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0 CommentsJust Cause 3 goes nuts in Mediterranean; massive damage
By Colin Campbell at 3:00p 06.16.15
Just Cause 3 has moments when all seems serene and beautiful, when it soars above sparkling seas with the wind in its hair. And then it floats gently towards the earth and turns into an absolute headcase. Like a ferocious animal in a tin box, Just Cause 3 bangs with all manner of violence. There's a part of you that wants to leave the beast well alone, but you know, sooner or later, you're going to unlatch the box and step well back.
What sets it apart from all those other deathly open-world maim-and-kill fantasies is that the whole spectacle is handled with a deft touch of humor and self-mockery. This is not a game that takes itself seriously at all.
It asks that you enjoy the slapstick of breaking things and people. Such a notion may seem contradictory, but there is a kinetic energy...
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22 CommentsSo, what exactly happens in No Man's Sky?
By Colin Campbell at 2:44p 06.16.15
"People are asking, what the game is all about, what do you do," says Hello Games' Sean Murray.He perches on the edge of a leather chair, leaning into a TV screen where No Man's Sky's unmistakeable hues are glowing. He is about to demo the game to me.
"Yes," I reply. "They are."
I've been wanting to play this game for a long time. I'm excited and I'm curious, but I'm also aware that this is a game that has revealed very little of itself to the world.
By virtue of appearing to be something that is highly original, from a developer that is outside the mainstream, No Man's Sky has accrued a following, as well as expectations. Since its first appearance back in 2013, it has presented itself as an entire universe of possibilities, an endless array of worlds, waiting to be discovered and...
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3 CommentsGuitar Hero Live wants to immerse you in music with always-on Guitar Hero TV
By Samit Sarkar at 1:21p 06.16.15
To hear Activision and FreeStyleGames tell it, everything in Guitar Hero Live — which launches Oct. 20 on PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Wii U, Xbox 360 and Xbox One, as well as unspecified mobile devices — is designed with an eye toward the present and the future.Guitar Hero Live is built to take advantage of modern internet-connected gaming hardware; built to capitalize on new monetization methods; built for the way people consume music in 2015, as opposed to when the series debuted a decade ago. During a pre-E3 demo of the game in New York earlier this month, it became clear that that's a double-edged sword.
This demo focused on Guitar Hero TV, the half of Guitar Hero Live that isn't the standard campaign. GHTV is a live service with a full schedule of music "programming," and...
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3 CommentsSuperhot is a whirling ballet of bullets
By Colin Campbell at 9:00a 06.16.15
A lot of people are looking forward to Superhot, which is due to launch later this year, not least the 12,000 Kickstarter backers who funded this curiously appealing game to the tune of $250K.Originally planned for Windows PC, Mac and Linux, the time-stop shooter will also simultaneously launch on Xbox One: this version is playable at E3 via the Microsoft booth.
The game is a minimalist shooter that offers 40 short and elegant action sequences, during which AI assailants attack the player with firearms.
Always in first-person, the player is armed, and not just with a gun. The central twist in Superhot is that the player stops time by ceasing to move. During this standing-still time, it is possible to aim weapons. With an Xbox One controller, aiming can take some getting used to, as a...
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0 CommentsFIFA 16 is getting significant design upgrades
By Colin Campbell on Jun 15, 2015 06.15.15
Late last month, Electronic Arts heralded the arrival of women's soccer as a big change coming to FIFA 16. But there are also many significant design tweaks and improvements coming to this year's game.The company announced at E3 today that it has significantly upgraded defensive AI, so that strikers will find it more difficult to game the system. Chief among these is a much smarter system for intercepting through-balls from the midfield.
I played a demo at a recent media event and found the alertness of AI players much enhanced and the overall experience greatly improved as a result. Players are less likely to stand around gawping as balls are played into open spaces, and are more likely to anticipate the sort of passes that we see in professional soccer all the time. They...
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10 CommentsBig changes arrive on EA Sports' golf course with Rory McIlroy PGA Tour
By Colin Campbell on Jun 15, 2015 06.15.15
Rory McIlroy PGA Tour is, for all intents and purposes, a golfing reboot, an acknowledgement that this 25-year old series is ready for something new."We've started from scratch," said producer Ryan Ferwerda at a recent press event. "There's nothing left in here from the older games in the series."
