Having grown up playing Doom back in the days of shareware and VGA monitors, I was looking forward to the reveal of the latest sequel at E3 as much as anybody. While the single player stuff definitely intrigued me (repetitive death animations aside), it was the multiplayer footage that got me really excited. I love a good arena shooter, with from E3, but now that I've experienced it first hand at QuakeCon, I'm happy to report that it doesn't disappoint. There was only one map and one game mode to play with, but I kept lining up to play it again and again.
The demo's single map was typical of the series: a heady mix of industrial structures and conveniently placed pits of lava. The arena was replete with tight corridors, typically dotted with health and ammo pickups, necessities if you hope to survive for an extended period of time. These hallways snake around a central chamber where the aforementioned lava awaited sloppy or anxious combatants, gulping them up in a matter of seconds. Counting the dangerous platforms that surround the lava, there are three levels on the map. Launch pads and double jumps will help you take the high ground, but if there's an enemy waiting for you, you may find yourself scrambling for safety only to land feet first in a boiling cauldron of death.
That's not to say that a crafty player can't find their way back to safety, even if they're falling towards the lava pit. One of the sub-weapons that you can choose in the demo is the teleporter, with the other being the traditional frag grenade. Tossing the teleporter and then hitting the same button again at a later time will instantly teleport you to wherever it was placed. While it may be too difficult to deploy the teleporter while you're falling, you can preemptively place one in a safe room, just in case you find yourself either falling into lava or stuck in a sticky situation where you're surrounded by enemies.
Choosing a loadout that suits your playstyle is paramount in Doom, but it's equally important to keep your eyes open for power ups that appear during matches as they can turn any player into a super powered killing machine. Quad damage and invisibility are back, but the new revenant power up is by far the most valuable asset that you can acquire.
When the revenant icon--a pentagram--appears on the map, it turns the tide of battle as everyone rushes to pick it up. Even if you don't get it, so long as someone on your team does, things quickly turn in your favor. Whoever picks it up becomes a flying, rocket-spewing demon with increased health, and it's nearly impossible for a single soldier to take it down. Where a match, pre-revenant, is about individual performance from moment-to-moment, once someone transforms, it's all about teamwork. With the revenant on your side, your team gains a wall of destruction that can be used to your advantage. But when the enemy gets this powerful demon on their side, coordination as a team becomes the most important thing. Becoming the revenant is also super empowering. Where you perhaps felt fragile on foot with standard weapons, transforming into the revenant grants you the freedom to let loose and throw caution to the wind. Yes, a team can take you down, but any time spent as the revenant typically results in multiple kills for your team, not to mention the rush of being the most powerful player in the match.
The revenant is either your best friend, or your worst enemy.
My experience playing Doom's multiplayer mode was everything I'd hoped for, but there's still so much to see in the future. New modes and maps will hopefully play to the game's strengths in different ways, but we'll have to wait and see. Meanwhile, with an Alpha demo looming on the horizon, I can't wait to jump back into battle. In some ways, it feels like I've leapt back in time, but with things like the revenant and the teleporter on hand, Doom's multiplayer feels distinct. I may go back and try my hand at Quake Arena for the hell of it, but once the Doom Alpha goes live, it's time to say goodbye to the memories of old and embrace a new, if not slightly familiar, breed of demonic, multiplayer mayhem.
Turns out your ship can turn into a combat mech in Galak-Z. You come equipped with a sword, shield, and the ability to grapple and throw rocks, ships and more.
Xbox fans can watch Microsoft's Gamescom press conference live on Aug 4 via Xbox Live, the platform holder has announced.
The media briefing is due to begin at 7am Pacific (3pm UK), and will air on , Spencer explained: "Another demo so close to E3 is just tough on production."
Kevin and Chris had a chance to play Civilization Beyond Earth: Rising Tide and were impressed with the in-depth leader personalities and new territory mechanics involving moving cities.
"Our arcade machines were thankfully not vandalised, as this is the element of the Heart of Gaming that would literally have been irreplaceable," read a statement from the arcade's owners.
It continued: "I'm struggling to find the motivation and the team of staff are just in bits. People... give their lives to help out here because they believe in what it is we do. No one can comprehend why anyone would do this."
