Fable: The Journey review

Fable: The Journey review There’s an observable cycle with Fable games that we’ve all grown very familiar with by now: promises are made, promises are broken, fans are upset, rinse, repeat. Even with this Kinect spin-off the cycle remains unbroken. Peter Molyneux, still struggling to exercise self-restraint when it comes to promoting his games, followed last year’s terribly wooden E3 showing of Fable

Microsoft clarifies Rise of the Tomb Raider's Xbox exclusivity: "the deal has a duration"

"Exclusive" was once a word that had a meaning.

"Exclusive" was once a word that had a meaning. Now, it can mean basically anything. And so when Microsoft announced yesterday that Rise of the Tomb Raider—Crystal Dynamics' upcoming sequel to Lara's 2013 reboot— would be available "Holiday 2015, exclusively on Xbox", people were 1) annoyed, and 2) suspicious. When Microsoft said exclusive, did they really mean exclusive ? No. No, they didn't.

"I have Tomb Raider shipping next holiday exclusively on Xbox," Xbox head Phil Spencer told Eurogamer, possibly while salivating. "It is Xbox 360 and Xbox One. I'm not trying to fake anybody out in terms of where this thing is. What they do with the franchise in the long run is not mine. I don't control it." Eurogamer do not mention if, at this point, Spencer's eyes narrowed, as if daring the universe not to bend to his will. "So all I can talk about is the deal I have. I don't know where else Tomb Raider goes."

That last statement came after many preceding statements, including lines like, "My job is not to talk about games I don't own", "I didn't buy the IP. I didn't buy the studio. It's not mine", and "I don't own them building Tomb Raider on other platforms."

All of which finally led Spencer to this: "Yes, the deal has a duration. I didn't buy it. I don't own the franchise."

Spencer finished by not revealing how long the exclusivity deal's duration will last.

This is by no means confirmation of a Rise of the Tomb Raider PC release. But the game will eventually be released from Xbox exclusivity, and so, at that point, not making a PC version would be a very strange decision indeed. Hell, even Ryse is coming to PC now.

At least, then, it's not an exclusive in perpetuity. That, to be frank, would be hot bullshit.

Gaming's most fabulous footwear

Page 1 of 2: Page 1 Page 1 Page 2

Why Rise of the Tomb Raider's exclusivity deal is a prehistoric relic

Well, I guess this is adieu then Lara.

Well, I guess this is adieu then Lara. Today's news from Gamescom that Rise Of The Tomb Raider will launch “exclusively on Xbox”next year means that, at best, PC gamers will have to wait out whatever window of time Microsoft's money hat has paid for. Irritating, but nothing we're not used to. More troubling is the suggestion that this is actually a lifetime exclusive. If that is the case [Update: we now know, as suspected, that it isn't], then it would represent one of the dumbest partnership deals I can recall.

A number of things don't make sense. For starters, Tomb Raider has no track record of shifting systems. Other than the original game launching first on Sega Saturn (which didn't alter that console's fortune much), Raider has always been a multi-platform proposition at launch. Even if the series might have been capable of selling machines single-handed in its heyday, it surely no longer holds anything like the same grip on gaming's popular consciousness that it once did.

Last year's reboot eventually went on to sell over six million copies, but initially it fell disappointingly shortof Square's expectations. That doesn't sound like a fanbase which is going to rush out and drop $400/£350 on an Xbox One just for another slice of Croft.

In fact, I'm not convinced there are many games capable of creating that sort of reaction single-handed. An exclusive GTA or a new single-player Elder Scrolls would. Perhaps the next Fallout might. Maybe if Madden or FIFA went single format… But there's a very good reason why all those games are available on every system capable of running them from day one: genuine blockbusters benefit from being available to as many people as possible.

Indeed, the cost of AAA development all but makes it a necessity. By entering into this deal, Square Enix is essentially accepting that it stands to gain more from Microsoft's financial support (this sort of deal is often structured to include guaranteed marketing spend on things like TV ads) than it does from just selling the game to everybody.

But don't take my word for it, here's how Darrell Gallagher, head of studios at Crystal Dynamics, explained the decision to get into bed with Microsoft on the Tomb Raider Tumblr:

“We know they will get behind this game more than any support we have had from them in the past—we believe this will be a step to really forging the Tomb Raider brand as one of the biggest in gaming, with the help, belief and backing of a major partner like Microsoft. This doesn't mean that we're walking away from our fans who only play on PlayStation or on PC. Those are great systems, with great partners, and amazing communities. We have Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris coming to those platforms…”

Okay, we get it. Tl;dr is: “We are extraordinarily risk-averse. Kerching! ” But the sad thing is that rather than helping to reassert the brand, the decision to artificially limit Rise of the Tomb Raider's audience—even if it does prove to be temporary—surely only confirms that Raider no longer belongs amongst gaming's top tier. Look at it this way: There's almost no amount of money that Microsoft could realistically offer Ubisoft to make Assassin's Creed Unity an Xbox exclusive. And the reason is that it's simply a bigger game, with an exponentially bigger upside to being on all formats.

What this deal really tells us, then, is that this is not so much a marriage of convenience between Square and Microsoft as one of desperation. Having misguidedly tried to foist a voice-controlled televisual utopia onto console gamers, Microsoft is now struggling to claw back the core gaming ground it lost to Sony's now dominant PS4. But if having a sexy new shooter like Titanfall didn't turn the dial for Microsoft sufficiently, I see little reason to expect another Tomb Raider to do so.

Square, meanwhile, returned to profitabilitythis year off the back of some brutal cost-cutting and a cluster of high profile releases, (including Tomb Raider), but expects that recent growth to slow with a lighter release schedule. For them, making this deal, and the guaranteed revenue it represents, may represent financial security.

But for anyone who likes Tomb Raider and doesn't already own an Xbox One, it's bad news. (And sure enough, here comes the furious petition.) As someone who grew up fighting in the console trenches, I'm glad these sort of exclusivity deals have largely become extinct. They restrict choice, fuel fanboyism, and ultimately harm developers because they stop good games being experienced by the biggest number of people possible. As for the benefit to Xbox One, its perception problems surely run deeper than any adventure game, however decent, can solve.

There will, of course, always be first-party exclusives like Uncharted and Halo, because the platform holders need ways for gamers to differentiate between their (technically, increasingly similar) boxes, but third-party games really have no business tying themselves to one system any longer. I remember interviewing Hideo Kojima about Metal Gear Solid 4 during the PS3 era, and it was clear he didn't enjoy having his baby stuck on a single platform. The only time that makes sense is in the case of something like Bayonetta 2 for Wii U, where it's the sort of boutique project that probably wouldn't get made without the support of a benefactor with deep pockets. That surely shouldn't be the case when for a game like Tomb Raider, though.

Ultimately I expect Rise of the Tomb Raider will arrive on PC, probably in some sort of gussied up 'Game of the Year' edition. Certainly it's hard to find many exclusive deals that didn't eventually expire. The original Mass Effect appeared on PC a year later. Dead Rising 3 will take even less than that to arrive. I suppose the bigger question is how much of their bloom do these games lose during their enforced absences. But while it's a shame to have to wave goodbye to the new look Lara for a while, we aren't exactly going to be short of options in her absence. Last time I looked, Steam was reasonably well stocked…

Gaming's most fabulous footwear

Page 1 of 2: Page 1 Page 1 Page 2

Japanese indie dev on designing for NicoNico Video's new game platform

NicoNico Video, a Japanese video site much like YouTube, has been branching into the indie game scene for a few years now.

NicoNico Video, a Japanese video site much like YouTube, has been branching into the indie game scene for a few years now. It started with their annual Indie Game Fest, for which game creators can submit games to be used in Let's Plays during the judging period.

Last June, NicoNico parent company Dwango branched out even further by starting a platform for indie games called NicoNico Game Magazine ( JP, EN). Participating developers release their games as free episodic content, with new episodes coming out every two months.

So far, two games which completed development as NicoNico Game Magazine offerings have been bundled up into full games and released on Steam in English,in February andin March. The former is a clever, satirical RPG that pokes fun at its own genre. The latter is a Metroidvania platformer.

Pharaoh Rebirth+ was developed by a Japanese indie developer known as Krobon, who's been making games since 1998. Although a 3D graphics artist by trade, he does everything but the music for his games on his own. For that, he collaborates with a musician who goes by Pepo(JP).

Krobon received a request to make a game from Dwango in February 2015 and after about a month of planning began development of Pharaoh Rebirth . Since it was one of the very first offerings, he had just over two months to complete the first episode. "I developed it on a hellish schedule," he says.

