Where are the sheep in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain’s Metal Gear Online mode? In the video above, you can see the team vs. team gameplay, but there’s nary a ruminant on display. How will these stealthy Metal Gear operatives function without the comical bleats of balloon extracted sheep echoing in the sky? The video shows cute plushies that distract enemies, alligator head hats, and a surprisingly competent looking buddy system. Sure, you can use the Fulton device to kidnap enemy soldiers, but without sheep to harass, it seems a bit hollow. As anyone who has spent a few hours in 1984 Afghanistan knows, the most important combatants are the livestock.
Metal Gear Online will be launching on October 6th as a free update for consoles players of Metal Gear Solid V, but PC players will have to wait for early 2016.
Valve is updating the animation and character hitboxes in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. As the development team explains, the changes and additions are meant to better convey what people are doing in the game. This is best illustrated by the image above of the new bomb defusing pose that now shows a little cable thingy (that’s the technical term) going from the whatsit in the player’s hand to the bomb.
This is a big deal to competitive players of the venerable shooter. To scrubs like us, the addition of a coiled cable during bomb defusing would seem like a neat improvement. Nothing shocking. Just a nice little detail to have. In the split-second high-stakes competitive world of CS:GO, this is an earthquake. One of the tried and true strategies is “defuse faking” which involves pretending to defuse the bomb during a match to goad enemy players out of hiding. Since the new animation adds a highly visible blue cord to defusing, that may no longer be a viable tactic. Imagine if chess removed castling or if the developers of Call of Duty added wall-running and jump jets to team deathmatch. Game-changer!
Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate will have DLC featuring Jack the Ripper because of course it will. Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate’s game proper is set in 1868, a full two decades before investigator Johnny Depp matched wits against Ian Holm’s Ripper, so how will the player as assassin Jacob Frye take on the turn-of-the-century killer? With the magic of DLC! Just like David Warner’s Ripper and Malcom McDowell’s H.G. Wells traveled through time, so can the player in a virtual London. The Jack the Ripper campaign will be one of seven planned DLC offerings (assuming everything goes well with the game’s technical launch) included in the Season Pass. Despite Jack’s appearance, the real killer is the Season Pass bonus.
Season Pass holders get an exclusive, permanent XP boost.
Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate will launch on October 23rd on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, while the PC will get it on November 19th.
The next update to Grand Theft Auto V’s GTA Online will include Freemode Events. The events feature open-world challenges that will randomly pop up while free roaming in Los Santos. You can opt out of them, but then you’d miss the insanity of hunting one player designated a “werewolf,” playing lethal king of the hill, or just arming up and going at it in an all-out turf war. Sounds good, but it’s stuff like this that are keeping single player fans from getting any story-based DLC. In an interview with IGN, Rockstar North revealed that 8 million people play GTA Online each week, and keeping those players happy (and presumably spending money on in-game currency) dominates their development resources.
“Right now our focus is on GTA Online which has exceeded our expectations. We currently have all key members of the team that launched Grand Theft Auto V focused on supporting GTA Online in every capacity.”
Stop it! Stop playing GTA Online right now! If you ever want to see Trevor’s mother again, or find out how Franklin’s ex is doing with her new husband, or what Michael’s next bad movie will be, stop playing so much GTA Online.
Lego Dimensions, the unholy union of brick-building toys and video game collectible from Warner Bros. Entertainment and Traveller’s Tales, has a voice cast to match the properties they are based on. You’ll get a double-dose of Chris Pratt – once as Emmet in The Lego Movie, and again as Owen Grady from Jurassic World. Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd reprise their roles from Back to the Future. Stephen Merchant is Wheatley and Ellen McLain is GLaDOS. Peter Capaldi, Jenna Coleman, and Michelle Gomez voice their roles from Doctor Who. Troy Baker and Tara Strong play Batman and Harley Quinn. Joel McHale and Gary Oldman provide voices for the game’s framing device. Additional cast members include Elizabeth Banks, Charlie Day, Alison Brie, and Irrfan Khan. Finally, as-yet unspecified original actors of The Ghostbusters, The Lord of the Rings, The Simpsons and Scooby-Doo will reprise their roles as well. It’s like a fan convention of Lego geekdom.
