Pokemon Omega Ruby and Pokémon Alpha Sapphire are getting ready to blast into the sixth generation with third gen nostalgia on the 3DS. While our mouths are already watering, Nintendo have released yet another trailer to make the wait feel even longer. In this clip, we revisit the legendary Rayquaza and see a brand new transformation – which of course is Mega Rayquaza.
Mega Rayquaza will be able to use the ability Delta Stream and now has access to a move by the name of Dragon Ascent. Unlike other “Megas”, Rayquaza can only evolve under certain conditions not yet revealed. Check out the clip below to see the latest evolution in action.
We know a release date. We don’t know the roster. Over the next seven months, we have a lot of speculating to do as Netherrealm are sure to slowly reveal more and more of the final roster. Quan Chi is making his grand return in Mortal Kombat X, and today, WB Games have a nice tease for all fans who want to see the sorcerer in action.
While we only get a tease of a fatality, some standard gameplay, and an x-ray movie in the clip – we still get a good deal of information from producer Shaun Himmerick, who takes us through the four minute video. Watch the trailer below and stay tuned, as Mortal Kombat X is set to launch this April for the Xbox 360, Xbox One, Playstation 3, Playstation 4, and PC.
Ubisoft released a new trailer today teasing some of the many guns that will make an appearance in Far Cry 4. The trailer features a KRISS Vector .45 sub-machine gun, a WWII-era MG42 machine gun, a mortar tube, a Nepalese kukri, a P416 assault rifle, a flame thrower, and an auto-crossbow. Although note explicitly mentioned, a few extra guns are featured in the trailer. I spotted a Skorpion SMG, an unknown machine gun, some sort of AK variant, a shortened M79 grenade launcher, and what looks like the shotgun from Far Cry 3.
Far Cry 4will be released for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, and Windows on November 18th, 2014.
Epiphany Games (Frozen Hearth) released the first video look at their upcoming conspiracy thriller Majestic Nights. The game is takes place in the 1980s, the days of Madonna, MTV, and some intense paranoia. Lead Designer Samuel Jensen is our guide to Chapter Zero: Sunset After Dark on PC, which serves as a free intro to the game. The game features real-time stealth and action in a isometric view.
The first episode of Majestic Nights, Chapter Zero: Sunset After Dark, will be released for free some time in October on Android, iOS, Windows, and Mac. The rest of the game will follow in six chapters. Each chapter will cost $4.99 or the entire season can be purchased for $19.99.
Styx: Master of Shadows released a gameplay trailer today as a followup to the first Assassin’s Green video. The new trailer makes great use of Styx’s clone ability to temporarily disable guards while he makes his way to the top of the tower. The clones behave like a magical controllable smoke bomb, allowing Styx to run right up to guards and blow up in a puff of noxious smoke or jump on their faces to keep them busy.
The trailer continues to show how Cyanide Studios has emphasized the vertical design of the levels. There is generous shots of Styx deftly scaling walls to ambush enemies from above while the rest of the level sprawls beneath his feet. Outdoor and indoor areas seem to have been combined into a smooth transition, as Styx is spotted climbing around outside, then sending a clone indoors to blind a pair of unsuspecting guards.
Styx: Master of Shadows will launch for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Windows on October 7th, 2014.
Known for their acclaimed adventure horror games Scratches, Serena and Asylum, game developers Senscape are back again to give us some more nightmares with The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. It is heavily based on its namesake, a novel by the legendary H.P. Lovecraft.
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward is set in Lovecraft’s home town of Providence, following a young man who covers the secrets of his town, its ancestors and the Necronomicon. He researches into the history of witchcraft and occultism dating back to Salem as he races against time to save Providence from the return of a powerful evil warlock.
Tales and themes of H.P. Lovecraft has always turned heads of horror fans and this game should be no exception. Though this is not the first game we’ve seen based on this Lovecraft novel, this new game will be much more true to the storyline and characters. The Necronomicon: The Drawing of Darkness was so loosely tied to the story it even changed the character names and ending.
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward has still a fair way from completing its Kickstarter campaign, but if you’re a fan of a good ol’creepy game, it is a worth checking out. Also if you are a generous backer, you can get your name immortalised in the game somewhere, like in the town records or as a witch of Salem.
Let me start off with some cautionary advice to you, dear reader, NEVER AGAIN should I be let anywhere near a microphone while there are working eardrums within range… This is something which the polite and accommodating employees of Sony learnt for themselves firsthand when I oriented myself towards their stall at the EB Expo and tried my hand at Singstar: Ultimate Party on the PS4.
