Heroes will clash against each other with no payload to escort in Overwatch’s upcoming Deathmatch mode which will be introduced in a new patch after the Summer Games conclude on August 28th. Unlike the death match-like Skrimish Mode, the official DM modes will come with their own special scoreboard and some modifications to player abilities.
Gamer Director Jeff Kaplan surprised the community with the two new modes – Free for All Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch in a brand new developer update via the official Overwatch YouTube channel. Certain Heroes will not have access to all of their abilities during a Free For All match – Mercy for example only has her blaster and since she cannot resurrect herself, her ultimate ability is turned off alongside her escape ability. When playing Mercy on TDM all of her abilities are unlocked with some small tweaks – when using resurrect your opponents kill count will be reduced!
Players need not worry about being the top player on the scoreboard to get credit towards their Arcade loot boxes. As long as a player is within the top 4 (on their team in TDM or overall in FFA) they’ll receive credit towards the weekly boxes. When the two modes launch they’ll have win conditions set to first to 20 kills for FFA and 30 kills for TDM. The selection of maps will differ between modes – split between existing maps used for objective mode, the elimination maps added during the Orisa patch and a brand new map focusing on the backstory for Talon member Widowmaker.
If you’re sick of playing Lucioball or trying to unlock that time limited McCree and Soldier 76 skins you can tryout these new modes on the PTR. They are expected to be rolled out around September 5th, which is the first Tuesday after the Summer Games end.
The world of free to play games can be daunting with the amount of sheer choice available and if you’re not careful you might end up choosing a game that is more advertisement for the in-game cash shop than a proper video game.
Thousands of Steam users – almost 8,000 concurrently at the moment of the writing of this article – have decided to download and try out this previously under the radar free to play shooter. On a weekend where Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare is free to play for everyone, what could this imported and 3-year-old FPS from Korea offer players that Activision isn’t?
Black Squad’s gameplay feels like a throwback to the shooters of the 90s- eschewing recent staples like vertical movement, wall-running or peaking behind cover. In their place are the identical hit boxes for every player, fast movement / res-pawn time and a limited selection of weapons. As quickly as players die in TDM they respawn and are thrown back into the fray. Combine all of this with some trappings from Counter Strike: the previously mentioned role based selection of weapons, running animations featuring a knife and a loud announcer and you’ve got a recipe for a nostalgic throwback of a game that doesn’t really care for the current trends in the genre.
In terms of modes, there is the standard Free for All and Team Death Match (where I spent the majority of my three hours with the game last night). Also offered are two objective modes where special abilities can be used based upon the amount of experience you’ve accrued throughout the match. These range from the mundane: placing down a sentry turret or ammo packs for your team-mates; to the spectacular: calling in a devastating airstrike that rains hellfire from above. XP rewards aren’t nearly as flashy or differentiated as the Kill Streaks in Call of Duty but in a game like this, they don’t really have to be.
With the gameplay being provided for free there has to be some form of monetization. Black Squad comes with the requisite cash shop and multiple forms of currency (one earned through completing matches, another purchased with real dollars and yet a third “medal” currency awarded for weekly challenges). Despite the onslaught of currencies available Black Squad doesn’t feel pay to win. Each gun has a number of different stats that are tweaked depending on what other options the gun offers – silencer, scope, laser sight etc. – but it all feels balanced enough. This isn’t a game where someone can put down $20 on the table and buy a super powered sniper rifle and one shot everyone. The minor difference in stats & armor don’t appear to give paying players any sizeable advantage; instead, the developers hope to earn cash through limited edition skins and weapon models sold through loot crates. It is great to see them prioritizing balance & fun factor for all players versus taking the easy route of offering a $99.99 USD Golden Gun that could kill anyone.
Who knows if the sizeable community that has formed around Black Squad will stick around for the long term. Steam fads have a tendency to come and go with the whims of the players- who is still playing The Culling? The thousands of people who flocked to the revamped Battleborn have all but left, leaving that game with similar to numbers to before the Free to Play transition. Then again, some thought (myself included) that Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds was going to be a flash in the pan next to H1Z1: King of the Kill and PUBG has had considerable staying power – enough so that it has spawned imitators like Last Man Standing.
