Accidental Queens to Release Audio-based Narrative
Mystery Alt-Frequencies this Spring
A new audio-based game from the acclaimed studio behind A Normal Lost Phone & Another Lost Phone:
Laura’s Story coming to PC & mobile
PARIS — February 26, 2019 — What happens when everyone is stuck in a time loop without knowing?Lauded development studio Accidental Queens announced today that its new game, Alt-Frequencies, is coming to PC and mobile this spring. Alt-Frequencies takes players on an audio-based journey where interactive investigation meets podcasting, and players are tasked with unravelling a mystery taking place between multiple radio stations among a disparate group of people.
In Alt-Frequencies players will solve a series of puzzles
to progress in their investigation. A radio/audio format is used as the game’s
key mechanic, delivering an innovative and original method of non-linear
storytelling. Alt-Frequencies supports
Visually Impaired players and Blind gamers by utilizing a solid game design
that allows players of various disabilities to be included in the game.
Players will get an intimate look into the lives of radio
hosts, conspiracy theorists, students, politicians, underground activists,
train station managers and even a dog as they manipulate and redistribute
information between them and impact their lives in various ways.
“Alt-Frequencies stays faithful to the spirit of A Normal
Lost Phone & Another Lost Phone: Laura’s Story,” said Miryam Houali,
co-founder and artist at Accidental Queens. “The story is based on real-world
situations and daily interactions and aims at raising awareness about important
social issues that becomes more clear as you progress through the game.”
This is one game that took me completely by surprise. LEFT ALIVE will be out in a week for PS4 & PC and almost at the last moment I find out that the game is set in Front Mission universe. And just like that, my interest jumped through the roof.
To make things even better, Square Enix recently released an extended gameplay trailer titled “Through the Warzone”, showcasing the variety of gameplay mechanics and strategies available to players. The trailer culminated with our protagonist boarding a wanzer (another word for mech) and wreaking absolute havoc on nearby soldiers.
With this and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice out soon, March is shaping up to be a rather exciting month for gaming.
LEFT ALIVE will be out on March 5th and make sure to check out the official website and Twitter for more info about the game.
OVERCOME THE ODDS
IN NEW EXTENDED GAMEPLAY VIDEO FOR LEFT ALIVE
SYDNEY, 25th February
2019 –Square
Enix Ltd., today
revealed an extended look at gameplay for the upcoming release of LEFT ALIVE®, showcasing the variety of gameplay mechanics and
strategies available to players.
To watch ‘LEFT ALIVE | Through the Warzone – 14 Minutes of Gameplay’
LEFT ALIVE challenges players to enter a
war-torn city of Novo Slava and use their skills to overcome the overwhelming
enemy forces against them. By either facing enemies head-on using powerful
weaponry, or sneaking through the environment using crafted traps to avoid
confrontation, players must use every option available and find the best route
to survival.
LEFT ALIVE will be available for the
PlayStation®4 computer entertainment system and STEAM® on 5th March
2019. For more information, visit: http://www.left-alive.com
Ubisoft’s stand-alone Far Cry expansions have generally experimented with new settings that may not warrant a full title on its own right. Ubisoft is continuing the trend for 2019, delivering an apocalypse themed follow up to Far Cry 5. Set in Hope County twenty years after the nuclear blast that leveled the United States, the survivors of Hope County and the cultists of New Eden are forced to work together to fight off the highwaymen led by ruthless twins Mickey and Lou.
Story
Far Cry New Dawn does
its best to link itself with the events of Far
Cry 5. After playing the previous game, it’s nice to see old characters
twenty years later. The plot tries to be serious at times, but it appears the writers
are starting to embrace the franchise’s over the top nature and do away with
any real moralizing. The game still has its quirky cast of characters, but a few
of them fall flat for being a little too one dimensional. Far Cry New Dawn is much like a summer blockbuster: don’t take it
too seriously and just enjoy the ride.
Gameplay
Mechanically speaking,
Far Cry New Dawn feels like a more polished take on Far Cry 5. The map has only received some slight cosmetic changes,
with new treasure hunts and missions added to the game. Many of the weapons from
Far Cry 5 make their return, albeit with
a more post-apocalyptic look.
The perk system has been cleaned up significantly. A few
perks have been merged together and some new ones have been added. Most
importantly, earning perk points is significantly easier in Far Cry New Dawn. The number of
challenges has been increased and extra perk points can be earned from finding perk
magazines at the end of treasure hunt missions and rescuing civilians. Players
can now stick with a playstyle that suits them best and still get enough perk
points for their build. Alternatively, challenge hunters can also max out their
perk points early. Best of all, hunting and fishing challenges require
significantly less kills to complete, especially the pesky bird hunts.
