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From: www.gamesradar.com

From: www.gamesradar.com

The Best of E3 2015

Added: 19.06.2015 22:42 | 38 views | 0 comments


Good games bring out the best of E3 - and a good E3 brings out the best of games. That relationship is always true but not always adhered to, making E3 2015 one of the finest shows in years. Finally, the platform holders and big publishers are rolling up their sleeves for reasons other than showing off the latest military arm-hair rendering technology.

Both PlayStation and Xbox made investments in new, large-scale games, while the showing from independent studios came with a ferocity and appeal not seen in years past. As a result, and after 3 days of playing as much as we could, we’ve assembled this list of this year’s most exciting games. Just over half of them are original, one is available already, and those that return from existing properties really earned it. Good job, E3.

One stray white feather was all it took for all of us to collectively lose our minds during the Sony press conference because it has been so, so, long since we’d heard anything about The Last Guardian. Anyone familiar with Fumito Ueda’s Ico and Shadow of the Colossus may notice that his next game appears to be a mash up of themes from the two. It combines the massive sense of scale from Shadow of the Colossus with the touching, personal relationship portrayed in Ico. We don’t know much about the protagonist (a young boy who has been kidnapped under bizarre circumstances) but what we do know is that his griffin-like catbird friend Trico is there to help him get out.

We didn’t see any other living creatures this time, but danger doesn’t have to lurk in the shadows. The environment itself is treacherous, and from what we’ve seen you’re always surrounded by soaring towers with no hint of where the surface of the world is when you look down. Using Trico’s strength and the boy’s small stature, the two make the perfect puzzle-solving pair. It’s the details that make The Last Guardian something special, from the boy’s exaggerated animations to Trico’s dog-like mannerisms. And that’s what we’re dying to see more of: the budding relationship between the two, which will hopefully culminate in a beautiful happy ending where they both make it out and ride off into the sunset. No one needs to think about the alternative …

In addition to being one of the best games at E3 2015, Fallout 4 should also take home the award for being the most hyped game at E3 2015. After its official announcement during the Bethesda press conference, Fallout 4 has sent the industry into one giant fanboy freakout. You all can't get enough of it, we can't get enough of it, and pretty soon, come November, we're all going to get our chance to play it. And why shouldn't we be excited? The core Fallout series has always maintained that ideal balance of strategic gameplay and dark, apocalyptic humor. Fallout 4 promises all that, and so much more.

For starters, you can play the role of an urban planner. Fallout 4 will let you custom build your own home, which can then grow into a settlement and attract traveling item vendors to supply you with new goods. You can roam the countryside with Dogmeat, your indestructible canine companion who fetches items for you. Then you can use those items to fine-tune your makeshift weapons through numerous add-ons and modifications. Of course, these minor details are really just the tip of the iceberg as there are (probably) tons of surprises waiting to be revealed between now and November. Time to refill that Rad-X prescription, because we're headed back to the wasteland.

Amidst all the explosions and noise from Star Wars Battlefront (we’re not complaining) and fanfare around the latest sports title, it was great to see EA back a whimsical-looking game featuring a walking yarn creature, aptly named Yarny. As Yarny, you use the yarn that you’re made of to cross obstacles and swing yourself from one place to another. You make your way through lush gardens, rainy streets and other dreamy settings that were inspired by real-life locales in northern Sweden, where the developers from Coldwood Interactive are based.

This physics-based puzzle platformer comes with a sentimental story, as hinted in the trailer and described by the creator, Martin Sahlin. It’s hard not to get a bit misty-eyed when you see the struggles Yarny has to face in the harsh, real world. Okay, maybe it had more to do with the melancholy music. Either way, the red thread represents all the bonds that we form with people in our lives. But then, what happens when all that … unravels?

It’s a marvel for Mirror’s Edge Catalyst to even exist in its current form. Its priorities are at odds with many major franchises, more rooted in acts of graceful escape than full-on violence, and its vibrant look somehow finds beauty in a sterile, corporatized city. It’s now impossible to pick up a gun as you bounce between soon-to-be-KO’d enemies like a kung-fu bunny.

