The first official trailer for Nippon Ichi Software‘s latest game, To All of Mankind, has been released and while it may not show a whole lot it does give us a brief look at the five heroines who must survive in Akihabara after a strange occurrence leaves them in a world that has fallen into ruin. With nature retaking the land, these girls must survive by hunting, gathering, and growing their own food while surviving the elements.
You can check out the footage below and as for the game itself To All of Mankind is set to be released on the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4 in Japan on May 30th and while the game has not yet been announced for release in the West, NIS America did just announce the localization of their other most recent title, Destiny Connect: Tick-Tock Travelers.
Anthemis long time RPG developer Bioware’s first new franchise in quite some time, and Bioware’s first multiplayer shooter. Taking cues from Mass Effect, Anthem takes players to Fort Tarsis, two years after the Heart of Rage disaster. Freelancers wielding powerful Ironman-esque armour suits known as Javelins are now living in the shadows. Long gone are their glory days as heroes, but the reappearance of Dominion troops may offer the opportunity for the Freelancers to reclaim their honour.
Story
Bioware lives up to their reputation as Anthem is rich in story. The main plot is decent, but its twists are
little a bit predictable. The biggest problem with the main plot is its short length.
Things move at a quick pace and there just aren’t many story missions to begin
with. While the main plot is not the deepest of story experiences, the writers
make up for it with the game’s considerable breadth. It may not be every gamer’s
cup of tea, but there are plenty of side stories and minor NPCs to discover. There
is rarely a true good or evil answer in Anthem,
but rather a sarcastic or a sweet response. The writers clearly see Anthem as a game as a service, at they
spend a lot of the time laying down the foundation for future content instead
of pushing the main story along.
Gameplay
Veterans of Bioware titles will feel the influence of the
company’s previous titles all over Anthem.
Mechanically, the game is a competent third person RPG-style shooter that mixes
a pleasantly complex spell system with casual-friendly gun play. There are four
Javelins in the game. Each Javelin has two standard abilities, a consumable, and
an ultimate skill. The Javelins cover the standard RPG archetypes of tank,
caster, melee DPS, and ranged DPS. There’s no true holy MMO trinity here, but rather
a more modern approach that emphasizes dodging over soaking damage. The Javelins
hit the right balance of being similar enough to transfer player skills between
Javelins, but different enough to have a noticeably different playstyle.
Anthem’s ability
system emphasizes teamplay. Many abilities can either apply a status effect or
trigger existing status effects for extra damage. Players who aren’t willing to
dig into the details can coast along and avoid the combo system all together
but may run into a little trouble at higher difficulties.
One of Anthem’s biggest
problems is its poor tutorials and documentation. The tutorial is extremely
bare bones, only teaching players the basics of the game. A lot of more
advanced, but vital mechanics like the combo system and status effect vulnerabilities
need to be learned from the player journal or the load screen tooltips. New
players would have been much better served by more generous tips popping up on
the screen during the first five to ten player levels.
The mission design is poor, so players will be running the
same basic mission structure repeatedly. Players will need to fly to a
location, kill a few enemies, maybe find an item or two, then do it all again a
couple more times. If the game is feeling spicy, it might just send you into a
cave to do the same thing in a mini-instance. The obligatory flight sections
feel like they’ve been forced into the missions to show off the game’s flight
mechanics. It would have been much better to integrate flight into the mission
design instead of turning the Javelin’s rockets into a glorified flying taxi. Puzzles
are rare and equally repetitive, usually requiring players to find missing
objects or match an icon. The game’s three dungeons aren’t much better, with
incredibly dull final boss design. All fights are in three stages and each of
the boss only has one marginally interesting mechanic.
Anthem is also
direly lacking in content in general. The main mission line is astoundingly
short. End game can be reached well before the level 30 cap for pilots. Once the
side missions and the main storyline is done, players only have a small handful
of options: fly around free roam looking for world events, grind out contracts,
or run the game’s three dungeons. While many MMOs rely on post-game content
drops to extend the end game, Anthem is
already anemic out of the gate.
