Paramount Pictures has released a brand new trailer for the upcoming film Daddy’s Home 2. Brad (Will Farrell) is in the director’s crosshair in the latest trailer with a whole stream of embarrassing injuries, from getting hit in the face with a kickball and being electrocuted by a cellphone tower. The latest trailer is also the big debut for Dusty and Brad’s fathers, played by Mel Gibson and John Lithgow respectively. Dusty’s ultramasculine father is the polar opposite of Brad’s highly emotional father, and hijinks are bound to happen.
Additionally, Paramount Pictures has debuted the latest poster for the film alongside the new trailer. Daddy’s Home 2 is set to hit cinemas on November 23 in Australia.
GOG.com‘s New Releases and Big Savings on Arcade Classics by SNK
Completion deals 75% off • Eight new Neo Geo releases
OCT 5, 1 PM UTC: Say goodbye to your allowance! Come on down to the GOG.com SNK Arcade and stay for our collection of the greatest ex-coin-munching-still-heart-pounding classics from SNK – now up to -75%!
Play one (or all) of our eight new arrivals from a range of genres, featuring: SENGOKU 3, REAL BOUT FATAL FURY 2, ART OF FIGHTING 2, NEO TURF MASTERS, GAROU: MARK OF THE WOLVES, SHOCK TROOPERS 2ND SQUAD, IRONCLAD, and PULSTAR.
Everything is -50%, or 75% off when you complete a game pack (Fighter Pack, Action Pack, Arcade Pack) each chock-full of new arrivals and greats from METAL SLUG, SAMURAI SHODOWN, FATAL FURY, THE KING OF FIGHTERS cabinets and more.
The GOG.com SNK Arcade never closes – but the special offers will only be around until October 9, 10 PM UTC / 3 PM PDT / 6 PM EDT.
DISCOVER THE NEW DUNGEON DANGERS IN ONLINE VIKING ADVENTURE VALNIR ROK
Brave Viking warriors, prepare to venture underneath Valnir Island! Independent game developer encurio GmbH announced today a free update for Valnir Rok, the epic online Viking roleplaying adventure now available on Steam. The ‘Dungeon Update’ adds dungeons areas to explore, uncover new treasures, and encounters deadly undead dangers.
The Valnir Rok ‘Dungeon Update’ adds two new underground dungeons where players will be able to explore and mine valuable resources: silver and gold. Both silver and gold minerals can be used to enhance weapons and gear, with more silver and gold items coming in future updates. The dungeons will also feature the Undead Draugr whose glowing eyes will haunt gamers as they go further and deeper into the dungeon. Other additions to the update including housing improvements, combat improvements, updated spawn protection and more.
Valnir Rok is an online sandbox survival roleplaying game inspired by Norse mythology. Players will awaken to find themselves on Valnir Island and must do whatever it takes to survive in a land of wild animals, mythical beasts, and violent men. As a hardened Viking warrior, butcher your enemies in bloody combat, build and improve village structures, and form a clan to expand your power and reputation. Battle against opposing clans, place bounties on hated enemies, and discover ancient artifacts to gain favor with the gods with great deeds and holy sacrifices. Might makes right in the Viking world of Valnir Rok.
Valnir Rok is now available on Steam for $19.99. Join the adventure filled with heroic deeds and legendary battles – follow the game development on Twitter, “Like” us on Facebook and visit the official site, www.valnir.net.
Ground-Breaking New Direction Opens Digital Extremes’ Cooperative Action Game to New Players, Gives Veterans Towering New Challenges LONDON, ON – October 5, 2017 – Independent game developer and publisher Digital Extremes is ready to open the flood gates of its cooperative online action game, Warframe®, to a whole new wave of players. With Plains of Eidolon’s release hitting PC and Steam next week, Digital Extremes’ new Open Zone design offers a vast new geography packed with exploratory daytime activities and towering night-time battles unlike anything Warframe players have seen before. The Plains of Eidolon expansion will launch on PC first, on PlayStation®4 and Xbox One this November, and is free to play.
