Extra-special promotion with Smyths Toys Superstores kicks off August 24 and features fan-favourite Pokémon, Shiny Rayquaza… and Pikachu!
London, United Kingdom, August 12, 2015 — Calling all Pokémon Trading Card Game fans! The latest expansion, Pokémon TCG: XY—Ancient Origins, hits shops today, bringing over 90 new cards to collect and play.
The new expansion offers 14 all-new full-art Pokémon-EX cards, including three new Mega Evolution Pokémon—Mega Tyranitar-EX, Mega Ampharos-EX, and Mega Sceptile-EX— and never-before-seen Shiny versions of Primal Kyogre-EX, Primal Groudon-EX, and Mega Rayquaza-EX.
New Trainer cards have also been added, including a full-art Trainer card and two new Special Energy cards. Many of the Pokémon in this expansion have new Ancient Traits that add new depth and tactics for those who want to boost their team.
The expansion includes two different theme decks, Stone Heart and Iron Tide. These preconstructed 60-card decks enable budding players to jump into the Pokémon TCG straight away. Booster packs include ten cards from the expansion along with an in-pack code card that unlocks virtual cards from XY—Ancient Origins for play in the Pokémon Trading Card Game Online.
Shiny Rayquaza and Pikachu can be discovered at Smyths Toys Superstores from August 24!
The Legendary Pokémon Rayquaza, featured in the XY—Ancient Origins expansion, will be the star of an exciting promotion planned with Smyths Toys Superstores kicking off on August 24 and running for four weeks.
The promotion supports the launch of XY — Ancient Origins, as well as the acclaimedPokémon Omega Ruby and Pokémon Alpha Sapphire video games, and includes specially selected toys from the Tomy range. Pokémon Omega Ruby and Pokémon Alpha Sapphire launched in November 2014 and have sold a staggering 10 million units globally to date*.
Pokémon TCG fans can find a never-before-seen foil promo card featuring Shiny Rayquaza-EX as part of a beautifully designed package exclusive to Smyths Toys Superstores in the UK for a limited period only between August 24 and September 20. The package also contains:
· A special oversize card featuring Shiny Mega Rayquaza-EX
· 4 Pokémon TCG booster packs
· A code card for the Pokémon Trading Card Game Online
Fans can request a free serial code from staff in store at Smyths Toys Superstores, which they can enter into their Pokémon Omega Ruby or Pokémon Alpha Sapphiregame** to receive a special Shiny Rayquaza. This Shiny Rayquaza is not only rare, it is also amazingly powerful. Shiny Rayquaza knows the Dragon Ascent move, which allows it to Mega Evolve in battle and dominate its opponents!
For those who prefer cute Pokémon to powerful ones, some lucky fans will get the chance to meet the famous Pikachu, scheduled to make very special guest appearances in selected branches of Smyths Toys Superstores throughout the late summer.
For more information about Pikachu’s in-store appearances, see SmythsToys.com for details.
*Nintendo, June 2015.
**Pokémon Omega Ruby or Pokémon Alpha Sapphire and Nintendo 3DS or 2DS system required to receive Shiny Rayquaza. One redemption only per code and in-store collection only for a limited period between August 24 and September 20.
About Pokémon
The Pokémon Company International, a subsidiary of The Pokémon Company in Japan, manages the property outside of Asia and is responsible for brand management, licensing, marketing, the Pokémon Trading Card Game, the animated TV series, home entertainment, and the official Pokémon website. Pokémon was launched in Japan in 1996 and today is one of the most popular children’s entertainment properties in the world. For more information, visit www.pokemon.co.uk
THE GRAND SPACE ODYSSEY EDGE OF SPACE TO EMBARK SEPTEMBER 17
Transform an Unexplored World and Discover Fantastic Creatures at the Outer Limits of the Universe Twain Harte, CA – August 12, 2015 – Game developer Handyman Studios and Reverb Triple XP are proud to announce today that Edge of Space, the 2D sandbox survival-adventure game, will launch the full PC version of the game on September 17. Embark on this space odyssey filled with fantastic creatures, millions of different created weapons and gear, deep base building features, and eccentric humor. Edge of Space has spent two years in Early Access listening to community feedback that resulted in numerous improvements and additions to the game, that including vastly improved lighting and visuals, entertaining writing, new gear and items that enable cool abilities, random world events, and much more.
