Please note that this review covers the PS4 version, and some features are not available for the PS3/Xbox 360 versions
Treyarch does an amazing job once more with another installment in the Call of Duty franchise, Black Ops 3. The series has come a long way from the World War II era setting of World at War, to Cold War settings of Black Ops 1, and the more recent near future settings of Black Ops 2 and now 3. Just like Infinity Ward and Sledgehammer Games, Treyarch tries to keep the Call of Duty fresh and engaging for it’s fans, and I feel that it has succeeded with those objectives.
Upon starting up the game and getting the necessary content downloaded to be able to play single player, I brought up the menu and happened upon the Identity section and was immediately taken aback when I explored further into it. I was taken aback due to the fact of the sheer level of customization that can be done with individual weapon setups. A new feature in the franchise is the ability to customize optics, attachments, camos, and paint jobs. In addition to that, the player can save multiple variants of individual weapon setups and use them across Campaign, Multiplayer, and Zombies, provided that the weapons and attachments are unlocked though each mode. One thing to note is that similar to the emblems, paint jobs add an individual flair if one wants to take the time to make use of a whopping 64 layers for the left and right sides, and the top of the gun. All of that can be done within Gunsmith or Paintshop sub-menus. Also making returns are unlockable calling cards and customizable emblems, franchise staples introduced in Modern Warfare 2 and Black Ops 1, respectively. Expanding upon those two features you are now the abilities to unlock calling cards via Campaign, Zombies, and from Supply Drops found in Multiplayer.
It looks like the Collector’s Editions of Halo 5: Guardians has found their way to their owner’s homes today thanks to Microsoft’s decision to release the Limited Collector’s Edition and only the LCE a week before the game’s official October 27th release date.
The Limited Collector’s Edition includes the following bonuses in addition to the game a week ahead of everyone else:
One of our readers was nice enough to send some highly detailed pictures of the Halo 5: Limited Collector’s Edition which you can view in the gallery below. Our partner’s over Darkain Arts Gaming also streamed the first few hours of Halo 5 and you can relive that stream here.
Hey BroJo fans! It’s been a long time! I’ve definitely have a treat for you though!The fantastic people at Microsoft have given me advanced access to Halo 5! That’s right, and tonight you’ll get to see three exciting early missions, and one later battle. Don’t worry, we’ll be keeping spoilers to a minimum. The game itself doesn’t release until October 27th, so this is quite the early release! Naturally our review is on the way as well, but we’re still under embargo to maintain our excitement.
We will be live at 9pm EST over on DegiGames Twitch channel playing the highly anticipated release by 343 Industries!
This is not a joke! This is not a drill! Halo 5: Guardians will be live tonight on our Twitch stream! Don’t miss out!
Halo 5 is just 10 days away (review copies are allready out and if you want to see the first part of the campaign its on the web) and 343 are starting to give out massive details on the games multiplayer. New news today includes the games ban policy, a list of medals, the skill matching system and more!
First is a question many players have been asking since day 1, what about the ban system? 343 will track the following in a effort to make bans fair and effective
Quitting matches
Betrayals or team killing
Idling (AFK)
Intentional suicides
Excessive disconnects
The post details a system of temporary bans that will be metered out to players who engage in these toxic behaviors. This is the first time any Halo game has had this type of system and I for one am extremely great full. The blog post goes on to say “The duration of each ban is dependent on the offense and becomes more severe with each successive infraction, so continually killing your teammates to steal the Sniper Rifle will quickly lead to long time-out from matchmade play,” This is similar to systems that exist in other games with more toxic communities, and will in my opinion bring some much-needed law to the games multiplayer.
Other major announced details include
You will never join a match in progress except for warzone (30+ minute games need some drop in)
Competitive Skill ranking is in the game. Like most current multiplayer focused games, Halo 5 will make you play a series of placement matches when first going online, these will determine your ranking which will go up and down based on the seven color ranks in the game (Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, Onyx, and Champion. See the blog post here for full details.)
The match making algorithm will prioritize “quality above all else” what this means is un-known., but it is speculated that it means it will try to find people in your same exact rank before matching you with better or worse player.
