB Play ID, so you create your WB Play ID and as long as you’re using that, on whatever devices you’re using, that will add the points to that profile.”

You’re not tied to a single faction forever though. Hans says that you can change, but there is a cost. “The player does have the ability to change faction later; you know if you find all your friends are in one faction you might want to change. So you can do it, but there will be penalties in the sense that you’ll have to start over, and plus there’re certain features and abilities that you get with a faction, so obviously if you go over to another faction you can’t take those with you – they’re specific to each faction.”

One of the headline new modes is Living Towers, an evolution of the last game’s Challenge Towers. Hans gives me some more detail about how they’re going to work. “The things you saw in the Challenge Towers are going to be there, but the Challenge Tower was static, the same couple of hundred challenges over and over, and we discovered that not everyone could go through all of them and some were tougher than others. So what we decided to do this time around is create Living Towers. Some are going to be hourly based, some will be daily, and some are special timed events. So, within that timeframe the hourly ones could be quick, simple things you can do, get through them really quick, then a couple of hours later boom, a new set of challenges and you can go through those, or it could be a daily one, and the thing is these challenges will always be constantly changing, so it’s not like ‘Oh, I’ve done these challenges before, every Tuesday’s going to be the same’ – no, it’s going to rotate different challenges, different characters to engage the player, to bring them back each time to see what’s new.”

So far only a handful of modes have been confirmed, and given the online connection needed to update the Living Towers, fans are worried that they’ll be no offline variant. Hans quickly quells those concerns. “There are some different types of Challenge Towers, there are some modes that will address that. We’re not ready to talk about it today, but there are other things you can do, there’s more to the game, more things you can do to get points and to engage the player to come back. Whether it’s the story or these challenges, or fighting online or even locally with their friends.”

I also asked Hans to explain the interconnectivity between the mobile and console versions of the game, and the various unlocks that happen between the two of them. “One of the things you’re talking about is the cross unlocks. If you do certain events or certain tasks in the game, whether on mobile or console, it can unlock things for you on the other platform. So if you’re playing on mobile, playing a couple of matches and you win, you’ll be rewarded with something, and if you go straight to your console it’ll unlock right then and there for you, it’s all done in real time. Or if you’re playing on console, and you beat a tower and unlock something, on your mobile device you’ll see a little icon in the bottom of the screen with a number in it: tap it and there you go.”

NetherRealm are remaining cagey about exactly what these unlocks are however. “It will be a variety of things – we’re not really ready to discuss anything about it – but for an example, in the mobile devices are the coins you can collect, and you can collect more by playing through on the console. So it can be multiple things you can unlock, but it’ll be determined by what you’re doing, some will be special events, timed and so forth.”

Hans is similarly quiet about the DLC. While confirming that there will be some, he can’t go into any detail. “There are DLC plans,” he tells me, coyly. “We’re planning on having a Kombat Pass that’ll have four characters, we’ll be discussing later on what those characters are as well as the timing of the releases. But we do have plans for additional downloadable characters and skins and such.”

And finally, this being God is a Geek, I ask the Ketchup question. “Being an American I keep it in the fridge. I think as American’s we’re all paranoid that everything’s going to go bad so we throw it all in the fridge and hope for the best.”

The post Mortal Kombat X Interview: Hands-on with Hans Lo appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Read on for the final part of our Evolve fan-fiction, Something Wicked…

FIVE | The Goliath

The sun was almost up. Warm light trickled slowly into the canyon, glinting from rain-polished stones and glittering on wind-blown puddles. The scene from the research station shutters was tranquil, almost hypnotically calm.

“Lovely day for it,” Val said, joining Cabot at the window.

“It is that.”

“What’s the play?”

Cabot turned from the view. It wasn’t the time for tranquillity. “We have three trimmer mines left. I’m going to drop them roughly fifty yards apart all around. When it comes, and it will, we need to coordinate our attack. Val, you’re gonna have a position up top providing cover fire; try to pop a few holes in its armour. Jimmy, you’re gonna be on the right – I want you to hit it with everything you’ve got, but you gotta get under it. If shit gets hairy, pop your suit and go super-soldier on its ass.”

“No problem.”

“Meantime, I’ll be on the left, lasing it with this little beauty.”

“What’s that?” asked Harker.

“Well, it’s kind of cruel actually. It excites receptors in the brain and nervous system to amplify the target’s pain. I’ll keep this on it for as long as I can, and you guys do the rest. As soon as we get it pinned, Hank will drop an orbital barrage right on its scalp.”

Abe grinned. “Nice plan. And what about me?”

“You, Abe… you need to think of yourself as a little worm on a big hook. You’re going to be front and centre, drawing it in.”

“If I’m bait, say fuckin’ bait.”

Parnell grinned. “Don’t take the risks, don’t deserve the rewards. Right, partner?”

Abe grunted. “Stupid fuckin’ motto.”

Cabot clapped him on the shoulder. “Stasis grenades, mobile arena if it tries to run, okay? Keep it in one place. That’s all we have to do.”

Abe looked at Val. “You keep an eye on me, alright? I come away from this with scars I ain’t gonna be happy.”

Val gave him a dead-pan stare. “Face like yours, Pressly, a few scars can only be a good thing.”

“Well fuck you, too, sweetheart.”

“Not today,” she smiled. “We’ve got work to do first.”

“First?”

Cabot slapped his shoulder again. “Head in the game, Abe.”

“My god,” said Harker, exasperated. “I might have been better off alone.”

“You stay here and sit tight, Doctor,” Cabot told her. “If worse comes to worst, it’ll finish with us and leave.”

“Well,” said Abe, “ain’t you all sunshine and rainbows.”

With a final gear check, Cabot opened the station door. He accepted the trimmer mines from Harker, who showed him quickly how to arm them. Val jetpacked onto the roof of the research station and took a knee, sighting down the scope of her anti-material rifle.

“Eyes on the Goliath,” she reported immediately.

Parnell headed off to the right, pushing through the undergrowth at the base of the canyon wall. Cabot handed a mine to Abe and then knelt to set the first one himself. He sprinted around fifty yards and set the second, then looked back to see Abe give him a thumbs-up. He tapped his earpiece. “I’m getting into position. Abe, just hang tight. Val, let us know when it sees him.”

“Oh, it’s already seen him,” she said. “It’s cautious. Smart.”

He ducked behind a half-buried boulder. “Give it a sting. Rile it up. It needs to come for us.”

The rifle barked and the monster roared, but didn’t charge. “Hitting it again!” Val shouted, firing a second round. This time the roar was louder. “It’s holding,” she reported. “It’s not stupid, Marshal.”

“Luckily,” said Abe, “I am.”

“Abe!” Cabot warned, but the trapper was already moving towards the ridge where the Goliath lurked. At a few hundred yards away, obscured by trees, the ridge was almost invisible to Cabot, but he knew it was there, waiting, hurting, and getting angrier.

Abe fired his shotgun in the air twice, scattering a flock of leather-winged birds. “Hey!” he shouted. “We ain’t got all day, you big motherfucker. Let’s get to it!” He fired again.

Val cocked her rifle and shot the Goliath a third time. “Okay, it’s working,” she said. “Well, we’re pissing it off plenty, anyway.”

“Alright,” Cabot said. “Keep doing what you’re doing. Parnell, cover Abe. Crazy bastard’s getting it done.”

Val fired once more, then swore. “It’s coming!” she shouted. “Abe, move!”

Cabot watched as the trapper froze, crouching in the mud. After a moment, the Goliath came into view, charging on all fours towards Abe’s position. It was a freight train, a few tonnes of flesh and bone and fire, churning up mud and splinters of rock as it galloped across the clearing. The impact of its paws and claws echoed through the ground under Cabot’s feet. “Abe! Get outta the goddamn way!”

The trapper held his ground, and the Goliath swept towards him. Sparks flashed in its open mouth, and a jet of flame spewed down at Abe. Just as the flames licked at him, the trapper boosted backwards, hurling a pair of blue grenades that burst with white light and wrapped the rampaging beast in tendrils of buzzing energy. The Goliath staggered, bellowing in its rage, but it was only slowed. As Abe scrambled to his feet, it bore down on him with a terrifying fury – and Parnell cannoned into him, jetpack screaming, smashing them both into the mud.

As Parnell swung to his feet and started unloading his rocket launcher at the Goliath, Cabot leapt up, training the amplifier on the roaring beast. Val’s rifle tore chunks out of its hide, but it wasn’t slowing down. The stasis effect of Abe’s grenades wore off and the Goliath pounded its chest, belching a plume of fire in a wide, wild arc. Cabot dropped the amp and raised his rail-cannon, blasting white-hot coils up the monster’s flank, trying to draw its attention away from Abe and Parnell.

The rage-trooper switched to his shotgun and ran towards the Goliath, but he misjudged its speed and it swung one great claw, swatting him away like a fly. Parnell engaged his jetpack to compensate for the blow, but Cabot could see he was shaken. Abe popped another stasis grenade, but the Goliath shook it off almost instantly, leaping up into the air and smashing back into the ground with impossible force. Abe was caught in the shockwave and sent hurtling backwards to slide through the mud and shale before laying still. Worryingly still.

Cabot leapt up, charging forward, firing blast after blast at the beast. It swung on him, but as it did Val hit it twice in the head on her way to the unconscious Abe. It roared and turned on her, but Cabot triggered his cloak; the camouflage drive refracted the light around the Hub Marshal and his allies, confusing the Goliath long enough for Val to trigger a burst of Generyst and get Abe back on his feet. Howling in frustration, the Goliath dug its claws into the ground, tearing out a huge boulder that rained mud and dirt and chunks of rocky shrapnel on them. With a roar, it hurled the boulder, which exploded into the ground beside them; they scattered, using their jetpacks to evade the impact radius.

“Hero time!” Parnell shouted, engaging his rage-field and leaping recklessly onto the Goliath’s back. The monster staggered, raising its arms, and Cabot activated the amp. Val peppered it with shots, while Abe dragged the last of his grenades out and hurled them, wrapping the beast – and Parnell – in white coils of energy.

Cabot boosted back out of reach, pressing his communicator. “Bucket! Is the Laurie-Anne in position?” he shouted.

“She is.”

“And where are you with that dropship?”

“We’re holding the same position, three clicks west of you, at the relay.”

“Acknowledged. Hank, how long do you need to drop the barrage?”

“Seven solid seconds or a clear marker. What’s easiest?”

Cabot swore. He had nothing. Their weapons were barely breaking through the beast’s carapace, let alone hurting it. He looked up to where Val and Abe were running rings around it while Parnell clung grimly to its back. They were close to gone. He was about join them, as fruitless as that was, when he had an idea.

“Harker! Ping your wrist-reader.”

“What? Why? You need to get inside! Now!”

“Just do it! Bucket! Patch into Harker’s reader.”

“Affirmative, Marshal.”

Cabot swung. “Abe! Lead it to the mines!”

“What!”

“The mines! We gotta give Hank a map!”

Parnell leapt to the ground and they formed up, laying into it with everything they had, slowly pulling it forward. The stasis field wore off suddenly, and it catapulted at them with a burst of speed. Val outmaneuvered it, Abe ducked its swing, but Parnell caught the brunt of it and tumbled past them to the ground. Fire blasted from its mouth, but as it took a step forward it triggered the first mine. The device launched into the air like a firework and the beast staggered as though it had been hit with a wrecking ball.

Cabot grabbed Abe and led him to the downed rage-trooper. They turned Parnell onto his back, but even together they couldn’t drag him away. The Goliath howled, dropping to all fours to charge at them. As it neared, it triggered a second mine and the impact sent it careening to the ground in a tidal wave of dirt.

“Val!”

The medic jetpacked over and together the three of them boosted backwards, dragging Parnell with them. The Goliath rose to its feet and bellowed at them, fear of the mines forgotten. All it wanted now was blood and death. They boosted again, and its swiping claws just missed them. It leapt forward, and Cabot shouted “Right!”, dragging them to one side. The Goliath changed direction and came at them, only to be blasted back by the third mine.

“Hank! You got that!?”

“You’re damn right I do!” came the reply. “Payload in 5! Happy trails, you big ugly bastard!”

There was a flash from above, and half a dozen orbital breaker rockets dropped from the belly of the Laurie-Anne, somewhere in orbit, directly onto the Goliath. The beast roared as fire engulfed it. Cabot, Val and Abe, clinging to Parnell, tried to boost away but the blast got them, picking them up like leaves in a storm and hurling them into the air.

Cabot jack-hammered into the mud, the air smashed out of his lungs, and rolled to his back. Smoke obscured the morning sky, great drifts of it that smelled like success. He half-rolled, saw the monster some way to the right, struggling to rise. It was on its belly, one massive claw dug into the dirt, trying to lift its head. Its thick armour was all but gone, its face unprotected. As Cabot watched, Val limped towards it, right up close to its steaming snout, raised her rifle, and shot it directly in the eye. The huge head bucked backwards, then splashed into the mud. The crimson light in its remaining eye slowly faded.

“Boom!” Abe shouted, staggering over and slumping down beside Cabot. “You fucked with the wrong motherfuckers, motherfucker!”