At night, only experienced Tenno will have a chance at defeating the towering Eidolon.
In Plains of Eidolon, players will discover a brand new experience vastly different from the maze-like tilesets they’ve known. For the first time in Warframe, players will see exquisitely lit vistas with an ongoing day/night cycle that creates an alluring continual emotional experience of dawn, day, dusk, and night. In the day-time, Tenno (players’ in-game name) will have the freedom to seek missions from colorful vendors in the makeshift colony of Cetus, including as many as 50 other players with which to socialize. Players will cajole and converse with an eclectic collection of vendors like mining experts, fish mongers, beast masters, mask makers, and weapon smiths, the latter of which enables players to create a series of modular weapons, customized to their tastes like never before.
Outside of town, solo or in squads of up to four, players can freely explore the Plains. Filled with stunning lush hillsides, busy lakes and rivers inhabited by schools of underwater creatures, and hidden cave systems, Tenno can entertain themselves with mini-games such as spearfishing and mining to gather resources, or engage in heroic land and air battles — using the reworked Sky Archwing — against an ever-belligerent Grineer presence.
Best of all, daytime activities are available to all players of any experience level! But once night falls, enemies scatter and hide as the plains are haunted by mammoth Sentients. Summoned by a mysterious force, the towering Spectral Sentients known as Eidolon ascend from the waters and threaten all living things in their paths. What do they search for every night? What will it take for your team to defeat them?
Additional key features include:
Debut of the Deadly Warrior: Witness the introduction of the 34th Warframe, Gara, who manipulates glass to fracture the resolve of her enemies. Gara’s unique Abilities comprise Shattered Lash, which thrusts forward a deadly glass blade, or performs a 180-degree sweep, damaging anyone in its path; Splinter Storm, which surrounds her target with swirling shards of glass; Spectrorage, which creates a ring of mirrors around a target area, and Mass Vitrify: an Ability that expands a ring of molten glass slowly crystallizing enemies who enter.
New Weapons:Gara wields a new arsenal of powerful weapons, including:
Astilla: The deadly Astilla shoots slugs that explode on impact, dispersing lethal glass shards in all directions
Volnus: The heavy Volnus deals a large amount of damage and can beat enemies to a pulp, providing you have the strength to wield it
Fusilai: The stealthy glass shurikens pierce through flesh and armor, taking down enemies unheard
New Reinforcements:
Argonak: Pick off targets by highlighting distant enemies using this Grineer rifle’s advanced laser sighting system. Deadly in both single fire and automatic modes
Krohkur: This hooked blade rewards critical hits to those skilled enough to strike with finesse
Dual Krohkur: Battlefield butchery becomes all too easy with a Korhkur blade in each hand
Fashionista: Indulge your Fashion Frame sensibilities with the Virago Helmet and Gara’s new signature Hyalus Syandana. All of Gara’s components can currently be found in-game while her Blueprint will arrive in a Quest later this month
Focus 2.0: Experience the reintroduction of the Operator-Warrior Focus Rework 2.0. This new system changes the Skill Tree to be more combat-focused, enabling you to equip your Operator with distinct Weapons and Armor found deep in the Caves of the Plains
And More!
Players can acquire the Mag Deluxe Skin, Deluxe Tonfa, and Deluxe Syandana or purchase them in the in-game market
Resource collecting and, new to Plains of Eidolon, ’Stone Fish’ Collecting
Collect new ship decorations and a new Grineer weapon
New Mods and Stances
Visit the official Warframe website at www.warframe.com. Join the community and the fun on PC, Xbox One or PS4. To keep up with the latest updates from the development team, be sure to follow Warframe on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram.
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ABOUT DIGITAL EXTREMES
Founded in 1993 by James Schmalz, Digital Extremes ranks as one of the world’s top independent video game development studios. Originating with the co-creation of Epic Games’ multi-million unit selling Unreal® franchise including Unreal, Unreal Tournament – and all its iterations – Digital Extremes went on to develop Dark Sector®, BioShock® for the PlayStation®3, the BioShock 2 multi-player campaign, and The Darkness® II. The studio has reached its greatest critical and commercial success with the free-to-play action game, Warframe®, boasting a global community of more than 30 million registered players on PC, PS4™ and Xbox One. For more information about Digital Extremes, visit www.digitalextremes.com. To sign up for Warframe, visit www.warframe.com.
