Not long now to wait for Mortal Kombat X from NeatherRealm Studios, and I recently got to talk to Hans Lo about the newly announcement features, including the mobile game.
Mortal Kombat Xis NetherRealm Studios’ next highly anticipated installment in its legendary, critically acclaimed fighting game franchise that propels the iconic franchise into a new generation. The game combines cinematic presentation with all new gameplay to deliver the most brutal Kombat experience ever, offering a new fully-connected experience that launches players into a persistent online contest where every fight matters in a global battle for supremacy. For the first time, Mortal Kombat X gives players the ability to choose from multiple variations of each character impacting both strategy and fighting style. Players step into an original story showcasing some of the game’s most prolific characters including Scorpion and Sub-Zero, while introducing new challengers that represent the forces of good and evil and tie the tale together.
New and Klassic Characters: Featuring Klassics such as Scorpion, Sub-Zero, Raiden and Kano, as well as new characters such as Cassie Cage, Kotal Kahn, Ferra-Torr and D’Vorah, the roster will include fan favorites where both good and evil must battle it out.
Character Variations:Mortal Kombat Xoffers three different versions for each playable character, all of which have their own fighting style, special moves, abilities and strategies. The Variation that players choose affects the style and overall strategy by which the game is played.
Epic, Cinematic Storyline: A deep story mode continues up to 25 years after the events of 2011’s Mortal Kombat and advances the dark tale – introducing new characters such as Cassie Cage, daughter of fan favorites Sonya Blade and Johnny Cage.
Visceral Kombat: Mortal Kombat X introduces the next evolution of fighting with the return of X-ray and Finishing Moves that showcase brutal battles like never before with enhanced graphics and animations.
Over to Hans, and there some new gameplay showing the mobile game, and it’s good:
Mortal Kombat X will be released in April 14th for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Windows PC.
Which is your favourite Mortal Kombat character? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
EA are set to release the first expansion pack for The Sims 4 called Get to Work and we got some time with it.
In The Sims 4 Get to Work players will take active control of their Sims while they’re at work and determine whether they are headed towards the big promotion or becoming the workplace menace. Jump to the rescue and save countless lives as a Doctor, torment your neighbours with mischievous inventions as a Scientist, or investigate crime scenes and crack the big cases as a Detective. Additionally, players with an entrepreneurial spirit can decide to set up shop to create, customize, and manage their own Sim retail businesses to become a Simoleonaire! However players choose to get to work, this expansion pack will introduce new venues, skills and other fun gameplay elements to their The Sims 4 experience.
I sat down with Azure Bowie, one of the Producers from The Sims team to talk about the new expansion pack and also the free updates coming this month to The Sims 4, plus there is some brand new gameplay in there showing Get to Work:
The Sims 4 Get to Work will be available in April 2015.
To celebrate the release of THE IMITATION GAME on Blu-ray, DVD and digital, we are giving three lucky winners the chance to win it on Blu-ray.
One of the cinematic events of 2014 becomes the first essential home entertainment release of 2015 as THE IMITATION GAME – beloved by critics and audiences alike – arrives on Blu-ray™, DVD and digital platforms on 9th March 2015, courtesy of STUDIOCANAL.
Based on the real life story of legendary cryptanalyst Alan Turing, THE IMITATION GAME portrays the nail-biting race against time by Turing and his brilliant team of code-breakers, endorsed by Churchill himself, at Britain’s top-secret Government Code & Cypher School at Bletchley Park during the darkest days of World War II. The film spans the key periods of Turing’s life, from his unhappy teenage years at boarding school and the triumph of his secret wartime work on the revolutionary electro-mechanical ‘Bombe’, which was capable of breaking 3,000 Enigma-generated naval codes a day, to the tragedy of his post-war decline following his conviction for a now outdated criminal offence. A complicated and troubled man, whose contributions and genius significantly shortened the war, saving thousands of lives, Turing may have been the eventual victim of an unenlightened British Establishment, but his work and legacy live on…
Starring Academy, BAFTA and Golden Globe nominee Benedict Cumberbatch (Star Trek: Into Darkness, TV’s Sherlock) as Turing, Academy, BAFTA and Golden Globe nominee Keira Knightley (Begin Again, Atonement) as his confidante and equal, Joan Clarke, and featuring supporting turns from Matthew Goode (Stoker, Watchmen), Mark Strong (Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy, Welcome To The Punch), Rory Kinnear (Skyfall, TV’s Penny Dreadful) and Charles Dance (TV’s Game Of Thrones, Gosford Park), THE IMITATION GAME is at once a searing piece of British drama, a brilliantly taut thriller and a posthumous honour to arguably one of Britain’s most important, most brilliant men.
