Indie developer and publisher Cypronia has announced that the new version of its best-seller, Cube Life: Island Survival for Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4. Cube Life: Island Survival was the first block building open-world survival game for the Nintendo Wii U eShop and has since topped the charts for indie games in the eShop.
The game was originally released in June 2015 and received an update earlier in the year.
The new version of Cube Life: Island Survival will be released for the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4 in late Spring 2017.
New gameplay footage from Bioware’s next space RPG adventure Mass Effect Andromeda will be shown at Nvidia’s Consumer Electronics Show keynote event on January 4th. The confirmation of a brand new gameplay trailer, which will reportedly focus on in-game environments, comes via the official Mass Effect Twitter account.
Here is the tweet that confirmed the brand new gameplay segment to be shown during CES:
Here is Nvidia’s official description of their upcoming keynote which will also be live-streamed:
“This January, NVIDIA will kick off CES and usher in a new year of technology innovation when co-founder and CEO, Jen-Hsun Huang, takes the stage to give the preshow keynote address on January 4, 2017, 6:30 p.m. PST, of the industry’s most exciting tech unveilings in artificial intelligence (AI), self-driving cars, and gaming.”
We’ve known about the existence of Mass Effect: Andromeda for quite a while – with first word of the project coming over four years ago on “N7 Day” back in 2012. Since then EA & Bioware have been quite open about the development of the game, showcasing early engine technology and animation reels at E3 2014 before officially unveiling the game’s title at last year’s E3. More recently they released the first gameplay trailer from Andromeda, which you can watch below.
Mass Effect Andromeda is expected to be on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 4 Pro, Xbox One and Windows PC Via Origin.
The Metroidvania style of game is one that many people have fond memories of, especially if you grew up in the days of the original Metroid and Caslevania games (where the genre name comes from) on the original NES. They were notorious for their immersive gameplay, huge environments, and very little room for error. Healing items were sparse, you had to defeat enemies in order to get “drops” of items, and there was always the sense of fear for your life. That style of gameplay and experience is emulated well in Exile’s End which is a great homage to the genre.
Much like the games from which it is inspired, Exile’s End throws you right into the thick of things.
In the far future, a massive corporation called Ravenwood controls commerce on Earth and on numerous other worlds across the galaxy. They are not unlike a nation, with their own army, economy, and would-be government.
When the son of Ravenwood’s president goes missing on a remote mining planet, and all contact with the miners’ colony is lost, a mercenary team is hastily assembled and sent out to determine just what happened. Among the members of this team is Jameson, an old soldier with a dark past he’s trying to forget.
Just as the ship carrying Jameson and his team arrives, however, it experiences a catastrophic electrical failure and crash-lands upon the planet’s surface, with Jameson the only apparent survivor. Trying to reopen communications with the Ravenwood corporation, he comes across what’s left of the mining operations upon this desolate planetscape, and learns a truth far more sinister than he ever could have imagined.
You start the game marooned on this planet with nothing to your name, not even a weapon. Thus begins your odyssey to try to escape the planet, and survive.
As you progress through the game you’ll get upgrades to your suit armour, find weapons, and other items to use. You’ll also have to solve puzzles by riding wind currents, draining waterways, weighing down switches, and more.
The environments is frought with dangers too, including armed soldiers, wild animals, and other creatures to do you harm. There are also spikes to contend with, both above and below. Word to the wise. Don’t land in the spikes. This game treats them just like they would were this a real survival experience. Falling into a pit of spikes equals instant death.
While the game can be brutal with healing items and death, it is very forgiving in the way of saving. In the game (the Wii U version was played for this review) the game auto-saves at every load screen, so if things go horribly wrong you lose very little progress. So one wrong move, while resulting in death, won’t cost you much time.
Exile’s End looks great in a nice retro SNES pixelated style. You’d swear that you were playing a Virtual Console SNES title on your Wii U. The game even adds to that retro feel by having an option in the settings which makes the game’s visual presentation mimic the look of an old tube television.
