February’s update for Assassin’s Creed Odyssey features a free story pack, new game features, and perhaps most important of all: New Game+.
Monthly Archives: February 2019
Human: Fall Flat Coming to Mobile
505 Games announced today a partnership with fellow indie publisher Curve Digital to bring No Brakes Games’ PC and Console blockbuster Human: Fall Flat to mobile platforms. Human: Fall Flat is a 3D-platform-puzzle title where players find creative, but also hilarious ways to steer “Bob” through complex environments. This is done alone, or can also be done with friends. The mobile version is being developed by Codeglue, who are responsible for the original Terraria mobile ports.
“505 Games are proud to bring our vast experience of faithfully developing and publishing on mobile platforms to help our friends at Curve Digital bring one of their major IPs to an even broader audience,” said 505 Games President Neil Ralley. “Through our experience with Terraria and other mobile projects, we know how to optimise PC and console games to play on touch screens and ensure that the gameplay inputs and user interfaces are as intuitive as they are on other platforms.”
Tannenberg Official Release Trailer
Tannenberg is a World War 1 FPS title from the developers of Verdun, and it’s now available on Steam. Taking place on the Eastern Front, it brings World War 1 to life with 64 players doing battle for control of key sectors on the battlefield, each with their own distinct advantage. Players do battle as the Russian Empire, German, and their allies to bring a fresh look to this historical period.
The release of Tannenberg also has an update with it, bringing a new Bulgarian squad to the game, and the new Dobruja border region. New weapons are also included for the Bulgarian squad and other in-game factions.
Kingdom Hearts 3 Review (Xbox One)
by Jason Parker (Ragachak)
Dangerous, huh? In Piratetown? Underwater? Nah…
My apologies that this took so long to get out, but I had two multi-day press events to attend, and I was only able to take my Xbox One on one of them. So it took me a little longer to get this out than I would have liked. I was very much looking forward to reviewing Kingdom Hearts 3 because I am not a wild fan of the franchise – I love it, conceptually, but never really got into it. Thanks a lot, KH2’s 75-hour tutorial. That is one of my favorite things about the beginning of Kingdom Hearts 3 – while Olympus might be the “Tutorial” area, it just feels like a regular zone. The pop-ups for things you need to know are quick and can be dismissed. You won’t see anything about the story in this review, or as little as possible. That’s mostly due to wanting to avoid spoilers for people who still have not started, and also, let’s be honest: This series is very confusing. You control Sora and his pals Goofy and Donald tag along to help you do battle with The Organization, and everyone out there who wants to bring more darkness into the world.
For people who don’t remember the story, or simply never played some of the previous games, the main menu can lead you to lots of videos to get you caught up, but I have to say, I enjoyed playing this game even without the others. Does it make me want to go play the games I missed, or revisit the previous KH installments? The jury is still out on that. I enjoyed a lot of the quality-of-life changes made in Kingdom Hearts 3, and most importantly – no Final Fantasy character cameos. I feel like I’m probably in the minority here, but let me plead my case. I’m okay with cameos that “make sense”. But shoehorning in Squall, Yuffie, Yuna, et cetera for the sake of “star power” is repulsive to me. Maybe in Kingdom Hearts 1, where it was a new franchise, and needed a little star power to get people’s eyes on it, that can be overlooked. But when I saw Kingdom Hearts originally, I really wanted it to just be these new characters and Disney worlds, being built and enjoyed on their own merits. Perhaps it’s a silly thing to complain about, but I didn’t care for it. But the brief references to the franchise in Kingdom Hearts 3 were nice, made sense, and were just fine with me.
As in the previous games, you will fly around in your cool little Gummi Ship, traveling to different worlds. Gummi Ship combat and customization is easy, it’s awesome, and the exploration of space is a lot of fun. There are plenty of treasures to acquire out there, and I loaded my ship down with tons of guns and blasted everything in my path. Each of these Disney Worlds has its own suggested level. This didn’t really matter much to me, even playing on Standard. To be frank, Kingdom Hearts 3 is very easy, except for one spot for me. I only found one stumbling block, and that was mostly due to motion sickness in Pirates World.
That was the first point in the game where I received a Game Over. As I was traveling these worlds (eight in total, five of which are new), something hit me: These worlds feel empty, compared to their Kingdom Hearts 2 brethren. You only go to each world once, and 100 Acre Wood, in particular, was disappointing. No pages to collect, no vast areas to explore and soak in. Each world visually is breathtaking. They “feel” like their namesake, and each area does tend to take a few hours to complete, but somehow I still felt like I wanted more. I enjoyed each world, but I still felt like it was a hollow experience.