Lego Dimensions will launch on September 27th on the PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, and Wii U.
The Xbox Live Indie Games program is wrapping up. In messages sent to members of the XBLIG on Xbox 360 group, Microsoft revealed that the mostly peer-curated publishing initiative was being retired in favor of the newer ID@Xbox on Xbox One program. New memberships and subscriptions to XBLIG will no longer be approved, but current members will be allowed to submit their work until September 2016, at which point Microsoft will stop accepting games for sale. In September 2017, the store itself will be closed. All you developers need to get cracking on your Minecraft-with-360-avatars games if you want to take advantage of that grace period!
The XBLIG program gave us popular hits like CastleMinerZ, One Finger Death Punch, DLC Quest, and Baby Maker Extreme. Thankfully, Steam now offers many of these XBLIG games as early access titles.
One of my complaints about Victor Vran, the really good action RPG in which each weapon is like a separate character class, was that the stakes were so low. Without any meaningful death penalty and without a hardcore mode, you could just plow through the game until you hit the inevitable end (i.e. next level of challenge stars). From my review:
There is no penalty for dying. No experience point setback, no financial ding, no repair costs, no respawned monsters. The worst that happens is that you might have to run back a few screen lengths to where you died. Its an odd oversight that sometimes makes the whole enterprise feel pointless. But when you play in hardcore mode with permadeath, suddenly the game becomes– Oh, wait, there is no hardcore mode or permadeath.
But in the ongoing tradition of patches marginalizing reviews, Victor Vran gets a patch today that adds hardcore characters! From the notes:
Veteran hunters are challenged to create a Hardcore character and play the game without dying. Hardcore characters can only use equipment found by themselves or other Hardcore characters. If your Hero dies, he isn’t lost completely; he loses his Hardcore status and can still be played.
The Snathi are back and ready for vengeance. The universe of Galactic Civilizations III will never be the same. The Revenge of the Snathi DLC turns the ruthless rodents, previously a minor faction, into a playable race with unique ship components and designs as well as a new racial ability. Scavenge allows the space squirrels to salvage bits of ships they’ve defeated in battle, which they’ll likely need in the included campaign. Along with the optional DLC, the base game gets a 1.3 update that improves fleet management, adds planetary governors, and includes some bug fixes.
The Revenge of the Snathi DLC is available on Steam for $4.99.
Apple is finally entering the home console market. The new Apple TV has a controller with a built-in accelerometer, gyroscope, and glass touch surface. You can also speak to the device and Apple’s Siri program will search for your requests. Along with TV shows and movies, you’ll be able to download and play games on your TV – just like a million other home streaming systems. After years of rumors and speculation, this is what they bring to the arena. Apple CEO Tim Cook explained his revolutionary strategy.
“Our vision for TV is simple and perhaps a little provocative. We believe the future of television is apps.”
The new Apple TV units will be available in October. The 64GB unit will cost $199, while a 32GB model will retail for $149.
Did you have your fill of The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt? After spending 80 hours killing monsters, collecting Gwent cards, and giving people bad news, do you still have the need for more? Well, there is more. According to CD Projekt RED, there’s at least ten more hours of the adventures of Geralt of Rivia in Hearts of Stone, the upcoming expansion for the game. This time, the Witcher is tasked with killing Olgierd von Everec, a bandit captain, but chances are that it won’t just be straightforward assassination. The expansion brings new adventures, characters, monsters, and a “unique” romance. Is anything simple in the world of The Witcher?
Hearts of Stone, the first of two planned expansions for The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt, will launch on October 13th for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.
Castle Crashers: Remastered is coming to Xbox One on September 9th and owners of the Xbox 360 version of the game have an opportunity to snatch up the revamp for free. The Behemoth is offering the new co-op game on Xbox One for $0.00 from launch day until September 21st if you have an active Xbox Live subscription. After the 21st, previous owners of the Xbox 360 game will get a $5.00 discount on Castle Crashers: Remastered. Brand new players to the series will be able to purchase the game on Xbox One at the regular price of $14.99.
Castle Crashers: Remastered features a graphics upgrade, increased framerate, better multiplayer code, and a new Back Off Barbarian minigame.
