Cave Story, you beautiful little bitch… You've still got it after all of these years. I've purchased this game four separate times over the course of my life, and I haven't regretted it once! It's one of the few titles that I make a point of revisiting. Everything about it is charmingly familiar while still managing to do enough different to make it stand out among it's peers. Even by today's standards, it's a shining example of just how amazing independent games can be. The lack of a conventional tutorial, the ridiculous characters/world, the bubbly chiptune soundtrack, and the surprisingly engaging gameplay all come together in just the right ways to tickle my inner child. (Warning: DO NOT FEED THE INNER CHILD! I keep him locked in a cage and hidden away for a reason! He brought this upon himself!) This past Tuesday, Nicalis released a limited run "special edition" of the game as a physical release for the Nintendo Switch. After taking it home and starting it up, I … [Read more...]

A new Overwatch update has just been added to the Public Test Region and it's a doozy. Game director Jeff Kaplan said this update will "drastically reduce the rate of duplicates that you'll get out of any lootbox." He also noted that your credit intake will stay the same, if not increase, over what it used to be. Obviously there will still be some duplicate items, as the game offers a finite amount of content, but you'll see this null booty far less often. "We think this will be immediately evident and extremely significant for all of our players and we think it's going to feel fantastic," Kaplan stated. The other major addition coming is new options for saving video clips. As is, the game auto-captures five highlight reels per session, but if you power down your PC or console you lose them. After this update, they'll remain on your hard drive for 24 hours. Better yet, Blizzard is introducing a new section of your Highlight collection call Recently Captured. These are videos that … [Read more...]

Weary, hungry, and alone in a dark forest in the middle of the night, I lift my lantern to illuminate a half-built shack. It's certainly nothing I haven't done in  other games before, but there's nothing spooky about this, even though the image above may look that way. I'm playing Walden, a new entry in the Early Access survival genre, and a game in which you play as essayist and philosopher Henry David Thoreau. Thoreau spent two years in the wilderness around Walden Pond, as he put it, because he "wished to live deliberately." Now, you can too. Walden is "an open-world narrative exploration title based on Henry David Thoreau’s classic literary work, Walden," and I've been playing it a bit today. There are survival elements: I've gathered berries and gone fishing to stock up my food supplies—though I'm not sure if Thoreau actually dies if you don't feed him. I've completed my half-built cabin by hammering boards together, and also chopped some firewood after borrowing … [Read more...]

If you’re using tracking apps to catch Pokemon, don’t expect them to behave. Yesterday we dropped details of a the game’s huge new patch, which added some major features – gym badges, legendary monsters, TMs, expanded gyms, the works. Also included, it seems, was a mark that will pop up on the profiles of cheaters. A verified account from developer Niantic, labeled ‘NianticGeorge’, has spelled this change out in a Reddit post: “Starting today, Pokémon caught using third-party services that circumvent normal gameplay will appear marked with a slash in the inventory and may not behave as expected. We are humbled by the excitement for all the new features we announced yesterday.This is one small part of our continued commitment to maintaining the integrity of our community and delivering an amazing Pokémon GO experience.” It remains to be seen what they mean when they say that these monsters will not behave as expected, but … [Read more...]

Compile heart loves teasing new games in all kinds of ways, and that’s exactly what they just did with a new teaser video and website. The video is a “let’s play” of a “completely new RPG” with the usual retro style, but at the end it reveals that it’s a fake: “This video is fiction. Information on the real new RPG will be revealed on Weekly Famitsu’s issue released on June 29th.” This means that we have a week to wait in order to learn about this new JRPG, or six days, to be more precise, since Famitsu normally releases in digital form at midnight Japan time between Wednesday on Thursday. No more information or hint on platform, title or release date has been provided, so we’re all in the dark. There’s a possibility that we’ll know something between Monday or Thursday, since Famitsu often leaks ahead of time. The latest game teased by the Japanese publisher was Tokyo Clanpool for PS Vita, which … [Read more...]