“The development of Edge of Space has been an arduous and incredible creative journey,” said Jacob Crane, founder and lead designer of Handyman Studios. “This is a major milestone goal for us, but the journey doesn’t end here. As we’ve demonstrated in our Early Access development, we will continue to deliver consistent content updates to include new missions, weapons, monsters, events, and much more. We’re very happy with the game we’re delivering and we look forward to players suiting up and exploring the world.”
Edge of Space is an open-world, dynamically-generated, sandbox survival-adventure game. Gamers emerge from a crashed cryopod to a strange new world with only a laser mining pick and minor gear then immediately start exploring, collecting resources from valuable mined ore, and fabricating survival equipment. Some of the fantastic monstrosities gamers will encounter include cybernetically-enhanced Space Laser Sharks, genetically-evolved Plasma Polar Bears, and deadly-quick Jetpack Space Penguins. At the absolute edge of space, gamers must adapt or die – good luck ArkCo Operatives!
To follow along with the content updates, please visit the Edge of Space game official Website, playedgeofspace.com, follow the development team at Twitter and “Like” the game on Facebook.
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ABOUT HANDYMAN STUDIOS
Founded in 2011, Handyman Studios is an independent game company founded on the dreams and skills of two game development veterans who are also best friends who have worked together for four years in various capacities. Starting out as a work-for-hire company, Handyman used its skills to help others and learn how to operate effectively and efficiently. With a successful kickstarter, Handyman Studios is able to transition into its real purpose – becoming a game studio dedicated to creating the best gameplay experience possible without fear to evolve or innovate in small and large ways.
Reverb Triple XP provides a spectrum of services customized to focus on the needs of indie game developers. Triple XP titles stand out with excellent gameplay, creative design, and that elusive fun factor. Once identified, Reverb’s team of game industry veterans partner with the indie dev team, fully understand the game by actually playing it and provide world class marketing, PR, social, production and distribution services that are fitting for games of the highest quality. A cornerstone of the programs is that the developer retains creative control and ownership of its intellectual property as well as receiving a custom solution tailored to their exact needs. Each year, only a handful of titles are chosen to be in Reverb Triple XP, prioritizing quality over quantity.
The Yu-Gi-Oh! name is known worldwide as one of the most famous Shonen Jump franchises and collectible card games of all times. With over 50 previous video game adaptations ranging from great to poor, Legacy of the Duelist is the first game being released for the eight generation consoles, promising a nostalgic story mode and the highest card count of any Yu-Gi-Oh! game ever with over 6600 cards. Is it time to get your game on or should this legacy remain lost to the Shadow Realm?
Story
One of the main draw’s of Yu-Gi-Oh! Legacy of the Duelist is it’s story mode, which promises to go through each of the five main series of Yu-Gi-Oh! that have aired since the beginning and allow the player to reenact each major battle in the order they occur. This is a promise that Konami really delivers on with plenty of iconic battles to fight through, each one put in context with surprisingly detailed before and after story text, character portraits and backgrounds. Fans of the older series will enjoy the nostalgia and might even enjoy some of the newer story arcs they never experienced before. Each campaign (apart from Arc-V which currently only features one duel) is fairly long with lots of duels to play through against a huge variety of opponents. The first arc alone has over 25 duels to play in.
The way these battles are handled are impressive also. Most battles will have you assume the role of the main character of that series (E.g. Yugi, Jaiden, etc.) where you have the option to use the deck they were using at the time of that battle or your own constructed deck. In a great move, you can also reverse these duels once you beat them once so that you can play using the opponents deck against the other character. It’s a lot of fun playing with popular cards and trying to reenact the strategies seen on the show and it works very well here within the great dueling system.
As for the stories themselves they’re obviously not fantastic being based on a show about cards but some of the shows lore is interesting and the characters are generally pretty likeable from the shy Yugi who can transform into the strong willed Pharaoh Yami Yugi, to hot head Joey and so on. There’s normally something on the line and the progression of the stories are fast paced, but the main draw card here is just to reenact the show in an interactive way and the game does that very well.