It's the first time EA Tiburon has brought its golfing game to Xbox One and PlayStation 4 and so, as you would hope, there are technological and visual improvements. Primary among these is that, when a player selects a course to play, the entire course loads, not just a single hole. This significantly reduces wait time between holes.
Players are offered three different ways to control their swing. The first is an arcade mode in which you flick the left stick back and forth to vaguely...
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13 CommentsUnravel strings players along in a pretty 2D world of stone and water
By Colin Campbell on Jun 15, 2015 06.15.15
Unravel is a 2D platformer featuring a cute character. Created by a small outfit based on the northeastern coast of Sweden, it's being published by Electronic Arts.There are three noteworthy aspects to Unravel, the first being a basic mechanic of guiding a central character who’s body carries both the means to progress and a potentially fatal flaw. Yarnie is made of twine and unravels as it moves, creating lines that players must use cleverly in order to solve the physical puzzles that impede progression. Loss of too much twine leads to an ultimate unraveling.
Secondly, this is a platformer with a big, mushy story that seeks to tug at those heartstrings. It is a game that seeks meaning in the physicality of its own setup.
Finally, it is a game about place. Northern Sweden is a land of...
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22 CommentsStar Wars: The Old Republic's next expansion arrives Oct. 27, is a new hope for MMOs
By Colin Campbell on Jun 15, 2015 06.15.15
Star Wars: The Old Republic's next expansion, Knights of the Fallen Empire, is coming Oct. 27, armed with a broom.Not literally a broom. There will be lightsabers. But figuratively. BioWare is using the expansion to have a big house-clearing of its MMO, which is now more than three years old and has been in development for nine years.
For a start, the expansion is free to subscribers. Also, anyone who engages with the expansion has the option to immediately jump to a Level 60 character. It's basically a personal role-playing saga starring the Outlander, a veteran of the Great Galactic War whose task is nothing less than taking down the Emperor of the Eternal Throne.
EA is essentially saying that anyone who is interested in a big Star Wars RPG from BioWare can play one right now. But...
E3 2015
8 CommentsGuitar solos call the tune for Rock Band 4
By Colin Campbell on Jun 15, 2015 06.15.15
Here's what's interesting about Rock Band 4's guitar solo mode as a game design conundrum.On the one hand, this game is designed to make everyone feel like they are a competent musician, a rock star, even if they are bad at the game. On the other hand, Rock Band 4 is a game that seeks to create an environment of challenge, where good players feel rewarded.
The Freestyle Guitar Solo mode kicks in when songs reach that moment when the lead guitarist traditionally lets rip and goes kinda nuts. It's there to give players freedom to roam around the notes a little, to express themselves with a far less constrained environment than the rhythm genre's usual framework of "you need to hit this exact beat at this exact time and then move onto the next one."
It's part of Rock Band 4's stated...
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2 CommentsRiverside survival adventure The Flame in the Flood floats on puzzles and charm
By Colin Campbell on Jun 15, 2015 06.15.15
The Flame in the Flood is a survival game with a difference. Rendered in distinctive style, it's the story of a girl and her dog, travelling down river, trying to stay alive.The game, shown at Microsoft's E3 conference today, is certainly beautiful. It is also challenging, calling on the player to make lateral connections between objects and problems in order to find resolution. This isn't a game about fighting, but about exploring and experimenting. It is a series of puzzles set against a backdrop of procedurally generated physical locations.
It's being made by The Molasses Flood, a group of developers who were cut loose when Irrational drastically downsized and who are now trying to create their own distinctive work.
Over the course of a full game, the water-rafters pass through a...
E3 2015
15 CommentsHands-on with The Walking Dead's weird new approach to virtual reality
By Philip Kollar on Jun 14, 2015 06.14.15
Last night, Starbreeze kicked off E3 with a surprise announcement: It had developed a new virtual reality headset called StarVR alongside its upcoming game based on The Walking Dead. We were in attendance at the announcement and were able to get a hands on with what Starbreeze is calling "Overkill's The Walking Dead VR experience," a StarVR demo crafted for E3.
