Month: March 2018

Bandai Namco has detailed the next update for Dragon Ball FighterZ. The patch is scheduled to roll out on PS4, Xbox One, and PC later this week, on March 16, and it’s primarily focused on making gameplay improvements, although it introduces a couple of new features as well.

Among other things, Bandai Namco says the forthcoming patch will “greatly improve” matchmaking and server stability for Ring matches. The patch also addresses a list of bugs affecting certain character, such as one that would cause Super Saiyan Blue Goku’s x10 Kaioken Kamehameha combo to continue even if the opponent managed to escape the attack. Bandai Namco says recorded data on the Replay Channel will be deleted in order to implement these gameplay changes.

In terms of new content, the update adds a feature called Z-Unions, which are effectively “fan clubs” for each character. Players who join a Z-Union will receive special rewards, with even better ones unlocking the longer you stay in a Union. Additionally, the update gives players the ability to exit the Game Lobby using the stairs at the entrance. Bandai Namco is also adding a quick way to jump into the Offline Lobby from the game’s title screen.

You can find the full patch notes for the upcoming Dragon Ball FighterZ update–courtesy of Steam–at the bottom of this story. In addition to the new update, Bandai Namco recently shared the first gameplay trailer for Broly. The legendary Super Saiyan was one of two DLC characters revealed for Dragon Ball FighterZ, the other being Goku’s father, Bardock. Six additional as-yet-unannounced DLC fighters are also slated to arrive for the game in the future.

Dragon Ball FighterZ Patch Notes

Modes

• Replay Channel: To enable implementation of the below gameplay adjustments (see “Gameplay” section), recorded data from Replay Channel will be erased
• World Match: Changed rematch system to 3 matches in both Ranked and Casual World Match
• Ring Matches: Improved match-making and server stability

Gameplay

• SSGSS Goku: Fixed a bug that makes “x10 Kaioken Kamehameha” combo continue even if the opponent gets away from the attack
• Captain Ginyu: Fixed a bug that makes Ginyu Force members collide with the opponent character and sometimes interrupts the latter’s attacks
• Nappa: Fixed a bug that makes Saibamen collide with the opponent character and sometimes interrupts the latter’s attacks
• All Characters
  • Fixed a bug that makes characters float in the air if Dragon Rush Clash happens when landing from mid-air back step
  • Fixed a bug that makes main characters say the wrong name when calling a Z-Change or Z-Assist
  • Fixed a bug that alters the hit box of Z-Assist characters under certain circumstances
• Hit / SSGSS Goku / SSGSS Vegeta: Fixed a bug that triggers Z-Change voice over dialogues instead of Z-Assist ones

New Features

• Z-Union: Added Z-Union feature that enables players to join “Unions” (fan clubs) of their favorite character and get special rewards. And the longer you stay in a Union, the better the rewards become.
• Game Lobby: Added the possibility to leave the Lobby by using the stairs at the entrance
• Offline Lobby: Added option to enter the Offline Lobby from title screen

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The new Tomb Raider is a pretty good action movie and a better than average video game adaptation, with a stunning performance from Oscar winner Alicia Vikander as Lara Croft. What really elevates it, though, are a couple of extremely specific story and design decisions that set it apart from all its contemporaries, from Indiana Jones and Uncharted to past Tomb Raider games and movies.

To say exactly where the story goes that makes Tomb Raider so unique would be a spoiler, but let’s just say it stays surprisingly grounded.

That’s a word you can apply to more or less the whole movie. Much of the action is heightened to unbelievable proportions, though no more so than in the 2013 Tomb Raider game, which was widely praised for its “gritty realism.” The movie is a direct adaptation of that game, and it more than does it justice, even surpassing it in many ways.

Like the 2013 game (which itself was a major series reboot), the 2018 Tomb Raider movie follows a younger, less experienced Lara Croft in an origin story that sees her transforming by necessity into the skilled adventurer who gamers know and love. The film does a great job providing plausible explanations for Lara’s many talents; as a young bicycle courier and amateur MMA fighter in London, Lara has the reflexes and athleticism she’ll later use to scale rock walls and parkour her way through ancient tombs. And Vikander totally sells every punch, leap, and plunge, her amazingly chiseled muscles flexing and straining impressively throughout the movie.