But what’s most interesting about Mirror’s Edge Catalyst, beyond the immediate quality of its motion, beyond its clever integration of speed-running challenges in a city of reflective shards, and beyond its intriguing heroine, Faith, is that much of this could have been said about the previous game. It had such an impact that you can’t help but view its return with suspicion, scanning for the catch, waiting for that whiff of a vision compromised in some disappointing way. But with no gunplay (for real), a three-dimensionally expanded world and a demonstrable attempt to rebuild Faith’s story, Catalyst looks like the game DICE really wanted to make all those years ago.

The creators of Killzone are working on a game that remarkably doesn’t look like a game from the creators of Killzone. Nature has reclaimed the world of Horizon: Zero Dawn, a thousand years after humanity has shriveled and settled itself as primitive counterpart to new breeds of cybernetic animals. You’ll hunt them as Aloy, a human warrior with a warm heart and quiver full of specialized arrows.

Horizon’s world seems fresh and imaginative, with thunderous cyber-beasts serving as both mystery (who made them?) and formidable opponents in combat. Guerrilla exudes an exceptional attention to detail in this aspect of Horizon: Zero Dawn, granting Aloy different arrows and ropes to pin beasts down, or tear off individual pieces of armor. And when their nuts-and-bolts spill out, she finds new uses for them in crafted armor and weapons. Aloy proves her mettle not only as hunter and engineer, though, but also as an emphatic, quick-witted personality.

Good ol' Mario. He's kept us entertained for 30 years with his his joyful koopa-stomping, princess-saving adventures, and Super Mario Maker is a celebration of that legacy. Dubious looks may have been shared over the concept from time to time (did Nintendo just design half a game and give the rest to the players?), but in practice Super Mario Maker is a solid experience that truly combines the fun of Mario's 2D adventures with a lot of creative fun.

Letting you change the style of your level between four different 2D Mario games, Super Mario Maker gives you access to almost all the different pieces of the Mushroom Kingdom and sends you out into the wild. It's a ton of fun designing impossible levels (which the game happily lets you do), putting a flying Koopa on top of five springs and watching the resulting mayhem. But once you get over your desire for chaos, Super Mario Maker gives you solid tools to design levels that are every bit as good as those in the original games. You can then share those levels with other players and try out their designs in return. Plus, no need to worry about trolls - a creator has to be able to beat their own level in its current form before releasing it to the world. Super Mario Maker is good, clean, creative fun that makes doing all the work fantastic.

ABZU is the ocean of wisdom. At least, that is what it means when you combine two ancient words “AB” for ocean and “ZU” meaning to know. ABZU stood out as one of the most serene experiences during the week of E3 2015. In this beautiful underwater exploration game, The creator Matt Nava (and former lead artist on Journey) wants to create a fluid world for a player to explore and discover.

Where Journey made your destination fairly obvious, ABZU is more open, and designed in a way where you’ll naturally end up where you need to go next. The world beneath the waves is vast, and there’s so much to see. As a diver with no health gauge to worry about, you can swim around and explore, do flips, ride on the back of a manta ray or swim with a school of fish. It’s peaceful, refreshing, and easy to get lost in.

It isn't just Battlefield with Stormtroopers. Star Wars Battlefront takes an arcadey approach to large-scale online battles, one that's clearly in love with its source material even as it reshapes cinematic moments into thrilling multiplayer flashpoints. The hands-on E3 demo had 20 Rebels and 20 Imperials fighting in the Battle of Hoth, with Imperial forces escorting a pair of AT-ATs toward Echo Base's shield generators and the Rebels trying to destroy said walkers. Oh, and unlike in The Empire Strikes Back, the Rebels can win.

Trading blaster fire feels like a pretty standard first/third-person shooter, but movement is surprisingly bouncy, especially with a jetpack in your loadout. Picking up a TIE Fighter or Snow Speeder token lying around the map allows you to call in air support, sending the camera sweeping up and away to follow your new ride. It's immediately ready for action, letting you transition straight to aerial battles without interrupting your frontline momentum. Battlefront's full of smart, unexpected choices that all get you doing cool Star Wars stuff faster, making it far teresting (and fun) than just a force-flavored Battlefield clone.