In a disappointing move, Konami has seen fit to offer 4 DLC packs at launch containing approximately 2 additional duels for each story arc (except Arc-V). Obviously cut from the main to game to sell off separately and make a quick dollar, the fact that buying all 4 packs will cost more than the full game and include marginally less content is absurd. These packs are clearly not worth it unless your a die hard fan of that particular series.
Gameplay
For a cheaper downloadable title this game has a great variety of game modes. Apart from the fun aforementioned campaign mode, there is challenge mode, battle pack mode, an online mode where you can battle against friends or randoms and of course the deck editor where you could spend hours searching through the impressive 6600+ card list trying to construct the perfect deck.
The gameplay here is straight up Yu-Gi-Oh! and as so the rules of one of the most popular card games in existence are in full effect here. This game adheres to the latest rule revisions which might catch some older fans by surprise. For example whoever goes first no longer draws a card on their first turn and now each player can have a field spell card on the field at the same time as opposed to when only one could be in effect at any one time.
For a lot of the old and new mechanics, the first battles in story mode are basically tutorials on how to play the game and use that series main gameplay addition (e.g. Arc-V’s Pendulum Summon or 5D’s Synchro Summons). There is also a dedicated tutorial mode should you ever wish to review any of the games rules which you might be grateful for if you haven’t played in a while, things have changed a lot since the days of Blue Eyes White Dragon being one of the games strongest cards.
There is a reason this game has remained popular for so long and that’s because it’s fun and contains countless strategies you can employ to try and defeat your opponent. I’m no Yu-Gi-Oh! buff and am long out of the loop on what strategies are dominant, but the sheer possibility of creating new strategies with the amount of cards available is overwhelming. You can run a deck that will try to deck out your opponent, run a 40 card deck with lots of searching cards so you can get the ones to satisfy a certain victory condition, rely on equip cards, rely on fusion cards, run a theme deck, use field spells etc. The list could go on and on.
Familiarity with your deck and pulling off your chosen strategy consistently is the key to winning and also getting the most fun out of the game. Sure you might lose a few games because you continue drawing polymerization cards and cards that allow you to search your deck for polymerization cards, but at the end of the day the games are fairly balanced and it’s your decision on how to construct your deck and when to play those cards that will ultimately lead to consistent victories.
To test out your skills beyond the story mode, the game offers a Challenge Mode and a Battle Pack mode. Challenge Mode allows you to face the large cast of characters across all the Yu-Gi-Oh! series again, except this time with a MUCH tougher deck. Rex Raptor was a fairly simple challenge in the story mode but he came back with a vengeance and destroyed me in Challenge Mode. Defeating each character here will be a time consuming and challenging feat but the rewards are great and you definitely improve as a duelist as you complete the mode.
Battle Pack mode is another great addition, allowing you to enjoy the semi-recent trend of TCG drafting of real life in the game. There are two types of game mode on offer here, Sealed Play, where your deck is made automatically from 10 five card packs and Draft Play, where you draft 45 cards across 3 rounds of opening packs. These cost a low 2000 DP to participate in and if you win a best of five against an AI or online opponent you get to keep all the cards you used in your deck. This is a great mode for people who are just looking to play without the hassle of creating their own deck, not that the deck editor isn’t sufficient to allow someone to do this easily (although a sort by obtained filter might have been a handy feature to add.
Online mode unfortunately is one of the weakest modes due to technical frustrations. Finding random opponents to play with, even during launch week has proved troublesome and connection errors are all too common as is lag between actions. Even when playing with a friend in the same suburb our match would lag and one of our duels was forced to come to a premature end as none of us were able to move due to one player being constantly stuck in the ‘thinking’ state (which happened again in another random duel). These issues are a big plague on the mode which is a shame considering playing with others is such a huge aspect of this franchise. A bigger issue for some will be the lack of a local multiplayer component, meaning online is the only way to play with friends.
Visuals
The main visuals in this game are incredibly underwhelming with the only good looking assets of Legacy of the Duelists being the HD scans of each card (which even then are ruined by an obnoxious Legacy of the Duelist watermark imprinted on the art of each card) and the character art/background art during the campaign mode. Even for a cheaper downloadable title the graphics for the most part are just poor.
