Torment Tides of Numenera - Preview

Seventeen years on, Torment returns - and it’s weirder than ever

Sitting somewhere between traditional RPG and a choose-your-own- adventure, this is a cerebral journey into Earth’s far, far future. You’re a consciousness newly born into a body discarded by an elusive immortal called The Changing God,hunted through time and space by a transdimensional force called The Sorrow. And it gets weirder from there.

Torment: Tides of Numenera is a spiritual successor to 1999’s Planescape: Torment, a game that took the classic PC RPG formula and gave it philosophical purpose. It had a single question at its core: ‘what can change the nature of a man?’ This new Torment has a different query: ‘what does one life mean?’ After a fatal injury sustained in the intro, you rebuild your personality, bit-by-bit, through flashbacks and visions encountered in the recesses of your own psyche. This determines your personality, but also how you approach problem-solving, as the two are closely linked in the  Numenera pen-and-paper RPG system on which this game is based. Grave meaning Although the isometric perspective and retro pre rendered art recall Pillars Of Eternity, combat is much less of a focus. It’s certainly present – and uses a similar ‘real time with pause’ system – but is also optional. If you want to talk your way out of a confrontation – or even convince an opponent to step down mid-brawl – you can do that, or at least try. That’s the heart of what the ‘Torment’ name entails: a sequence of interesting decisions with complex consequences that, approached honestly, tell you something about who you are. It’s great to have the series back.

Format PC Publisher InXile Entertainment Developer InXile Entertainment ETA Summer2016

Furi - PC and PS4

FANS OF hack and slash games rejoice, because The Game Bakers has a treat in store for you. Essentially one long boss fight, Furi’s combat was inspired by the fast-paced and responsive Japanese games of yesteryear. Oh, and the art design has been created by none other than Afro Samurai creator, Takashi Okazaki, while creative director and game creator, Emeric Thoa promises a soundtrack filled with electro music.

Bombshell

She’s a bad mama jama…

Meet Shelly “Bombshell” Harrison… and her awesome bionic AI arm called Amiga. Together they travel between planets kicking  ass, having fun…oh yeah, and saving the world if that matters to you. Our protagonist is a bomb disposal specialist who ran into an unfortunate event which saw her lose  her human arm (which in comparing to Amiga was kind of a blessing, sorry to say).


There is a great alien threat of apocalyptic proportions out there and Bombshell has been tasked with the rescue mission to save the president (another great female lead character with “confidential” weapons at her disposal) and the galaxies she comes across. It is also the second chance at getting back into the battlefield once more, only now she can deal more damage than before, and with great style too. Her prosthetic arm being AI not only solves puzzles and becomes weapons when needed, but also can function independently by detaching from Bombshell. She is on a quest and with great power comes great responsibility, or even greater out-of-this-world foes in this instance. 3D Realms and Interceptor Entertainment have given us some sneak peeks into the game play, which is a blend of it being a shooter, action and a bit of RPG. Its creators are confident that the risk of making a cross-genre game will pay off as an experience that will “Blow you away.”

So far we have information on 2 of the 4 planets that the player will traverse upon: Earth and Kyrron (a not-so-friendly planet with a mysterious creature known as “The Abomination of Lord Rhek’en”…
sounds delightful).

Visually looks to be a nice looking game with loads of potential and out to impress.

Release Date: 29 Jan, 2016

Yooka-Laylee (Something of a rarity)

It was way back in the lawless yesteryear of 1998 that Rare released Banjo- Kazooie, and although gaming’s bestloved bird and bear duo may be gone, they’re far from forgotten. Not least by PlaytonicGames, a studio founded by Rare veterans that’s dedicated to recapturing the vivid colour and distinctive humour of the golden age of 3D action-platformers. “So far we’ve recaptured insulting each other via email all day and consuming enough sweet food in a working week to give Godzilla diabetes,” explained creative lead Gavin Price when we quizzed him on the project.
“If we survive the Winter, we’ll put in some collectibles, make the characters talk funny, and ask Grant Kirkhope to make some of his marimba tunes. Sorted.” Playtonic Games is optimistic then, and the team appears to be making excellent progress. Yooka-Laylee is already a pleasingly lustrous gameworld populated with flailing beasties and gleaming collectibles, and it’s all set to an appropriately jaunty score. “We really do believe that our game will present the premium nextgen bat-and-lizard experience of 2016,” concludes Price. Typical industry hype, eh?