Although Dwango contacted Krobon in mid-February, he'd already had an idea for a player character floating through his head for a while. "On February 1, 2015, I made an appearance at a Japanese game event called Tokaigi(JP), where I sat for an interview. During that, I talked about my ideas for an action game which would have an anthropomorphic rabbit that attacks with its ears as the main character," says Krobon.

"I originally got the idea from a sketch of an anthropomorphic rabbit that one of my subordinates at work made," he says. "It was just a sketch, but the rabbit's ears were shaped like minerals. From that, I thought of a main character that could transform its ears and use them to attack."

He considered both treasure hunting and spy work as themes, ultimately deciding that since he wanted to include item collection, it would be a treasure hunting game with spy overtones to the story.

Krobon admits that making an episodic platformer presented some design challenges, but he went for it anyway because nothing like NicoNico Game Magazine had been done before. "In general, players of platformers grow and advance in skill until they can clear the game," he says. "You would generally increase the difficulty gradually to match the player's growing skill."

"However, when you make it episodic, you have players clearing the first stage and then playing the second stage two months later. In that case, you get a problem of the passage of time causing the player to forget the feel of the game, so their skill decreases. That was the biggest challenge."

Krobon got around this problem by increasing difficulty at a slower rate than he would otherwise, and adding items to later stages to help the player along. The example he gave was of adding an item that gave the player a double jump capability to stage five for players whose skills had eroded since playing stage four.

When asked what he thought was the best thing about being part of NicoNico Game Magazine, Krobon said that being able to get his name out there was at the top of the list. "I have a long history of creating games, but for the eight years from 2005 to 2013 I didn't make hardly any," he says. "My notoriety had gone down, but being in this Game Magazine has given me the opportunity to become known to many more people."

He also found the opportunity to have his game played by a lot of people while in development useful. Between Let's Plays and emails from fans with requests and suggestions for features, he feels like he completed Pharaoh Rebirth+ with the help of many playtesters.

"If given the chance, I'd like to participate in NicoNico Game Magazine again," says Krobon, "but I've learned that doing a platformer for it is difficult. If I get to do it again, I think I'll need to make a game specifically designed for the NicoNico Game Magazine system."

There is currently no way for game creators to apply for a spot in NicoNico Game Magazine. "The only way [to get featured] is to be an excellent creator found and invited by someone at Dwango," says Krobon. "If someone really wants to get in, I think their best bet is to enter NicoNico's annual Indie Game Fest and get noticed by someone at Dwango by doing well in it. In my case, I entered their first competition ever in 2013 with a game called Action Mogura ( Action Mole ) and came out in the top 5."

Fable III review

Fable III review When we last interviewed Peter Molyneux, we got him to sign a piece of paper stating, “I promise Fable III will be great.” It was all in the name of fun; a bit of mugging for the camera we assumed the architect of the most broadly comic franchise in videogames would appreciate. But as in all jokes there was a grain of truth in there somewhere, a flash of recognition that, in addition

Rise of the Tomb Raider revealed at E3

Lara Croft had a rough go of it in the Tomb Raider reboot that came out last year—rough enough to land her in therapy, suffering from flashbacks and other psychological trauma.

Rise of the Tomb Raider has been confirmed as the next game in the famed Tomb Raiderseries and Lara Croft's next step in becoming who she was meant to be.

Lara Croft had a rough go of it in the Tomb Raider reboot that came out last year—rough enough to land her in therapy, suffering from flashbacks and other psychological trauma. Her therapist worries that she's fallen into a "mental trap," from which she may never escape. But there's another possibility, too: Through our struggles, as she puts it herself, "We become who we're meant to be."

There's no gameplay in the new trailer--it's clearly all about the narrative, as Lara continues to evolve into the character we've grown familiar with over the past decade and change. She's still clearly not the cavalier heroine of the franchise's early days, but Rise of the Tomb Raider looks like it will be a big step in that direction.

Rise of the Tomb Raider is slated for the 2015 holiday season, and our fingers are crossed for a multiplatform launch.

5 franchises that need facelifts

Page 1 of 3: Page 1 Page 1 Page 2 Page 3

PlayStation VR Launch Bundle packs in camera and Move controllers for $499

The $399 PlayStation VR package doesn't come with a PS4 Camera or Move controllers, but Sony will sell a discounted bundle for players who want it all. Since you need a PS4 Camera for VR , and some games recommend or require using Move controllers instead of a DualShock 4, this is a very handy package for people who previously passed on the Sony peripherals. For an extra Benjamin, the $499 PlayStation

Assassin's Creed: Syndicate footage released

Cockney urchins?

Cockney urchins? Horse-drawn carriages? Actual top hats? Assassin's Creed Syndicate has been announced, all right.

As predicted, it's set in Victorian London and stars two assassins: Jacob and Evie Frye. You'll play as both of them over the course of the game, building up your underground gang to oust Templars from their positions of power.

Above you can see a nine-ish minute playthrough of a section of the game. If that is too big an ask on your attention, here is a much shorter (and more traditional) trailer.

Assassin's Creed always stirs up a lot of mixed feelings from people—PC gamers especially. I'm personally looking forward to it in that same way I look forward to any AAA-fluff.

Assassin's Creed Syndicate is out October 23 on consoles, and the annoyingly-unspecific "Fall 2015" on PC. For more, read our preview here.

TalkRadar 31 – pretty pretty

2008 is nearly over, and thusly there aren’t as many new games to discuss. But fear not! We instead recount the prettiest (read: most colorful) games of the year, then ponder aloud how Nintendo was able to sell 800,000 Wiis last month (until we found it was actually 2.2 million) and subject you to an NES song so bizarrely long you’ll wonder how anyone could stand it. Plus a big ol’ community segment

New Joe Danger Game Announced

New Joe Danger Game Announced Not content with stupefying the masses with its VGX announcement of No Man’s Sky , Hello Games has announced that it’s also working on Joe Danger Infinity , a from-the ground-up sequel made just for iOS. Following Joe Danger Touch’s January release, the studio was thought to have put the adventures of the eponymous stunt bike racer Joe to rest. Not so it seems (no doubt

PlayStation VR Worlds bundles 5 games for your 'show off to friends' starter kit

Bundling hard-boiled shooter London Heist with four other games, PlayStation VR Worlds looks like exactly the kind of thing you'll want to pop into your PS4 when you're showing your new PlayStation VR headset off (don't forget that Star Wars Battlefront PlayStation VR experience , though). Each one was developed specifically for the system by SCE London Studio, so it should make a very nice tech demo

Assassin's Creed: Syndicate gets new gameplay video

Fisticuffs, carriage surfing, and, er, rope launchers?

Fisticuffs, carriage surfing, and, er, rope launchers? All traditionally Victorian pastimes according to this latest slice of game footage from Assassin's Creed: Syndicate.

It wasn't unveiled at the Ubisoft E3 press conference, but was fortuitously uploaded at the same time as the on-stage CGI trailer. You can see that horse-destroying cinematic below, cor blimey yes you can guv'nor.

Assassin's Creed: Syndicate is, as you've probably guessed, set in London. Gang warfare is the theme this time around, and you play as two characters—both Jacob Frye and his sister Evie. It's due out on October 23.

The Top 7... prettiest games of 2008

Page 1 of 5: Page 1 Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5

Why Virtual Reality will change the way we play AND think about games

So, Virtual Reality is the next big thing, is it? Grown men and women wandering around their living rooms, wearing pairs of goggles that wouldn’t look out of place in a hokey sci-fi thriller starring some washed-up B-lister, circa 1984? Desperately bobbing up and down like a drunken uncle at a wedding, as they avoid imaginary bullets, or try to peer out of a pixelated shark-cage at some rendered manta

Jump to Section:Best Price

Comments
Our Verdict
A magnificent city full of exciting assassination missions, marred by broken co-op and technical issues.

NEED TO KNOW

What is it: Open world third person action adventure in which you play as an assassin during the French revolution.
Influenced by: Assassin's Creed, Hitman: Blood Money
Alternatively: Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood
DRM: Uplay
Price: £40/$60
Release: Out now
Developer: Ubisoft
Publisher: In-house
Link: Official site

Paris in 1798, what a time to be alive. The streets are filthy with mud, blood and gunpowder smoke. Starving citizens bully perceived enemies of the state to hungry guillotine stands. Guards grapple violently with roaming anarchists. Above, you see burning effigies and spiked heads. Below, French Tricolor flags lie stamped into the dirt. Assassin's Creed Unity recreates all of this with astonishing clarity and sets it within the most detailed city I've ever seen in a game. If Unity was a game about absorbing the ambience of a remarkable period of history I could stamp a big "YES" on it and go home. Sadly, the truth is more problematic.

