If you watched the Electronic Arts “EA Play” E3 2018 event, congratulations for making it through a pretty bad show. Host Andrea Rene did her best to pluck up the proceedings, but between DICE apologizing for how they flubbed the launch of Battlefront II, to the audience applauding over the announcement that Battlefield V and Anthem wouldn’t have loot boxes, it was a dire affair. Also, for some reason, EA thought we’d like to watch a full live match of Command and Conquer: Rivals, the new mobile take on the beaten but not quite buried C&C franchise.
In sports gaming, there was the usual roster updates and gloss. FIFA 19 has a partnership with the UEFA Champions League. Madden 19, with some voice help from Michael Kenneth Williams, looked suitably Madden. NBA Live 19 is pushing harder into the management space with its Build Your Squad gameplay. Then, when things seemed to be going fine, EA trotted out Young Kiv, the current Madden champion, to mumble his way through some clumsy bro-justification for missing his own graduation to play more Madden.
There were a couple of bright spots. Unravel Two showcased some co-op side-scrolling puzzle jumping. The pitch for Sea of Solitude, an adventure through a young woman’s discovery of loneliness, seemed like the most German art game ever. Vince Zampella of Respawn announced Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, before disappearing in a puff of awkwardness.
EA CEO Andrew Wilson traded in his supervillain suit for a cozy casual outfit and declared that streaming and subscription are where the company thinks things are going. To that end, he announced Origin Access Premier, another level to Origin Access (presumably costing more) that adds brand new games to their current subscription service. He then cackled madly and flew away in a rocket made of recycled loot boxes.
Wreckfest, formally known as “New Car Game” from Bugbear Entertainment and THQ Nordic, is coming out of early access. It’s been 10 years since Bugbear gave us a FlatOut game, so their welcome return to demolition derby gaming is a badly needed shot in the arm of the racing genre. There’s a lot of satisfaction in racing cleanly and maintaining a neat line on the ribbon, but there’s also something beautiful about smashing the heck out of some Detroit steel. Flying tires, ripped bumpers, and shattered glass winking in the sunlight have a poetry that rivals a sweet drift.
Wreckfest officially launches on Steam on June 14th. PlayStation 4 and Xbox players will have to wait until November 20th.
The second half of the “Han Solo season” is coming to Star Wars: Battlefront II on June 12th. To celebrate the marketing synergy of the game and the movie Solo: A Star Wars Story, DICE is adding a map based on the Coaxium Mine of Kessel, skins for young Han and Lando, and another version of the Millenium Falcon. We get it. It’s an iconic ship that is idelibly linked in most people’s minds with Han Solo, plus the prequel design is nifty. Did we really need a third Falcon in this game? How about the cool new TIE/rb with the heavy cannon pod? Or how about that janky Imperial Hauler with its exposed scaffold and dual crane arms? You could’ve even gone with the zippy swoops the Cloud-Rider gang uses! Nope. We get another Falcon.
In 2005, Mark Healey, working for Lionhead as an artist at the time, got the mad idea to use his programming skills to marry rope physics code to kung fu fighters. Then he wrapped the whole thing up with footage from an ultra low-budget chop-socky film he had made with his friends. The result was Rag Doll Kung Fu, a goofy indie game that implausibly wound up as the first non-Valve developed game to be offered on Steam. People Make Games interviewed some of the folks involved, and the story is a mix of luck, good timing, and a lost wallet.
Healey left Lionhead in 2006 and founded Media Molecule with Alex Evans, David Smith, and Kareem Ettouney. Rag Doll Kung Fu continues to sell on Steam, but new versions were made for PlayStation and iOS. Steam published 7,672 games in 2017.