It is no secret that Bungie & Activision are hard at work on a sequel to 2014’s Destiny, the loot-based shooter that launched 3 additional content heavy expansions that when combined with the base game have kept guardians busy for years. A set of new leaks, one comprised of promotional materials from an Italian retailer, and another from a shop listed from a German retailer point to Destiny 2 coming to Windows PC for the first time.
Originally appearing on the Italian website Leganetwork.it, the now removed poster showcases three helmet humanoid guardians – each brandishing a different type of weapon. Featured prominently on the poster in that familiar Destiny typeface is “Destiny 2 – September 8th“, adding further credence to speculation that the Destiny sequel will launch in the early Fall.
Via PCGamer here is a look at the Italian Destiny 2 Poster:
Yesterday according to this Reddit post on r/PCGamingDestiny 2 briefly appeared on GameStop Germany’s public facing website listed for Windows PC. The listing has since been taken down and clicking the provided GameStop.de will simply redirect you to the store’s homepage. The thread is still an interesting read, not for new information on the unannounced sequel, but rather to see just how polarizing a game like Destiny can be. Some in the thread enjoyed the original despite its’ lack of story content, some see the potential of an MMOFPS but feel Destiny 1.0’s approach got it all wrong and others deridde the genre hybrid all together.
None of this information is exactly new as industry veteran reporter Jason Schreier reported almost six months ago that Destiny 2 would indeed appear on PC. In his initial report, he stated that Bungie had decided that they wanted to shift the games’ multi-platform strategy to include PC in the full sequel even if that meant leaving behind all of the characters & content created for the first title.
In part his report said:
“Earlier this year, I’d also heard from a person familiar with Bungie’s plans that Destiny 2, which is currently slated for a late 2017 release, will be on PC…. Bungie’s leadership wants Destiny 2 to feel like a proper sequel, even if that means leaving old planets, characters, and activities behind. “
At the end of the day while we don’t have a lot of concrete details on the Destiny sequel these latest retail promotional material & listing leaks could point to an imminent reveal. Huge publishers do have a habit of sending promotional materials to specialty stores like GameStop ahead of product reveals, but these reveals are usually only days or at most a week separated from the shipment of said posters & promotional items. Remember how badly Ubisoft got burned a couple of years back when they shipped Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag posters early?
If you haven’t played Bleed, you’ve really missed out on some indie game magic. With solid controls, slowing time mechanics, and free aim shooting it’s a wild ride! Bleed 2 looks to be even more of that action with lots of improvements. Of course we’ll be covering the game with a review coming up soon and hopefully I’ll get some video on the go as well!
Take on the role of Wryn, the worlds greatest (and only remaining) hero! With an invading force of villains to battle, she’s ready to yet again take on anything they can throw at her. Wryn’s ability to slow time, air-dodge, and free aim really creates some dizzying moments in a barrage of bullet-hell action. With new and larger set pieces, that thrill ride is just going to get even more intense in this sequel!
These last two weeks Boss Key productions have released two new trailers for their upcoming first person shooter headed by Cliff Blizinsky, Law Breakers. Each of the one minute videos feature about a minute of one of the developers talking about so far two of the games classes. First the Enforcer, then the Vanguard. Ill let the videos speak for them selves, but they look pretty awesome so far. Be sure to sign up for the alpha for a chance to get in on the action!
I saw this game at PAX East and really had fun with it. I was playing the enforcer and even though I wasnt able to capture any of my gameplay I did feel like the game was mostly done and ready to go. These videos feature what seems to me to be a much higher level of polish. Textures are smoother, there are more details, so I assume boss key have been hard at work on the game since I saw it over a month ago. Brokenjoysticks will be doing a full demo play through of this game at E3 so be sure to keep your eyes open for those first impressions.
If you haven’t ever heard of Dreadnought I can’t say I blame you. It’s had a rather stealthy run over all, and although it was at PAX prime last year, that was the only time that it surfaced, and since its been deep under in development. Now, it is back, this time with a free to play model, and sporting a buy in beta. I can’t resist a good space game, so I forked over the 40USD to get myself and few friends’ copies of this new outer space shooty game. For my 40USD I got in to the beta, got 4 invites to give to my friends in to the beta.