Going along with the retro look is an amazing retro soundtrack. The game’s soundtrack was composed by Keiji Yamagishi, the legendary composer for Ninja Gaiden for the NES, Tecmo Super Bowl, and Dynasty Warriors. The music varries from intense to silently unsettling, which adds to the atmosphere of the game.
Exile’s End also supports off-tv play on the GamePad.
The game is massive, with hidden treasure chambers and more than 1,200 separate screens to explore through. These screens are spread between multiple different environments, which you’ll be treated to multiple times. In true Metroidvania-style progression, acquiring a new item or ability may open up new areas to explore in past areas.
And exploration is key in the game.
Multiple times I became stuck in the game, wondering where I was supposed to go next. At times it isn’t clear what the next objective is, especially after finding a new item or skill. Since the game autosaves, playing around with items can help figure things out without worry of “wasting” items. Using the right item in the right place, or finding a wall that can be broken through can be key.
When I wasn’t getting stuck and lost this game was really fun. Exile’s End is one of those games where you sit down and play it for a long time before putting it down, and then think about it when you’re not playing it. Where you go back and forth between screens so that enemies respawn so you can kill them for their item drops, hoping for a little bit of health. Often ending up with less than you started out with.
If you’ve ever played a Metroid or a Castlevania game and you love the look and feel of retro SNES-styled games, then Exile’s End will fit right into your digital collection. The game is available for Wii U, PS4, PS Vita, and is also available on Steam.
WayForward’s long running Shantae series gets a brand new entry with Shantae: Half-GenieHero is coming to the PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita and Nintendo Wii U on December 20th in both digital and physical flavors.
Shantae: Half-Genie Hero is WayForward’s fourth entry featuring their purple haired protagonist. For the first time in the series history Half-Genie Hero features HD graphics while maintaining the color art-style that helped previous games stand out. If you’ve come to love Shantae’s particular flavor of transformation enhanced action combat this latest title looks like it will be worth the wait.
Gameplay wise Half-Genie Hero retains the transformation enhanced combat seen in other titles with eight different forms available at our heroine’s disposal. Her basic attack, the hair-whip, is also still in-tact but this time with an HD coat of paint. WayForward gives the completionist in all of us a reason to explore levels that have already been completed – thanks to the 8 different forms that Shantae can use, levels hold a number of unlockable items, secrets and easter-eggs that can’t be found on the first play through. Levels finish off with large boss encounters that will hopefully test the reflexes and pattern recognition ability of players of all skill levels.
Want to see the game in action? Check out four PlayStation 4 launch screenshots below, an image of the physical Wii U version and launch trailer for Shantae: Half-Genie Hero.
XSEED Games announced on Friday that the retail edition of the crowd-funded action game developed by WayForward, Shantae: Half-Genie Hero, is nearly ready for release. The game will launch for the PlayStation 4 and PS Vita on December 20th while the game will hit the Wii U one week later on December 27th.
To celebrate the series’ first full HD release, a limited “Risky Beats” retail edition will be packaged with a musical selections CD containing 30 songs from the game’s soundtrack for PS4, PS Vita, as well as for Wii U system in North America. for a suggested retail price of $34.99 CAD.
The retail release date for Wii U is scheduled to be one week later on December 27th, however the launch date listed by Canadian retailers is actually January 3rd, 2017. While the release of the physical games may be a bit later on Nintendo’s home console, WayForward will launch the PS4 and Wii U versions digitally on December 20th. for $19.99 USD.
Nintendo.com doesn’t currently list any release date or price.
XSEED Games will handle publishing duties for the digital PS Vita release from PS Store, also scheduled for December 20th, for $19.99 USD.
Lara Croft GO has been released today for PlayStation 4, PS Vita, and Steam.
Originally released as a mobile title last summer, Lara Croft GO is a turn based puzzle-adventure set in a long-forgotten world. You’ll explore the ruins of an ancient civilization, discover well-kept secrets and face deadly challenges as you uncover the myth of the Queen of Venom.
