Name: The Darwin Project Developer: Scavenger Studios Publisher: Scavenger Studios, Microsoft Released: Spring 2018 Platforms: Xbox One, PC Reviewed on: PC Acquired: *A copy of this game was provided from publisher for preview purpose*
Scavenger Studios had an early-alpha weekend for their upcoming game The Darwin Project, as it sounds like PUBG meets science and environmental survival I was eager to give it a try!
Sunrise
Graphics
The game looks pretty good, considering it’s in pre-alpha stage. Generally the same style as Overwatch, at least when it comes to the textures and character modelling. I hope they can make the style a little more their own by the time they release the full version, but this is a great start indeed! I must say I did see some graphical glitches here and there, with the running animation suddenly giving my character very long legs and stuff. But none were gamebreaking, other than I started laughing and then got killed because I wasn’t looking at the screen, that is an excellent excuse for why I rarely won though.
7/10
Gameplay
The gameplay too worked surprisingly well. During my time with the pre-alpha I couldn’t find any tutorial, but luckily all the game mechanics are rather easy to learn (but hard to master). I did find the axe-attack to be a bit too powerful when compared to the archery. And the freezing factor was a bit too aggressive, as I almost constantly found myself almost dying of coldness. All of that being said, I still found the game an enormous amount of fun! The fact that everyone starts out as single players, but then are able to ally with other players works really well, and allows for different tactics to be in play at once. I usually stayed by myself, as I kept being backstabbed the few times I tried to ally with someone. Obviously not the game’s fault, but if the developers could tweak the alliances to be more worthwhile, it would improve that aspect of the game massively.
8/10
I’m totally Legolas
Controls
The controls in the game were quite standard when it comes to layout. I am pleasantly surprised by how smooth the steering was when aiming or looking around with the mouse. It still needs some tweaking of course, but given this was an early alpha build, I can forgive the few quirks I found.
7/10
Replay Value
Joy oh joy! Luckily, I can announce that The Darwin Project has an enormous replay value! It has that “just one more round” feel to it, which is horrible for my sleep, but great for the game. The wait between matches were too long though, and that keeps it from a top score, I did find myself often thinking “I don’t want to wait 15+ minutes until the next match, so I might as well turn in for the night”. This obviously has to do with the fact that it was an alpha-weekend, and it will be much better once the game releases and has a bigger community.
Name:Sonic Forces Developer: Sonic Team Publisher: Sega Released: 07.11.2017 Platforms: PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch Reviewed on: PlayStation 4 Acquired: A copy of this game was provided from publisher for review purpose
Being a SEGA-kid when I was younger, Sonic was pretty much the coolest thing around! But as we all know 3D hasn’t been kind to the blue hedgehog (I’m looking at you Sonic 06). Maybe this could be the game to make 3D-Sonic look good again?
Story
The game starts out as usual with Sonic needing to defeat Dr. Robotnik, (I refuse to call him Eggman) and stop his evil plans. However, as Sonic finds out, Dr. Robotnik has recruited Metal Sonic, Chaos, Zavok and Shadow the Hedgehog as well as Infinite, the new villain (who’s basically an extra emo version of Shadow), which proves to be too much even for him, and he is taken hostage.
Six months pass and Dr. Robotnik has now conquered the world. And Sonic is still nowhere to be found. Luckily the player’s avatar “Rookie” is around to help and together with Sonic’s friends the battle starts!
The story itself starts out really good, even if it’s very non-Sonic. It’s cool to be the underdog for once, but I wish it had bigger consequences than it has. I never got the feeling of being the underdog, other than a bar that shows up occasionally to tell me what the status in the world is now. Another problem with the story is how short it is. I played maybe a total of four hours, and have done pretty much everything, except finding every red ring and getting “S” on every stage. I did enjoy the story though and it was cool to see how my avatar became a part of the Sonic gang during the game.
6/10
Graphics
I’m honestly quite surprised by how the graphics look. Even more so when the in-game graphics looks better than the cinematic scenes. Luckily we’re not back to the “realistic” graphics from 06, as the game has sort of a Pixar-y feel to it. Knuckles is also back to his old self, not being the “buff-bro-Knuckles” he was for a while. Generally speaking I find Sonic’s new style good, even if it could be improved in the cutscenes.
8/10
Gameplay
The gameplay and I have a love/hate relationship. Sometimes the gameplay is extremely good, but then there are some stages where it bugs out when you go too fast (it’s Sonic, you’re supposed to go fast, SEGA…). There’s also the stages where you need to wait for stuff to clear out of the way, which makes the next jump impossible to clear without backtracking to get a run-up. If the developers patches some of the worst bugs, the gameplay could definitely be up around a eight or nine.
