If you play enough boardgames, you’ll pick up the shorthand to communicate the basics of any particular game. This one is worker placement with territory control, that one is a deck-builder with drafting, and the stuff in the back of the closet is a bunch of dudes-on-a-board Ameritrash nonsense. Of course, you need to mention the theme. Set collection in a medieval village, push-your-luck with elfs and dragons, screw-your-neighbor with spaceships, or points salad in ancient Rome.
You can’t do this with a Phil Eklund game. You just say “it’s a Phil Eklund game”. Continue reading →
Rabbit ears, skulls, and alien heads. Just some of the new cosmetic bits in Far Cry 5 after the latest update. For a few thousand in-game dollars, or a few hundred ingots purchased with real money, you too can put a wacky mask on your character. For those that finished the story campaign, imagine that ending, but now imagine you were wearing a Santa mask all along.
Previously classified CIA tabletop games are now available for public play. Senior Collection Analyst David Clopper created games for the intelligence agency’s training programs, the existence of which Ars Technica wrote about last year. Thankfully, this prompted a Freedom of Information request which was granted, resulting in the games Collection, Collection Deck, and Kingpin: The Hunt for El Chapo being released to the general public.
If you’re curious, but don’t want to painstakingly create your own boards, tokens, and cards, the folks at Two Bats Gaming did the work and sat down to try out the games. Playing the games well is like passing an analog version of the test in The Last Starfighter except you’ll end up piloting a cubicle instead of the Gunstar One.
Blendo Games, creators of Quadrilateral Cowboy, Atom Zombie Smasher, and Flotilla have announced Flotilla 2. Unfortunately for fans of the first game looking for another streamlined but stylish turn-based space cruiser combat game to play while lounging in front of a mouse and keyboard, the sequel requires a Vive VR headset. Floaty controls and dizziness at least fits the theme of being in zero gravity.
While I’m waiting for State of Decay 2 — checking my calendar, I see it’s 23 interminable days to go — I’ve got another zombie survival game to indulge my resource scavenging, survivor nurturing, and base-building needs. It even acknowledges the Metal Gear Solid V shaped hole in my heart. It doesn’t fill it, but it’s clearly trying to kick in a little dirt. I suppose I should appreciate the effort. Anything to make the next three weeks seem a little shorter.
StarCraft II will soon have an in-game marketplace to buy and sell user-made maps. This was a feature shown prior to the release of the original Wings of Liberty installment, but was deemed not ready for public use. Here we are, nine years later, and we’re finally getting the Premium Arcade in the game’s 4.3 update. Like other stores for user-made videogame content, the items sold will be curated by the developers. The initial offering will be the “high-quality premium” maps ARK Star and Direct Strike. Each will cost $4.99 and a portion of the sale will go to the respective creators.
StarCraft II’s Arcade features thousands of user-made maps and mods for free already. It is unknown how many of those authors have been contacted to work with Blizzard on the new marketplace.
There’s a new Doom movie in the works. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is too busy making better paying video game films to repeat his performance as Sarge from 2005’s schlocky low-budget Doom movie from Universal Pictures, so this time around we’ll get Nina Bergman in a shlocky low-budget Doom movie from Universal 1440 Entertainment. That’s NBC/Universal’s label specializing in “non-theatrical productions directly for distribution” meaning we can expect the movie to come out on some streaming service or maybe released as web episodes someday. Universal has not said who the director or writer of the movie will be, but they’ll be in Bulgaria to begin production soon!
Coincidentally, Dwayne Johnson recently had a good-natured exchange about his star turn in that 2005 flick while celebrating Rampage’s success:
TheRock: Wow! Very cool RAMPAGE news! Not pointing to the scoreboard yet, but it seems we may have finally broken the dreaded video game curse. And remember, I starred in the stinker “Doom” so I have lived thy curse
DOOM: Replying to @TheRock – Dwayne.
Read about our assessment of Doom’s combat arena skate parks of death here.
Rockstar Games has announced Grand Theft Auto V: Premium Online Edition. It’s the same game that everyone has been playing since 2013, with all the free online updates, plus the Criminal Enterprise Starter Pack which gives new GTA Online players a boost of in-game money, vehicles, clothing, and property. You’ll be almost ready to battle the people that have been playing the game and amassing their criminal loot for almost five years.
Brandon Cackowski-Schnell, Tom Chick, Nick Diamon, and Jason McMaster have all finished Far Cry 5, and they have a thing or two to say about, well, what does and doesn’t happen. It goes without saying there will be spoilers.
The movie adaptation of Ubisoft’s The Division has been in the notorious “troubled project” category for a while. But with today’s announcement that David Leitch is attached to direct, it pretty much moves into the “project” category. Leitch is a big deal these days, and officially attaching his name is a real vote of confidence. The co-director of John Wick went on to make Atomic Blonde, which got him the job directing Deadpool 2, which got him the job directing the Dwayne Johnson/Jason Statham Fast and Furious spin-off. Putting The Division at the end of that line-up is no mean feat. A movie based on The Division is now as likely as, say, a movie based on Prince of Persia or Assassin’s Creed.
However, Leitch has stressed that his main commitment is to the Fast and Furious spin-off. This means there’s still plenty of time for a Division movie to collapse. But the real mystery to me is Jake Gyllenhaal’s support. Did he not see Prince of Persia? He’s not only putting his name behind a Division movie as one of its stars, but he’s putting his money behind it as one of its producers. And according to whatever press release the Variety announcement is quoting, he’s determined to make sure it’s true to the source material:
Gyllenhaal and [Jessica] Chastain have been with the film project since its conception and have been persistent in making sure that it matches the tone of the video game, while also reaching audiences who appreciate the actors’ own past work.
No word on whether we can look forward to a Michael Fassbender Rabbids movie yet.
Parklife, the next DLC expansion for Cities Skylines, is like a miniature theme park tycoon game nestled in the middle of your sandbox city builder. Zone new park districts and Parklife will allow players to designate tourists’ sightseeing paths with stops at nearby attractions. Plop down some rides or points of interest, set pricing, and let those rubes spend their cash in your tourist trap. There’s no ride designing, so we wont get any Skylines versions of Mr. Bones’ Wild Ride, but we can always build the most unpleasant and dysfunctional cities possible to exercise our sadistic sides.
There may be no traditional single player story campaign in Call of Duty: Black Ops 4. Polygon, Kotaku, and CharlieIntel cite their own sources for these reports stating that publisher Activision halted development on the usual set piece extravaganza of celebrity likenesses and explosions in favor of more multiplayer modes, with rumors pointing to some version of Battle Royale filling out the package. These sources named Raven Software as the primary developer of this Call of Duty’s Battle Royale gameplay. Raven is the studio behind Call of Duty Online available in China which does offer a Battle Royale mode.
Earlier rumors had stated that like Infinite Warfare, this next Call of Duty might offer an HD remake of an earlier game in the franchise as an incentive – in this case, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. That rumor’s detail, that the Modern Warfare 2 remaster would not have a multiplayer component, now makes a lot of sense in light of this new information.
