Monthly Archives: August 2017
Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen Gets PS4, Xbox One Release Date
Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen is coming to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on October 3, Capcom announced today.
The PS4 and Xbox One port of Capcom's action RPG comes with the original Dragon's Dogma game along with all the content from its expansion, Dark Arisen.
Dragon's Dogma was originally released in 2012. In IGN's review, we lauded the game's combat but felt the overall experience was "unfinished, with technical problems that often spoil things."
The Dark Arisen re-release, which we scored a 7.9, came nearly a year later in 2013, bringing with it an extra 15 hours of new late game content and plenty of tweaks.
Tales from the Borderlands Devs Want Their Characters in Borderlands 3
Telltale's Tales from the Borderlands did an excellent job re-purposing Gearbox's world and characters in an entirely new context. It turns out the developers behind the narrative adventure hoped (and still hope) that Gearbox might, in return, do the same with the characters they created.
In an excellent oral history of the series in the Campo Santo Quarterly, various members of the team behind the spin-off cover the fact that main characters Rhys and Fiona were designed to be reused in the main shooter series.
"The hope was," explained producer Adam Sarasohn, "with Fiona, with Rhys, we wanted to essentially hand back to Gearbox fully-fleshed out, heroic characters that they could then use in Borderlands 3 and beyond."
Fallout 4: Game of the Year Edition Release Date Announced
Fallout 4 is getting a Game of the Year Edition nearly two years after its release on September 26 for PC, Xbox One, and PS4.
Pricing for the Game of the Year Edition has yet to be revealed, but it's confirmed to come with all the latest updates to Fallout 4, such as mod support, Survival mode, and a few graphical enhancements.
/https://s.candybanana.com/images/b6a7/b3d98cd1-ad97-4e2d-80f2-f8a426f1d26b_DG34VQqXoAAj3y3.jpg)
Fallout 4: Game of the Year Edition box art.
It'll also include all six of the game's add-on content: Nuka-World, Vault-Tec Workshop, Contraptions Workshop, Far Harbor, Wasteland Workshop and Automatron.
Microsoft Working on Changes to Xbox Achievements
Microsoft has teased an update that "fundamentally changes the concept" of Xbox Achievements.
Speaking to Windows Central, Xbox platform corporate vice president Mike Ybarra explained that his team is "working towards a bigger, more meaningful change about somebody's gaming accomplishments in history, as a gamer on Xbox."
The idea, it seems, is to reward those who intensively play a single game as much as those who play many games (and don't worry, score-hunters, it sounds as though traditional achievements will be sticking around):
"We can do a lot more to reflect and let people show their gaming history and their status," Ybarra continued. "Whether it's somebody who only plays multiplayer in Halo 5 at a professional level, maybe they only have 2,000 Gamerscore, you want to be able to celebrate that person."
Comic Book Reviews for August 9, 2017
It was another big week of comics as the industry moved deeper into August. DC debuted the long-awaited Mister Miracle from the always excellent creative team of Tom King and Mitch Gerads. Marvel delivered another critical chapter of Secret Empire and continued the Generations maxi-series with a team-up between Jean Grey and Phoenix. IDW launched their new Hasbro-verse crossover event, First Strike. And Dynamite kicked off the latest incarnation of The Shadow.
Scroll down to check out our reviews for these and various other new releases, and be sure to let us know your favorite books of the week in the comments below.
DC COMICS
Gran Turismo Sport Will Not Feature Microtransactions
Series producer Kazunori Yamauchi has confirmed that the upcoming Gran Turismo Sport will not feature microtransactions,
As reported by GTPlanet, speaking at the PlayStation Experience event in Malaysia, Yamauchi responded to a question from Youtube user Gema Show Indo and confirmed that there will be online updates in the form of new cars and tracks - but that microtransactions are definitely off the table this time round.
It's a change of pace from previous release GT6, which featured credits-for-cash for the first time in the series. Although these were optional, they weren't totally popular, with critical gamers pointing out the hefty £120 price-tag for the most expensive car in the game (the Jaguar XJ13). Of course, the car could be obtained for free through some committed in-game grinding, but fans still found the expensive, 'easy' option hard to stomach.
Hand of the Gods: Smite Tactics Heading to PS4 and Xbox One
Hi-Rez studios announced it's bringing its Smite-based card battling game to Xbox One and PS4.
Hand of the Gods: Smite Tactics is currently in open beta on PC. The move from closed to open beta was marked with a 70 card "Venus Competitor's Pack."
Hand of the Gods: Smite Tactics is a turn-based strategy game in which players construct decks and use them to "wage war in competitive multiplayer matches or single-player adventures."
The game was originally announced back in October 2016, and entered open beta on PC early last month.
Hi-Rez says the PS4 and Xbox One versions are "coming soon," but sign ups for the closed console alpha are live right now.
Netflix Buying Millarworld Opens the Door to a New Comic Cinematic Universe
Netflix just made its first-ever acquisition, purchasing Millarworld, the comic book company housing all original works by renowned writer Mark Millar and his artistic partners. The day after that was announced, Disney revealed plans to pull its movies from Netflix and start its own streaming service by 2019. But despite this loss, Netflix certainly has the means to make up for it with its ever-increasing slate of original content, and adaptations of Millar’s work have the potential to play a big part in that.
IGN’s Favorite Knights of the Frozen Throne Cards
With the release of the new Hearthstone expansion, Knights of the Frozen Throne, IGN's resident card experts weigh in on the new set. Check out the gallery below to see which cards are our favorites, which we think will disappoint, what our experts found overpowered and finally, what cards we think will reshape the meta. For the Lich King!
What are your favorite cards of the new expansion? Let us know in the comments section.
StarCraft 2 Being Used For AI Research
Deepmind - a leading researcher into artificial intelligence and its potential for positive use - has just announced a partnership with Blizzard Entertainment, using classic strategy game StarCraft 2 as a basis for improved AI learning.
The pair have created a set of tools - known as SC2LE - to accelerate AI research specifically within StarCraft 2. In addition to a machine-learning API to allow both researchers and developers access to the game, Blizzard is also providing a dataset of anonymised game replays - currently at 65,000, this will increase to 'more than half a million' in the next few weeks.