Parnell groaned and pushed himself up. “We get it?” he asked groggily.

Abe spat blood into the mud. “We got it! While you were friggin’ sleepin’. As usual.”

“Well I get tired runnin’ round all day savin’ your sorry ass.”

“Haha! Keep dreamin’.”

Cabot pushed himself onto his elbow as Val wandered over. “I’m almost out,” she said, but she triggered the med-gun anyway, for what it was worth. The relief was slight, but welcome.

The Marshal raised a hand to his ear. “Bucket, how long?”

“Not long,” the robot replied. “13 minutes. I’d advise a sustained sprint, Marshal.”

“No shit. Stay put. We’re coming to you. Doctor Harker?”

“Marshal,” she said over the communicator. “That was… incredible.”

Abe huffed. “Finally some appreciation.”

“Grab your shit,” Cabot said. “We’ve got to get out of this valley.”

SIX | No Rest For the Wicked

She left the research station and hurried towards them, still speaking through the comms. “Where’s your ship?”

“Power relay.”

She reached them at a run, and they headed as fast as they could manage across the clearing. They jetpacked up the ridge, and the newly-risen sun drenched the forest below in golden light. Cabot smiled despite himself. Shear really was beautiful.

He could see the dropship in the distance, hovering above the trees. “Bucket, I see you. Prepare for exfil.”

In response, the dropship banked, thrusters firing as Bucket positioned it above the glowing extraction point beside the relay. They descended the ridge at a dead run, boosting whenever it was clear. The power relay wasn’t far, but the undergrowth here was thick and heavily tangled in places. Cabot and Abe cut a path through with machetes, but it was slow going.

“Time, Bucket?”

“Three minutes, Marshal. You are cutting it a little fine.”

They crossed the river airborne, avoiding a lazing twenty-foot tyrant, and alighted on the far side in unison. The tangle of foliage was thicker here, and pushing through it took up precious time they didn’t have. Finally clambering from the trees, they found the dropship waiting above the extraction point. Beside it, the enormous dome of the power relay stretched into the sky. As everywhere, the space around it was littered with debris, bodies and burning vehicles. The people here were losing the fight.

“Ten seconds, Marshal!”

Cabot pushed Harker into the exfil beam first, followed by Abe, Parnell and then Val. Finally he leapt in, and the dropship swung about, blasting away just as a beam of white light powered through the research station and exploded, swallowing the clearing in blazing silver fire. The dropship rocked, buffeted by the sudden, savage wind.

Cabot reached the cargo pad in the dropship and staggered into Caira’s arms. The ship lurched, rattling like it was tumbling downhill. “Bucket, get us out of here!”

“Really? I was rather hoping to stay…”

The dropship banked, and the crew had to steady themselves as Bucket engaged the thrusters and blasted back towards the atmosphere. After a moment, the ship levelled out and slowed.

Half-exhausted, Cabot dumped his rail-cannon and dropped to lean against a worktop, panting. Abe and Parnell sat opposite him, while Val was already at her locker, stowing her gear. Caira bent down beside him, tapping the screen of her wrist-reader.

Cabot shooed her away. “Not now, Diaz. Gimme a minute, would you?”

She smiled and backed off, wandering over to Val instead. Harker sat beside Cabot, running her fingers through her hair. “You saved my life, Marshal Cabot. I’m sorry I made you work so hard to do so.”

He chuckled, glancing over at Abe and Parnell. “You two, go get some rest. You did good this morning.”

Standing, Abe forced a smile, then touched the brim of his hat. “Marshal,” he said, as he and Parnell left the bay and headed to the common room.

“Approaching the Laurie-Anne,” Bucket told him in his ear. “We’re home, sir.”

Cabot looked sideways at Harker. “You can stick around a while, Doctor. You’ve got some talking to do.”

Harker laughed bitterly. “So gallant, Marshal Cabot, and so clueless.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“How well do you know your team?”

“I trust them with my life,” he told her.

“I didn’t say ‘trust’; I said ‘know’.”

He snapped. “If you’ve got something to say, say it.”

Harker pointed to Val, currently undergoing Caira’s examination. “You saved my life, so I’ll give you some advice for free: if you really want to know what’s happening on Shear, talk to her.”

“If it’s about her being CIG9, forget it. I already know.”

“Really? But how much do you know? About her? About Shear, NORDITA, what they – what we – are doing down here.”

He was about to reply when Bucket cut in. “Marshal, don’t get comfortable. Colonel Green is hailing us.”

Cabot looked at Val for a while, then Harker, then swore and dragged himself up by the worktop.

Harker smiled up at him, but it was humourless. “No rest for the wicked, right?”

Cabot didn’t smile back. “Right. Val, Diaz, let’s go. We got work to do.”

That’s all, folks. We hope you enjoyed that as much as we did. Thanks for reading!  

The post Evolve Fan Fiction: Something Wicked – Part Four appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Read on for Part Three of our Evolve fan fiction, Something Wicked…

THREE | Harker

The door slammed shut behind Cabot and he helped the woman brace it with a pair of filing cabinets. It felt as comforting as barricading the door with matchsticks.

Abe dropped his shotgun on the workstation behind them, panting. He took a few deep breaths as he eyed the bank of monitors that filled the back wall of the room. A central screen was empty save a huge yellow progress bar that currently read 76%. Val dropped her gear beside the shotgun while Parnell went straight for the shutters, peering out into the deluge.

Cabot steadily got his breath back. He straightened, facing the woman. “Madeleine Harker, I presume?”

She didn’t smile. “Doctor,” she corrected. “You’re my evac team?”

“Marshal William Cabot,” he said, offering his hand.

She ignored the gesture, but made a show of re-appraising him. “The Planet Tamer? I suppose I should be flattered they sent you.”

Abe answered for him. “We were just in the neighbourhood, darlin’. What’s all this here? Looks like a data-wipe to me.”

Harker made her way to the corner of the room, and dragged a compact jet-pack from a stow-locker. “That’s not your business,” she said sternly.

“And that ordnance outside that damn near burned the hair off our chinny-chin-chins? What the fuck was that?”

“Those are trimmer mines. Essentially they’re daisy cutters, but they survey terrain when they’re triggered and provide a workable real-time map.”

Abe whistled. “Can I have one?”

“Get me out of here and we’ll figure something out.”

Cabot half-smiled in response to Abe’s barely concealed excitement. “About that… We have a boat waiting, but we need to move now.”

Harker indicated the monitors. “As soon as I’m done.”

“Come again?”

“I have a very specific role here, Marshal Cabot, as do you. My job is to upload this data, and the data stored at Site B.”

“Site B?” asked Val. “You’re kidding me, right?”

“That a Salveron Industries med-gun?” Harker demanded.

Val folded her arms. “Yeah. So?”

Harker pointed at the progress bar. “If we lose this data, we go back ten years on the technology that lets you do what you do. How many lives are in danger if that happens?”

Cabot swore. “Where’s Site B?”

“Two clicks east, in the valley across the ridge. The upload will take fifteen, twenty minutes, tops.”

“Sorry, doc. Our job is to get you out. No one said anything about your data. It can burn for all I care right now.”

“Hey,” said Abe suddenly, “what’s a ‘Behemoth’? Sounds nasty.”

“That’s classified. Marshal, control your man.”

Cabot grunted. “If I could do that, this would be an all-day smile.”

Abe laughed. “He ain’t lyin’.” He was peering at one of the monitors, his fingers spider-walking across a wall-mounted touchscreen. “Hey, doc, what’s a manticore? Gorgon… That’s like Medusa, right? Hydra, Harpy, Wraith… Who comes up with these names?”

Harker crossed the room and smashed the monitor with the butt of a machine pistol.

“Hey!”

“Abe!” Cabot snapped. “Drop it.”

The trapper winked at Harker, waited for her to turn away, and flipped her the bird.

Cabot pressed his ear-piece. “Bucket? Come in, Bucket.”

“You won’t have any luck, Marshal.” Harker told him. “I popped a meteor dome the minute you got inside. I’ll drop it at Site B, and we can all go home.”

Cabot glanced at Val, then back to Harker. “You think we’re playing a game here, Doctor? Disable the goddamn shield.”

Val’s fingers curled around the grip of her rifle as Harker visibly stiffened. She raised her hand, watching all four hunters in turn, and fired a single shot into the console beside her. The hardware hissed and sparked, fizzing and belching smoke.

“Woah!” Abe shouted, jumping and grabbing his shotgun. “You outta your damn mind, woman?”

“It’s no longer an issue for debate,” Harker said, barely keeping her voice steady.

Cabot rushed forward, jabbing at the console’s keyboard. It was dead. “What the hell?” he barked.

Harker backed away from his wrath. “Colony Command should have given you the full details, Marshal. I’m sorry. This is too important.”

Cabot rubbed his face, thinking. “Parnell, looks like we’re stuck. You got any bright ideas?”

The assault specialist moved away from the window. “We hustle quick, we can make it. But Site B is under the mountain, boss. No way we get exfil there. We’ll have to cycle back to the relay anyway, and the beast will be waiting. Fact is, we’re out of options.”

“We could kill the big sum’bitch,” Abe suggested. “That is what you brought us here to do, right? Kill these things?”

“Not in this storm, in these conditions. We can’t plan for this.”

Parnell held his gaze. “We don’t have a choice. We can do it now, or later, but we’re gonna have to kill it eventually.”

The progress bar was at 97%. Cabot picked up his rail-cannon and went to the door. “Grab your gear. If we’re going, we’re going now.”

“I’m sorry, Marshal,” Harker told him.

“Don’t be sorry, be efficient. I lose anyone because of you, I’ll bury you out here. Clear?”

Harker ignored his question and shouldered the jet-pack. “The one that followed you here, the Goliath, is particularly aggressive, but it’s not as smart as some of them. Hurt it, and it will back off.”

“Good to know,” he said, bitterly.

The progress bar beeped, flashing green. Harker slid a small black device from a pocket of her jumpsuit and stuck it to the nearest monitor. She pressed the centre and it hummed, displaying a readout of red numbers, counting down. She fully zipped her dark blue jumpsuit and grabbed a second machine pistol from the storage locker.

“Time to go,” she said.

FOUR | Priorities

The rain began to lessen as they made their way up the ridge behind the outpost, soon leaving the satellite tower behind as they jet-packed up the steep incline. Cabot kept checking their back trail, but so far the Goliath hadn’t reappeared. Around halfway up the ridge, Harker called a halt.

“What’s the problem?” Cabot asked.

She knelt in the rain, unclipping a small grey disc from within her jumpsuit. “I’d rather continue the morning without surprises, Marshal.” She lay the device in the dirt and held a small red button in for five seconds. The mine whirred once and went silent.

“There’s a lot of wildlife around here, Doctor,” Val said. “Anything could set that off.”

“No. This is rigged to respond to a certain weight. Nothing will set this off but the Goliath. It’s an early warning system. After all, the only way over this ridge will bring him right through our position.”

Cabot surveyed the trees below them. “And the explosive you left in the research station? How long do we have on that?”

“Long enough. We’ll be gone before it troubles us.”

Abe gave a sour little chuckle. “Told you it was a data-wipe.”

Cabot swung away. “Come on, people. It’s not much farther.”

By the time they began to descend, the rain had stopped completely. The rapidly rising temperature caused pockets of steam and fog to form here and there; in the distance, ruddy orange light heralded the coming sunrise. Ahead of them, a shear rock-face disappeared into the clouds above, a wall of solid stone hundreds of miles wide. Depressions riddled the face: phantom caves, no doubt. Cabot glanced up at the dark sky; it was clear for now.

Across a vast clearing, nestled at the bottom of the canyon wall was a second research station, similar to the first but without the strange containment tank. They picked their way to it carefully. There was spoor everywhere: trapjaw tracks wound around the area, signs of a territorial pack, and Cabot spotted chewed leaves on a tall gelder tree, recently snacked on by a Nomad. The area now was quiet and still, but he kept his gun up until they reached the door. Harker ran a keycard through the reader and the door clicked, swinging open.

She walked straight to the bank of monitors and began flipping switches and pulling levers. The screens buzzed and blinked to life. She pressed a few buttons on the central command console and it beeped at her a few times.

“There,” she said. “The dome is down.”

A progress bar appeared on the station’s central monitor, just as before, and started to slowly fill. Cabot tapped his ear-piece, but could hear nothing.

“Give it a moment,” Harker told him without looking round. “Could be some residual interference.”

“Could be.” He looked at the monitors over her shoulder. “So what are you people doing down here?”

“That really is classified, Marshal. Company business is company business. Our primary concern here is the distillation of Generyst, but Shear hides a wealth of secrets, both natural and unnatural.”

“And these things?” Parnell asked her. “These Alphas? Where did they come from?”

Harker looked at him and sighed. “There was a tectonic shift, a few months ago. Disturbed all sorts of data. Biggest earthquake we’ve seen since we arrived on Shear. Shortly after that, we started to see reports coming in of outposts going dark. A few weeks ago, the slaughter started. We’ve catalogued whatever information we can, but we still don’t know where they come from.”

“Or how they evolve so fast…” Abe said, swinging up to perch on the workstation. “Caira, our researcher, thinks it could be the Generyst. Might have… mutated them in some way.”