Following the award-winning Hitman GO, the game was devloped by Square Enix Montréal in collaboration with Montréal indie studio, KO_OP.
Sony’s futuristic racing series WipeOut is making the jump to the PlayStation 4 despite the demise of founding studio Psygnosis over five years ago. WipeOut The Omega Collection isn’t a brand new entry in the series but sort of a “best of” from the decade or so.
Content from the PlayStation Vita launch title WipeOut 2048, ships & tracks from the PS3 collection WipeOut HD and finally stuff from WipeOut Fury will be included in the Omega Collection. In total this means that players will have access to 26 unique tracks (with some supporting mirrored versions), 46 unique ships and 9 discrete modes.
Here are the 9 modes according to the PlayStation Blog:
Zone, Tournament, Speed Lap, Time Trial, and Single Race from HD
Zone Battle, Eliminator, and Detonator from Fury
Career Mode from 2048
Returning players will be able to relive their memories of split-screen local multiplayer as this 90s racing stable retains its local multiplayer modes from previous iterations. Graphics in The Omega Collection are being re-tooled for 4K display and the title will have support for 4K displays as well. I loved 2048’s soundtrack and here’s hoping some of my favourite tunes are included with The Omega Collection’s brand new soundtrack. Sony is promising that we will hear some returning classics as well as new tracks from “today’s up & coming artists”.
WipeOut The Omega Collection will be released at some-point in 2017. More information is available on the PlayStation Blog, here’s hoping that this collection might signal Sony’s intention to continue to support the WipeOut franchise with a new entry in the future.
Capcom announced at the PlayStation Experience today that a pair of Marvel Vs Capcom titles will be making their way to the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 4 Pro. First up is Marvel Vs Capcom: Infinite, a new title slated for release in 2017. Capcom’s classic Ultimate Marvel Vs Capcom 3 will be getting a PS4 upgrade / re-release digitally on the PlayStation Store, available today.
Marvel Vs Capcom: Infinite appears to take hints from the Marvel Cinematic Universe – featuring Avengers characters proximately in the brief 1:30 teaser trailer that Capcom unveiled during the Sony keynote. The first new character that we get a look at in the footage is Captain Marvel, who is slated to get her own MCU film due out in 2019 staring Brie Larson. Representing the Capcom side in this debut trailer are both Megaman and Ryu, from the Street Fighter series.
On the gameplay side of things Marvel Vs Capcom: Infinite will feature 2 Vs 2 battles, as opposed to the traditional 3 on brawls that the series has been known for. Infinity Stones are in-game items that grant a player a temporary boost in a number of different areas – power, space, time, reality, soul and mind – allowing them to hopefully turn the tide of battle. It was also promised that MVC: Infinite would feature “accessible single-player content” including a full cinematic story mode, training, arcade and mission modes.
If you’re looking for a current-gen MVC fix and can’t wait for 2017, Capcom and Marvel have also teamed up to re-release the now half-decade old Ultimate Marvel Vs Capcom 3 on PS4. It will be available sometime later today when the store is updated, as of press time no official price or listing is available.
As Polygon originally reported, the YouTube trailer for the UMVC3 re-release confirms that Windows PC and Xbox One versions of the game will be made available in 2017 as well.
““Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 is being re-released for current generation systems; with the PlayStation 4 digital download version available today and the Xbox One and Windows PC versions coming in March 2017!”]”
Ultimate Marvel Vs Cpacom 3 was originally released in 2011 for PS3, PS Vita and Xbox 360 and features 36 different characters from both company’s stable of heroes.
More information about Marvel Vs Capcom: Infinite is available on the official PlayStation Blog.
Hideo Kojima surprised the entire internet with a 5 minute trailer for his yet-undated third person action titled Death Stranding last night. In usual Kojima style the trailer contains absolutely no plot or character information, yet this cinematic trailer contains enough interesting moments that we will speculating for months until the release of the next cryptic morsel.