However, when we come to the boss fights the game is extremely repetitive and a bit boring. It’s always the same formula, get out of the way of stuff the boss throws at you and the press X when the green circle appears. The boss fights are also way too easy, even though I played on the “hard” difficulty, which honestly both sounds and feels like a normal setting should, I never died during a bossfight.
6/10
Controls
As we have three different characters to play as I will give a short summary of each, as they all have different controls and physics.
Classic Sonic is quite horrible to steer I’m sorry to say. He’s slow and unresponsive. With several jumps being almost impossible to do if you’ve stopped before the end of the platform. I found myself needing to stop and wait for different traps to deactivate, but then I often enden up not making the jump afterwards. This is just wrong when you are supposed to roll around at the speed of sound.
Modern Sonic is too floaty, but at least he’s fast! It’s still a bit too much “press X to go to the next object that’s highlighted”, but it’s familiar and it works as a mechanic to get into a flow and clear stages fast.
Lastly, my avatar is by far the best to steer. Understandably, Sonic Team has focused mainly on (in this case) her, since she’s a newcomer and might be someone’s first proper introduction to the Sonic series. She also suffers a bit from the “press X”-syndrome, but as she has a Wispon for firing at enemies she has the possibility to kill them without jumping on them.
5/10
Replay Value
I’m not sure how to set a score for the replayability. On one hand I did play every stage a few times to improve my score/find more red rings. On the other hand you probably won’t have the urge to replay the story. Then again, Sonic is mostly about the stages and not the story, so I’ll allow the stages to be a tiny bit more important than the story.
An all new season of For Honor named, Order & Havoc kicks off tomorrow (14, November) on all platforms. A brand new 4v4 tribute mode, two new heroes, two extra maps, new customization items and ranked 4v4 Dominion play will be released during this season.
• New Team Based Modes – Tribute mode introduces a new objective-based mode to For Honor. Players will fight for control of three distinct Offerings placed throughout the map. Finding and securing those Offerings at their teams’ designated Shrine awards unique team wide buffs, forcing players to make strategic choices on where to place their Offerings. In addition to Tribute, For Honor competitive play will continue to grow with the introduction of Ranked Dominion mode later on within the season. Players will be able to team up with friends to compete in online Dominion matches for a chance to win in-game rewards.
• New Heroes – Rounding out the Samurai and Viking factions, the Aramusha (Samurai Hybrid) and Shaman (Viking Assassin) join the fray. The Aramusha capitalize on the mistakes of their opponents and punish them with a never ending flow of fast attacks in every direction. The Shaman are fierce and aggressive warriors who are strongest when on the offensive. Pouncing on their opponents like wild beasts, they become more deadly as their opponents bleed out onto the battlefield.
• New Maps – Market Town and The Gauntlet join the selection of multiplayer maps. A Samurai village, Market Town is a densely populated maze of twisting alleys. The stilt houses sit above the water, and necessitate a push skyward, creating multi-tiered neighborhoods at varying elevations. Players can navigate the vertical maps through a system of zip lines throughout the map. The Gauntlet represents the Viking Capital, an imposing fortress perched high on a hill, protected by a defensive gauntlet. Few have made their way into the Viking citadel, none have made it back out.
Brendan “Playerunknown” Greene, the mastermind behind what might be the greatest game-phenomenons of 2017, has provided a deeper look into the new map for PlayerUnknown’s Battleground.
In the pictures, published by Greene on Twitter, we can, among other things, see a prison and loads of skyscrapers. As you can see from the pictures below, the map also includes lots of rocky terrain, which allows excellent places for hiding and setting up traps. With PUBG soon to include climbing and vaulting, it will be way easier to get up these rocks.
Developer, Bluehole, has yet to confirm when the new map will be available, but it seems likely we will be allowed to try it out sometime later this year, as Greene earlier has said he expects the map to be ready sometime before the full release, which will happen in December.
You can read our early review of PlayerUnknown’s here.
One of the weirdest quirks in the original L.A. Noire was the way Detective Phelps acted when players chose “doubt” in the “truth/doubt/lie”-options. It sort of made him look like a raging psychopath. For the remastered version, publisher Rockstar has changed those options entirely.
