Like its cutthroat characters, Dishonored 2 has kept to the shadows, leaving concrete details to the imagination. We know the sequel to Arkane Studios’ 2012 action-stealth game will hit Xbox One, PS4, and PC this November, as well as (some of) the identities behind the grating voices of the cast of characters. Today, Arkane and Bethesda pulled Dishonored 2 out into the light for a bigger look at what players can expect this fall.
Arkane’s Harvey Smith offered a tour of the Empire of the Isles, explaining that Karnaca is the Jewel of the South, with a fully realized area, perhaps even more than Dunwall. Smith said he wants to world to feel real, and to make every area of the city to tell a story. The story will begin and end in Dunwall, but the bulk of the game will take place in Karnaca.
As for Emily, the team focused on what became of her, and they envisioned her as a 25-year-old young woman. Set 15 years after the first game, Emily has been watched over by her father Corvo. You can play as either, and both are fully voiced. It’s up to either character to unravel the ongoing conspiracy and get back what is rightfully yours.
As with Dishonored, there are still multiple ways to solve missions, but there will be more detail in each missions. One particular area was the Dust District, where you can side with either Overseers or their adversaries, the Howlers. Smith took us through various avenues toward our goal of an assassination. But wind becomes a vital environmental factor that can cause dust storms and obscure visibility. Wind is also used for power in much the way whale oil was used in the original. And as was the case in playing stealthy or violent in the original, what happens in this district will also affect the end game.
Some of Emily’s powers include Far Reach to pull items (and even enemies if upgraded) closer. She also has a Mesmerize power where she can lull enemies into not noticing her so she can avoid combat. She also has a Domino power where enemies will share the same fate, i.e. if one dies, they all die. Shadow Walk was used in one of the announcement trailer where she creeps up as a crawling shadow.
In another area, The Outsider will appear, telling you about a manor you will enter where your powers will not work, but you travel between past and present. As the time line alters, you can see enemies and formulate plans on how to eliminate or bypass them.
Dishonored 2 drops on Xbox One, PS4, and PC on 11th November.
During Bethesda’s E3 press conference, the publisher announced an all-new, scaled-up version of the 2011 fantasy RPG Skyrim.
Called Skyrim: Special Edition, this version features a number of improvements and additions, including better textures, water and snow shaders, screen space reflection, and depth of field. t this time, it appears the game features overhauled visuals. Whether or not DLC will be included with this edition was not mentioned in the announcement.
Additionally, many of Skyrim’s mods will be available on console for the first time, not unlike how mods are currently being rolled out on Xbox One in Fallout 4. The image below shows a handful of the mods to be brought over to current generation consoles upon its release.
Skyrim Special Edition will be available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC 28th October. See it in action in the trailer below (starting around the 3:15 mark).
The Walking Dead continues to shamble its way into your soul with heartwrenching decision making with the reveal that Season 3 of the Telltale Games series will add a playable pal for Clementine named Javier.
So what CAN we say about this upcoming season? For a start, who’s that guy with Clementine? His name is Javier. Yes, Clem returns and will play a key role, but this is a new story as much as it is a continuation of Seasons One and Two. Players completely new to the Telltale series will be able to jump right in without feeling lost at all, and those familiar with previous seasons will perhaps find some even deeper meaning, as we’ll be working to ensure save file decisions will carry over from the last two games if you’ve played them in the past. When it comes to Clementine, players’ relationships with her have very much evolved over the course of Seasons One and Two.
In Season One, it was all about playing a more paternal role and helping a little girl find her feet and the courage to survive in a world gone to hell. Season Two was about Clementine developing her skills and becoming more independent of the people around her. In this next season, she’s in her early teens, and has grown to be a person who is clearly capable of handling herself – someone very much on the same level as Javier, a fellow survivor who has been through hell, and has managed to remain alive as long as Clem. Clem has also been through a lot since we left her at the end of Season Two… and depending on the paths players may have taken with her in the past, she may or may not be exactly the same person we knew back then. You’ll play as both Javier and Clementine through the course of the season, but exactly how that works is one of the exciting details we’re not quite yet ready to reveal.
