EndWar Online discusses their plans for artillery units.
Monthly Archives: February 2015
Chaos Heroes Online: Closing Down Soon
Aeria Games has recently announced that Chaos Heroes Online will close on the last week of February. All AP spent on the game will be fully refunded to the player’s accounts and can be used on any Aeria Games title. No other details have been given regarding the shutdown.
For more info, visit http://chaosheroesonline.aeriagames.com/news/118373/chaos-heroes-our-last-goodbye
Terraria: Otherworld Teaser Trailer
Initial alpha gameplay of Terraria’s sequel: Otherworld.
Europa Universalis IV: El Dorado Release Date Set
Set sail for adventure, guarding treasure fleets and unlocking the secrets of the Amazon. Sacrifice vassal kings to angry gods to stave off Doomsday. Or, stand outside history, and create a new nation from scratch. More wonders of alternate history are coming very soon.
Europa Universalis IV expands again on February 26 with the release of its El Dorado expansion. This, the fifth expansion to Paradox Development Studio’s best-selling historical grand strategy game, adds greater depth to the New World as your European explorers and conquistadors seek wealth and glory in South and Central America.
With the new Nation Designer, Europa Universalis IV players will be able to create custom challenges anywhere on Earth. Randomized nations with up to 32 user-designed creations open amazing new possibilities for both multiplayer and single player experiences.
El Dorado adds greater depth to the Aztec, Mesoamerican and Incan cultures with new religions and mechanics to help them prepare for the inevitable foreign invasions. Can you ward off Doomsday and hold off the Spanish armies?
El Dorado also introduces a system to automate exploration at sea and on land, where your hardy adventurers will encounter new events and decisions in their quest for cities of gold. There are also treasure fleets, changes to vassal management and many minor changes – as well as the usual pile of content free to all Europa Universalis IV players that accompanies every Paradox Development Studio expansion.
Tomorrow, on Febuary 19th, you can join Project Leader Martin “Wiz” Anward as he talks about the additions to Mesoamerica in Europa Universalis IV: El Dorado and details the content of the related patch on a live stream at 18.00 CET (+1 GMT) over on our twitch channel: http://www.twitch.tv/
For more information, please visit www.europauniversalis4.com.
Tales Runner Races Its Way On To Steam
After Tales Runner’s successful launch back in April 2014, OGPlanet, a leading publisher of Free-to-Play, multiplayer online games, proudly announced the game’s expansion onto the Steam platform. The ongoing growth of the game and its community continues to open new doors, marking Steam as one of its biggest milestones achieved since its introduction to the Western market.
Tales Runner’s Main Features:
- Famous Fairy Tale Maps: Race through tracks based on your favorite Fairy Tales such as Jack & the Bean Stalk, Alice in Wonderland and many more.
- Intense PvP: Compete against your friends and other opponents in intense PvP racing with up to 20 players in various game modes such as Relay, Co-Op or Team. Those up for a real challenge can try their luck at Survival Mode where it is truly survival of the fittest.
- Challenging PvE: Play against various magical enemies and confront epic bosses from legendary tales. You better team up with a friend though, these bosses mean business.
- Social MMO: Meet your friends in the Park and chat about your exciting races and victories or invite them to your farm where you can raise your pet and grow crops to sell.
- Animal Racing: Raise and train your pet to become a four legged speed machine. Prove to your friends that you have the fastest pet by challenging them to an epic animal race.
- Mini-Games: Take a break from the intense racing to play some fun and casual mini-games such as a Jeopardy style quiz game, fortune tellers and more.
For more info, visit http://tr.ogplanet.com
Koei Tecmo 2015 Preview – Full Event Recap
Last week Zelus attended a special Koei-Tecmo America and Team NINJA event to preview a slew of games, including Toukiden: Kiwami, Bladestorm: Nightmare, Dead or Alive 5: Last Round, and Dynasty Warriors 8: Empires.
As a general observation, all of the games present were reincarnations or iterations over established and known franchises – no big surprises here, but plenty of info. Everything on display was hands-on and all games used pre-release builds on PlayStation 4s. At the event, Team NINJA’s Creative Director Tom Lee and Tecmo of Japan’s Producer Takashi Morinaka were present and gave some details about their respective upcoming games.
We’ve just posted Zelus’ impressions of Toukiden: Kiwami and Bladestorm: Nightmare; check them out here:
http://www.onrpg.com/articles/editorial/toukiden-kiwami-preview-event-recap/
http://www.onrpg.com/articles/editorial/bladestorm-nightmare-preview-event-write-up/
We’ve posted Zelus’ preview and hands-on impressions for Dead or Alive 5: Last Round last week, so check it out here if you haven’t already:
http://www.onrpg.com/articles/editorial/dead-or-alive-5-last-round-press-preview/
Though Zelus’ played Dynasty Warriors 8: Empires for a while, Ragachak will be bringing his impressions to the table in an upcoming review as soon as our embargo lifts at the end of February.
World of Warcraft: Patch 6.1 Survival Guide
World of Warcraft‘s Draenor campaign continues on February 24 with a new content update.
Bladestorm: Nightmare Preview & Event Write-up
By Tyler Wood (Zelus_Craft), SF Correspondent and Tech Wizard
At a San Francisco event last week I had the opportunity to play the PlayStation 4 version of Bladestorm: Nightmare, a combined revamp and sequel of Bladestorm: The Hundred Years’ War. Here’s a quick rundown of what’s new, but beware: minor campaign spoilers ahead.
Bladestorm: Nightmare is a third-person real-time tactics game set in 14th and 15th century England and France. This revamp and sequel features the original Hundred Years’ War campaign with an additional campaign titled ‘Nightmare,’ online co-op and vs game modes, and small quality of life updates like unit speed tweaks, an improved character creation system, and PlayStation 4 controller touchpad support for helpful battlefield information.

