Although the company previously announced that Digimon Survive will be now releasing in 2020 that hasn’t stopped Bandai Namco from releasing the full opening movie for the game. The video, found below, shows a number of students heading to school prior to a planned visit to some ruins. After an earthquake occurs in the area and causes numerous issues in the area, mysterious creatures begin appearing in the area.
Players will join Takuma, Agumon, and a number of brand new characters and Digimon as they make “life-changing decisions” to fight their way back home. Currently Digimon Survive is set to be released in 2020 for the Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and PC.
Fans of Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus have been waiting since November of last year for an expansion of Mechanicus, with the very active developers, Bulwalk Studios, delivering “Heretek“, a side story to Mechanicus that adds plenty of new enemies, maps and items.
Story
The story of “Heretek” occurs concurrently to the story of Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus, which shows the Adeptus Mechanicus, the tech-priest of Mars, searching for knowledge on the planet Silva Tenebris and trying to recover as much data and technology off of the planet before the Necron awaken.
“Heretek” centers on uncovering the unrest taking place on the Caestus Metalican ship during the story of the base game, with a heretic group of Tech-Priests forsaking the Omnissiah and attempting to take over the Caestus Metalican in collaboration with the Necron.
Gameplay
This review is my first experience with Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus or any Warhammer 40,000 game for that matter. For the sake of this review, it’s hard to separate the base game from the expansion content since it is so seamlessly integrated. On the base gameplay mechanics, Mechanicus is a solid turn based strategy game that presents ‘easy to learn, hard to master’ gameplay. I found the UI overwhelming but the tutorial does a great job of holding your hand as you learn the basics. The dungeon crawling segments were interesting enough with a decision making system reminiscent of Faster Than Light, especially in the way that sometimes seemingly careful choices cause you the most damage. It’s unfair, but it keeps the game feeling unpredictable
For current players of Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus, “Heretek” requires you to create a new save game to try out the five new missions. The expansion delivers almost identical gameplay to the base game, with the biggest difference being that you’re now facing off against other Tech-Priests who have the same units as you do. Additionally, there is a new discipline tree to level up in, named Xenarite, which specializes in using xenotech. The new discipline adds a few new abilities, including a self-resurrection in combat.
The missions open up in segments at points throughout the base game story, but the largest change to the base gameplay is that it has replaced the basic dungeon crawling of Mechanicus with the decision making system controlling your movements around the Caestus Metalican, which delivers more story and detail on the ship, but takes away some of what little control the player already had in the dungeon crawling segments.
Visuals
“Heretek” looks graphically solid, with graphics that aren’t necessarily impressive, but graphics that will hold up in a decades time. I enjoyed how the nice the attack effects looked in the game and the levels are visually interesting and solidly helps with the games worldbuilding. I was especially impressed with brilliant look of the ship’s main gun level along with the Aetherium Thalamus level in the expansion.
I did find myself wishing animations would go faster and I wish they would add a way to skip the animations. After playing for hours, waiting for the same animations to end can get daunting and breaks the flow of gameplay. Especially walking animations, as it feels like half the battle is taken up by you waiting for your units to move.
Audio
Audio was the one element to Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus and “Heretek” that deeply disappointed me. I enjoy hearing epic music when playing a strategy game and this game has music so unnoticeable that I didn’t notice it until I actively listened to it. Some may argue that since the game takes place in space and space is silent, the game accurately matches the decor. Sure, but I believe the lack of the grand and epic music doesn’t make the game feel as grand as it could.
Another element of audio that I was surprised by was the lack of voice acting. In a dialogue heavy game like Mechanicus, you’d expect at least the main characters to have vocal lines as it can become a drag to read pages and pages of story. The voice acting during the cinematics is great, so why hasn’t it been expanded to the rest of the game?
Overall
With a 90% positive review on Steam for Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus, developers Bulwalk Studios needed to deliver an expansion that met or exceeded expectations of the base game. I believe they’ve done that. For fans of Mechanicus, “Heretek” doesn’t fix any of the shortcomings of the original game, this expansion delivers more of the game they love, and especially at the low price of US$9.99. More levels, more enemies, more gear, a new tech tree and more story. A great example of expansions that many strategy game makers should take note of.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
In our age of remakes and sequels, the latest movie to get fresh look is everyone’s favourite military action drama, Top Gun. The sequel, Top Gun: Maverick, had dropped its trailer at San Diego Comic Con by Paramount Pictures and you can find it below.