How to enter to win
We have three copies of THE IMITATION GAME to give away on Blu-ray – well two Blu-rays and a Steel Book.
With EA set to release Battlefield Hardline next week, we got to play a lot of multiplayer, so we thought we would share three Blood Money maps with you.
There are 9 new maps and 7 new modes for Hardline, here are a few of them all captured in 1080p from the PlayStation 4 version of the game, and thanks to @Teflon for being the one who was playing:
Derailed Blood Money
The Block Blood Money
Growhouse Blood Money
Battlefield Hardline will be available March 20th on Xbox One, Xbox 360, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3 and PC.
Are you going to play it? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
With EA set to release Battlefield Hardline next week, we got to play a lot of multiplayer, so we thought we would share two Crosshair maps with you.
There are 9 new maps and 7 new modes for Hardline, here are a few of them all captured in 1080p from the PlayStation 4 version of the game, and thanks to @Teflon for being the one who was playing:
Riptide Crosshair
Everglades Crosshair
Battlefield Hardline will be available March 20th on Xbox One, Xbox 360, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3 and PC.
Are you going to play it? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
With EA set to release Battlefield Hardline next week, we got to play a lot of multiplayer, so we thought we would share four Hotwire maps with you.
There are 9 new maps and 7 new modes for Hardline, here are a few of them all captured in 1080p from the PlayStation 4 version of the game, and thanks to @Teflon for being the one who was playing:
Riptide Hotwire
Downtown Hotwire
Derailed Hotwire
Everglades Hotwire
Battlefield Hardline will be available March 20th on Xbox One, Xbox 360, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3 and PC.
Are you going to play it? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
There are very few reviews were starting with the visuals makes sense. But The Order makes so much effort to impress that I feel I cannot leave it until the end. Anybody that’s watched footage of or played The Order will know what I mean. I remember playing the preview code and could barely believe what I was seeing. It really is a stunning looking game.
Strangely it remains just as impressive even when you’ve been playing for a couple of hours straight. I would still see something and stop to take a look and audibly express my shock and excitement of just how good looking it is. There’s usually some desensitisation with graphics like these but that just didn’t happen with The Order. Slightest details like how reflective different surfaces are are never overlooked. Fog is thick but airy and doesn’t reveal itself to be a low res image. Your protagonist, Sir Galahad’s, coat and facial expressions are constantly a delight to watch.
Given these amazing visuals it would not be my decision to cut half of the game out and discard those beautiful pixels. Yes, The Order has a film like letterbox style with black borders constantly showing at the top and bottom of the screen. Great. It doesn’t make it look ‘more cinematic’ it just wastes screen space. In film IMAX is generally too expensive to use but when it is (e.g. The Dark Knight’s prologue) it looks stunning filling up that 16:9 screen. In video games there’s no problem and I desperately hope this letterbox style stops, soon. It’s not cool, it’s not artistic it’s just annoying.
The Order’s party trick also rests on its self confident good looks. This is the first time I’ve had to flick the thumbstick so often to see if the cutscene was over and see if I had control back. Between camera angles and slight alterations in fidelity there’s always a way to tell when a cutscene rolls. Not with The Order. I know it’s superficial but I couldn’t help be impressed every time I was left foolishly pushing buttons during a cutscene. Apart from the completely pointless and terrible QTEs. Who put QTEs in the cutscenes? It’s like they haven’t been paying attention to any game for the last 5 years.