Estimates put the total losses of goods at about £5,000.
But fortunes for the arcade's owners changed dramatically on Wednesday, after a Go Fund Me campaign managed to raise more than £5,000 from fan contributions in about a day.
According to the arcade's Twitter feed, the business is to reopen on Friday at 2pm UK time.
The was somewhat positive, with critic Peter Brown explaining: "Though you have to wade through mediocre puzzles and endure cringe-worthy dialogue and references to past games, episode one successfully entices you to look forward to the next episode."
Microsoft combats violations of privacy, stresses the difficulty of backwards compatibility, and Rise of the Tomb Raider gets PC and PS4 release dates!
Back in 1961, the prolific Rod Serling adapted a short story for an episode of his Twilight Zone series titled "Five Characters in Search of an Exit." In this episode, a clown, a hobo, a ballerina, a bagpiper, and an Army major find themselves confined within a large, metal, silo-type enclosure. There are no doors or windows--only an open ceiling much too high for any of them to reach. The characters are blank slates. They have no memory or knowledge of who they are, where they came from, or how they wound up in the silo. Racking their collective brains, they posit whether they have been abducted by aliens, have gone insane, have died and been sent to Hell, or exist only as figments of someone's imagination--as characters in another person's dream. Eventually, the major plots an escape and manages to clear the wall. As he tumbles over the edge, the twist is revealed. (Spoiler!) The camera smash-cuts to a child picking up an army doll from the snow and placing it back in a bin used to collect Christmas toys for orphans. The major is returned to the group, all depicted as dolls now, while the ballerina’s eyes fill with tears as her plastic hand reaches towards his.
While Serling's tale centers on the unknown horrors of existential dread, it also demonstrates the way in which the creative process itself becomes manifest in the final product. The twist ending is encapsulated by the meta-narrative of the child, who embodies the spirit of this creative potential. Without a child to play with the dolls, they remain sedentary lumps of cloth and paint. Dreamfall Chapters Book Three: Realms begins with its own child, Saga, scuttling around her Storytime home. From here, the worlds of Stark and Arcadia may be viewed from a different perspective, a meta-perspective, in which the boundaries of their occupations by the Azadi and the Syndicate alike form the walls of their respective toy bins. Like the Twilight Zone episode, the Dreamfall trilogy simultaneously is, was, and will be in this abstract, ethereal place.
Abby and Hannah. Awwwww.
Admittedly, the postmodern layers weaving through the story are often difficult to pin down. So what better way to illustrate their connection to the boots on the ground than with a little straight-forward adventure-game fare?
The player's first task after assuming the role of Saga in Interlude II involves a laborious easter egg hunt for a series of the child's drawings hidden around the house. Saga's clumsy toddling through the home begins as a cute romp of stilted, giggling mania and quickly becomes an exercise in patience and perseverance as the drawings become exponentially difficult to find and Saga's movement grows more frustrating to negotiate.
Fortunately, as Saga explores the house, she has more to do and interact with than the goal requires. Whether she plays with a picture on the mantle, a poster on the wall, or a simple hat on a rack, Saga's superfluous interactions with these objects fill in some of the rather drab enviro-narrative spaces with flares of color. In classic adventure-game fashion, many of these interactions, such as plucking an umbrella from a pail and pronouncing, "I'm a fancy lady!" are more satisfying than the objective at hand. Typically, "click on all the things" tends to be a fruitless undertaking, but in this case it was absolutely worth it. Saga communicates a real sense of wonder and captivation consistent with her muse-like character.
The stealth is better this time around.
Once the entire series of drawings has been acquired, Saga must order them chronologically, with each piece depicting an event from
On the other side of the coin, Zoë emerges from the explosive conclusion of Book Two with a new look of her own (dig the short hair!) and a similarly intensified security presence in Propast. Again, the limited access offered by Syndicate forces serves the pacing of this act well. Aside from a couple of quick jaunts through Chinatown to check in with Queenie and Mira (who actually shows some niceties to "petal" for once), Zoë is off to the races as she struggles to procure a modded dream machine to further explore the connection between the Syndicate and WATICorp, including an important revelation involving Hannah and the Dreamtime.