Harker shrugged. “It’s a theory.”

“The good Marshal here, he thinks they might have been engineered. Right, Marshal?”

Cabot grunted, glancing at Harker. “It’s a theory.”

“And what about you, doc?” Abe pressed. “What’s your theory?”

Harker was about to answer when her wrist-reader beeped. She flipped the screen up, visibly shaken.

“It tripped the mine,” she said.

Abe leapt down from the counter-top as Cabot clicked his earpiece. “Bucket, come in. Cabot to the Laurie-Anne: please respond, over. Goddamn it. Val, Abe, Jimmy, there’s only one way into this canyon; I need eyes on that access point.”

Val cocked her sniper rifle and Abe drew his shotgun. “No problem, hoss. Let’s go, big guy.”

“Hey Parnell,” Cabot said as they opened the door. “No heroics. It shows up, you get inside, clear?”

Abe smiled. “Don’t sweat it. ‘No heroics’ is my forte. You just get that damn robot on the mic.” He paused at the door and smiled at Val. “Ladies first.”

She elbowed him in the stomach as she passed and he doubled up, coughing. “See what I get for being a gentleman…”

As the door closed, Harker came up beside Cabot. “It will have our scent by now, Marshal, and we have nowhere else to go.”

He rounded on her. “Now you’re thinking ahead? Whatever happens today is on you, you understand me?”

“Do you think I don’t know that? I have a job to do, Marshal. Just like you.”

“My job doesn’t involve getting my people killed.”

She scoffed. “Really? Chasing Moby Dick for a paycheck doesn’t get people killed? If that’s truly the case, why employ a Lazarus Man?”

“Very good, you read my file. Zivkovic is here in case anything goes wrong. And just so we’re clear: I’m not Ahab. My crew aren’t stuck with me. They get paid like anyone else. They want off the ride, they only have to say.”

“Like Sunny?”

Cabot gritted his teeth, holding his temper. “You’re going there? Really?”

“I don’t want to ‘go’ anywhere, Marshal, but the fact remains that you and I are no different. Your own daughter left your team because of your obsession with your work. What remains are misfits, criminals and psychopaths.”

“Who are currently in the process of saving your ass, let’s not forget.” Cabot’s earpiece buzzed. “Bucket? Finally. Where the hell are you?”

“Marshal? I could ask you the same thing. We lost you completely; we’re in a holding pattern at the power relay.”

“We’re minutes away, as you fly, at a research station by the canyon wall. Can you get in for a wagon-jump?”

“Not close enough; that canyon is sitting on a giant borium deposit. The dropship’s navi-comp could short out, or worse. We shall have to rendezvous. Can you get to the relay?”

“Negative. We have a… wildlife problem. There’s an Alpha here, a Goliath. It’s been tracking us since we dropped.”

“That’s not your only problem,” Bucket replied. “Colony Command are about to Light-wash that area. We picked up their chatter a while ago.”

“Light-wash? When?”

“56 minutes.”

“Fuck.” Cabot tapped his earpiece. “Abe, back inside. We need a new plan. Bucket, stay where you are. We’ll find a way to get to you.”

“Understood, Marshal.”

Cabot glared at Harker. “That’s what you rigged at site A?”

“My orders were clear–”

“Fuck your orders!”

The door opened and the other three entered. “It’s out there,” said Val. “Right by the ridge. It knows we’re here, but it’s wary of the Doctor’s mines.”

“That won’t buy us a lot of time. Bucket!”

“Marshal?”

“We’re going to have kill the Goliath to get by it. Tell Hank to get a barrage ready, and wait for my mark.”

“Affirmative. Marshal? Someone wants a word.”

Cabot smiled as he heard Griffin Halsey’s gruff tones on the comm. “Boss. Sounds like you’re in the shit down there?”

“Something like that, Griff. How are you feeling?”

“Like a giant octopus fucked me to death and then an angry Ionian brought me back to life with a magic glove full of bad juju. Listen: some advice. You wanna kill this thing, you’re gonna wanna get around it. I’ve been analysing the data Caira gathered. It has weak points, under the chin, tail and armpits; anywhere else and you’re not gonna pierce its armour. Surround it, get under it, and hit with everything you’ve got. But listen: something that big and pissed off is only gonna go where it wants to go, right? So you need to make it think it wants to go where you want it to go. Bait it, and kill it.”

“Thanks for the intel, Griff. We’ll see you soon.”

“Right boss. Oh, and Markov sends hugs.”

Cabot clicked the earpiece and ended the call.

Read Part Four of our Evolve fan-fiction, Something Wicked, tomorrow…

The post Evolve Fan Fiction: Something Wicked – Part Three appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Read on for part two of our Evolve fan-fiction…

TWO | Shear

The dropship’s lights blitzed a path through the darkness, chasing a pack of trapjaws into cover and making nightmarish monsters from the silhouettes of leaves. The twin engines, as quiet as Abe could engineer them to be, whirred like growling beasts. Bucket brought it to a hover, and the red light began to spin in the hold.

Cabot stood in his run, one hand on the safety rail, one on his earpiece. “Bucket, sweep the area before we drop. I don’t want any surprises.” He glanced sideways at Parnell. “You got a plan for this one?”

“Yeah,” said the former Sol Guard. “Walk really fuckin’ fast.”

“Nice. Listen, Abe, when we find Harker, keep your mouth shut. You probably know more secrets than she does.”

“Not my fault I’ve been around a few times…”

Bucket’s voice buzzed in Cabot’s ear. “LZ is clear, Marshal. Drop when ready.”

“Thank you, Bucket. Pop the hatch.”

The siren began to wail and the drop doors slid slowly open. The weather exploded into the hold with a personal hatred for the drop team.

“Why we always gotta do this in the fuckin’ rain?” shouted the trapper.

“A job’s a job, Abe!” Cabot reminded him.

“Yeah. ‘Cept when it ain’t!”

“Except when it ain’t. See you in the mud!”

It was monsoon season in the wetlands, and Cabot leapt out into a face-ful of stinging rain and wind. It was like passing through a tsunami, buffeted by howling gales and battered by needles of icy water. After about a hundred feet, his jetpack kicked in to slow his descent, and his boots splashed firmly into the mud, drenching his legs in filthy rainwater. Abe landed roughly beside him, and Parnell cannonballed down on the opposite side with a violent splash. Val settled some way to the right, finding dry ground with a grace the others couldn’t match. The dropship was gone by the time they touched down, and despite the lashing rain Cabot felt an ominous absence of sound and movement, as though the whole jungle had paused just to receive them. Instinct told him the others felt it, too.

He waded out of the puddle and crouched, adjusting his left shoulder-lamp. Abe knelt beside him, bringing up the tactical map on his wrist-reader. “We’re here,” he said, jabbing at the holo-display. “And Harker is… here, first station. It’s a few clicks in a straight line due east. Walk in the park, right?”

“It never is,” Cabot replied. “Bucket, we’re pretty close to the VIP’s position. Head back to the Laurie-Anne, then rendezvous at the evac point near the relay – I’ll let you know when.” Cabot clapped Abe on the shoulder and stood. “Parnell, you’re on point. Val, with me. Let’s mo–”

His words were cut off by a sudden roar that seemed to shake the very trees in the ground. It was guttural, primal, wholly wild, filled with hunger, hate and rage.

Abe looked at them all in turn. “Caira said these things we’re up against get bigger as they eat, and when they grow it hurts like hell. That makes me not like that noise.”

Cabot nodded, spat rainwater. “Let’s move.”

They picked their way through the foliage, using their jetpacks to stay off the ground where possible and hop between shards of rock, tree branches and low plateaus. The packs used a self-replenishing kinetic fuel system, which couldn’t handle sustained flight but which could, with practice and timing, be a major benefit either in a fight or in transit.

They passed a hydro-plant on the way, its dark structures towering over the tree canopy like over-protective sentinels. The noise was cacophonous, thousands of tons of water on a constant rotational cycle. The plant was designed to run with minimal manpower, and was likely able to sustain itself for several weeks.

“No one around,” Abe shouted. “Why not just switch it all off?”

“Colonial Water & Power have shares in Shear,” Cabot explained, shouting to be heard. “Business doesn’t stop, Abe.”

“Not just CWP, either,” Val added. “Rank-Rajat, EbonStar, April Communications & Research. Shear is an industrialist’s paradise. Borium, Generyst, they even farm Marsh Striders for fuel, medicine, tallow, you name it…”

Abe laughed. “And now it’s all going to shit. No wonder they called us.”

Cabot nodded, carrying on past them. “The money lost here if we have to abandon Shear… You couldn’t count it, let alone earn it, in ten lifetimes, Abe.”

They moved on, soon leaving the noise behind. It wasn’t long before Cabot began to doubt the solidity of this whole operation. Shear was almost purpose-built to keep humanity out. The colony was sustained by virtue of two highly-lucrative exports: firstly, the wildlife. Shear was home to some of the most finely evolved fauna in the galaxy. Mostly saurian or cephalopod in nature, Shear’s wildlife was like a snapshot of what Earth might have become had the dinosaurs remained dominant. Because the atmosphere was almost identical to Earth’s (and thus identical to the worlds humanity had terraformed in the Hub), Shear’s wildlife was exported all over the place. Secondly, the Generyst, a highly-complex chemical compound harvested in its raw state from Shear that was able to exponentially increase rapid cell regeneration. It was the main ingredient for the plasma in a medgun, and had made Salveron Industries more money than people knew existed in the Hub.

But Cabot couldn’t help thinking that Shear had evolved to keep people out. Everything here could kill you, and most things wanted to. The Generyst did weird things to evolution, sometimes mutating generations of a given species in a matter of years, not millennia. It was one of Caira’s theories about the recent insurgence of these so-called Alphas, these monsters Cabot and his team had been hired to kill. Cabot’s theory, on the other hand, was more simple.

Abe suddenly raised a hand, signalling a halt. He sniffed, stuck out his tongue to taste the rain. As he unclipped his shotgun, Cabot thumbed the safety on his rail cannon. Abe looked back over his shoulder, bending two fingers twice to indicate movement. Cabot paused, eyeing the bush either side of him. Tree fronds dripped with water, obscuring what little view was afforded by his lights. The steady patter hid the sound of anything that might be approaching, but Abe was never wrong. He blinked water out of his eyes, squinting – and something hammered him from his feet.

Tree branches sliced stinging cuts into his face as he smashed through the thicket beside him. He tried to move his cannon, but something wet and cold pressed its weight against him, pinning him on his back. Chaos erupted around him and he heard Val and Abe shouting instructions to each other. From Parnell, the only sound was his combat shotgun tearing chunks out of the undergrowth. Cabot half-rolled, knocking his left shoulder lamp so that it illuminated the face of his attacker: wide black eyes in a round face, vicious teeth in a mouth too big for its head. Long, pale, sharply-angled limbs, like a spider; black, bristling hair like porcupine spines.

Reavers. Lots of reavers…

“Abe!” Cabot shouted. “Goddammit, get this fucking thing offa me!”

A shotgun blast granted his request and he rolled to his knees, swinging the rail gun around in time to blast a coil of super-heated air into the face of the next reaver to chance its luck. The pale body rag-dolled into the undergrowth. Another appeared in its place, chittering and growling; Val shouted something unintelligible and its head popped like a raindrop on concrete.

“Parnell!” Cabot called in the sudden silence that followed. “Sit-rep!”

“Clear!” came the reply.

Abe appeared beside him. “Had your back there, boss man,” he grinned, extending a hand to haul him up. “Fuckin’ vermin.”

“Hold still, Marshal,” Val ordered him. “Lemme fix you up.”

Cabot didn’t argue. A few cuts to the face might be minor, but there were things in the jungles of Shear that could smell a graze from over a mile away. Val triggered the med-gun and green light enveloped him, warming him through as the Generyst went to work on his tissue. The wounds on his face closed, leaving pale scar-tissue that tingled in the rain. Cabot rubbed his cheek. The scars would fade in due course. Shame. Sometimes, he kinda missed scars.

The beast in the wilderness spoke again, this time issuing a piercing roar that shook the birds from the trees. It wasn’t the roar that made Cabot start though, it was the sound that followed it: splintering wood, and the strange, hollow crack of falling timber.

“Something wicked, Abe. We need to move – now.”

“Big motherfucker musta heard all your belly-achin’, hoss.”

Parnell hurried back towards them. “We just gotta keep heading this way. Bucket dropped us pretty close. Couple hundred metres and we’re dry.”

Cabot nodded, pressing his finger to his ear-piece. “Bucket, this is Cabot. Drop a dust-cloud, would you? I need eyes in the dark.”

“Payload in 5, Marshal.”

There was a quiet boom, like a distant firecracker, and radioactive dust blasted through the jungle like the head of a mushroom cloud. Cabot raised his wrist-reader and flipped up the viewer; through it, he could see the green outlines of every living thing the dust had painted. Swinging in a slow circle clockwise he picked up a grazing mammoth-bird, a couple of snoozing blitzleopards, a tyrant waiting like a prehistoric crocodile in a shallow river half a click behind them – and then he stopped. Coming through the trees less than a hundred yards away was another Alpha, different from the cephalopod that had kicked their asses yesterday. This one was bipedal, saurian, big, fast. Caira had called it a “Goliath” in her initial recon and Cabot could see why.