But the appeal soon wares off after as little as two hours when you realise how little you’ve actually done. Core gameplay is a simple third person shooter. Pick up guns, take cover, aim and shoot. Kill all the enemies, move on to the next area. The AI will attempt to flank you and make advances but not enough to make things exciting. In certain areas destruction adds a dramatic flair to fire fights but is entirely dependant on breakable objects and isn’t a core mechanic. The guns are fun to use but all feel much the same, despite their cool steampunk design.
Finishing an area will prompt someone to say ‘Looks clear’ or something similarly generic and indicate you are free to move on. Unfortunately the problem with the fire fights is that they’re just not that fun. They’re very static and often become a case of sitting down and popping out to kill an enemy as they reload.
Unless you’re fighting werewolves. The first one I fought wasn’t too bad as I blasted away at the encroaching beast. Once you do enough damage it will run off and mysteriously disappear only to reappear moments later running straight at your face while conveniently providing you another opportunity to do ‘x’ damage. Once they’re down you need to run up and press ‘triangle’ to well and truly destroy its heart.
All too soon you start getting trapped in corners and periodically interrupted and damaged by off-screen enemies. Moving the camera slowly to find my enemy made me feel like a very tasty looking piece of meat. Galahad just doesn’t have the mobility to compete and I constantly felt like I was playing a third person action game with overly slow cover mechanics. The third or fourth time I was attacked from off screen and my actions were interrupted to the point were I died frustrations were high.
You might at this point think The Order will sweep in with a fantastic story and save the day. Sadly it doesn’t. The plot is mainly told through small sections before, after and during actual gameplay where you will be walking to and from objectives. Unable to run all there is to do is listen to the characters’ voiceovers. It’s a great way to build resentment when every time a character starts talking your heart sinks a little as you prepare to walk slowly through another pointless, albeit good looking, street. The plot itself is a little generic but not terrible but it’s told in such a way that makes it completely inaccessible and frankly exhausting.
It’s also a shame to have such beautiful areas with nothing to do. Nothing to do at all. Even the NPCs scattered throughout aren’t really talking and certainly don’t allow for you to go and interact. Picking up collectables and looking at them before placing them back down is the only feeling of connection with environments outside shooting the place up. It’s irritating that such a detailed world has been made so inanimate.
The Order’s unbelievably gorgeous surface is wafer thin. It’s so good looking you have to see it to believe it. As a technical showcase of what can already be achieved on the PS4 The Order is a huge success. I can only imagine what is going to be possible a few years down the road. But good looks alone aren’t enough. If they were The Order would be a 10/10.
But the narrative is delivered so boringly it’s very easy not to care or even for it to become a drag when a character starts talking. Combat is very static and most of your time will be spent popping out of cover at the right times and waiting for your chance. Combat outside of cover feels like a cover shooter trying to be something it’s not, which is exactly what it tries to do.
Fixed, non-interactive, environments waste entire areas at the expense of telling the story through voiceovers. On screen messages and tutorials are a constant pain too and every time a new concept is introduced (for a one time use) an incredibly patronising prompt will just straight tell you how to handle it. The Order 1886 is a superb technical showcase but just isn’t very fun to play.
Xbox has teamed up with Universal to release a new video on “Forza Horizon 2 Presents Fast & Furious”, giving fans an inside look at a handful of “Furious 7” cars included in the standalone expansion.
The video has a commentary from “Fast & Furious” veteran and Car Coordinator, Dennis McCarthy, who discusses how each car is built and designed in the game to reflect the excitement of the characters in the series. In “Forza Horizon 2 Presents Fast & Furious,” the car is the star, and the “Furious 7” vehicles featured in the game will look and drive just like the cars from the film.
“Forza Horizon 2 Presents Fast & Furious” is a standalone expansion to “Forza Horizon 2” that merges the best content from the “Fast & Furious” film franchise with Turn 10 Studios and Playground Games’ open-world game. It will be available for download on Xbox One and Xbox 360 starting 27th March.
