Variety is the spice of Call of Duty. As one of the most overexposed video game franchises of all time, differentiating the next title from the last is critical.
Credit where it’s due, thus far Activision and its cadre of Call of Duty developers have done a commendable job at giving each new entry in the series a sense of identity. Modern Warfare’s reliance on bleeding-edge fantasy tech and Black Ops’ focus on deep customisation have served as solid foundations for Infinity Ward and Treyarch to build distinct titles on.
This year’s Call of Duty will be the third entry in Treyarch’s Black Ops sub-series and, based on our hands-on experience, it may be the point of convergence.
Black Ops 3 does not stand out from its past. It iterates on last year’s Advanced Warfare, whilst maintaining the customisation at the core of Treyarch’s previous titles, but does too little to suggest it has made progress from last year’s entry. The freedom of movement, introduced in Sledgehammer’s Advanced Warfare last year, has become a pillar of Black Ops 3’s gameplay, though there have been some subtle tweaks.
"Black Ops 3 does too little to suggest it has made progress from last year’s Call of Duty entry."
First of the changes is an infinite sprint. Unlike previous games, where players would naturally transition out of a sprint and into a normal run after a set period, sprints can now be maintained for as long as you want. Obviously, this makes for maddeningly hyper multiplayer matches. But it also begs the question, why would you ever feel compelled to slow down? Treyarch has an answer: because situational awareness is much harder to maintain when you’re tearing around multiplayer maps. But you’ll still sprint anyway, like a manic shark-jumping grunt, leaping across rooftops, clambering up buildings, vaulting cover, and sprinting over walls. Everything introduced has become commonplace already.
Easily the most interesting part of Black Ops 3, the Specialists, has the unavoidable reality of being something already done-to-death by other genres and other first-person shooters. Let’s call the spade a spade: Specialists are classes (or Moba-esque Heroes), albeit with a Call of Duty edge.
This time around, instead of playing as generic soldiers, each multiplayer character has a back-story. For the most part, they’re in-line with the first-person shooter archetypes. Thankfully, each one also comes with a unique gameplay hook. Every specialist has either a powerful weapon or a special ability that can be taken into battle. Both the weapon and the ability operate on a cooldown which can be accelerated through killing.
This mechanic is an interesting way to offer something to those players that struggle to rack up enough kills to access the kill-streak rewards.
It’s good to see Treyarch attempting to create a little more personality for each of its multiplayer characters too, and differentiating each one with a unique gameplay hook is smart. But, again, there is not even a whimper of revolution here. If we’re honest, there probably doesn’t need to be. The game remixes what players already know, just enough, to force them to re-learn the tools.
The customisation is taken up a notch with Photoshop-esque tools that will enable creative players to put together impressive decals for guns. Of course there’s also the Pick-10 system, which lets players pick-n-mix guns, equipment, and perks to build unique, experimental builds.
Maybe that’s enough to make Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 worth playing, but at the moment it doesn’t feel very exciting.
Most (but not all) installments of Assassin's Creed represent another chronological leap forward for the series. The upcoming Assassin's Creed Syndicate takes place in 1868 London as the industrial revolution nears its end. Horse-drawn carriages may still fill the streets, but the world is charging towards a future represented by the city's speeding locomotives, and with new technology comes new struggles, as factions and their leaders battle to remain relevant in a changing political landscape. There's an irony, then, in an annualized series like Assassin's Creed, which simply cannot keep pace with the historical periods it depicts. Within the ongoing story, society is advancing at a rapid pace. Assassin's Creed itself has become staid, and it's hard to tell whether Syndicate can be the game that disrupts that expectation.
Of course, a 15-minute demo makes a difficult litmus test for a game's ultimate quality. I played two connected missions at E3 2015, the first of which led me to a local area that had fallen under enemy control, and needed to be liberated. As Jacob Frye, one of the game's two protagonists, I was tasked with eliminating the necessary targets and converting the local brawlers to the cause. "Nothing is true. Everything is permitted." So says the creed, though it was nice to find that I was permitted a new tool of locomotion--namely, the rope launcher, which allowed me to rappel up the sides of buildings as if I were a Victorian-era Batman. From the rooftops, I was able to get a handle on the challenge in front of me; all I needed to do was activate eagle vision and get a feel for my enemies' locations.