Speaking of the game itself, I absolutely loved the intro of the game, where you pick what “type” of Sora you will be (magical, physical, strength-based, et cetera). That particular area and all of its stained-glass were stellar. I went with Vitality/Strength because I just wanted to bash things in the face with my keyblade, and bash them I did! On that note, combat is very simple. You can have up to three Keyblades equipped at once, and can swap them back and forth at will with the Left/Right Dpad arrows. Locking onto an enemy will send you leaping towards them when you attack (within reason), and as you deal damage to enemies, it will activate various special, powerful techniques. Each Keyblade has transformative powers, activated with the Y button. My personal favorite one came out of Monsters, Inc. It has tons of range, tons of damage, and is just a treat to wield.
As you land combos, you can also use “Attractions”. These are attacks based on Disney World/Land rides, such as the Teacups, Merry Go Round, and a Tron Bumper Car. At first, I loved these Attractions – they deal tons of damage, are fun to see, and can really turn a fight around. But as the game went on, I would go out of my way to ignore them, because they can also make fights drag on much longer. These also activate with the Y button, as do your various Team-Up powers (Flare Force, Goofy Bombardier, et cetera). Let’s not forget that Sora has forms to activate too! You will virtually always have a new attack outside of your melee/spells to use. You cycle through them with one of your bumper buttons, so you can cycle to the one you want. Combat was very easy, even formulaic. It was fun to do, but it lacked any kind of challenge.
Crafting is back, too! You can craft most of the useful items, and can also increase the power of your Keyblades, which was a neat way to justify exploring every nook and cranny of the worlds for materials. There are things to do outside of actually playing the game, but not as much as I was hoping for. For example, the cooking mini-games are fun, except for cracking eggs. You can purchase a lot of the cooking materials, but they are also littered across each world. It was a neat concept, but not one that had me eagerly going back to it constantly. The stat bonuses for eating foods was, however, very nice. There’s not a lot of exploration outside of the main worlds to be done in Kingdom Hearts 3, and that admittedly did disappoint me. I was looking for something more but did not find it. While the side content was lacking, as were additional trips to worlds.
You know what I did love about the game? The writing. The characters were expertly written – even Sora! Sora is a goofy teenager, cocksure and obnoxious. He may seem like kind of a dork, but it fits him as a character. The Disney characters felt very much like their original selves, even if some of the voices did not seem familiar. I’m not going to complain about that at all, because it’s been 13 years – people pass on, and things change. This was arguably my favorite part of the whole game, soaking in character interactions. In particular, Hades and Pete. Even if the actual story is tied in proverbial knots, the character interactions and dialog did make me smile. I loved going through Disney film-themed worlds that I have not seen, such as Frozen and Tangled too! I was hoping for more worlds, or trips back to them to complete more story-themed missions, but I took what I could get.
A (Mostly) Whole New World: 3.5/5 (Good)
I had a lot of fun with Kingdom Hearts 3, on a personal level. Far more than I initially thought I would. It’s considerably shorter than its predecessors, but there is a very important Hidden Movie to unlock. It tells me that the next installment of Kingdom Hearts will be even more intense than this one. It’s not what I expected to get when I started playing, but I did still have a great deal of fun. I enjoyed using the Gummiphone, taking selfies with my team and desperately trying to find Lucky Emblems (which are key to getting the Hidden Movie). However, every single time someone said: “Hey look, a Lucky Emblem!” I would desperately scrounge around for 10 minutes trying to find out where those buffoons were staring. I did have a few stand out complaints though. For the standard difficulty level, this game was insanely easy. I only died in one area, and that was in Pirates of the Caribbean. That is partially due to motion sickness and dealing with that damn ship. The other sort of downer is how empty the worlds themselves were, in terms of content. You only go to an area once, and that’s it unless you’re hunting Lucky Emblems or something like that. It’s fun, but it feels a little hollow.
I didn’t want it to blast me in the face over and over, but I was hoping it would not be quite so simple. The Xbox One S version did have some bad frame rate drops in some of the cutscenes though. The retro games you could unlock, in the style of Tiger Games/Mr. Game and Watch Games were a treat, and I spent way more time playing those than I thought I would. I loved the glut of abilities you could unlock for Sora, all of the spells and attacks were incredibly cool to watch, and the game itself is very cinematic. Sometimes that’s a stumbling block though – Having to wait 20 or so minutes for the next bit of gameplay was starting to grate on my nerves a tiny bit. I’ve heard some voices state how disappointed or angry they are about Kingdom Hearts 3, but I wasn’t. I was mildly disappointed, but most of my experiences were positive.
