Monthly Archives: April 2015
CoD: Advanced Warfare Players Have Killed 2.5 Billion Zombies
Sledgehammer Games has released an entertaining infographic full of stats and figures from Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare's multiplayer games.
223 million zombie waves have been completed in Exo Zombies mode since launch, with players obliterating some 2.5 billion zombies.
The most popular weapon class amongst players is the assault rifle, with SMGs and Heavy weapons following closely.
Players have also boosted enough times in-game to propel someone 14,000 times across the globe (if only we could do that in real life instead of enduring long-haul economy flights).
You can check out the full infographic below. For an extra dose of big numbers, you can also check out stats from every Call of Duty game released since 2010. Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare's second expansion, Ascendance, is available now on Xbox One and Xbox 360; it is coming later to other platforms at an as-yet-unspecified date.
Team Meat: Meat Boy in Smash Bros. Would Be ‘Pretty Amazing’
Team Meat, the indie studio behind Super Meat Boy, would like to see its platforming cube of meat to join the fray in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and Nintendo 3DS.
In a post on Twitter, the developer is encouraging players to head over to Nintendo's Smash Bros. Fighter Ballot and vote in favor of Super Meat Boy being added to the Smash Bros. roster as the next playable character.
This would be pretty amazing...make it happen. Go vote!! https://t.co/KGYU2yHLZg pic.twitter.com/yEmlwbiRu5
Etrian Mystery Dungeon Review
Etrian Mystery Dungeon can leave you bullied and brokenhearted. Picture this: after descending dozens of floors and cutting down swathes of virulent enemies, you step on a trap that fills the room with enough feral boars and sharp-toothed wildcats to take out an army. You're ill-prepared, having already exhausted most of your recovery items, so down goes your only medic. You're fresh out of the nectar and Yggdrasil leaves that had kept you on your feet, and somehow you forgot to bring along an escape item to pull you out of this mess. You continually swing your sword, but even the sharpest steel can't cut through such numbers. With a meaty thud, you drop, and away goes the gold, equipment, and items that once stood as trophies of your labor.
Within the dungeons, the lows are quite low; no one wants to watch progress vanish into the ether. But surprisingly, the highs manage to outstrip them. Etrian Mystery Dungeon is a punishing RPG that forces you to think before you dungeon crawl, as the penalties for falling in battle or failing to protect your home base can turn your stomach. But once you fully grasp the game's unique loot loop and begin to enter each area with a purpose, the sense of progression is almost too sweet to spurn. With endless customization options and a rich series of quests and randomly generated locations, this sprawling 3DS treat can devour your free time before you even feel the prick of its teeth.
You live and die by the dungeon, and there are many to explore. Aslarga--a picturesque town peppered with locations to dine, shop, and report quests--is your base of operations. Splintering off of this hub are dungeonous arteries rich with monsters and loot, and unique in shape and content from dive to dive. Each dungeon's structure is random and unpredictable, but what's certain is the brute sitting at the final floor, waiting to test the skills and equipment you've gathered within the previous locations. Downing the foe unlocks the next story beat, but putting up your blinders and ignoring the action from floor to floor for an early date with a boss isn't just foolish--it's suicide. It can be tempting to rush ahead, but the items and levels gained from scouring the different floors are invaluable, and I often found myself doing multiple runs of previous dungeons before even considering attempting a major battle.
So you toil away, digging up materials to sell and armaments to wield. Each step you take reveals a bit more of your current floor's layout, as well as acting as a turn, of sorts. Your steps correspond with those of the monsters inhabiting space in any section of the floor, so when you move, they move. You can position yourself parallel to a creature and bash away at its noggin until it drops, but the hearty suite of unique classes encourages more nuanced, turn-based combat. It's vital to bring along medics, gunmen, and members of your guild who make use of assorted means of attack in order to reach the bottom floor, and taking control of these new tacticians keeps the action varied.