In the opening of the trailer we see a European city under-siege from an army of zombie skeleton soldiers and planes as the camera establishes it self on an unnamed character presumably played by project collaborator Guillermo Del Toro. We see a pair of neon handcuffs around Del Toro’s wrists and in his opposite hand a mechanical womb-like device that contains a fetus. As the the skeleton troops march across the bridge above Del Toro he affixes a tube from the mechanical womb to himself. The camera then zooms down a large drain pipe to reveal more zombie soldiers and a character played by Hannibal actor Mads Mikkelsen.
Alongside the trailer Kojima Productions also released two cinematic style posters:
The world of Death Stranding seems to be an intriguing mixture of World War II era military technology, dystonia undertones, science fiction devices, characters played by well known Hollywood actors and several mysterious babies.
Any other details regarding the game-play, plot or other Death Stranding related topics are merely conjecture. Some folks have speculated that the babies are used as healing items in a future society where the aged literally siphon the essence of youth from the next generation. Others have drawn parallels to the 2006 post-apocalyptic sci-fi film where humans have lost the ability to naturally conceive.
Death Stranding has no release date but more information might be released during Kojima’s panel at the PlayStation Experience today at 1pm PST.
Defiant Development will be bringing its’ hybrid Action RPG / rogue-like dungeon exploration / CCG sequel Hand of Fate 2 to PlayStation 4 in Q1 2017 the developer announced today via press-release. Today’s reveal brought with it a collection of brand new screenshots, confirmation that the game will be playable for attendees of next week’s PlayStation Experience and a look at one of the game’s brand new companion characters.
Estella Fiore is a ranged pistol wielding companion whose aim seems as deadly as her attitude. She’ll join the player character in her quest against The Empire as she also locks her sight on taking out a brand new factions like the Greed and Frost. Estella will also have a role to play in the newly unveiled Pendulum mini-game which the developer says will test players precision and timing.
Hand of Fate 2 sees the player character team up with NPCs to take down the protagonist from the first title. Combining elements taken from Collectible Card Games, Table Top Role-playing Games, Action RPGS and Dungeon & Dragons a number of discrete genres have influenced the unique formula used in the Hand of Fate series. Hand of Fate 2 will be playable at PlayStation Experience next week at booth B10008, where attendees can check out the newly unveiled Estella.
Hand of Fate 2 will be released simultaneously on Xbox One, Windows PC via Steam and PlayStation 4.
Square Enix’s decade-in-development RPG Final Fantasy XV is now playable for those who have pre-loaded the titled on PlayStation 4 through the PlayStation Store. Like many other Final Fantasy fans I decided to go all digital with this latest title due to the fact that it would unlock at 10 PM EST and allow me to play several hours ahead of the release locally – plus I wouldn’t have to leave the house, which is a huge plus.
During the download of FFXV the PlayStation download manager will tell users that approximately 8GB of the game are required before the game is “ready to start”. I naively assumed that this “ready to start” download would allow me to play at least the first chapter of the game but just like last year’s Star Wars: Battlefront FFXV’s partial download is nothing more than an endless gauntlet against waves of enemies. If you have slower internet like I do you could be facing the prospect of fighting an endless horde of goblins for hours with little variation in content to keep you entertained.
So what’s the big issue? Well, when Sony announced the PlayStation 4 they positioned the “Ready To Start” as enabling the player to begin their gaming experience while waiting for the complete game to finish installing. Unfortunately in practise in many cases this mean’s the players either face endless hordes of enemies or other smaller slices of game-play that do not add to the overall experience with the completed game. Earlier in the system’s life-span launch games like Need For Speed: Rivals allowed players to start the campaign, as did Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag. It is inexcusable that FFXV’s mandatory partial download does not contain any substantial content. If Sony is going to mandate that developers put in small slices of playable content while downloads finish they should take steps to ensure that they are entertaining.
I think Jim Sterling did a lot better in his lengthy video on the particular issues with the “Ready To Start” feature than I can in one news article:
Final Fantasy XV is now available for digital pre-load on PlayStation 4 and will be available at retail locations tomorrow for both PS4 and Xbox One.