Like Bladestorm: The Hundred Years’ War, the first campaign focuses on a loose interpretation of the Hundred Years’ War between England and France and story arcs between historical figures and mercenaries. Players may choose to fight on either side of the war, control up to four battalions of units, and ‘zap’ (switch) between them in order to capture or destroy objectives. Each battalion is comprised of infantry, cavalry, or archers, with a player-controlled hero to command the battalion’s actions. Alone, the heroes of each battalion are extremely vulnerable and rarely rack up many kills, but they are leveled up and equipped similarly to those in other hero driven games like Dynasty Warriors. Though combat follows a rock-paper-scissors style, knowing which sub-group of infantry, cavalry, or archers to use and when to use their abilities is key to winning.

Movement of battalions on the battlefield is similar to that of NPCs in Dynasty Warriors; they move in fluid clumps over and around terrain to strategic locations on the map and will move automatically when not under direct orders from a player. Issuing attack orders to battalions is as simple as pressing a button, and positioning them is easily accomplished with the control sticks. What’s challenging is keeping track of where and how your controllable battalions are acting and assessing when to regroup or press an advantage.

The new campaign, Nightmare, takes place just after the Hundred Years’ War and features an evil Joan of Arc commanding an army of dragons, wizards, goblins, and other creatures. The rise of this new threat prompts an allied effort between France and England, kicking off a weird and crazy story. Based purely in fantasy, this campaign really lets the reigns go with a slew of new units, new battlefield scenarios, and interesting objectives. The scenery and feel of the Nightmare campaign is dark and dreary in comparison to the Hundred Years’ War campaign, with the former taking place on nearly barren wastes and in bloodied villages and cities.
Though Bladestorm: Nightmare doesn’t feature different movement, combat, or vastly improved graphical fidelity, the number of NPCs on screen, and presumably the framerate, has been improved in the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 versions.

The original Bladestorm was single-player only, but Bladestorm: Nightmare will feature online co-op for two players and any progress made by players during their co-op playtime will count towards their own campaign progression. There will also be online-exclusive missions that require players to compete against each other in various scenarios, like Kill The Captain or Base Takedown, where players compete to kill their target or take over a base first.
In an interesting twist to typical online play, Bladestorm: Nightmare will also have an option to open up campaigns to other players to lead the enemy army, which sets up a PvP scenario and makes the game more challenging and more rewarding in terms of loot.