Assassin's Creed Unity is a game about exploring the city, scaling towers to unlock missions, jumping and stabbing. The professional killer of this adventure is Arno Dorian, a devilish young rogue with floppy hair and a grin that could melt wax. Born of wealth, he's quickly driven into the Assassin order by personal tragedy and there uses his remarkable skills of stabbing to seek revenge and win the affection of his cherished childhood friend, Elise. Naturally, there's also a convoluted plot involving the ongoing battle between the Assassins and the Templars, who are both manipulating the revolution for increasingly confusing reasons.

No longer are you pulled out of your exciting adventures to roleplay a more boring person.

This is complicated only slightly by the return of the ongoing Assassin's Creed metaplot. In this game you're playing a VR product produced by the evil Abstergo company, who are searching for the death site of a certain figure in Arno's life. The best thing about this is that it's delivered in brief and very infrequent cutscenes and voiceover skits from a couple of characters based in the present-day. No longer are you pulled out of your exciting assassin adventures to roleplay a more boring person. Instead, the present-day plot influences several quick but very entertaining interludes that leave your assassin faculties intact. I won't spoil them.

Almost the entire game is set in Paris. The return to a single-city setting reflects Unity's desire to strip down a series that's entertained many tangents over the years. There's no sign of the tower-defence of Revelations, or the assassin-training of Brotherhood, or the sailing of Assassin's Creed 4. Instead, Unity is about assassinations, and they're great.

PERFORMANCE & SETTINGS

Reviewed on: Core i5 3.3GHZ, 8GB RAM, Nvidia GTX970
Variable framerate: Yes
Anti-Aliasing: FXAA and MSAA
Misc. graphics options: Many, including individual quality settings for textures, shadows, ambient occlusion.
Remappable controls: Yes, for keyboard.
Gamepad support: Yes, recommended.

Assassin's Creed Unity runs smoothly on a GTX 970, averaging 50-55FPS with all settings on Ultra. For performance improvements, you can elect not to use Nvidia's soft shadowing tech to little visual difference. If you have an Nvidia card, grab the ACU drivers. Turning off Vsync and AA and forcing at your GPU's driver level may help performance.

AMD users have reported poor performance, and mid-range cards will struggle. When tested on a 670 framerates topped out at 30 on 'high' settings, but with plenty of drops, including consistent drops to 10FPS during cutscenes.

The act of hunting and efficiently dispatching an important target has been incidental to the series for too long, so I'm glad Unity does it justice. Targets are hidden away in in sandbox locations—castles, prisons, palaces—that you have to crack like a violent puzzles. At the start of the mission Arno, poised like a fancy Batman on some dark rooftop, assesses the area to pick out gaps in the target's defence and note local disturbances that could serve as a distraction. When the mission starts you're free to find your way in and approach the target however you wish.

These missions remind me favourably of Hitman: Blood Money. The levels lack the complexity of IO's sandboxes, but manipulating them is great fun. I whipped a cover off a hidden stash of food in front of a starving crowd. They flocked angrily to the cart and offered cover that got me closer to my target. I've set fire to sniper towers to expose targets, dabbled with poison and done other terrible things best left to discovery.

These missions are facilitated by a new stealth system. Unity finally has the crouch-walk the series has always needed, which means you can dart between cover spots without standing casually upright in full view like a gleaming beacon of guilt. There's also a clunky cover system that I found far too fiddly to use, and a new weapon—the phantom blade—a wrist-mounted miniature crossbow that lets you kill targets silently at range or send them berserk to cause a distraction.

Assassinations may be good, but the campaign is padded out with numerous set-up missions. While these are generally fine, and Arno puts in a good turn as an affable diet-Ezio, you're still following NPCs along dramatic rooftop routes, stealing things from heavily guarded areas, tackling street thieves and saving civvies from criminals—very familiar stuff for series fans. The close focus on everyday assassin business also puts more pressure on Assassin's Creed's core traversal systems, and while the freerunning moveset has been expanded for Unity, it can't quite handle the artfully crooked geometry of Paris.

Assassin s Creed Unity 18

There are now separate commands for freerunning up and down buildings, which is useful, but movement in all directions lacks precision. Simply climbing into a window can be a nightmare. Arno will vault across the gap, scrabble above it, drop below it, anything but get into the damn room. The window dance only grows angrier under fire.

There are dozens of simple manoeuvres like this that should be effortless, but aren't, and the streets of Paris are littered with detritus that can cause Arno unexpected indecision. Look out in particular for the assassin's greatest enemy, the small box, which Arno will sometimes mount as though it's the highest point in the world and take some coaxing to leap off. Attempting to climb a lumpy object like a market stall will cause moments of mid-air shivering as the movement system seems to shuffle through its library of thousands of animations for a solution. The 'leap into distant hay bale' command is the same as the 'climb down building' command, which has caused annoyance more than once.

Look out in particular for the assassin's greatest enemy: the small box.

I could list more. 80% of the time things work quite nicely, but for a game so reliant on traversal there's too much frustration. The system can make impossible leaps and spins look natural and beautiful, but it too often fails to divine the player's intent while executing the flair. Assassin's Creed has always had these problems, but the complex higgledy-piggledy streets and rooftops of Paris compound them. After a while I came to recognise certain angles and asset arrangements best avoided for the sake of speed.

Combat has been refreshed, too, with good intent but mixed results. In Black Flag and Assassin's Creed 3, you were immortal. You could chain execution moves together to dice up entire regiments without taking a hit. Not so in Unity. The counter button has been replaced by a parry command. Time the parry perfectly and Arno will execute a countering blow that will put the enemy off balance and open them up to follow up strikes, and brutal kill-moves when they're damaged enough. Arno can only suffer a few blows himself before being unceremoniously run-through, and can quite easily be shot to death in the middle of a fight.

I liked Arno's fragility so much that I didn't take any health upgrades until the final boss fight—combat should feel dangerous, but it shouldn't feel quite so out-of-control. Ubisoft have said that the new combat system is inspired by fencing, and while it has a little of the back-and-forth parry and riposte structure, it's remarkably sluggish. My button presses seemed lost amid long, complex animations, as though I was shouting combat instructions to Arno from a mile away, repeating myself occasionally for emphasis. On the plus side there's quite a bit of variety to the weapons at your disposal, even if the system itself feels sparse. You can choose to fight with swords; long weapons like spears, polearms and halberds; big weapons like axes and clubs and even rifles, which Arno uses as shooty clubs in close combat.

The wide range of weapons slot into an overwhelming suite of customisation options that let you choose Arno's hood, gloves, trousers and coat independently. Different items confer varying bonuses to your toughness and stealthiness, but these don't make much of a difference until the twilight stages of the game.

These are bought with in-game money, which you can earn by renovating and expanding your pet theatre, or by completing side missions. These vary widly in quality. Some are dull escort chores that have you fighting waves of guards as your charge relocates with the urgency of a dead slug. Better are the detective missions, which present you with clues in a crime scene so that you can correctly accuse one of several suspects. Solving crimes is easy when you have magic eyes that make clues glow.

Assassin s Creed Unity 11

Paris is absolutely full of NPCs to angrily barge into.

You can skip all that and buy weapons and armour right away with real money via a microtransaction system that's cheeky at best and just depressing at worst. After buying the game for £40/$60, you're invited to spend more money to play less of the game. Fortunately it's easy to completely ignore this, but the same can't be said for the awful in-game chests and items ties into Unity's companion app and Initiates webgame. Initiates chests are littered all over Paris. If you try to open one the game minimises itself, opens your browser and attempts to connect to the Initiates site. It's intrusive, shatters the fantasy, and holds back items and features from players who don't want to waste time on webgames or apps. Horrible.

It's especially disappointing, because there's real beauty to be found in Unity. If you like to wander and become absorbed in a game world, Paris is stunning. I rarely gasp at things. I used to think that gasping was a theoretical action that people used in a purely illustrative sense, but one came unbidden when I climbed to the top of a spire to see a patch of golden sunlight moving over the Notre Dame cathedral. A haze rose up from the streets, and I could see every building for miles. Whether you're striding through dilapidated slums or royal palaces Unity realises urban filth and glittering opulence with equal devotion. The streets are packed with people, singing, fighting, kissing, dancing. I stood up after finishing the game and felt like I'd visited another place.

I've seen Arno perform a finishing move on the air as his victim six feet away crumples and dies.