EA has announced the next instalment for FIFA ’17. Perhaps the biggest change to the game, besides some roster modifications, will be the move to DICE’s Frostbite engine.
For FIFA 17’s The Journey, things were shaken up considerably, though. An actor playing the role of player Alex Hunter took the stage to talk about how psyched he is to be a soccer player. He wasted a few minutes to talk about some kind of journey we’d be taking with him, showcasing FIFA’s apparent new direction as a wannabe Rockstar Games title complete with a story mode. I’m not even joking, that’s exactly what it looks like.
Premiere league managers will be included in the game, so if the game were launched today, as announced at EA Play, it’d feature some of the biggest ones in the game.
There are four “transformations” coming to FIFA 17 to allow more control, having rewritten setpieces to give more control, overhauling physical play, building a new intelligence system, and offering new ways to “finish” for a goal. Those, EA says, are inspired by real young talent in the game.
The game will be launching first on Xbox One through EA Access and will be released on 27th September.
We’ve heard reports and rumours circulating regarding the Xbox One Slim, it appears its existence may have just leaked ahead of Microsoft’s official reveal tomorrow with a rumour price of £249.99/$299.99 for 500GB £299/$349 for 1TB and 2TB for £349/$399 and again only rumour.
A NeoGAF thread popped up this evening teasing a partial image of what appears to be the new Xbox, which is being called the Xbox One S. Soon after the partial image was teased, another member found a full promotional image for the Xbox One S, which says is 40% smaller than the original Xbox One, features a 2TB hard drive, supports 4K Ultra HD video, a vertical stand, and a more streamlined controller.
The Xbox One S, as you can see from the promotional image is all white with one side of the console being completely smooth, while the other half has a texture to it. The bottom portion of the console has a black bezel that an IR port located on the right side, while a single USB port can be seen on the left side.
As of now, it’s unclear whether or not this is what Microsoft is planning to announce tomorrow. Although considering all of the reports we’ve come across over the past few months, we can’t help but think the company’s big Xbox One Slim reveal has just been leaked ahead of time. Expect to hear more about the Xbox One S during Microsoft’s press conference tomorrow morning.
When EA announced Battlefield 1 back in May it preceded by a lot of hype. EA continued with the reveal of more details and gameplay at its substitute E3 event, EA Play.
Battlefield 1 will launch on 21st October worldwide on Xbox One, Origin for PC, and PlayStation 4.
Get ready to join a world of discovery and epic warfare through ever-changing battles only in Battlefield 1.
Intuitive destruction and dynamic weather ensure that no battle is ever the same. For even more gameplay possibilities, carve a path through walls and buildings, take down your enemies in creative ways, and leave your mark on the terrain around you through intuitive destruction. Through your actions, the pristine world around you will change into a battle-scarred landscape, changing the world forever.
With dynamic weather you will need to adapt your tactics to weather changes as the elements play a part in the battle. Playing the same map on a bright day, in heavy fog, or rain will impact what you see and hear, forcing you to adapt your play style on an ever-changing battlefield.
Operations introduces a completely new way to play multiplayer. In Battlefield 1 will you play a series of interconnected battles across multiple fronts. Play a sequence of battles where your actions have consequences beyond a single match, as you try to conquer territory or push back your attackers.
At those times when you feel all is lost, call in the Behemoths – the largest fully player-controlled vehicles ever seen in Battlefield. Roam the battlefield and rain fire on your enemy to break their defenses. All-out war never felt so epic. Take control of the Armored Train, Air Ship, or the Battleship to dominate the battlefield across land, air, and sea.
“With Battlefield 1 we’re looking to deliver the most dynamic shooter ever. We want to make sure that no battle is ever the same for the players, and with the introduction of Operations, we’re giving the fans variety for game play and creativity,” said Aleksander Grøndal, Senior Producer, DICE. “Plus, with the new Behemoths, only in Battlefield 1 can you bring an Air Ship to a dogfight.”