First I have to say it, this game is so beautiful. Though there are only at present a few maps, each one is designed to maximize the 3D space, carefully crafted to provide players with spaces to hide dart in to and shoot around. Space combat can be very boring, so to spice it up Dreadnought has broken the standard formula of 3d combat. In most space games you approach an enemy, then circle around them while firing your weapons at them, that’s how space combat works, space is big open and empty so it’s easy to adopt an orbit of any attitude around your enemy and fire at them. Dreadnought doesn’t allow for that, instead it places a ton of cover at various places on both the X and Y axes of the map, so your ship can literally take cover to avoid attack. This makes the game feel more like a shooter than a proper space sim, but it’s an incredible example of what can be done with 3D space and movement when it’s all planned out and well done. Not much compares to the feeling of pushing your ship in to a small space under a piece of cover, or dodging missiles by diving lower down and making them lose tracking.
You wont get to see this angle in game, but it gives you a good idea of the sheer size of the bigger ships
The game features a ship classing system, with 5 main classes. Dreadnought is the heaviest, being a large lumbering weapons platform with a lot of guns, and health. The destroyer is a balanced ship, with dreadnought class weapons, but less armor in exchange for more speed and maneuverability, the corvette is the smallest ship, used mostly for hit and run and its lightly armored and fast, the tactical cruiser is the games medic, but don’t get too close or you might end up feeling the wrath of its powerful offensive lasers, and finally the artillery cruiser is basically one giant gun, filling the sniper role, allowing you to dish out massive damage from range, but also being slow and requiring skill shots to hit targets. I found myself mostly going in to combat as either a tactical cruiser, or a destroyer feeling that the massive dreadnought simply made me too slow to react (even if it did get a nuke in exchange). Regardless of which ship you are going to take this is a combat based game, so lets talk about that a bit.
Combat is also quite fun, the game features a MOBAesq (I hate that word) system, each ship has two primary weapons, in most cases one short and one longer range, then a series of abilities which can be buffs, heals, weapons, or other things. These modules are interchangeable but the things you change them for all require unlocks, more on that later, so to start off your selection is limited. The main combat in most of the games I played was done in a pretty formulaic manner; first if nukes were present, they get launched right off the bat, since their range is infinite. Then both teams sort of feel each other out, often launching salvos of missiles while artillery cruisers range the enemy’s fleet. This may just be because I am a lower level player, but most of the time since the games go to 100 points and you get 5 points per kill, this opening minute or so of game play was very dull. The one exception that I did see came in the form of corvette’s who’s pilots have no need to feel out range and just dive right in looking for soft targets in your back line.
this is what youll be seeing most times.
Combat then devolves in to a basic melee, co-ordination is not possible with non-friends as the game does not have VOIP. That being said, I did manage to get in to one game with a full party and we absolutely destroyed the other team. I found this to be a bit of a problem, though I played about 40 games, the vast majority were one sided affairs, with my team either winning by a large amount or getting stepped on. Combat is fun, if slightly one dimensional. Damage is the same everywhere on the ship, so you can’t for example get behind a ship and hit its engines doing more damage. To counter this each ship has 3 options to make things more interesting. These options are Speed, Shields, and weapons. Each of these drains out power from a reactor. Shields mitigate damage, Weapons makes your guns hit harder, and Speed makes you go faster. Its all very straight forward. To say that combat is boring would be a bit to far, it is in fact fun, if slightly one dimensional.
Combat really comes down to power management and line of sight, there are a few weapons (mostly missiles) that if you can acquire a lock for are fire and forget. The rest of combat is very involved, you have to lead targets, ammo is slow moving and visible and especially larger ships really feel like capital ship combat, trading hundreds of rounds back and forth while their players manage shields and power needs. Various ships can be used to counter various other ships, and your team will be well served to swap out different ships when one strategy or another doesn’t work because you all decided to play dreadnoughts just to see what 5 nukes looked like.