“That’s gonna take more than a slingshot…” he muttered. He looked up at Parnell. “Let’s go. Double-time.”

No one needed telling twice. They turned and galloped through the rain and mud, leaping tangled roots and ducking tree-branches, disturbing a pair of grazing, long-legged Nomads that bellowed in surprise but didn’t give chase. They burst from the treeline to find a wide, shallow river, the frothing, rain-battered water bubbling around jutting rocks and gnarled tree-trunks. On an island at the centre of the clearing was a solitary building, the main body of which was squat but situated beneath a towering spire covered in blinking lights and dish arrays. Opposite the building was a massive containment tank, cylindrical in shape and reinforced with bands of black titanium. It was open, but flashing LEDs and occasional vents of steam told Cabot it was still operational.

Behind them the undergrowth erupted with a violent, ear-splitting crash and the Goliath showed itself. Cabot half-spun, taking several backwards running steps. He’d seen some shit in his years, but nothing quite like this. It was jet black, streaked with grey and crimson; big, maybe 30 feet tall, hugely muscular, covered in spines and protrusions like splintered rock. Certainly saurian, but its glowing red eyes suggested either some form of bio-luminescence or internal combustion. Whatever the hell it was, it was pissed off. It raged at them, bellowing, uprooting entire trees and hurling them away.

Cabot swung back, saw the door of the building open ahead of them. A woman stood in the jamb, waving them on, shouting frantically. They weren’t going to make it; their pursuer was too fast, too determined. He was about to spin around and dig his heels in, buy the others the time they needed, when there was a sound like a huge spring suddenly uncoiling, followed by a whoosh of warm air that scattered the falling rain above Cabot’s head. The Goliath roared in pain, and the Marshal looked back as another mine went off, popping into the air, hovering at around twenty feet and then bursting with a blast of superheated steam. The beast, hit by two in quick succession, staggered, slapping at its body as though it could somehow dislodge the pain. It bellowed again, stumbling, kicking up chunks of mud and waves of rainwater, before changing direction on a dime and launching itself back into the forest…

Read Evolve:Something Wicked – Part Three tomorrow

The post Evolve Fan Fiction: Something Wicked – Part Two appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

While Turtle Rock Studio’s 4 v 1 sci-fi shooter Evolve may not have the strongest story, it does have reams and reams of lore buried in the loading screens, stashed away in various wikis and hidden in the randomised conversations of your hunters. So, being something of a fiction fan – and being absolutely in love with the universe of Evolve – I decided to pull as much of that lore together as I could decipher and fill in the gaps with my own imagination to produce a bit of fan fiction. The story is in three parts, and based around Day 2 of Evacuation Mode with a made-up VIP Escort mission. It’s all a bit of fun, so please be nice in the comments. Oh, and it contains Abe, and that means lots and lots of swears. Enjoy!

ONE | Aftermath

The rumble of the Laurie-Anne’s rear thrusters was like a comforting hand on the shoulder as retired Hub Marshal William Cabot leaned over the blinking CIC console, staring at the spinning holo-cast image of Planet Shear and wondering how in the Hell he was supposed to ensure the smooth evacuation of an entire colony. He’d been doing this a long time, taming planets, but hell, this was a tough one.

A couple of days ago, this was just another job from Colonel Green, the usual NORDITA line: head to some godforsaken little planetoid in the ass-end of the Far Arm, and eradicate an indigenous threat. It happened so often it was practically routine: Colonials went in, dropped a few thousand settlers on a random rock and left them to it. Simple enough, right? Trouble was, they liked their budgets nice and lean, so planet-wide surveys took a backseat or got passed to private contractors. Now and then, something would come out of hibernation or climb out of the ocean and start eating employees and busting up EbonStar’s shit, and that always looked bad on a report.

Regardless, if Colony Command ever found themselves on the bad side of a pissed-off native, their first point of contact was William Cabot. He’d made a name for himself over the last few decades. You wanted a planet tamed? A dangerous local species pacified? A gargantuan alien menace tagged, bagged or fragged? It’s what he did, and he was the best at doing it. But this infestation on Shear – if that was the right word – was what Abe liked to call a meat-grinder. Or a clusterfuck, if he was feeling colourful. They’d gone in on the first day like they had a hundred times before, and got their asses kicked by something they’d never seen. And before that, Cabot would have sworn he’d seen everything. Hell, that’s why he’d retired – but even Sunny had told him that wouldn’t last long.

“You look worried, Marshal. You ok?”

Cabot didn’t turn. It was Caira Diaz, the medical researcher they’d drafted in for her expertise with off-world fauna. She was illuminated on one side by the bank of lights and diodes beside her; almost in shadow on the other. Dark-haired and almost distractingly beautiful, Caira was a little younger than the rest of the team, but she’d seen some bad situations in her time – and she had personally pulled Cabot, Markov and Griffin out of the shit yesterday. She was also the smartest person Cabot had ever met.

He stared at the flickering holo-cast representation of Shear, rotating slowly before him. “What do you think, Diaz? We already lost three hundred of the people we were sent here to save, and two of our men are down. Bad start.”

“With all due respect, sir, I heard you were the best.”

Cabot gritted his teeth. “Am I supposed to appreciate that tone?”

The medic hesitated. “I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant…”

The rear door opened, and Abe and Parnell ducked into the room, followed by, Lazarus. “She just meant,” Abe answered for her, “that you ain’t usually one for givin’ up.”

Cabot sighed, waving his hand through the projected image and deactivating it. He looked at the trapper sideways. “I never said anything about giving up. And we are the best, Caira. That’s why we’re still here, and that’s why we’re going in again.”

Abe smiled. “Now that’s more like it. My granddaddy used to say: ‘Don’t take no risks, don’t deserve no rewards’.” He grinned at Caira, touching the wide brim of his hat. “You write that down, honey. That’s a little wisdom there. Somethin’ else uncle Abe’s taught you.”

Parnell chuffed, the shoulder pauldrons of his red assault armour grinding as he shrugged. “Those who can’t do – teach, am I right?”

Abe sniffed. “You know what, Jimmy? Fuck you. You can write that down, too. Maybe read it later when I’m not around, so the sentiment lives on.”

Cabot raised a hand. “Alright, can it, you two. How’re our boys?”

“Sleeping,” Abe replied. “Markov is stable, and Griffin has a heartbeat again thanks to Dr. Creepy over here – who still won’t crack a smile even after savin’ his friend’s life.”

Lazarus, currently finger-punching a monitor behind them and correlating data between the Laurie-Anne’s hard drive and his gauntlet, didn’t look up. “Losing a friend puts me in a mournful humour, Abraham. Bringing him back is just doing my job. The grief remains. I would not expect you to understand.”

Abe shrugged. “Whatever. You’re a weird guy, doc.”

“Coming from you, that is a compliment.”

“No. It ain’t.”

Cabot was about to cut in again when the comms array beeped at him. He swung around, palming the dash to bring the holo-cast back up. He answered the hail with a press of a button, and read the message that blinked up on the screen. He swore. “We got a job.”

Parnell and Abe joined him at the console. “Well?” Abe asked after a few moments of silence.

Cabot tapped the screen. “VIP. Now, of all times… Command wants us to secure one Madeleine Harker, a research executive holed up somewhere in the valleys.”

Abe scratched at his moustache. “I thought we were here to help with the evacuation, not babysit some scientist.”

Cabot didn’t answer for a long time, then: “We do what they pay us to do. We’re here to save lives.” He flicked the monitor off. “Get everyone together, Parnell. We got work to do.”

“A research executive. What’s that?”

Cabot, leaning over the safety railing above the common room, let his primary medic, Valerie Wolski, answer Hyde’s question. She thumbed a shell into her sniper rifle’s breach as she spoke. “If you know EbonStar or NORDITA, then you know that a research executive is practically royalty. It means she knows secrets.”

Madeleine Harker’s face was displayed on a 90-inch monitor hung on the wall above the main table, framed by scrolling bars of information. She looked around 40 – 45, severe face, mousy hair, narrow eyes.

“Secrets?” Hyde spat, looking up. “Why do we give a fuck about secrets?”

“We don’t,” Cabot told him. “EbonStar does, and they’re signing our cheques.”

The burly former chem-trooper turned up one side of his fire-scarred mouth. “Well, I don’t wanna take a dump in your bacon sandwich, chief, but you realise we got annihi-fucking-lated yesterday, right?”

“I was there, Hyde. I remember. But we’re not going in blind this time. Our objective is this woman. We are in, and we are out. Clean.”

Hank, perched on an ammo case on the far side of the room, pulled on his cigar. “Ain’t that always the plan?” he said through a haze of smoke. Hank had been a demolitions man and an orbital driller before he started hunting big game, and he appreciated a good plan. Right now, Cabot didn’t really have one. “Why can’t we just whip in and pick her up? Why’re we even gettin’ our boots wet?”

“We don’t know where she is. Colony Command are trying to avoid a wild goose chase here. Green says they’ll feed us her position when we’re on the ground, but she’s likely to be at one of two research stations in the valleys. Bucket’ll drop us near the first and we’ll evac at the power relay.”

“Who’s going down, Marshal?” asked Maggie the trapper. She sat cross-legged in the shadows, the huge, leather-skinned form of Daisy, her pet trapjaw, stretched out in front of her.

Cabot looked at his team for a moment, saw the same thing in their eyes he always saw. These men and women didn’t get scared. They weren’t spooked by a bad day, they weren’t even spooked when Lazarus had to get his magic glove out. It wasn’t that they didn’t care – he knew that some of them had history going back decades – it was that they were professionals, and this was their business.

“Let’s keep it small. Me, Jimmy, Abe; Val, you’re on the med-gun. Caira, Hank, Maggie, Hyde, you’re back-up in case shit gets too real to deal. Meantime, Caira, help Zivkovic take care of the wounded. Bucket?”

The robot’s voice buzzed over the intercom. “Yes, Marshal?”

“Keep the engine running on this one.”

“Affirmative.”

Cabot nodded at the team. “Gear up, people. We drop in five.”

Check out Evolve: Something Wicked – Part Two tomorrow…

The post Evolve Fan Fiction: Something Wicked – Part One appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Although we love Evolve, we can’t help but feel there are certain things missing, the absence of which stops it short of true brilliance. We’re not talking balancing issues here, which will hopefully be sorted out with a patch or two, we’re talking gameplay elements that we wish were included in the finished product and might still be added down the line (fingers crossed).

While it’s an enjoyable, monster-bashing romp, few would argue that Evolve could do with a little more, well, things to do. Being the helpful sorts that we are, we’ve compiled a wee list of things we think would improve the overall experience.

1. Customisable Hunters

This one is purely cosmetic, but could make a huge difference to the way we connect with our player character. If you could adjust clothing, hair colour and loadout (a la XCOM), maybe with the option to decal your weaponry, most players would do it. A little tweaking of a character’s details can build a surprising bond between gamer and protagonist. With various skins already available, it wouldn’t take much of a push to introduce a little customisation.

2. A Horde Mode

There’s a moment in the game when you finish an Evacuation mission and the civilians escape the planet, and we’re treated to a little cutscene of the crew of the Laurie-Anne facing insurmountable odds side by side. It got us thinking: how cool would it be to line up with all 12 hunters in a huge Horde Mode, co-ordinating defences against wave after wave of monsters and minions?

Organised fireteams could defend choke-points while Medics flit around tending to the wounded and the Trappers used their various traps and snares to buy precious time for Lazarus to resurrect the dead, or Markov to lay more mines. It would be huge and frantic and awesome.

3. More Game Types

Speaking of a Horde Mode, Evolve could use more game types, period. The potential for gameplay variety is massive, and only having a handful of modes – most of which aren’t even directly chosen at the menu – is a total waste. How about a Capture the Flag / Salvage mode where the Hunters have to collect power cells for defensive turrets and the monster and its minions have to stop them? Maybe a monster on monster ruck, or even an Escape mode where hunters just have to reach an evac ship blocked by a pair of monsters? Yeah. Cool, right?

No matter which way you slice it, Evolve is going to need more diversity if Turtle Rock want to see busy servers in 2 months’ time. We wouldn’t even mind seeing old modes borrowed from other games and “evolved” to suit this one – modes like Halo’s Crazy King (defending a constantly shifting target area), or a variation on a long-distance export mission. How about a mode where the hunters have to tag and survey specific wildlife, and the monster is there to harry them. Hell, we’d take anything after ten games of Hunt in a row.

4. More Dialogue & Story

Evolve has a loose concept that provides context to the hunting, but that’s all. It wouldn’t be too hard to create a proper story mode with different objective-based missions to follow, similar to Evacuation but with more modes and a continuous narrative thread. It doesn’t even have to be long, but it would cater to those who enjoy playing solo and like a bit of story to carry them through. The characters lend themselves to a deeper plot with their dialogue and personalities – each one is incredibly interesting, but undernourished to the point of frustration. A bit of action movie bombast would go a long way.