Are you ready for the first of for E3 2016 goes to EA with EA Play showing off Titanfall 2, Battlefield 1, Mass Effect: Andromeda, and more, so stay tuned.
Maybe at Bethesda will see Dishonored 2, and possibly the reveals of Wolfenstein 2, The Evil Within 2, and a console remaster of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.
Warner has released the first gameplay trailer for Injustice 2.
The trailer, as seen below, showcases characters such as Red Lantern Atrocitus, Gorilla Grodd and Black Manta. While we also see Supergirl, Aquaman, Superman and Batman all showing off their fighting skills.
Titanfall 2 will be released on 28th October, as confirmed by EA leaking the trailer during a test stream today.
Titanfall 2 has been eagerly anticipated, not so much because the original was so good, but because the game will be multiplatform and have a single-player campaign as well.
Vince Zampella introduced the game’s multiplayer first, 6 new titans and expanded pilot gameplay and expanded progression system. He also announced at technical test would launch sometime later.
Titanfall 2 explores the human and robot link in the new game.
Today Telltale games has shown screenshots of BATMAN – Series, the game is being created to look like a “living breathing comic book.” Among the voice artists tasked with bringing the characters to life will be Troy Baker as Bruce Wayne, Travis Willingham as Harvey Dent, Erin Yvette as Vicki Vale, Enn Reitel as Alfred, Murphy Guyer as Lieutenant James Gordon, Richard McGonagle as Carmine Falcone, and Laura Bailey as Selina Kyle (aka Catwoman).
The episodic game will get more voice reveals as those chapters get closer to release.
The game is coming sometimes this summer, Batman – Series is coming to PS4, Xbox One, PC and mobile, the series will have five episodes.
“We’ve been hard at work at Telltale creating an all-new iteration of the iconic Batman story that puts players in the suit of billionaire Bruce Wayne, just as much as it will put them behind the mask, deciding how to carefully navigate a complex drama, rich with action, crime, corruption, and villainy lurking around every corner of Gotham City,” Telltale CEO Kevin Bruner said in a prepared statement. “The complex life and fractured psyche of Bruce Wayne has lent itself to becoming a bold evolution of the signature Telltale role-playing experience, and we couldn’t be more excited as we prepare to debut the series to players across the world this summer,”
Total War brings an enormous amount of realism to it’s strategic battles. The accuracy and detail that goes into each unit is really incredible. From individually rendered projectiles that affect units made up of 100’s of on screen troops to the single sword swipes of each soldier. That kind of realism is something Total War has come to own really and historical accuracy works very neatly alongside. But if I’m honest this is the most excited I’ve been about Total War in a long time. A finely detailed trebuchet is cool but it’s just not the same as a zombie dragon at the end of the day.
Historical accuracy is cool but is very easy to forget once said bone dragon starts flying around destroying foes with ease. And when a hero wades into the middle of a thousand unit brawl slamming the ground, sending his enemies flying my thoughts are not of historical accuracy. Total War has finally made the giant leap into fantasy and forgone some of its unrelenting realism.
I have absolutely no doubt there will be those who are not keen on the idea but really it has done the franchise an immense amount of good. Total War is a serious game but it has a tendency to come of a little dry. It does what it does very well which is why I love it but there’s nothing wrong with the occasional magical explosion or giant monster.
Battles are the usual Total War affair with deployment zones and strategic possibilities like choke points and high ground. There’s still the unit weaknesses you would expect, such as cavalry are weak to pole arms and archers to just about everything. All your strategy knowledge is not wasted, it’s just everything is Warhammer which is, frankly, cooler than real stuff.
Heroes and leaders are one of the biggest changes to the way battles are fought. They are now immensely powerful units that can quite happily wade into tides of enemies and stand there slaughtering away as apposed to someone for you to protect and never use. You get a much closer, personal feel to your leaders this way that allows you to feel more directly in control of the battle than in most previous Total Wars titles. Plus it looks awesome when your hero slams the ground and 10’s of units fall to the ground. Never gets boring. Never will.