Party makeup is critical, but without a solid set of skills, you won't get much done. Each level gained leads to a new skill point, and these can be used to unlock pinpoint sniper shots, a party-wide heal, or even a taunt that draws all enemy attention to a specific ally. Each of the available classes has a deep pool of talents, and every talent's potency can be bolstered with the application of additional points. Thankfully, shared experience--even with guild members absent from the dungeon--allows you to experiment with different combat dynamics. This makes what could have been a painfully tedious system easily manageable. Even if you never use that ninja you recruited early in the game, simply having her wait in the wings allows her to jump up in level and contend during the more difficult challenges.
Watching your characters go from clumsy adventurers to lethal tacticians is Etrian Mystery Dungeon's greatest joy. There are numerous interesting ways to build yourself up, from weapons and armor to skills and statistics, and you get a tangible tingle of joy when the total damage numbers that pop off of your targets' heads tick up over time. This makes finding each chest hiding a rare piece of equipment all the more thrilling. The longing for more loot and higher levels only intensifies, and the later dungeons often satiate this thirst.
Etrian Mystery Dungeon is a punishing RPG that forces you to think before you dungeon crawl, as the penalties for falling in battle or failing to protect your home base can turn your stomach.
It's so disheartening to watch it all fade away. In later dungeons, powerful creatures called DOEs roam the environment. These commanding enemies move from floor to floor, traveling up toward Aslarga as you shift down toward the final segment of a dungeon. Paying to build forts, which lock the dungeon's current layout and harbor up to four members of your guild, is one way of corralling the DOEs. When the enemy crosses the fort's path, it either battles the guild members guarding it or--if the fort is empty--destroys the structure and retreats. If you don't have the gold for construction, though, fighting the DOE is an option, but not a feasible one if your characters aren't properly prepared. Without debuff skills and appropriate statistics, you'll hit the dirt in minutes.
If you let the DOE slip by and reach the town, you're ripped from the dungeon, stripped of your spoils, and greeted with a dilapidated Aslarga. More often than not, one of the basic locations--such as the item shop or inn--is left in ruins by the DOE, and if you don't have a fat bank account to foot the bill, it takes time for the structure to be rebuilt. From there, you have to tackle the dungeons with limited, and possibly even empty, funds and leftover equipment you placed in storage.
Each dungeon's structure is random and unpredictable, but what's certain is the brute sitting at the final floor.
There's a great deal of trial and error, and I can almost guarantee you'll lose your most treasured possessions more than once. These were the times when I was repelled by Etrian Mystery Dungeon's thorny edges, where its learning curve seemed too steep to surmount. But I became savvier to the game's often frustrating peccadilloes over time, and became adept at managing the deepest of dungeons. Keeping the right items, placing forts at the correct intersections, and grinding my party to a sharp edge led to fewer close calls, and even fewer frustrations. Etrian Mystery Dungeon does little to hold your hand, but the early heartbreak acts as an effective lesson in how the game functions.
It's a grind, but a welcome one. The process of taking on quests, digging up new items, and returning to town with a fat bag of goods becomes more and more enticing as time goes on. The combat isn't all that action-packed, but the control you have over each member of your party paired with the wide variety of skills at your command produces interesting challenges from room to room. This is a loot hunt, through and through, but there are enough interesting hooks and unique adornments to make what could be simply repetitive consistently fun.
If you're looking for a rich story or open world to explore, Etrian Mystery Dungeon isn't your huckleberry. The narrative thread is just strong enough to remain interesting, but it takes a back seat to the loot-soaked foundation that works so well. The different levels of progression take center stage, and if you can overcome the opacity of the systems, the rewards are rich. Etrian Mystery Dungeon's tough outer shell takes time and patience to crack, but can’t conceal the treasures stored within.
8 Things to Watch This Week
Some notable season finales this week as AMC's Better Call Saul and Syfy's 12 Monkeys wrap up their freshman seasons. Plus, FX brings back Louie and launches new comedy The Comedians, starring Billy Crystal and Josh Gad.
But the big news concerns this coming weekend. Sure Veep. Sure Silicon Valley. Those are both great. But most of all - if you time things right, you can binge all 13 new episodes of Marvel's Daredevil on Netflix just in time to watch the Season 5 premiere of Game of Thrones! It's quite possible this will be the least productive weekend of our lives. We can do this!