Once her task is complete, Zoë's return to the Dreamtime finally makes good on a long-awaited reunion with one of Dreamfall's most familiar and notorious compadres, Crow. This intermezzo of cheeky banter provides a welcome if brief respite from the bustling tempo of Zoë and Kian's journey to this point. It proves yet again that this story still has a few surprises up its sleeve in the way of character development and dialogue treatment.
Along those lines, Book Three continues to pack punch after punch when it comes to character insight. From the bombshell dropped by Anna in her meeting with Kian to Kian's extremely brave and personal confession at the onset of the opening chapter (not to mention an especially sweet scene between Hannah and Abby), Dreamfall Chapters raises the stakes of not only the conspiracy game but also its players. They have true skin in the game, and the conflicts surrounding them become more palpable and complex as a result.
Zoe must tip her barber extra.
Without giving too much away, Book Three takes our heroes in new directions, which are sure to affect their characters in interesting, potentially different ways depending on the final and most significant player choice in the episode. Regardless of the outcome, the conclusion sees Zoë finally making her first leap over the proverbial toy bin wall, while Kian is set to do the same. But instead of an out, both heroes are seeking an entrance to infiltrate new spaces in which worlds collide and player decisions dictate the terms of trespass.
In many ways, Book Three acts as the fulcrum from which the story's trajectory pivots on your past choices. It is short and powerful, using the momentum of previous chapters to leverage dramatic weight going into the penultimate act like narrative jiu-jitsu. In contrast to the previous two acts, the third clocks in at around four hours, none of which seem to waste a minute. What will Kian and Zoë find as they continue to scale the walls of conspiracy? At this point, the "what" hardly matters. Book four is poised to bring much teresting answers in the how, why, and with whom. This is perhaps its greatest victory as I, for one, can't wait to see who else is lying in the snow outside that toy bin.
The final chapter in the popular Five Nights at Freddy's series was slated to launch next month, but it looks like fans are getting an early surprise:.
Card Hunter has brought its absorbing mix of Dungeons & Dragons and card gaming to Steam, and just like its free-to-play Flash-based predecessor from 2013, this expanded edition of Blue Manchu’s ode to 80s-era tabletop roleplaying is cute and clever enough to occupy many hours of your free time. Zippy adventures, loads of loot, and devious mechanics prove a real challenge to anybody’s role-playing and tactical skills, while virtual dungeon masters and a keen eye for nostalgia make the game appealing to a wide audience, but particularly to anyone who has ever rolled a 20-sided die.
This new edition of Card Hunter is much the same as the one that hit browsers a couple of years ago, albeit with a new sci-fi campaign, new artifacts, and cooperative multiplayer. If you could smash together a deck of Magic: The Gathering cards and some first-edition Advanced D&D books and then unmangle the resulting ball of papery mush and create a playable game out of the wreckage, you’d have Card Hunter. Basics have been freely borrowed from ‘70s- and ‘80s-era D&D in that you start off with a three-member party made up of the usual warriors, mages, and clerics from iconic RPG races, such as humans, elves, and dwarves. Characters earn experience, level up, and equip themselves with the traditional weapons, armor, and various magical goodies in the usual way.
Stage an expedition to the Barrier Peaks—er, the Sky Citadel—in Card Hunter’s new campaign
Adventures are selected on a world map that gradually opens up based on your level. Make your choice, and you’re off to a three-battle (or so--most modules have trios, but the number varies occasionally) module given an old-fashioned D&D name like “Diamonds of the Kobolds” or “The Sinister Wood.” These names aren’t as cheesy as the real thing, like “The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh,” but they’re close. And the classic pen-and-paper RPG vibe has been preserved. Two dungeon masters named Melvin and Gary serve as a Greek chorus, commenting on both your adventuring and life in general. Characters are cardboard cutouts shoved into plastic stands that boldly slide across maps atop the fake wood of recreation room tables. Erol Otus-ish black-and-white art on module intro screens and an accompanying elaborate title font complete the time warp back to your mom’s kitchen table circa 1984. Old-timers will love these little touches, especially the retro font. That thing is beyond hideous, but it is so evocative of a time and place that I immediately flashed back more than 30 years to the first time I played the classic “Tomb of Horrors” module. Nostalgia may be the cheapest way to hook people on a game, but it is effective when done right.