In spite of the game's weirdly yellowed visuals--a huge amount of bloom made me wonder whether someone at Ubisoft had accidentally turned up the ambient light slider--I was still taken by Assassin's Creed Syndicate's overall look. Small touches, such as the way Jacob removed his hat as he entered stealth stance, made a big impact, and I scaled walls and leapt across outcroppings with the amount of alacrity I expect from an Assassin's Creed game. But when it came to offing my targets, I was struck by how little has actually changed. Assassinations from behind are silently satisfying but largely the same. I made a leap of faith into a bale of hay and pulled an unsuspecting criminal into it as I slit his throat. I stepped directly into combat and performed a familiar blend of rhythmic punches and counters, but though swords have been replaced by fists and blunt melee weapons, nothing felt new. To be fair, I didn't expect a revolution in these regards, but for a longtime Assassin's Creed player like me, this was rote. The game was holding up Assassin's Creed flash cards, and I was reading off the answers without having to give them a second thought.
To be fair, I enjoyed the flexibility I was offered. I flung a throwing knife at the ropes holding up a crate, and gleefully watched as the falling object crushed by quarry underneath it. I enjoyed flinging a poisoned knife into a fire and watching nearby foes choke on the fumes, all while I sidled up to them and plunged by hidden blade into their flesh. And I enjoyed the sequence that followed, which had my racing after the region's criminal mastermind in a horse-drawn carriage. The carriage handled much as I expected it would; after all, even horse-drawn carriages have appeared before in the series, and while you can engage in fisticuffs atop these vehicles (the horses will miraculously head towards your intended destination), I raced directly to my adversary's location, bashing the carriages that dared to cross my path during my journey.
-style tower-defense minigame.
I still adore Assassin's Creed's core locomotion; that rush you develop as you climb towers and race across the rooftops remains undeniably fresh. I love the historical fiction that weaves the protagonists' fanciful actions into real-life events. But with Assassin's Creed Syndicate, I wonder more than ever before if it's time for the series to take a breath. It needs to find its footing, and I don't know that this fall's installment will be giving this franchise the momentum it needs.
When Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Wildlands was first unveiled at Ubisoft's E3 2015 press conference, it initiated a guessing game among GameSpot staff members. Ubisoft's open-world action formula has become easily identifiable: many of the animations, many of the trailers' techniques and camera angles, many of the gameplay hooks are shared between Ubisoft series, so when the first glimpses of Wildlands arrived, the challenge was set. There is a large and attractive open world here, along with both stealth- and action-focused gunplay. Could this be
What grabbed me wasn't Ubisoft's promise that Ghost Recon; Wildlands was the largest open world the company had ever created, but rather that the missions populating this world opened up so many opportunities for military role-playing. Far Cry supports stealth, of course, but these four-person tactics are incredibly appealing to anyone who's ever fancied themselves special operatives in a political hotspot. Ubisoft's presenters refer to WIldlands as a playground, but what struck me about the game wasn't its playfulness, but its solemn earnestness. If Far Cry 4 is aimed primarily at cooperative comedians, then Ghost Recon: Wildlands is for straight-faced allies ready to believe in their cause.
Announced first during Sony's E3 2015 press conference, Square Enix shared formation about World of Final Fantasy during their own media gathering at the first day of the expo.
Square Enix has high hopes that World of Final Fantasy will act as a gateway title for those unfamiliar with the mega franchise while keeping its appeal with longtime fans. While it will star new characters, it is also chocked full of familiar faces from the series.
"Do you remember it at all? The terrible past you caused?"
This foreboding quote is mysteriously juxtaposed against the vibrant and cute visuals of the reveal trailer. The franchise has seen its share of endearing art direction and characters, from Moogles to the cast of Theatrhythm Final Fantasy, but it's never been as pervasively endearing as what we've seen so far with World of Final Fantasy. It features adventuring from a dynamic isometric camera. Its most unique feature is a creature companion system, adding a ton of muscle to the game's battles.
World of Final Fantasy is scheduled for 2016 first on PlayStation 4 and PSVita.
Publisher Square Enix is working on an "all-new" console RPG, in development at a newly announced studio, which the corporation expects will be released in 2016.