Evident in the new trailer for the Switch version, which comes out 14th of November, alongside the PS4 and Xbox One versions, your options during an interrogation are now “Good cop”, “Bad cop”, and “Accuse”. Rockstar has confirmed that this change applies to all versions of the remake, saying;
“The change was made so that the options more accurately reflect Phelps’ behavior when a player selects each choice”
Name: Call of Duty: WWII Developer: Sledgehammer Games, Raven Publisher: Activision Released: 03. November 2017 Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC Reviewed on: PlayStation 4 Pro Acquired: A copy of this game was provided from publisher for review purpose
Sledgehammer Games have fronted their next Call of Duty game a lot with going back to the roots. The question is, have they succeeded? Call of Duty: WWII is a large game with a lot of different content from different developers, so that means my overall score of this years Call of Duty depends on what each of them can deliver and sum things up. Was the Campaign, Multiplayer or Nazi Zombies enough alone to be worth your time and money?
Campaign
Story
Hopefully you already have some knowledge about the second world war, so the thin red line speaks for itself. But as many world war two movies and games, we follow a small group of people who experience a few events during this war. Call of Duty: WWII brings us at the “beginning of the end” (D-Day) where we take control of Private “Red” Daniels, a member of the America’s First Infantry Division (The Bloody 1st).
You’ll get to experience some of the biggest battles that occurred during WW2, such as D-Day, Battle of the Bulge and the liberation of Paris. And unlike the other Call of Duty titles, our protagonist has his own voice and characterized. (Animated, voice acted, own personality etc) But I can’t say that “Red” steals the most attention during the campaign, even though it makes it much easier to relate to the character as he’s voice acted and animated.
As we progress throughout the story, we’ll get to know our squadmates at lot better and get the sense of a particularly phrase known from WWII; “soldiers fight for the soldier at their side”.
Red’s relationships with his teammates proves to be a strong emotional drive, and a lot of conflicts as well. The Nazi’s might be the main bad guy here, but the antagonist might be your own Sergeant Pierson who might be a little “douchebag” and taking a few unnecessary risks. They really attempt to reach out to your feelings with diverse missions in Call of Duty: WWII, and they almost achieved this with a few missions. But I can’t get this feeling away that Sledgehammer might have missed an excellent opportunity here. 6/10
Graphics
One thing is certain that Sledgehammer has “nailed” completely, and that is the overall graphics in the campaign. The game looks horrorfying in a good way. From the basic character modeling, facial animations, environmental scenes to diverse soundtrack, I’m actually speechless of what they have achieved here. 10/10
Gameplay
One key difference this year is that you’ll need to collect health packages to restore health. You can’t go to cover and wait it out and then rush out in the action. But then again the access for health packages could have been a little bit decreased, as I always find myself with plenty of packages, either from locating it from the ground or given by Zussman (one of your teammates).
The last part there is also a new part of the game; Squad Support. Each member of your squad have different “abilities”., one to give you health packages, one for ammo, one can spot nearby enemies, mortar strike and grenade ammo pack. So you’re pretty much unstoppable when it comes to resources, if you use it right. It actually felt like your teammates had some uses that mattered and not just barking out orders. (Even though they depend on you all the time with opening doors etc.). You will encounter a few “quick events”, and some of them might be a little frustrating as the small design / colours might be a little difficult to notice if you have poor eyesight like me.
The missions itself might not be an revolutionary ones, but they do include a nice variety of stealth, head on combat, intriguing cutscenes, missions with different kinds of vehicles such as planes, tanks and jeeps. One mission called “Liberation” really stood out from previous Call of Duty games, combined stealth and covert puzzles while you’re undercover inside a German building really got my adrenaline up. (Especially when I had to remember my alias) 8/10
Controls
You’re probably a Call of Duty fan if you read through this review. There is no change in how you control “your soldier”. But with the newly added vehicles that you can control might be another story. I found the controls of steering the different vehicles clumsy, the tank didn’t always go the way I wanted and the jeeps & planes did feel like I was controlling a brick. 8/10
Replay Value
If you have played through the campaign on either “Easy” or Normal, you could try playing the campaign again on “Veteran” difficulty. And there are 33 mementos to collect. But I don’t think this is enough to keep players coming back to play the story once more. Then again, Call of Duty games haven’t had one hundred percent focus on the story before. 5/10
“Score Campaign” 7.5 / 10
Multiplayer
Graphics
I’m not sure what they have done with the graphics on the multiplayer mode. Because after you’ve finished the campaign and head out for the multiplayer everything just felt like a set back. Colours looks more faded out, even blurry on some objects. The diverse map design is “easy” made and it doesn’t look like they added the same love here as they did in the story. I’m not saying it looks terrible, but I must say I was a little disappointed. 7/10
Gameplay
Before you start your journey to first prestige you’ll enter the new social hub for Call of Duty: WWII; Headquarters. Here you can pick up different type of contracts and challenges, test out new weapons on the firing range, face another player in 1v1 match. You can also play old Activision games if you can find the arcade machines. You’re also encouraged to interact with other players like commending players or opening supply drops in front of others, this can give some experience as well.