From the trailer, it appears that aging action star, Tom Cruise, reprises his role as fighter pilot Maverick. Alongside him, you can spy Jon Hamm and Ed Harris in between the action shots of jets.
It’ll be interesting to see how the film navigates the role of pilots in a world which is increasing relying upon drones for aerial warfare but I have no doubt we’ll at least get a shirtless volleyball montage to paper over such concerns.
Intense Race Action Like No Other with New Cars, New
Settings and Unrivalled, Unpredictable Racing
Sparks fly, cars spin-out and nemeses are formed in the first GRID® gameplay trailer released by Codemasters®. As the lights turn green, cars jostle for the lead as they hurtle towards the first corner in the long-awaited return of the much-loved racing franchise which comes to PlayStation®4 computer entertainment system, the Xbox One family of devices including the Xbox One X, Windows PC (DVD and via Steam). Players who pre-order GRID or buy the Day One Edition or Ultimate Edition will get the Aston Martin Vantage GT4 as bonus content.
Displaying some of the new
race locations, the action builds as the chasing pack hunt down the leaders.
From the heat of the Havana streets to the track circuit of Brands Hatch, the
driving is both skilled and unpredictable, showcasing the excitement and drama
players will experience when the game is released on console and PC on October
11th, 2019. The stunning visuals of San Francisco and Zhejiang
Circuit put the driver at the heart of the action and give a true sense of
speed, as cars look for the smallest window of opportunity to get ahead either
by conventional means or by putting a rival into the wall.
The race culminates with the
Pontiac Firebird Modified and Chevrolet Camaro SSX Concept going head-to-head
on the final corners and long straight of San Francisco. One mistake could be
the difference between the sweet taste of victory or the bitter regret of what
might have been. Played out to the backdrop of the anthemic ‘The Light’ by
Sophie and the Giants, the trailer demonstrates both the risks and the rewards
of pushing some of the most iconic racing cars to their absolute limits.
GRID is a racing experience
like no other. Taking inspiration from the original franchise, GRID is a fresh
take on the genre with new content, new experiences and new stories waiting to
be written. GRID is about unpredictable racing where anything can happen when
the lights turn green. It’s a brand-new chapter of the GRID franchise; a game
that resets expectations.
“The response to the GRID
announcement has been incredible and there is genuine excitement for us to
reveal much more of the game,” said Chris Smith, GRID Game Director at
Codemasters. “We set out to create an exhilarating racing experience which is
like no other and the new trailer gives our fans a glimpse of what to expect.
Players will encounter challenging and combative racing from all the AI drivers
and this creates a living, breathing world where anything is possible and
finishing positions must be earned. Whether it’s competing in the middle of the
pack or going wheel-to-wheel for victory, there are no easy wins and our
players will both enjoy and marvel at our most competitive GRID to date.”
Codemasters (AIM:CDM) is an award
winning British video game developer and publisher with over 30 years of
heritage. The company specialises in high quality racing games including DiRT,
GRID, ONRUSH and the BAFTA award-winning official F1®
series of videogames.
For more information on Codemasters’ product
portfolio, please visit www.codemasters.com.
Join in the conversation with @codemasters on Twitter or Like us on Facebook at
www.facebook.com/codemasters.
CREATE
YOUR WORLDS IN GROWTOPIA®, AVAILABLE NOW ON CONSOLES
Experience the Beloved Building Game That has More Than 18 Million
Players on Mobile!
SYDNEY, Australia — July 19, 2019 — Today, Ubisoft announced that Growtopia®,
the beloved free-to-play building mobile game, is now available as a free
download on consoles. Growtopia is available on PlayStation®4
computer entertainment system including PlayStation®4 Pro, the Xbox
One family of devices including Xbox One X and the Nintendo Switch™ system.
Brought to HD consoles by Ubisoft Abu Dhabi in
collaboration with Ubisoft Pune, Growtopia is a multiplayer sandbox platformer
with crafting, giving players the framework and tools to create interactive
worlds. Players collect seeds, grow trees, harvest and combine seeds to
discover new items to build, trade or decorate one-of-a-kind worlds.