There will be seasons
The top two ranks will work much differently than the bottom 5, the blog post says
“Once you reach Onyx, you will be shown your raw CSR score,” 343 said. “Winning no longer increases your tier–it instead increases your CSR score. This allows you to compare yourself with greater precision to other players within the Onyx rank. If you establish yourself as one of the top 200 players in a playlist, you will earn the highly coveted rank of Champion and be shown your place within the top 200.”
this is similar to how other ELO systems work, expect this top tier to be mostly occupied by professional Halo players, with a few lucky (and skillful) folks also competing.
Check out the ranks emblems in the gallery below.
These are the new ranks, each on has several sub-ranks. except for Onyx and Champion
Silver Rank
Gold Rank
Platinum Rank
Diamond Rank
Onyx Rank
Champion Rank
Commendations are also making a return, the will work about the same way as they did in Halo 5, primarily there to drive up your EXP in a fun, quest like way. There will a total of 5 tiers and each will reward with different amounts of EXP
“Every tier of a commendation rewards XP,” the blog post said. “Completing tier 3 of a commendation rewards a bonus REQ Pack with boosts and other single-use REQs. The 5th tier of every commendation unlocks a pack containing a specific emblem. This allows a player to flaunt their reward and let everyone know via that emblem and the corresponding back plate that they have put the time in and had the skill required to finish the commendation.”
Medals will also be making their return (this should surprise no one). They will be changed a little but as they will now be focused more on earning req points, and highlighting incredible feats, or helping with objectives (no more double kill medals?). 343 said they wanted to “preserve the classic feel of the legacy medals while giving all of our Medals a fresh new look.” Take a look at some of the new designs the full is available in the blog here. Halo 5 releases on October 27th and is available for pre-load now.
Straight from the world of Orience comes a brand new trailer for Final Fantasy Type-0 in the style of an in-universe news report. In this clip the announcer gives us the low down on the combat mechanics in this latest entry in the Final Fantasy series. 3 classmates fight alongside one another each of them possessing a special weapon. If one of your comrades dies in battle you are able to swap them out with one of your reserves classmates.
This action RPG looks absolutely fantastic – mixing combat system with a pretty neat elemental magic system this looks like a game that RPG fans will be playing for months. Final Fantasy Type-0 was originally released in 2011 for the PlayStation Portable in Japan. It was announced for the Xbox One and PS4 with upgraded visuals at last year’s E3 and will be available on Western shores on March 17th 2015.Read More
Master Chief makes his first appearance on Xbox One with this past week’s release of Halo: The Master Chief Collection and with it came new details on the upcoming Halo 5: Guardians beta. If you happen to own either a digital or physical copy of Halo: TMCC you’re automatically eligible to test an early version of Halo 5’s Arena multiplayer from Dec 29th until January 18th 2015. We not only got the first details about gameplay changes coming in Halo 5 but the first gameplay videos as well!
Continuing some of the changes found in Halo 4’s single player Spartans now have access to a series of thruster packs that are built into their armor. This additional maneuverability allows players to quickly sidestep and pull off split second movements that they otherwise couldn’t do in previous Halo titles. Spartans are now also able to perform a ground pound attack after using the jet-pack ability. If all of this sounds like the “armor abilities” found in Halo: Reach, that is because they function similarly but everyone will have access to all of them instead of choosing a pre-determined load out. Another change to the game play formula is the addition of a new zooming mechanic that kind of works like Call of Duty’s iron sights, 343 industries is calling this feature “smart scope”.
So far we know the names of four maps that will be included in the beta: Truth (a re-make of Halo 2’s Midship), Empire, Break out and Crossfire. In terms of weapons we know that classics like the Sniper Rifle, Pistol and Assault Rifle will return!
Check out several videos of beta gameplay in the embedded player below. Halo 5: Guardians is expected to be released in the Fall of 2015 and with the beta taking place almost a year before launch perhaps we’ll get a second chance to try Halo 5 before it launches!