A copy of Kingdom Hearts 3 for the Xbox One was provided for the purpose of this review.
Tibia – Official Trailer 2016
Trailer for the long running MMORPG, Tibia.
Mage’s Initiation: Reign of the Elements Review
by Jason Parker (Ragachak)
Are they delusions of grandeur? Or is he truly that mighty? It’s up to you.
Mage’s Initiation: Reign of the Elements takes me back to my youth for the classic (and oft-frustrating) Adventure games. Quest for Glory, Discworld, Myst. These games are challenging and frustrating in equal measures. They were a staple of the 80s and 90s PC environment and really showed off exactly what PC gaming could be. A lot of these worlds were open and wide, with little to no instruction or help to guide you. Mage’s Initiation replicates this, for better or for worse. There’s a part of me that absolutely loves these point-and-click Adventures, but they also leave me feeling angry and frustrated. No game makes me feel quite as stupid as a well-made Adventure Game. And in this one, Mage’s Ascension, we’ll be taking on the role of the plucky young would-be Mage, D’arc. He’s a little snarky, a little clever, and his ascension to becoming a Mage is fraught with dark peril. D’arc will wield what is known as a “Conductor” to cast his spells through, and it can even be affixed with gems to augment it. Those ought to be rare and hard to come by, but they are most definitely not. But it’s still a nice touch.
The game begins with the initiate D’arc undergoing a test to see what style of mage he will become: What manner of element will he command? Mine wound up being earth, but it can also be fire, water, or air. Ultimately I don’t think which you become matters, because all of the elements will start you with at least a ranged attack spell (a rock in my case), which you will need to overcome the battles ahead. This test is in the form of a Morality Test, such as you might find in another franchise from the Adventure Genre’s era, Ultima. You’ll be asked a series of questions, and based on what you answer, you’ll receive new colored clothes and a new mission. You’ll need to get your spells before you can venture off into the world. What would a mage be without spells? But in order to be a real mage, you have to pass the Initiation, and your challenges are going to be tricky, difficult, and filled with danger. This was the first major hurdle for me though, and where I learned a valuable lesson: All of the challenges in this game can be overcome by dragging the mouse everywhere.

I was absolutely livid when I realized how many times I walked right past the solution to this puzzle.
In order to get those spells, you have to do a few things in the Tower itself, such as obtain something that shares your element. For Earth, I absolutely could not figure it out. I went into every single room, over and over, until I realized that there was a pot in the very first room of the tower, that had some dirt and seeds in it. In this, a valuable lesson is learned. When in doubt, hover over every item on the screen. Useful items won’t really stand out against the background, so you really have to check every screen you’re on, and there’s lots of backtracking that will go on. This is also not a game you can just grind out, either. Speaking of Spells, combat does not grant EXP, but a knowledge of the combat is needed to beat this game, and is also important to fund some of your adventures in this world. This means you can’t grind your way to success, but you also have to consider carefully where to put stat points. Personally, I focused on Intelligence, for more spell damage. Combat, however, is fairly simple.
It’s frustrating in that battles can appear out of nowhere (and often do), and simply leaving the screen you’re on isn’t always enough to get you out of combat. If it’s a stationary opponent (like the Goblin on top of a platform), you can just walk away. But for more mobile enemies, you might have to run two or three screens to exit combat. The actual combat is easy. You swap through the abilities (though you’ll probably mostly just use your attack spell) and cast with the RMB. You can run around, hide behind trees/rocks to avoid their attacks, but for me I just ran away and cast Rock Throw until they were dead. Since combat provides no EXP, I felt no problem with turning down the difficulty slider for combat in the options menu. If I’m not going to be rewarded for combat other than some gold and items, I’m not going to struggle and stress through each battle.
Control is fairly solid in Mage’s Initiation as well. You can walk around with WASD, or you can use your mouse to click spots on the map. You don’t get to just press a button or click on people/objects to interact with them though. Through the control scheme, you can “Talk”, Take”, “Look”, see what you are currently holding, go through your inventory, character sheet, and other options. You have three styles of interaction/control. First is “Compact Style”, where you right click, and it pulls up a small box with your options in it. Then there’s “Verb-Coin Interface”, which sounds complicated, but isn’t. You hold down the LMB on the item you want to interact with, and it pulls up a wheel of all the options you have. I personally use “Drop-down Bar”, which your menu stuff is in a hidden menu at the top of the screen. Putting your mouse there makes it appear. Your “look/talk/take” options are in your RMB. Clicking RMB cycles through your held item, looking, et cetera. It’s a little awkward if you aren’t used to these games, but it makes more sense with time and in-game application.
