Nintendo are putting a lot of faith in their latest IP, and want you to see it in action with a brand new Nintendo Direct. On May 7th, you can view the Splatoon Nintendo Direct, which will highlight gameplay and show off features for the fresh title.
These little inklings seem to be a wave of the future and display a direction that Nintendo have always wanted to go in with online multiplayer, but as of yet have not done thus far. The jury is still out but Splatoon does launch this month, so check out a few new pieces of art down below and visit the link at 4pm CEST on May 7th for the big news.
The official Twitter account for Silver Link’s anime adaptation of Atto’s manga series Non Non Biyori has revealed that the second season of the adaptation, titled Non Non Biyori Repeat, will premiere on Japanese television this coming July. The exact premiere date has not yet been revealed. This announcement comes more than one year after the second season was green-lit.
The first season of the anime adaptation is available on DVD and Blu-ray in North America with English subtitles however the OVA episode, which was bundled with the seventh volume of the manga series last July, has not yet been released to home-video with English subtitles.
Recently Swery announced that D4: Dark Dreams Don’t Die will be heading to the PC sometime in the future and today Access Games has updated the official website for the game with a list containing the various changes that have been made to the original game, most of which involve the removal of Kinect features that have now been replaced with mouse movements, as well as the minimum and recommended PC requirements.
The changes to the PC version are as follows:
Kinect control functionality has been removed. Instead, the entire game can be played using only the mouse.
Kinect gesture input controls have been removed and replaced with mouse commands.
Synchronous Kinect inputs have been changed to new mouse commands.
All Kinect Commands during Synchro Stunts (QTEs) have been removed. Instead, the QTEs can be played entirely using mouse controls.
All Xbox One DLC is now in-game content.
Along with the above changes, the user interface has also been redone.
All voice controls have been removed.
Synchro Stunt (QTE) grading has been revised.
Item parameters and locations have been revised.
Options unique to the PC version have been added.
The game now runs at 60fps.
Load times have been shortened.
Previously discovered bugs have been fixed.
Content unique to the Xbox One version has been removed.
The PC requirements for D4: Dark Dreams Don’t Die are below:
Recommended Specifications:
OS: Windows 7 64-bit edition or Windows 8 64-bit edition
CPU: Intel Core i7 4770K @ 3.5GHz or AMD CPU or equivalent
Memory: 8GB RAM
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 or AMD Radeon HD 7850 (VRAM 2GB)
Display: Supports 1920×1080 resolution
DirectX: DirectX 11
Hard Disk: Hard disk with 20GB of free space
Sound Card: DirectX 11 compatible sound card
Other: Keyboard and mouse required. Compatible with Xbox Controller using XInput
Minimum Specifications:
OS: Windows 7 64-bit edition or Windows 8 64-bit edition
CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 @ 2.83GHz or AMD CPU or equivalent
Memory: 6GB RAM
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 470 or AMD Radeon HD 6870 (VRAM 1GB)
Display: Supports 1280×720 resolution
DirectX: DirectX 11
Hard Disk: Hard disk with 10GB of free space
Sound Card: DirectX 11 compatible sound card
Other: Keyboard and mouse required. Compatible with Xbox Controller using XInput
Earlier today Atlus USA announced that Attack on Titan: Humanity in Chains will be released digitally in North America on May 12th for the Nintendo 3DS. When the game is released it will be priced at $39.99 but will also come with a special Attack on Titan Nintendo 3DS theme.
To go along with this announcement the company also released a new gameplay trailer for Attack on Titan: Humanity in Chains that focuses on highlighting the various playable characters in the game, including Eren, Mikasa, Armin, Levi, and Sasha.
Due to a copyright claim, the European release for the game is now being changed back to the original Japanese title Shingeki no Kyojin: Humanity in Chains and has been delayed to a currently unannounced date.
Now that most of the Investigation Team has been introduced, Persona 4: Dancing All Night‘s latest character trailer turns to Nanako Dojima, the protagonist’s young cousin. While visiting the city with her father Ryotara Dojima she meets up with Rise’s rival idol, who was briefly discussed at times in the original Persona 4, Kanami Mashita who wants to help her out.