The Javelin controls are excellent. The controls follow the
standard shooter layout. Even on PC, there is a generous aim assist for
abilities that allow for quick deployment of abilities. Flying controls are
traditionally the bane of the mouse and keyboard, but Anthem copies the very simple controls from a fellow EA title, Star Wars: Battlefront 2. So, whether
you’re using a mouse or a thumbstick, you simply point in the direction you
want to go, and the game takes care of the rest.
Anthem switches
between a first-person view inside the safety of Fort Tarsis and a third person
view in the Javelin. The city zone is hobbled by painfully clunky controls and slow
movement. Compared to the agile Javelins, walking around on foot feels like the
player is wading through mud. The Javelin and city sensitivity are linked,
leaving the first-person camera feeling slow and mushy.
The menus are not well designed for PC. Loot management is
quite a pain as the only way to mark multiple items as junk and salvage them
all for parts is through the stash. Menu bindings are also not editable on the
PC, so those with non-QWERTY keyboard layouts or non-standard binds may run
into problems.
Anthem is also struggling
with a general lack of polish. I didn’t run into many game killing bugs on the
PC version, but there were enough smaller bugs to make the game feel like a
beta. While I can’t speak for the speed of fixes on the console version, Bioware
seems to be releasing patches and hotfixes at a pretty decent clip on the PC.
Visuals
Anthem is a good-looking
game with a few hiccups. The art direction is very good. Enemy factions are
visually distinct with some cool ideas. The Javelin parts range from industrial
machines to some crazy sci-fi designs. The world is gorgeous but lacks a bit of
variety. There are large stretches of towering cliffs and dense vegetation, but
not enough interesting locales to provide enough variety to make parts of the
map look visually distinct. The animations are good for the most part, though
some of the NPC facial and body expressions are over-exaggerated.
Audio
The audio experience in Anthem
is solid. The sound effects are excellent. As expected from a big AAA title
from a major publisher, the voice acting is very strong, from the main
characters all the way down to minor NPCs. The soundtrack is an enjoyable
listen and reminds me a lot of the Mass Effect
soundtracks with its light electronica tunes.
Overall
Anthem has a lot of room for
improvement. Much of it can be addressed in future content releases, such as
stomping out bugs and more end game content with better mission design. Others,
like the poor design of the city controls, may end up following the game around
like a ball and chain. Considering how well the Javelins handle, it’s a total
disappointment the game has been ruined by its repetitive missions, short main
story, and poor documentation.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
Kotodama: The 7 Mysteries of Fujisawa has been given its first bit of gameplay footage by PQube and in it we get both a look at some of the visual novel segments as well as a bit of the match sequences that players will need to complete in order to properly interrogate their targets and expose their truths, even if it means stripping them both figuratively and literally.
You can check out the footage below and keep an eye out for Kotodama: The 7 Mysteries of Fujisawa when it is released on the PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and PC on May 31st in Europe and June 4th in North America.
Idea Factory International has announced that they are planning on releasing Dragon Star Varnir sometime this summer for the PlayStation 4. To go along with this information the company has also released a new batch of screenshots as well as information that focus on the game’s battle system.
Dragon Star Varnir follows the story of a knight named Zephy who is almost killed while on a mission to hunt down witches only to be saved by two of these mysterious witches with the blood of a dragon. Given new magical abilities from their efforts he finds his fate intertwined with the witches and reluctantly joins them to fight against an Empire out to destroy his kind, ruthless dragon hunters, and a witch more powerful than any in existence.
As for the battle system players will find that battles in the game can take place a 3-tiered field where players can move freely between the top, middle, and bottom layers with players being able to use a variety of attack types on enemies such as slashing, piercing, shooting, or simply hitting them. With six types of magical abilities players will be able to easily target enemy weak points and while physical attacks can only be performed on enemies at the same tier, magic can target enemies on any tier.