XSeed Games is bringing their cool retro-looking side scrolling action game Exile’s End to the Wii U eShop next week, with the game landing on Nintendo’s digital service on November 22nd.
Exile’s End is a collaboration between Tokyo-based independent game developer Matt Fielding and several talented Japanese game industry veterans, backed by Japanese publisher Marvelous. The game is a remake of Fielding’s first independent release, Inescapable, building and expanding on the original idea by adding an atmospheric soundtrack, significantly more enemies, animated cutscenes, greater story depth, a greatly expanded world, and multiple endings.
The game plays out as an exploration-driven side-scrolling adventure through a massive, interconnected laboratory and mining complex on a moody, lonely alien world, and offers a variety of diverse locations to explore and puzzles to solve through skilled platforming and clever usage of the game’s myriad weapons.
Tripwire Interactive and publisher Deep Silver have jointly announced that Killing Floor 2 has gone gold on PS4 and Windows PC. This means that the zombie slaughtering team shooter will be leaving Steam Early Access after being in development for the past 18 months, originally going live in March 2015 on Windows.
Killing Floor was partially developed with the help of Sony Computer Interactive – as the motion capture for the game’s animations were captured at Sony’s Santa Monica California motion capture studios. Other technological innovations in KF2 include the evisceration system which allows individual limbs to separated with each enemies having five distinct separation points. The graphics team at Tripwire interactive also focused heavily on how blood was rendered in the game – spending considerable time on how blood was generate from wounds and how it split onto surfaces.
An open beta was available on PlayStation 4 for all the check out earlier this month. The physical release of Killing Floor 2 will be priced at $49.99 CDN on PS4.
Here’s a picture of the development team that Tripwire released in celebration of the game being complete:
Remember that huge Overwatch leak from a few weeks back that confirmed Junkenstien’s revenge before its’ reveal and supposedly contained in-game character art for the mysterious Sombra? The character’s design has pretty much been confirmed thanks to an early leak of a Sombra art print that will be available on the Blizzcon Gear Store during next week’s convention.
The art piece in question was drawn by artist John Polidora who has worked as a Senior Concept Artist / Character Designer for Blizzard Entertainment since 2014 but he has been with the company in other roles since 2008. His credits include work as a character designer for Overwatch and modeling on World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade and World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Litch King.
As for Sombra’s design – she’s shown wearing the same purple leatherish outfit complete with amazing sidecut and Uzis. She seems to be channeling some kind of energy into a large omnic like the ones seen in the background of the volskaya industries map, this has lead to players hypothesizing that she might control armies of the robots and her Uzi is simply for protection up close – not unlike Mercy’s blaster.
Here is the art that leaked:
With the Halloween event ending today at 4PM PST do you think Blizzard will reveal Sombra tonight or wait until this weekend’s Blizzcon?
Square Enix will be bringing the previously PlayStation 3 exclusive Kingdom Hearts 1.5Remix and Kingdom Hearts 2.5 Remix as a single disc collection to the PlayStation 4 next Spring. These upscaled versions of KH will run at a higher consistent frame-rate at full HD 1080p – so if you missed out on the PS3 versions than this would be the definitive version of the Kingdom Hearts experience.
Here is everything that will be included in the new collection that will release on March 28th 2017:
KINGDOM HEARTS HD 1.5 ReMIX
KINGDOM HEARTS FINAL MIX
KINGDOM HEARTS Re:Chain of Memories
KINGDOM HEARTS 358/2 Days (HD remastered cinematics)
KINGDOM HEARTS HD 2.5 ReMIX
KINGDOM HEARTS II FINAL MIX
KINGDOM HEARTS Birth by Sleep FINAL MIX
KINGDOM HEARTS Re:coded
Square Enix also released a series of screenshots showcasing what Kingdom Hearts 1.5 + 2.5 HD looks like on PlayStation 4:
This post contains materials provided by Square Enix USA PR.