Speaking of Supply Drops and those “bloody” microtransactions, they actually handle this great in WWII for now. It is easy to earn different types of Supply Drops by doing challenges, contracts, leveling up and random drop in “aftermatch”. You can, of course, use real money to buy “COD Points” (but this won’t be added before 14, November). Similar to Modern Warfare Remastered you can exchange items that you do not want towards that you do want.
You got all the original Call of Duty modes such as Team Deathmatch, Search & Destroy, Hardpoint etc. But the new mode called “War” is a lot of fun to participate in.
This mode gave me the opportunity to explore different types of approaches, strategies and divisions which is a nice change of pace in Call of Duty. Sadly there is only three different maps available in this mode (Operation Breakout, Operation Griffin and Operation Neptune). Even though Operation Neptune is historically correct with the germans having the advantages, it is clearly unbalanced and sucks the fun out of the mode. (Unless your entire team is snipers)
While the war mode only includes three maps, the original multiplayer doesn’t have a lot more maps as well with only nine maps. And the design on each map is kind of small, it creates a fast paced gameplay, but then again it won’t give the player a “break” and might turn the feeling into exhaustion rather than enjoyment. One other problem I encountered with the map design is that I couldn’t achieve the high scorestreaks during a match. The points to achieve the diverse scorestreaks are incredible high compared to previous Call of Duty games, this gave me an extra challenge and frustration to achieve as the map design is small and constantly in a fight. (I died a lot) 7/10
Replay Value
The multiplayer does give a few replay value topics. Trying to unlock every camouflage, unlocking every weapon & attachments, going prestige, improve your statistics on leaderboards and a lot more. You might fall of the track a bit, as it might be a little generic with the lack of variation in maps and map design though. 8/10
“Multiplayer Score 7.5 /10”
Nazi Zombies
Mission
We’re getting a small brief of the story throughout a creepy prologue before we head out to the main area The Final Reich. As we embark on the chilling, dark and mysterious journey through snowy Bavarian village in Mittelburg, Germany with an all star cast from Ving Rhames, Katheryn Winnick and David Tennant. Our heroes must retrieve stolen art that was stolen by the Axis during the war and rescue one of the characters brother. The story itself is interesting and the mysteries The Final Reich has keeps me wanting for more after you defeat the final boss. (The final boss is not the endgame). 9/10
Graphics
Nazi Zombies mode do not experience the same issue as with the multiplayer does compared to the campaign mode. The zombies looks horrorfying and incredible ugly… but the whole setting, mood lightning, map design, and a lot of smaller details is pretty visible that this has gone through some love and dedication. 10/10
Gameplay
The most important thing is as always, the gameplay. What is new with Sledgehammers copy of Treyarch’s Nazi Zombies mode? Well there is a lot of things that is similar, but there is also a lot of new and different things. You no longer have to focus on boarding up your windows, as the zombies pop up right in front you from the ground making you scream like a little girl. And if you really can’t stop screaming like a girl, try to resist screaming while a fast paced zombie runs towards you from a crowd of “regular” zombies while your ammunition runs out.
You can now, as in regular multiplayer mode, create loadouts, weapon kits and set consumables before you head out to face the undead. You can now choose to start with something else than the original M1911 pistol, not saying you can go all blazing from round one but starting with a machine pistol might give an advantage. What do I prefer to start with? Well, I love to start with the shovel, I actually prefer to use this up until round three or four to save my points for greater weapons and perks. One other new thing is that players can now choose from different special abilities to their loadouts. Such as camouflage, free fire and shock shell. Each of them has their own set of mods that can be attached, and this gives the players to think extra on their strategy as it provides a lot of support. I like to use the camouflage ability combined with reviving skills and other medical uses, as this gives advantage to revive teammates as the undead won’t attack me while this is active.
Throughout the rounds you’ll have to complete diverse missions to progress towards the final boss, each of them is challenging but manageable with teamwork. Remember, even if you defeat the final boss and get the final cutscene there is a lot of easter eggs and other mysteries to discover so don’t give up. The map might seem little at first, but be aware the map is large in scale and pretty much awesome. It’s dense and connected through neat underground path systems, and if you’re in a hurry you might want to remember where you ran, as it’s quite a maze down there. 9/10
Replay Value
Like in the multiplayer mode there is a lot of things you can unlock from weapons, perks etc. You can always try to defeat your total round score, but there is also a lot of mysteries and easter eggs to discover as well. But then again playing this mode and discovering these easter eggs and mysteries requires teamwork, and if you’re a lone wolf it might take some while to find a random team online who actually plays through the tasks and provides teamwork. 9/10
More than a year after its start on 21 October last year, the voice actor strike is officially over. The agreement was reached after the members of the Screen Actors Guild‐American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) voted to approve the tentative agreement from September.