While fighting enemies you can raise their Fear Level by targeting weak points and performing critical hits and if they happen to be truly afraid, they can be Devoured and unlock their skill tree. If an enemy’s fear level happens to reach the maximum level a weak point rush can occur and if they manage to be slain during this rush, a Devour is guaranteed. On top of this players will even be able to trigger Dragon Awakening, a transformation that increases a character’s abilities and armor.
THQ Nordic and Black Forest Games have announced plans to release Fade to Silence onto the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and fully on PC on April 30th where the console release will be priced at $49.99 and the PC release at $39.99. The game has previously been available on PC as part of Steam Early Access but this will be the official release of the game.
Fade to Silence takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where a strange infection has spread across the land and players take control of a man named Ash who is searching for his family and his daughter Alice. While Ash sleeps he can have vision-like dreams where an inner voice can inform him more about the world and even recap the story to keep players fresh on what they should be doing.
After previously showing off the card creation system in the game Bandai Namco has now released a new trailer for Super Dragon Ball Heroes: World Mission that showcases how battles will work in the game. Since players will be able to build powerful decks featuring over 350 Dragon Ball heroes and 1,000-plus cards to unlock and use on the field of battle there will be a lot of options available so players can even save up to fifty different customized decks to fit any given situation.
You can check out the new trailer below and keep an eye out for Super Dragon Ball Heroes: World Mission when it is released on the Nintendo Switch and PC on April 5th in North America and Europe.
PUBG MOBILE CELEBRATES ONE-YEAR ANNIVERSARY WITH NEW FEATURES AND
PLANNED EVENTS
Special events and secret
celebrity promotions planned as one of the most trending mobile games
celebrates its first birthday
LOS ANGELES – March 14, 2019 – Can
you keep a secret? Tencent Games and PUBG Corporation are rolling out several
special events over the upcoming days to celebrate the one-year anniversary for
PUBG MOBILEon Wednesday, March 20.
While exact details are still set
to be a surprise, existing players may have already noticed the in-game lobby
decorated as a birthday party with presents, cake and dance music. Starting
Wednesday, March 20, players can expect to see additional features, updates and
a special celebrity promotion through the game’s official YouTube channel.
“We want to thank the millions
of players around the world for making this first year very special and we
can’t wait to show you what we have in store in our second year,” said
Vincent Wang, General Manager of Global Publishing Department, Tencent. “Words
cannot express what the first year of PUBG MOBILE’s release has meant to
the PUBG MOBILE team and, more importantly, our thriving and passionate
community of players”.
With more than 200 million
downloads and 30 million concurrent users worldwide*, PUBG MOBILE took
the mobile esports scene by storm with 2018’s PUBG MOBILE STAR CHALLENGE
2018 (PMSC 2018) Global Finals, a worldwide circuit of tournaments that saw
more than 230 million online views and over 5,000 attendees onsite at the
finals in Dubai. Indonesia-based team RRQ Athena took home the Global
Championship, claiming $200,000.
In addition to the recently
announced PUBG MOBILE Club
Open 2019, players can expect even more surprises for the
game’s esports initiatives this month during 1st Anniversary
campaign.
In 2018, PUBG MOBILE took
home multiple awards and nominations, just eight months after the game’s
release. The game earned three awards at the Google Play Awards last month, including
“Best Game.” It also won the “Mobile Game of the Year” award at the 2018 Golden
Joysticks and received nominations from The Game Awards and the App Store.
PUBG MOBILEis
developed by Tencent Games and PUBG Corp. and based on PLAYERUNKNOWN’S
BATTLEGROUNDS, the original PC and Xbox One gaming phenomenon that took the
world of interactive entertainment by storm in 2017. Up to 100 players parachute onto a remote island to do
battle in a winner-takes-all showdown. Players must locate and scavenge their
own weapons, vehicles and supplies, and defeat every player in a visually and
tactically rich battleground that forces players into a shrinking play zone.