Preorders are now officially open for Red Dead Redemption 2. Among the dizzying array of virtual bits and bobs and physical gewgaws available, is the War Horse, the infamously powerful equine from the first game. Like the current offer, the War Horse was a preorder incentive. It was also hands-down the absolute best horse in Red Dead Redemption. It had three times the health of any normal horse available to the player, and it tied the next best horses for speed and stamina. In fact, it was the only horse that had enough health to withstand a mountain lion attack. Beyond satisfying the completionist urge, there was no reason to own any other horse in the game. We don’t know how horse stats will work in Red Dead Redemption 2, or where the War Horse will sit in the rankings, but giddayup for the only horse that comes close to Roach.
To Americans, The Bus Simulator series is one of those inscrutably European things like mayonnaise on fries or courtesy. While Farm Simulator and Truck Simulator have both made the jump across the pond and cultivated stateside fans, Bus Simulator remains a puzzle. Drive large, slow buses through city traffic? Boring! At least 18-wheel trucking gives you the open road and dreams of booze-running with The Bandit. What Yanks do understand is multiplayer trolling, and we’re about to see some epic “rubbing is racing” gaming. Bus Simulator 18 is adding multiplayer!
Ignore that trailer showing enthusiastic drivers cooperating to shuttle passengers on busy roadways. We know what will happen when you jerks get together to drive buses. It’s going to be Speed mixed with Days of Thunder.
Star Citizen is offering a $27,000 pack that includes almost every ship and goodie the game has for sale. The Legatus Pack, includes 117 in-game ships and 163 virtual extras like models, fish tanks, ship add-ons, decorative posters, and land claim parcels. There’s a small catch though. You won’t be able to see anything at that link unless you’re a “concierge” member of Star Citizen, meaning you’ve already spent $1000 on the game. That’s right, space peasants. You may continue groveling in space mud with your cheap starter accounts. You don’t even get the privilege of giving Roberts Space Industries $27,000 for the new pack. Be thankful that they let you buy the A2 Hercules for a mere $700.
If you’re interested in seeing the contents of the Legatus Pack, a Star Citizen community member listed the items offered here. Star Citizen’s pledge total stands at $186 million.
Tommy Tallarico, (yes, that Tommy Tallarico) is the new president of Intellivision Entertainment and the company is getting ready to launch a new version of its retro home game console. The information released is short on details, but more will be shown on October 1st. According to the above livestream, Intellivision is aiming for less than $200 as a launch price, the box will support HDMI, and games will be preloaded onto the drive like other recent retro consoles.
Hours of Darkness, the first installment of three planned DLC packs for Far Cry 5, goes back in time to the jungles of Vietnam. You’ll play as Wendell Redler on a prisoner of war extraction mission. New weapons, enemies, and vehicles will be provided in the paid DLC and they will carry over into the main Hope County campaign. Items like the Vietnam-era M16, SVD sniper rifle, props, and NPCs will also be available to everyone for free in the game’s editor as assets for creating user-made scenarios. A Survivor Mode that reduces weapons and makes the game harder in many ways, and an Action Movie mode that makes everything even more ridiculous round out the DLC pack.
Hours of Darkness for Far Cry 5 will be available on June 5th.
That’s Battlefield V from DICE and Electronic Arts. It has women in combat, cricket bats, prosthetic limbs, jaunty music, combat sliding, window leaps, grenade shooting, samurai swords, and cars falling out of the sky capped off with a V-2 rocket attack. It’s World War 2 gone amok and for some people this is apparently a bridge too far despite Battlefield being the franchise known for platoon wing-walking and sniper shots after ejecting out of crashing helicopters. It’s a series that markets itself with “Only in Battlefield” to highlight the wacky things people do in the game. Add women and the disabled and somehow that’s the line crossed.
