To celebrate the launch of Call of Duty: Ghosts on the next generation consoles, Activision are starting the Next-Gen Launch Double XP Weekend today. From Friday, November 29th (6pm GMT) through to Monday, December 2nd (6pm GMT), players on Xbox One and PlayStation 4 will earn twice the amount of XP on all of their Multiplayer actions.
NAMCO BANDAI Games Europe has today announced that ONE PIECE: ROMANCE DAWN for the Nintendo 3DS handheld system is now available at retailers and via digital download on Nintendo e-Shop for the UK. Developed by Three Rings Inc., ONE PIECE: ROMANCE DAWN will offer gamers an amazing action/RPG following the authentic storyline created by Eiichiiro Oda.
In ONE PIECE: ROMANCE DAWN, soon-to-become pirates will re-live all of ONE PIECE epic fights against vile bosses such as BUGGY, ARLONG, CROCODILE, MAGELLAN, AKAINU and much more. In this new RPG, ONE PIECE fans will sail through a stunningly-drawn 3D World and fight along with LUFFY and the Straw-Hat Crew members! Their odyssey will be unlike anything they have been through before: friendship, sailing, battles, tears of joy and sadness, long battles and much more.
Players will enjoy a new adventure where they get to level-up their favourite characters, customise and craft items! On top of that, strategic minds will have to prove themselves with the new ‘Grand Tactical Battle’ feature. Following this new feature, the ‘Grand Chain’ will let experienced players unleash their power and connect multiple special attacks together! As in every Pirate adventures, you will need to make decisive choices: players will have to react quickly and smartly in order to decide their own path by pressing the right button at the right time!
“ONE PIECE: ROMANCE DAWN is bringing a fully new experience as it is the very first ONE PIECE RPG game to stay faithful to Eiichiiro Oda’s piece of art!” said Mathieu Piau, EMEA Marketing Director, NAMCO BANDAI Games Europe. “Full of new features, this RPG is clearly a thrilling adventure where you will be the hero, as a fan, you clearly can’t miss this opportunity to shine!”
For the latest news and updates, please visit http://www.NamcoBandaiGames.eu. .
Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and DC Entertainment today released Injustice: Gods Among Us Ultimate Edition across Europe. Developed by NetherRealm Studios, Injustice: Gods Among Us Ultimate Edition marks the debut of the best-selling fighting game franchise on the PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita and Windows PC, and also brings this content rich version to the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
Packed with material valued at more than £79.00 Injustice: Gods Among Us Ultimate Edition is comprised of the full game, as well as all previously released downloadable content (DLC). The game has a suggested retail price of £44.99 for PS4, £29.99 for PS3, Xbox 360 and Windows PC and £34.99 for PS Vita.
Originally released April 2013 for PS3 system and Xbox 360, Injustice: Gods Among Us is a bold new fighting game franchise that introduces a deep, original story featuring a large cast of favourite DC Comics icons such as Batman, The Joker, Green Arrow, Superman, The Flash, Wonder Woman and many others. Injustice: Gods Among Us Ultimate Edition features additional DC Comics icons Lobo, Batgirl, General Zod, Martian Manhunter and Zatanna, as well as a special guest character Scorpion, from the Mortal Kombat Franchise as reimagined by Jim Lee, Co-Publisher at DC Entertainment.
Fans will enjoy access to more than 40 extra character skins and 60 S.T.A.R. Labs Missions originally offered as DLC, and now available to players from the start of the game. Also packaged with the Americas version is the music soundtrack featuring an exclusive song from Jane’s Addiction titled “Another Soulmate” and 11 songs from popular artists ranging from Depeche Mode to AWOLNATION.
Remastered for next-gen technology by High Voltage, the PS4™ system version features Touchpad functionality, video sharing and streaming, and links to players’ PlayStation® Network Feed page during match wrap-ups and pause menus. High Voltage worked with NetherRealm Studios to develop the PC version of the game.
The PS Vita version, which is adapted for the handheld experience by Armature Studio, takes the fighting action of Injustice: Gods Among Us on the go, with new touch controls for mini-games in the story mode and S.T.A.R. Labs Missions, Ad-hoc and Wi-Fi multiplayer, collectible hero cards, and all DLC released to date.
NAMCO BANDAI Games Europe today announced that POWER RANGERS MEGAFORCE for the Nintendo 3DS is now available at retailers and via digital download on Nintendo e-Shop for Europe and Australasia. Developed by NAMCO BANDAI, the latest installment of the Power Rangers video game series, based on Saban Brands’ show, Power Rangers Megaforce, will allow players to defend Earth against the evil Warstar aliens who are threatening to overtake the entire planet!