For
more information, please visit the official PUBG MOBILEaccounts
on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
Crytek Releases Neon Noir, A Real-Time Ray
Tracing Demonstration For CRYENGINE
The new feature, used to create a futuristic
drone scene, is currently in development and will come to CRYENGINE this year
FRANKFURT,
Germany – March 15, 2019 –Crytek has released a
new video demonstrating the results of a CRYENGINE research and development
project. Neon Noir
shows how real-time mesh ray-traced reflections and refractions can deliver
highly realistic visuals for games. The Neon Noir demo was created
with the new advanced version of CRYENGINE’s Total Illumination showcasing
real time ray tracing. This feature will be added to the CRYENGINE release
roadmap in 2019, enabling developers around the world to build more immersive
scenes, more easily, with a production-ready version of the feature.
Neon Noir follows the journey of a police
drone investigating a crime scene. As the drone descends into the streets of a
futuristic city, illuminated by neon lights, we see its reflection accurately
displayed in the windows it passes by, or scattered across the shards of a
broken mirror while it emits a red and blue lighting routine that will bounce
off the different surfaces utilizing CRYENGINE’s advanced Total Illumination
feature. Demonstrating further how ray tracing can deliver a lifelike
environment, neon lights are reflected in the puddles below them, street lights
flicker on wet surfaces, and windows reflect the scene opposite them
accurately.
Neon Noir was developed on a bespoke version
of CRYENGINE 5.5., and the experimental ray tracing feature based on
CRYENGINE’s Total Illumination used to create the demo is both API and hardware
agnostic, enabling ray tracing to run on most mainstream, contemporary AMD and
NVIDIA GPUs. However, the future integration of this new CRYENGINE
technology will be optimized to benefit from performance enhancements delivered
by the latest generation of graphics cards and supported APIs like Vulkan and
DX12.
Ray tracing is a rendering technique that
simulates complex lighting behaviors. Realism is achieved by simulating the
propagation of discreet fractions of energy and their interaction with
surfaces. With contemporary GPUs, ray tracing has become more widely adopted by
real-time applications like video games, in combination with traditionally less
resource hungry rendering techniques like cube maps, utilized where
applicable.
The experimental ray tracing feature
simplifies and automates the rendering and content creation process to ensure
that animated objects and changes in lighting are correctly reflected with a
high level of detail in real-time. This eliminates the known limitation of
pre-baked cube maps and local screen space reflections when creating smooth
surfaces like mirrors, and allows developers to create more realistic,
consistent scenes. To showcase the benefits of real time ray tracing, screen
space reflections were not used in this demo.
Developers everywhere can harness the power
of CRYENGINE by visiting www.cryengine.com.
About
Crytek
Crytek is an independent videogame developer,
publisher, and technology provider dedicated to pushing the boundaries of
gaming with its cutting-edge 3D game development solution CRYENGINE. With
headquarters in Frankfurt am Main (Germany) and studios in Kiev
(Ukraine) and Istanbul (Turkey), Crytek has created multiple award-winning
titles, including the original Far Cry, the Crysis series, Ryse: Son of Rome,
Warface, The Climb, Robinson: The Journey and Hunt: Showdown. Crytek delivers
fun and innovative gaming experiences for PC, consoles, and VR and continues to
grow its reach in the games-as-a-service market. Every Crytek game is created
with CRYENGINE, which can be used by anyone to create games.
DEAD OR ALIVE 6 GOES FREE-TO-PLAY IN CORE FIGHTERS
New FTP Version Launches with Four Characters, Quest, and Online Ranked Matches
Hertfordshire, 1st March 2019 – Today KOEI TECMO Europe and Team
NINJA launched DEAD OR ALIVE 6: CORE FIGHTERS, a new free-to-play experience
now available to download for the PlayStation 4 Computer Entertainment System,
Xbox One, the all-in-one games and entertainment system from Microsoft, and
digitally on Windows PC via Steam®.
DEAD OR ALIVE 6: CORE FIGHERS offers fighting game fans a taste
of the world of DOA6, including four base characters – Kasumi, Hitomi, Diego,
and Bass – as well as online ranked battles, Versus, Arcade, Time Attack,
Training, and Quest modes. In addition, DOA6’s introduction to Story mode will
be unlocked, along with DOA Central, the hub for everything from wardrobe and
music to the library and theatre.