Gameplay has been reworked dramatically from tabletop RPG norms, though. Instead of taking turns to move, roll dice for combat, and so forth, all actions are controlled by playing cards within the turn-based, tiled maps that make up the battle arenas in each module. Character skills and equipped gear provide access to specific cards for attacks, blocks, and spells, so that sword in your studly warrior’s mitts supplies a bunch of different attack cards. The staff toted around by your mage offers up various spells, and the mail worn by your cleric grants cards with armor blocks and healing incantations.
Tactical battles involve a lot of serious thinking and planning.
You have up to five cards in your hand per round (although this number can vary slightly depending on the special abilities of certain cards), all drawn from the stock provided by the aforementioned hardware. If you want to cast a healing spell, for instance, you have to play a card featuring one of these functions. The same goes if you want to bash an enemy with a club or even move from one space to another on the tile-based maps featured in every module’s set-piece battles. At the end of every round, you discard unplayed cards to get down to a maximum holdover of two, and then you draw new ones to fill out another hand of five.
Everything has been cunningly put together. Battles roll out as intricate tactical affairs where every action is loaded with tension. I was reminded of the Gold Box D&D games from the late 80s and early 90s, as Card Hunter maintains a lot of the turn-based anxiety from those classics. Cards add an appreciable new element, however, along with some welcome randomness that forces you to take chances. I constantly asked myself questions. "My warrior has Powerful Hack, Reaching Swing, and Skillful Strike up right now, so do I race once to the breach, dear friends, and go all medieval on these zombies? My mage has Surging Blast and a couple of Big Zap spells ready, too, so maybe I should go that route and move him forward? Can he survive out front like that? Or what about my cleric? She’s got two Healing Pulses in her hand, so maybe I should spend a round hanging back and healing. My mage is down to eight hit points, after all."
The sheer size of the initial campaign map is so impressive and so loaded with modules that you may never need to spend a cent to get a lot of gaming out of Card Hunter.
Class specialties work just as in regular fantasy role-playing. Going for the jugular with wide-open attacks isn’t always smart. Instead, you have to use mages and clerics to pave the way for swordplay. Buffs include blessings to make attacks instant hits and spells to make characters invulnerable, while you can also wear down foes with abracadabra stuff that strips away blocking cards, melts armor, and more. Area spells can also be used to cause cave-ins that hurt enemies and slow down their movement, establish walls of flame, pits of acid, and more. Every battle calls for specific equipment, especially as you move into higher levels. What works with troglodytes, for example, isn’t as good with imps, mutants, or zombies, etc. Tips can be called up if you fail a battle, so it’s generally pretty easy to figure out how to retreat after a loss and adjust your equipped gear to gain access to the cards needed to better handle the monsters currently on offer.
Of course, a lot also depends on what those monsters have in their hands. Committing to a rushing attack can be suicidal if the bad guys have the cards that they needed to fend you off. Holding off can also be tough, as you never know when you’re going to draw the right cards. Luck is a big part of every battle. I can’t count the number of times I’ve had my warrior all set to finish off a couple of bad guys only to draw nothing but passive armor and movement cards for a couple of turns until my chance at winning passed me by. Maps also enhance the tactical side of the game. Most battles take place in slightly elaborate settings with corridors, trees, and other obstacles that get in the way of movement and spellcasting.
for special bonus 70s-80s nostalgia, the font used in the new Expedition to the Sky Citadel campaign has been borrowed from old Micronauts toy packages.
