Patch 2.1 is coming to LawBreakers! Find out what to expect in this patch regarding quality of life improvements, Boss Leagues rewards, and more in the latest Rapid Fire Dev Update from Boss Key Productions.
In a surprising twist, THQ Nordic announced that an expansion for Titan Quest Anniversary Edition is live today! It requires the base game (Titan Quest AE), but is entitled Titan Quest: Ragnarok. The journey continues, and a mysterious threat calls the heroes of Hades to the uncharted wastes of Northern Europe. It adds a fifth act to the game, with many new and requested features coming alongside it. The realms of the Celts, Northmen and Asgardian gods are your destination, in the largest act to date of Titan Quest. A 10th Mastery for your characters to learn awaits as well as the Runemaster which is a magical warrior who is equally skilled with magic and weapons. Hit level 85 and finally, after all this time, you can wear pants!
The original vision of Space Engineers was to create a game where physics behave exactly as they do in the real world. There should be no limits to what can be created, and nothing that is just for a visual effect. Everything should be able to be adjusted, modified or changed to suit your needs. IN this update, 1.185.0, a huge overhaul comes to the physics of the game. It focuses on pistons, rotor gears, and things of that nature. Optimization was increased to decrease lag and increase the fun, not to mention stronger constraints for mechanical blocks, so they don’t break quite so easily. This should make the physics in general much more stable. For further information, please see their blog, at this link.
Indie developers in France have created the Gamebuino META, which is a retro open-source console with a compact design. It can fit in your hand/pocket, comes with plenty of free exclusive games, a battery strong enough to last through a day of gaming and has a slot for a micro SD card to fit more games yet. One of the biggest draws is you can use it to learn to program and make your own games for the Gamebuino. The Gamebuino META will only be available online, so consumers are encouraged to pre-order via the Kickstarter campaign at prices starting under US$100. Preorders surpassed the first stage within two weeks and is on track to fulfill its current stretch goal by the December 23rd deadline for launch in January 2018.
“I created the previous Gamebuino Classic when I was an engineering student. Our current Gamebuino META is our next evolution of Arduino based retro console to make and play to all your favorite games,” says Aurélien Rodot, inventor of the Gamebuino. “We want people to try programming because it’s a gateway to so many things (like jobs), but we also wanted to make the experience fun and easy. We want to turn everyone into Makers.”
The Gamebuino META features a d-pad, A and B buttons as well as a backlight. It uses the same microcontroller as the Arduino Zero, keeping the pins free for the user to maintain software/hardware compatibility. Rodot also said that you aren’t limited to game programming. If you want to hook up sensors, motors, lights, invent whatever you see fit for it, you can! The only limit is your imagination.
by Jason Parker (Ragachak)
It’s been a pretty negative couple of weeks, guys. MXM is shutting down, Marvel Heroes is shutting down (because of something exceptionally horrific, if word is to be believed) Star Wars: Battlefront II may be received worse than E.T. on the Atari 2600. I have a lot of thoughts on that, but I’m kind of keeping them on the backburner, because I don’t want to rehash the same ol’ nonsense that everyone is spewing. It’s dreadful, they aren’t “looking out for their consumers”, they merely got caught doing something shady and had to walk it back. So, yeah. There’s a lot of negativity going around. I thought I’d mix that up with something beautiful because that’s what I need right now. And I thought I’d share with you, my readers, something worth listening to. That’s what I have on offer today. A series of Piano pieces from Pokemon Red, Blue, and Green by Trevor Alan Gomes. Materia Collective released this album recently, and I’ve been sitting on it, listening to it because I’ve just simply been swamped. This has been an incredibly busy month for news, and I know at least myself and Jaime are exhausted. So having this to listen to when overwhelmed has been kind of nice.
“There are piano albums like this for many games, but the vision that drove this one was unique: it’s comprehensive and narrative-driven, spanning the entire soundtrack of the game in chronological order to tell the entire story that millions have loved since 1996,” notes Trevor Alan Gomes. “Together with an amazing team, I’ve had the joy of taking the simple, charming 8-bit music of Pokémon Red and Blue and turning it into lush, expansive piano arrangements.” That’s just what these are. It’s very well said on his part. Before I go rushing into a few of my favorite songs on this collection, you can find Trevor at these places: Twitter, YouTube, SoundCloud and Twitch where he does piano streams based on improvisation, song writing and sight reading. This is a fellow who has played for The Walt Disney Company as well as films such as Finding Dory, Skyfall and Passengers.
