In Brogue, gold means nothing. There are no shops. Gold has no weight and no value. And yet gold is in there. It’s in there because, for the 99.99999% of Brogue players who will never win the game, and that includes me, the amount of gold you have when you die is the sole determinant of what your final score will be, and where your nameless, classless, raceless character will end up on the high score list.
There are two versions of Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare on the PC platform. There is one on Steam and one exclusive to the Windows Store. You may be tempted to think they’d be able to play in the same lobbies. You’d be wrong. Players on the Windows Store version will only be in multiplayer lobbies with other Windows Store users, which could be a problem for players looking forward to a thriving community. According to the official FAQ, playing with friends on “another PC platform” is not possible.
No, you can only play these titles with other users of Windows 10 on Windows Store.
Consider this your public service announcement regarding the Windows Store build of Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare.
There’s a new multiplayer mode in Battlefield 1 that revolves around the safeguarding of messenger birds. It’s called War Pigeons. Unfortunately, it’s not about armored pigeons with guns strapped to their backs. In this mode, two teams fight to the death, while attempting to claim and safely release an homing pigeon into the sky. It’s escort duty and flag capturing combined, and it’s supremely silly. Close combat, ragdoll explosions, mud, poison gas, and the violence of one of the bloodiest conflicts in history mix with pigeon babysitting. War Pigeons is a good summary of Battlefield 1 in general.
I just spent thousands of years of accumulated faith to claim Edgar Allen Poe, one of the earliest great writers in Civilization VI. He’ll write The Raven and The Tell-Tale Heart, which are considered great works. They add tourism and culture to a civilization. But great works need to be housed in a “slot”. Basically, a civilization has an inventory for these things. Thousands of years ago, I found The Grass Cutting Sword in a remote village. It’s been sitting in my palace ever since, generating tourism and faith. Because of my close relationship with the city-state of Kandy, I was supposed to get free relics for discovering natural wonders. But, alas, without a place to slot them, they were wasted. Yosemite, Mount Kilimanjaro, and the Great Barrier Reef flashed before my scouts’ eyes and no relics were forthcoming.
To increase great works inventory space, a civilization needs museums, temples, and certain Wonders of the World. Lucky for me, I’ve got the Great Library of Rome, which has room for two writings. It’s been empty for thousands of years. It’s been waiting for Edgar Allen Poe. Now he’s here. At last, it gets two books!
Vietnam 1965-1975 is a board wargame that I bought when I was 15 and then never played until I was 45. I purchased it the first time at a Comics and Game Store in Miami, Florida in 1986. That copy was destroyed by a hurricane in 1992. I promptly bought another copy. That copy was lost in a move in 1999. I bought another copy that year. That copy was misplaced. I bought another, and then a backup. Last year I found the misplaced copy. By my count, I have purchased this game six times. However, I played the game (my definition: against another opponent; solitaire play and pushing cardboard around does not count) for the first time in the spring of 2016. I currently have two games ongoing. I am about to begin a third with Bruce Geryk, which will be documented in a series of entries to be posted occasionally over the next several months.
DriveClub, one of the most surprising games of 2014, is finally done. Evolution Studios may have left the project earlier this year, but before they drove off, they were able to create 15 new urban-themed tracks for use in DriveClub VR. Those tracks, freshly cleaned up and tweaked for the base game’s more detailed visuals, have been added for free as DriveClub’s final update. TeamVVV has details of the content. The new tracks include locations in Japan, India, Chile, Canada, and Norway.
Sony shut down Evolution Studios in March, but much of the team was nabbed by Codemasters in April.
Gears of War 4 is getting its first batch of free content. Microsoft will be releasing Checkout and Drydock for multiplayer. Both are remakes of maps from Gears of War 3.
As part of the new wave of shooters that promise free content updates for everyone with multiplayer being supported by optional purchases, the upcoming map pack is the start of a new pricing model for the Gears franchise. Season Pass holders can use these two new maps starting tomorrow, while regular players will have to wait until November 8th to partake in the legacy goodness. Owners of the $50 season pass will also have permanent (as “permanent” as any virtual goods can be) access to all DLC maps, while freeloading peasants are at the mercy of curated playlists.
What’s scarier than playing the new Doom? How about being forced to play it on an underpowered rig?
In related news, if you haven’t checked out the latest free update to Doom, you should give it a go. Update 4 added an Arcade Mode to the game featuring a score attack system with online leaderboards. Smashing demon heads is the perfect way to spend Halloween!
And that’s a wrap for an entire month of horror recommendations! As we leave you with a couple of picks that didn’t quite fit our other categories, we wish you a happily harrowing Halloween weekend.
That’s “Omen” a short film made by Digic Pictures and Square Enix to promote Final Fantasy XV. Noctis, the magic-imbued protagonist, trips through a dream while accompanied by his faithful dog. Or something. Look, there’s a cool-looking car and some explosions. It seems like a Final Fantasy scene if the bad haircuts and melodramatic music are any indication.
The development team confirmed that six DLC packs are planned for the game, including one that will offer online cooperative multiplayer. Each DLC episode after the cooperative Comrades pack will focus on one member of the player’s party. A $25 season pass will be available, but players can buy each DLC separately.
Final Fantasy XV will launch on November 29th on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
Comics have embraced horror since the earliest days of the medium, from EC Comics and Will Eisner on through to the present day. Since the Comics Code restrictions were relaxed a few decades ago, and with artists and writers like Guillermo Del Toro expressing an abiding love, it’s only natural that today we’ve got a couple of scary comic book recommendations.
Given that AI War has so much stuff in it, why would you want an AI War II? Developer Chris Park explains. He also explains what Demon Stalkers is, how AI modder Sorian influenced his approach to game design, and why he’s so over Pixel Junk Monsters.
In 2014 Sarah Koenig and her producers from This American Life set the podcast world ablaze with their 12-part true crime podcast, Serial. The incredible popularity of that podcast demonstrated that serialized, multi-episode story podcasts might find a willing audience looking for long, heavily detailed stories. If they seemed to have the faintest whiff of reality to them, so much the better.
Behold the Windows 10 VR Headset! It’s a virtual reality headset. Just like everyone else’s. They’re going to start at $299. The big deal with Microsoft’s headsets is that they include inside-out tracking sensors, so you don’t need an external tracking camera. Oh, and since it’s Microsoft, there isn’t just one product. Acer, Dell, Asus, HP and Lenovo are all coming out with their versions of the headset. You’ll also need a Windows 10 system to use the headsets, which is par for the course with Microsoft.