In POWER RANGERS MEGAFORCE, young players will level-up their characters and join MEGA battles against the most dangerous villains Earth has ever encountered! To dive even deeper into this epic fight, each gamer can use their Nintendo 3DS Camera to take a picture of themself and watch as they morph into their favourite Power Ranger Megaforce to join the action on this brand new 3D Side-Scrolling action game. The Power Rangers experience is even bigger in this game; fans can scan official Power Rangers Cards to unlock collectibles items and power-ups to enhance their favourite Ranger! To celebrate the 20th Anniversary of the franchise, young Rangers can unlock the amazing Mighty Morphin Power Rangers skins and equip them in order to fight their enemies in an old-school way!
“With its exclusive cross-media experience and the ability to scan Official Power Rangers Cards to unlock new items & power-ups in the game, Power Rangers Megaforce offers a great experience for all fans of the franchise!” said Mathieu PIAU, EMEA Marketing Director at NAMCO BANDAI Games Europe. “But it doesn’t stop there as players can virtually join their favourite heroes in the game by morphing themselves into their favourite Ranger and defeat the vile and fierce Warstar aliens!”
Power Rangers Megaforce is now available across Europe and Australasia.
Young Justice: Legacy for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 is now available at retailers across Europe and Australasia. Published by LITTLE ORBIT, the latest Action-RPG game based on the Comics franchise will allow younger players to embody their favourite Young Superheroes!
Being Robin, Nightwing, Super Boy, Batgirl & their friends is finally possible throughout this new game and its 3 different modes: Solo, Multiplayer & Co-op! Players will be able to master multiple combos in order to beat vile foes such as Bane, Lex Luthor and their fellow men!
To make all the fans happy, Young Justice: Legacy covers two seasons from the show and stays very close to it: original voices from the anime are included in the game.
Personally WWE isn’t for me. I’m a UFC man really. But the elaborate moves and huge variety in match rules do fit incredibly well into a video game. I’ve often found a surprising amount of fun to be had with WWE games and so I was actually quite excited to get on WWE 2K14.
From the main menu there are only a few options available to you. You can play single matches under pretty much any rules you want from WWE. Or you can dive into “30 Years of Wrestlemania” mode which is WWE’s replacement for a career mode. As the name suggests, you will travel through time and play, what I assume are, the greatest moments in Wrestlemania.
You will be given objectives that coincide with whatever happen during that iconic moment. Which is all well and good but can also be very irritating. In the second match you will need to get your opponent to critical health, body slam them and then escape a cage. What’s irritating is when you’ve performed the body slam and you get floored and your opponent escapes. Fail. Restart.
I admit I’m not very good at WWE but the amount of times I had to sit and watch while I failed is just ridiculous. Loss of control is probably the single most frustrating thing that can happen in any video game. Especially when you can see your objective slowly, sarcastically get away. And it’s a theme that is carried through the entire game. A good 80% of the time there is absolutely no input required what so ever.
That being said the control system is numbingly basic. The only feature I liked was the ability to quickly bring up an onscreen prompt to decide which part of your opponent to damage during a grab. Basic attack is on ‘square’ and grabs are entirely performed with ‘X’. That’s about it. But it really doesn’t matter because if you can’t master reversals you’re not going to win. At all. At the appropriate time pressing ‘R2’ will reverse your opponents move and put you back on top. A tutorial of some sort would have helped when learning the ropes but unfortunately there isn’t one at all.
Personally I found the timing of the counters to be far too specific. A prompt will come up on your wrestler’s head indicating when you need to press the button. But it doesn’t matter because by the time you see it it’s too late. You really need to learn the timing of the moves and perfect the art. If you can the game will be fantastically easy. In fact you’ll almost never take any damage. If you can’t it will be annoying and difficult. And this is the single challenge in WWE. There’s nothing more complicated or deep it’s just learning when to press a single button at the right time. When it goes well it’s not satisfying and when it goes badly it’s irritating.
So I very quickly got bored of WWE. The combat is just the same thing over and over and over and draping some unimaginative objectives around a few matches is no replacement for a career mode. The combat just isn’t entertaining enough to carry the game. The two wrestlers will stand there rigidly smashing the air that sometimes happens to have another wrestler in it. Grabbing is unbearably stunted. Moves seem to go on and on while you sit there watching with no input whatsoever. Even QTE’s would be better. At least I’m doing something.
The effects are mediocre at best. There’s nothing at all to get excited about. Character models are enough to look roughly like their real world counterparts but the detail stops there. Some of the lighting effects are decent but the majority of the textures are so poor its difficult to notice them. Worst of all I was disappointed with the character animations. For a game that clearly relies so strongly on character movement and interaction it’s strange that the fighting looks so robotic. If that one thing had been right a lot of the other visuals wouldn’t matter.
