Rockstar released a small update for Grand Theft Auto Online today to expand the content of the recent “Cunning Stunts” update. Five new races have been added to the game: Chilliad (Super), H200 (Sport), Over the Bridge (Bike), Vespucci (Super), and The Wave (Bike). Additionally, three new vehicles have been added: the Bravado Sprunk Buffalo is a beefy SUV outfitted with Sprunk logos, the MTL Dune is a new off-roading vehicle, and the Vapid Contendor is an all-terrain vehicle with executive style.
The new week also brings a brand new premium race. Players will need to pay an entry fee for the race, but the winner will take home a cool GTA$100,000. This week’s race is set on the new H200 track, so get your favourite sports car tuned and ready.
Finally, there are some new bonuses for all players this week. Logging into the game between July 26 and August 1 will net players a gold jumpsuit. Stunt races will be also awarding particippants double GTA$ and RP. Additionally resprays and neons are 20% off. Players looking to expand their fleet of aircraft will also get a solid 30% discount on the Buckingham Nimbuls and the Volatus helicopter.
By telling players the story through the tutorial the game helps acclimate newcomers to the series in more ways than once as it serves as an entry to what can be a very complex game as well as tell the story that most fans of the franchise are already more than familiar with at this point since, outside of “what if” events, the story remains the same. It is worth noting that thanks to every character, of which there are hundreds of unique ones, having different flavor text and relationships with other characters in history, it is incredibly easy to get overwhelmed by the amount of information that players are given at one time but generally this deluge of information rarely costs the player much if they happen to miss out on any of the smaller details.
This can be transitioned into the Edit Officer aspect of the game as well. Players can freely create a number of characters, modify their stats as they see fit (ranging from creating a warrior to a strategist to completely maxing out everything if you feel like it), and even set up their history with other characters in the game, meaning you can already establish yourself as a sworn ally or enter a relationship with a historic figure.
Those who place themselves in complete positions of power will often find themselves juggling a number of aspects of the game as they seek to try and build up a city’s commerce, farming, and culture while also trying to train soldiers in an effort to unlock more elite forces, balancing the fealty of your people by going on patrols, and also trying to keep nearby villages happy and not swayed to swear loyalty to a rival kingdom. This balancing act makes for quite a few hectic scenes that can take place, especially thanks to the fact that this title is so full of menu navigation that players who aren’t used to that kind of thing will find it quite daunting, but thanks to the Hero Mode walking through most of the things that can occur and the ability to pause time to try and sort things out, the overwhelming amount of tasks to keep an eye on can be manageable most of the time.
Of course when everything comes to head, most of the time you will need to take to the battlefield to put an end to things. When entering into a battle players will either wage war in a field where bases are split between their force and the enemy force or at a castle where they will either be on the defense or forced to lay siege, using items such as battering rams, siege towers, and ladders to break down gates or avoid them altogether. These battles can be incredibly hectic to control, primarily thanks to the simplistic controls that are given to the player and the widely inconsistent camera angles making it difficult to select a certain force instead of simply selecting multiple units as a group.
These duels are five turn mini-games where the officers will clash and then use various types of attack and defense to overcome their opponent. This includes the likes of performing basic attacks, attempting to unsteady your opponent, or even focusing to try and use a special attack. If neither fighter wins by the end of the five rounds the winner is determined by their health meter. Various stats such as an officer’s skill in duels and other stats will play a role in how much damage can be dealt and this is mirrored in the “debate” duels. Following the same guidelines, players will need to talk down an official, either to sway a decision in your favor or to secure a village, and make use of assertions, rebuttals, provocations, etc. to prove your point.
As far as the voice tracks are concerned, players will be able to choose from either the Japanese voice track or the Chinese voice track if they feel like going with the authentic experience. The soundtrack features a number of period fitting tracks that range from calming tunes while traveling between cities and while residing in a city and some more action oriented music, albeit nothing too heavy compared to the Warriors version of the game, during combat.
10 Second Ninja X sets itself up with a fairly simple premise and while the story really doesn’t go anywhere special, it has enough witty comedy mixed in, a few little quirky moments, and special easter eggs for players to find that help give the story a little extra kick outside of simply setting up the premise.
Thanks to the incredibly tight control mechanics, players will be able to easily control the movements of the ninja while trying to time their double jumps correctly to avoid instant death electrocutions and placing themselves in the perfect position to take down a line of enemies with a shuriken. If things aren’t going your way, players can instantly tap a button to restart a level and this is a real nice touch since this action game is more like a puzzle game in many aspects.
That being said, this is also a game that does not scale in any way to the player’s initial abilities. While it is possible to unlock the second set of stages without really putting much effort into the game, even the first set of stages throw players into the deep end requiring blisteringly fast times in order to earn the three star rating. This means that newcomers will likely be put off by the steep difficulty curve that the game employs right at the start.
For especially gifted players 10 Second Ninja X offers leaderboards showing off the fastest times and if you manage to collection a hundred and twenty stars in total, you can access a large number of legacy levels taken directly from the original game but revamped to fit in with this newer game’s art style. As such, while the punishment that the game dishes out can be quite high, there are rewards for pushing past the frustration.
Although the group is warned that if things go wrong, something terrible will happen the group continues to go through with the act. After things go horribly awry, the nine members wake up to find themselves almost entirely separated from one another and surrounded by a hellish landscape littered with broken windows, dilapidated woodwork, and worst of all… dead bodies and gore everywhere.
As you navigate through the various chapters in Corpse Party it will quickly become clear that the title is one that favors a little trial and error as it is entirely possible to stumble upon an event that will either immediately result in a bad end, called “wrong end,” or lock you into an early end for the chapter, resulting in the player needing to go through once again in order to find the true ending though it is highly recommended to keep an extra save to avoid this.
While the characters are still occasionally shown with sprite dialogue boxes, most of the time during dialogue sequences they are portrayed via surprisingly badly detailed character portraits that look completely out of place compared to the rest of the game. Thankfully the Japanese voice work is still fairly well done, for the most part, and the music once again serves as a great enhancement to the eerie nature of the school.