That makes me dearly want to recommend Unity, but unless you have a seriously good graphics card, I can't. It's fluid and gorgeous on my GTX 970, but on mid-range cards like a 670, and even better cards, expect low and choppy framerates that worsen greatly during cutscenes. While my experience has been relatively clean, Unity is rife with widely reported bugs. I've seen the odd floating pedestrian, a few times I've seen Arno perform a finishing move on the air as his victim six feet away crumples and dies. The game also occasionally pauses for fifteen seconds or so at random points before resuming as normal. It's also crashed a few times. Others have reported disappearing faces, floating NPCs, ragdolls glitching into themselves and more severe stability problems.

The other huge failure is co-op. The new mode lets you summon up to three friends into your Paris to run around exploring, or to engage in a collection of heist and assassination missions. I almost had fun coordinating attacks with friends in these varied and lengthy missions, but not one co-op game has passed without a disconnection error, or a wrongly placed objective marker, or a target not spawning, or numerous other mission scripting errors. It just doesn't work.

If Ubisoft get it patched up, Unity could become a perfectly enjoyable part of the Assassin's Creed canon. It's a solid campaign elevated by quality assassination missions and an extraordinary setting that might just push the big number at the bottom of this review into the 80s, but with a big selling point out of operation, a raft of technical issues, performance problems, microtransactions and stilted combat and freerunning systems, Unity—in its current state—can only be considered a failed revolution. What a shame.

Image 1 of 4

Assassin s Creed Unity 16

Image 2 of 4

Assassin s Creed Unity 14

Image 3 of 4

Assassin s Creed Unity 2

Image 4 of 4

Assassin s Creed Unity 4

The Verdict

Assassin's Creed: Unity

A magnificent city full of exciting assassination missions, marred by broken co-op and technical issues.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Tom stopped being a productive human being when he realised that the beige box under his desk could play Alpha Centauri. After Deus Ex and Diablo 2 he realised he was cursed to play amazing PC games forever. He started writing about them for PC Gamer about six years ago, and is now UK web ed.

We recommend By Zergnet

The Top 7... Games you won’t get to until 2009

Page 1 of 4: Page 1 Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4

SelfieTennis Q&A: Mixing goofiness, bloodlust, sports, and unicorns

#SelfieTennis #SelfieTennis pits players against themselves in a surreal take on the sport.

pits players against themselves in a surreal take on the sport. When you smash the ball over the net, the perspective of this VR game changes to your opponent...so you get to return the serve that you just performed.

You can try to play a proper match, get a nice volley going with yourself, or just smash the ball into the strange spectators with tennis ball heads and watch them flop lifelessly to the ground. Oh, players can also ditch their rackets and take selfies using a selfie stick, because when a ball is flying at your head at high velocity, you should definitely be taking time to immortalize the moment for your Instagram crew.

We talked with Julie Heydeof VRUnicorns, one of the developers of #SelfieTennis , about what the hell was going through their heads when they made this gloriously ridiculous VR sports title. We also touched on more mundane issues, like how they worked to ensure thtat players wouldn't get motion sick with the constant perspective shifts from one side of the tennis court to the other.

What is #SelfieTennis ?

#SelfieTennis is a VR room-scale game for the HTC Vive.

Why play tennis all by yourself? What made you develop a tennis game for one player in VR?

We were brainstorming weird ideas one late eve while working on another game ( RAGNAROKvr ) and Milansaid: "Let's make a game called #SelfieTennis where you teleport back and forth on the court while playing tennis with yourself." Horatiucranked out the first version the next day (while we were suppose to work on RAGNAROKvr ) and asked me if "I would like to play with myself."

I fucking loved it!

What difficulties did you face in making a game where one player is firing a ball at themselves? What work did you do to keep this from feeling disorienting in VR?

Horatiu did his magic. That's it. [Horatiu Roman is the company's "Chief Technical Unicorn."]

I'm hypersensitive to motion sickness and movement in VR, so we have a lot of knowledge in the team on how to avoid making people sick. Horatiu has timed the teleportation and delay perfectly, and we playtest everything we make to the extreme to avoid making #PukeSimulators.

So yeah, smart design, good code and a hell lot of testing among us, friends and during showcasing events around the world. We travel a lot and constantly work on the road.

P.S. Vive works on laptops. Just a hint for anyone who wants to become a Vive Nomad.

#SelfieTennis involves some ridiculous behavior (like attacking the crowd) alongside its representation of the sport. Why did you include these sillier elements? What did you feel they brought to the game?

Horatiu had characters in the original version so I could get my aggression out in the office. We even had a kill score back then. He later removed the kill score, but put it back in when I went hysterical crybaby over not being able to track my killing.

Taking selfies of your character provides a fun  diversion in the game. Why specifically mix taking pictures of yourself inside a sports game?

We all agreed that we needed a #SelfieStick in the game back in November 2015, but we didn't do much about it until right before launch....when I started shouting at the guys for not having fixed it yet.

Everyone loves taking photos of themselves. Just glance at Instagram. No one cares about food pictures anymore.

How has posting those selfie pictures to social media helped the game?

It's a fun gimmick. We were the first to have the feature it seems and now other developers started copying. Facebook for example. that's cute. We started a trend.

What other features will you be bringing to #SelfieTennis in the future?

Currently crunching like crazy on a #HeartUpdate with loads of juice.

Next update will probably be a physics update. We're working on #SkiJump in parallel, and we're a tiny team with only a few of us working full time, so we don't really have time for anything else than making silly unrealistic sports games.

But who cares about reality anyways? We have VR.

Mario Galaxy 2 tutorial DVD is a brilliant idea, deeply flawed

It kind of makes sense in a way, in that following less-than-deserved sales of the stunning SMG (probably, ironically,due to the non-gamer culture that the big N had so carefully crafted around the Wii since its launch), Nintendo probably wants to bring its new casual market closer to the hardcore fold. Funny how things come full circle, isn't it? But seriously. Does anyone need instructions like

Video: Perfectly pitching your game in three sentences or less

Speaking at GDC Europe 2014 earlier this year, indie game maker and advocate Rami Ismail shared some useful advice on how developers can perfect the art of pitching their game.

Ismail, who co-founded the Dutch indie studio Vlambeer, drew from his experiences marketing hit Vlambeer games like Ridiculous Fishing, Luftrausers and Super Crate Box to offer attendees tips on crafting the perfect pitch and getting their games noticed by the press, by their target audiences and by the community at large.It's a useful presentation that's worth your time to watch, especially if you're struggling to figure out how to stand out in an increasingly crowded game market. The free video (embedded above) of 'In 3 Sentences or Less: Perfecting Your Pitch' is now available to watch hereon the GDC Vault.About the GDC VaultIn addition to this presentation, the GDC Vaultoffers numerous other free videos, audio recordings, and slides from many of the recent Game Developers Conference events, and the service offers even more members-only content for GDC Vault subscribers.Those who purchased All Access passes to recent events like GDC, GDC Europe, and GDC Next already have full access to GDC Vault, and interested parties can apply for the individual subscription via a GDC Vault subscription page. Group subscriptions are also available: game-related schools and development studios who sign up for GDC Vault Studio Subscriptions can receive access for their entire office or company by contacting staff via the GDC Vault group subscription page. Finally, current subscribers with access issues can contact GDC Vault technical support. Gamasutra and GDC are sibling organizations under parent UBM Tech

Microsoft: Windows 10 will not be sold as a subscription

Image from the Windows blog.

Windows 10

At its press event today, Microsoft announced that Windows 10 will be a free upgradefor Windows 7 and Windows 8 users during its first year of availability. There was some confusion, however, when Microsoft's Terry Myerson started talking about Windows 10 "as a service." Did that mean that after that first year of free availability, Windows 10 would cost an annual fee? I asked Myerson for clarification after the presentation, and he confirmed that there will be no additional fees attached to Windows 10, whenever you buy it.

Myerson clarified that Windows 10 users will still get free updates and support for the lifetime of the OS, exactly like past versions of Windows (like XP and Windows 7's Service Packs, for example). There's no subscription model for updates or support or continuing to use the OS. Myerson's reference to Windows "as a service" simply meant that Microsoft plans to update the OS with smaller, more regular updates rather than the big, chunky updates of past Service Packs.

A year after Windows 10 is first available, it will no longer be a free upgrade for Windows 7 and 8 users. Microsoft will then sell Windows 10 the same way it has sold past versions of Windows. MS hasn't set a specific price yet, but Myerson said the price will likely be comparable to past versions of Windows. Windows 8 costs $120 on Amazon, for instance.