The story mode in the campaign at least is thankfully well delivered visually. Sure it’s a simple text and nature story mode similar to a lot of handheld games, but from my knowledge nearly all of the key moments of each series is represented here, sometimes aided by visuals such as the Millennium Items to help accommodate the script. For a game centered so largely around nostalgia it is nice to see some effort put in here, but it still seems like a missed opportunity to accommodate the great gameplay with visuals that would in some way recreate the show.
Everything else is about as bland as possible from the dueling fields to any special effects. Even the text and menus here look like they have been lifted from a PS1 game and that is sadly not an overstatement. Everything from the colours of the text and interface elements to the ugly special effects seen during Pendulum Summons and similar events just looks bland and borderline terrible.
Don’t even bother getting excited about the “battle animations” that are exclusive to special monsters such as Blue Eyes White Dragon and Dark Magician. Not only are the models about on par with those found in a PS2 title, the animations and special effects are horrendous. As a huge fan of the Tag Force titles on the PSP, this is an enormous step down overall in quality. Making the matter worse is these can not be turned off, so have fun watching the exact same animation every time as you try to take out your opponents Scapegoat tokens. They are just horrible.
Audio
Like the visuals the audio here is about as bare bones as you can get. There are only a handful of songs that play during duels, none of which are particularly catchy or fit the mood of the duel well. This is especially true in campaign mode where you might be entering a Shadow Duel with your life at stake, and the music playing just gives off a care free vibe. Don’t expect any voice work in this game as there is none. As for the sound effects I remember hearing some of these noises back when I was playing Yu-Gi-Oh! on the Nintendo DS. They are serviceable but equally bland.
Overall
Beneath the borderline terrible visuals and forgettable audio is a fun strategic card game that can have you hooked for hours on end. The card game is as fun as ever with countless cards to collect and strategies to employ all adhering to the classic rules of the Yu-Gi-Oh! card game. A well done story mode will give you a reason to continue playing until you get good enough to take part in the great variety of other modes and online duels if you can put up with the lag and other common errors. While Legacy of the Duelist might not appeal to those who aren’t fans of the series, those that are will enjoy the story mode and the excellent card game that is the core of this title despite wanting more from the sub par presentation and troublesome online mode.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
It looks like Rodea the Sky Soldier is going to take a bit longer to come out to the West than initially thought. While the title has already been delayed once before from September to sometime in mid-October, NIS America has now announced that Rodea the Sky Soldier will be released on the Wii U and 3DS on November 10th in North America and November 13th in Europe instead.
NIS America stated that the reason for the delay was “to give players the best experience possible” by stating that there are “ongoing technical difficulties” with the title. The company did state that all launch copies of the 3DS version of the game will come with a soundtrack CD as well as a collectible case while all launch copies of the Wii U version will include the Wii title plus a reversible cover.
Overview Except for a few exceptions, first person dungeon crawlers nearly faded from existence in the West. However in recent years with the rise of indie developers and the popularity of the genre growing, more Japanese dungeon crawlers have begun to make their way overseas. With numerous titles proving that there is still life left in such games, NIS America has localized Operation Abyss: New Tokyo Legacy. Developed by the same staff that worked on Demon Gaze, is this title worth picking up?
Story Sometime during the 21st century a large number of unknown creatures began appearing throughout Tokyo. Called ‘Variants’ these creatures are almost entirely immune to modern day weaponry, making the police as well as the army useless. Thankfully a number of youngsters happen to be specially suited for combat against these beings and in order to stop the Variants from running wild the Code Physics Agency has formed The Xth (pronounced as Zith) Squad.
It is up to the Xth Squad to take on these Variants where they are most commonly found, dungeons that have been called Abysses. Now it is worth noting that due to the player being able to create their party from scratch or use a pre-made party (more on that later) that there really isn’t too much of a solid storyline to be told in Operation Abyss: New Tokyo Legacy.
While there is some solid writing at times, times where the game either completely floods the player with information or result situations that are barely explained occur far too often. It also doesn’t help that the actual named characters in the title are poorly handled while the core storyline is far from being noteworthy other than featuring a sci-fi type of setting that is rarely used in dungeon crawlers such as this. It is worth noting that the writers do manage to pull things together near the end of the game though it will be quite a chore to get that far.