To celebrate Friday 13th, today, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment confirmed details for the Mortal Kombat X Kombat Pack, the ultimate pass providing fans with Mortal Kombat X downloadable content (DLC), some of which will be available beginning at launch. The Kombat Pack will include access to four playable characters still in development, including horror icon from the Friday the 13th films, Jason Voorhees, as well as two Klassic Mortal Kombat Kombatants and another special guest character. In the UK the Kombat Pack is included in the Mortal Kombat X Premium Edition, and will be available for purchase separately for £24.99.
Starting 14th April, when Mortal Kombat X launches worldwide, fans who purchase the Kombat Pack will receive the Samurai Pack containing three new character skins: Ronin Kenshi, Samurai Shinnok and Jingu Kitana, as well as an accompanying skin pack with each playable character. Kombat Pack owners will gain early access to the following future DLC content before it is available for sale individually.
The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) has announced the winners of yesterdays British Academy Games Awards, which celebrated the very best in games of the past year.
The ceremony was hosted by Rufus Hound at Tobacco Dock, London E1, where presenters included Rob Beckett, Alex Brooker, Linford Christie OBE, Dynamo, Ian Livingstone CBE, Tim Schafer, Chet Faliszek.
Destiny – the online first-person shooter in which players work together to protect the last safe city on Earth from aliens – won Best Game. This is the fourth win for US games studio Bungie, whose previous wins have all been for games in the popular Halo series.
Monument Valley, the puzzle adventure game, took home two BAFTAs: British Game and Mobile & Handheld. Daniel Gray, a BAFTA Breakthrough Brit, collected his first BAFTA for his work on the game.
The Last of Us: Left Behind, an additional chapter to the BAFTA-winning The Last of Us, won for Story and Performer, making it the second consecutive year in which Ashley Johnson has won a BAFTA for her role as Ellie.
Lumino City, a puzzle adventure game handmade in card and paper, won in the Artistic Achievement category, while Alien: Isolation, the first-person survival horror game, collected the BAFTA for Audio Achievement. Far Cry 4 collected the award for Music, the second win for the series after Far Cry 3 won for Action in 2013.
Skateboarding game OlliOlli fought off strong competition to win the BAFTA for Sport, while League of Legends, a leading title in the burgeoning field of eSports, picked up the award for Persistent Game.
Never Alone (Kisima Ingitchuna), an atmospheric platformer that explores the vibrant world of Alaska Native cultures, won Debut Game. Minecraft: Console Editions collected the award for Family.
Game Design was awarded to Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor, a dynamic action game set within Tolkien’s universe. The BAFTA for Game Innovation was presented to The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, the story-driven detective mystery.
Valiant Hearts, an animated story inspired by letters sent during the first world war, won the BAFTA for Original Property. Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, an intricately designed card-battling game, collected the award for Multiplayer.
Showcasing the best in young games development and design talent, Chambara, a game created by a team of student developers from the US, won the BAFTA Ones to Watch Award in association with Dare to be Digital.
The Fellowship was presented to David Braben OBE for his outstanding and exceptional creative contribution to the games industry.
2K and Firaxis Games has announced that Sid Meier’s Starships is now available worldwide for Windows PC, Mac and iPad. Developed by Sid Meier, creator of the award-winning Sid Meier’s Civilization series, Sid Meier’s Starships challenges players to command a fleet of starships within the narrative universe of Sid Meier’s Civilization: Beyond Earth while embarking on a series of turn-based missions. Along the journey, players explore the galaxy in search of other civilizations, protect planets and their people and build a federation to achieve intergalactic peace.
“Civilization: Beyond Earth encouraged players to explore humanity’s next chapter on an alien planet,” said Sid Meier, director of creative development at Firaxis Games. “Starships takes players on a new adventure to find the other worlds settled by humanity, engage in a series of tactical missions, and ultimately bring peace and unity to the galaxy.”
Sid Meier’s Starships sees players build a planetary federation by exploring the galaxy, expanding its influence and domain, researching futuristic technologies and engaging in deep, turn-based tactical space combat with an armada of uniquely customizable starships. Each campaign features a distinctive, galactic strategy map of worlds with dynamically generated tactical combat missions to enhance the game’s replay value. In addition, Sid Meier’s Civilization: Beyond Earth fans who purchase Sid Meier’s Starships will uncover cross-connectivity and unlockable bonuses, including new planet types and missions.