Update: It seems there's still confusion. It is very clear from this postthat for the first year it's available, you can upgrade to Windows 10 for free if you have Windows 7 or 8. You will not pay for it. After that year is up, nothing will happen to your Windows 10 license. If you do not upgrade within that year, however, you will have to pay for an upgrade. The offer expires after a year, not the upgrade.

The A-Z of Super Mario Galaxy 2

Page 1 of 6: Page 1 Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6

Mysterious Space Continues to Support Charity

One of the reasons indie games are often so good is simply that the developers care deeply about the projects.

One of the reasons indie games are often so good is simply that the developers care deeply about the projects. Of those devs, few are more dedicated than Ben Hendel-Doying, the creator of Mysterious Space.

Mysterious Space was created as part of the 7 Day Rogue-like Competition in 2014, before being turned into a full game afterwards. It puts players in control of a ship flying among procedurally-generated planets (the game will create anything from forest worlds to lava or ice worlds). Similarly, the items are procedurally generated, harking back to the actual source material, Rogue , and how the effects of items weren’t known until they were either used or identified. The game also reveals its lore through “secret logs,” and features unlockable ships and ship upgrades.

Mysterious Space was released partway through May of this year. The game has been updating as it goes, and, interestingly, has also been running primarily as a non-profit. To make that clearer, Mr. Hendel-Doying donates a majority of the profits from sales of the game to charities he feels are important. So far he has already donated $500 to the Planetary Society, and made another donation to Planned Parenthood, and he is building up a donation for PBS/NPR.

Those interested in finding out more about Mysterious Space can visit its website, or they can pop over to Steam and pick up the gamefor $5.00 USD ( or through itch.io, for those who aren’t fans of Steam), for Windows only.

Intel show off DirectX 12 performance advantage

Gamescom isn't the only big conference going on at the moment, though, if you're into Witcher 3 footage , Tomb Raider exclusivity rage and Snake slithering onto the PC , it's probably the most important.

, it's probably the most important. Still, this week has seen SIGGRAPH 2014 taking place in Vancouver, the 41st international conference on computer graphics. Intel has been there showing offhow good DirectX 12 is going to be for its processors.

Using one of Microsoft's new Surface Pro 3 tablets, rocking an Intel Core i5 CPU, they have been showing a neat little graphics demo that could have been ripped directly out of Elite: Dangerous.

The demo shows an asteroid field made up of 50,000 unique lumps of space rock, all rendered on the HD 4400 processor graphics inside the CPU itself. At the flick of a switch (or more likely the tap of a key), Intel can show the difference between rendering with the DirectX 11 API and the upcoming DirectX 12 update.

Intel are showing two different versions, each highlighting an alternate usage of the DX 12 API. The first is what we really care about: performance. In this demo the Surface Pro 3 is run as fast as possible by the renderer, operating at the limits of the thermal and power constraints of the wee Microsoft tablet.

Under DirectX 11 the demo runs at just 19FPS - switching over to DirectX 12 that jumps up to 33FPS. That's over 70% quicker on the exact same hardware, just operating with updated DirectX software.

The interesting thing is how they've managed to do this and that's shown by the little graph in the bottom right hand corner of the demo shot. The tablet is still operating within the same power constraints as with DirectX 11, but because DX12 is designed to reduce CPU overhead and improve multi-threaded rendering, it has dropped the power demands of the CPU and given that spare capacity over to the boosted GPU.

The second demo covers power consumption, something that will be of interest to anyone out there with a gaming laptop that refuses to shift away from a plug socket for more than an hour.

In the power test Intel lock the frame rate of the asteroid demo so that the hardware is doing the same amount of work under both APIs. When the Surface Pro 3 is switched over to DirectX 12 the amount of power that the CPU component is drawing drops by over half.

The CPU is still doing the same amount of work but its now spread across all the cores available to the software. Because the load is being shared the individual cores don't have to work so hard and don't have to operate at such a high frequency.

The upshot of this is that the temperature goes down and the battery life goes up.

It's an impressive technology demo, and shows the potential improvements that DirectX 12 will offer when it eventually does arrive. Still, I'll be more impressed when Intel and Microsoft are able to show this sort of performance gain in an actual DirectX 12 coded game.

VIDEO: Luigi officially official for Super Mario Galaxy 2

Only a matter of days separate us from Super Mario Galaxy 2, and Nintendo has slowly been leaking out info to let us know how super cool this sequel is going to be. First we saw Light Yoshi and Stone Mario , which was followed by the introduction of Cloud Mario . And now, just as we had guessed , the green machine is returning as a playable character, which is confirmed in the Weegee-fied vid below

No Firewood – Fight Against the Dark

New Year, same problems.

New Year, same problems. In Nemico’s post-apocalyptic FPS survival-horror for PC, No Firewood, humans have once again brought about the end of everything with their Earth-destroying greed. It’s five years from now and the human race is drawing its last breath, as excessive drilling has released a virus upon the world. At first, the virus only affected the oceans and wildlife, but it soon spread to human hosts, mutating them into rabid creatures. You’re one of the only humans left.

The idea in No Firewood is to collect enough firewood to keep your campfire burning, while also collecting any weapons, items, and ammo that you find scattered in the endless darkness around your camp. If you allow your campfire to go out, or fellow survivors to die, it’s game over . In order to survive, players will have to juggle the completion of objectives, burning of the campfire, and slay or avoid the infected humans, animals and unknown creatures hidden in the blackness.

The game takes place over a number of different environments, such as woodland, snow, swamp, urban and more. There is also the choice of playing through these environments in either Campaign mode or Survival mode, with the latter pitting the unfortunate survivor against waves of the infected.

If No Firewood sounds like your cup of apocalyptic tea, check out Nemico’s Kickstarter campaign, with a modest goal of $1,000, or even head to the game’s website. Quick, before the fire goes out.

Show us your Dragon's Dogma pawn and Arisen

Crazy Dan!

Crazy Dan and Inara ready for adventures

Crazy Dan! and Inara, ready for adventures.

Dragon's Dogma may not have the extensive character customization of a Bethesda RPG, but I still spent an hour at the start of my game designing the Arisen I'd be monster hunting with. I ended up with one of my favorite RPG hero designs: Inara, a tall, buff knife-wielding strider. When it came time to design my pawn, the AI party member who will be tagging along at my side, I wasn't quite sure what direction to go. I started by trying to design Duke Nukem, but it just wasn't going to work without the shades.

After spinning my wheels for awhile I created Crazy Dan!, inspired by a real guy I know named Dan. He's a little crazy. You can't tell from this picture how weird his chest and posture are underneath that cloak, but they're weird. He's basically an inverse hunchback with a stubby old man body, if an old man was inexplicably extremely muscular.

I hope people like Crazy Dan!, because the popularity of your Dragon's Dogma pawn really matters. Every time you rest at an inn, your pawn's data is uploaded online, and they can go on adventures with other players, then return with money, gifts and knowledge from other players. That's pretty cool. I hope Crazy Dan! gets to go on some good adventures.

I'm sure those of you playing Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen have already created some great pawns and heroes. Well, here's a chance to show them off! Drop us a link to a picture of your pawn (and/or Arisen) in the comments below. Tell us about them. You may find a pawn from a fellow PC Gamer you want to hire in the process.

We'll collect our favorites and show them off next week. Your pawn could become a star, the most in-demand warrior in the Rift.

Luigi in Mario Galaxy 2? Official Japanese site says yes

With just 30 days separating us and the release of Super Mario Galaxy 2, we are jumping at any new info we can dig up, whether it’s Cloud Mario or the appearance of a new co-op character . Now the official Japanese site for Galaxy 2 just revealed a whole new bombshell: Luigi will be in the sequel to the greatest Wii game ever. Above: Drink it up Weegee lovers Want to see it for yourself? Just follow

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5 review

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5 review Riddled with bugs and generally irritating failings, it’s clear to see why so many of the gaming public have railed against Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5. This is not the way it should be – the potential last hurrah for the series (with the Activision/Hawk contract running out by the end of 2015) should have been a triumphant return to the classic action of the 16-year-old

Activision is going all-in on eSports, and CEO Bobby Kotick sees the money

Activision is going all-in on eSports.

That is not a new realization -- CEO Bobby Kotick previously comparedeSports to professional sports like the NFL, and implied that his company sees similar opportunities for fandom and revenue generation.

Well, he wasn't teasing. In today's earnings call, Kotick rhapsodized about the reveue opportunites for the company's eSports business, and shared his vision for the segment as the next big revenue driver for Activision.

Saying that "we're barely in the first inning of opportunity for games as organized sport," Kotick pointed out that "eSports viewership is greater than the individual audiences for NHL, Major League Baseball, or the NBA."