Today also marks the release of DEAD OR
ALIVE 6’s second online update, adding more high-level DOA Quests, a
variety of new entrance and victory scenes, and the tuning of costume part
earning parameters in order to help enhance the overall gaming experience.
Additionally, the first Season Pass content — the Happy Wedding Vol. 1 pack –
is now available, with plenty more on tap for the coming months including more
costume packs and two new characters from KING OF FIGHTERS XIV.
KOEI TECMO EUROPE LTD. is a
publisher of interactive entertainment software for current generation
consoles, handhelds and digital download content based in Letchworth,
Hertfordshire, UK. The company is a wholly owned subsidiary of KOEI TECMO
HOLDINGS CO., LTD., headquartered in Yokohama, Japan. KOEI TECMO’s best known
for their signature ‘one versus thousands’ Warriors series, the fan-favourite
Ninja Gaiden and fighting entertainment title Dead or Alive. Through
collaboration with strong existing franchises, such as A.O.T. Wings of Freedom
(Attack on Titan), has brought fan-favourite shows to life in video game form.
The company’s desire for innovation and diversity has seen the creation of the
critically acclaimed dark-samurai action title Nioh, which takes on new and
unique gameplay styles. The company’s acquisition of GUST, developer of a
variety of heart-warming titles, has seen their flagship Atelier series span generations
of consoles and fans alike. More information about KOEI TECMO EUROPE LTD and
its products can be found at www.koeitecmoeurope.com
ODISI GAMES AND NGD STUDIOS REVEAL
COMPETITIVE PVP MULTIPLAYER AERIAL SHOOTER DRONE STRIKE FORCE
Sign Up Now to Experience the Future of
Warfare in Drone Strike Force’s PC Closed Beta,
Starting This Weekend
NEW
YORK and BUENOS AIRES, Argentina –
March 15, 2019
– Odisi Games today announced it is producing and publishing Drone Strike Force, a
new competitive multiplayer aerial shooter developed by NGD Studios (Master of Orion, Champions of Regnum).
Sign-ups are now open at www.dronestrikeforce.com
for the game’s Windows PC closed beta, which begins today.
“Drone
Strike Force challenges the standards of online shooters with truly
three-dimensional gameplay for competitive, skill-based action that makes full
use of the vertical axis,” said David Fridman, founder of Odisi Games.
Emphasizing situational awareness, player
tactics and open level design, Drone
Strike Force is built for fast-paced aerial combat to showcase the
raw power and speed of these cutting-edge machines. Fly and shoot at high
velocity while using the environment and your drone’s agile capabilities to
outmaneuver enemies and give your team the win. Choose from a number of unique
drones, weapons, perks and abilities to customize each loadout to your own
personal playstyle.
A glimpse into the possible future of
warfare, Drone Strike Force
is set in a world where power has shifted from countries to corporations.
Weaponized drones are used to further their interests by force, and now the
skies rage with rival teams gunning for supremacy.
Drone
Strike Force is expected to launch
into early access as a premium title on PC later this year. For the latest
updates, visit www.dronestrikeforce.com,
and follow @DSF_Game
on Twitter.
About
Odisi Games Inc.
Odisi Games is a New York-based independent
digital video games publisher formed in 2018 to create unorthodox multiplayer
experiences. Odisi believes competitive, skill-based gameplay is king and AA
budgets can meaningfully challenge the AAA marketplace. www.odisigames.com.
About
NGD Studios
NGD Studios is Latin America’s leading
developer of high-end 3D online games. Founded in 2002 in Buenos Aires,
Argentina, NGD is greatly recognized for Regnum
Online, the biggest MMO made in Latin America, and the Master of Orion reboot,
the first AAA-quality game developed in the region. We use our extensive
experience in building player vs. player and cooperative gameplay to create
rich and engaging high-quality games for PC, consoles and other platforms. http://www.ngdstudios.com/