There are two immediately noteworthy things about this demo for StarVR. First, you play as a character in a wheelchair who is being pushed through an area by another character. This means you have no free movement. It's essentially an on-rails experience and suggests that Starbreeze hasn't yet decided how it wants to approach controls with the new hardware.
Second, the hardware itself, while technically impressive, is clearly...
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13 CommentsWhy are some of Oculus' biggest new games going third-person?
By Philip Kollar on Jun 12, 2015 06.12.15
Some major new virtual reality games were revealed at Oculus' pre-E3 press event yesterday, but one trend stood out to us. Where many people think of VR as focusing on immersive first-person experiences, many of the games discussed yesterday were third-person.
For his part, Insomniac Games CEO Ted Price says choosing third-person for its upcoming Oculus game Edge of Nowhere was a no-brainer.
"We have been making third-person games for a long time," Price says. "We've definitely developed an expertise in that area, when it comes to camera and controls. Third-person in VR absolutely presents challenges, but I think every genre does. All of us are learning what works and what doesn't work in a very different paradigm."
Though first-person may be the first thought when many people...
E3 2015
48 CommentsThe big games of E3 2015
By Dave Tach on Jun 12, 2015 06.12.15
E3 2015 is just days away. Officially, it runs from June 16–18, although developers and publishers don't have to wait for then to start making news. But with so much expected to be announced, how do you keep it all straight? We're here to help.
What follows is a list of the biggest games likely to become even bigger next week.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 3
Call of Duty is returning to its most successful sub-franchise this year with developer Treyarch's Black Ops 3. Originally announced for a Nov. 11 release on PlayStation 4, Windows PC and Xbox One, it's also coming to Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, thanks to developers Beenox and Mercenary Technology. Following in the footsteps of Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, Black Ops 3 is set in the future, where cybernetics change war.
D...
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17 CommentsBattleborn is a frenetic co-op combat game that's crammed with choices
By Colin Campbell on Jun 12, 2015 06.12.15
Playing through the same Battleborn mission twice at a recent media event, I was struck by one particular notion: this game has a hell of a lot going on.Battleborn is a first-person co-op combat arena game in which, at least for the mission I played, the goal was to clear a lurid sci-fi area of enemy waves.
On my first frantic play, along with four other human warriors, I took on the role of a dwarven melee tank and made a nuisance of myself against enemies. Unfortunately, I also needed to prevail upon allies to resuscitate my man when he (OK, I) too eagerly wandered into the fray, swinging axes.
It was enormous fun and entirely confusing. I just hammered away at anything that looked vaguely menacing until cooler heads had guided us through the mess. There were upgrade options along...
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36 CommentsRatchet and Clank on PlayStation 4 is 'a new game,' not just a remake
By Philip Kollar on Jun 10, 2015 06.10.15
Ratchet and Clank for PlayStation 4 was originally revealed at E3 2014 as a "reimagined" version of the first Ratchet and Clank, a game released for the PlayStation 2 way back in 2002. At the time it was difficult to tell how much of the game would be copied over from the PS2 version and how much would be new. But after a recent hands-on session, we have word directly from developer Insomniac.
"Ratchet and Clank is a new game that takes elements from the original," explains production director Shaun McCabe. "What we imagined when we started was a curated first Ratchet experience."
Insomniac's initial vision was to mix the core story and world progression of the original Ratchet and Clank with some of the more modern aspects of PlayStation 3's Ratchet & Clank Future games. But before...
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10 CommentsAbzu is a beautiful, aquatic wonderland
By Colin Campbell on Jun 10, 2015 06.10.15
Let's get one thing out of the way right now. Yes, at first glance, Abzu looks and plays and feels kinda like Journey underwater.Abzu creator Matt Nava was the lead artist on the extraordinary Journey leading up to its release in 2012. After finishing his work there, Nava set up a Santa Monica-based developer called Giant Squid. Abzu is its first game.
Players take first-person control of the game's central character — a polygonal, distinctive diver — and begin to explore the oceanic environment. This is not unlike the beginning of Journey, though that game begins in a desert.
Nava laughs at the obvious comparison when I somewhat sheepishly mention it at the beginning of an interview. "Well, yes." he says. "They are both from the same hand." He adds that the comparisons are "totally...