Take a look at the Europa Universalis 4 Steam page and you'll notice something interesting: Overall user reviews, more than 21,500 of them since August 2013, are "very positive," but recent reviews—2400 and counting—are "mostly negative." The sudden surge of vitriol was driven by Paradox Interactive's decision last month to increase the prices of its games and DLC in many regions. The reason, Paradox explained in a May forum post, was to "make our prices match the purchasing power of those areas [where the prices changed], as well as create a more equal price point for our products across the globe."  "Our prices have remained pretty much the same for several years and it's only natural for us to re-evaluate price points at regular intervals based on the strength of various currencies, fluctuations in world markets and many other factors," Paradox wrote. "Sadly this means that the price has gone up for certain regions and whilst this is something we'd like to avoid, … [Read more...]

Detroit: Become Human's marketing team has quickly had a change of heart after posting a tweet ribbing Microsoft. Quickly removed, but screencapped below, the tweet read "When you wake up and #DetroitBecomeHuman is still a PS4 exclusive and you're still an @Xbox owner. #ThursdayThoughts" Initially we questioned if this was an official account as it lacked the blue "verified" marker that offers credibility for famous people and projects. However, Detroit developer Quantic Dream's official Twitter account plainly stated "Make sure you follow @Detroit_PS4 for the latest news on #DetroitBecomeHuman!" Reaction to the Detroit promo was not kind, with replies tending to follow along these lines: Sony PR Team on the left RN pic.twitter.com/6VNHIoxhT8— Ed Comment (@EdComment) June 22, 2017 When you wake up and you think this childish garbage is ok to tweet from an official account— nyteshade517â„¢ (@Nyteshade517) June 22, 2017 … [Read more...]

Malden, the original map from Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis, has been reimagined in Arma 3 as part of a wave of new, free content released today. Off the back of the $10 Arma 3 Jets DLC last month, this is the biggest update to the military sim since last year's Apex expansion. Available as DLC on Steam (if you own Arma 3, it's already been automatically added to your library), the 62 km2 map "re-uses many vanilla Arma 3 structures, vegetation, and similar assets," but "also includes additions such as colored buildings, vineyards, and barns."  Indeed, as you can tell from old footage, Arma 3's "Malden 2035" isn't a 1:1 recreation that puts each tree and shrub in the same spot. It's more like Arma 3's skin, and the assets of its existing islands, superimposed onto the bones and geometry of the old slab of land. "In comparison to the original Malden, the number and names of the towns and villages, and all locations of hills, crossroads, gas stations, have remained the same," … [Read more...]

The juggernaut known as Playerunknown's Battlegrounds shows no sign of slowing down. After selling one million copies in April, only a few weeks after its March 23 release on Early Access, it doubled that number to two million just a month later. And now, less than two months after that, the number has doubled again.  That's an astonishing figure, and especially so for a game that's only 13 weeks into Early Access—and that's all before the arrival of the vaulting, climbing, and diving maneuvers that were announced during the PC Gaming Show at E3, and the upcoming zombies mode that developer Bluehole Inc. revealed last week.  Bluehole also rolled out a new update today that stabilizes server and client performance, and makes a number of bug fixes. Full patch notes are below.  Server Performance  Resolved an issue with server performance dropping drastically in certain circumstances. Client Performance Improved rendering performance of other … [Read more...]

I'll be posting the Skylake-X i9-7900X and Kaby Lake-X i7-7740X reviews in the near future (I just received what I hope will be 'final' firmware for the test board). In the meantime, I wanted to talk specifically about Kaby Lake-X, as it can be a rather confusing part. What is Kaby Lake-X, and do we really need it? To start, LGA2066 with the X299 chipset is Intel's latest 'enthusiast' platform, offering the potential for up to 18-core processors. (The LGA115x series of sockets have been Intel's 'mainstream' platform for the past eight years.) Previously, the bottom of the enthusiast platform started with 6-core parts (for Haswell-E and Broadwell-E on LGA2011-v3), but Intel also has a couple of lower tier parts this round, the i7-7740X and the i5-7640X. These are both Kaby Lake-X (KBL-X) processors, which end up being quite different from Skylake-X (SLK-X). Skylake-X i9-7900X on left, Kaby Lake-X i7-7740X on right.For one, this is the first time Intel has had a Core i5 part on its … [Read more...]