The gun play continues to be enjoyable in Far Cry New Dawn. The game is on the
arcade side of the spectrum, but players should not expect to tank a ton of
bullets without going down. The developers have opted for a clearer RPG like
approach to weapons this time around, with weapon mods being dropped.
Unfortunately, we don’t get more guns beside the new saw launcher, so the loss
of the mod system stings. Weapons and enemies are separated by tiers, so players
will be discarding guns over time in favour of shinier toys.
The merchant system has been overhauled to make room for a
crafting system. Instead of hard currency, players will get a variety of
crafting materials in exchange for their meat and pelts. The crafting system is
basic and doesn’t feel much different from the old merchant system in practice.
Progression is tied to the town of Prosperity’s level. As
players save specialists who can help improve the town and complete story
missions, the town increases in levels and better facilities are able to be
built. Players will need to raid ethanol trucks, capture supply drops, and take
over outposts to get the ethanol needed to upgrade facilities. It’s a bit of a
grind to max out all the facilities, but most are nice extras rather than must
have upgrades.
Far Cry New Dawn ticks
off all the boxes in the Far Cry level
and mission design check list. It’s all there: the sniper missions, the rail
vehicle shooting, the hallucinogenic drug fueled trip, the stealth mission, and
almost every other shooter trope out there. Everything is generally done well,
but no mission is ever unique enough to really stand out from the pack.
New to Far Cry New
Dawn are expeditions. These are similar to Far Cry 5’s arcade mode, except all the missions are made by Ubisoft.
These missions follow the same rhythm of assaulting or sneaking into a base, grabbing
a supply package, then fleeing to a hold out zone until your extraction arrives.
The missions seem a bit repetitive in theory, but it provides more content to augment
liberating outposts and gives players some new scenery.
I’m still waiting for a true co-op experience in Far Cry. Far Cry 5 was an improvement, allowing co-op for all missions.
Unfortunately, Far Cry New Dawn doesn’t
build on this, as the second player still can’t save their mission progression.
Being built on Far Cry
5, New Dawn’s controls are pretty
much the same. The UI is simple and well designed. The number of key bindings is
kept to a minimum and stick with the standard FPS layout. Menus are easy to
navigate, with some changes made specifically for PC users.
Unfortunately, the PC version of Far Cry New Dawn suffers from many of the flaws as Far Cry 5 during the initial release.
While this was fixed in a later patch, the issue with Far Cry 5 messing with Windows’ microphone volume rears its ugly
head once again in New Dawn. The PC
key bindings options are still messy, with vehicle binds overwriting ground
bindings, and vice versa.
Visuals
Far Cry New Dawn does
a good job of turning Far Cry 5’s
slice of Americana into a post-apocalyptic wasteland. While players are sure to
recognize major buildings from the previous game, the artists have created a
map where nature is slowly reclaiming the land. The weapon design is spot on,
with all the firearms being held together with zip ties, pipe straps, and
anything else salvaged from the wreckage of Hope County. The only weakness is
the number of NPC textures. There is little variety. Seeing the same handful of
NPCs milling around the world breaks the feeling of immersion and makes the world
feel dead.
Audio
The audio experience in Far
Cry New Dawn is very good. The voice acting is solid, which is what we’ve
come to expect from the Far Cry franchise.
The sound effects continue to be excellent. The new soundtrack is a mix of
classic video game scores, hip hop, and electronic music. There are a lot of
copyrighted music in the soundtrack, so Ubisoft has wisely added an option to
play only music safe for streaming in the menu.
Overall
Far Cry New Dawn offers a more polished take
on Far Cry 5’s mechanics. It’s good
enough that I wish they would go back and implement the changes to challenges
and perks in 5. While the loss of the
mod system and the reappearances of some old issues with Far Cry 5 is lamentable, Far
Cry New Dawn is still an enjoyable ride. For what it’s worth, the game has
slightly less content, but it’s at a reduced price.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here
Batalj(stylised as BATALJ) is the debut game of Swedish game studio Fall Damage. The company made headlines back in 2017 when it was formed by four former DICE employees. This tactical turn-based strategy game is a clear departure from their former games, but how does it fare in a strategy market dominated by MOBA’s like DOTA 2 or League of Legends?