A complete list of Starships features includes:
Encounter unique tactical challenges in every mission, with dynamically generated maps, victory conditions and foes;
Develop customizable armadas for tactical plans with modular spaceship design;
Expand Federation influence by coming to the aid of each planets citizens, using their unique abilities to enhance player fleets and hinder opponents, as well as building improvements on worlds to increase capabilities and resources;
Lead a fleet to distant worlds and help civilizations defeat pirates, protect colony ships, destroy rogue AI and more;
Declare victory by conquering threats to the galaxy, uniting a plurality of worlds through a Federation or leading constituents to push scientific frontiers.
Sid Meier’s Starships is now available for purchase from Steam for Windows PC and Mac, the Mac App Store for Mac and the App Store for iPad devices for £10.99.
Slightly Mad Studios and BANDAI NAMCO Games Europe S.A.S are proud to announce four new tracks coming to Project CARS.
Sonoma Raceway
Sonoma Raceway (formerly Infineon Raceway) is a hilly road course and drag strip located in California. Twinned with Watkins Glen International (also in Project CARS) as a host of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series it sees regular use by many other motorsports on both four wheels and two.
Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps
Home to the Formula One Grand Prix, 24H endurance event, and many more, the famous circuit has seen many layout changes since 1920 although the infamously flat-out Eau Rouge has largely remained untouched making it one of the fastest and most exciting tracks in motorsports today.
Brno
Opened in 1987, the relatively-new Brno Circuit has been host to the World Sports Car Championship, A1 Grand Prix, and the Czech Republic MotoGP.
Willow Springs International Motorsports Park
With a blistering lap time of just 1 minute 6 seconds held by legendary racer Michael Andretti, the 9-turn track is the oldest permanent road course in the United States with elevation changes and high average speeds making it a favourite amongst drivers.
Project Cars was due to released in April but has now been delayed until mid May.
Deep Silver has unveiled Dambuster Studios, it’s latest studio which is working on the upcoming open-world FPS, Homefront: The Revolution.
Dambuster Studios was founded in July 2014, in Nottingham, UK. Lead by Hasit Zala (also Game Director on Homefront: The Revolution) the studio currently has 126 staff, the vast majority of whom are veterans of Crytek UK (formerly Free Radical Design).
Development on Homefront: The Revolution continues at full speed, with the game now scheduled for release on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Mac, as well as Windows and Linux PC in 2016.
“We are excited that Deep Silver’s acquisition of the Homefront IP and assets from Crytek has allowed development of Homefront: The Revolution to continue with minimum disruption,” said Hasit Zala. “The team here believes we are working on something truly special.”
“Dambuster Studios are an extraordinarily talented group,” said Dr. Klemens Kundratitz, CEO Deep Silver. “We are giving the team every opportunity to turn Homefront: The Revolution into a best-selling title, and have set a 2016 release date to provide them the time they need to achieve this. You can expect to hear more about the game later this year.”
Besides Dambuster Studios, the publisher owns the renowned Deep Silver Volition based in Champaign, Illinois; and mobile developer Deep Silver Fishlabs in Hamburg, Germany.
If you love your planet, and I’m sure you do, you owe it to yourself to enlist into ‘Super Earths’ Helldivers programme. A coop, twin thumbstick shooter from the sadistically team killing folks at Arrowhead, Helldivers will test your patience, your skill and of course your planetary patriotism.
If you can get through the game’s opening cutscene without either fawning over Starship Troopers or at the very least, bursting into laughter, then this is likely a fair warning for you. As demonstrated by the overly elaborate recruitment campaign, Helldivers takes few things seriously; and who could expect any different from the people who bestowed upon us the carnage that was Magicka? In terms of narrative, the game gets off to weak, if not still hilarious start. Super Earth, as it’s now known as in the future, is ruled by a ‘managed democracy’ and finds itself in the middle of a galactic battle against three hostile species.