A New Champion Shall Rise at the TEKKEN™ World Tour Finals in San Francisco, California
BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment Inc. in Conjunction with Nissin Cup Noodles® Assembles the Best of the Best TEKKEN™ 7 Players from Around the Globe to Crown a New Champion
SANTA CLARA, Calif., (October 5, 2017) – Leading interactive entertainment media publisher and developer BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment America Inc. today announced details for its upcoming TEKKEN World Tour Finals tournament, presented by Nissin Cup Noodles®. In an unprecedented break from tradition, for the first time in its 20+ year franchise history, the TEKKEN World Finals will be held outside of Japan. TEKKEN fans will bear witness to the crowning of a new TEKKEN World Champion on November 12, 2017 as 16 of the best fighters from around the globe converge upon the City View at Metreon in San Francisco, California for an all-day battle royale to determine a new TEKKEN champion. The event will also be livestreamed exclusively on social video service Twitch.
The hard-hitting action kicks off at 12:00pm PST as the first double elimination rounds of the TEKKEN World Tour Finals begin. The 16 top seeded players representing the Americas, Europe, and Asia-Pacific regions will attempt to mercilessly destroy their opponents, and from the pile of vanquished foes, two finalists will emerge for the final match. TEKKEN franchise Director, Katsuhiro Harada, and Senior Designer, Michael Murray, will both be in attendance to meet fans and be on-hand to crown the new TEKKEN champion at the end of the night who will take home a $50,000 prize purse, secure a place in TEKKEN history, and earn eternal bragging rights.
“TEKKEN 7 has brought many new experiences to our fans and having the TEKKEN World Finals take place outside of Japan is the latest experience we want to give them.” says Katsuhiro Harada, TEKKEN Franchise Director at BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment Inc. “To see TEKKEN 7 met with such enthusiasm and have so many skilled competitors emerge around the globe makes the long hours and hard work the TEKKEN team put into the game well worth our blood, sweat, and tears.”
“TEKKEN 7 has taken the world by storm, especially in the United States. To have the TEKKEN World Tour Finals take place outside of Japan signifies the global strength of the TEKKEN franchise and the competitive capabilities of players around the world.” says Eric Hartness, Vice President of Marketing at BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment America Inc. “We invite all TEKKEN and fighting game fans to join us for the TEKKEN World Tour Finals where the competition will be fierce, the action will be non-stop, and by the end of the night, a new TEKKEN champion will be crowned.”
“We partnered with BANDAI NAMCO in order to build the community and infrastructure to sustain long-term growth of this historic fighting game franchise,” said Richard Thiher, Program Manager, Twitch. “Based on the momentum of the TEKKEN World Tour, including its high level of online engagement on Twitch, it has proven to be a successful brand collaboration with no sign of slowing down.”
TEKKEN fans who are looking to join the tournament action in-person can purchase tickets to the TEKKEN World Tour Finals at: TEKKEN TWT 2017 Tickets
. TEKKEN fans who are not able to attend the tournament in-person in San Francisco, California can watch the action on Twitch, the exclusive broadcasting platform for the TEKKEN World Tour Finals at Twitch.tv/Tekken.
In addition to being the exclusive broadcasting service for this competitive gaming league, Twitch manages TEKKEN 7league operations, circuit events, and content on a global scale.
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About BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment America Inc.
BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment America Inc., part of BANDAI NAMCO Holdings Inc., is a leading global publisher and developer of interactive entertainment for all major video game consoles, iOS, Android, and online platforms. The company is known for creating and publishing many of the industry’s top video game franchises including PAC-MAN®, GALAGA®, TEKKEN®, SOULCALIBUR®, and ACE COMBAT®. BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment America Inc. is the premier publisher in the Western hemisphere for anime based video games including NARUTO SHIPPUDEN™, DRAGON BALL Z®, and ONE PIECE®. More information about the company and its products can be found at http://www.bandainamcoent.com or www.facebook.com/BandaiNamcoUS.