Now, don’t get me wrong; I am not terrible singer. I’m a trained actor and have done singing classes, so I know how to modulate and warm up my voice for a performance. The problem was that this was a press event and there was a bar tab so I had been chugging booze and coke since the doors opened. This combination of intoxication and lack of preparation by a tipsy yours truly lead to a rendition of Frozen‘s ‘Let it Go’ which was a lot more Black Metal than when Idina Menzel was singing it. I also slipped up a couple of times with the words as I came to realise that this was NOT the version of ‘Let it go’ which I so dearly loved from the movie. Turns out that the in-house Sony devs, London Studios, couldn’t secure the rights to the original song and had to settle for the current version in the game. My disappointment was palpable, and was further compounded by the limited starting song collection which was available to me.
The game comes included with 30 pop songs from the last couple of years, but didn’t have anything harder (in terms of sound) than pop rock in the form of ‘5 Seconds of Summer’. I instead decided to go with an ear worm to force my disappoint onto everyone else present; Carly Rae Jepsen’s ‘Call me, Maybe?’ with my own Death Metal style. I took this opportunity to also play around with PS4 camera’s functions in the game.
There were a number of overlays and effects which the game provided to mess with the live feed of myself ‘singing’. The game records the players as they sing and takes snapshots at intervals throughout the song. This photos and videos can then be uploaded to social media and the Singstar website for other people to enjoy (or not). By using the touch pad on the PS4 controller I was also able to add in filter effects, virtual masks to the people in shot, and smoke effects coming from the controller. They don’t really add anything to the gameplay and their use in creating a music video would be limited as far as I can tell but the infinite creativity of a gaming community might be able to come up with some interesting stuff. Understandably, it’s difficult to innovate game design when your game is basically karaoke.
In terms of hardware however, the game changes things around by not having not having dedicated microphone peripherals. Instead, there is a free app which can be downloaded by any smartphone and be used to play the game. I assumed that this would allow more players to join in on the song (i.e. how awesome would it be for the game to have 10 people singing along to ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’?). But alas, this was not to be as the game only allows for 2 players at the most.
The game will launch with a reasonable $40 AUD price tag. This is a bargain, especially with the fact that you no longer need to invest in expensive hardware like microphones to play the game. The problem kicks in when you want to go beyond the starting 30 songs which come included, as every other track in the catalogue (of which there are over two thousand) will set you back $2 AUD. This might seem inconsequential at first, but as any accountant worth their salt would point out: it’s easy to let little things add up to a lot. To play this game with your own personal track list might set you back anywhere between $60-$100 AUD. This is more in line with other big name titles, but at least Singstar will let you decided exactly how much you want to spend.
After I finished, the booth attendant offered through gritted teeth to upload the recording of my performance onto social media. I told him to delete it, lest it fall into the wrong hands and cause the downfall of humanity…
Bad Blood is a self-contained campaign, released as part of the Watch_Dogs ‘Season Pass’ offerings although, as of this writing, the DLC is available for the general public via UPlay for PC, PSN for the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 3, and Xbox Live for Xbox One and Xbox 360 (sorry Wii U owners). It follows T-Bone Grady in the events that occur after the conclusion of the main game’s story. So, with that in mind, be forewarned: there will be spoilers in this review.
Story
T-Bone Grady, aka Raymond Kenney, wants to erase his digital footprint for good and escape Blume’s sight. Bad Blood starts off with him attempting just that at a ctOS center. And just when he escapes to his Silo hideout, mission complete, thinking it’ll be his “last night in the rabbit hole”, Grady gets a call from our ol’ homeless pal Tobias Frewer. He’s been kidnapped by Fixers, Blume now apparently on his trail. Being the good friend that Grady is, he promises to hit Blume again in order to clear Frewer’s file so they can both move on with their lives happily and, most importantly, safely. Eventually, a sneaky little rat comes back into play – Defalt. But, wasn’t he taken out by Aiden in the main game? Yes, he was…kinda. It all gets explained, as does his personal motivation for targeting Grady and Frewer. Outside of the campaign missions, the ‘Council of Daves’ and ‘Fox Hunt’ investigation side-missions (five each), respectively, shed light on some evident dissension among the ranks of Dedsec, and Blume’s continued search for Aiden, proving how well Aiden buried his tracks as they are two steps behind the entire time. Additionally, introspective audio logs found in free roam give us insight on the thoughts and emotions of Aiden and Grady given all that has happened.