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt: Everything You Need to Know –– IGN First
After numerous delays, we were starting to wonder if The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt would ever see the light of day, and if it was still the same ambitious, beautiful game developer CD Projekt Red revealed in 2013. IGN spent two days at CD Projekt Red’s office in Warsaw, Poland to find out.
Throughout April, we’ll have tons of new footage showing the complex combat and gorgeous environments. We’ll have detailed hands-on impressions after a huge amount of time with Wild Hunt, too. Plus, the CD Projekt Red team talks about introducing newcomers to the series, ending its saga, and more.
This month’s IGN First should say a lot about why we’re still excited – more excited than ever, in fact – about the last game in Geralt of Rivia’s trilogy, and why we think you will be too. Bookmark this page, and check back frequently throughout April for all of the updates.
David Lynch Leaves Showtime’s Twin Peaks Revival
Yes, there definitely was a "too good to be true" element to having Twin Peaks, Evil Dead, and X-Files all return to our lives. And now it seems the dream is crumbling. Somewhat.
A new series of tweets from director David Lynch has revealed that he is now off the project.
Dear Twitter Friends, Showtime did not pull the plug on Twin Peaks.
— David Lynch (@DAVID_LYNCH) April 5, 2015After 1 year and 4 months of negotiations, I left because not enough money was offered to do the script the way I felt it needed to be done.
— David Lynch (@DAVID_LYNCH) April 5, 20156 IGN Originals to Watch This Weekend
Looking to kick back, relax, and enjoy some wild videos to cap off your weekend? No? Well, too bad, you're already here so you might as well watch. If you're feeling especially lazy, you should be able to play the video at the top of the page and sit back to watch the entire playlist. Otherwise, here are six IGN Original videos you may have missed.
Max and Brian decided since they couldn't get a gold Amiibo either, they'd just spray-paint a normal one. Also, there was break dancing.
Bummed you couldn't get a gold Mario Amiibo? Make one!
Predicting Treyarch’s Next Call of Duty Game
We know that the end of the year will mark a new Call of Duty release, and we know that it will be forged by Treyarch. This title will mark the first time the mainstay Call of Duty developer has had three years to work on a release, instead of the old staple of two years per game. Given the fracturing of Infinity Ward after Modern Warfare 2, Treyarch has become the go-to developer for franchise entries that try something different and also throw in a tonne of content.
Treyarch titles tend to involve a comparatively longer solo experience, an extensive cooperative mode and addictive multiplayer. With no official word yet on what’s coming from Treyarch at the end of 2015, let’s take a closer look at some of the options that are possible…
Flash Writer Reveals Crucial Easter Egg
The Flash panel kicked off at WonderCon 2015 with Carlos Valdez (Cisco), Candice Patton (Iris), Danielle Panabaker (Caitlin), and Andrew Kreisberg (writer and executive producer) taking the stage.
Talk began about Caitlin's villainous alter ego from the comics, Killer Frost, and Panabaker said, “You’re going to see her sooner than you think.”
Candice fielded a question about why Iris likes Flash but not Barry. She said that they're both the same person, but Flash behaves in ways that Barry doesn't, so it's that side of him she's attracted to. As for why she's hasn't figured out his secret yet -- when many others have -- she said that she knows Barry as someone who would never lie, so despite obvious evidence, her belief that Barry would never lie to her takes precedence.
Star Trek/Green Lantern Crossover Coming
This summer, Hal Jordan will meet James T. Kirk.
CBS Consumer Products, IDW Publishing and DC Comics have announced Star Trek/Green Lantern: The Spectrum War, a six-issue comic book crossover from writer Mike Johnson (Star Trek, Supergirl) and penciller Angel Hernandez (Infinite Crisis: Fight for the Multiverse, Arrow).
“We’ve looked forward to bringing these two iconic universes together for a long time,” said Greg Goldstein, IDW President and COO in a statement. “Star Trek and Green Lantern both share so many of the same science-fiction adventure themes and ideals, that a galaxy-spanning crossover like this is simply…logical.”
The series is getting first-issue variant covers from Gabriel Rodriguez, Francesco Francavilla, Elsa Charretier and Garry Brown, along with future covers by Declan Shalvey and Marc Laming. Check out Rodriguez's and Francavilla's Star Trek/Green Lantern: Spectrum War #1 covers below: