Monthly Archives: March 2015
Resident Evil: Revelations 2 PC Officially Gets Local Co-Op
Capcom has introduced local co-op for Resident Evil: Revelations 2 on PC through a new open beta program. The news comes days after a Steam user released their own split-screen co-op mod for the game.
Local co-op was available at launch for the console versions of Resident Evil: Revelations 2. The game's original Steam description led customers to believe that would also be the case on PC. Capcom later apologized for the mix-up, noting at the time that the feature had been cut "to ensure a stable user experience across a variety of different PC settings and devices."
Assassin’s Creed, Red Dead Lead This Week’s Deals With Gold
This week's Deals with Gold have been revealed and include Assassin's Creed Unity on Xbox One and Red Dead Redemption on Xbox 360.
As outlined on Major Nelson's blog, Xbox One owners can pick up Assassin's Creed Unity for 33 percent off, while both The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams - Director's Cut are 50 percent on the console.
Xbox 360 owners, meanwhile, have a heap of Rockstar titles to choose from, with Bully Scholarship Edition, L.A. Noire, Midnight Club LA, Max Payne 3 and Red Dead Redemption all available for 75 percent off. Additionally, the Max Payne 3 Rockstar Pass is also 75 percent discounted. The Amazing Spider-Man and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 are 63 and 60 percent off, respectively.
Final Sunset Overdrive DLC Revealed
Sunset Overdrive's final piece of DLC - Dawn of the Rise of the Fallen Machines - has been announced with an April 1 release date.
In this week's episode of Sunset TV, host Brandon Winfrey was joined by Jessica Chobot to reveal the new add-on, which sees a rescue mission to save Sam's old mentors from Fizzco Robotics go south.
New missions, quests and challenges are all present, and you'll be able to explore the robotics factory too. Additionally, a new Energy Ball of Death tool will enable you to roll around the city, getting to your destination quickly and crushing the life out of everything in your path. Check it out:
IGN's review gave Sunset Overdrive a 9.0 for its “fun, frantic, and fantastic gaming” in an open-world environment that somehow made getting from point A to point B fun.
Power/Rangers Producer’s James Bond Fan Film
Adi Shankar, the creator of the gritty Power Rangers bootleg, has just released his take on James Bond.
The movie, titled In Service of Nothing, stars Christopher Gee, Fryda Wolf, Damien Haas, Gregory Hardigan and Rachel Kimsey.
“I always wondered what would happen to James Bond in his old age and in our borderless world,” says Shankar. “I'm not referring to the Bond we've seen in recent films, that incarnation is closer to Jason Bourne meets Batman. I'm referring to the swanky, alcoholic, serial killer, with mommy issues that we saw in films like Dr. No and Goldfinger. How would he find a sense of purpose in a self-absorbed and impersonal modern world once his license to kill has been revoked?”
Nintendo Explains Why Re-Releasing Amiibo is Hard
Nintendo of Japan has announced it's working on re-releasing three Amiibo soon, explaining why resupplying retailers takes so long in the process.
A note of the company's website (via NeoGAF) explains new shipments of Villager, Little Mac and Captain Falcon will be coming to Japan in mid-May. There's no word on whether other regions will get similar treatment.
As for why the company has struggled to keep up with demand, the post explains it takes several months for Amiibo to reach stores once production has begun as it's a rather complex process, with several of the models being done by hand.
Dragon Age: Inquisition Patch Adds Party Storage
BioWare has released the full set of patch notes for Dragon Age: Inquisition's next update.
A blog post reveals the full list of additions, the most notable of which is the addition of Party Storage. At long last you'll be able to store weapons and armor for your party members without cluttering up your inventory space.
A PC-only note also explains the option to toggle mouse look has been added, but may experience odd behavior occasionally. It'll be tweaked in future patches.
The full list of patch notes is below:
- Fixed an issue that allowed characters to take damage while using the Counterstrike ability.
Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns Refines, Not Reinvents
As a lapsed Guild Wars 2 player, the recent news about the Heart of Thorns expansion inspired me to return to Tyria and see what’s been happening in the months that I’ve been absent. Pleasingly, the MMO has come on in leaps and bounds since launch and is now in the enviable position of thriving as a buy-to-play MMO with a legion of devoted fans. Which is why I’m cautiously optimistic about coming away from my time with Heart of Thorns feeling it does a hell of a lot right that’ll make fans happy, though it’s unclear if it’ll be enough to sway the uninitiated.
Marvel’s Cinematic Universe: 7 Inhumans We Want
Warning: this article contains spoilers for Marvel's Agent's of S.H.I.E.L.D. up until the first half of Season 2.
If you've been watching Agent's of S.H.I.E.L.D. this season, you know that the show has been setting the stage for the Inhumans in a big way. These secret beings, hiding among humanity and gifted with the ability to gain superhuman powers, are starting to emerge in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Even Skye has discovered that she numbers among this ancient race.
Resident Evil: Revelations 2 – Episode Two Review
Resident Evil: Revelations 2 sets you down the same path at two different points in time, playing as iconic characters Barry Burton and Claire Redfield. In the first episode, Claire is stuck on an island that's under the control of a devious overseer, who subjected her and her companion, Barry's daughter Moira, to a veritable gauntlet of violent and deformed monstrosities as they tried to make their escape. Barry arrived six months later, hoping to rescue his daughter, and when he landed ashore, he befriended a mysterious girl named Natalia who can see enemies through walls, making her a very useful companion indeed. Even though you ran through the same locations twice, once as each party, different weapons, enemy types and companion abilities were enough to stave off repetitiveness, even if the latter wasn't always used creatively at all times.
