Monthly Archives: May 2016
Person of Interest Returns with Reese in Big Trouble
The final season of the continually cool and exciting Person of Interest begins Tuesday night and IGN has an exclusive clip for you from the premiere.
When last we saw our heroes, they were in a very bad place, with the Machine all but destroyed and what remains of it being transported in a briefcase that needed to be protected at all costs. But as the scene below shows, Reese (Jim Caviezel) finds that's easier said than done as Samaritan is still determined to wipe the Machine out completely.
For more on Person of Interest, check out Matt Fowler's new interview with executive producers Jonathan Nolan and Greg Plageman, along with our cast interviews in the playlist below.
Dishonored 2 Gets a Release Date
Bethesda has announced that Dishonored 2 will be released on November 11.
Bethesda also announced that the first ever public gameplay demo will take place during the publisher's E3 2016 conference on June 12.
Originally announced last year at E3, the game will feature a single campaign, but will force players to choose whether to play as returning lead Corvo Attano or Emily Kaldwin, the heir to the Dunwall throne who we spent the last game trying to save. Each will have separate sets of powers, some more tentacle-y than others.
Invisible, Inc. Console Edition Review
How amazing that a turn-based game can feel so urgent. In invisible, Inc., I have as much time as I need to position my agents just so, but I’m always paying attention to the security level at the top right of my screen. That meter tells you when security will be heightened during your heist, and it’s a vital part of what makes this stealth game worth the gray hairs it causes.
It’s tense and challenging, yes, but Invisible Inc. is also simple, elegant, and always logical. It introduces new concepts in a slow drip, giving you plenty of time to work out the details. The titular spy agency is violently infiltrated, initiating a time-sensitive series of global heists and sneakabouts, each of which you control from an isometric perspective in the style of strategy games like XCOM. You begin with a duo but steadily add imprisoned agents to your roster as you spring them from holding cells. Ultimately, you take up to four agents on missions, which typically involve obtaining sensitive data from a terminal, grabbing ill-gotten credits, and hightailing it out of there.
Of course, it’s rarely that simple. There is the draw of credits, for one, which you spend on leveling up your agents’ skills as well as on gadgets like weapons (both ranged and melee), augments (implants that offer passive bonuses), and other useful objects. Ranged weapons don’t come with unlimited ammo--they must be recharged with a one-use charger when they go empty--and agents you rescue don’t have weaponry on them. Other mechanics further complicate your economic considerations; needless to say, credits are highly valuable, and while you could engage in a straightforward infiltration, safes and terminals lure you from one room to the next. They have gravity, and escaping it requires superhuman resolve.
But that pesky security meter is always climbing. When it arrives at the next level, security cameras that you hacked into might reset, or additional guards may be deployed. With every agent action, you must weigh a number of possible consequences, each of which is informed by multiple factors. You order Agent Prism next to a door and peek through it to reveal a patrolling guard. If she were closer, you could predict the guard’s route for the next turn, but that’s just not working out. Do you open the door and risk alerting the guard so you can set up an ambush? And what about that security camera in there? Do you activate Agent Decker’s stealth rig and send him in knowing that the rig has a six-turn cooldown, or do you use your portable AI program Incognita to hack the security camera but use up all of your power resource in the process? You need power to fire your weapons and hack terminals, so this isn’t a decision to take lightly.
Easier difficulty levels give you a limited number of chances to rewind a turn if you don’t care for the outcome, and the easiest difficulty also lets you restart a mission if it goes awry, albeit with a new procedurally-generated layout. Losing progress with a rewind or a restart feels like its own kind of failure, and this negative reinforcement ensures that even easy mode can be stressful, even when you know you can call backsies.
Should you lose any agents, they’re gone from the current campaign for good, unless you revive them with medigel. This requires not only having the healing kit on hand, but maneuvering another agent into a potentially disastrous situation. Brilliantly, however, your downed agent may be taken alive by the mysterious enemy organization, which leads to a jailbreak mission. The captured agent may represent an acceptable loss: you have a limited number of in-game hours before the final mission is initiated. Feel free to let Agent Decker languish in his cell; you’ve got to think about the greater good (if money and revenge can be considered the greater good, anyway.)
You might be more inclined to rescue a captured agent--or to mourn her if she bleeds out during the heist--if you’ve developed a connection with her. Unit perma-death is another mechanic that invites comparisons between Invisible, Inc. and XCOM, but I was never attached to any given agent. There’s a little flavor dialogue between agents here and there, but it’s too brief and sporadic to engender any emotional response.