Gameplay Now when beginning the game, players can choose between Classic Mode and Basic Mode. Those who choose Basic Mode will allow players to select from character portraits and are automatically provided with a fairly balanced squad of fighters to start out with. Those who happen to select Classic mode will have to deal with completely customizing their characters from the ground up and dealing with possible imbalances.
I say this because while very few dungeon crawlers will hold the player’s hand, Operation Abyss: New Tokyo Legacy features an extremely poor tutorial section making it incredibly easy for newcomers to find themselves lost trying to create a balanced group of fighters. Of course those who are more familiar with these types of games may find themselves able to adapt quickly, the problems consist further into the game due to some of the most basic systems featuring alternate names from what most players will be used to, such as buying items by “issuing” them or adjusting the “Blood Codes” for each character which serve mostly as their class base.
Once you do manage to get a team put together, or (as I would recommend) opt for the pre-selected group, players will quickly find themselves spending most of their time exploring the labyrinths. As you explore these dungeons in the standard first person view, players will randomly encounter enemies who will be fought in a similar manner. Now once you do actually enter combat of any form, the six player party is split into a front and back row where they will then attack rows of enemies at a time using various attacks and skills ranging from standard attacks to buffs and de-buffs.
It is worth noting that the longer you actually stay in the labyrinth at any given time actually increases the difficulty of the enemies you encounter. This is handled by an Encounter Gauge that slowly fills up as you make your way through the labyrinth and enemies begin to match the high level of the gauge. Interestingly enough, this creates a great incentive to push your party to its limits since harder enemies reward players with plenty of bonuses but it also increases the likelihood of being trounced by simple random encounters.
Of course at the same time, players must also be mindful of the traps that can be spread throughout the labyrinth as it is entirely possible to fall victim to some dangerous traps. Operation Abyss: New Tokyo Legacy introduces this mechanic quite early through a frustrating dungeon with hidden teleportation tiles so it is good to get used to this mechanic, even if the first dungeon just so happens to be the most annoying of the bunch.
While the player’s main goal of venturing through each Abyss is to complete their main objective, many of the side-quests that players can take on can usually be completed at the same time making it easy to double-down on certain dungeons, though it is worth noting there is still a noticeable level of grinding required for this game. While hardly as challenging as some other dungeon crawlers, the aforementioned Encounter Gauge can lead to some risky ventures, though proper planning usually can allow players to avoid such situations.
Unfortunately, despite having a handful of unique mechanics and changing a few names of well-known systems, Operation Abyss: New Tokyo Legacy doesn’t offer much in the way of variety from other dungeon crawlers. What the game does it manages to do well, however it brings almost nothing new to the table to entice players who are looking for something a little different from their dungeon crawling titles.
Visuals & Audio One of the aspects that Operation Abyss: New Tokyo Legacy does have going for it, as mentioned earlier, is the sci-fi style that most of the game sports. By not regulating players to the standard medieval world there are a number of new environments that can be explored. That being said, labyrinths are rather poorly handled with very little variation as repetitiveness quickly begins to set in, especially since a number of monster sprites are consistently re-used throughout the title.
This happens to be a rather unfortunate thing considering how detailed and colorful most of the enemy and character sprites actually look in the game. A wide range of colors are used to create some great looking opponents to fight against while the standard character sprites feature some great anime style designs though it is worth noting that character customized sprites do start out looking rather bland, but become better looking as you progress through the game.
As far as the voice work goes, Operation Abyss: New Tokyo Legacy features an adequate English voice track while the background music features a number of catchy tracks which is a bit of a blessing considering how much time spent in dungeons and in combat, though don’t expect a ton of variety as many tracks are used consistently throughout the title.
Overall Operation Abyss: New Tokyo Legacy is an adequate dungeon crawler that sports a solid combat system that may be seen as more approachable for some who have yet to cut their teeth on some of the more difficult dungeon crawling games out there. By bringing a few interesting things to the table as well as a unique setting, this dungeon crawler is certainly worth trying out for fans of the genre but don’t expect anything fresh as far as the game mechanics are concerned.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
In Assassin’s Creed Syndicate players will be taking control of both Jacob Frye as well as Evie Frye, twin siblings who have taken up the fight against the templars. While Ubisoft had plenty of content to show off at Gamescom this weekend, including a new trailer for Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, the company has now released a ten minute long gameplay trailer specifically focusing on Evie Frye, who has her own unique set of skills and stealth techniques, as she heads out on an assassination mission to eliminate a target named Lucy Thorne.