This fall is slowly turning out to be the season of promising horror games. I already reviewed something from that repertoire recently and now we have another spooky release around the corner. Inmates is a new unsettling experience, courtesy of Iceberg Interactive.
You wake up from a nightmare into an equally scary reality – a prison. All that you can remember is that your name is Jonathan and you have no idea how you got there. You are scared and confused but also determined to find your way out as soon as you can. Who knows, maybe even find some answers along the way.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odkGwmntQyc
We’re expected to interact with the environment and tackle many puzzles along our journey, as well as enjoy the creepy & claustrophobic setting (from a safe corner, of course). Although the trailer doesn’t reveal much, I can see a lot of imagery similar to Silent Hill and that’s the point where I’m already interested. The game will be powered by Unreal Engine 4 which that leaves us with plenty of opportunities for gorgeous screenshots.
Inmates will release for PC on October 5 so make sure to play it with a light switch nearby.
Airship Syndicate and THQ Nordic has launched Battle Chasers: Nightwaron PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. The game is is based on the comic book series Battle Chasers from the 1990s. The turn-based dungeon crawler is inspired by Japanese RPGs and was originally Kickstarted in 2015. Battle Chasers: Nightwar features randomly generated dungeons and events set on a vast overworld map. The game is story heavy with a focus on exploration. Players will pick three of six heroes from the original comic series – each with their own abilities, perks, items, and dungeon skills – to form their adventuring party.
The art style is absolutely gorgeous. The design departs a little from the more traditional comic style of the source material. Instead, Battle Chasers: Nightwar has a soft, western style of illustration with influences from sprites from JRPGs.
Battle Chasers: Nightwar is priced at $29.99 USD / €29.99 / £24.99.
Raiders of the Broken Planet is a four versus one asymmetrical shooter. The game is composed of four campaigns that are purchased separately. The first campaign “Alien Myths” is available now. The final three campaigns are scheduled to launch in the coming months.
Story
The game is set on the Broken Planet, a physically shattered planet that has been under invasion by human forces since the discovery of the mysterious power source Aleph teleported the humans to the Broken Planet. Now, the humans have broken up into factions and battle among themselves for control of the Aleph. Caught in the crossfire are the planet’s indigenous population. After much bloodlust, a leader among them rises. Harec decides it is time to round up the greatest fighters on the planet and send the humans back to Earth in a violent uprising that will bring peace back to the Broken Planet.
As each campaign is its own self-contained story, it is easier to treat each campaign in Raiders of the Broken Planet as an episode in a longer season. Unfortunately, the format doesn’t work very well for the game. There is very little time for plot development in in four missions plus the one from the game’s free prologue. The result is a very weak plot that establishes some rough plot points that never delves deep enough to be interesting. The real meat of Raiders of the Broken Planet’s lore is in the Universe entries that need to be unlocked with the same currency used for actual gameplay. It is not a winning combination by any means.
The writing is mediocre at best. Some of the lines are a bit on the corny side. The awkward use of swearing makes it feel like the script was incorrectly translated from another language at times. For the most part, the main characters are decently crafted with a few solid lines each. The villain Uras Beherit is likely the worst so far. Compared to the others, he feels like he was messily thrown together last minute. His lines and the voice acting for the character is extremely inconsistent. At times, Uras is an intelligent, almost regal villain, while other times he devolves into a cursing thug. Worst of all is the insanely repetitive lines that play when the Antagonist dies. There are only two or three lines that belittle and demean the player for dying, no matter how many compliments that were being laid on the player only moments before.