This not a game that’s going to hold your hand and help you figure out what you’re meant to do. People who are not familiar with the Adventure/Point-and-Click genre are probably going to wind up frustrated, but you just have to remember that this is all about exploration. Once you’ve beaten it, you can probably breeze your way through everything, but back in my day, you had to make your own maps, write everything down, and piece it together by hand. You still pretty much have to do that here, but by playing on Steam, you can at least screenshot anything you think is important, and come back to it later. That’s what I did. I appreciate that the game is very plot-focused. Most of the characters you encounter are interesting, and this is certainly a unique world. I enjoy the 80s/90s art style, and the landscapes you explore are very stylish and attractive. This game takes me back to the 90s in every conceivable way, even down to the awkward, goofy way that D’arc runs. All I need now are some Pogs and Nintendo Cereal and I’ll really be back in time. There’s plenty to do, and figuring it all out really stretches out the amount of time spent in this world.
Lightning Bolt! Lightning Bolt! 3/5 (Good)
Mage’s Initiation: Reign of the Elements is a really interesting, well-thought-out Adventure game. It brings a fair bit to the Adventure style, but I honestly felt like most of what I did in the world didn’t matter. That feeling first came when I was doing the test to determine my element – when I received my element, I was given a chance to retake the test. That really took me out of the “destiny” aspect of being a mage. While I think the control was smooth, a part of me hoped to see something new, instead of the classic Adventure-style controls. There are plenty of puzzles, but ultimately, instead of thinking your way through, you can just hover over things until you find the solution. I do think it’s a fascinating idea to replicate this style of game so perfectly. I do however think it would possibly snare more players if there were some quality-of-life changes, and fumbling through the menus did not feel quite so clunky.
While it is supposed to be a tribute to the Quest for Glory series, much of the dialogue felt very forced. It was either the actual written dialogue, or the character speaking it just didn’t seem to care about it, so some of the emotion was drained out of the game. I liked the characters, I liked how they were presented, but I cared very little for what they actually said. I am wondering if this is going to turn into a series, much like the Quest for Glory franchise. This is definitely a nice showing for the revival of the Adventure genre, but I do worry that the nature of the game might be a turn-off for those who have never played an Adventure game. I recommend it anyway. It’s still a fun way to spend an afternoon, from figuring out how to make the Raft, to making money and defeating bad guys and solving puzzles, Mage’s Initiation: Reign of the Elements has plenty to offer fans of the 90s PC games, and newcomers alike.
Note: A code was provided for review purposes.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider’s New DLC ‘The Price of Survival’ Out Now
The latest DLC has arrived for Square Enix’s Shadow of the Tomb Raider, entitled The Price of Survival. It is available as a part of the Season Pass, and also sold separately. Lara Croft has to solve a mystery behind her greatest foe. While trying to crack the private codes of Trinity’s leader, there is also a terrific, poison-filled challenge tomb, which is a single-player event.
The new Hunter’s Array outfit is a Classic Trinity uniform that will make Lara’s footsteps a bit quieter while running. There is also the Silent Sting, which is a silenced pistol. Finally, the Raptor’s Eye skill improves Lara’s skill tracking enemies, making their outline visible through walls and other obstacles.
As part of the update, tombs from the main campaign, “Judge’s Gaze,” “Underworld Gate,” “Howling Caves”, “Path of Battle,” “Temple of the Sun,” “San Cordoba,” and “Ancient Aqueduct” are all now playable in Score Attack and Time Attack modes.
Civilization VI: Every New Wonder in Civilization VI: Gathering Storm
The Civilization VI team is here with every single new Wonder that’s coming in the Civ VI expansion, Gathering Storm. Which ones are your favorites?
The Liar Princess and the Blind Prince – And So Our Story Begins
The beautiful, but tragic story of The Liar Princess and The Blind Prince officially hits Playstation 4 and Nintendo Switch today. They are on a dangerous trek to restore the Prince’s sight. Will these two somehow live happily ever after?
Arma 3 – Steam Free Weekend Trailer
From February 14th-18th, Arma 3 will be free to play on Steam! Don’t have any Valentine’s plans? Why not tackle some Arma? In addition, there will also be a 66% off sale!
