Celadon City (Track 23): Celadon’s probably my favorite town in Pokemon Red/Blue/Green. It’s the largest city by population in the Kanto Region, has the most places to spend your hard-earned money, and the theme of this particular song starts off noble and regal, but swiftly turns into a jazzy rendition of the Celadon City theme. A good, swift pace, one you could get a brisk walk out of. The song reminds me of being in the big city for the first time and being amazed at all of the incredible things you find there. It meanders a bit, but that’s the point, I think. It is a fantastic lead up to Game Corner/Team Rocket Hideout. The various musical themes in the song fit seeing all sorts of new things in a bigger city. I love it.
Battle! Pokemon Champion (Track 34): Battle! Pokemon Champion has all the gravitas that a battle with the most skilled Trainer in the entire region deserves. It’s epic, booming, and powerful, and that’s just on a piano with no accompaniment. If you slapped this somewhere into Final Fantasy X, or even the climax of an action film, it would not feel out of place in the least. This makes me want to see a Pokemon Battle that’s also a chase scene though. With explosions and darting around crumbling buildings and crap. The main theme of “A Rival Appears!” is still there, which makes sense. It’s not a spoiler: Blue/Gary is the Champion of the Kanto Region. The only reason I won’t add “A Rival Appears!” is because I chose “Battle! Pokemon Champion” instead. They are both amazing though, and the fairly subtle hints to the Rival song in this one made me very happy indeed.
Professor Oak Suite (Track 4): This has such an upbeat, hopeful sound, the “Professor Oak Suite”. Is it just me, or does it sound like it belongs on a comedy on TV from the 80s-90s? It really feels like I would hear it on TGIF or something as a kid. It slows down after that main melody, and the more familiar tones of the Professor’s lab are clear, crystal clear. It brings back memories of picking my very first starter when I was… well, clearly not a kid, but a teenager. When Pokemon really started to show up, I didn’t have a Gameboy, so I missed out on it. But that did not change how magical that first one was. That’s what this song encapsulated for me.
Pokemon Tower (Track 21): Pokemon Tower is tied with “A Rival Appears!” for my favorite song from Gen 1. Probably in the first few generations of Pokemon, if I’m being honest with myself. The Pokemon Tower is super depressing. It’s a tower filled with dead Pokemon, where Blue goes to mourn the loss of his Raticate (thanks, Red. You asshole). That’s also where we really learn about Marowak/Cubone, and it’s just the damn worst. This rendition of the Tower theme is just as haunting and slow, reminding me of funeral dirge in some portions of the song. It gets a higher pitch, louder towards the end, before a lilting little trail off, as if something mischievous is lurking in the shadows. Perhaps a ghost? Something mysterious waits within these walls.
Honorable Mentions: It was very hard pairing this down to a few songs that really encapsulate what the album is about, but any Pokemon fan worth their salt likely knows every song on here. But these are renditions, versions of the songs we remember, played on a lovely sounding Piano. Is it just me though, or does “Game Corner” have a sound very similar to “Bubble Bobble” about halfway through? That’s what I hear. That’s okay, but it really stuck out to me. Other honorable mentions definitely go to “Anime Theme” which is surprisingly lovely when played on the Piano. Not to mention the last song on the album, “Jigglypuff’s Song”, which admittedly made even me drowzy. Everything on this album stands out, and is true to the original source material, while still sounding fresh and new. You owe it to yourself to go get this album post-haste. Both albums are the same, so it’s all dependant on which version of the game you prefer: Red, Blue, Green, or … I guess Yellow. For me? Green all the way.
Tactical Monsters is a free-to-play hexagonal turn-based tactics game featuring exciting skilled gameplay in a world inhabited by incredible and unique creatures. Recruit from a grand roster of characters for your personal army and fight for great rewards across multiple game modes. Available for Windows, Mac, and Android.
Features:
Triple Threat: Fight for 3-star perfection in the single-player adventure, survive against an endless horde in Guerrilla Warfare, or compete for the top spots on the multiplayer leaderboard.
Feeding the Beast: Upgrade your monsters for additional power and abilities.
Exclusivity: Fight, chat, and share cards with your friends and clan mates.
Mythic Glory is a free-to-play MMORPG featuring tactical turn-based combat in a persistent fantasy world. Join up, socialize, or fight with other players on a regular basis as you build out the ultimate hero. Available for Windows.
Features:
Foretold Fable: Discover an exciting single-player storyline taking you on the first steps towards embracing a legendary destiny.
Training: Enhance your adventurer with all manner of gear and skill upgrades.
Cosmopolitan: Participate in guild v. guild battles or chill out and chat with players from all over the globe.
Out-play and out-maneuver other players for the number 1 spot on the world leaderboard!
Rise up as a legendary adventurer and realize your grand destiny!
Written by Remko Molenaar (Proxzor)
When I bought my VR headset, I never planned to actually play Virtual Reality titles outside of the simulation racing games I bought it for. But after trying out a few games made specifically for VR, I fell in love and craved more. Virtual Reality is still a bit of a new niche, a gimmick to have but not entirely up to par with current non-VR games. Every day more VR games of many shapes and forms are released, and many look promising, beyond the generic rail shooter where you stand still and the enemies come in waves at you. Archangel takes a different approach, one that reminds me of the many action packed shooting games you’d find at an arcade.