Yosuke Matsuda, the chief executive of Square Enix, closed the publisher's E3 2015 press conference with a sneak peak into the new game. Concept artwork can be found below.
The game, given the working title Project Setsuna, was described as "all-new", with Matsuda emphasising that it "will not be a spin-off". The release date is scheduled for 2016.
It is being developed at a new studio, known as Tokyo RPG Factory. Little else was said of the project.
Square Enix has announced the Final Fantasy Portal App for mobile devices.
Yosuke Matsuda, president and CEO of the company, appeared on stage at the company's E3 press conference to announce the app, but did not provide much detail on what it entails.
Matsuda simply said it would be the go-to source for "any and all Final Fantasy information."
For formation the Final Fantasy 7 remake, Nier 2, Just Cause 3, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, and more, check out our
Square Enix has announced Star Ocean Integrity and Faithlessness will be available on PlayStation 4 in North America and Europe.
A lengthy story trailer was shown at the company's E3 2015 press conference, where game producer Shuichi Kobayashi also revealed plans to launch the latest entry in the long-running Japanese role-playing game outside of Japan.
As with previous games, Star Ocean Integrity and Faithlessness will is being developed as a collaboration between Square Enix and Tri-Ace.
Kobayashi also confirmed it will be targeting 60 frames per second for the title.
At Square Enix's press conference this morning, developer IO Interactive announced the release date for Hitman, the next game in the long-running stealth series. .
At its E3 2015 press conference, Square Enix presented a teaser trailer for Kingdom Hearts: Unchained, which appears to be a port of the browser game released to Japanese audiences as Kingdom Hearts: Unchained X.
The trailer features adorable chibi versions of Kingdom Hearts and Disney characters such as Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse, and looks remarkably heavy on touch-based combat. No release date was given, but the game is announced for both iOS and Android devices, and its story will relate to that of Kingdom Hearts III.
Where's the Star Fox I know and love? Maybe it's hidden in there somewhere. While Nintendo is going all out to promote the new GamePad controls, I'm holding out for an option to play with the Wii U Pro Controller. That option would impact the aiming system, and therefore balancing and level design, but it would also mean that people who have been playing Star Fox games for decades can simply jump right in and have fun. I want enemies, environments, and boss battles to stand between me and victory, not the controls. I can understand why Nintendo is so keen to sell the GamePad by designing games around it, but as someone who already owns a Wii U and just wants to play Star Fox the way I always have, I hope I have the option to. Otherwise, Star Fox Zero may not be the game for me.
I played a handful of levels created by Nintendo employees, and what hooked me in the end was the unpredictability of what I was playing. If you've played a Mario game enough times, you know what's coming in each and every level; where and what the next enemy is, where the secret Fire Flower is placed, how to cheat the system and skip to the end. But Super Mario Maker ensures that everyone who picks it up will have a unique experience, as well as the opportunity to create their own one-of-a-kind experiences. I found myself shouting and laughing along with the people I was playing with, overcome with genuine surprise and shock at how innovative and outright bizarre these user-made levels could be.
Super Mario Maker is a fever dream, one that you orchestrate yourself along with thousands of others, subjecting one another to your creations of fancy. It's a fresh way of looking at a series that has done nearly everything in the book already; instead of making another game, why not let the players make the game they want? I'm already itching to get my hands on it again, and to finish my perilous level of flying Bloopers and Wii Fit Trainer mushrooms.
Square Enix's role-playing game Final Fantasy 7 has had its PC version release date delayed to Winter this year, the company announced at its E3 press conference today. In addition, Square Enix confirmed that the game would be coming to iOS.
The news followed on after the company showed the trailer for Final Fantasy 7 Remake, which was
Square Enix is up next in the round of E3 2015 press conferences today. But what do they have in store?
Here's an ongoing live roundup of all the biggest news during today's Square Enix E3 2015 press conference. Feel free to keep refreshing the page for more news as it gets announced.
Previously Announced Games With New Info:
gets an appropriately explosive new gameplay trailer filled with explosions. Avalanche Studios took to the stage to announce that the game will release in North America on December 1, 2015 for Xbox One, PS4, and PC. A hands-on trailer was also shown explaining the new features of the game.
Check out the E3 2015 trailer for Godling.
Check out the in-game trailer for Deus Ex: Mankind Divided at the Square Enix press conference from E3 2015.