As with past games, Assassin’s Creed Syndicate offers plenty of different ways to take down your target ranging from infiltration and surprise assassinations to brute force.
Disneyland is home to a little more magic this week folks, with the annual Disney Infinity Toy Box Summit. Some of Disney Infinity’s best and brightest Toy Box builders have come together ahead of this year;s D23 Expo to dive head-first into the awesome Disney Infinity 3.0: Star Wars in an epic building competition.
Since not everyone has the luxury of attending California, Disney have awesomely decided to stream the whole event via Twitch (which you can check out here). To make you you don’t miss any of the excitement here is the official run-sheet for the event:
Wednesday, August 12, 2015
Toy Box Summit Keynote featuring John Blackburn, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Avalanche Software; John Vignocchi, Vice President, Production, Disney Infinity; and Allison Petrek, Lead Community Manager, Disney Infinity
Toy Box Showdownfeaturing a talented mix of Toy Box community and team members as they take audience suggestions on what to build in the game’s signature mode.
Learn from our experienced Toy Box 3.0 panelists:
The Walt Disney Company Creative Minds led by Jeff Bunker, VP, Art Development, Avalanche Software and representatives from Lucasfilm and Marvel Entertainment.
Spotlight on Toy Box 3.0 featuring Disney Infinity Game Director Bob Lowe and community mentors Troy Johnson and Patrick Efird who will detail all of the new features available in Toy Box 3.0.
Becoming a Toy Box Artist featuring Avalanche Software community mentors detailing their journey to joining the Disney Infinity family and giving advice to other budding Toy Box Artists.
Joining Forces for 3.0Disney Infinity joined forces with development studios to create Disney Infinity 3.0. Learn how Ninja Theory, Studio Gobo and Sumo Digital’s expertise played a unique role in the development of the upcoming Play Sets and Toy Box Expansion Games.
Starting Your Own Channel panel showcasing top personalities from Twitch, YouTube and the Disney Infinity community team who will discuss how they first got started and share tips for creating exceptional gaming content on each platform.
Thursday, August 13, 2015
The community will be invited back for the Toy Box 3.0 Competition Showcase where Toy Box building teams will show off their creations by playing in their Toy Boxes.
A panel of judges will announce a winner based on a set of criteria: theme, design, gameplay and creativity. In addition, the community will be invited to vote either via a social media hashtag campaign or Disney Insider poll. The Community’s pick will be announced one week later.
I for one am super excited to see what these talented builders come up with. Make sure you check out the twitch stream as it progresses along and remember that Disney Infinity 3.0 is set for release on September 3rd, so make sure you stay tuned to Capsule Computers for all the awesome Disney related news as it becomes available.
WARNER BROS. INTERACTIVE ENTERTAINMENT LAUNCHES PLAYSTATION®4 SYSTEM VERSION OF CLASSIC DUNGEON BRAWLER GAUNTLET: SLAYER EDITION
12th August 2015 – The Warrior, Wizard, Valkyrie and Elf of the co-op classic Gauntlet, are back in action on the PlayStation® Network in Gauntlet: Slayer Edition! Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and Arrowhead Game Studios announced today the online enabled dungeon brawler is live now on the PlayStation®4 computer entertainment system for AUD $29.95
Based on one of the first multiplayer arcade games, this new Gauntlet experience is a perfect couch co-op game, allowing players to select from four classic fantasy-based characters – Warrior, Wizard, Valkyrie or Elf – each with a distinctive play style, unique strengths and weaknesses. In this enhanced edition of the game, players will encounter new hero weapons and abilities, new monster types, and additional features that increase team dynamics and strategy, including spin attacks, shield throws, summoning, and magic abilities for the iconic characters, as well as a new, anticipated Endless gameplay mode.
New opportunities in Gauntlet: Slayer Edition include daily Colosseum challenges, loadout options, relic and potion functionality, weapon abilities and customisation, and much more.
Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, a division of Warner Bros. Home Entertainment, Inc., is a premier worldwide publisher, developer, licensor and distributor of entertainment content for the interactive space across all platforms, including console, handheld, mobile and PC-based gaming for both internal and third party game titles. About Arrowhead Game Studios
” ”, and “PlayStation” are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. “” is a trademark of the same company. All other trademarks and copyrights are the property of their respective owners. All rights reserved.
The Need for Speed 2015 reboot is one of the most anticipated titles of the year with EA and Ghost Games promising to take the series back to it’s most fun elements while also promising brand new features. A new trailer and a bunch of screenshots have been released that show the full extent the development team are pushing the Frostbite engine to and it’s damn impressive. It’s that good that the actual car you create will feature in any of the story modes live action cutscenes, blurring the line between reality and polygons.
Speaking of story, Need for Speed will feature 5 overlapping stories that allow you to focus on impressing one of the above real world racing icons. Each icon represents one of the games key gameplay elements including (from left to right) speed (going fast), style (drifting jumps), build (car modifications), crew (driving in tandem with partners) and outlaw (running from the cops). Your character will be a rookie racer looking to improve themselves and achieve bigger feats to help catch the attention of one of these idols.
In a big throwback to fans of perhaps one of the most loved Need for Speed titles ever, those who pre-order the game will be granted access to Need for Speeds: Most Wanted (the 2005 one) cover car, the BMW M3. The car is basically the series mascot at this point, making a similar appearance in the Need for Speed: Most Wanted 2012 reboot.
In what will be negative news to some, the game will require a constant Internet connection to be played. Executive producer Marcus Nilsson explained this was a controversial but necessary move to include some of the features they wanted to have in the game. These include the Autolog system which will allow your friends stats and progress to impact your narrative somehow and an automatic snap shot system. The snap shot system will take pictures of different moments and will then go on the Need for Speed network where people can ‘like’ them and you will be rewarded with in game currency for those likes. The Xbox One in built video editor is also said to be being used to some extent.
Need for Speed will be out on PS4, Xbox One and PC on the 3rd of November in the U.S. and on the 5th of November else where. You can check out the trailer and new screenshots below.
Rare ltd. is one of those gaming companies that is fondly remembered by gamers all around the world for one reason or another. Whether it is arcade classics like Jetpack or Attic Attack or the litany of classic Nintendo 64 games that they created, everyone has at least one Rare game that ranks among their top 10. Enter Rare Replay; a collection of games that spans the company’s impressive 30 year history. With an astounding 30 included games and a mountain of behind the scenes extras, there is definitely a lot to love In this nostalgic walk through history.
Gameplay
Rare Replay is a historical trip through thirty years worth of excellent game design and passion. Being able to boot up and play classics from as far back as 1983 is just amazing. Games like Jetpack, Sabrewulf and RC Pro Am really show us just how far we have come in the world of video games in such a short amount of time.
The collection opens up with Jetpack, a classic that anybody who has played Donkey Kong 64 will immediately recognise. You control a little astronaut as he tries to reassemble and refuel his ship while simultaneously fending off extraterrestrials who wish him harm. The game is simple to learn but difficult to master (as was the style of many games of the 1980s) but is still an absolute blast to play.
Let’s not forget that Rare Replay also features the infamous Battletoads and Battletoads Arcade. Battletoads was one of the most difficulty action games on the NES and its difficulty along with its badass, radical protagonists have solidified it in the hearts of games all over the world ever since (and a little Internet meme certainly helped that along the way. Well now you can legally play it again in its first actual home console release in decades. Not only that, but a new rewind option allows you to press the Left Trigger on your controller and immediately rewind up to ten seconds of gameplay, making it possible to overcome some of those challenging parts that stopped Gamers in their tracks for years. Battletoads Arcade is also included and this is the first ever time that the game has been released on a home console, so for many of us out there it will be the first time we have been able to try it out.
Once you get to the Nintendo 64 era of games you will find some classics like Blast Corps, Banjo-Kazooie, Perfect Dark and Jet Force Gemini. These games will resonate strongly with many of us out there who played them during their childhood. I for one could not get enough of Banjo-Kazooie as a kid, and while I never got a chance to play Blast Corps back then, I just know that 11 year old Andrew would have loved the mindless destruction that came with it.