The strike started in October last year due to voice actors demands to be fairly compensated for their hard work. Primarily the issues were insufficient rules for vocally stressful work, lack of transparency in contracts and the industry’s lack of «residuals» (bonus payment based on how well the game does).
The impact of the strike most likely won’t be felt for a while due to the long development time of AAA games, but the lack of Ashly Burch in the recent Life is Strange: Before the Storm has been sorely felt.
The agreement reached between SAG-AFTRA and the developers and publishers does not include residuals, nor adequate protection from vocal strain/stress and has been criticized by some members of the union. It does include some terms about the transparency of contracts such as the inclusion of code names, genre, franchises or pre-existing characters, as well as profanity, slurs, stunts and other special cases.
Only 10% of SAG-AFTRA’s members voted on the agreement on the 7th of November, but of these 90% voted in favor.
Activision’s Call of Duty: WWII has surpassed more than $500 million in sell-through worldwide in its first three days of release, topping popular theatrical box office openings Thor: Ragnarok and Wonder Woman combined, according to company estimates.
On PlayStation 4 Call of Duty: WWII set a record as the best-selling digital full game by units sold on its first day of availability. Overall unit sales at launch doubled year-over-year globally.
Figures include Call of Duty: WWII retail and digital sell-through, and reported movie sales, each for the opening three-days following initial launch, according to publicly-available data, retail customer sell-through information and internal Activision estimates. Digital downloads of Call of Duty: WWII is based on unit sell-through on first day of availability.
Figures include Call of Duty: WWII retail and digital sell-through, and reported movie sales, each for the opening three-days following initial launch, according to publicly-available data, retail customer sell-through information and internal Activision estimates. Digital downloads of Call of Duty: WWII is based on unit sell-through on first day of availability.
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The gripping, personal narrative, boots-on-the-ground multiplayer and terrifying nazi zombies mode attracted players worldwide resulting in the highest total connected users on current generation consoles and PC in Call of Duty history.
We challenged our players to get their squads back together and they answered the call, with the highest number of players we’ve ever seen on current gen consoles and PC, Call of Duty: WWII returns the franchise to its roots and the results are incredible, selling twice as many units in its opening weekend as last year, and setting the day one record for full-game downloads on PlayStation 4. Our $500 million opening weekend was not only bigger than Thor: Ragnarok’s, it was bigger than the opening weekends of both Thor and Wonder Woman combined. And we’re committed to supporting the community with continuous improvements and new content.
said Eric Hirshberg, CEO of Activision.
In a post on their website Niantic Labs – the studio behind PokémonGO – announced their next project: Harry Potter: Wizards unite. The studio promises the magic of Harry Potter combined with the AR technology that integrated Pokémon with the real world.
Niantic will cooperate with Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and their San Francisco studio to «pioneer all new technology and gameplay mechanics.» They promise to introduce wonder into the world around you with spells, legendary creatures and characters from the Harry Potter universe and release is set for some time in 2018.
Maybe this will be the game that finally gets all us nerds outside? Maybe we will all be waving our phones around and shouting spells this time next year? I, for one, am looking forward to finally using this time turner and wand I have lying around for something useful.
Obsidian Entertainment, the studio behind classic games like Fallout: New Vegas and Knights of The Old Republic II as well as newer titles like South Park: The Stick of Truth and Pillars of Eternity, teased yet another game on their twitter yesterday.
Obsidian is known for their proficiency in RPG storytelling and have created some of the most critically acclaimed RPG’s of the last decade, but very little information has been revealed about the latest project.
However, rumor has it Obsidian is working on a third person RPG on cooperation with some «big name partner». Could it be another Fallout tie-in? New Vegas was announced the year after the release of Fallout 3 and it’s been about a year since Fallout 4 after all.
Another possibility is a sequel to the 2010 spy-thriller RPG Alpha Protocol. Feargus Urquhart, CEO of Obsidian Entertainment, mentioned in September that it was the game he most wanted to work on a sequel to and the studio is positive to the idea. The IP is owned by SEGA who said in 2010 that there would be no sequel, citing low sales despite the «brilliant concept». Maybe SEGA has changed their mind?
Finally, it’s looking like it will be a good couple of years for the Star Wars franchise after Disney’s acquisition and the new movies. Does this mean Obsidian will finally be allowed to work on Knights of The Old Republic III?
We know very little, but expecting an excellent story-driven RPG from Obsidian is probably a safe bet.