After meeting Kanami she asks herself if she can be like Rise and even gets a chance to dance like everyone else. Currently Persona 4: Dancing All Night is set to be released in Japan by Atlus on June 25th for the PlayStation Vita.
The sequel to Cyberstep‘s popular 3rd person shooter CosmicBreak is now available to play in Japan. CosmicBreak 2 has been designed from the ground up with a number of new features and systems to give the title a smoother more open-ended feel while also creating destructible environments. CosmicBreak 2 includes a large number of playable characters, with each one having a unique outfit, armament, and customization options that players will be able to try out in 10 vs 10 arena matches.
A trailer for CosmicBreak 2 can be found below though it is worth noting that since this is the Japanese launch, the title is region locked so PC players in other regions can currently not access the title without a workaround but can download the game from CosmicBreak 2’s official website. Cyberstep is planning on releasing the game in the US, Europe, Brazil, and Asia within the year.
It always seems like Microsoft is under-utilizing the Rare team, which acquired the developer back in 2002. Rare was a popular developer known for the Donkey Kong Country series for Nintendo and creating the Banjo-Kazooie and Conker series. As of late, Rare has been tossed aside, making Kinect titles for the publishing giant. This has led to a number of Rare team members leaving the company and starting up their own indie developers. One such indie developer is Playtonic Games, who just launched a Kickstarter for their spiritual successor to Banjo-Kazooie called Yooka-Laylee (formerly Project Ukulele). Check out the video below:
Crowdfunded games have become a huge — albeit sporadically successful — enterprise in our gaming industry. With that said, Playtonic Games managed to reach its funding goal within an hour and has already more than quadrupled its funding goal at the time of this post on its first day of launch.
Yooka-Laylee is a 3D platformer starring a chameleon — Yooka — with a bat — Laylee — on its back. Like Banjo-Kazooie, the game will feature special combat abilities suited to the characters, like Yooka’s tongue grapple and Laylee’s sonar blast.
“When we first announced our project earlier this year it was as much about gauging interest from fans as anything, and it’s fair to say that the response has been massive,” said Gavin Price, managing director and creative lead at PLAYTONIC.
“Until now our development has been self-funded, but Kickstarter presents us with the amazing opportunity to deliver YOOKA-LAYLEE at the level of scope and scale that fans demand – and on their games platform of choice. Our team has decades-worth of ideas that we hope we’ll now finally have the resources and freedom to bring to reality.”
Yooka-Laylee is looking to be released sometime in 2016 on PC, Mac, Linux, Wii U, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. Check out the funding and stretch goals on the game’s Kickstarter page.
When the new trailer for Terminator Genisys was released last month, the internet blew up with the news that John Connor — the human who is supposed to save us from our future machine overlords — has become a human-machine hybrid sent back to kill his mother, Sarah Connor. Now, since everyone already knows (if you did not, my apologies and kudos on holding out this long), Paramount and Skydance Productions have released the all new one-sheet that you’ll be seeing at your local multiplex soon.
Here is the new poster for Terminator Genisys:
Personally, I’m okay with the John Connor news. All I really want to know now is who or what is Matt Smith (the Eleventh Doctor from Doctor Who) playing in this movie. They have spoiled everything else, so I just need to know at this point.
Terminator Genisys will reach theatres on June 25, 2015, directed by Alan Taylor from a screenplay by Laeta Kalogridis & Patrick Lussier. It stars Emilia Clarke as Sarah Connor, Jai Courtney as Kyle Reese, Jason Clarke as John Connor, J.K. Simmons as Detective O’Brien, Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Terminator, and Matt Smith as someone named Tim. And, if you haven’t seen the new trailer, check it out after the jump.
It has been a pretty rough week for Steam and modding, but there’s a bit of a bright patch at the end of tunnel. Today, Sega and Creative Assembly launched the modding tools for Total War: Attilaand flipped the switch on Steam Workshop support. The new mod tools should be familiar to those with experience modding Total War: Rome II and Total War: Shogun 2.
The Assembly Kit mod tools can be downloaded under the “Tools” menu in the Steam library. The tools contains:
DaVE: enables editing of the game’s database entries.