Gears of War is unanimously one of the flagship titles for any of Microsoft’s consoles. To date, the franchise combined has sold over twenty-two million copies – grossing in just over $1 Billion dollars. With this acquisition, Microsoft hopes to continue giving the fans even more Gears of War games and merchandise. Currently, there are four Gears of War titles but it’s likely we can expect to see more news on this soon – perhaps E3? We can only hope…Read More
With so much content hitting different marketplaces each week, it’s really hard to keep up with it all. Here at Broken Joysticks, I’ve made it my personal mission to detail as much information for the Microsoft side of things (as we have others covering Sony & Nintendo). Each week we will have all the latest downloads, updates, demos, and more here for you! Keep reading to find out what has hit the Xbox Live marketplace this week!Read More
For the first part of December, Gears of War was free to Gold Members on Xbox Live via the Games with Gold program that Microsoft started this year. This only lasted for the first half of December, as with previous months, and now it is the 16th so the next free game of the month is now available for Gold Members to download – this game would be the four-player co-op XBLA game Shoot Many Robots. It will be available to download for free from today until December 31st.
This week’s releases on Xbox Live Arcade is limited to one, technically, and that is The Raven: Legacy of a Master Thief. There are three different episodes that were released today, each episode costing $9.99. If you want the complete game, it will set you back $30. Episode One weighs in at 3.13 GB, Episode Two at 2.88 GB, and Episode Three at 2.59 GB….so make sure you have some free space on your hard-drive!
Microsoft’s Games with Gold campaign keeps chugging along like the little engine that could. This month is no exception as one of the big hitting exclusive games, Gears Of War – released Nov. 7th, 2006, will be free from December 1st through December 15th. When Gears Of War was first announced, it dropped the jaw of many gamers. It spent its fair share of time in the Top 10 leaderboards of Xbox Live gaming activity and rightly so.While many gamers have played Gears Of War, it’s still one of the best exclusive games for the Xbox 360 and is a game that you need to play if you have not yet – after all it is FREE!!!
The Xbox One launched in 13 markets with 22 games available at launch, 10 of those being exclusive titles. But what does the future hold for the Xbox One? Microsoft has released a new trailer showing off what it has in store for gamers in the months to come. Titles like Titanfall, Kingdom Hearts 3, and Fable Legends to name a few.
Although there have been reports of the Xbox One having issues, that’s not stopped it from selling over 1 million consoles in less that 24 hours. Following similar success from the Playstation 4 it looks as if both consoles are off to a great start. In the UK, the Xbox One sold over 150,000 consoles which is double the figure of the Xbox 360’s launch numbers – and puts it just a few thousand units away from topping the Wii U’s lifetime sales in the UK (which launched December 2012).
Other interesting stats over the first 24 hours…
Over 60 million zombies have been killed in Dead Rising 3
Over 3.6 million miles were driven in Forza Motorsport 5
Over 7.1 million combos were pulled off in Killer Instinct
Over 8.5 million enemies have been defeated in Ryse: Son of Rome
Over 43.3 million Fit Points were earned in Xbox Fitness
While both consoles have had isolated hardware issues, it’s great to see both platforms start off solid. Reviews and impressions of the Xbox One and games are on the way, so stay tuned!
Branching out from the previous Plants Vs. Zombies games, Plants Vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare will be a third-person shooter that with up to four player co-operative multiplayer missions, titled “Garden Ops”. It will also feature 12 vs. 12 competitive multiplayer madness across 10 different maps titled: “Garden & Graveyards” and “Team Vanquish”.
In “Gardens & Graveyards”, players will have to defend their bases from the zombie hordes, while in “Team Vanquish” each opposing team looks to eliminate the other – so basically your traditional team deathmatch.
In the video below, new gameplay is shown off as well as customizations as PopCap Executive Producer Brian Lindley takes you through the world of Plants Vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare.
Killer Instinct will launch on the Xbox One as a free-to-play downloadable digital game tonight. Quite a few gamers that were deemed worthy enough actually received the Season One characters for free for being a loyal customer. What those qualifications were, who knows? But it is pretty awesome that Microsoft did give this out for free to some lucky gamers. If you weren’t fortunate enough to make the list, you will have to buy the additional characters. Pricing, depending on what you want to do, ranges from $19.99 to $59.99. You will be able to see these options when you download Killer Instinct for free tonight (or tomorrow).