His expectations for growth? "In the future, Call of Duty, Hearthstone , and Overwatch could each have audiences in excess of any of the most well known sports leagues."

Moving forward, we should expect Activision's franchises to have eSports potential, it seems.

Noting that "advertising and subscription revenues for eSports events are dwarfed by major league sports," he shared this short anecdote: "My friend Robert Kraft, the owner of the New England Patriots, paid a little less than $180 million for the Patriots in the early 1990s, and he told me it was the best investment he ever made."

The takeaway? "15 to 20 years from now, pro team owners of our major franchises will likely be sharing similar sentiments."

In the future, Kotick expects eSports events to "command their fair share of broadcasting revenues." NFL broadcasting revenues will generateover $7 billion this year.

He later expanded on his thoughts about how eSports might bolster Activision's business.

"I think when you try to get the untapped opportunities, though, that enable you to do a lot of these things, we have this very virtuous cycle: People pay to participate, sponsors are willing to finance events, those events then become the content that's broadcast on our networkor on other networks.

"Those events then lead to having the ability to have regional events, national events, intentational events, all of these things have the opportunity for us to expand to have broadcast rights, licensing and merchandising, ticket sales, local sponsorships, national sponsorships -- and these are all things we are very actively engaged in. Not to mention all the opportunities to sell our professional teams for our professional legaues."

The conclusion? Says Kotick, "over the long term we view this as a tremendous opportunity to both celebrate our players and create a lot of value for our shareholders." In his view, Activision Blizzard is "better positioned than any entertainment company to take advantage of the opportunities ahead."

Note "entertainment company." In the past, the game industry so often compared itself to the movie industry. But Kotick sees himself as a competitor of the NFL now -- and likely ESPN.

Cloud Mario? New power-up revealed in latest batch of Mario Galaxy 2 screens

Super Mario Galaxy 2 information has exploded all over the internet in the last 24 hours. First there was an update to the Japanese Galaxy 2 site with lots of new videos and info on a “Baby Chico”, who may be your sidekick in a new multiplayer mode. Now Nintendo of America has their own news, premiering some screens and character art, including a never before seen cloud-based power-up, which we feel

Caos Trigger: Golem Attemps Classic Metroidvania Action

Metroivania is something of its own legitimate genre recently – and I tell ya, the kids love it.

Metroivania is something of its own legitimate genre recently – and I tell ya, the kids love it. We also don’t have enough of them! Thankfully, Dusty Cat Mediais making Caos Trigger: Golem – a Metroidvania (in case you didn’t already know) about a girl who can create, summon, and command golems.

In a fantasy world ridden with demons, one of the most powerful, known as Caos, has had enough, and seeks out a means to vanquish all. He turns to Anaise, a brave young girl to assist him. In an attempt to destroy all demons, himself included, he causes a catastrophic explosion that leaves Anaise with no memory. She’s subsequently kidnapped by pirates, then raised on a brooding island. Unfortunately, not all the demons and evil of the world were vanquished in the explosion, but Caos’ heroic sacrifice left Anaise with the power and abilities to finish what he started.

In classic Metroidvania fashion, you’ll be exploring large 2D pixel art environments, crossing paths with enemies and allies alike. Throughout the world, you’re required to find Golem Scrolls, which give Anaise an array of of golems to summon, all featuring distinct abilities and attributes. Each scroll requires the player to seek out specific ingredients in order to summon the Golem.

Caos Trigger : Golem is currently on Kickstarter, seeking $50,000 in pledges. There is a demo available on the campaign page for those interested. The game is expected to come out on Windows, iOS, Android, and the OUYA.  For more information on Dusty Cat Media, you can follow them on Twitterand like them on Facebook.

Dragon's Dogma system requirements released; will have uncapped framerate

Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen is set to release on January 15, Capcom announced today.

Dragon s Dogma 1

is set to release on January 15, Capcom announced today. Not only that, but the system requirements are out too, and it's good news for anyone with a superb rig. The framerate is unlocked, and if you want to play the game in 4K, you can. Controllers are supported, in addition to mouse and keyboard.

Dragon's Dogma originally released for consoles back in 2013, and it's quite the underrated classic. Andy got some hands-on time with the PC port earlier this month and came away impressed. "The Pawn system is a stroke of genius, the combat is satisfying and challenging, with a kinetic, weighty feel to it, and a curiously Japanese sense of humour runs throughout."

Oh, and there's a new trailer, too. Scroll to the bottom for the system requirements.

Minimum Specs:

OS: Windows Vista or newer
Processor: Intel Core i5-660 CPU or equivalent
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: Radeon HD 5870 or equivalent
DirectX: Version 9.0c
Storage: 22 GB available space
Sound Card: DirectX-compatible sound card or onboard audio chip

Recommended Specs:

OS: Windows Vista or newer
Processor: Intel Core i7-4770K or equivalent
Memory: 8 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 or equivalent
DirectX: Version 9.0c
Storage: 22 GB available space
Sound Card: DirectX-compatible sound card or onboard audio chip

New Mario Galaxy 2 footage pops up on Japanese site

Oh boy! Nintendo's Official Japanese site has just unveiled a batch ofnewglimpses into Mario Galaxy 2… Unfortunately, they’re in a crappy video player about the size of a GBA cart. But you know you want to see them anyway! Don’t speak Japanese? We’ve got you covered: GamesRadar: Keeping you unilingual! The videos may not be of the finest technical quality, but they still showcase an awful lot of new

Same character name, totally different game

Page 1 of 4: Page 1 Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4

Plastic Fantastic – how Rock Band 4’s instruments were remade

Plastic Fantastic – how Rock Band 4’s instruments were remade Rock Band has been supported by hardware dev Mad Catz since 2008, but the manufacturer has always stayed behind the curtain… We go backstage with ichard Neville, Mad Catz’ senior product development manager, to talk about what it’s like to be the roadie for gaming’s biggest rhythm action franchise When Mad Catz contacted Harmonix to talk

Indie Intros: ‘Legions Of Steel’

I’m a big fan of turn-based strategy games, so it should come as no surprise that I sit up and pay attention when a game like Legions of Steel shows up seeking funding on Kickstarter.

As you might have guessed, Legions of Steel is an upcoming sci-fi, turn-based strategy game based on the old miniatures gameof the same name. Currently in development for iOS, Android and PC, Studio Nyx are currently looking to raise £25,000 before October 17th.

Although Legions of Steel uses the standard movement points and dice rolls style of gameplay, similar to other recent turn-based strategy games such as XCOM: Enemy Unknown, there’s a lot that sets it apart from other similar games in the genre. You’re able to cover a greater distance by performing but doing so will greatly reduce your accuracy, which can drastically alter the course of the game. You can also determine your units firing stance, controlling the battlefield with firing tactics such as suppressing fire, covering fire, or spread fire.

If its Kickstarter campaign is successful, Legions of Steel will be released in February 2014. If you’re eager to make sure this game gets made, just head over to the Kickstarter campaignpage to pledge your support and grab up the rewards while they’re still around. You can also find out more about Legions of Steel, including progress on the game itself, over on the Studio Nyx website.

Dragon's Dogma: an original take on the high-fantasy RPG

A dragon attacks your village and you bravely face it with a rusty sword.

Dragons Dogma 1

A dragon attacks your village and you bravely face it with a rusty sword. As you hack hopelessly at its legs, it plucks out your heart, tossing it into its mouth before flying away. You lie dead on the beach—or so it seems. Waking up, you discover you’re The Arisen: a legendary warrior destined to drive the beast back to whence it came. Tough break.

Yes, this is a fantasy RPG, full of beards, wizards, jerkins, and goblins. But it’s by a Japanese studio—led by Devil May Cry director Hideaki Itsuno—and isn’t the fusty old swords-and-elves games you might be expecting. It takes hokey Western fantasy tropes and injects them with humour, personality and some clever game design. Dragon’s Dogma was released three years ago on consoles to great critical acclaim, but it always felt like a game that belonged on PC—and now, finally, it’s coming.

There are perks to being The Arisen, including the ability to summon Pawns—bodyguards who exist solely to aid you in battle. Early on you create a main Pawn, who’ll follow you throughout. I created a mage called Queen to accompany my tank-like fighter. She casts a spell in battle that makes my sword burn with magical fire and heals me. She’s awesome.