While we’re at it, a bit more variety in the looping dialogue, particularly in the dropship, wouldn’t go amiss. There’s only so many times you can hear Hank’s canyon eel story or Parnell talk about the mysterious Sunny saving the day at Basis Station.

5. A Detailed Codex

Finally, we need a glossary of some kind. I know codex entries are often lamented in 100-hour RPGs, but in a scifi universe as rich and unexplored as Evolve it would be invaluable. What’s CIG9, the organisation from which Medic Val is on loan? What happened at Basis Station? Is Maggie genetically engineered? What does Canyon Eel taste like? Teased tidbits are very great, but some of the things the Hunters allude to sound genuinely cool (dare we say, arguably cooler than what they’re doing on Shear), and we want to know more.

Also, the wildlife. Shear is bristling with alien species with cool names like “mammoth-bird”, “blitzleopard” and “river tyrant” – but aside a few lines on the load screens, there’s no further information. A codex would bring another dimension to Evolve’s wonderfully dark world.

So that’s our two pennys’ worth – but what about yours? What do you think would improve Turtle Rock’s shooter? Is it already perfect in your eyes, or beyond redemption? Let us know in the comments section below.

The post Five Things Evolve Really Needs appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

It’s a point of view that many will dispute, but in my opinion, Nintendo make the best games. The fact that they hold their value more than titles by almost any other developer means this is rarely up for debate. Many remain sought after for years, so the price stays high as there’s no need to drop it; people will buy quality at any price because of said quality. It’s stated repeatedly that Nintendo games don’t do enough to differentiate from their chosen formula, that they’re stuck using the same mechanics they always have been. While that may also be true, it doesn’t detract from the point that Nintendo polish their games to perfection. Each title is tested, retested and scrubbed until it sparkles, a diamond that will last forever.

Mario titles are emblematic of the Nintendo philosophy (and so they should be, seeing as he’s the company mascot after all). Tried and tested formulas, but with new ideas, new mechanics and heavy doses of nostalgic wonder added each time. The fact is, they do this better than anyone. Many companies have tried to replicate Mario’s success, but none have been able to stand the test of time as well as the portly plumber has.

Since Super Mario Bros 3, direct sequels have been a rarity in the Mario universe (outside of spin off titles like Yoshi’s Island and Wario Land); also rare was having more than one main Mario title per platform: Super Mario World was the only SNES Mario title (no, the Mario All-Stars collection doesn’t count); Super Mario 64 was the only one that hit the N64, and it was the same with Sunshine on the Gamecube – so, why did Nintendo break these trends with the Galaxy games on the Wii?

Released on the Wii in 2007, Super Mario Galaxy earned rave reviews and garnered a lot of praise for its reinvention of the formula. The brave decision to remove Mario from his gravitational confines and allow him to bound enthusiastically through its levels proved to be a masterstroke. Added to this was a sublime soundtrack and a plethora of new ideas, that provided the freshness lacked by its predecessor Sunshine. Considering the critical success and the sheer number of Wii consoles Nintendo had managed to get into homes, a sequel was inevitable.

And so, three years later came Super Mario Galaxy 2. While the game didn’t exactly make sweeping changes to the formula, it expanded on it, adding new power ups, bringing back Yoshi (not the Sunshine variant, but the one more fondly remembered for his role in Super Mario World) and ditching the hub world. Now, Nintendo have released this onto the eShop via the WiiU’s internal Wii emulator. Over my gaming history I’ve been privileged to play almost every Mario platforming game, from the original Mario Bros, through Super Mario World and onto Super Mario 3D World. I’ve completed many, and given the others a decent enough shake before being waylaid by something else. Only two titles have ever eluded me though: Super Mario Galaxy and its sequel, so this was very good news to me.

Upon booting up the game Mario swoops into shot like an airborne superhero, the camera panning around to track him as the title splash is revealed to a beautifully epic fanfare. After the initial opening segment in which Mario can do nothing as a giant Bowser kidnaps Princess Peach for the umpteenth time, he makes friends with a small star-shaped critter called a Luma, who turns out to be a prince. For protecting said prince from danger, the Luman ship captain grants Mario control of the vessel so that they can assist each other in gathering stars to power the engines to defeat Bowser, rescue Princess Peach and get the Lumans back home.

This, however, is not your regular kind of spaceship. After its initial troubles (caused by Bowser’s evil scheme) the Lumans have rebuilt it in Mario’s image to honour their newfound hero. On this ship you can keep track of your star count per level, gain 1-ups to assist in your quest, read mail, chat to NPC visitors and generally mooch about in between levels. Once you’ve had enough, it’s time to head to the helm and fly to a Galaxy to start earning those stars.

The minute Mario arrives at the wheel the camera pulls away to reveal the Toadstool Universe in all its glory; interconnecting worlds in which Galaxies are contained. The Galaxies themselves are a set of small planets making up complex assault courses for Mario to leap about with gay abandon, each one finely tuned to make the most of Mario’s abilities or those of whatever power-up has been bestowed upon him to fulfil the requirements needed to gain the star reward at the end.

Upon selecting a Galaxy, Mario launches himself off the ship, arms outstretched sideways as he flies towards the camera before arcing round and into the level. Once in, you’re treated to an overview as the camera gives you snippets of what awaits. Mario then glides through the air, performs a few somersaults and sticks a perfect gymnast landing. All the while the game engine never misses a beat.

Straight away it’s plainly obvious that Mario Galaxy 2 looks great. The WiiU output at 1080/60, while favourable to the game, doesn’t diminish the fact that – aliasing aside – it looks amazing. Considering the fact that this ran on hardware two generations old at sixty frames a second, it really is a feat of engineering. Nintendo’s teams really know how to get the best out of a machine and their art direction is just sublime. Mario kicks up dust as he starts a run, small stars fly out of enemies when stomped before exploding in a puff of smoke, sparkles emanate from Mario as he spins via a flick of the Wiimote… it’s all delectable stuff and it’s topped off with some truly exceptional sound as well. Mario’s whoops as he leaps and pirouettes through the air are accompanied by an amazing soundtrack that takes its cues from Mario’s past adventures (for some of that wonderful nostalgia) as well as bringing in new scores that are just as good as those that went before. Some levels take the soundtrack itself into account, counting out beats through the speaker in the Wiimote with which you’ll need to time your leaps to make it safely through.

Nintendo are the masters of level design. Their 2D layouts were second to none, and when Mario went 3D their abilities really started to shine. The Galaxy games took this even further, creating worlds where the game effortlessly switches between 2D and 3D play types before you’ve even noticed the transition has happened. Even better is how the game constantly plays with the idea of gravity. Mario can walk from floor, to wall, to ceiling with each change in orientation affecting how his abilities work. Along the floor Mario jumps upwards and lands back on the ground; walk onto the wall and his jump takes him sideways, and then back to that same surface – it’s seamless and a truly amazing feat of level design considering the small spaces this can take place in. Nintendo’s play with this concept never grows stale, and it can take a while before you see these implementations rehashed again.

Mario himself attacks the levels with the hyperactivity of a five year old child on a sugar rush, his movements twitchy and imprecise. It’s like Nintendo themselves knew this by reminding you that you can pinpoint tricky landings by using Mario’s spin move during the jump. Even slight pushes of the analogue stick don’t result in the slow movement you came to expect from playing Mario 64 and Sunshine. In Sunshine I experienced quite possibly the greatest control scheme in video games: Mario was an extension of yourself, he did exactly what you wanted him to. Here in Galaxy 2, the directions you push him in don’t always translate on screen, exacerbated by a camera that doesn’t always take the best viewing angle for the section you are on, creating an optical illusion that you are further from the edge of a ledge than you actually are, which you only realise once you’ve plummeted into whatever awaits you below.

This lack of control is made worse by one particular power-up that sees Mario coiled up in a spring. Here Mario loses almost all control; you can guide him in rough directions and watch him squirt off at a slightly wrong angle, and when you’re asked to control this wildly uncontrollable version your frustration skyrockets as the tubby tumbler just refuses to go quite where you want him to. The fire flower makes a welcome return despite now being timed rather than lasting until you get hit. New items include mushrooms that turn Mario into a boulder, a bee and more.

Yoshi’s return is very welcome. While riding, Yoshi moves faster than Mario and as a result makes the lack of control more prominent, this however, is saved by his flutter jump which rescues many an overlong jump or slip from a platform. Yoshi’s tongue was always going to be a challenge to translate into three dimensions, but Nintendo got around this by using the Wiimote as a pointer to paint targets and then hitting B to zip out the tongue and gobble them up. This explains Nintendo’s decision to keep it as a Wiimote and nunchuck game: it just wouldn’t be possible otherwise.

Yoshi gets his own set of power ups, but these are really level mechanics rather than full fledged power-ups. The Speed Pepper sets Yoshi off at a high speed allowing him to run up walls and over water accompanied by a cartoony fire alarm. The Blimp Bulb inflates Yoshi and allows him to float upwards but only for as long as the contained air allows. The last one, the Bulb Berry makes Yoshi glow like, well, a bulb, during which hidden platforms can be seen. While not seeming like much the platforms only exist when Yoshi’s light shines on them, and if you’re still on a platform when the light fades you’ll plummet to your doom.

Being a Nintendo title you just know that once you’ve collected all the stars it’s not the end of your journey. Get them all and you’re then tasked with going back through the levels and tracking down green stars. Nintendo are nothing if not generous with their content. Completing it without gaining all the stars is possible, but would you be happy with just that? Could you be? Obsessive completionists most definitely couldn’t.

Since Galaxy 2, Nintendo went on to 3D Land and 3D World. These games kept the map overworld structure, kept the assault course level design, tightened up the controls and improved the exaggerated cartoony aesthetic. At one point in his life Mario was a Saturday morning cartoon, now he looks like he could be one again. One where Nintendo is the director, but you are calling the shots. Super Mario 64 carried Mario into the third dimension, but it feels like the Galaxy titles were where Nintendo really allowed their imaginations to run away with them, and paved the way for Mario’s future. Maybe it even paves the way for Mario’s compatriots too. For instance, Captain Toad was promoted from Toad Brigade leader in Galaxy through Galaxy 2, to 3D World, to his own game.

Nintendo have alluded that there may very well be a third Galaxy title coming to the WiiU in the future. While 3D World felt like a stop gap, it was never-the-less a brilliant game and a worthy addition to Mario’s catalogue of quality titles. Mario alone is enough for fans to clamour for more, but that fans specifically ask for another sequel to the Galaxy games highlights how fondly they are remembered for their inventiveness and the pure unbridled joy that comes from finally managing to get that star that had you mashing a Wiimote into your forehead. It’s difficult to say what Nintendo could do differently in another Galaxy sequel, but, you have to admit, with their seemingly limitless imagination, they can definitely pull it off.

While Super Mario Galaxy 2 has its problems with control, it’s so immaculately made that it’s no surprise it’s considered one of Mario’s finest games and the blueprint for future titles. This is a game full of charm and ingenuity, there are more fantastic ideas in one world than there are in most AAA titles these days. Anyone still trying to argue that these games are too “kiddy” is obviously unaware of the challenges they throw at you; they’re not for the faint of heart. If you haven’t played Galaxy 2 before I strongly urge you give it a go. Playing it is like playing Mario’s past, present and future all in one, a veritable time machine of wonder. And like a certain famous time machine, it’s much bigger on the inside.

The post LTTP: Super Mario Galaxy 2 appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

If I were to put together a list of my all-time top ten games, there would be at least three that Tim Schafer had a hand in. During his time at Lucasarts in the nineties, Schafer was one of the main creative forces behind the golden age of adventure games, being involved in seminal releases such as Maniac Mansion, The Secret of Monkey Island and, of course, his magnum opus, Grim Fandango. However, while his time since leaving the house that George built and establishing his own games company, Double Fine, has been full of creative promise and critical adulation, his past successes have never quite been replicated.

Indeed, such was the popularity of the graphic adventure games coming out of Lucasarts in the late eighties and early nineties, it seemed like the company could do no wrong. Eschewing the “save early, save often” mantra held by Sierra – where death and disaster lay around every corner – the team at Lucasarts created a solid string of hits where comedy and great writing were prioritised over punishing the player for every mistake they made. This didn’t mean that their puzzles were any less tricky, either; in fact, Lucasarts games tended to involve some of the most complex and technically interesting puzzles ever found in the genre, including time travel, cause and effect, puzzles based upon the writings of Greek philosopher Plato and, lest we forget, the noble art of insult sword-fighting.

But the lack of dead-ends and multiple death scenes did seem to allow the writers and designers more time and freedom to focus on crafting really original, creative and absurd characters and worlds for them to inhabit. As Tim Schafer moved up the ranks at Lucasarts, he was clearly afforded more and more rope to express his personal interests and influences, which culminated in the title that many believe is both the pinnacle of adventure game design and the the one that hammered home the final nail in the coffin for the golden age of the genre.

Grim Fandango combined art-deco design, Mexican Day of the Dead imagery and many cinematic references (most notably a large portion of Casablanca) into a truly epic four-year story. Despite the myriad different influences, all the different aspects of Grim came together to form an adventure full of intrigue, humour and suspense – which was probably the most cinematic gaming vision realised at the time. The production values were obviously very high, with great voice acting, a fantastic musical score and a massive story that kept you hooked for hours upon hours.