When it comes down to it though, you can’t talk about the Nintendo 64 games in this collection without mentioning Conker’s Bad Fur Day. This was a game that at the time subverted everything that people thought they knew about video game characters and presented us with a cute cast of characters who drank, swore and did a whole lot of other unspeakable stuff. Rerelease on the original Xbox as Conker: Live and Reloaded, many players hated the unnecessary censoring of the game and were not fans of the updated multiplayer. Luckily the game they chose for the collection was the original version which while looking exactly like it did in 2001, still plays great and manage to keep the splitscreen multiplayer dream alive in a time where online multiplayer is king.
One thing that I wish this collection had was an easier way to understand what the games are, how they played and the objectives. Aside from simple trial and error there are built in game manuals for each of the thirty titles but these can only be accessed through the Xbox One’s game help “snapped” app. This takes time to load that could otherwise be spent playing the actual game, and if they simply moved these manuals to inside the game itself it would be a lot more convenient for players to get a grasp on what the heck they are supposed to be doing in Lunar Jetman.
In addition to the 30 included games, Rare Replay offers a series of bite-sized challenges for some of the older titles in the list. These challenges are called “Snapshots” and give your certain parameters in which to achieve your goals. For example; a Jetpack Snapshot has you gathering fuel for your rocket all without having access to your blaster. If these Snapshots have one failing, it is their inconsistent difficulty and an incredible difficulty spike in the final shot for each game. These will keep you engrossed for hours on end simply because they are so hard. The final Snapshot for Lunar Jetman took me longer to complete than the previous 9 Snapshots combined.
While it is awesome to see these older games getting some love, some of the newer games don’t fare as well, and this is a real cause for concern. Perfect Dark Zero and Banjo & Kazooie – Nuts and Bolts are two of the more recent games in the collection and they also happen to make use of Microsoft’s (currently still in beta) Xbox 360 backwards compatibility/emulation. Sadly, these two titles also suffer from really notable lag, screen tear and frame rate issues. Now Perfect Dark Zero had a lot of these problems in its original incarnation so it’s hard to point a pitchfork at it, but N&B is quite poorly emulated here, with some areas being so affected that the game becomes almost unplayable. Aside from these two, I didn’t face and performance problems with the other 360 games, but it is still a bit of a warning sign for the whole backwards compatibility program.
Hopefully come November when the program officially rolls out to a number of games, everything will be a lot smoother but at the moment the struggles to emulate a game from seven years ago have me feeling a little bit anxious for how well games like a Fallout 3 or Bioshock will run.
Visuals & Audio
In many cases, we are dealing with some seriously old games in the Rare Replay collection, and you know what that means don’t you? That’s right, none of that fancy widescreen stuff that we take for granted. Back in the 80s, 90s and early 2000s games were made to be presented on almost perfectly square screens. Keeping with the authenticity (and because they would look like garbage if they didn’t) Rare has maintained the original aspect ratio for all of their games. Now this leaves a lot of empty space on the TV screen, which is filled up with images and official art from the game, almost replicating the old arcade cabinets that many of these games originated on. I personally think it’s a pretty cool visual treat but if it isn’t you cup of tea then you can switch it to a plain black background at your own discretion.
Do you remember being a child and your parents telling you to “sit back from the tv!” Or “stop playing those games, you’ll hurt your eyes!” I for one used to get those ALL the time and I never understood why. Well, thankfully Rare Replay has a sweet little feature that lets you, at the push of a button the screen will add an overlay that makes it look like it is being presented through an old 80s-era CRT TV. While I love being able to briefly look back in time to a bygone era before super crisp HDTVs, having that enabled for more than even a minute at a time caused some real strain on my eyes.
Overall
Getting 30 games for $50 (or $30 if you live in the USA) is almost unheard of in this day and age. Heck, many of the Xbox 360 games alone will cost you upwards of $10 or $20, so there is no arguing the amazing value that Rare and Microsoft have laid out on the table. If you’re anything like me, you will have had more than a few games on your “I really need to try that” list for quite some time and have been waiting for the perfect opportunity to do so. Well, Rare Replay is that perfect opportunity. Sure, a few of the more recent games have some performance issues but that shouldn’t hold you back from enjoying some of the classics like Attic Attack, Banjo-Tooie and the original slightly less-censored version of Conker’s Bad Fur Day.
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