Gameplay
Bad Blood adds some new wrinkles to the mix. In the campaign, Eugene – T-Bone’s R/C car – is introduced. He takes up a gadget slot on the weapon wheel and can be deployed only in restricted areas/interiors raversed in the story. Initially, Eugene is only implemented in set moments where T-Bone is stonewalled, able to drive through vents and get to the next room to unlock a door or turn off a laser defense system. Soon after, however, a ‘Stun’ ability is granted to the player, allowing them to take out enemies with an even lower profile. After that point, any upgrades – such as ‘Attract’ and ‘Detonate’ – are acquired through completed Street Sweep missions, which we’ll get to in a moment. Lastly, it’s important to note that enemies can spot Eugene, which tips them off to your location. So even though you have that lower profile with Eugene, it is imperative that you not forget the stealth aspect. New weapons are also at T-Bone’s disposal, unlockable in the same manner as Eugene’s upgrades. He does, however, utilise a large wrench and stun gun in his melee attack, the animations for which take a little longer to play out than Aiden’s, which isn’t so advantageous in a stealth-heavy level. Now, onto those Street Sweep missions, which is the other main addition to the gameplay. While T-Bone’s skill tree is the same as Aiden’s, and is governed by XP all the same, an added branch – the Street Sweep skills – are not.
Sheila Billings is T-Bone’s contact within the police force – a relationship that strongly echoes that of Detective Carter and John Reese’s in Person of Interest (as if the comparisons weren’t significant enough already!). In fact, she even sounds like Taraji P. Henson, who plays Detective Carter in said TV show. She even calls him “Mystery Man”, which Carter labels Reese at points in the programme (can no longer be a coincidence). Anyway, she tasks T-Bone with systematically taking out three gangs: the Chicago South Club (run by Lucky Quinn’s son), Fixers and the Militia. There are 20 missions attributed to each club, and completing them earns you tags, as well as points on a progression bar. At the 1, 5 and 20 marks for each gang, you unlock a new perk. The tags, on the other hand, are used as currency for new outfits to customise your T-Bone. These missions play like challenge rooms in the Batman: Arkham series, and can be very challenging, placing optional objectives on the player for maximum points, climbing them up the ranks of the global leaderboard and earning them more tags in the process. On top of that, Driving missions for each gang can be engaged, requiring the player hack or protect a car, speed through a checkpointed course or race their car from point a to b with minimum damage. Oh, and there are 10 co-op missions! They are really fun; it’s a shame there’s fewer of them. And lastly, all the mini-games, betting, poker, ‘Cash Run’, ‘Digital Trips’, etc., can be played as T-Bone, although they are exactly the same.
Visuals & Audio
Bad Blood is well voice-acted and Chicago looks as good as ever, but there’s not much else to be said about the expansion in regards to visuals and audio. No new songs have been added to the radio, although new interior locations can be explored as part of the campaign missions; outside of BlumeForge and the Silo, Defalt’s base in particular was a highlight. The neon lighting in the maze-room, among other parts of the building, reflected Defalt’s day-job as a DJ and, when contrasted with the danger of the location and the murderous intentions of our rat-like foe, created a surreal feel, as if you are trapped in a labyrinthine disco of death! Think less disco, more rave, but you get the point. Oh, audio-wise there is a hilarious bunch of dialogue recorded for T-Bone’s own personal talking moose. They are essentially stand-up comedy punchlines, some of which are truly hysterical, while others sort of bomb…much like a real comic’s material!
Overall
Bad Blood is welcome, if largely familiar, add-on content for Watch_Dogs. T-Bone is a wildly different personality to Aiden, which lends to an entirely fresh tone for his campaign. In many ways, he is reminiscent of the foil that Trevor played in Grand Theft Auto V, although not anywhere near as vulgar, violent and psychopathic…okay, maybe his accent and way of speaking are the only similarities between them, but still; he’s got this hillbilly air to him, and his rag-tag look also adds to that. The new take Street Sweep skill progression system is nice for variety’s sake, with the missions themselves providing a good challenge and incentive for replaying and topping the leaderboards. Co-op is a great time, Eugene is a nice addition to the gameplay base, and the story wraps up the loose ends relating to our main and supporting characters. For all these reasons, Bad Blood is a worthwhile experience for Watch_Dogs fans – i’s only downside is that its ultimately not too different an experience at its core.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
Avast me hearties! Unfurl the sales, pull up anchor and make sure you have rum handy because Disney are bringing Pirates of the Caribbean to our beautiful shores! Disney have today announced that the as of yet unannounced 5th installment in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise will be filming on Queensland’s Gold Coast next year.