Growtopia features an infinite number of worlds for
players to visit and create anything they want with their friends. Characters
can be customized to be wizards, doctors, superheroes, space knights with
lightsabers and more! As players explore this mind-bending universe, they can
discover and construct thousands of unique items to decorate their worlds or
trade with other players. In addition, Growtopia supports crossplay between
Xbox One and Nintendo Switch players.
All generated by the community, Growtopia has an
extensive range of mini-games from parkour challenges, puzzles and races to PvP
battles and mazes. Content and feature updates will be released every two
months in addition to epic new items and special events. For more information
about Growtopia, please visit https://hd.growtopiagame.com/.
For the latest on Ubisoft’s games, visit Ubisoft News
at news.ubisoft.com.
ABOUT UBISOFT
Ubisoft is a
leading creator, publisher and distributor of interactive entertainment and
services, with a rich portfolio of world-renowned brands, including Assassin’s
Creed, Far Cry, For Honor, Just Dance, Watch Dogs, Tom Clancy’s video game
series including Ghost Recon, Rainbow Six and The Division. The teams
throughout Ubisoft’s worldwide network of studios and business offices are
committed to delivering original and memorable gaming experiences across all
popular platforms, including consoles, mobile phones, tablets and PCs. For the
2018–19 fiscal year, Ubisoft generated net bookings of €2,029 million. To learn
more, please visit www.ubisoftgroup.com.
It has been quite some time since we’ve seen a new Super Monkey Ball game but now Sega has announced that Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz HD will be releasing on October 29th for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch and on PC sometime this winter season. The game will be available at $39.99 at launch and will be released both physically and digitally.
Originally released for the Wii back in 2006 Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz HD will feature updated graphics, optimized control schemes for each platform, a brand-new mini-game Decathalon mode where you complete a set of 10 mini-games in a row, and online leaderboards. The reveal trailer plus some screenshots can be found below.
Those looking for a bit more of a family friendly scare this Halloween will be happy to hear that Nintendo has something to fit the bill as the company has announced that Luigi’s Mansion 3will be releasing on the Nintendo Switch on October 31st. In this entry to the series Luigi embarks on a dream vacation with Mario and friends upon receiving an invitation to a luxurious hotel. However, his dream quickly becomes a nightmare when King Boo reveals everything had been a ploy to capture Mario and friends.
With the assistance of Professor E. Gadd once again, the reluctant and cowardly hero Luigi traverses up and down treacherous floors of the now-ominous hotel on a quest to save them. Players must wield the upgraded Poltergust G-00 to slam and blow away the ghosts’ defenses, or summon Gooigi, an all-green doppelganger that can help Luigi overcome obstacles he can’t get past alone. Interchange between Luigi and Gooigi as one player, or grab a friend and control one each.
The next character to be re-introduced in Atlus‘ Persona 5 Royal videos happens to be yet another fan favorite as it focuses on Makoto Niijima, also known as Queen. In the video, found below, we get to see her take on a number of foes as well as perform a team-up attack with Ryuji to take down some enemies.
We also get to see a quick look at her older sister Sae outside of the standard story mode, a trip to an aquarium with the main character, and a scene where she appears to be scolding Ryuji. Also of course for a bit of comedy if you stick around to the end she also happens to crush a volleyball. Currently Persona 5 Royal is set to be released on October 31st in Japan for the PlayStation 4 with a Western release coming sometime in 2020.
Those looking for a little bit more Resident Evil on the go will be pleased to hear that Capcom will be releasing Resident Evil 5 as well as Resident Evil 6 on the Nintendo Switch on October 29th.
On the same day a physical Resident Evil Triple Pack will be released at retail in North America that will include Resident Evil 4 as well as Resident Evil 5 and 6 in one purchase for $59.99. It is worth noting however that this Resident Evil Triple Pack will only feature Resident Evil 4 on the actual cartridge while the other two games will need to be downloaded, taking up the limited default storage space of the Switch, through download vouchers.
There are many things that the Borderlands series is known for, millions of types of guns, villains with great charisma, psychos, to name a few but perhaps its most notable feature happens to be how off the wall the comedy can be at times and this latest trailer for Borderlands 3 is a great example of that.
2K Games and Gearbox have released a new cinematic trailer for the game that is simply titled “So Happy Together” and if you check it out below you’ll know exactly why. Currently Borderlands 3is set to be released on the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC on September 13th.