Critics adored Grim Fandango and were instantly taken with its fifties cinema sensibility. Protagonist Manny Calavera was the Humphrey Bogart of gaming, and Tim Schafer was being hailed as Orson Welles. It seemed that after his huge success with Day of the Tentacle, he was the golden boy, and even though biker-themed adventure Full Throttle didn’t set the sales charts alight, Grim Fandango was backed to go far. Sadly, the reception at retail got nowhere near matching the high levels of critical praise. A decline in the adventure genre coupled with the fast ascension of first-person shooters and fully 3D games were partly blamed, and the unusual subject matter only compounded issues, making Grim a difficult title to market. It suffered heavy losses and marked the end of big-budget graphic adventures for around a decade.

With Lucasarts cancelling their story-driven games left, right and centre, such creative minds as Tim Schafer realised it was time to move on, and just a year after the release of Grim Fandango he set up Double Fine, his own development studio. Aiming to focus on creative titles, it would be five years of development and broken publishing deals before their first game Psychonauts hit retail shelves. Being a 3D platformer where each level is set inside the deranged mind of an unstable individual, the game is packed with both exciting visual and gameplay ideas. Some of the characters and mental afflictions that are brought to life in each stage are really unique and each stage is distinctly memorable.

Sadly however, shoe-horning all of these great ideas into a platform game engine – especially a fairly buggy one – did no favours to the game. The 3D camera was difficult to control and keep aimed at the action, and there were far too many sections where some really precise platforming skill was needed – something that has never been easy since games switched from two-dimensional visuals. On top of that, Psychonauts was a new IP that no-one had heard of, and it received no discernible marketing push as it was only picked up by the relatively small publishing house, Majesco. As such, Psychonauts floundered at retail – once again being the darling of the critics, but almost untouched by the general gaming public.

Double Fine have sadly suffered from several similar setbacks over the years, and oftentimes something that sounded like a sure-fire hit ended up being somewhat of a disappointment. Brutal Legend would be the most obvious of these: an action game set in an alternate demonic dimension ruled by Heavy Metal gods. Featuring an all-star cast of metal icons and Hollywood comedian Jack Black, this game was expected to really strike a chord with players. However, the baffling choice to play out most of the game as a poor Command & Conquer real-time strategy immediately turned off many gamers. It just wasn’t a fun title to play, despite all its audiovisual bells and whistles, and a slew of decent review scores couldn’t persuade them otherwise.

This definitely suggests the idea that Tim Schafer is more of a writer than a games designer. His ideas sound great – and would probably make a fine cartoon series – but a lot of the time building a gameplay system to fit around such ideas is unsuccessful. Psychonauts and Brutal Legend both suffer from this affliction, as did Full Throttle, the biker point and click game from his time at Lucasarts, which never quite felt right being a puzzle driven title, spliced with hog-riding road fights and a demolition derby action set-piece.

Indeed, Double Fine have perhaps had better success with titles that Tim hasn’t designed. Stacking was a charming and intuitive Russian Doll puzzle game, while Costume Quest applied an American Halloween makeover to classic JRPG gameplay – these games were small-scale, inventive and fun to play: they just worked. The poor retail performance of Psychonauts and Brutal Legend actually did Double Fine a favour, in that they began to focus on smaller, self-published projects, rather than games that would be competing with triple-A releases. These games are cheaper to produce, quicker to turn around and can be tested on their target audience through events like the Insomnia Fortnight, where Double Fine designers write game treatments for fans to vote for. As a smaller, tight-knit development team, Double Fine can be more reactive and have even greater freedom than before.

Sadly, just when things were looking up, the reputation of Tim Schafer and his whole company was sullied further by the Double Fine Adventure Kickstarter debacle. All seemed well to begin with, when their project was funded within hours and several stretch goals were smashed into oblivion several times over. This was a true Kickstarter success story. But then delay after delay occurred, and we were told that the team couldn’t finish the game as they were out of money. A project that more than quadrupled its target was out of funds?! Rather than the embarrassment of asking for more money however, the game was hastily cut in two, with sales of the first episode earmarked to fund the second. Yet here we are, almost two years later, still with only half a game. Double Fine lost the faith of a lot of their long-time fans through this whole disaster.

Perhaps some of these different failings are behind Double Fine deciding to now fall back on the very same success stories that gave them notoriety to begin with – what with the upcoming release of Grim Fandango Remastered and the announcement that a Day of the Tentacle re-master is also on its way. Having suffered from several of these less-than-stellar releases and the goodwill-killing Kickstarter mess, the company could be forgiven for wanting to back a less risky project this time around. A re-master of a popular title with a proven track record is a less costly endeavour, and already has an established fan base who will likely back the project no matter what.

And so it is a little upsetting that – despite the joy I will feel at being able to play through Grim Fandango and Day of the Tentacle in high-definition, and the fact that a whole new generation of players will be exposed to these classics of story-telling and humour – Double Fine are no longer working on the new, creative titles that they set out to. Although not all of their ideas will be success stories, I would much rather see two brand new games from a team of such great designers than two re-mastered classics. I will play them both of course, but I will be looking forward to their future projects with greater anticipation. One day, Tim Schafer will find the perfect medium with which to turn his fantastic visions into a video game, and I want to be there when that happens.

The post Opinion: The Rise (and Fall?) of Tim Schafer and Double Fine Games appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

There are some announcements in games that get you instantly excited, such as DICE teasing a new Star Wars Battlefront, Miyamoto announcing Twilight Princess or that first look at the PS2. Then there are others that, while they sound intriguing, don’t quite generate the same kind of excitement. For me, the announcement of Life is Strange fell into the latter camp, but oh how my opinion has changed since playing it, and talking to the game’s Creative Director.

Dontnod’s debut title was Remember Me, a third person action adventure title, while Life is Strange is an episodic adventure game. Despite the significant shift in genre, however, Creative Director Jean-Maxime Moris thinks there is a lot of similarities between the two.

“I actually think there is a lot of Remember Me in Life is Strange. There was one thing that carried over from Remember Me and it’s a huge thing because it’s the core of this game, I mean mechanic-wise, which is the rewind.”

Max, Life is Strange’s protagonist, discovers early on that she has the ability to rewind time and relive that moment again. A similar mechanic was implemented in the memories of Remember Me, and it allows Max to use the experience she has the first time round to correct any mistakes in the second or third time of re-living that moment.

“We are also looking at a human identity again but from a different perspective, it’s not digitised memories any more, it’s these analogue pictures that Max takes and lays on the floor and those choices that she makes that will determine who she becomes. The story could have lent itself to a movie as well but its great with all these characters to really develop their relationships over the course of different episodes.”

“It’s built in Unreal Engine 3 which we used to develop Remember Me. It has all the tweaks and the additions that we developed in house for Remember Me, especially in terms of lighting, rendering and particles, which means that this is basically Unreal 3.5. It’s Remember Me’s engine at its best. That’s the reason why it was really easy to go into this game and develop it cross platform because we didn’t have to worry about the tech and could focus on developing the content and then just port it onto other platforms.”

While there may be more than a few similarities between the two games, Jean is keen to stress that the move to an episodic format – one of the most obvious differences between the titles – happened organically.

“It was really something that happened very naturally when we were thinking about what it was that we were going to do. We were sitting in a room and someone asked ‘Why not do it episodic?’ We looked at each other – and we are obviously all huge fans of the TellTale games and of TV series – and we thought ‘Lets try it’. It’s that simple really. Then of course we did our homework and looked at how the other guys had done it, the TellTale guys for instance. I think it’s great to be able to face that challenge as a studio, of hooking the player early, developing stories that foster a sense of closure in one episode but hook you into the next. When you play Episode 2 having all your choices factor back into what it is that you are playing six weeks after you played it, it’s very interesting creatively just to be working along those lines. It’s very different from what we were doing before.”

The episodic format isn’t just new for Dontnod, it is also Square Enix’s first ever episodic game. With TellTale doing so well with their efforts it is understandable why Square wanted to get in on the fun, but it is still a big risk for the publisher.

“Square Enix started to discuss the game with us and they were totally on board with the episodic format, so we quickly realised that there was a match between what we wanted to do and what a publisher would want us to do. As a studio we talk to all publishers all the time. Every time we have a new concept or a new idea we talk to everyone. Of course if we can foster a long-term relationship with a given publisher then all the better. We had tired to partner with Square on Remember Me, but it didn’t happen. This time we basically talked to everyone and they were the only ones that didn’t want to change a thing.”

One of the more talked about areas of Life is Strange pre-launch is the two main female characters, and the distinct lack of a male protagonist. J-Max has previously stated that many of the other publishers Dontnod spoke to wanted to change Life is Strange significantly, mainly to bring in a male lead character.

“I think a lot of the thinking that happens in the industry right now is still based on cliché that was inherited from the 90’s, where only 15 year old boys who wanted hyper sexualised female characters or to be bad asses and those big guys going into war played games. I think those people have grown up, and many more people are flying into the industry than ever before. Publishers think it’s not going to work because it has a female character, so they wont invest into the marketing of this game. Then it doesn’t work – because there is no marketing – but the blame lands on the game having a female lead character, and the cycle goes on and on and on. It’s thanks to people like Square on this one or Capcom on Remember Me that things can change.”

Even with Capcom and Square taking a chance with Dontnod’s lead female characters there is still the perception that lead female characters aren’t a strong selling point. Only games like Life is Strange can hope to change this, but that wasn’t the key message the developers set out with.

“It takes time to change mentalities. This particular gender thing in video games is part of a much bigger social and political issue, which is gender equality, and I have no idea. If it can change one person’s mind then I’ll consider it a success.

Just to be clear though, this is not what we set out to create this game for. This is not a political game, it just happens that there are female lead characters and I happen to have a opinion as a individual, and if this can change another individuals opinion then I am happy. As a creator though, if a female character is bad then I’ll say it’s a bad character but I won’t mention the gender. I don’t think that’s a useful distinction.”

While Life is Strange is a story based game, it does contain some puzzle sections. Jean denies that they will overpower the other elements within the game.

“Life is Strange is definitely not a puzzle game, instead it emphasises the story, your choices and the characters. There are some puzzle sections though and they will grow more complex throughout the game. My favourite ones are the ones that involve talking to people, learning something about them and then convincing them, manipulating them, and you know you can combine that with the more space orientated ones.”

Another noticeable quirk of Life is Strange is the butterfly symbol that frequently appears in the top left corner of the screen whenever you make a choice, in a similar style to TellTale’s They Will Remember That message. However, sometimes the symbol appears in situations that seem very inconsequential. J-Max assures me that every decision is important.

“It has been a very long discussion internally because other games, they tell you X number of things might have consequences but then only a fraction of them do. We decided to have every single thing that says it will have consequences have them. Some will have major consequences further down the line if combined with other things or minor consequences in themselves. Others will have just short-term consequence that you can see in a cut scene three minutes later, but they will all have a consequence.”

With all the choices you make having some kind of consequence, one would assume that the overall series will feature multiple endings, based on the more significant choices you make.

“There is no way a small to medium sized company can afford to have a story that branches into a hundred different directions because it costs so much money in terms of animation, recordings, polishing, maintenance, QA, modelling, everything that happens in the production cycle would cost just too much. So the way we are tackling this is by saying that the game will move forward in the overall same main direction for everyone but it is the choices that you make that will tailor the experience to you.”

“With all the decisions that you make, there will be more than one ending but there wont be 67 and its generally going to be in the spirit of TellTale games, I’m not going to set false expectations here. But even in the case of Telltale, what’s really great is that it’s the details and the different ways that people are going to interact with you and talk with you that’s going to make that experience different, even if the ending remains the same. One of the best endings to a game was the close of TellTale’s The Walking Dead Season One, and it would have been a shame to have 90% of players miss it because only 10% made the choices that led to that ending.”

Having the characters interact with Max in different ways was certainly noticeable during my time with the game, thanks to replaying certain situations with the rewind feature and seeing the different reactions from people. It is worth saying that the characters themselves are so far so good, mainly thanks to the incredible voice actors that are on board.

“We chose to not go for Hollywood talent that we could stick on the screen and say ‘oh it has this famous actor.’ Instead we chose to remain in the independent spirit and so all our actors are fairly independent in terms of the movies they play in, although we do have Ashly Burch who is playing Chloe, who you might know Borderlands 2 or her Hey Ash Whatcha Playin videos.”

Episode One of Life is Strange is almost upon us, but that doesn’t mean the studio is easing up…

“Our goal is to have a steady time window in between releases. That is very important to us but that means we had to plan a lot ahead and all the episodes are being worked on in parallel, so Episode One right now is in polish phase and basically finished. Episode Five is already being worked on. What we would like to do, because episodic game communities are very vocal, is to take feedback from the community into account. It’s not going to be possible for Episode Two for instance, and we need to make decisions and we can’t listen to everyone, but some of that feedback you might see factor into later episodes of the series and a second series, if there is one.”

Now when you interview a developer, and they mention the possibility of a sequel to their upcoming game, you just can’t pass up the chance to ask them if they are already at work on a sequel.