Two game modes are present as of now, one which is a straight death match, to 100 points, with each kill being worth 5 points. The second is a 5 round one elimination game, where each ship has one life. Die and you’re out, forced to pilot a tiny little fighter ship while the rest of your team tries to make up for your stupid mistake. I found this mode extremely infuriating and only played it about 5 times before switching back to the death match.
Here you can see the abilities on the top row, your health on the left, and your amount of power on the right. The score is in the bottom right and the minimap the top top right.
Overall the game feels pretty good, I wish there were more ships, and the monetization model is kinda wonky at the moment. Basically like most mobile games, you have two kinds of currency, the premium one and the one you can earn. At present this currency is used for most of the modules, ships, and other things in the game, while the earned currency is much less utilized. This model is subject to change, and has already changed at least once, so I would expect it to keep happening.
Monetization and other issues aside, I found the game play fun but really repetitive, there are only two game modes and of those two modes I only wanted to play one, there are a decent number of maps, but you can only play the same 4 or 5 maps so many times. I was helped in this case my having my team do silly things like all go corvettes or all go Dreadnoughts to keep things fun and fresh. That aside there is also a massive grind involved in unlocking all of the games 50 levels for getting all of the modules and abilities, and there is no skill based matchmaking. So, what that means is that sometimes your going to go up against top of the line ships, with your basic tier 1 ships, and your going to have a bad time.
Im going to keep an eye on this game as it gets closer to release, since it has no cost of entry if you like playing space combat games or are fascinated by the idea of three dimensional combat in actual space style game this is worth checking out. If you are not interested in playing a game that is still very much in development, and may change right down to its core mechanics I would take a pass on this one.
The most fun I had playing a game at the recent PAX East convention wasn’t as I had expected one of the many Xbox games on demo (gears 4, Mirrors Edge 2) or even the VR experiences. It was in fact a new twist on the old school genre of the arena shooter. That game is called LawBreakers from Nexon, and it’s incredible. Arena shooter are nothing new, this year alone we have Gearbox and 2K’s cell shaded Battle Born, Blizzard’s massive Overwatch, and now LawBreakers. Arena shooters it would seem are back, and I for one could not be happier. So it should be no surprise that my favorite game was a shooter, but the one it was might surprise you. That game was LawBreakers.
LawBreakers was a bit of a stealth game prior to this PAX, the only thing I had seen for it was a B roll of highlights and a really well done CGI story trailer. Last we heard it was to be a free to play arena shooter with some moba like elements. The game was basically completely off my radar because of that. Now it has reemerged, a resurgent force in the new pantheon of arena shooters. The free to play model is gone, the game will now be exclusive to steam, and everything looks great. Since I hadn’t heard any of this prior to the convention, I was quite surprised to upon reaching the floor PAX find that it had a booth of its own, and quite a large one. The booth was adorned with character art, and a large screen playing some highlights of the game.
The roll playing on the large screen in back was what first attracted me to the game, and I was not disappointed. A fast ninja character swung outside the map to reach higher ground, a heavy soldier launched rockets, and a rocket carrying guy fired at his feet to launch himself up the air. My interest was peaked. It turned out that LawBreakers was a fast fun, class based arena shooter, so I got in line to give it a try. Since this was the media hour there weren’t many people waiting and I was able to get in quite quickly. As I settled my butt down in to one of the DxRacer chairs I really had no idea what to expect, I knew this was going to be a shooter with abilities, similar to several other AAA arena shooters scheduled for this year, but it really doesn’t look like those other ones at all. Instead it has the aesthetics of Quake or a Doom, with its own unique twist.
The game is really pretty, and as I got started I couldn’t help but look around at the beautiful world that had been created, but I found myself with no time to admire it as the game was beginning. To get an idea of how fast this game is you really have to play it, but I’ll do my best to describe it. I picked the generic soldier character with a rifle, sprint ability, a grenade, and a rocket launcher that you activated and then it sort of charged up and you could lock on and fire. He also had a secondary weapon that shot a large ball of lightning which a developer explained to me was basically a shotgun.