At the beginning of Archangel you are sitting in the train with your son, heading to work to surprise your son for his birthday. Straight away the story gets really intriguing, and I felt really immersed in this new virtual world. The closer you get to the destination, the more you figure out about the unknown world around you and why there are people working in the background. It reminds me of another successful game, many moons ago. When we arrived in the hangar I had a moment of awe, and even though it was a surprise for your son, the moment the doors went open and the train shifted from a wagon into some sort of box you buy pies in, I was absolutely amazed by the amazing scale of the huge mech waiting for you and its mission.
It doesn’t take long until you are loaded into the mech and get ready for your first training mission. Since the Mech is completely new technology to you and the people you work for, you get to test out how the Mech operates and fires its guns. Right away I had Pacific Rim vibes, a movie that was all about people operating Mechs and using them to defend people. When you get used to the Mech and have experienced the neural link connection with the on board systems, you are ready to go on a mission – until the base you are in is attacked, and a dramatic turn of events changes the whole situation. Now, you must get ready for battle.
Even though the game doesn’t need a good story to be fun and interesting, this turn of events slightly killed the immersion I had. I felt I had jumped into a very interesting story. I am a sucker for games with really good stories, it’s one of the few reasons I try to play every game just to check it out if the story is intriguing enough. I’ve come to an age where graphics aren’t super important: gameplay still can spark my interest, but the story gets me sticking around. But after this tutorial of getting to know your mech, the immersion of the story drastically changed, and the game suddenly changed into a generic shooter.
Virtual Reality games are played with special controllers, and since I usually don’t use the Oculus Rift Touch controllers, I had to get used to them a little. After the first mission I get why the technology isn’t quite there yet in terms of usability. The game reminds me of one of those action packed shooters you’ll find at the arcade, the ones where you get to use a plastic gun, and have to shoot at the screen like its some sort of Duck Hunt game on the NES. Archangel plays exactly the same: the Mech moves automatically on its own, and you get to control its fists and guns to shoot everything around you. This works as well as you’d think. It’s not super difficult, but the game throws challenges at you that make you wonder why you picked ‘normal difficulty’ because it still is quite difficult.
There isn’t exactly more to it than that. Archangel keeps throwing different challenges at you, different sort of obstacles to overcome and attack, but the game doesn’t really offer much excitement. I also had a lot of trouble getting immersed into the game itself. While the story at the beginning did a great start, the whole game doesn’t really let you feel like you are sitting in a Mech. You walk around endlessly around what used to be cities, but are now covered in sand as if they were just deserts, but the game never really immerses you what exactly is going on in the world. You know there are the good guys and bad guys, and you happen to be on the ‘good’ side for whatever reason that justifies it. The Mech itself is also somewhat of a disappointing, not in the sense of the fighting, but in that Archangel doesn’t make you feel like the Mech is actually real. The sounds are disappointing, the mech makes no sound whatsoever unless you take a few hits, or rockets fly from its rails, but the lacking sound of footsteps, or anything you do with your mech makes you feel like you are just sitting in some training simulator instead of doing the real thing.
The gameplay is simple; you point and click and have to deal with the many obstacles that fly or ride your way. Even though it is a great shooter to pass your time, I did find some annoyances that personally made me like the game less. Both your left and right arm are controlled with each one of the controllers you use for virtual reality. While this isn’t a big deal, both crosshairs are almost the same with the exact same color for ammunition, and occasionally I just lost the tracking, and I was missing shots because my mind thought I was shooting rockets to the left, while the crosshair for my rockets was actually on the right side of the screen and visa versa, and this in itself makes the game needlessly more difficult and makes you appreciate less of the game than you want.
Conclusion: Fair (2.5/5)
Archangel is an interesting game that immerses you in its story, throws you into a Mech with a bunch of very awesome tools, and then pulls the rug underneath you to leave you wondering what exactly is left. A shooter on rails with confusing controls, that lets you upgrade your Mech after each mission. Since Virtual Reality games are still very new, and the technology isn’t quite yet on par with normal games, I expect Virtual Reality games to blink out in one way or another. While the game play is interesting and reminds me of those arcade games, Virtual Reality games always come down to the question: “is it worth setting up my Virtual Reality, clearing the room of obstacles and sweating a ton from the warmth of the glasses and moving around?” And the answer for me and Archangel is ‘no’. The game right now is fun, but it bored me quickly and the immersion was almost completely lost once gameplay began. While the game isn’t priced at a full retail price, you still have to ask yourself if the price tag is worth the mindless shooting of this arcade style game.