“Of course. Will I talk about it? NO! I mean we are at this stage where it’s the conception phase, so we don’t know what we want to do but we have started to bounce ideas around about what it’s going to be. Any type of company relies on it successes to move forward, so we want Life is Strange to be a success. If it is not, it’s going to put us in a difficult position. We are also as a company thinking forward, we are thinking of the future of the Life is Strange brand and we also have a few other ideas brewing that we are talking to publishers about. A lot will depend on Life is Strange but we want to have a plan B as well.”

“The vision of the studio is to try at least to do things different, although we obviously want to capitalise on everything that we create, whenever we can we try to do something that’s different and this time it’s this type of game. It might be something different in the future.”

Life is Strange is really shaping up to be something special. It has some unique ideas, with an intriguing story and some brilliant characters, but the real question is where does Jean-Maxime Moris, Creative Director at DONTNOD Entertainment keep his ketchup?

“It’s in the cupboard. Yeah in the cupboard with all the mustard and everything. If someone puts it back in the fridge I take it out, the same with honey and jams. And to be very specific it’s a shelf, it doesn’t have closing doors and is really open to the air around it.”

Thanks to J-Max for his time.

The post Life Is Strange: an Interview with Creative Director Jean-Maxime Moris appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Saint Row was – and lets be honest here – a knock off Grand Theft Auto when it spawned nine years ago. Since then though it has found its niche, comedy juxtaposed against GTA’s grittiness. Saints 3 had a lucha libre gang, hover-bikes and Professor Genki’s Super Ethical Reality Climax. Saints 4 threw off the last shackles of reality, with aliens, super-powers and a Matrix-style computer simulation. With Earth destroyed, it was hard to see where Volition could take the series next.

The answer, of course, is the afterlife – Hell to be specific. Gat Out of Hell launches today, and if you haven’t read Colm’s review yet, you really should. It’s far from perfect (the game that is), but Colm’s biggest criticism – save for repetitive missions – is that it just isn’t that funny. For a series entrenched in comedy, surely this is the ultimate sin?

It’s not like the potential isn’t there. In Hell you’ll meet Blackbeard, Shakespeare and Vlad the Impaler, as well as various victims of the Saints’ murderous rampages. Off the cuff I can think of various comedy missions working from these characters, plundering with Blackbeard, a Macbeth-themed murder-play, and taking Vlad on the town, teaching him modern murder techniques. It took me ten seconds to come up with them, and they’re funnier than any mission in Gat Out of Hell.

In fact, they’re better than anything in the entire game except for a brilliant five minute sequence that could be the best cut-scene of 2015 (which was typically released as a trailer). The sucker punch is that it makes you realise some effort went into the comedy, that the same team came up with that rescue mission set to “I Need a Hero” and that scene where you travel inside a computer and become a toilet. They could have made Hell great.

What’s worrying is where Volition take the Third Street Saints next. The concept of Hell would have made a great full release, allowing the team to fully explore the options of hanging out with historical figures (picture the Saints versus Hitler and tell me you don’t want to see that). Instead, Volition has shot its wad on this, and it feels like a waste.

The ending of Gat Out of Hell touches on the problem, so the team are clearly aware of it, but what’s the answer? If Hell is a no-go then Heaven is always an option, The Boss was President, why not make him God? Being on a spaceship you could put them on a new planet, with aliens providing plenty of comedy material.

If I were honest though, I’d send the Saints back to Earth. Maybe not even try to explain how, but just run with it – this is Saints Row, after all. Stick them in a new city after being chased out of Steelport, and go back to basics. Gat Out of Hell struggles to be funny because the story missions are mostly the open-world tasks of previous games. Re-working the whole thing from the ground up might just be the best idea.

The post Opinion: Where Next for Saints Row? appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

How do you make a non-gamer play games with you? That’s a hell of a question, but a pertinent one when you’re a Billy No Mates like me. Having left my “one of the lads” days behind me years ago, swapping pints and parties for nappies and bills, my gaggle of giggling idiots has dwindled – mostly because they’re all knee-deep in nappies too.

But I was always the only gamer anyway, probably because I come from an era that existed before gaming was cool, or even socially viable. I was a geek way back when, and I’m still one now, but every now and then I want to play a game with someone, share that camaraderie I had with my brothers growing up, laugh, cheers, swear, maybe moon the person sitting next to me while simultaneously tea-bagging them on-screen.

But who to turn to? Well, with the only adult in the house besides me being my long-suffering best friend, confidante, life partner and baby mama, it fell to my wife, Lyd, the least gamey person in the UK, to warm the pad with me.

So, with the lure of a Domino’s pizza, the opportunity to see me in my drinking helmet and the promise to not moon her, at all, even one time, I convinced her that not only should she play with me, but that she should play Alien: Isolation with me. I know: ain’t I a stinker? So against the original plan to fill the house with “lads”, I had my first gamer’s night in with my wife. It wasn’t entirely what I expected it to be.

While she usually refers to the PS4 as “that thing under the telly” (she knows what it is, but regards it almost as another woman, a rival for her affections), tonight she had to actively indulge it, a menage a tois over which HR Giger’s extra terrestrial killing machine would preside.

Within minutes she affected to look bored, but across a rather wide slab of pepperoni-laden lovliness I could tell she was impressed by the atmosphere. I was, of course, not helping, slurping lucozade through a big clear straw while gripping the pad so tightly my knuckles were white. I offered her the pad, which she glared at like I’d just dropped my trousers in Asda. “You play, I’ll supervise,” she said. “And eat.”

It didn’t take much to persuade her to feed me as my fingers rattled against the pad and I struggled to stay alive in the terrifying nightmare aboard the Sevastapol. Struggled to survive, and to keep pizza sauce off my chin.

It was around a half hour in that something magical happened. As I watched the Alien’s tail ruin Amanda Ripley’s flightsuit for the third time in five minutes, Lyd suddenly chimed in. “Try taking your time,” she said, a mite testily, I thought. “You charge everywhere, it’s going to hear you a mile off.”

“I’m not charging,” I retorted through a mouthful of bread and cheese and glory. “I’m trying to be efficient.”

“Yeah, well,” she replied, with an edge to her voice that suggested to my Obi Wan style gamer’s instinct that she was starting to GET IT, “you’re fucking it up.” Such an angel. In response I hunkered down, focused, flicking a slice of pepperoni off my chin with a questing tongue. It was on now. It was on.

“Go left,” she ordered as I headed towards yet another dark intersection, motion tracker in my trembling hand. “No,” she explained as poor Amanda Ripley was eaten once again, “the other left.”

And so it went on. After an hour or so, we approached crunch time. I knew that by now she would be getting bored guiding my sorry ass through a medium that she had little to no interest in, and I was getting frustrated with my own incompetence, my concentration not helped by the drinking helmet and bulging belt buckle.

“Give it here,” she said suddenly. “Which button makes you duck?”

I’d like to report at this point that she took to the pad like a Canadian to an ice-rink, that she displayed a supernatural competence that surpassed human understanding, that she cleared Alien: Isolation in record time. Sadly, though, that didn’t happen. She died, within minutes, and threw the controller back at me with a nonchalant shrug, before disappearing into the kitchen for more napkins. Ah well, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it survive a hostile alien menace.

We played a bit more, until the atmosphere all got too much and my suggestion to play some GTA V together and bus’ some ho’s didn’t go down too well. Still, it was worth it, just for those few minutes of bonding as she crossed over, briefly, to join me on the awesome side where us gamers reside. It may have been mostly about the pizza and the silly hat, but it was also about quality time. I enjoyed it more than she did, maybe, but it was good for us, a tent-pole moment. It didn’t convince her to become a gamer, but it did prove one thing: I’m shit at games, but I look damn good in a drinking helmet.

The post Alien Isolation: Not a Date-Night Game appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

It started right around gamescom. Like the rest of the PS4 owners out there, I had frantically downloaded P.T. (the playable teaser that eventually became the Silent Hills/Norman Reedus/Kojima/Del torro teaser) and was creeping round dark corner after horrible dark corner, wondering just what had happened to me. How had I become such a wimp? I used to love horror games, and Resident Evil 1 through 4 will forever be on my list of “best games ever” – but here, now, I can’t play this bloody game. It’s horrific.

That FOX Engine is, without question, incredibly impressive. So much so that there have been clever alterations to captured footage that shows it in a new light, looking photo-realistic. It was rightly lauded as a masterstroke in marketing, but unlike everyone else, I’ve been left wondering if I’ll be able to play Silent Hills when it eventually comes out, because it looks too real.

Back in 1996, Shinji Mikami’s glorious survival horror was the talk of the town. But at no point did anyone cry out “this looks so amazing, it’s like real life”. Sure, it looked fantastic at the time, but it didn’t look real. As much as that first Zombie encounter still gives me the willies today, even then I wasn’t fool – this was a game.

Fast forward too many years and it becomes clear to me why I enjoyed Saints Row 4 more than Grand Theft Auto V: Volition’s game is all about fun, fun, and more fun – and at no point are you ever taken out of the experience by it attempting to look or feel too realistic. And I started to wonder, is realism making games less fun?

I didn’t hate GTA V, but I didn’t love it anywhere near as much as (it seems) everyone else did. The writing didn’t do much for me, but the most jarring thing was the physics. I’ve always found GTA cumbersome to actually play, and the animations of the characters always had that uncanny valley vibe to it, and if you happened to run into a wall, the bizarre ragdoll effect is laughable, but for the wrong reasons.

As a series, GTA always delighted in the bizarre. Indeed, that Saints Row cribbed so heavily from the universe but delved deeper into crazy is telling in that both series went in very different directions. Yet I know which excites me more as a gamer. I know which one I’d rather spend an evening playing. I’m not going to pretend that GTA V is true to life, and it’s full of strange characters that add depth to (it was a great game, and scored incredibly highly across the board), but it just wasn’t for me.

Sticking with the open-world theme, inFamous Second Son comes to mind. Another game that feels hamstrung by realism, yet involves super-powers. Why can’t I climb that Seattle Space Needle whenever I want to? Why can’t I treat it like the Crackdown agency tower and have fun with it using my super powers? Put simply, because licensing. Load up Second Son or First Light and you’ll see a splash that informs you of the copyright relating to the Needle, and I’d bet that’s why you can’t climb it. Second Son’s entrenched in Seattle, the city is one of the stars of the game, yet the attempt to create a realistic digital imagining of the place is at odds with the super powers that should make the game enjoyable. Specific buildings force your character to stand atop a pointy tower (like in the Assassin’s Creed series) yet seem somehow disconnected from the world you inahabit. It’s weird.

But what about Skyrim’s Tamriel? There’s a world you want to explore. It’s as fake as my ID was purchasing that copy of Resident Evil, but it unlocks just as many pleasant memories. There’s a world you want to explore in detail, finding hidden places that only exist in this fantasy realm.

And it’s not just games that are heavily based upon exploration and territory. What about The Crew? The big selling point is that you can drive across America. In a video game, good lord, what bounteous joys you sell to me. Who cares? Why the hell do I want to traverse a huge amount of space in my car, but perhaps more importantly, if I did, how many times am I going to want to do that before I’m bored to tears. Content is more important than a vast space, so developers (and I aim this at all of you), please stop bragging about how we can reach the tree in the distance, because that means absolutely nothing to anyone but you.

All of my complaints, you’ll note, are aimed at games with a realistic bent, and I’m not saying that all games that attempt to look realistic are inherently bad. But another recent game that suffers from being pretty tedious, is Watch_Dogs. It looks pretty enough, and hurrah, a real-life Chicago, but did it live up to anywhere near the expectations we all had for it? Hacking was reduced to holding a button, yet that was surely more fun than if Ubisoft had made you have to hack a set of traffic lights in real time. It had to retain that gamey feel, or it would have been awful.

I grew up playing games at a time where they couldn’t look realistic even if they tried. Skool Daze on the spectrum looked like a piece of shit, but I never grew bored of throwing things at teachers, or writing swear words on the blackboard before scarpering to the girl’s school for further japes. Mario is (rightly) one of the best and most successful game series’ of all time, yet we don’t see Peach call the police and tell them that an intruder is trying to kidnap her for the umpteenth time – it’s just a game. In fact, platform games remain as beloved as ever, yet haven’t ever really felt the need to transition into our realm. Rayman Origins and Legends didn’t need the power of a new console to make them look incredible, and even Valiant Hearts (which used the UbiArt engine, too) ran just fine on older consoles, yet they were rightly lauded as gorgeous looking games that played as good as they looked.

There are a lot of angry people these days, but I just want to play games that let me escape into other worlds created by imaginative people who want to tell a tale of fantasy. Games can be art, but they don’t always have to be. And I don’t hate realistic looking games (I will play Gears of War any time you ask me), but I worry that, at the moment, a new-gen graphical sheen appears to be enough to satiate people, and justify a new set of consoles. I want innovation and imagination. I want to play a game and be blown away by something new, not just a shinier, better looking game on a shinier, more expensive console. Don’t you?

As always, our opinion pieces here on GodisaGeek are just the thoughts of a single writer. We’d love to hear what you think, whether you agree or disagree – so hit up that comment section, below.