Episode One ended with a compelling cliffhanger that introduced a pivotal plot point, and while it's not surprising that it doesn't come full circle by the time Episode 2 ends, it would have been nice to have a little more narrative to chew on as you near the halfway mark in the overall story. In total, there's very little new information revealed until Episode 2's own cliffhanger, which reinvigorates your interest in the events at hand, but also leaves you in the dark, with unanswered questions luring you back for Episode Three.
At least the action picks up some of the slack. Claire and Moira kick off the latest episode in a rundown village, where they encounter a pair of other people from TerraSave, Claire and Moira's employer. Unfortunately, the new characters you meet offer more poorly-written and -acted dialogue, much like Moira did in Episode One, but at least she's less abrasive this time around. With their help, you attempt to eradicate the once-active logging village of its afflicted vermin, an act that ends with you in a cabin as enemies burst through windows on every side. It's one of two peaks during Claire and Moira's chapter that gets your adrenaline flowing.
After escaping the village, you emerge in a rundown city, with derelict busses and violent dogs patrolling rusty playgrounds. In the middle, a tower stands tall. It juts from the city's foundation, dominating the skyline, and on top, a pulsing, ominous red light beckons you to enter. The number of stories between the ground level and the top inspires fear; you're a long way from the top, and it can only get worse as you close in on the den of your manipulator.
Revelations' puzzles, if you can really call them that, are standard fare. The challenge is often survival during the act of resolving the roadblock, rather than the process of coming up with the solution.
As you move through its halls, puzzles with switches and doors stand in your way, per usual, but after Episode One, you know the drill at this point. Revelations' puzzles, if you can really call them that, are standard fare. The challenge is often survival during the act of resolving the roadblock, rather than the process of coming up with the solution.
This is most evident when playing as Barry and Natalia, when the game introduces invisible monsters that only Natalia can see. They appear to her as orange or red clouds, depending on how close they are, but Barry sees nothing except screen-wide waves of luminance and color that disrupt his, and your, vision. Simply skirting past these enemies isn't an option; you die the moment you make physical contact with one. To overcome them, you have to use Natalia to figure out the general location of the enemy, and you have to switch to Barry to kill them, which is easier said than done when you're firing blind. The interplay of their two skills is valuable here, but it also comes across as forced, standing between you and the rest of the game.
Natalia and Barry must separate in order to make it past a door that stays open for a limited amount of time, for instance, with one person manning the switch while the other physically prevents the door from closing. You initially clear the area while fighting side by side, going through the motions of looking through Natalia's eyes and then Barry's to take down invisible monsters. Once the coast is clear, you both go your separate ways for a moment, but you ultimately need to reunite when another invisible monster appears between Barry and Natalia. Natalia can't sneak past it or defeat it; she can only see it. Barry must come to the rescue, but with each character on a different side of the monster, you practically have to triangulate its position as you fire blindly. The fact that it's invisible and will always kill you in one hit makes the experience frustrating, as you have to redo the previous steps of killing the other invisible monsters and fixing the door before you get to try that part again.
Where Barry and Natalia stole the show during the last episode, the best moments of Episode Two come from Claire's side of the story, because Barry and Natalia don't really accomplish a lot this time around. Other than the aforementioned cabin scene, the boss that Claire and Moira fight after entering the tower is one of episode two's other highlights. He's a large, cannon-wielding foe, and he's also got a team watching his back. Go big or go home: this battle is easiest won by fighting fire with fire. Fire bombs and other expendables may or may not have been useful to you in tense situations before, but you better pray that you have enough left here, because without them, it's going to be a long and arduous fight. Part of what makes this exciting is that you are probably fighting on your last legs, ammo-wise, but the boss itself is also smarter and more threatening than other enemies you've fought so far, and you have to be proactive rather than reactive to come out on top. It's a great conclusion to Claire's time in the spotlight, but it leaves a lot for Barry's story to live up to.
Sadly, it doesn't, and it's disappointing to see that, once again, only one half of this week's episode is praise-worthy. Claire and Moira face tense situations, and when you come upon a new environment, you're seeing it for the first time, but once you take control of Barry, you're essentially going through the motions in the same environments that Claire did until you encounter the invisible enemies, which are more frustrating than anything else. The concept of an invisible enemy is interesting, but the fact that it also kills you in one hit makes its purpose so transparent that you loathe it, rather than appreciate the opportunity it presents. Were it not for Claire's chapter, it wouldn't be hard to sit out the rest of Resident Evil: Revelations 2, but the memory of the good times, and the latest cliffhanger, ultimately stick with you when the credits roll.
Gone Home ‘Not Actively in Development’ for Consoles
Gone Home, first-person conceptual simulation game from The Fullbright Company, is not actively in development for consoles.
Game designer Steve Gaynor explained on Colin & Greg Live today that the partnership with Midnight City has gone dark, possibly due financial troubles of the indie publisher’s parent company Majesco.
“And, unfortunately, we don’t have exciting, good news about that, I wish I did,” Gaynor said during the Kinda Funny Games livestream. “Yeah, it’s been quite a while, and as you kind of sensed, there’s been some delays and maybe you have seen some things that have changed with Majesco.