In Norse mythology, Eitr is a poisonous substance and yet the source of all life. At E3 2015, it was a surprisingly excellent action RPG, inspired in equal parts by Diablo and Dark Souls. As in Dark Souls, you may be able to take down a few monsters by mashing buttons, but all your little wounds will add up quickly. It's better to focus on an individual target, feinting, counter-attacking, and dodging in a deliberate tango which will vary by your creepy monstrous dance partner. It feels great, partly because managing all those little parries and thrusts as you keep track of foes is actually quite a bit easier with a Diablo-style isometric camera than in third-person 3D.

Of course, it wouldn't be a proper Diablo-like without scads of randomly generated loot. But equipping a shiny new weapon in Eitr feels much more substantial, since you're not just clicking on enemies until they're dead - different weapon combinations offer different combos and timing to keep in mind. Not to mention Eitr's heroine makes an impressive show of sweeping around the dark, crumbling, and beautiful world, and the minimalist, groaning soundtrack adds a freaky edge to intimidating boss battles. Eitr clearly hybridizes some familiar ideas, but each individual element feels even better for the transformation.

Dark Souls is a series obsessed with finding beauty in destruction; a death poem set in motion. Your hero - stoic and resolute - expresses himself from the tip of a sword, or a handful of gestures. Words are not needed in this shrouded land of death. Your weapons fill the silence, and in Dark Souls 3 they have more to say than ever before. Each armament - from longswords to bows to magic - has some unique action tied to it. The shortbow, for instance, lets you channel your inner Legolas by firing off quick shots after a dodge roll. The longsword can circumvent an enemy's shield with a rising slash that punches through it. The goal here is to create a more active Dark Souls, one that lets you personalize your fighting style let never before.

The backdrop for all this is a ruined world on the brink of oblivion. "Withered beauty," was how game director Hidetaka Miyazaki described it. An unspecified apocalypse looms heavy over this land, its withered denizens turning to the corpse of dragon and other fallen gods for some last-ditch hope of salvation. Not even direct sunlight reaches this place; the rays intercepted by perpetual cloud cover swirling the skies above. But while the end may be inevitable, how you choose to face it - right down to using a longsword over a shortbow - is entirely up to you.

“Not everything is going to make sense,” the narrator of What Remains of Edith Finch warns at the beginning of the game, and goodness, she is not kidding. What begins as a fairly straightforward visit to a childhood landmark very quickly turns into a bizarre tale involving the death of a little girl, an owl, a sea monster, and a family with a dark and mysterious history. There’s a lot to discover (not least of which is the question posed by the title), and none of it is ordinary.

Developer Giant Sparrow prides itself on “creating surreal experiences people have never had before,” and it certainly hits that mark with Edith Finch. Whatever may be going on in that house, it’s not your typical gaming experience. In much the same way that Giant Sparrow’s previous game, The Unfinished Swan, tapped into new areas of creativity to tell its story of a boy in search of closure, Edith Finch avoids the ordinary in favor of the intriguing. You think you know what’s coming, but you don’t; what’s coming is, at least from what we’ve seen so far, far more unsettling than anything you might imagine. How wonderful.

Mobile games often get snubbed at E3 because they’re not big or flashy and, if we’re being honest, not often thought of as "real" games. Bethesda’s Fallout Shelter, meant to tide us over until Fallout 4’s release in November isn’t big or flashy, but it is most certainly a real game, one with depth and personality. Perfectly tuned for its mobile format, Fallout Shelter is gorgeous to look at, has a surprising amount of detail, and its simple Vault-building concept is shockingly addictive. It is, dare I say, S.P.E.C.I.A.L. (I’m sorry. I just couldn’t resist.)

