Quantum Break [official site], the latest from Max Payne folk Remedy, was a Windows 10 store exclusive on PC, and thus cruelly sent to die a miserable death. However, it has just been exhumed from its Microsoftian grave, and will receive a Steam release next month. Can the heavily-mo-capped, time-twisting story-shooter possibly live a second life at this stage? … [visit site to read more]
If that seems a familiar title, it’s because our last story about sci-fi 4X remaequel Master of Orion [official site] was headlined “MOO! Master Of Orion Reboot Enters Early Access”. I thought it only right to symmetrically bookend this tale, if only to please some weird compulsive part of my brain when I look at the tag page. Sadly though, that means I have omitted two vital pieces of information from the headline 1) you get a free copy of Total Annihilation if you buy MOO 2) IT’S GOT WORF IN IT. Also Luke Skywalker but WORF. … [visit site to read more]
Update 5:08pm: Sony just responded to our request for comment with a statement: “Incorrect descriptors were incorporated into the original No Man s Sky limited edition packaging. This was a production issue and was rectified using placement stickers.”
Which doesn’t answer anything. The first sentence simply states what we already knew, and “production issue” could mean anything. There’s still no clarity over what online features No Man’s Sky actually has or how the “production issue” arose. I’ve sent a further request to Sony for clarification. In the meantime, you can read our No Man’s Sky impressions to find out what we think after playing it.
Original story:
No Man’s Sky‘s limited edition boxes have a sticker on their back with a PEGI 7 rating and a warning for mild violence. Peel the sticker back however and on the box itself is a PEGI 12 rating, a mild violence rating, and an icon signalling that the game features online play.
This is more confusing grist to the confusion mill about exactly what online features the procedural galaxy-’em-up is supposed to have.
The breakout star of The Witcher 3 was in-world card game Gwent [official site], which proved so beloved that a full, free-to-play standalone spin-off was greenlit. It includes, of course, the all-important multiplayer mode, which The Witcher 3’s strictly vs AI version lacked. Our Adam declared nu-Gwent to be “one of the best games at E3” when he had a fiddle with an early build back in June, and I do trust that boy’s taste (I’m only saying that because he’s away at the moment so won’t read this). CD Projekt planned to release a beta next month, but sadly it’s slipped. … [visit site to read more]
2k have been quiet on their open-world period crime ’em-up for a couple of months, but Lincoln Clay has just resurfaced again. Here’s Mafia 3 [official site] setting out its story stall and showing off some very impressive character models that I really hope are not solely restricted to cutscenes. … [visit site to read more]
Text can conjure modes of thinking impossible to convey in images. Wordplay games are an obvious subset of this. Interactive fiction supplies plenty games where you can interact with metaphors as though they were reality, or use verbs only if they start with the correct letter, or convert objects into anagrams of themselves. In fact, the interactive fiction database offers dozens of games in this style.
But there are other and subtler forms of textual strangeness as well: protagonists who think very unlike us, differences between the game universe and our own that only show up after some time, ambiguities deliberately cultivated.
Update: It seems No Man’s Sky Limited Edition boxes have a PEGI sticker on them which obscures a previously included ‘Online play’ icon.
Two spacefarers met each other yesterday in the vast 18 quintillion-planet universe of No Man’s Sky. Except they couldn t see each other or interact in any meaningful way. They moved around, set off explosives and neither of them saw any effect of the other. While this shouldn t be too much> of a surprise, it is at least one aspect of the game that seems to totally contradict what the developers have previously promised.
Warframe [official site] is a free-to-play third person online shooter/stabber, in which you customise and upgrade a sort of spiritual robo-guy and battle hordes of AI-controlled foes, usually with the help of other players, and always in the pursuit of more loot. Yes, much like Destiny, although Warframe was released some 18 months earlier. This is my first time with it, and I was curious as to its ongoing popularity.>
“Just let me die,” he called forlornly, as he was swamped for the third consecutive time by a horde of silent, rectangular-helmeted evildoers. Hey buddy, I thought, I feel dirty for spending so much time jogging on this infinite loot wheel too, but it’s not that> bad, is it? … [visit site to read more]
All right folks, you know the drill. The forums of Dota 2 s official website have been hacked, compromising details from almost 2 million user accounts, including usernames, emails and passwords. A database of 1,923,972 records has been exposed, according to Leaked Source, a search engine that lets internet users see if their details have been leaked. So get those keyboards ready, it’s time for a password change!
I’ve been thinking about expectations a bit, recently. Not least with No Man’s Sky only moments away. And not least because Graham recently wrote about how he sometimes prefers to enjoy the expectations more than the games themselves. Few games have so many expectations hanging around their neck like mighty millstones as next week’s indie space adventure, and it means it’ll be released into a frenzied madness of people’s own imaginations with which it can never compete. But unlike Graham I don’t enjoy the build-up at all – in fact, as contrary as this is to my job, I try to ignore it as much as possible.>