Details:
Format PS4, XO, Wii U, PC
Pub Team 17
Dev Playtonic Games
ETA October

Superhot (fps pc and xo)

Time only moves when you do in this innovative indie shooter, and it turns out that this rather simple conceit facilitates all manner of freewheeling improvisational gunplay. You might enter a stage unarmed and outnumbered, for instance, only to weave your  way through the crisscross of enemy fire, disarm an adversary, and take a leisurely moment to stand still and unload on his polygonal confederates.
Move off and that stream of bullets will spring into motion, cutting down your slowpoke assailants. It might all sound a bit abstract, but it’s utterly accessible in practice, and the lethality of Superhot’s arsenal encourages a surprisingly considered approach to movement and  combat. Following a promising prototype and a crowdfunding campaign, Superhot is shaping up to be an offbeat mix of FPS trappings, angular aesthetics, and unique, cerebral shooting.

Details:
Engine Unity
Platform(s) Microsoft Windows, OS X, Linux, Xbox One
Release date(s) Q1 2016
Genre(s) First-person shooter
Mode(s) Single-player

Cobalt - PC Game

TRUTH BE told, we are starting to feel a little sorry for Cobalt. Perhaps Oxeye Game Studio thought that having Mojang attached would help push this action-oriented side-scrolling game out a little faster, but in spite of that it’s now subject to another delay. Although it had a strong showing at the  likes of Gamescom, you won’t be doing battle with your buddies until February 2016 – we can only hope the final product lives up to the three-year wait.

The Witness Preview (making from Braid)

Jonathan Blow has at last announced a release date for his anticipated puzzler, confirming a January launch to the tune of jaunty violins in newly-released gameplay footage. Blow and co are now hard at work bashing bugs and making carefully-calibrated tweaks, but the developer claims that the game has ballooned in size from a paltry eight-hour playtime to an experience that will take dozens of hours to defeat. Perhaps you'd best book some January vacation time to make the most of this contemplative Island getaway.

See Also:
Braid

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Raging Justice - PC, Xbox One, Mac and Mobile

A nostalgic side-scrolling beat-em-up of the sort that filled the arcades of old, albeit with HD graphics and ear-splitting HD audio.

The visuals are 2D and pre-rendered but they
look great in HD thanks to the use of modern
graphics techniques.

From Streets Of Rage to Raging Justice, it may seem that the sidescrolling brawler hasn’t changed much over the past 24 years. Here we have a three-level demo packed with thugs that can be dispatched in numerous ways thanks to a wide range of combos, items dotted around that can be picked up and used, and some fiendish end-of-level bosses. Deja vu, anyone?

But there is no shame in harking back to the Eighties and early Nineties as long as you bring something new to the table and that’s what Raging Justice does. It may pay a nostalgic, cheesy homage to the genre with its ‘continues’ and maverick cops called Rick Justice and Nikki Rage, but it also seeks to move the brawler into the 21st century.

Developer Nic Makin tells us that beat-emups have been “sorely in need of updating” and you can see the steps being made to improve them. There is a modern soundtrack made for surround sound systems composed by Steve Burke and high-definition 2D visuals by artist Jay Howse, which deliberately provoke fuzzy feelings for the pre-rendered look used in games such as Donkey Kong Country and Killer Instinct.

On top of that, the controls correct past ‘wrongs’: there are four buttons rather than the traditional two, with one set aside for picking up weapons and another dedicated to jumping. As you bash the enemy into submission, you can make a choice: carry on hitting them in order to knock them out or just arrest them. Your decision will indicate if you are a good or bad cop. Genius. There is also a greater sense of maturity in the gameplay. The enemy AI has various patterns and strategies that you have to learn to defeat and the characters develop as you play the game, with bosses mixing things up. “We are introducing new gameplay as you play through – riding the Tractor on the Junkyard level has been a highlight of the shows,” says Makin. It also helps that you can simply pick up and play the game. It’s so accessible that there is no tutorial section; to insert one would be to patronise gamers of a certain era, we feel. “Every part of the game is designed for the sake of enjoyment, from how the player fights to the enemy AI, to the weapons and the vehicles,” says Makin.