Plenty of mobile games are free to play and supported by microtransactions, but so many of them fail by letting those in-game purchases get in the way of the fun. Fallout Shelter doesn’t make that mistake; you can purchase bonus-containing lunchboxes if you like, but it’s entirely optional. You don’t have to shell out a single cent to enjoy Fallout Shelter’s irreverent and surprisingly challenging approach to rebuilding society. Keeping people happy and alive in a radiated wasteland is, as it turns out, really hard. You think they’d be content to just have a roof over their head, but nooooooo. They want food and water and power and music, too. Ungrateful jerks.

Wattam is what you would get if Katamari Damacy and Noby Noby Boy had a baby - and then gave that baby crayons and cake. It's colorful, silly, and joyous. It's a celebration of everything that links us together; of our common bonds and togetherness. It’s about blowing things up in order to bring people together, which makes absolutely no sense, but that’s ok, it doesn’t really have to.

The Earth was fighting with a Bad Guy and in order to save everyone on the planet, she blew herself up and scattered her inhabitants to the four winds. (Yeah, it’s a weird choice, but run with it.) The Mayor is the sole survivor, and he wants to bring everyone back, which he does by forming increasingly large chains of friends, which he then explodes by setting off the bomb under his bowler hat. (Mm hmm, I know, just stick with me.) Wattam is simple to play, but there’s a lot to discover, like what happens when a coffee bean befriends a pillow or when The Mayor meets his long-lost siblings. The art style is utterly endearing; even the poop is cute. (Yes. There’s poop. Golden poop, even.) To make things even more charming, the characters you encounter take their names from your PSN and Facebook friends. Whether or not you tell your mom that she’s now a chibi lawn mower is up to you.

The little Kickstarter game that could, Flame in the Flood takes you with one simple objective: survive. Well, two objectives, since you're floating down a mammoth river toward something that I'll just call Hope. It's waiting for you at the river's end, but first you have to survive the miles of treacherous post-apocalyptic terrain that lies ahead. To do that, you'll have to keep yourself hydrated, well-fed, warm, and rested, all of which are difficult to do when everything from the wolves to the bacteria in the water is out to get you.

Flame in the Flood doesn't pull any punches, and you will die very quickly the first time you play. You'll have to master necessary survival skills by trial and error, and slowly build up a bank of knowledge to see you through. Dying of septic teaches you not to drink suspicious water. Collapsing from blood loss proves that you can't fight off wolves with just a stick. Starving after eating every plant you find highlight that meat is the key to survival. And you'll learn what objects are important when you realize they could have saved you. It's a slow build to success, but every time you get a little smarter, and feel an ever-stronger urge to push further.

Though didn’t impress us by venturing into new thematic waters, it did show Naughty Dog’s peerless approach to the blockbuster action game. The over-the-top destruction on display in the game’s wild car chase somehow reflected an elegant, economical approach to storytelling. When Nathan peers over a railing to take in a huge city crawling down a hillside, it’s not just for looks - we’re seeing the road to the next story beat, and by the time the chase concludes, we’ve traversed the entirety of what seemed like just a pretty picture before.

This willingness to devote resources – be it time, money or the hard work of artists – into a wide shot like that, only to have it become a “real” constructed environment and unfurl as part of the gameplay, is what put Uncharted on the map. The framing of the chase sequence borrows well from Hollywood, and the witty repartee brings the script up to a matching level. What’s even better, though, is the brewing mystery in the story’s title. Between our trio of thieves, Nathan Drake, brother Sam and companion Sully, we’re already wondering whose epitaph Uncharted 4 will be.

Video: Star Fox Zero - What We Know So Far

Added: 19.06.2015 18:00 | 5 views | 0 comments


Article: Video: Star Fox Zero - What We Know So Far

Alex tackles confirmations and maybes

Tags: Star, When, Also, Zero
From: www.nintendolife.com

David Jaffe Addressing Gamespots Complaints About PS4 Exclusive Drawn To Death

Added: 19.06.2015 11:16 | 8 views | 0 comments


Following a some complaints from Gamespot's Alex Newhouse after playing Drawn To Death, developer David Jaffe states that he will address at least some of Newhouse's complaints

Tags: Also, David, About
From: n4g.com

The standout female leads of E3 2015

Added: 18.06.2015 23:30 | 24 views | 0 comments


If you looked at the line-up with no knowledge of what came before, you wouldn't guess that the world was making sarcastic comments about how hard women are to animate less than a year ago. While it's still sadly common to see a press conference's worth of games headlined by a single gender, this E3 saw a slew of titles where women are taking center stage, either as integral and active participants or as protagonists in their own right. We may have expected Lara and a possible female addition to the Gears clan, but this year's showing blew right past that goal post and gave us a cheeky wave on the way out.