BOB: enables processing of raw data such as textures, models and animations.
TeD: enables the creation of individual battlefields for land, sea and sieges.
Terry: enables the editing of campaign map aesthetics such as the height-map, lighting and props. Unlike previous Assembly Kits, Terry now grants access to Terrain Raw Data, which means modders can determine which battle maps load in for specific campaign map locations. Go mod those cities!
The Assembly Kit also comes with a hard drive consuming 60 GB of resources, including the Terrain Raw Data resource pack. Budding modders can learn about how to use the Assembly Kit at the official Total War wiki.
Overview A little over a year and a half ago, Undead Labs released State of Decay on the Xbox 360 and it turned out to be a pretty big hit as it dropped players in a zombie infested valley with limited resources, permanent death, and the responsibility of taking care of a group of survivors. Now Undead Labs has returned again and this time they have brought State of Decay: Year One Survival Edition to the Xbox One. Featuring the original game plus the Breakdown and Lifeline DLCs with various other upgrades, is it worth entering Trumbull Valley once more?
Story The story throughout State of Decay: Year One Survival Edition remains very much the same as it was before as players are put initially dropped into the shoes of Marcus and Ed. These two have just returned from a long fishing trip only to run into a group of zombies shortly after making landfall. After managing to survive their first encounter, they encounter a group of survivors at a Ranger’s Station.
With only a short rest here, Marcus and Ed scout the area for supplies only to return to find everyone at the station dead and with their only hope being a voice on the radio guiding them further into town to a church where a new group of survivors are located and it is here that the handholding of State of Decay’s storyline comes to an end.
You see, while players are guided to the church and their group of survivors, there really isn’t much of a core storyline to follow here as the player is instead tasked with surviving more than anything else. Couple this with the perma-death mechanic and you will find that even your favorite characters can quickly fall to a horde of zombies or freak type. This means that players will have to pay close attention to their community of survivors as it is entirely possible that a new face may be the next hero.
There are a number off side-stories that do appear over the course of the player’s survival, usually solved by simply driving to a surviving group’s location and performing simple tasks for them or even just talking to them. These side-stories don’t have much focus unfortunately and many simply just end with no real payoff. That being said there is an end goal for State of Decay’s story, even though it isn’t exactly a very solid ending as it leaves the title open for a sequel, it does answer a few questions raised during the game but of course never explains the origins of the zombies.
State of Decay: Year One Survival Edition includes the Lifeline DLC that actually does contain a bit of extra story as it follows a group of US Soldiers that make up the surviving Greyhound One as they are tasked with rescuing various VIPs as well as standard civilians in a completely different map than the core storyline and gives players not only a fresh area to explore but a bit of a different storyline to explore, especially since this time around there are multiple endings to help change things up.
Gameplay The core of State of Decay remains very much the same throughout all of the DLC and very little has been changed in this re-release. Players will be have control of one character at a time, though you can bring an ally along by using influence which is gained by completing side-missions, returning with resources, rescuing survivors, and gathering various supplies such as guns, melee weapons, consumables and more. You see, it is all about community and keeping the base well stocked while also trying to keep everyone happy and secure about their survival, which means players will occasionally need to help cool someone off by taking them out for a quick zombie hunt.
What makes this a challenge is that while you are free to scavenge essential resources such as medical supplies, ammo, materials, food, gasoline for the home base alongside weaponry, food/pills for health and guns for yourself, once you have searched an area and cleaned it out, there will never be anything in that house again. This means that if you clear out all of the areas close to your home base, you will have to venture further and further away each time to acquire more necessary resources.
The same thing can be said about vehicles. Not only does the game track every vehicle you come across and let you know how many are actually left, they never respawn. This means that if you happen to completely destroy or empty an area of every vehicle this means that you will need to be running quite a long ways at times. This of course is never a good idea, especially since players can now store large amounts of equipment, including rucksacks full of the necessary resources for keeping your group alive, and also because if you happen to run into danger on the way back home and die, that character will be gone forever, meaning you may end up being left with only a group of weak ragtag playable characters if things go south quickly.