It’s never this well organised…
Fighting a war on several fronts is never going to be easy, just ask you know who; this is reflected in the game via a synchronised global effort. In an attempt to create a variable sense of struggle and conflict, each faction will need to be pushed back into their own territory and eventually invaded themselves. Conversely, this can also happen in reverse too; not keeping up the aggressive pace will eventually see everyone having to band together and repel the occupying forces. For now it’s unclear as to how this will affect players in the long term, but already it’s nice to have a common overall goal for the community.
Over-arching objectives and intentionally hammy plotlines aside however; it’s the gameplay that’s likely to hold your attention. With room for couch coop alongside online support too, the methodically paced combat comes into its own as soon as another person joins your plight. The game’s tutorial does a fair old job of explaining the basics, such as how to shoot, move and get down whilst also (not so subtly) hinting at the possibility of death and how often to expect it. Everything will kill you in Helldivers, friendly fire is one thing to contend with, but there’s more… Calling in an ammo resupply atop an unsuspecting player will reduce them to pulp, an airdropped turret will differentiate between neither friend nor foe, and even the extraction shuttle won’t think twice about landing on your face should you be daft enough to stand beneath it.
Ah the bridge, the place where you spin in circles
Helldivers is hard, make no mistake about it, it’s a very challenging game. Whilst the early levels can easily be completed by oneself via employing stealthy tactics and keeping a watchful eye on the mini map for enemy patrols, the game will soon ramp up the difficulty. Each planet plays host to a specific set of enemies, whether it be the swarming, melee oriented bugs, the augmented cyborgs or the clairvoyant aliens, fighting each type demands a new set of tactics. Armoured enemies, ideally, need to be perpendicular to your gunfire to maximise damage and reduce the chances of deflected shots. Also certain ‘Stratagems’ perform better against different targets too, napalm style strikes work better on fleshier enemies than they do reinforced ones for example.
Aside from the standard weapons you deploy with, consisting of a primary and a pistol, you also get to choose four Stratagems to take into battle. Whilst they’re not crucial to the success of a mission, they’re there to help. As with everything else, they’re unlocked via level progression and completing select sets of missions. Deployable in game via a surprisingly tricky (when under pressure) d-pad combination, you can call in ammo supplies, bombing runs, turrets and many other helpful tools to aid you at any point. Balanced by a cooldown timer, and of course the threat of viciously maiming your team mates, they can often spell the difference between success and failure in a mission. Whether you prefer the stealthy or ‘loud’ approach, choosing where to deploy before starting a game matters significantly. You can choose to drop in right next to the objective at the risk of instantly alerting enemies that are likely lurking beside it, or you can go for the conservative approach and take a leisurely stroll in the hope you’ll stumble across some research-gaining pickups or some extra ammo along the way.
This is honestly, fairly calm
In terms of keeping players interested for the long haul, Arrowhead seem to have tried their best with unlockable kit, customisation options, a main level to rank up and of course the overall community goal to help contribute to. There are just a few things that let it down slightly, the largest culprit for me, being how quickly it starts to drag when you play alone. The difficulty is woefully unbalanced and the lack of hilarity from drop pods landing on teammates soon starts to kick in. To further impound this, mission objectives are distressingly repetitive. Within the first hour or so, you’ll have seen the majority of variation on offer, accelerating the notion that you shouldn’t be playing this by yourself.
At a glance, Helldivers can unfortunately often look quite bland, especially during the quieter moments. The environments are mostly a generic pastel shade and the enemy designs are nothing original to say the least. When it all inevitably kicks off however, it can get quite colourful and diverse, even if it does become chaotically difficult to differentiate between enemies at times.
Helldivers is not a game for those who like to go it alone, it’s also best played with a group of friends who aren’t partial to flipping out at the first sign of ‘accidental’ friendly fire. When not taken too seriously, there’s a lot of fun to be had here, even if it’s often at someone else’s expense. The variation in mission design will get dull quickly, but hopefully the carrot-on-a-stick mentality of unlocking new gear and upgrades should ensure Super Earth’s survival for a little while longer. Just remember accidents can and will happen…