Gotta say, we like that style, and want to highlight those ladies that stand as the face of their games and the companies that created them. To that end, we've compiled a list of the most prominent female characters of E3 2015 for their adulation and your perusal. Who knows - maybe you'll find a leading lady whose story you'll want to follow.

It doesn't take long to figure out that "the old ones" Aloy speaks of in the opening moments of Horizon's reveal trailer refers to us, and we see soon thereafter how far mankind has fallen from grace: humans exist in tribes, vulnerable to mechanical beasts that roam the land. It's an imposing, intimidating future, and yet Aloy handles it like a pro as she hunts grass-grazing automatons and fends off a robot dinosaur. When the end of the world comes, Aloy is someone you want on your side.

Once a precocious little girl whose drawings could get very dark if you weren't careful about raising her up right, Emily is all grown up in Dishonored 2 and taking down targets of her own with magical and tech-assisted abandon. She strikes an imposing figure while tearing through mechanized warriors and turning into a shadow creature, breaking down every defense thrown in front of her. Plus, she does it all with elegance and poise. Her parents would be so proud.

We know almost nothing about the girl from Microsoft's new IP, Recore. Not her name, where she comes from, or what she's doing out in a desert wasteland filled with aggressive constructs. Still, in the game's debut trailer, we see her tenacity and the loyalty she inspires in her robo-dog companion, and that's enough to make us want to learn more.

You've been able to play as a post-apocalyptic guy or gal ever since Fallout 2, but some persistent rumors indicated that might be not be the case in . Bethesda showed off Fallout 4's new-and-improved third-person perspective with a bog standard white dude protagonist, but only after casually brushing aside said concerns with a great "step aside, honey, I got this" moment in the bathroom mirror character editor. Turns out the dude's wife isn't just an NPC - she's another blank canvas for you to customize and play as.

Beyond Eyes' ten-year-old protagonist isn't like the other super-powered, butt-kicking, free-running characters on this list. She has no preternatural abilities, no apocalyptic future to prevent. Instead, she's young girl without sight, on a personal journey to find her lost cat, Nani. But even without the use of her eyes, Rae's other senses let the world blossom around her like a droplet of paint bleeding across paper fibers. She sees things through the lens of her own imagination, which amplifies the beauty of the mundane - and the fear of the unknown.

Faith Connors was a female protagonist before it was cool, man. Back in ye olden days of 2008 when the original Mirror's Edge was released, we followed her on a quest to clear her sister's name from a murder she didn't commit. It looks like Faith will have bigger prey to tackle in the Mirror's Edge Catalyst reboot, but her unparalleled skills in parkour and hand-to-hand combat mean we're not worried one bit about her ability to succeed. Faith inspires … well, faith in us.

We've known about Evie's existence in the upcoming . Potentially more ruthless than her gang-leading brother, Evie gives any standing in the Assassin's way reason to be very, very afraid. As the second female assassin on our list, it makes us wonder who would win in a fight: Emily or Evie?

To Lara Croft, surviving catastrophic adventures is like eating a bag of potato chips: she can't stop after she's started, even if the results are highly unpleasant. After nearly falling to her death from a mountain cliff, she frantically outruns a blizzard as it rips the ground out from under her feet, right before she's buried in several feet of snow. Even when she emerges less than gracefully, coughing powder out of her lungs and stuck in the cold without any supplies or shelter, she still looks like one hell of a survivor. Good thing, too - something tells us that this game won't be any kinder to her than the last one.