With poor overall presentation and a lack of interesting game modes WWE is very disappointing. Unless you’re content playing endless single matches there really isn’t much on offer. “30 Years Of Wrestlemania” is a nice idea but it’s not really an adequate replacement for a career mode. A lack of tutorial really doesn’t help and you will spend half of the game not even knowing how to do the things you want to do and the other half pressing ‘R2’. If you can master the reversal timings you will be unstoppable, if you can’t you will probably find WWE quite frustrating most of the time. There really just isn’t that much fun to be had with WWE 2K14.
Reviewed on PS3.
It’s easy to forget about the puzzle genre these days. There’s very little that hasn’t been explored, tried and tested. Punishing puzzlers are even more rare and often straddle the line between great and frustrating. A-Men 2 certainly straddles that line, and often well and truly crosses it.
A-Men 2 is quite difficult. At times it’s well designed puzzles that will keep you from reaching your goals but not often. Most of the time you will jump with the stupid, intermittent low gravity physics and fall from two stories or more and die. Or you will get hit by any enemy once and die. Then you will restart the level. If you’re lucky from a checkpoint that will give you a score reduction.
When you’re trying to solve a problem and progress through the level but you’re too scared to jump on a box it doesn’t make for a good time. Punishing puzzlers like “Stealth Inc.” are far more brutal and will see you die countless times before you even figure out what the puzzle is. But retries are instant and painless. So it works. A-Men 2 is just too slow and clunky. It really promotes you to flick the thumbsticks to edge slowly towards your objective. A-Men 2 claims itself to be “hardcore” but clever puzzles can be difficult and satisfying rather than just making an annoying game and calling it hardcore.
I don’t think I’ve ever thought to myself “I really wish the option of a hint wasn’t there”. So long as the game doesn’t push the hint at you and ruin the game having the option of help isn’t a bad thing. With A-Men 2 you will just get more and more stressed after getting stabbed by the same guard countless times trying to figure a puzzle out.
During your puzzling you will control different characters such as a Spy, Engineer and a Commando. Each has different abilities. The Spy can use disguises to get past guards and the engineer can destroy or build objects. Using these different characters some of the puzzles can actually be quite clever. But most of the time they will just be, well, dull.
Moving across a large map to find a button to press and then going up a lift. Then walking across the map again and pressing the button with another character. For a puzzler the maps are large, and unnecessary because all they do is make everything boring. There’s nothing funny or charming about any of A-Men 2. It just didn’t manage to capture my imagination and keep me playing. The puzzles aren’t clever enough, the characters have no personalities and the visuals aren’t appealing at all.
The whole thing looks, intentionally I would hope, like it’s made using bits of card. Which I’m sure is a great accolade if you’re trying to create a 2D puzzler. Personally I don’t like the style but to some degree A-Men 2 succeeds at looking like an old 2D puzzler. Personally I don’t play all that many old games anymore and don’t really feel the need for old 2D graphics to wash across my 50” TV. Live in the now!
The first thing I remember feeling while on A-Men (after confusion) was boredom. Sadly that was the same thing I was feeling when I turned it off. Except I also had the stress of reaching the end of a level and sliding off a wooden box to my death and having to restart. Sloppy design and unimaginative puzzles that lack explanation don’t create a fun experience. I appreciate the visual style of A-Men 2, and it’s realized well, but it just isn’t for me. To me there are far better looking games available on the PSN but if 2D puzzlers are your thing you might just enjoy looking at A-Men 2. But I doubt you’ll enjoy playing it, if you can stay awake.
Reviewed on PS3.
Today, Ubisoft announced that a free patch for Rayman Legends, the critically acclaimed platformer developed by Ubisoft Montpellier, is available for the PlayStation Vita version of the game. This patch allows all owners of the game to download the 28 Invasion Levels.
The Invasion Levels bring an additional and exciting challenge to the already rich Rayman Legends experience. Players have to use all of their skills to avoid the traps and enemies lying before them, and reach the finishing line before the time limit. With this addition, the total number of Teensies to rescue reaches 700!
Rayman Legends is the sequel to the already acclaimed platformer Rayman Origins. In this opus, Rayman and Globox awaken after a 100-year nap that allowed nightmares to infest the Glade of Dreams. The Supreme Being Bubble Dreamer sends them once again on an adventure to fight the evil creatures and restore order in the universe. Rayman Legends features a wide range of gameplay, including traditional Rayman platforming action and new musical, rhythm-based stages. The award-winning team of artists, designers and composers has also returned with an advanced UbiArt engine to include multi-dimension gameplay elements, an improved lighting system and updated game rendering that elevate Rayman’s previous graphics to the next level.