It also brings a neat RPG element forward that hasn’t ever really been fully realised in Total War. There have been plenty of instances when we could upgrade leaders and mould their stats and abilities but without that personal connection it has always been all too easy just to select passives and leave your general at the back. Besides who would have risked a general going down before? Well you will now because chances are they won’t die unless in a duel with another hero but then that’s just cool as hell so well worth the risk.
Skills include spells, passives, mounts and just about any effect you can think of. The RPG elements are surprisingly fleshed out and as time goes on you will create a real bond with your leaders. The more intimate approach is definitely a winner which is a little surprising given Total War’s love of scale. But in this case you can have your cake and eat it. The solution was to have an epic duel going on whilst thousands of units fight around you. Seems so obvious really.
The biggest difference from previous titles lies within the factions themselves. It’s OK having 10s of factions in a game but really how different are England, France and Germany for example? Different special units and outfits, maybe even different stats but fundamentally the same. Two legs, a head etc. TW:Warhammer goes a different way and only provides 4 playable factions but each one has nothing in common with any of the other 3 at all even down to the anatomy of units. They all play very differently. For example the Vampire Counts have no archers at all but can resurrect units after a battle even in defeat. They also never retreat and units will fight to the death. Real game changing stuff.
In an attempt to make the campaign map something more than just arbitrary tiles for you to take over you can only take residence in certain areas now. Vampire Counts and The Empire can take each other’s land as can the Dwarfs and the Orks. But there is no cross over. You can attack anywhere but you can no longer control the entire map which is so refreshing and infinity more strategic.
Adding the fantasy of Warhammer into Total War was a brilliant move that has been almost perfectly executed. The biggest fault with TW:W is the graphical performance. It’s nowhere even close to as demanding as previous titles which is nice but screen tairing is a constant eyesore particularly on the world map.
Aside from that this is a triumph of a game and hopefully the start of Total War branching out. There’s so many fantasy worlds that would work beautifully like this. How is there not a ‘Total War: Middle Earth’? Creative Assembly have shown a keen eye for timing releasing this before the historical titles became stale and have made sure Total War is still the best strategy war game there is.
To celebrate the release of Marcella on DVD, we’re giving away three copies.
From Hans Rosenfeldt, creator of The Bridge, MARCELLA brings the inimitable style of the hugely popular wave of Scandinavian crime dramas to the UK as former Murder Squad detective Marcella Backland is propelled back to work following a 10 year career break after her husband leaves her unexpectedly. Back on the force, she becomes involved in the investigation of a serial murder case where the modus operandi of the killer bears a striking resemblance to an unsolved case she was previously involved in. With everyone a potential suspect or victim, Marcella must determine if an old hunch has come back to haunt her, or if her own fragile state of mind is placing her in the frame.
Starring Anna Friel (Brookside, Pushing Daisies) in a long-awaited return to British TV, MARCELLA also stars Laura Carmichael (Downton Abbey, Madame Bovary), Nicholas Pinnock (Fortitude, Captain America), Ian Puleston-Davies (Coronation Street, Being Human), Nina Sosanya (W1A, Last Tango in Halifax), Ray Panthaki (EastEnders, Convenience), Jamie Bamber (Law & Order: UK, Battlestar Galactica), Sinead Cusack (Jekyll and Hyde, Eastern Promises), Patrick Baladi (The Office, Mistresses), and Harry Lloyd (Game of Thrones, The Theory of Everything).
How to enter to win
We have three copies of Marcella on DVD to give away.
All you have to do to be in with a chance of winning is enter below:
Whilst the original releases of both Dead Island, and its pseudo expansion/sequel, Dead Island Riptide were both addictively fun games, they weren’t without their problems. An excellent, if not slightly ‘unrepresentative’ initial trailer for the game ensured strong sales and led to quite the devout following it received. Unfortunately however, technical issues did hold Dead Island back; leading to a rather split opinion on the game depending on whether you could look past its foibles. Let’s hope the newly released, re-mastered version helps get us into the swing of things.