Those who have savedata from Bladestorm: The Hundred Years’War will be able to transfer it to Bladestorm: Nightmare so they may skip parts of the original campaign or revisit it with new units and equipment, if desired.
Without some serious time with the game it’s hard to judge if the new multiplayer modes, small unit tweaks, and new campaign is quite worth the price and the seven year wait, but for those who wanted to get into the first game but never got around to it then this seems like a great starting point.
Bladestorm: Nightmare makes it way to the United States on March 17th, and the EU on March 20th for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One for $59.99, and the PlayStation 3 (digital-only) for $49.99.
Toukiden: Kiwami Preview & Event Recap
By Tyler Wood (Zelus_Craft), SF Correspondent and Tech Wizard
Fans of the Monster Hunter series and similar titles, pay attention: Toukiden: Kiwami is coming to the West, and it’s getting a console release in NA and EU before Japan.
At a recent press preview event in San Francisco I had some hands-on time with the Playstation 4 version of Toukiden: Kiwami. For a quick run down, it’s both a port and enhancement of the original Toukiden with updated graphics, three new playable characters, three new weapon types, a higher frame rate, 100+% more Mitamas (spirits/souls that bind to weapons and grant abilities), a character creation option, bonus 4-player co-op only missions, team combos, and six more story chapters to play through.
For the uninitiated, the original Toukiden: Age of Demons released on the PSP and PS Vita in Japan in 2013, featuring Monster Hunter-esque gameplay and fantasy style mixed with medieval Japanese themes. Players, in teams of up to four, go out into the field to slay the Oni (demons) terrorizing the land.
The game feels, for the most part, like Monster Hunter with its arenas, basic crafting system, long battles, and looting mechanics. Unlike Monster Hunter however, there’s an insane amount of skills and abilities separate from the typical myriad of weapons. Each weapon is equipped with a Mitama, which is like a spirit who possesses and enhances weapons. Each Mitama has its own set of abilities, like active health recovery or passive buffs, which can be used by the player. Toukiden: Kiwami’s producer, Takashi Morinaka, informed us that there are “over 300 different Mitama and each has it’s own skill and level up tree.”’
With the translation assistance of Naka “Hide” Tsukasa, Takashi Morinaka guided us through the finer points of play like rifle ammunition types (which are new to the series), team combination attacks (also new), and Oni limb dismemberment tactics. It turns out that utilizing these techniques is pretty much required to beat any of the larger Oni. Many of the fights with Oni can take a while, and each have their own specific weak points that can only be detected with the ‘Eye of Truth.’ Using the ‘Eye of Truth’ drains stamina, and it’s the only way to see an Oni’s health bar, too. That said, there’s quite a bit of depth behind Mitama skills, combat movement, and positioning which will keep players engaged for extended periods of time.
Rule of thumb for ports and enhanced re-releases: More of the same, but better. Toukiden: Kiwami aims to deliver on this by the addition of new content everywhere and giving players a higher frame rate to enjoy.
Though Toukiden: Kiwami has already been released in Japan on the PS Vita, there’s a lack of a console counterpart there. Oddly enough, NA and EU players will have access to the game on the PlayStation 4 ahead of Japan, perhaps exclusively forever.
Players of the original Toukiden will be pleased to hear that their original gamesave on the PS Vita will be transferable to a Toukiden: Kiwami on either the PS Vita or Western console version after an upcoming patch.
Both the PS Vita and Playstation 4 versions of Toukiden: Kiwami will be released in North America and Europe on March 31st, 2015 for $39.99 and $59.99 respectively.
Clandestine
Clandestine is a stealth/hacking co-op game set in 1996, five years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
Features:
Asymmetrical co-op: Play as the spy while a friend guides you through the missions or take on the role of the hacker to crack infrastructure and defeat security systems.
A return to hard-core stealth games: Both enemies and combat is deadly.
An intuitive but deep hacking system: Play with options to control the game world and confuse your enemies.
Use social engineering in cooperative dialogue sequences to avoid security checkpoints and gain access to otherwise off limit areas.
Your actions won’t go unnoticed: Enemies will react to your actions and how much evidence you leave behind in each mission and assets may join or leave you depending on how you play.