Dragon s Dogma 2

Other Pawns can journey with you too, but only temporarily. You can create them yourself, choose from a selection of computer-generated Pawns, or—and here’s the best bit—download them from other players. Pawns who travel with you gain knowledge of the places you visit and, importantly, monsters you defeat. So if you kill a troll, anyone who downloads the Pawns who helped you defeat it will have its weakness revealed. But the more experienced a Pawn is, the more expensive it is to hire. It’s a unique system.

And you’ll need help from Pawns, because Dragon’s Dogma is tough. There’s no indication if a part of the world is beyond your current skills, giving the game a genuine sense of danger and adventure. You’ll enter a cave and get wiped out in seconds by some unholy monster. But, later, you’ll come back with Pawns who know its weakness and better abilities, and make short work of it. This lack of hand-holding is reminiscent of Dark Souls, but it’s not quite as punishing.

The combat also has echoes of Dark Souls, emphasising careful parrying and blocking. But unique to Dragon’s Dogma is the ability to climb on large enemies. You can shimmy up a troll’s leg and hack away at its head as it tries to shake you off. Pawns can grab smaller enemies and hold them, giving you a moment to attack. Battles are tactical and any attempts to dumbly hack-and-slash your way through the game will be met with a swift, unceremonious death.

Dragon s Dogma 3

Japanese games often suffer from bad PC ports, but the preview version of Dragon’s Dogma I played boasts a broad selection of graphics options, plays at a steady 60fps, supports high resolutions, and gets rid of the black bars that plagued the console version. I noticed some shadow glitches while using a lamp to light dark areas, but hopefully these will be fixed. I wouldn’t say it was a pretty game but the art and animation are so full of character I don’t mind its low-poly models and slightly blurry textures too much.

But while Dragon’s Dogma isn’t a visual powerhouse, it is one of the most imaginative action RPGs released in recent years. The Pawn system is a stroke of genius, the combat is satisfying and challenging, with a kinetic, weighty feel to it, and a curiously Japanese sense of humour runs throughout. It’s heartening to see the game arrive on PC in such fine shape. That dragon’s days are numbered.

Get Your Paws On Dino And Jack-The Lost Bones

Every dog has his day, even if he’s crazy enough to be chasing a speeding museum truck that has inadvertently lost a dinosaur bone.

Every dog has his day, even if he’s crazy enough to be chasing a speeding museum truck that has inadvertently lost a dinosaur bone. In Dino And Jack-The Lost Bones, players control a hungry little dog called Jack, who must run, jump, and shoot his way through a bug infested jungle in an attempt to claim all the lost dino bones. Described as a fusion of an endless runner and a shmup, Dino And Jack-The Lost Bones challenges players to survive as long as possible in a dog-eat-dog world.

Relying on their reflexes and the blasting power of the trusty Cocozooka and Bananagun weapons, players maneuver Jack through the vivid and colorful Jungle,where they can also collect a series of coins which unlock in-game items. Making Jack shoot or jump requires a simple tap on the left or right hand side of the screen, and a swipe to make him dash forward. Trying to stop Jack from his osseous adventure will be a slew of dangerous rocks, killer plants, and bugs-the last of which can be fought against using a special jungle suit. In addition to the side missions which provide Jack with opportunities to earn extra bones, The Bone Doubler and Bone Magnet will help him earn a ton of bonus bones.

Join jack in his epic quest today by downloading Dino And Jack-The Lost Bones today from the App Storefor iPhone and iPad, or via the Google Play Storefor free. What do you think about Dino And Jack-The Lost Bones ?

Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen PC trailer sets the scene

I for one am pretty bloody excited that Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen is coming to PC.

is coming to PC. I've already played it through on console, but as the trailer above demonstrates it's going to look and run a lot better on PC. Look at that silky framerate. It brought a tear to my eye.

If you've already played the game nothing in the video will surprise you – it's a simple runthough of the game's unique systems, including pawns. These are fully-customisable companions that can be shared online. If other users take one of your pawns on an adventure, you reap some benefits.

Not shown in the trailer is that you can pick people up and throw them off cliffs. That's what initially sold the game for me. Oh, and the menu theme for Dragon's Dogma is one of the best ever committed to tape (make sure you listen until the 0:43 mark). Assuming the port is good, this will definitely be one to play. It's due in January 2016.

If games were more like their film adaptations

But it got us thinking. What if certain franchises started taking inspiration from the cinematic clunkers they inspired? It's already started with a few of the visual effects in Silent Hill, but what if it went further?That thought got us scared, so we worked out our fears through Photoshop. First up, Resi 6 would get really awkward: Resident Evil "Just ask Jill. I was totally there at that Nemesis

A Hare In My Yard – The Age-Old Farmer Vs. Man In Rabbit Costume Story

Indie development studio, Idea Moose Entertainment, recently revealed the trailer for their upcoming game, A Hare in my Yard .

. The game is heavily inspired by old-school gameplay and retro graphics, with the developers attempting a modern version of these classic mechanics.

A Hare in my Yard puts players in control of Farmer Dude, who must protect his crops from his neighbor, Rabbit Man, which is really just a man in a rabbit costume, living underground. Farmer Dude does this by replacing blocks of dirt above Rabbit Man, stopping the crops from being stolen so easily. Rabbit Man also has friends that can dig through the dirt, or knock Farmer Dude over with dangerous attacks. To counter this, players can purchase items and call for help. This helps comes in the form of Granny Wheelbarrow, who can easily replace the dirt, and Farmer Dude also has a scrappy chicken that can fight and delay Rabbit Man for a little while, too.

A Hare in my Yard is currently being developed for iOS and Android mobile devices, with an expanded PC version in the works. For more information, gamers can follow the developers on Twitteror visit their Facebookpage. Do you feel like getting your hands dirty?

Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen is coming to PC

Dragon's Dogma is an action RPG that originally came out for the PS3 and Xbox 360 back in 2012, from the same director as Devil May Cry 2, 3, and 4, Hideaki Itsuno.

Dragon s Dogma 1

Only a few months ago, Andy included Dragon's Dogma on his listof console exclusives that should come to PC. What do you know? Looks like Capcom paid attention.

In some ways it's a standard fantasy RPG, with character classes and quests and lots of fantastical enemies to fight. The main feature that sets it apart is its Pawn system, whereby your party is made up of your own character plus NPCs called Pawns that you can borrow from other players online. Also interesting are its boss-type fights, which might see you climbing on large enemies to target specific areas.

Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen consists of the original Dragon's Dogma, all of its DLC, and some extra content including a new zone called Bitterblack Isle and new items and quests. Since this is on PC, it should look nicer than the console version, and it'll have full Steam support.

It's due out in January next year.

DDDA PC screen 02

DDDA PC screen 03

DDDA PC screen 04

DDDA PC screen 05

5 reasons to hate Mario

As the de facto figurehead of this little medium of ours, Mario is a tough dude to hate on. He’s adorable, his games are stellar, and he still stands proud as a shining beacon of everything that’s right in the land of vidjagames. But we take our Week of Hate responsibilities very seriously at GR… this must be done. We took a deep breath, poured ourselves another glass of Maximum Strength Haterade,

Kung Fury: Street Rage Adapts the 80s-Inspired Movie in Retro Style

The comedy short film Kung Fury generated a lot of buzz during its release.

generated a lot of buzz during its release. Filled with homages and references to the 80s martial arts and police action films, while also laced with irony and trashy, funny punchlines, the film was the result of a successful Kickstarter project funded in 2014. Almost a month past its official release, the Swedish game studio Hello There partnered up with Laser Unicorns, the team behind the movie, to release a game adaptation in the form of Kung Fury: Street Rage.

Hello There explains that the game “contains the same kind of love for the 80’s as the film; old school arcade graphics, beat ‘em up gameplay, an epic synth soundtrack and endless action.” From the game trailer above, it’s clear that the gameplay seems to fit that description, looking a lot like the beat ’em up classics from late 80s to early 90s like Double Dragon, Streets of Rage, and Renegade .

If all these flashbacks and retro aesthetics aren’t enough for you, the developers also announced a limited edition of Kung Fury: Street Rage for Commodore 64 in its Compact Cassette tape. In case you still own a working Commodore 64.

Kung Fury: Street Rage is available for free on iOS and Android devices through the App Storeand the Play Store. A paid version was also released on Steamfor $1.99. Those interested can watch the Kung Fury movie for free on Laser Unicorn’s Youtubepage, and other information can be found at the Hello There Games website.

Someone has ported The Witness to the NES

The Witness is a beautiful open world adventure, but the moment-to-moment activities are pretty simple: you move around an island and solve a series of increasingly difficult line puzzles which, when solved, change the lay of the land in both obvious and obscure ways.

is a beautiful open world adventure, but the moment-to-moment activities are pretty simple: you move around an island and solve a series of increasingly difficult line puzzles which, when solved, change the lay of the land in both obvious and obscure ways. It's a concept that'd work quite well as a topdown, 8-bit adventure game in the vein of Zelda, and... would you look at that, someone has already done that very thing.