It was hard to see much of anything in the Gears 4 trailer, since the developers took 'dark and gritty' to its literal conclusion, but we were able to pick out a new new Gears sneaking through the shadows. One of them is a woman named Kait (which we now know from the Gears Twitch stream), and from the clip we saw of her in combat, she seems every bit as snarky and capable as the Gears who've come before her.

Here's one we're not sure what to make of just yet. In an all-too-brief trailer for Xbox One game Ashen, we see a male decked out in adventurer's gear recruit a woman to help him explore a decrepit tomb. As the male character inspects some ancient treasure, he gets swarmed by monsters, and the female character gets separated. At the trailer's close, we see only the female character still alive, kneeling on a hilltop. We're not sure what it all means, but the twist of having the male adventurer seemingly die, then ending on a shot of the female character, is symbolic in its own way.

Fullbright is no stranger to female protagonists, focusing on the story of a girl named Sam as her sister Katie slowly uncovers its details in the stellar Gone Home. The studios' newest game, Tacoma, follows in that same vein, with a new, as-yet unnamed female protagonist who's tasked with exploring the remains of a space station to find out what happened there. She's a lot chattier that Katie, and has to be, because her only companion is a voice on her communicator giving her instructions from back at HQ. Other than that, she's on her own to discover the station's fate, and deal with that she might find (or, well, the other way around).

Much like Tacoma's astronaut, Delilah spends most of her time on one end of a walkie-talkie, only on the opposite one from the player. Delilah is a national park supervisor in Firewatch, and communicates regularly with her man on the ground, Henry (aka you), about the state of the forest and his watch. As one of two characters in the game (three if you count the wilderness itself), Delilah is an important part of Henry's adventure, and interacting with her is almost as important to the game as not falling off of a cliff or getting eaten by anything. Their relationship changes dramatically depending on how Henry responds to her, so it's worth your time to listen to what she has to say.

Rainbow Six Siege might've had us grimacing uncomfortably at E3 2014 when its only female character was a glorified flag you can use as a human shield. It's doing a whole lot better this year though, in no small part due to the introduction of the Rainbow unit's leader, a stern and serious woman named Six. Played by the timeless (and apparently ageless) Angela Bassett, she will be the voice of authority during the team's missions, organizing them and making sure everything goes according to plan. We're not yet sure how much of a role she'll play in the missions themselves, but we're sure to see more of her before Siege lands in September.

The diver from Abzu might seem effectively genderless, given that she spends all of her time in a diving suit, and it has no effect on her ability to ride on the fin of a giant manta ray. But when it's normal to dub an agender character male by default, it's nice to see the script flipped. In Abzu, this unnamed female diver's only goal is to explore the ocean depths, make friends with fish, and discover secrets buried so deep that the surrounding fish have headlamps. Not deterred by the thought of vicious sharks or a nasty case of the bends, this diver will risk life and limb to discover what lies below, all to the sound of a whimsical score.

Mother Russia Bleeds Developer Commentary

Added: 18.06.2015 22:13 | 2 views | 0 comments


IGN and Mother Russia Bleeds designer Alex Muttoni team up to fight their way through a dangerous club and make friends along the way.

From: feeds.ign.com

Tour De France 2015 is out now along with the official launch trailer

Added: 18.06.2015 17:19 | 1 views | 0 comments


Neil writes "The Tour kicks off for real in a few weeks time, but prior to Frome, Contador and Nibali coasting the flats of the Netherlands and hitting the slopes of the rather scary Alpe D'Huez, you can recreate the tense atmosphere with the Tour De France 2015 videogame...and it's out right now, as is the launch trailer"

Tags: Torn, Also
From: n4g.com

Tour De France 2015 is out now along with the official launch trailer

Added: 18.06.2015 12:16 | 0 views | 0 comments


Neil writes "The Tour kicks off for real in a few weeks time, but prior to Frome, Contador and Nibali coasting the flats of the Netherlands and hitting the slopes of the rather scary Alpe D'Huez, you can recreate the tense atmosphere with the Tour De France 2015 videogame...and it's out right now, as is the launch trailer"

Tags: Torn, Also
From: n4g.com


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