The post Opinion: Is Realism Making Games Less Fun? appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

The grand halls and corridors of the Musée de l’Armée in central Paris are a fitting location for our conversation with Vincent Pontbriand, senior producer on Assassins Creed Unity. He looks at ease in these grand surroundings. “This is the first time in Paris for a lot of our team. They have been working on this game for nearly 4 years, so for them it has been quite overwhelming to see Paris for real”. Vincent now has four Assassins Creed games under his belt, giving him great perspective on the games industry as a whole. In this candid interview with GodisaGeek, he explains the reasons behind Unity’s French Revolution setting, why next-gen only and what his team have done to bring more variety to the much anticipated Assassins Creed Unity.

So, kick us off with how long you guys gave been working on Unity?

“Too long. I’ve been working on Unity since AC Brotherhood, we got to take a vacation after that game though. So that would make it January 2011, so it’s been close to four years. We got our mandate and had to figure out what that meant (for the series), the mandate was “Create the first fully online Assassins Creed”. So we decided early on that the French Revolution would be our setting, and that we wanted to bring in online co-op. That meant figuring out how we took this big sandbox, single player experience and making it work for multiple players. When we made the decision to go next-gen only, that meant bringing in extra programmers and engineers to get the work done.”

At what point in the development cycle was the decision made to go next-gen only? “Pretty early on, it was still in the first year of development. What I wanted to do was to at least have a high end PC version, with better graphics, because I started to see other games be marketed with their PC version as the lead platform. We got confirmation that next-gen hardware was right around the corner, so we said lets really connect to the next-gen, so we can get this right. That meant removing all the dead weight; remove the constraints of trying to innovate but also making a version for last gen.”

It’s a welcome decision; people are waiting for games that really harness the power of their hard earned cash! “Yes, it was also a courageous decision, in business terms, because there is still a huge market share there. But, if we are going to innovate we need to remove the weight on our shoulders of developing everything for everyone.”

So you knew early on that the setting for Unity would be Revolutionary France, Why? “AC is known for using strong pivotal moments in history, there are many of them, obviously, and not many of them could work for the gameplay, they might work in terms of the setting but you need to have cities, crowds, things that are part of the AC brand. You know I’d love to see an AC set in South America, with the Mayans, but it would be a difficult fit. Revolutionary France, specifically Paris, seemed right early on because of the city, the crowds, and the political warfare; we could fit assassins and templars in that setting. It was in our Top 10 – and a lot of people speculated on it, and they were right! We were just waiting for the right moment to do it.”

But why Paris specifically? “Obviously the French Revolution took place all over France, so we could have gone to Lyon or Montpellier, but the most interesting events took place in Paris, and, you know, it’s pretty big, so it was going to be difficult to do more than one city, so we made the decision to make Unity more like AC Brotherhood and focus on the one city, and make it big and varied enough to keep it interesting. This allowed us to be very focused. There is no need for means of transportation, wildlife, crafting and hunting.”

I know you weren’t involved with Black Flag, but tell me, did dropping the naval theme of those games make you nervous at all? Because that has been really popular with gamers. “Yes! Although we couldn’t have known how popular that setting would be with gamers, because none of those games were out when we started this project. I’ve been nervous in the past with other gameplay additions, like adding hunting and crafting to AC 3, or the Naval setting of AC Black Flag.”

“Piracy made me nervous because it is such a bold setting. When you start doing pirates, the next setting is ninjas! It’s just so big. So I was afraid, because we were going back to a truer AC series setting with the French Revolution. All of these things made me nervous, but hey, we are smart, we are still doing the naval thing with AC Rogue, still capitalising on that market.”

What have you done to add more variety to the missions? “An advantage of being very focused is that we don’t have to worry about horses or carts or boats. Our idea was to go back to that core fantasy, of being a true assassin. You know, you get your contract, you find the guy, you sneak up on him, and you kill him, that’s the core gameplay loop. We had the idea of more constrained mission areas back in AC1, better realised with high production values. What was missing back then was all the systems running in the background to make it work. What we have now is systemic gameplay, with a crowd ecosystem, which lets us have way more fun with the mission design. We saw it work really well in Far Cry, so we wanted to have missions that were dynamic, multiple ways to approach each mission, this ads replay value. We think we have included stealth, our fantasy was to stealth in, kill and stealth out. We think it is possible now, it’s hard, and people will fail at it, but it’s possible, and that was never something you could do in previous Assassins Creed games.”

Something that has always fascinated me, have they ever thought about creating an alternative vision of the future for an Assassins Creed game? I know that AC plays with history, but has an altered future ever been on the cards? “Many times, we think about it all the time. Right now our stance on this is that the closer we are to modern timeframes, the higher the expectation is that we need to be similar to other games. 20th century, even 19th century, it’s all firearms, electricity, no more sword fighting. Suddenly you become a shooter, like Watch_Dogs, Watch_Dogs is Watch_Dogs, or we become like Splinter Cell, we don’t want that, we want to be Assassins Creed. As for a future settings? That is something else entirely. One day if we do spinoffs, and we called it Alternate Creed, it could work.”

London next, then? “It has to be on the list. I would love to see a game set in England. But, well, you will have to wait and see.” And of course, we have to end with the all-important question: Where do you keep your ketchup? “In the Fridge! Although I do like room temperature ketchup…”

Thanks to Vincent for his time.

The post Interview: Assassin’s Creed Unity Senior Producer, Vincent Pontbriand appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Apple released iOS 8 to the world a few weeks ago, and as with any iOS release, app developers rush to get their app updates out. With iOS 7, tons of big name apps had redesigns ready from the get go and with iOS 8, the same apps get supercharged functionality wise. iOS 8 brings proper inter app communication and the implementation is great. There’s no crowding of unneeded services every time to try and share something here. Notification Center widgets and support for Touch ID in third party apps are the other two notable features iOS 8 brought to end users. These are some of my favourite iOS 8 app updates.

1Password 5

Security on the internet is the most important aspect of your digital life. Far too many people reuse passwords or have simple passwords that are easy to remember. Things need to change. Two-Step authentication on every account you have is a must. Here’s a handy list of services that offer two step authentication. 1Password is the best password manager out there. In version 5 it adds support to unlock using Touch ID or your master password and has a new mobile Safari widget that lets you login to your sites with ease. The app is available for free on the App Store with an optional in app purchase for certain pro features.

Breaking News+

Chances are your local news source has an app on iOS. I’ve tried quite a few news apps on iOS but Breaking News+ by NBC has the best design and functionality. With iOS 8 it gets a today widget that has the latest headlines and topics. The app is more polished than most apps you will use. The colours used are great, and you can customize it to tailor to your favourite topics.

PCalc and PCalc Lite

Having quick access to a calculator is great. iOS 7 let you access it in one swipe for control centre followed by tapping the calculator icon at the bottom. With iOS 8 and widgets, the most popular calculator app, PCalc received a huge update. This update brings a widget that is accessible in your notification center at all times. It is super convenient and looks great. The app itself has set the bar high for calculator apps in general. I love the auto theme change based on location and sunset. PCalc Lite is available for free on the App Store and PCalc is available for £6.99 on the App Store. Both apps are universal.

Banca – All Currency Converter

Banca is not just a great looking currency converter but thanks to the widget, it also lets you get conversions done incredibly fast. You just need to copy text that has a currency mentioned and swipe down notification center. The widget has the conversion ready. The widget can be expanded to display other conversions as well and the result can be tapped to copy to clipboard. The implementation is really great. I love how it works even if you copy extra content like how Amazon displays “and free shipping” after the price. Banca is available for $1.99/£1.49 and it is a universal app.

Mikhail is what we’d consider an expert on mobile apps, but (like him) we’re always happy to hear what you think. Use an app you think is better for the given task? Sound off in the comments below.

The post Five Apps You Should Consider Grabbing This Week (6/10/14) appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

We’re approaching the Christmas rush, the period where every week sees several new releases, many of them triple A. Of course you’ve got you CoDs and your Assassin’s Creeds, but this season also sees several new racers coming out for the new generation, a genre that has so far been pretty neglected.

One of the hottest new titles is Project CARS, a thoroughbred PC racing sim brought to PS4, Xbox One and at some point Wii U. We got a chance to ask the game’s Creative Director Andy Tudor some questions.

Towards the end of the year there’s a glut of driving games coming out, DriveClub, The Crew etc. What sets Project CARS above the rest?

 “All those other titles are in the arcade/action space so have a free-roaming world or involve you sliding around corners or engaging in chaotic battle. Project CARS is the most realistic, the most authentic, and the most immersive racing game out there and puts you in the shoes of a driver that is free to forge their own career path from any of the many motorsports on offer. It has the largest track roster of any recent racing game, it’s the most technically-advanced too playable at 12K resolution and supporting virtual reality via Oculus Rift and Project Morpheus, and it’s been made by players like yourselves that have been guiding the game and its features for almost three years now.

”

One thing that seems obvious to anyone, is that Project CARS is jaw-droppingly beautiful, but so are a lot of other racing sims. Sometimes though it feels like the graphics and drive for realism take precedence over the on track action. Do you thing you’ve found a good balance between the two?

“
With Project CARS we’ve crossed the uncanny valley now and the game looks photo-real in some instances but yes as you say, graphics across all games are good nowadays which is why we always make sure that whatever feature we put into the game not only falls into the Best In Class category (eg. how we’ve approached weather for example) but is also Innovative and offers significant extra gameplay or immersion. In the case of weather therefore we made sure it was dynamic so it can change at any minute in the player’s gameplay. And we’ve provided a race engineer that can pre-warn you of that as well as offering other insight. And we’ve included fully-animated pit stops that allow you to adapt to your new conditions along with refuelling and fixing damage that can impact the performance and handling of your car. So we’re constantly thinking of gameplay therefore over just ‘making something look pretty’ although as you say, Project CARS does indeed look stunning.

”

With so many different types of car, are you confident that the quality across them matches?

 “Yes. Ha, it’s as simple as that. All cars are treated equally since we all have different passions for different motorsports and car cultures. And we ensure they all feel authentic to real life and different to each other also. So stepping into the cockpit of a single-seater open-wheel car feels very different to the luxury of a road-going saloon.

”

Obviously a major aspect of Project CARS is crowd-funding. How have you found the constant fan feedback on the game? Has it been a joy, or have some moments been more like designing by committee?

“A joy. We couldn’t have made the game without the community. Usually you only get that kind of player feedback near the end of the game when you’re in the ‘marketing mode’ of trying to tell people about your game and sell them on it and usually it’s too late by then for them to make key differences. With Project CARS though we’ve had almost three years of that throughout so there’s a huge confidence level there that what we’ve been making is something that the fans really want and has all the features and polish that they expect and hope for in a game like this.

”

You seem to have managed the crowdfunding element well, despite some issues towards the end of 2012. Recently though there’s been a several Kickstarters that have imploded –Yogventures most infamously– was there any point where you feared this might happen to you, or has controlling funding directly with World of Mass Development allowed you to find the limits of your ambition?

“Whilst we can’t comment on how other teams manage their projects, we can say though that we’ve been doing this for years. We’ve been making games for over 10 years now and the team are very experienced in both the skills needed for games creation and the discipline of time management and scheduling so that pedigree we bring from all that time has definitely been an advantage and helped us stay on track compared to others that are newer to the games-making experience.

 ”

How has it been getting all the licences for the game? It must be hard enough for a single discipline, but you have so many, as well as all of the tracks.

“As I said, we’ve been making games for a very long time so we have good relationships with a number of manufacturers and license holders. Plus, the quality of our previous games shines through and our dedication and attention to detail are things those guys appreciate and know therefore that we’ll represent their car or location perfectly.

How’s work on the Wii U version coming along? It’s unusual for a driving sim of this kind to make it’s way to a Nintendo console – Mario Kart is more the norm.

“Absolutely. There’s a massive gap for a game like Project CARS there and the Nintendo fans we’ve heard from are looking forward to it so please bear with us a little longer whilst we get it up to the same high standards we’ve set for the Xbox One and PS4 versions.

”

What would you say is the ‘best’ way to play the game? Is it with an Oculus Rift and a steering wheel, a 4k display, or is it just a fun with a pad on the living room sofa?

“There’s no ‘one true way’ I don’t think. Project CARS is very much a ‘simulator’ and for the hardcore guys that are into sim racing they’re not going to be disappointed – it’s extremely authentic, has an ethos that has been based in the sim racing culture of our past and our WMD community, and has support and features in there that those guys both expect and want. So whilst they’ll be happy playing on PC with a triple-screen set up and a race rig of steering wheel and pedals, equally you can pop in the PS4 disc and sit back on your couch with a DualShock 4 and play the game too. And that kind of accessibility comes from our previous Need For Speed SHIFT series where we want a casual gamer to be able to dial the handling model, the assists, the onscreen guides, the AI difficulty etc.. to something they feel comfortable with and have a great time. That doesn’t mean the game is ‘simcade’ or ‘dumbed down’ it just means it’s playable by everyone without sacrificing anything.”

We’d like to thank Andy for his time, and Bandai Namco for arranging the interview.

The post Project Cars: An Interview with Creative Director, Andy Tudor appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.