Story
Batalj has very little of any noticeable storyline. The player can choose to play as three factions, each with their own units and abilities. The player chooses what faction to play with they begin each round and the different art styles of each faction make them easily identifiable after playing for a couple of hours.
Gameplay
In Batalj‘s quickmatch gamemode, both players take their turns at the same time, giving the game a blend of turn-based and real-time strategy games, and will likely give the game a larger market of interested gamers. Each ability you use has a weight to it, and the weight of your actions in the last turn decides what order your unit goes in on its next turn.
In quickmatch, the goal is to be first to five points, or wiping out all of your opponents units. The game is broken into two segments, scheduling and action. In the scheduling phase, you have two minutes to give all your units orders, and in the action phase, those orders are carried out.
The game has three pre-made squads for players to choose from, the Relinked, Rusters and Splicers. Players can also make their own squads, using units from one of the three squads. The player then chooses which units to deploy on the map when in game.
The game has a very steep learning curve and you spend most of your turns reading tooltips. I could write thousands of words all together on all fifty-four different units just to explain what abilities work well against who, strategies and countless other elements of this game. This is one of the games strengths and weaknesses, as it’s not an easy game to pick up and play.
Batalj often requires you to have knowledge of what enemies can counter what and who has which passives. This isn’t helped either by the games biggest flaw, no single-player mode. The game does have a sandbox mode, but it feels unnecessary because it isn’t a great learning tool for this game.
The lack of single-player mode (outside of the excellent tutorial) makes this game much harder than it needs to be to learn the mechanics and abilities of each unit. The game clearly has the AI for the mode, as proven by the tutorial, and it’s omission baffles me. I’ve read that they are planning on adding scenarios, but I couldn’t find a source from the developers themselves. On the flip side of all this, if your a gamer who likes to dive deep into mechanics and strategies, this is a game made for you, just be ready to embrace defeat on your first few attempts.
Visuals
I am not sure how many maps there are in Batalj, but the maps that I have seen have been gorgeous and are, by far, the greatest redeeming feature of this game. The UI is very functional and very much reminds me of the UI stylings of a Battlefield game.
The character models and the textures all have an appealing cell-shaded look, with certain characters reminding me of characters from Overwatch.
I experienced lag on actions regularly, along with regular slowdown, but in between my play sessions with this game, a patch release improved my performance.
Audio
For a game that requires deep focus, Batalj knows how to use sound, or the seeming lack of it. As you play this game, you don’t really take notice of the sound unless you’re actively listening out for it. For the sounds that you do notice in the game, they sound well-produced and polished.
Overall
Batalj is a indie game trying its hardest to present itself as a triple-A game, which it succeeds with somewhat. But I cannot imagine a triple-A game of this difficulty presenting itself without a single-player mode, which I think will really let this excellent game down. The number of players for this game when I played a day after release was fourteen, which seems abysmally low but expected considering the lack of visible marketing and hype around this game.
I can foresee this game entering a death-spiral as less players pick the game up and less players buy the game because of the lack of a playerbase. I really do hope that the developers add in some of these lacking features, as it wouldn’t be hard to believe this game gaining some traction on Twitch and competing for the strategy market against DOTA 2 or League of Legends.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
Nintendo has announced that Nintendo of America president and COO Reggie Fils-Aime will be retiring after working for more than fifteen years at Nintendo and where he spent the last thirteen working in his current position. He will be replaced by the current senior vice president of sales and marketing and man with an incredibly fitting name, Doug Bowser.
In a statement within the press release, Fils-Aime has said “Nintendo owns a part of my heart forever. It’s a part that is filled with gratitude—for the incredibly talented people I’ve worked with, for the opportunity to represent such a wonderful brand, and most of all, to feel like a member of the world’s most positive and enduring gamer community. As I look forward to departing in both good health and good humor, this is not ‘game over’ for me, but instead ‘leveling up’ to more time with my wife, family, and friends.”
He also happened to leave a more personal message for fans and you can find that below.
A new trailer for Super Dragon Ball Heroes: World Mission has been released in English by Bandai Namco alongside news of a special “HERO Edition” for the physical Switch release of the game in North America. This version is simply the launch version where it will include a copy of the game as well as five physical Dragon Ball Super cards that will be only available in this version of the game and the ability to unlock 11 cards for immediate use in the game.
You can check out the video below and be sure to keep an eye out for Super Dragon Ball Heroes: World Mission when it is released for the Switch and PC in North America and Europe on April 5th.
Rocketman, the upcoming Elton John ‘musical fantasy’ biopic about his breakthrough years, has released a new featurette and poster for the movie’s release later this year.