If you’ve never played the originals, they act as a precursor to the excellent Dying Light, and therefore share many key features. Played in first person, Dead Island, and Riptide, focuses heavily on melee combat with the hordes of shambling undead. You’ll have stamina, weapon durability and a myriad of zombie archetypes to contend with on your quest to leave the, once beautiful, island of Banoi. The main narrative was never its real strong point, nor was really anything to do with the dialogue and script either, but that’s beside the point. The real draw comes with its visceral, heavy combat style.
Horrific, if not a little hilarious
Five years on, and it’s still brutally satisfying to lop limbs off, break and smash appendages and watch zombies jiggle and dance to the tune of your electrified machete. The main joys of the game still revolve around modding your weapons, looting the environment and levelling up your characters. With this joy however, comes a heavy remembrance of that it’s an old game. There’s no way to re-spec your characters skill tree, so if you make a mistake or choose something you come to regret, then you’re stuck with it. This is of course made especially worse when knowing that, for some reason, you can’t acquire all of the skills. Durability on a game is rarely a fun mechanic to stomach; however it fares better here than on Dying Light. You can repair your favourite weapons as many times as you want with it only ever costing money, and as such, comes down to more of an inconvenience than anything.
If it’s content you’re after, then the Definitive Collection almost certainly has you covered, despite the baffling choice to only include the first Dead Island (around 8Gb) on the disc itself, with the rest having to be downloaded. Either way, it comes with all the original DLC, such as the Ryder White campaign, the Bloodbath Arena and the hilarious ‘One Punch’ mode. There’s plenty to see and do, especially considering you could easily get over 20 hours out of each of the two main games. Also included is Dead Island: Retro Revenge, a side scrolling, 16-bit style beat ‘em up with less in common than Streets of Rage, and more with an endless runner/rhythm game. Your Jack Black sound-alike can switch between three lanes, utilising combos and different attacks depending on the upcoming enemy types. It’s a fun distraction with its allure of leaderboards and high scores, but it will invariably get repetitive after a while.
Usually it’s not best practice to hold a sword like this
Whilst both the originals ran at a less than savoury frame rate, the remastered versions both hold a steady 30fps. A consistent frame rate is of course always welcome, but if I’m honest, I can’t see the PS4 struggling to handle 60fps, especially on a last gen game. Despite the UI, weapon wheel and the menus showing their age, the locales and environment have been spruced up with new lighting, shadows, textures and the engine from Dying Light. Characters, zombies and NPC’s haven’t progressed at the same rate however. Lip synching and facial movements won’t exactly be giving L.A. Noire a run for its money, nor will the aged animations of the playable characters. Hands don’t fully grasp ladders, you’ll revolve on the spot without moving your legs, and the sharp weapon specialist Xian Mei, might as well use her dagger shaped shoes over a kukri.
Thankfully, the truly game breaking bugs, such as the infamous auto-save disaster have been dealt with, yet there are still issues from the original’s that haven’t been seen too, for example being able to clip through certain doorways and generally getting out of the playable bounds.
I’ve yet to come across a zombie that’ll tolerate copious amounts of fire
I loved Dead Island when it first came out, I thoroughly enjoyed Riptide too. Playing through them both again on the PS4 with a couple of friends was not only fantastic fun, but a great nostalgia trip too. It’s a shame that some of the aspects I didn’t enjoy from the past, still unfortunately rear their heads today. The slightly wonky networking issues combined with not being able to join a friend that’s further through the plot than you, can feel like another unnecessary barrier; in the end, I found it easier, and quicker to join through the PS4’s party system.
In the end, Dead Island’s Definitive Collection is still the same fantastically addictive blast it used to be. It runs at a higher resolution, sticks to a stable frame rate and looks a lot better than it once did too, especially so with Riptide. Some things that might’ve irked you before, unfortunately still remain however, so if you weren’t a fan five years ago, then this collection is unlikely to change your mind. Still, it’s a great excuse to dust off your kanabo, grab some friends, and have a little look for Anne’s beloved teddy bear.