Back Off Barbarian is a simple but addicting mini-game where players move quickly using the D-Pad to avoid the enemies. As time passes, more enemies are added into the level and the players will find it harder to get around in the environment. Up to 4 players can be supported online or offline. Back Off Barbarian will only be available on the Remastered edition of Castle Crashers.
PC players of Castle Crashers will get the Remastered features added to their game for free in a patch later.
No matter what you may have heard about the messy breakup of game designer Hideo Kojima and publisher Konami, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is Kojima’s game. This is evident throughout. Despite it’s serious stealth gameplay, it’s filled with all the zaniness that Kojima has become infamous for like a cardboard box anime pinup girl distraction tool, balloons that comically whisk people and animals away to become part of your army, and a bikini-clad sniper. The tutorial mission is like a Kojima-fueled acid trip. It also has a birthday present hidden away in the middle of it. Play the game on the same day as your birthday, and you’ll get an urgent message to return to base. What follows is a charming, if characteristically goofy Easter egg. Oh, Hideo!
Don’t miss Hideo Kojima’s video goodbye to the series. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is available for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Xbox One, Xbox 360, and Windows PC.
The little troll in that image is Chumbucket. He’s really the star of Mad Max, the open-world car combat brawler from Avalanche Studios and Warner Bros. Entertainment. You may have thought titular Max was the star, but after staring at Chumbucket’s ass for 80% of the game, you’ll make peace with the idea that this little mutant mechanic with the evocative name is the main character. Just like in George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road, Max may be the hero, but the star is someone else. Avalanche got that right.
The writers at Avalanche also got the wonderfully twisted naming convention from the movies right. Max’s car is the Magnum Opus. His nemesis is Scabrous Scrotus who is the son of Immortan Joe. Chumbucket lives in The Great White, an ocean turned into a monstrous desert. (Three meanings in one! It has white sandy dunes! It used to be an ocean! It’s also a remorseless killer!) Jeet. Gutgash. The Plains of Silence. Pink Eye. Griffa. Stank Gum. These aren’t the names of people and places in our world, or even mythical Australia. These are the proper nouns of orcs in Warhammer. While some of the names are nonsense collections of consonants, others are as illuminating as Imperator Furiosa’s grand title. Who can hear the name Scabrous Scrotus and not immediately know they are dealing with a bad guy? The game may end up wearing thin after a few hours, but the names are going to stick.
Mad Max is available on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC.
Turtle Rock Studios has announced that Evolve, their asymmetrical shooter, will be free this weekend on Xbox One and PC. See, they just released the Monster 2.0 update back on the 11th of August, but no one seems to have cared enough to talk about it. In fact, you didn’t even check to see that it wasn’t really called “Monster 2.0” at all. It’s the Hunter 2.0 update. With a rough launch and rougher marketing campaign that never quite overcame the vocal objections to the pricing model, Evolve has floundered. A free weekend may be just the ticket to get people to at least try the game.
Not only will the game be free for the weekend, but Turtle Rock is releasing the Meteor Goliath, a fiery variant of the monster, for free to everyone to keep. Also, if you buy the game after the trial period, all your stats and unlocks will carry over. Wait! That’s not all! During the weekend trial, all the DLC characters will be available for everyone to sample as well. You’re not too busy playing Mad Max, or Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, or taking a nap, to experience the shooter that got a solid “mixed” rating on Steam right?
Electronic Arts and BioWare announced Trespasser, the final planned single player DLC for Dragon Age: Inquisition. It’s set two years after the events of the campaign, and tells the story of what happens to the alliance after the main threat is gone. Much like the final DLC for Dragon Age: Origins, Trespasser will also reveal a possible future threat to the lands of Thedas. Trespasser will launch on September 8 for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Windows PC.
BioWare is also going to release a major patch for Dragon Age: Inquisition that will add a “Golden Nug” statue to the player stronghold. Touching the Golden Nug (take that phrase out of context) will sync your game state across your characters so you can start a new game with all of your collectible goodies intact. This means schematics, recipes and tapestries will carry over like a new game plus. The patch will also add alternate costumes to player characters’ wardrobes. It’s dress-up time!