The cool-future visuals and angular character designs are decisively slick, but the vaults and offices you infiltrate look more or less the same as you progress. You know you’re in Australia or Brazil, but there’s no audiovisual hook to remind you of the international stakes. Strolling guards always mutter the same handful of bland responses when alerted, and the tilesets don’t evoke the locale. In Invisible, Inc., I regretted losing agents not because I mourned the loss of a comrade I’d trained and groomed, but because I’d lost a flesh-and-bones tool from my toolbox.
Nonetheless, this emotional distance is merely a minor issue. I don’t care much about Invisible Inc.'s throwaway story and its last-minute grasps at meaningful themes, or about my agents’ personal backgrounds. Like the game, my efforts are focused on getting the job done, emotionally disengaged but intellectually centered. I bask in the stylish cutscenes and the sharp voiceover, but my attachment is not to the agency or its people but to the sheer pleasure of a successful heist.
Watch Dogs 2 Has a New Lead Character, Apparently
Watch Dogs 2 will have a new lead character, if an actor's (now hidden) Instagram account is anything to go by.
Spotted by NerdLeaks, actor Cort King uploaded an image of a glasses and bandana-wearing 3D model, with the caption, "Had a blast doing motion capture work as the lead character in a new video game series!", following up with "#WatchDogs2".
Cort King's Instagram post.
Oculus Rift Hits Retail Stores This Weekend
Oculus has shared some details of the impending launch at select Best Buy stores this weekend.
48 Best Buy stores in the U.S. will hold "extremely limited" numbers of the virtual reality headset from May 7. Oculus Rifts will also be available online from Microsoft and Amazon starting from May 6 at 9am PST.
Oculus is still catching up on pre-orders, as some people still haven't received their headsets yet. Oculus says if you've pre-ordered, you can pick a headset up at a store while still retaining your pre-order bonuses.
If you'd rather do this than wait, simply go to your Oculus Order Status and say you've purchased one at retail. Your pre-order will then be cancelled, and your EVE: Valkyrie founders pack should appear in your order history. You'll also still get priority status for Oculus Touch pre-orders.
CBS Reveals Star Trek Shooting Location and Start Date
CBS has announced the upcoming Star Trek TV series will be shooting in Toronto this fall.
A tweet from the official CBS TV Studio account said: "This just in! The new #STARTREK TV series will set course for Toronto and begin filming this fall."
The new Star Trek show was announced last year for CBS All Access, and it'll be airing in early 2017 after the dust has settled from Star Trek Beyond.
Batman Film Rumored to Be ‘Crammed’ With Villains
Ben Affleck's solo Batman film won't only have one villain, according to a new rumor. And not just two, either—it'll feature "most" of Batman's major enemies.
Sources at Birth.Movies.Death are reporting "many, if not most, members of Batman's rogue's gallery will be making appearances in the film."
DC is reportedly looking to create the "definitive" Batman film, and to tell the "ultimate Batman story." Although most of the villains will likely be cameos, it certainly sound like they're looking to go big with the film.
Affleck will direct and star in the upcoming standalone Batman film. Further details have not been officially announced.
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 3 Announced
Sega and Relic Entertainment have announced Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 3, seven years after the second installment in the much-loved real-time strategy series was released.
According to Sega's press release, the new game "combines the epic scale of Dawn of War, with the customization and elite heroes of Dawn of War II", meaning the second game's more squad-focused approach has been scaled back somewhat.
It will arrive on PC in 2017.
The game also features super-walker units, described by executive producer, Stephen MacDonald as "our biggest units ever". That could signal the inclusion of models from Epic, the Warhammer 40K spin-off tabletop game which features gigantic units alongside super-miniature armies.
Dark Souls Developer Making VR-Compatible Game
Dark Souls developer, FROM Software is making a game that will be compatible with PlayStation VR.
A new FROM recruitment video (spotted by Destructoid) suggests that its next title will arrive in 2017 and lists "PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC, PlayStation VR" as its platforms.
FROM president Hidetaka Miyazaki recently announced that his studio was working on new IP.
It's of course possible that FROM could be working on two games, meaning that this project could be part of one of the studio's other series, such as Armored Core - which Miyazaki called "one of the pillars of FROM Software's lineup", despite not having released a game in the series since 2013.
Nolan North Is Making a Game
Nathan Drake voice actor Nolan North is making a mobile game based on his comedy series, Con Man.
According to Eurogamer, North will be a producer on the game, with Canadian studio Frima handling development.
Con Man is a series starring Nathan Fillion and Alan Tudyk which went through a successful Indiegogo campaign before airing on Vimeo on Demand. In the show, Nolan North plays "Mo-cap King" Jerry Lansing.
"It was a character of my own doing just goofing around as Troy