Gameplay
Raiders of the Broken Planet is a third person shooter with some brawling elements. The game feels a lot like the third person shooters coming out of Japan during the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 era because it breaks from western shooter conventions, for better or for worse. The actual set of controls are very simple. It seems like the game was designed strictly for consoles in this regard. The game focuses on seamlessly switching between movement based on context. Jog in a line for a while and the character will break into a sprint. Run headlong into cover and the character automatically switches to cover mode. Once I got over the shock of not having direct control of my character’s ability to sprint, I found the movement system to be incredibly responsive. It is one of the better implementations of a cover system. The shooting controls also feel rather foreign as there is no hip fire, only melee attacks in the regular camera. Players must switch to the aimed camera before their guns can fire. The setup works fine for most characters, but I found it to be a bit unwieldy for Lycus Dion. Since Lycus’ gameplay revolves around constantly moving to stay alive, slowing him down so he can use his shotgun makes little sense to me. The game doesn’t have any voice over IP options on PC. Instead, players are stuck with a generic command wheel that feels like it came out of the previous generation of consoles. This is inexcusable for a co-op shooter in 2017.
The game is built around the Aleph system. Performing physically stressful tasks like moving faster than a walk, shooting weapons, striking enemies, and so forth will cause the stress meter to rise. Once the character reaches a stressed state, they are unable to regenerate health and their body will glow with Aleph, making them visible to the Antagonist through walls. It is an interesting extension of the age-old regenerating health system that gives an interesting spin for the competitive mode. Additionally, players can gather up to five levels of Aleph by killing an Elite enemy AI with a melee ability. The Aleph levels are used to power up objectives or improve the effects of the character’s equipped passive skill cards if five levels are gathered.
The melee system is a rock, papers, scissors design. Strikes can defeat grabs, which defeat dodges, which defeats strikes. In theory, this is a perfectly workable system that in practice fails miserably. Strikes are seemingly the go to solution for melee combat in the game for a couple of reasons. For starters, striking an enemy always the better option unless the player can ambush an AI from behind or find a downed elite AI enemy as the AI will always auto counter with a strike. Getting grappled is always an instant death for the player, which makes reacting immediately with a strike a much safer option than a dodge. If the player guesses wrong, getting struck in the face is at least potentially survivable.
Raiders of the Broken Planet uses a rather novel spawn system. The entire team shares a respawn pool. Once the pool drops to zero, the remaining team members must survive for a certain period of time so the support shuttle can return with a fresh respawn pool. Every time the shuttle makes a run to top up, the time it takes to return increases. If all players die with no more respawns left in the pool, it’s game over. For co-op gameplay, it is a neat system that allows stronger players to carry the team a bit for weaker players. For the competitive mode, the respawn system becomes more of a nuisance. Unless there is a massive skill gap between both sides, matches get dragged out if the co-op team is smart enough to bunker down behind cover and grapple the Antagonist for an easy kill to buy time. This boring stalemate is the main downfall of the Antagonist mode as playing the Antagonist boils down to ambushing characters to whittle down the respawn pool then try to find the lone camper that is trying to bunker down until the respawn pool refills, then repeat ad nauseum.
The character classes available in the game is a good mix. Each character has a special active ability, unique weapons, and passive skills cards. There are plenty of options for all gameplay styles, from the Lycus the close quarters brawler to Harec the stealthy sniper. The unique abilities and weapons for each character do a good job of differentiating characters who share similar roles. I really like the fact each mission will suggest characters to avoid based on the missions objectives and map layout.
The maps are not particularly interesting. It feels like the excitement crescendos during the second prologue mission to free Lycus Dion. Unlike the other maps, it feels like it has the most variety in its objectives and is the fastest pace of all the maps. The four maps of “Alien Myths” on the other hand feel old very quickly with the same handful of objectives mixed and matched together. The doldrums is only broken with the two boss fights that are way too simple in nature to be satisfying.