For this demo we were playing a 5v5 mode which was a sort of a capture the flag where you would pick up the flag which was called a “Battery” and then take it to charging station, where it would slowly charge and when it was full your team scored a point. The game was a timed mode, so the most points at the end of the time won. Our team managed to score two points in about 15 minutes of game play.
My team was composed of two of the fast movement based character Kitsune (classed as an assassin), one me (playing as the Breacher, classed as a gunner) and two Maverick’s (classed as a skirmisher) this was a pretty fair team comp. The skirmisher is a heavy gunner, the assassin is mobile, fragile, DPS unit, and I fell somewhere in between, giving us plenty of movement and ability to counter the enemies heavies and firepower to back it up. The only class missing was the games most advertised a heavy rocket solder called Cronos (classes as a Titan).
Teams thus assembled we began, and oh what a beginning, the battery began in the center and both teams rushed to it. I was also given a sprint ability which made me really much faster than the rest of the other players, but was very limited. So I used it to sprint to the center of the map. The center area of the map we played on (the Grand Canyon) was one of the games signature zero G areas. These areas see you able to jump much higher and sort of float, and are the reason I found this game so unique. Most if not all of the characters in the game have a movement ability, which comes in greatly handy when you’re dealing with an area that has no gravity in it. I found that if I jumped headed for a ledge I would sometimes make it and sometime snot which felt really fun and interesting as a game mechanic
As the game continued I got a little better at this area, and could after some time manage to get myself out of the zero g area by shooting or using grenades. My team eked out a win after about 15 minutes of game play, and it wasn’t easy! The battery was constantly back and forth between our two teams, and the great level design meant that when the battery was in your base charging you couldn’t just camp it because there were too many ways in. I also want to mention that this game features the older school method of a large health pool that does not regenerate. So when you have low healthy (which will happen a lot) you have two options, first you can stay in and maybe die, or you can disengage and go to a health station, of which I found three on the map, and stand in it for a while to regain health. This was a cool mechanic that I wish more modern shooters would use; I dislike the regenerating health that seems to be the standard, as it seems to encourage small quick engagements and then fleeing. Each different character also has a different amount of health, so your tanky Titan characters will be able to take more hits than say an assassin Kitsune.
The game does have melee, in the form of a kick, and thank god for that, because otherwise Kitsune (the assassin) would be so overpowered it would be sickening. She’s still quite powerful in the hands of a good player, but others will quickly learn to kick her back and shoot at her to prevent a slicing dicing death. These little bits of attention to detail, like giving the long range soldier a short range option in his secondary weapon, really made the game feel complete and balanced.
The whole game felt amazing, complete, and ready to go, I didn’t catch any major bugs or errors in my short time playing but I did notice that maps weren’t rotating so it seems like only that one map was ready at the time of the demo. The gravity elements didn’t feel contrived and all of the classes felt like they were balanced. Each one could do damage, get kills, and do enough damage to be considered viable. Overall I really cant wait to play this game when it eventually hits shelves.
you can sing up for the Alpha test phase of LawBreakers here.
I was surprised to hear that Doom would have multiplayer support, and when it showed up on video looking a dead ringer for quake, I officially became excited. Now a new trailer from the developers is showing off nine multiplayer maps that will be present at launch.
[youtube id=”7alUjZ30n4o”]
Just look at all that shiny pretty map. The green stuff is so green it looks like Hi-C Ecto cooler! The hell maps are grim and dark, and the whole thing just looks fantastic. I for one cant wait to get my hands on this game. Even if the single player suffers from modern shooter syndrome, this multiplayer alone looks like it will make the game worth 60$.
Turning the beloved atmospheric third person shooter/adventure game Resident Evil in to a “competitive shooter” is a decision that when it was announced was questioned by both industy and fan alike. Why would we want this? What purpose could this serve? Resident Evil isint even really a shooter! The fans cried. They were confused, this is supposed to be AAA right? I dont get it what could be competitive about a story based game like Resident Evil? Unfortunately for hard core R E fans, the first trailer for the new competitive Resident Evil shooter in the new year simply serves to reinforce most of those questions.