Card Hunter still has a few problems. The biggest issue for me was the size of everything on a high-res monitor. Text is small, and a lot of the screen is wasted by showing a tremendous amount of the table that the game map is supposed to be sitting on. I loved the nostalgic touches like DM Gary’s “Campaign Notes” notepad and the D&D dice sitting nearby, too, but not at the expense of being able to read card descriptions without squinting. I was in the dark a little more often than I should have been, regardless, as some cards do not fully detail what they do. This can be dangerous, as some can be irrevocably activated with a single click.
volved combat can turn dreary, especially when mages and clerics are involved. I took on a number of battles that turned into one-on-one scraps between spell-casters where the bad guy would run away and just wait for me to attack. This led to lengthy cat-and-mouse affairs where I would hunker down in a corner and draw cards over and over until I got the healing spells and attacks necessary to charge back into battle. I pulled out a few desperate victories using these cowardly maneuvers, but they were never particularly fulfilling. Sometimes I just gave up the battle and restarted, as this was a more agreeable option than committing to 10 or 15 minutes of playing the waiting game.
Some of the new features in this Steam edition of Card Hunter left me a little cold, too. Expedition to the Sky Citadel is an inspired rip-off (complete with another cool retro font, this one clearly inspired by the old Micronauts toys from the 70s and 80s) of the classic AD&D module “Expedition to the Barrier Peaks,” where fantasy heroes explore a crashed spaceship with the guidance of a robot DM. But it’s also incredibly tough, and the pre-rolled party made up so you don’t have to take your own characters to the suggested level 19 before starting it is not good, with an abysmal selection of gear and cards. Buying all new high-level gear for them was the only option to make them playable, but this was unwieldy enough that I went back to the grind with the original campaign.
My gripes about Card Hunter are minor in comparison with the admiration that I have for what the game accomplishes when it comes to creating a mood and a challenge equivalent to that offered by both classic D&D and card gaming. Nostalgia, intelligent combat, and a range of tactical depth is hard to find in different games, let alone rolled up into one very catchy, very reasonably priced package.
The character's creator, Toby Gard, said that Lara Croft's original name was supposed to be Laura Cruz. However, the game's developers wanted a more British influence for the female lead. (Photo: Crystal Dynamics)
Her Name Was Chosen Out of a Phonebook
Once it was decided that game's protagonist would be a British woman instead of a Latina, the game's developer, Core Design, found the closest name to Laura Cruz in the local phonebook. And then Lara Croft was born. (Photo: Crystal Dynamics)
Lara Croft Was Originally a Rip-off of Indiana Jones
Gard's original idea for Lara Croft was a male Indiana Jones look-a-like. But he was told the character should be more original. Gard's other ideas before landing on Croft were a muscular woman and a Nazi-like militant. (Photo: Eidos Interactive)
Lara Croft Was Enhanced By a Programming Error
After settling on the name and design of Lara Croft, a programming error accidentally made her breasts 150 percent larger. The creative team decided to stick with the, ahem, mistake. (Photo: Eidos Interactive)
Her Braid Was Absent in the First Tomb Raider
In the original Tomb Raider game, Lara Croft's iconic hair braid didn't make the cut because of graphical limitations. The braid made an appearance in the next installment. (Photo: Eidos Interactive)
She's Been Proposed to Dozens of Times
Despite not actually being a real person, Lara Croft has been the subject of a multitude of marriage proposals, Eidos staffer Tricia Gray told the New York Times. One day Lara will find Mr. Tomb Raider. (Photo: Crystal Dynamics)
She's Honored In Derby, England
Core Designs famously created Lara Croft in Derby, England, and she's honored there today. The archaeologist's birthplace, the former Core Designs office, now has a blue plaque. In 2010, Derby voted to rename an inner ring road as Lara Croft Way. (Photo: Eidos Interactive)
She Owns Six Guinness World Records
Back in 2010, Lara Croft and Tomb Raider were awarded with six Guinness world records, including most successful video game heroine. That's high praise. (Photo: Eidos Interactive)
She Sang Two Songs Only Released in France
Lara Croft's popularity rose so high in the 1990s that she released two songs that dropped solely in France. One of Croft's 'singles' was called "Getting Naked." (Photo: Eidos Interactive)