When playing Raiders of the Broken Planet, the old quote from George Santayana’s Reason in Common Sense comes to mind: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Gaming history is littered with titles that died because of a horrible monetization strategy. Clearly, MercurySteam has not learned from the errors of Battleborn, Evolve, and the many other games now inhabiting that graveyard. Raiders of the Broken Planet uses three different currencies for purchasing new characters, upgrading existing ones, building weapons, and so forth. Each run will offer players the choice of one type of currency, or if the player is lucky, a weapon blueprint. The currency system gets even more muddied with the addition of a paid currency for unlocking skins and new characters. More galling is the fact not all characters are unlocked from owning the game and completing the necessary missions. One character actually needs to be purchased separately. Since the game is being released in four parts, I can fully understand forcing players to cough up some sort of currency, whether earned from gameplay or with real money, to purchase characters introduced by another campaign that the player decided not to purchase. However, not having all characters unlocked from that come with that campaign is a terrible idea, especially when there is plenty of individual character progression that requires currency. At the end of the day, unlocking the one character isn’t too expensive, but it is the principle of the matter.
Visuals
Raiders of the Broken Planet boasts a solid visual style. The Broken Planet is a dusty place with influences from sci-fi, steampunk, and post-apocalyptic settings. The character design is excellent with visually distinct factions. On the technical side, the game is offers the standard array of video options for the PC.
Audio
The audio experience is enjoyable for the most part. The sound effects and soundtrack is like a good workhorse: dependable, though nothing outstanding. The voice acting is good for the most part with a variety of accents to help distinguish characters. Villain Uras Beherit’s voice acting is probably the weakest and most disjointed, with his delivery clashing horribly with his pitifully small handful of lines.
Overall
Raiders of the Broken Planet is full of great ideas with awful execution. I give credit for MercurySteam for taking some chances and trying out some new ideas for a tired genre, but many of them just did not turn out. Combined with the awful monetization strategy, I have to wonder if Raiders of the Broken Planet would have been better off to launch in early access for a year so the dev team could collect feedback and tweak the gameplay as necessary while they finished creating all four campaigns, then launch the game as a complete package. Unfortunately, it’s hard to recommend Raiders of the Broken Planet right now to all but the most ardent fans of the game’s premise.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
Ubisoft is turning to the internet to add the missing piece to South Park: The Fractured but Whole. The New Kid’s super hero persona still needs a good fart noise, so Ubisoft is running I Am The Fart contest to find the best fart noise for the job. From October 3 to 16, people can submit a video of their best fart noise to the official contest site, where the community will vote for the top ten fart sounds. The ten finalists will be judged by Mr. Methane, members of Ubisoft San Francisco, and representatives of South Park Digital Studios, who will vote for a winner. That individual will be rewarded with an expenses paid trip to Ubisoft San Francisco to record their fart sound to be added to the game. The winner will be announced on October 23.
It’s important to note that the game has already gone gold, so it’s likely that the winner’s fart noise will be added in a later update.
South Park: The Fractured but Whole is set to launch on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC on October 17, 2017.
2K is looking to revamp the WWE 2K18 experience this year with big changes to the MyPLAYER experience. Players will start out with a limited set of customization options when creating their MyPLAYER character with the wizard tool, with more options available once the initial character creation is complete. MyPLAYER characters will now be used in both the singleplayer MyCAREER and the multiplayer Road to Glory modes. MyPLAYER characters will increase in strength as gamers progress through the MyCAREER and the Road to Glory modes, improving the sense of character growth.
The new Road to Glory mode pits gamers against each other in series of qualifying matches in hopes of earning a spot on an upcoming Pay Per View event. Once qualified for a PPV event, players will still need to compete against each other to complete the most challenges so they can become part of the Main Event. Winners will get exclusive Superstar Parts based on the theme of the PPV event.
WWE 2K18is also introducing some major changes to the Universe mode. The mode aims to recreate the ever changing WWE storylines from week to week, but give players control over the action. This year, the rivalry system is getting a little more granularity. Bubbling conflicts will start out as potential rivalries and can break out into full blown active rivalries. Additionally, the mode is introducing the new Goals system to better replicate the intricacies of WWE. These goals will change based on the new Power Ranking system and player suggestions. Finally, eight player matches are finally coming to the Universe mode, with support for Eight-Man Battle Royales and the 4v4 Tag Team Matches.
WWE 2K18is set to launch on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Windows on October 17th. The Nintendo Switch version is set to launch in the months following.