We know its going to be two groups of humans fighting each other, with the infected in between. We know Capcom wants this game to be e-sports, as evidenced by their last trailer which was made in a sort of shoutcaster-method. If you watched that trailer, the infected didn’t even seem to be part of the game, instead a cover based, almost rainbow six like game seemed to have replaced the classic slow paced game play we are used to in a Resident Evil game. Capcom have their hands full with this game that is for sure. Hit the jump to see the trailer in its full “glory”
Do you think this game can be saved from just being another mediocre cover based team shooter by its unique world and zombies? Personally I am not taking any bets, as at least to me it appears that Capcom have decided to cash in on the generic leaving behind the unique gameplay feel of previous Resident Evil games.
Battleborn, the new multiplayer shooter from Gearbox just got some new video content. Deande, and Ghalt are featured in new video content released today. Ghalt wields dual shotguns, has a gap closing hook, and can deploy traps. Deande appears to be much more stealth oriented with a melee attack and a cloak that makes her invisible.
There is a lot of footage in the two new trailers, players new to the game will notice that Gearbox’s trademark cell shaded look is also present in the new team based co-op shooter. The RPG style skill system is also shown, appearing to be a strand of DNA like choices which allow the player to “build” different ways. Mostly what I take away from these two trailers is that this is going to be a very combat oriented game, with fast paced shooting bolstered by objective based game play. Very little is currently know about Gearboxes co-op MOBA style shooter, but a beta earlier this year was well received by those who were able to play.
Battleborn will see a full release in May and there was a beta preview late last year, during which players got a very small taste of the new games world and characters. Hit the jump to see the videos and look out for our review of Battleborn when it releases in May.
Sometimes it can be easy to forget that before all the Overwatch hype, before Paladins, before Destiny, there was a little game called Team Fortress 2. Well Valve hasn’t forgotten. In fact they have decided to keep updating this little game that could in their newest addition the “tough break” update. TF2 has rarely gone a year with out major new additions and it seems that 2015 is not to be that year. The game has a large healthy player community, and its nice to see that Valve is still showing it some love.
In a move that probably surprises all of two people, there will be a Battlefield 5. Developer DICE’s Dan Vanderlind tweeted this weekend “Now that we’ve shipped Battlefront and a part of the team continues to work on it, I am moving on to another project, the next Battlefield..” Dices gritty realisitic modern military shooter seems to have become a fully annualized property at this point, joining the likes of Call of Duty and Madden on a release schedule that while it is a nightmare for developers, keeps studios quite happy.
Those who disliked the last Battlefield title, Hardline, will be happy to note that EA’s CFO already confirmed that Battlefield 5 is returning to the series roots with a classic modern setting. He also mentioned in the same interview that they had a large release planned for each year, hinting at another large FPS for 2017. Titanfall 2 maybe?
Guns Gore and Cannoli is a Metal Slug styled shooter with a story out of the Godfather and humor out of well something else, its a wise cracking fun action shooter. Previously released for Xbox one, PC, and now its on its way to the PS4.
Buters can expect to be ready for this 2D, fast-paced, humorous game which not only features a kick-ass campaign mode, but also 13 additional free skins and as a bonus: Versus mode, including 7 additional battle arenas.
Guns, Gore & Cannoli is actually TWO games for the price of one. After you wiped the map clean during the campaign, you will be able to relive the joy in versus mode. Its not often that we see a game with this type of aesthetic with both a fully fledged campaign mode and a nice vs AI mode, AND a nice vs other people mode. Its refreshing to see a publisher making sure they put all of these in to a game before they release that game.
BLOOD and lots of it
You can play against your friends or AI opponents The developer makes note that “this AI will be controlled by 21kb seemingly gibberish code that will blast you of the map. ” I have no idea what that means, but I assume that its meaning is that there are a lot of difficult AI that will try to kill you. The game will be releasing on PS4 on December 8th, and you can pick up a copy now on PC or Xbox One!
You can watch the publishers release video right here. its quite a doozie with a lot of blood, flying projectiles and witty on liners, if you like shooting stuff and watching it explode, in games like Bro-force and the Metal Slug series this will be right up your alley.