Today Green Man Gaming Publishing and developer Investigative North announced that their upcoming puzzle title Aporia: Beyond The Valley will be released in a little less than a month, on July 19th, 2017. In addition to the announcement, the developer also released a brand new walkthrough for the title. In the almost fourteen minute video, you’ll be given a look at the beginning of the game. Along with that you’ll get a taste of the game’s unique version of storytelling, as well as some of the puzzles you’ll come across during your journey. Aporia: Beyond The Valley is a first-person, semi open world, puzzle game that takes place in a world called Ez’rat Qin. As mentioned above, one of the things that sets the title apart from others is the way that the story is told. Instead of telling a narrative through text or dialogue, video clips revealing the events of the original inhabitants of Ez’rat Qin are played each time you complete … [Read more...]

Kalypso Media and Games Farm announced today that its brutal action-RPG Vikings – Wolves of Midgard has received a free update across all available platforms, bringing a couch co-op mode to the game. As a result of the update made available today, gamers can now play Vikings – Wolves of Midgard alongside a friend on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC versions of the game, perhaps offering some kind of hope to get through the waves of horrific undead, rival clans, and frost giants this world holds. However, that’s not all! In addition to the inclusion of a couch co-op mode, the update has brought some major changes to Vikings – Wolves of Midgard’s New Game + mode, enabling the ability for players to bring their items into a new game while also increasing the difficulty. The update has also brought a ‘stash’ to the game’s village hub, which allows item access to all of a player’s characters, as well as the ability to share items with … [Read more...]

Last week Beyond Good & Evil 2 director and series creator Michel Ancel told quite the tale of his upcoming game. He spoke of procedurally-generated star systems, simulated sunsets, and spaceships of various builds blazing through the cosmos. Now, we can actually see what he's talking about as Ubisoft revealed the first in-engine footage of Beyond Good & Evil 2. Presented by Ancel from a behind closed doors E3 presentation last week, we see the customisable playable character - in this case the monkey man from the CGI trailer - fly around with his jetpack as Ancel demonstrates this prequel's sense of scale. Pizza delivering, photojournalism, crime fighting... is Beyond Good & Evil 2 secretly a Spider-Man game? There will be ships of all sizes ranging from one-man dogfighting vessels to the aerospace equivalent of an aircraft carrier. In these larger ships, there will be all sorts of activity that could be of interest. "You can get inside, you can sell … [Read more...]

Homeworld: Cataclysm, the standalone expansion to the magnificent trans-galactic RTS Homeworld, was not included with the Homeworld Remastered Collection released by Gearbox in 2015. The reasons still aren't entirely clear, although Fists of Heaven does a good job of summarizing the confusion and conflict over ownership rights, missing source code, and whether or not the code was really needed in the first place. The bottom line, though, was that Cataclysm was not coming back.  But now it has come back, though not remastered and with a slightly different name—Homeworld: Emergence—but playable out of the box (in the digital sense) and exactly as it was when it was new. Set 15 years after the story told in Homeworld, Emergence follows a minor mining clan called Kiith Somtaaw, which stumbles upon a deadly nanobot infestation that threatens to overwhelm the galaxy. It features the same basic gameplay as its predecessor, expanded with new ship and technologies, and … [Read more...]

Coming off the heels of the release of Nex Machina earlier this week, Housemarque today released new footage from the upcoming documentary titled, The Name of the Game. The documentary, which is being done by New Dawn Productions and slated to release this year, has been filming since 2014 and has chronicled Housemarque’s entire development journey with creating Nex Machina. The footage that Housemarque released today, a small “featurette”, shows off over 17 minutes of footage from the film. Specifically, we get to see some behind the scenes video of the team as they travel to Anaheim for PlayStation Experience 2016 — the location where Nex Machina was formally revealed. We also get a look at the development team setting up their booth on the show floor as well as meeting up with creative consultant Eugene Jarvis before the game’s reveal. As for the film’s formal release, when we chatted with Housemarque in May, they said … [Read more...]

