Chaos reborn
Help For The Steam Sale
Virtually Pointless
Brickosaurus
Roundabout
Six down, five to go.
Todd Howard has shared a lot of information about Fallout 4 [official site] so far this E3, but this latest titbit is easily the most important of the lot. Your faithful dog companion will never die. Despite the world being transformed into a nuclear wasteland, this makes Fallout 4’s universe the most beautiful of all the universes.
Virtually Pointless
VR isn’t going to succeed. It doesn’t matter how many companies jump in, how technically competent their VR goggles might be, nor even if they can figure out a way that wearing them doesn’t make your face melt off and slide down your neck – VR gaming will never be more than a niche interest, and a lot of money is about to get wasted.
Here’s a trailer you may have missed among the bigger news of E3 2015, but fans of anthropomorphised rat slaughter will nevertheless want to check out. This short Warhammer: End Times – Vermintide [official site] trailer shows off the variety of environments you’ll be trudging through with friends once the co-op FPS releases this autumn.
I know, I know, we shouldn’t play ball with this kind of tease me, tease me, aha now you have to wait some more marketing, but c’mon, it’s Total War: Warhammer [official site]. The world’s greatest tabletop setting being recreated at immense scale. I want it bad, despite not being all that much of a Total War guy. The scant but Griffony footage appears right at the end of a two minute video showboating about all the Total Wars to date, and a soundtrack doing to Everybody Wants To Rule The World what Gary Jules did to Mad World. Poor old Tears For Fears. I think the TWW clip is in-engine, though it’s hard to say when it’s that short. There’s a hint of greenskin in there too.
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Would you mind terribly if I told you about a game that’s out and you can play now? I realise this is the week for announcement and so very many trailers for games you won’t get to play for at least four months but, look, I’ll give this a try and well see how it goes.
Hearthstone‘s [official site] new Tavern Brawl mode opened this afternoon. It’s a grab bag of modes run under different rules, with new rules each week. This first hands players pre-built decks.
Half the draw of Valkyrie [official site], EVE Online’s VR dogfighting spin-off, is how zip-zap-straight-to-the-eyes it will look on your facebox of choice, so this here two minutes of space-shooting footage scarcely tells the whole story. It’s closer than most such trailers to giving some sense of how the real deal with look and feel, though maybe I’m just saying that from my ivory tower of Elite Dangerous + Oculus experience. It’s a looker alright, though.
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We knew Diablo’s Butcher was coming to Heroes of the Storm [official site] with its Diablo-y Eternal Conflict expansion, but Blizzard had saved up a little secret or two. They don’t let you even into Los Angeles this week unless you have something new to show off, you know.
The Monk and dear old King Leoric the Skeleton King are also making his way to the free-to-play Dote ‘em up, Blizzard showed off last night in a new trailer.
Wall-jumping and robo-soldiers and crazy weapons and teleporters and OTT awards for doing almost anything: whatever would Captain Price think? Me, I’m sort of relieved that Call of Duty Black Ops III [official site] has given up all pretence of military realism and entirely embraced science-fictional absurdity: it’s as though the series is finally allowing itself to be what it’s wanted to be for years. This trailer is focused on the hectic-looking multiplayer, which conjures up Titanfall as well as UT, but I sorely hope there’s a healthy dose of deliberate silliness in the campaign too.
Valve have made a new Dota 2 [official site] mode for the full launch of Custom Games (mods, basically) in their free-to-play lords management game. Custom Games will let folks create their own levels and gameplay rules, and will have a nifty-looking in-game hub to find and play them. A video showing off Valve’s newest Hammer editor makes them look surprisingly easy to make too.
They’re a big part of the Dota 2 Reborn update that’s due to enter open beta testing this week. Other big changes are a new UI and a switch to a new engine which they don’t name but come on it’s obviously gonna be Source 2 right?
Brickosaurus
The prolific TT Games have a new Lego game just in time for the new Jurassic World movie. Covering all four Jurassic Park movies and featuring an awful lot of stompy dinos, how does Lego Jurassic World one fare in their ever-growing catalogue? Here’s wot I think:
’90s fighting game Killer Instinct [official site] returned on Xbox One in 2013, through (I imagine) some combination of nostalgia and Microsoft wanting a fighting game series then realising they owned one through Rare. Now the monsters ‘n’ magic men punch ‘em up revival is headed towards PC for Windows 10.
“We don’t have any more to share at this time” said the terse announcement tweet. Okay then. A member of the dev team separately confirmed it’ll support cross-platform multiplayer. No one says whether it’ll be free-to-play, like it is on Xbox One, but I’d imagine so.
Just a quick update on Transformers Devastation, which I got all excited about yesterday – partly because it’s the Bayonetta/Metal Gear Revengywengy devs making it but mostly because I’M A HELPLESS MANCHILD WHO REMAINS FASCINATED BY PLASTIC ROBOT TOYS HELP ME HELP ME HELP ME OH GOD WHAT’S WRONG WITH ME.
Last night, we got a better look at how Platinum’s 80s-styled robo-brawler actually plays. It’s a lovely-looking thing and oozes fan service from every cel-shaded pore, but I’m feeling it less than I was.
Before Frontier Developments became famous for Elite again, they mostly made rollercoaster and zoo tycoon games like RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 and Kinectimals. They haven’t stopped making those, and at E3 have announced… something other than a PC release of Xbox exclusive murdercoaster sim Screamride. That’s what I would’ve liked to hear: that I’d soon be building coasters intended to thrill and/or murder every rider. Oh well!
Still, I’ll make do with what they actually announced. Planet Coaster [official site] is a rollercoaster-building theme park management sim (no, nothing to do with pubs [jokes]) coming in 2016.
LIVE, BUDDY!
Co-op action
Don't pretend you're not going to watch it
KICK HIS TEETH IN
Limits To Growth
Decades of Strafe
Brick Tease
In the Steam pipe, £5 by $5.
No Wrong Way To Play?
Fantasy games
Don't call it a comeback.
Read More
Dawn of the third day.
That Aren't On Steam
Do you want to have a baby
Point, Click, Agree
Carry on my saleward son.
Let's Play
Simulation & wargame blather