Anticipation around the launch of the new PlayStation 4 is reaching fever pitch today, with queues already forming at the PS4 Lounge #4The Players in Covent Garden ahead of tonight’s official midnight opening.
Eager fans have been flocking to the PS4 Lounge from as early as Tuesday, and have been sleeping overnight, to ensure they are amongst the first in the country to get their hands on PlayStation’s next generation games console.
From midnight, retail partner GAME will be on hand to sell PS4s to some of the first people in the country who pre-ordered, including GAME’s first pre-order customer, 25 year old Blaine Smith from Bedford. There will also be a limited number of consoles available to buy on a first-come, first-served basis.
Imran Choudhary from London, who is currently first in line outside the venue, has been queuing since Tuesday afternoon. Imran says; “It was always my goal to try and be one of the first people in the country to get hold of a PS4. It certainly takes a lot of commitment and it’s been a bit cold out here but it will all be worth it when I get my console. Despite the long wait, I’m so thrilled to be a part of this launch, the excitement in the queue is electric.”
Fergal Gara, PlayStation Managing Director comments: “The response to the PS4 has been phenomenal and we are so grateful for the support and enthusiasm we have seen from gamers who have pre-ordered, as well as those who have shown such dedication in the queue. This is a launch PlayStation fans have been really looking forward to; the excitement is plain to see and the countdown is now well and truly on!”
Ian Chambers, GAME Chief Digital Officer comments: “We managed to track down the very first person to pre-order from us – Blaine Smith who placed his pre-order in our Bedford store back in February – and we are delighted to have him here tonight at the PS4 Lounge.
Demand has been phenomenal with pre-order levels four times higher than we saw for PS3. We expect to be shifting hundreds of consoles a minute when we open 300 stores tonight at midnight – this really is the start of something special.”
Tinie Tempah will be joining in the celebrations this evening and performing an exclusive set to a select few just before midnight.
“I’m really looking forward to performing at the official PS4 launch tonight and being part of gaming history, he says.
“I have always been a big gaming fan and it’s such an honour to be involved. The crowds are very excited and I intend to whip them into even more of a frenzy just before the clock strikes twelve! ”
Those queuing will be entertained throughout the evening and replenished with refreshments by event partners Domino’s and Red Bull.
The PS4 Lounge #4ThePlayers in Covent Garden is still open to the public until 1st December to give gamers the chance to road-test the new console
The anticipation around the launch of the new PlayStation 4 is reaching fever pitch today, with queues already forming at the PS4 Lounge #4The Players in Covent Garden.
Available today from Warner Bros are three all-new pieces of DLC for Batman : Arkham Origins – Infinite Earths Skins Pack, Black Mask Challenge Pack and Online Supply Drop #1.
Batman : Arkham Origins Infinite Earths Skins Pack
The Batman” Arkham Origins Infinite Earths Skins Pack is now available on the PlayStation Network, Xbox LIVE and Steam for £3.99, and on Nintendo eShop for £3.19. Players who have purchased the Batman: Arkham Origins Season Pass and are connected to the Internet will have instant access to the content that can be used in challenges maps, as well as the single-player campaign upon completion of the main story and in multiplayer for players that reach Level 2.
The pack contains six bonus skins based on a variety of classic comic books and modern storylines pulled from the comics:
· Earth 2 Dark Knight
· Long Halloween Batman
· Batman: Dark Knight of the Round Table
· Thrillkiller Batman
· Earth 2 Batman
· Classic Tim Drake Robin (available in multiplayer mode only on PS3, Xbox 360 and PC)
Please note that Season Pass owners do not need to purchase this DLC pack, as all new content is already included in the Pass.
Batman : Arkham Origins Black Mask Challenge Pack
Available on the PlayStation Network, Xbox LIVE, Nintendo eShop and Steam for £1.59, the Black Mask Challenge pack allows players to take on Gotham’s most dangerous crime lordin two all new challenge maps: Lot Full and Hidden Facility. All players can defend the city as Batman, and those who own the Deathstroke Challenge Pack can also choose to play as Deathstroke in this new challenge map pack.
Batman : Arkham Origins Online Supply Drop #1
Available on PlayStation Network, Xbox LIVE and Steam for £2.39, the Online Supply Drop #1 DLC offers additional multiplayer content: two additional clothing items with game enhancing features for Bane and The Joker; the all-new Sawn-Off Shotgun; and extra weapon progression bonuses and skins.