The Wit.nes is the work of indie developer Dustmop. It's a NES ROM, but you can download an emulator and play it on your PC easily enough (instructions are on Dustmop's Itch.io). It's currently marked as a demo, but contains 32 puzzles, 16 screens of map and four-way scrolling.

"Developed over 2 months, this NES ROM stands as a reinterpretation and tribute to the original work," reads Dustmop's description. "Aimed at both players unfamiliar with the full game who want to learn what it's like, as well as veterans that need a fix of new puzzle panels to solve."

If you'd prefer to watch someone else play the demake, check out YouTuber thumbstickathleteshaving a go below:

These game heroes died for your sins

Mario as Jesus. With games becoming more and more an integral part of mainstream culture, and game icons being adapted into everything from toys and t-shirts to food and drink, this crossover was bound to happen. But who knew the result would work so well? Or be so professionally, meticulously, breathtakingly done? Behold one of the greatest pieces of fan art… ever. "Game Over" was created by deviantART

IGM Plays: ‘Cool Pizza’

So early this morning I decided to check the App Store and see if Cool Pizza landed yet, and sure enough, it has!

landed yet, and sure enough, it has! If you recall, yesterday I was utterly confused by the trailer when I went to write up a post announcing the release date. Did that confusion follow into the game? Pretty much! But none the less, it still remained to be fun.

I start things out from the very beginning of the game and after a few failed attempts I make a historic run (for me anyway). So far I like it a lot. I’m gonna play some more in hopes of getting even higher on the leaderboards! Check out the video above for commentary and gameplay footage.

To download Cool Pizza , grab it on the App Storefor free!

The Witness breaks $5 million in sales in its first week

The Witness creator Jonathan Blow tweeted last week that the game “is on track to sell more in a week than Braid [his previous game] sold in its first year.” Today he confirmed that prediction in a “ Fun Sales Fakts ” post on The Witness website, in which he said that it has already sold “substantially more than 100,000 units.”
Blow said, as he did last week, that he can't be too precise with the sales figures for fear of violating NDAs with various online retailers.

The Witness 1

Blow said, as he did last week, that he can't be too precise with the sales figures for fear of violating NDAs with various online retailers. He also emphasized that, while The Witness appears to be making quite a bit of money, it's almost a secondary consideration. “We were trying to build a beautiful / interesting / intricate thing, first and foremost,” he wrote. “The money just helps us stay in business in order to build new things.”

“Across all platforms, The Witness has totalled over $5 million USD gross revenue in the first week, and it has sold substantially more than 100,000 units,” Blow wrote. “This is a good chunk more revenue in one week than Braid made in its entire first year, from August 2008-September 2009. (Braid initially launched on XBLA in August 2008, and it came to Steam in April 2009). Braid was considered a hit independent game at the time.”

The Witness outperformed Braid over its first week by number of units sold as well, which Blow said is “a really nice success” because the new game is so much more expensive than the old one: $40 compared to $15. He added that Steamspyreports of Witness sales, currently sitting at around 50,000 owners, are “a bit too low.”

Despite its success, The Witness hasn't yet recovered its development cost, although Blow appears confident that it will. “As time goes on, we should break even and make a comfortable safety margin on top of that, which will allow us to make more nice games in the future—unless some kind of world economic disaster happens,” he wrote.

Blow and the rest of The Witness team are currently focused on providing post-launch support for the game, and are also working on adding new features including configurable controls and rendering options. Releases on other platforms, including mobile, Xbox One, and OS X, are also being considered.

Super Mario Galaxy 2's insane planets

Page 1 of 2: Page 1 Page 1 Page 2

How Early Access will shape Starpoint Gemini Warlords

I spent some time at GDC with developer Little Green Men Games, the team behind the upcoming Starpoint Gemini Warlords .

Starpoint Gemini Warlords

. While I got a brief look at the next entry in their space RPG series, we spent most of our time talking about Steam Early Access, how it defined Starpoint Gemini 2 ( our review is here), and how it will shape Warlords in the coming months.

Zeno Zokalj, Community Manager for LGM, talked about their first experience with Early Access on Starpoint Gemini 2 and how it changed the course of development in unexpected ways. "Our original plan was to be three months in Early Access," he said. "The end-game was, we were in Early Access for over a year, and the first version in Early Access and the final product were like two different games. It looked similar, but it completely worked differently. We changed more than fifty percent of all features due to the community's suggestions and ideas. And [Warlords] is basically the continuation of that."

Mario Mihokovic, CEO of LGM, explained how their small development team quickly realized their loyal community was full of ideas. "25 people don't have as many ideas as 200,000 thousand people," he said. "And they're all old-school space gamers just like us. We all grew up on Wing Commander, the original Elite, and stuff like that, so basically we have a community of people who share our love for space games, and we can talk to them and get fantastic feedback."

Starpoint Gemini Warlords

Community ideas that were implemented in SPG 2 included being able to keep their smaller ships even when unlocking newer and bigger ones. Said Mihokovic: "The initial idea was you have a ship, and when buying a bigger ship, you replace your ship with a bigger ship. They asked us, 'A bigger ship is better for some things, but a smaller ship is better for some of the missions. Why can't I store ships that I had, an have all of them later?' So we added a garage, so you can store all the ships you had, at least one of each class."

Making things easier for everyone was the attitude and behavior of their fans. "Our community base is mature players," said Zokalj. "We didn't know that at the beginning, we noticed that during the communication that there was... no kind of raging in the forums. They were very polite and every suggestion was very complete and very [well] elaborated. We noticed it's not typical communication. Later we found out when we got the statistics from Steam that the average player was almost 40 years old and played all the previous games."

It would not be possible without the community. It's their idea.

I didn't just take their word for it. I've spent some time since our meeting looking through the forums myself, and it does seem to be passionate and thoughtful community, both full of ideas and the ability to express them. The developers are quick to jump into suggestion threads and join the discussion. When they like an idea, they're quick to say so, and perhaps more importantly, when a suggestion isn't workable they're upfront about it. Responding to a question about whether players will be able to freely design their own ships rather than unlocking upgrades through tech research, LGM Lead Scripter and Designer Danijel Mihokovic admits they won't be able to implement something that free-form.

"Designing ships from parts, I'm afraid is out of our league for now," he posted. "And I'm emphasizing the for now because it's definitely something I see us implementing in a future title."

"Sorry to disappoint, but that's the situation," he added.

Spg2

This community-based development philosophy extends all the way to the title of the game. LGM didn't want to call it Starpoint Gemini 3, simply because so much of it comes from the ideas and suggestions of the community. "This game is everything that the community asked us to do and we were not able to implement in SPG 2 because of changing game mechanics or [having to] break the whole game down, and it was impossible at the time," said Zokalj. "So we decided to make a project that will be everything they want it to be. It would not be possible without the community. It's their idea."

As for Warlords itself, we discussed some of the features, like the layer of strategy that will allow players to conquer territory and exploit the resources in the zones they capture, like asteroid belts for mining and planets for producing materials. Branching dialogue and bigger capital ships—much bigger—are on the roster as well. "We really wanted to improve on that feeling of scale and huge ships, and it's also something the community wanted," said Zokalj. "They wanted to have a feeling when they upgrade the ship that they're really upgrading something."

Players also wanted a larger universe to explore and a home base they could call their own. They're getting both. "This map will be nine times bigger than SPG 2," said Zokalj. "Which was already pretty big. And this will be nine times bigger, so much to explore. They wanted their own headquarters, their hub."

Starpoint Gemini Warlords

He showed me a progression of the player base, how it expanded via modules for mining, shipbuilding, and so on, plus a research module to allow players to create their own proprietary technology which will allow them to rely less on other factions. The sandbox nature of the game means you can also choose not to build a base at all, though Mihokovic warns: "The game would be very hard without it."

Starpoint Gemini Warlords will arrive in Steam Early Access in April, and LGM is expecting to spend around 8-10 months there, perhaps longer. They also expect the finished version, as with Starpoint Gemini 2, will be very different than the alpha. "We are intentionally going to release alpha again, because we want to keep the game as unfinished as possible so that it's easier to add their ideas in the game. And if we released an almost complete game it would be much harder to implement any of what they say."

When Warlords will leave Early Access is harder to predict. The game will be released, Zokalj said, "When the community says its ready."

Powered by Blogger.