Although not much is known about the project yet, we do know that Johnny Depp will be reprising his role as Captain Jack Sparrow, that it will be produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, and directed by Joachim Ronning and Espen Sandberg. Oh, we also know that it will sail onto the silver screen in 2017.
So what do you think of Pirates 5 being filmed down under? Will you make your way to the Gold Coast to check it out, or will you just be excitedly pointing out landmarks in 2017 when watching the movie? Let us know in the comments below and remember to stay tuned to Capsule Computers for all the Disney and Pirates of the Caribbean news as it becomes available.
Back in a time before many of us were born, the very first multiplayer dungeon crawler was created. It’s name was Gauntlet and it changed multiplayer gaming as we knew it. Fast Forward some three decades and now Arrowhead Game Studios have revitalised the series with a brand new remake for PC. Featuring the same epic co-op combat with new visuals, new dungeons and a whole lot of modern charm, this may be one of the most fun little games I have played all year.
Story
After some hours with Gauntlet, I wasn’t too sure what the story was meant to be about. After all of the playable characters wake up on a platform, they decide to go kill the undead and gather some loot. Funnily enough, I was ok with the lack of story as it let me get right into the action. No messing about with half-assed forced plot, just straight into it which really works for this kind of game. Some games don’t need a plot to tie everything together, and Gauntlet is one of them.
Gameplay
Gauntlet puts you in the roll of one of four different character classes. Each class has its own strengths and weaknesses, and will play differently ensuring that as you progress through the game’seven after you have progressed through the game’s many (and I do mean many) dungeons with one character, that there is still benefit to doing it all over again with another. The four character classes are: Warrior, Valkyrie, Archer and Wizard, and they each fill traditional rolls for characters of the genre (largely because this is the game that created the genre in the first place). The Warrior uses his brute force to smash his way through the hordes of enemies, the Valkyrie is a little more tactful using her sword and shield, the Archer attacks from range and the Wizard uses a variety of button presses to execute different, powerful spells. Despite all of the classes handling differently, they are all pretty easy to pick up and master, meaning that you wont be fumbling around for controls instead of having fun.
Speaking of controls, Gauntlet is best played with a controller. Blasphemy I know, but it just works better. After playing considerable amounts of time with both, I can say that the controller is definitely the superior option, allowing for easier control and more rapid response than flicking your hands across the keyboard.
Gauntlet uses procedurally generated maps for players to fight their way through. As you would expect with a dungeon crawler, the aim is to make it through the rooms, beating up enemies and collecting loot as you go through. The enemy design is wild and varied, with new terrifying monsters and undead soldiers in your path every few rooms. The variety of enemy types keeps the game interesting and constantly has you rethinking your battle strategy, as every room of enemies needs different tactics than the last.
This is also a game that is designed for co-op play, and it does so magnificently. It can be an absolute blast to gather three of your buddies and go dungeon raiding together. Since each class plays so differently to one another, having two, three or four players running around at once can lead to some really insane situations. Not only that, but the game allows you to screw with your friends by attacking them, or luring enemies towards them.
One massive downside that the game has is its UI is confusing. Nothing is explained and it is hard to understand how much health you have, what items are in your inventory or just about anything else that a UI is supposed to do. In the end, I found myself just ignoring it and hoping I didn’t get hit too many times.
Visuals & Audio
Gauntlet is a top-down dungeon crawler, and it pulls this off with spectacular beauty. The dank, deep dungeons are all distinct from one another, and the enemies all look different and unique. Surprisingly, considering its top-down perspective the game has a remarkable amount of texture detail in both the backdrops and the character models. I was really impressed with the art direction and actually found myself looking off into the distance and the small, intricate details on more than one occasion.
In contrast to the look of the game, its audio is a little lacking. Utilising a very minimalist soundtrack, Gauntlet makes you feel like you are in these dank caverns and facing down the hordes of the undead, but the entire time I was playing the game, I just kept thinking how a little more sound, both in the music and the sound effects department would make the whole package feel a lot more complete.
Overall
Gauntlet is a rare breed of game that is just fun. It may not be the most original or ground breaking game, but it presents a game that is a fun little romp through dungeons. Wide variety of enemies, clever little puzzles and an environment that’s just begging for multiplayer mayhem mean that Gauntlet is a game you will return to time and time again.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