He also says there are some features which will not be included from launch. Online multiplayer, alternate game modes such as a Bar Brawl (where players must survive wave after wave of enemies) and new playable characters are planned to come later. As it stands, though, it’s beating a strong path to our hearts.

Although you can pick up weapons and
wallop the enemy thugs, as a cop you can arrest the
criminals instead of smashing them.

Developer History:
Kameo: Elements of Power 2005 [360]
Perfect Dark Zero 2005 [360]
Kinect Sports 2010 [360]

Mafia III

Format PC, PS4 and XO Pub 2K Games Dev Hangar 13 ETA Summer 2016

The story of an Italian-American’s ascent from lowly putz to formidable mafioso is a well-worn cliché these days. Perhaps that’s why 2K Games has surprisingly ditched its typical New York wiseguys in favour of an African-American protagonist and a New Orleans setting. Whereas previous instalments have focused on your ascent through the ‘family’, Mafia III hones in more closely on the inevitable conflicts that arise between rival criminal organisations. So, playing as Vietnam veteran Lincoln Clay, you’ll assist the ‘black mob’ in its brutal battles against the local Italian mafia. More generally, a host of technical upgrades ahead of this current-gen debut distinguish Mafia III from its franchise forebears. Visual upgrades abound, while the slightly stiff combat of previous games has been refined. The result – in theory – is an altogether more convincing brand of mob justice.

Resident Evil: Umbrella Corps - Format: PC and PS4

EYEBROWS WERE raised when Capcom elected to move Resident Evil into the shooter genre, ahead of revealing Resident Evil 7, though it looks like Umbrella Corps is far more than an attempt to riff off of Call Of Duty. It’s a survival-horror third-person shooter with more in common with Dead  Space; tight rounds of three versus three combat with no re-spawns promises tense action, as does  zombie waves.

Bard's Tale IV - PC

YOU’VE PROBABLY heard about Bard’s Tale IV, right? It’s from the creators of Wasteland 2, InXile Entertainment, returning to the franchise in celebration of 30 years since its debut. What you might have missed was the news that legendary developer Chris Avellone will be joining production to design an entirely new dungeon. Bard’s Tale IV continues to look like the sequel we’ve waited 27 years for.

Dead Island 2 Preview (PC and PS4)

The previous Dead Island games may have had more than a few warts, but they were still great fun to play. And they proved to be popular enough for publisher Deep Silver to throw their hat in the ring with a sequel. It’s pretty interesting, actually, because original developer Techland has moved onto a new IP – the equally undead Dying Light – leaving Deep Silver to turn to Yager for the development of this sequel. In other words, we should soon have two first-person brawler, zombie bashing games to choose from. The rivalry might just hit Battlefield vs CoD levels…

What will be truly interesting will be to see if the aforementioned warts stay with the Dead Island franchise, or whether they migrate over to Dying Light. That would be telling, now wouldn’t it?
Whatever the case may be, you really can’t get enough of bashing shambling dead, so Dead Island 2 is a welcome addition to the year’s release schedule. The game will be set several months after the events of the first two titles, which saw the island paradise of Banoi become a zombie-infested wasteland. And although the word “island” is still in the name, Dead Island 2 will leave fictional tropical islands behind and head towards the very real mainland. This game will be set in California.

In the game, the US military has turned California into a quarantine zone, due to a zombie outbreak. The result is that those who refuse to leave their homes, and those who are looking for extremely dangerous adventure, rub shoulders with zombies. And that, of course, mean lots of hand-to-hand action, complete with a whole bunch of new weapon modifications and tense action.

As before, Dead Island 2 will allow for four player co-op to take place… arguably the best way to survive the dangers that the Sunny State will throw at the player. There will be dedicated player classes to choose from, and a skill system to reward progress. In short, a lot like what we had before, just presumably bigger.