Impressive fact of the day: PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds has sold a whopping 4 million copies within 3 months on Steam Early Access. PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds launched back on March 23rd, in a month that saw big releases like Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands, Mass Effect: Andromeda, NieR: Automata, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, LEGO Worlds, and oh just the launch of the Switch. There was zero room to breath, and even less room for almost every other game to grab mind share. The following months of April, May, and now June slowed down — but still produced a considerable amount of big releases like Persona 5 (in the west), Yooka-Laylee, Prey, Injustice 2, Tekken 7, Bayonetta on PC, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Vanquish on PC, and Friday The 13th: The Game. That being said, through all of these games — in a very dense first half of 2017 — one of the biggest … [Read more...]

I've restarted Darkest Dungeon twice in a huff since The Crimson Court was released this week. On its own, perhaps this is unsurprising, given that I've started the game a dozen times or more since its release. But there's a huge difference between those restarts and these: my problem with my campaigns hasn't been that I got bored with the grind, it's that not knowing how the new Crimson Court mechanics work has ruined my games. This is different from how Darkest Dungeon used to be—so different, in fact, that it's fair to say that Crimson Court has made a massive change to the core philosophy of Darkest Dungeon as a game. If blood is necessary for survival, and blood is a totally random drop, there's no way for players to plan around it. Here's what I mean by that. Darkest Dungeon is structurally similar to other tactics games like XCOM or Massive Chalice: the core of the experience is a difficult, complex tactical mode (in DD's case, a dungeon, in XCOM's case, a level) with a … [Read more...]

Beyond Good and Evil 2 made a big splash at E3 last week when a spectacular cinematic teaser made a surprise appearance at the end of Ubisoft's press event. But there was no actual gameplay on display, and creator Michel Ansel later said that the project was on "day zero of development," despite many prior years of promises that it was "still in development." But based on the "in-engine demo" video released today, I'd say his characterization of the current state of the game is pretty much on the money.  Technologically, the demo looks fantastic. The player's home base is a 400-meter mothership that can deploy a smaller shuttlecraft, from which characters can depart and fly around—like "Russian dolls," as Ancel put it. It promises full planetary simulation with different biomes, and even details like atmospheric friction that causes a halo effect around ships when they depart or reenter the atmosphere.    Ancel also demonstrates planetary-scale deformation with … [Read more...]

Back in February I saw a prototype of Valve's upcoming VR controller and now the full design has been revealed. Currently called Knuckles, on the surface these don't look much different from what I saw, but it has one very unique feature we were not privy to before: it tracks all 10 of your fingers. The index finger-based trigger button along with the trackpad and face buttons atop the controller are nothing new, but what separates Knuckles from similar controllers is that it will have capacitive sensors along its grip dictating where your middle, ring finger, and pinky are placed. This way as you clutch and release the controller - which will remain in place due to an adjustable cradle that fits snugly across the back of your hand - the capacitive sensors will determine how much you've curled your fingers based on their position along the device. This sounds like it will really help immerse one in a game where you throw objects as you'll actually be able to release … [Read more...]

You need more $3.99 USD Street Fighter V school costumes in your life, don’t you? Well good news: today Capcom announced that on June 27th, the School range of Street Fighter V costumes will be expanded to include R.Mika, my boy Nash, and Ibuki, who will join Chun-Li, Ryu, and Juri who received their own little school outfits back in April. R.Mika will let her hair hang low with thick glasses, some sensible shoes, and rock some friendship bracelets in her new look inspired by the sailor-style school uniform that can be seen in Japan and in a lot of animes. Meanwhile, Nash is styling a white gakuran uniform that’s reminiscent of Kyosuke Kagami. He also is sporting a hall- monitor sash, because why not? Not digging either Nash or R. Mika’s new look: well maybe Ibuk’s traditional fuka school uniform is more of your advanced taste. She is also rocking a red scarf that pays respectful homage to her fellow Capcom ninja, … [Read more...]