The way that the survivors are handled in this game is unique as well. They will grow tired from scavenging for supplies to long, fall sick due to lack of medicine or improper home facilities, become injured from missions and more. The reason for this is that you are simply a part of a community and the world itself is still revolving around you. This means that other survivors can become trapped or may require your assistance in dispatching zombies and if you ignore their cries for assistance, they can survive and be angry with you, be hurt in some way and be temporarily put out of commission or worst of all, die.
There are quite a few zombies in the title, to the point that it is occasionally best to run away or sneak around. There are your basic zombies that can be dispatched easily on their own but they can quickly become dangerous in close quarters, especially when they begin to swarm you. You see, the zombies in State of Decay can hear quite well, to the point where searching a place too quickly can draw every Zed in the area to your vulnerable survivor. This doesn’t even touch upon the fact that there are numerous special zombies that can make things difficult, including vicious Feral that are incredibly fast and strong, Bloaters that explode and drain the player’s health and stamina, Screamers that stun survivors and draw more zombies to an area, and even Juggernauts that are capable of heavily damaging vehicles and absorbing large amounts of punishment.
Players will need to make sure that they have plenty of weapons at their disposal to put away the undead horde including a number of special skills that players learn once their survivor becomes a veteran zombie slayer. Thankfully, a large batch of new weapons, including powerful incendiary shotgun shells, have been introduced in this new release giving players more variety than ever before to dispatch the zombie hordes they come across. That being said, every weapon in the game features a durability level and can be lost forever, but through proper inventory management players will be able to carry not only a melee weapon, but a firearm with plenty of ammo, snacks to restore stamina, and healing items to stay alive. Of course, properly training and making sure to upgrade certain stats, and aiming for fallen zombies with finishing moves is the best way to keep your favorite character around for a while.
There does come a point however that being simply too well prepared can be a bit of a problem however, as it eventually turns State of Decay‘s tense survival moments into rather mundane affairs. If players manage to properly plan their community’s layout, build necessary facilities, keep a safe stock of vehicles, manage a well-trained and well equipped character, and secure enough resources it is entirely possible to find yourself feeling a little bored at times, especially since certain storyline advancing quests only appear after a certain amount of time has passed.
Outside of the core game, the concepts remain very much the same. Breakdown places players into a sandbox like mode where they can choose a certain “Hero” character they have unlocked or start as a random character and try to survive, locate an RV, and escape with each successful escape resulting in a more dangerous environment the next time through. Thankfully the Lifeline DLC adds an entirely new area to explore as well as a variety of new weapons and vehicles to use to keep things fresh while also introducing a few extra twists to the core formula of defending your base during zombie sieges.
Visuals & Audio While State of Decay: Year One Survival Edition does feature a decent visual improvement to the environment, building interiors, and the character models from the original game, the chances of actually noticing most of these improvements is minimal. Instead the most noticeable change comes in the form of different vehicles now having unique paint jobs which is a nice touch and the appearance of light from flashlights and headlights has also been improved.
Unfortunately despite having an upgrade in textures, the game is still plagued with terrible graphical issues from time to time. While the pop-in rate has diminished it has not gone away and players will still occasionally find themselves driving too fast for the game to keep up with resulting in various pop-ins and this also is the case with some zombies which can become a real issue at low health. Clipping is also prevalent as zombies will often find themselves traveling right through walls and gates. The worst example I saw of this was during a house siege with closed doors resulting in entire swarms of zombies, including a large Juggernaut glitching through a closed door leading to near disaster.
The voice work feels the same sounding as before which is a good thing since it worked well enough and thankfully it seems Undead Labs took the player’s complaints to heart about corny jokes being overused as the joke appears to have been removed entirely from the game and now character lines sound far less repetitive. The title also features great atmospheric music and great sound effects to really raise the tension during dangerous situations.
Overall The fact that there are still such a large number of glitches in State of Decay: Year One Survival Edition at this point, most of which were prevalent in the original game, is an issue to be wary of especially since the graphical upgrade is only a minor improvement. That being said this is a stellar title that puts a unique spin on the zombie genre as players micromanage a group of survivors all while battling hordes of undead with the constant fear of perma-death haunting their actions and now that all the DLC comes with the package there is more content than ever to be enjoyed here.
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