How big, exactly, is unclear. We’re not sure how much of California will be accessible within this open world game, but with the power of the latest hardware, we’re assuming that the game will be pretty huge. All the press release tells us is that it will include areas like Golden Gate and Venice Beach… a real world distance of more than 500 kilometers. But we don’t know if the game will allow that much freedom, will make use of a rescaled environment, or will provide the setting in chunks.

And good looking, of course (if you can use that terms for a game full of rotting corpses.) Yager is making use of the Unreal 4 engine to power physics and graphics in Dead Island 2, so we’re pretty certain it’s going to look as good as a battered zombie can. And you should be able to play it within the next few months.

ETA Q2 2015

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance - Hands-On Demo Preview - FanBolt

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, developed by Kojima Productions and PlatinumGames, is taking the Metal Gear series to a new level in this fast-paced action title. I recently got my hands on the Zone of the Enders HD Collection and with that the new Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance Demo. My initial impressions are very high even though the demo is quite short. There is just enough action against different enemy types that you get a good feel for what they are doing. Maybe the demo felt shorter than what it actually is because I had that much fun with it, who knows for sure. But I must say that even my second and third play-through was an incredibly fun time.

Project Giana Preview - Re-birth Of An Unknown Classic - Pixels For Breakfast

Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery; however, there is a fine line between imitation and plagiarism. In 1987 German developer Time Warp Productions crossed that line when they released The Great Giana Sisters, a side-scrolling platformer that produced an almost 1:1 copy of the opening level found in Super Mario Bros.. Despite critical praise from European press outlets, rumours started to fly that Nintendo took legal action against the developer, which eventuated with retailers pulling the game from shelves. Read More

Diehard GameFAN: Hands-On Preview: Ravaged

With their game due out this week, I wasd able to have an online session with the Ravaged development team, 2 Dawn Games. While I can say that strictly PVP multiplayer shooters haven’t been my thing for awhile now, Ravaged brings a certain over the top fast-paced savagery that I find highly appealing. First a little history behind 2 Dawn. Based out of New York City and founded in 2009, the team consists of people with history in the Battlefield, Desert Combat, DCON and Frontline as both modders and designers. They decided they wanted to focus on their own brand of fast-paced combat in an FPS and went it alone. Ravaged is the end result, and it is a blast. Read More

Assassins Creed 3: A look at the new and improved multiplayer in Assassins Creed 3

During Games12, we were fortunate enough to get the chance to play the multiplayer in Assassins Creed 3. We played Wolfpack, a co-op gametype that sends two teams of two into an intense killing spree. While trying to kill all their targets in a faster and a more subtle way than the opposing team. Extra points are rewarded for style and stealth.

The trailer shows off a few more things however. Domination is a game mode that is pretty much similar to any other Domination mode in other games. The teams have to capture and hold a certain area on the map and defend it from the other team. Watch the a highly informative TRAILER for a closer understanding.Read More

Far Cry 3 Preview

Being honest, tropical islands have come in for a hard time recently whether it’s Lost or Drake’s Fortune from a gaming perspective. Gamestyle now avoids booking such a holiday and the nearest we’ll come to departures looks set to be Ubisoft’s Far Cry 3. Read More

Assassin's Creed 3 Preview

It’s almost time to step into the Animus again, and take on a whole new era of Desmond Miles’ ancestry. But we’ve all grown rather attached to Ezio Auditore - the promise of a brand new protagonist in Connor Kenway may have raised a couple of eyebrows. Read More

Hitman Absolution Preview

2012 is shaping up to be a great year for fans of stealth gaming, and Hitman Absolution is the stealthiest of the lot. Recently, we went hands-on with the singleplayer and the game's socially connected Contracts mode. Read More

Black Ops II Multiplayer Preview

I’ll get this out of the way from the start: I don’t see the attraction of the Call of Duty franchise, especially Black Ops. After Call of Duty 2, I’d say that Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is the best entry in the franchise as it retained realism and didn’t go for Hollywood thrills and spills over authenticity. With Black Ops II authenticity has definitely gone completely out of the window and so I find myself being even less interested than ever before. That being said, Black Ops II‘s multiplayer definitely felt the most enjoyable to play in a very, very long time. Read More