She Was Created By Six People
Although Gard created the character, Core Designs needed just six people to create the original Tomb Raider game. Nowadays, there are hundreds of people that work on a single video game release. (Photo: Eidos Interactive)
Lara Croft Was Inspired By Neneh Cherry & Tank Girl
When Gard created Lara Croft, his influences were the '90s Euro-rapper Neneh Cherry and the comic book character Tank Girl. Quite the combo. (Photo: Crystal Dynamics)
There Have Been Five Voices of Lara Croft
A total of five women have voiced the game character: Shelley Bond, Judith Gibbons, Jonell Elliot, Keeley Hawes and Camilla Luddington. Bond, the inaugural voice of Lara, voiced the role in only one game. (Photo: Crystal Dynamics)
The character's creator, Toby Gard, said that Lara Croft's original name was supposed to be Laura Cruz. However, the game's developers wanted a more British influence for the female lead. (Photo: Crystal Dynamics)
Her Name Was Chosen Out of a Phonebook
Once it was decided that game's protagonist would be a British woman instead of a Latina, the game's developer, Core Design, found the closest name to Laura Cruz in the local phonebook. And then Lara Croft was born. (Photo: Crystal Dynamics)
Lara Croft Was Originally a Rip-off of Indiana Jones
Gard's original idea for Lara Croft was a male Indiana Jones look-a-like. Bu the was told the character should be more original. Gard's other ideas before landing on Croft were a muscular woman and a Nazi-like militant. (Photo: Eidos Interactive)
Lara Croft Was Enhanced By a Programming Error
After settling on the name and design of Lara Croft, a programming error accidentally made her breasts 150 percent larger. The creative team decided to stick with the, ahem, mistake. (Photo: Eidos Interactive)
Her Braid Was Absent in the First Tomb Raider
In the original Tomb Raider game, Lara Croft's iconic hair braid didn't make the cut because of graphical limitations. The braid made an appearance in the next installment. (Photo: Eidos Interactive)
She's Been Proposed to Dozens of Times
Despite not actually being a real person, Lara Croft has been the subject of a multitude of marriage proposals, Eidos staffer Tricia Gray told the New York Times. One day Lara will find Mr. Tomb Raider. (Photo: Crystal Dynamics)
She's Honored In Derby, England
Core Designs famously created Lara Croft in Derby, England, and she's honored there today. The archaeologist's birthplace, the former Core Designs office, now has a blue plaque. In 2010, Derby voted to rename an inner ring road as Lara Croft Way. (Photo: Eidos Interactive)
She Owns Six Guinness World Records
Back in 2010, Lara Croft and Tomb Raider were awarded with six Guinness world records, including most successful video game heroine. That's high praise. (Photo: Eidos Interactive)
She Sang Two Songs Only Released in France
Lara Croft's popularity rose so high in the 1990s that she released two songs that dropped solely in France. One of Croft's 'singles' was called "Getting Naked." (Photo: Eidos Interactive)
She Was Created By Six People
Although Gard created the character, Core Designs needed just six people to create the original Tomb Raider game. Nowadays, there are hundreds of people that work on a single video game release. (Photo: Eidos Interactive)
Lara Croft Was Inspired By Neneh Cherry & Tank Girl
When Gard created Lara Croft, his influences were the '90s Euro-rapper Neneh Cherry and the comic book character Tank Girl. Quite the combo. (Photo: Crystal Dynamics)
There Have Been Five Voices of Lara Croft
A total of five women have voiced the game character: Shelley Bond, Judith Gibbons, Jonell Elliot, Keeley Hawes and Camilla Luddington. Bond, the inaugural voice of Lara, voiced the role in only one game. (Photo: Crystal Dynamics)
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Turns out your ship can turn into a combat mech in Galak-Z. You come equipped with a sword, shield, and the ability to grapple and throw rocks, ships and more.
Kevin and Chris had a chance to play Civilization Beyond Earth: Rising Tide and were impressed with the in-depth leader personalities and new territory mechanics involving moving cities.
Five Night's At Freddy's 4 is out! It was a surprise, but Mary and Alexa do their best to survive the home invasion that is Freddy Fazbears.
10 years after its release, Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II pushes out an update allowing users to play the game at 4K resolution.
Microsoft combats violations of privacy, stresses the difficulty of backwards compatibility, and Rise of the Tomb Raider gets PC and PS4 release dates!