Rocketman follows the fantastical journey of Elton John’s transformation from shy piano prodigy Reginald Dwight into international superstar.
The film also stars Jamie Bell as Bernie Taupin, Richard Madden as John Reid and Bryce Dallas Howard as Sheila Farebrother. The film is directed by Dexter Fletcher, known for Eddie the Eagle and for replacing Bryan Singer as director for Bohemian Rhapsody.
The featurette gives audiences a behind the scenes look at Taron Egerton’s recording of ‘Tiny Dancer’ for the soundtrack.
Rockstar announced they will be releasing a major update for Red Dead Redemption 2‘s multiplayer beta on February 26. The Red Dead Online update will include both content and fixes for the game.
The update will introduce the new Fool’s Gold free roam event. It’s a Western twist on the classic Terminator game mode where the first player who grabs the golden armour will be able to earn points for killing other players. To claim the armour, other players will have to work together to bring down the armour wearer, then battle it out once again to actually claim it.
For players who prefer more peaceful pursuits, fishing challenges will have players competing to land the biggest catch. They’ll be provided everything they need, including bait, fishing rods, and a safe haven away from bandits.
Finally, three new modes, weapons, and cosmetics are being added. The details about the three new modes haven’t been released yet, but they are called Up in Smoke, Spoils of War, and Plunder. The update will also bring the high capacity Evans Repeater rifle and a variation of the double barrelled shotgun called the Rare Shotgun.
PlayStation 4 owners will also get early access to the Open Target Races, the Jawbone Knife, new clothes, and three new emotes.
AxE: Alliance vs
Empire Launches Worldwide Today Beginning a New Generation for Mobile MMORPGs
Nexon’s Revolutionary MMORPG Delivers a
Full-Featured, PC & Console-Quality Experience Built for Mobile Devices
EMERYVILLE,
Calif. – FEBRUARY 21 – Nexon has released AxE: Alliance vs Empire, a revolutionary new
massively multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG) built from the ground
up for the mobile platform, to the App Store for iPhone and iPad and on Google
Play for Android devices. Players worldwide can now experience a
fully-featured MMORPG experience on-the-go, including an expansive storyline
and campaign, a massive evolving open world to explore, challenging cooperative
dungeons and raids and a variety of competitive player-vs-player (PVP) modes.
In celebration of launch, a special AxE starter kit will be available to all
players who download AxE for a limited time.
“Nexon RED
has tapped the power of modern mobile devices to provide a PC and
console-quality MMO experience in AxE featuring a breadth of single-player,
cooperative and competitive gameplay modes with an incredible amount of depth.”
said Tommy Lee, General Manager of NEXON M. “We’re excited to bring AxE to a
global audience of MMO gamers today and look forward to an exciting journey in
this unique fantasy world for years to come.”
AxE is set
in a sprawling fantasy universe where two warring factions, the Darkhaan
Empire, which fights for law and order and the Galanos Alliance, who battles
for self governance, clash to control the fate of the world. As players begin
their journey, they must align with one of the two factions. Once a side is
chosen, players can select from one of the three unique unique character
classes on each faction. Each character can be tailored to fit every play style
preference by using an arsenal of weapons, armor and special abilities.The
epic single player adventure of AxE finds players exploring a range of
vibrant open-world locations, where they will meet unique characters and
enemies and complete quests and objectives to earn powerful loot and equipment
to further level up and customize their characters.
Battles in AxE
offer a players a variety of real-time competitive modes, ranging from tactical
four vs four player matches, to the large-scale 75 vs 75 faction warfare
arriving to the game soon. Cooperative battles and raids give players a chance
to team up to take on powerful enemies and dungeon bosses. In AxE, rivalries
between players are taken to new heights with the Chase and Revenge feature,
giving them the ability to track and pursue enemy players in the game in
real-time. Players can also easily communicate and interact withfeature
robust social systems which include chat and team management, providing players
with the tools to strategize before every team battle.
Stay up to
date on game developments by liking AxE on Facebook:
NEXON Co.,
Ltd. (“Nexon”) (3659.TO) is a worldwide leader in free-to-play online and
mobile games. Founded in Korea in 1994, Nexon developed one of the world’s
first graphics-based massively multiplayer online games. Nexon also pioneered
the concept of microtransactions and the free-to-play business model, setting a
new standard in which play is free, and users have the option to purchase
in-game items to enhance their experience. Nexon currently services nearly 100
titles in more than 190 countries. The Company is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan
and its shares are listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