In the reveal event hosted by The Daily Show’s Trevor Noah, DICE ran through a dizzying checklist of changes to the franchise. First, no season pass or DLC map packs will be sold. New maps and modes will be included with the base purchase for all players, funded by cosmetic bits and bobs in loot boxes. (Presumably DICE will use lessons learned from the disastrous launch of Battlefront 2.) The single player War Stories vignettes returns with scenarios set in Norway, Rotterdam, North Africa, and France. Physical interaction has gotten an overhaul with players able to roll and slide in prone positions, leap through and over obstacles, and injured players can be dragged to new areas for safety before healing. Speaking of healing, all players will be able to perform a limited revive, with the medic being the only class able to fully heal and revive. Say goodbye to active spotting, as enemies are automatically spotted depending on your class, proximity, and being in your field of view. New game modes include a Combined Arms cooperative mode that’s procedurally generated, and Grand Operations PvP with multi-day battles. Exciting changes, or sacrilege depending on your outlook.
Battlefield V launches on October 19th, but Deluxe Edition buyers will get early access beginning October 16. Origin or EA Access subscribers can get in even earlier on October 11th.
From ESPN to multi-million dollar prize pools, video game tournaments are taking root in the mainstream. Esports are now part of the best Olympics. Special Olympics USA and Microsoft are partnering to present the first-ever Special Olympics video game tournament as part of the 2018 Seattle Games. On Monday, July 2, eight teams consisting of pairs of athletes will face off in Forza Motorsport 7 and race for the gold. Additionally, fans will be able to play Forza 7, Minecraft, and Super Lucky’s Tale at booths all week during the event. Beth Knox, President and CEO of the 2018 Special Olympics USA Games, pointed out the developmental benefits of video games.
“Many of our athletes are avid gamers and research indicates playing video games can potentially boost cognitive and motor skills of people with intellectual disabilities.”
Microsoft has been a partner of Special Olympics USA since 2014. If you’d like to attend the 2018 Seattle Games or help out, information is available here.
Epic is putting up $100 million to fund the esport prize pool for Fortnite Battle Royale. That’s $100 million straight from the company’s own funds, rather than crowdfunded by fans. How crazy large is that prize pool? It’s more than the total for the ten most popular games of 2017 combined. It’s epic money. According to the studio, the funding is being done with an eye towards fun and inclusivity, although it’s not clear yet what that really means for the competitive events.
That’s Blackout, the new Battle Royale mode in Call of Duty: Black Ops 4. Characters taken from throughout the franchise’s history spawn in a giant map and fight it out until one team or person is left standing just like all the other Battle Royale games. Blackout’s delineator (besides the brand power) is vehicles. Lots and lots of land, sea, and air vehicles. According to Activision, the “biggest map ever created for Call of Duty” is needed to encompass all the action. There’s no word yet on how many combatants at a time will be battle-royaling out at the same time.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 is launching on October 12th. The PC version will exclusively be available through Battle.net.
Nothing is going to equal the dissonance of the original Dead Island trailer in relation to that game, but this campaign for State of Decay 2 sure doesn’t match the goofy jank of an open-world sandbox. There’s the Found Footage of Coach video above and a Medical Log of Nurse. The sequel to one of the best zombie survival games made is coming on May 22nd for normal folks and four days earlier for Ultimate Edition preorders. The marketing from Microsoft is ramping up and these spots are reminiscent of the Halo 3 Believe commercials. Somber, self-serious ads that turned out to have more gravitas than the product deserved. Everyone wants their zombie games to feel like the last few desperate minutes of Night of the Living Dead, when most of them play like the pie fight in Dawn of the Dead.
If you want to compare the tone of the videos with the actual game before launch, check out Tom’s livestreams of State of Decay 2 all this week!
That’s gameplay from the just-launched mod, The Curse of Tristram: Destruction’s End. It attempts to recreate Diablo II in Starcraft II. That’s seven player classes, three difficulty modes, co-op, new random global events, and most of the main story campaign. Creator Etienne Godbout has been working on it for four years and while there are still some bugs, and it’s definitely a beta, it’s an impressive effort from a lone modder. Doubly so, when you consider the Starcraft II engine is being stretched to the limit to make this work.
The Curse of Tristram is now available in Starcraft II’s arcade mode.