Lara’s father, Lord Richard Croft (Dominic West), has been missing for several years when we catch up with her in the movie. But she hasn’t yet signed the papers that would give her control of his vast business empire and wealthy estate, out of a combination of determined independence and a stubborn refusal to admit he really isn’t coming back. When she discovers new clues to where he disappeared to, she pawns what little she has (to a very funny Nick Frost) and hurls herself headlong in search of him.

That means heading to coastal Asia, where she tracks down (a little too easily, but whatever) the same boat that her dad chartered seven years earlier. She convinces the captain, Lu Ren (the underused but great Daniel Wu), to take her to the dangerous Devil’s Sea, where her father’s been stranded alongside the ruthless mercenary Mathias Vogel (the perfectly despicable Walton Goggins).

Tomb Raider suffers slightly from trying to cram too much in. It’s stuffed full of action sequences, at least one of which probably should have been cut (the early chase scene where some kids rob her, maybe?). There’s a cold open featuring her dad’s voiceover explaining the mythology of the deadly Japanese goddess Himiko as maps and etchings scroll by on the screen, a tedious info dump that, incredibly, is then repeated later in the film when she uncovers all his research. And while the movie spends plenty of time establishing Lara as a character, it spends considerably less on the villain, Vogel, who remains fairly two-dimensional despite some quick lines about wanting to get off the island and see his family again.

Any empathy you might have felt for Vogel is derailed when he compares Lara to his daughters while being extremely creepy toward her. Thankfully, Lara is never explicitly threatened with sexual violence in this movie, which you might consider an improvement from some of the game’s more ambiguous scenes. On the other hand, when a lone young woman is being hunted and restrained by multiple beefy, exclusively male bad guys, the implication–the possibility it might happen, despite it being unstated–remains. Some viewers might find it disappointing that Tomb Raider doesn’t totally overcome that subtext, while others will simply consider it realistic.

But even when this movie threatens to sink in some areas, Vikander buoys the whole thing up admirably. The Ex Machina and The Danish Girl actress clearly put an incredible amount of physical work into making this character believable. It paid off in action scenes that feel just possible enough, even when they verge on unbelievable. Many of these, including a harrowing trip down river rapids toward a towering waterfall, are ripped straight from the game, to which the movie owes a great deal. Seeing them play out onscreen is fun for game fans, but they’re not done simply for the sake of lip service, and non-gaming moviegoers should be just as engrossed.

Vikander also brings her considerable emotional range to the role, lending Lara the right amounts of vulnerability and raw feeling when required. Her ability to switch from a young woman who misses her father to a stealthy bow-wielding killing machine–and back again, multiple times–is impressive.

Her general skepticism, too, plays a huge part in grounding this movie in reality. She finds it just as implausible as you or I would that an ancient Queen of Death is going to spring out of her tomb and murder everyone on the planet; Lara isn’t there to stop the curse, but to find and/or rescue her father, who she believes is at least partially insane for believing Himiko poses a real threat to the world. That aspect of her character pays off effectively by the movie’s end, and it’s one of the things that most sets this incarnation of Tomb Raider apart.

Maybe the weirdest thing about this movie–good or bad–is how closely it follows the plot of one predecessor in the “archaeological adventure” genre, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. In each movie, a reluctant, skeptical adventurer uses their missing father’s research to track him down, inadvertently delivering that research directly into the hands of ruthless foes. They then must temporarily team up with said enemies to ensure their father’s safety, using the research to pass a series of booby-trapped trials and reach a mythical something-or-other deep in the bowels of a long lost temple.

Tomb Raider holds up well on its own–and next to the 2013 game on which it’s based–but understandably, it can’t really compare with the classic movie it copies most heavily. This juxtaposition winds up especially unfavorable for Tomb Raider when you realize that unlike Indiana Jones, Lara Croft has no iconic (or even recognizable) theme music. This movie has plenty of fist pump moments, but you’ll eventually realize they’re not as impactful without that memorable “dun-dun-dun-duhhh!”

Nevertheless, Tomb Raider is a great video game adaptation and a decent action movie on its own, elevated by smart story choices and a winning performance from Alicia Vikander as Lara Croft. Here’s hoping she’s down for a sequel.

The Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection does a lot to celebrate 30 years of the series’ focus on one-on-one fighting action. While Capcom has released other fighting game collections in the past, such as Street Fighter Anniversary Collection and Street Fighter Alpha Anthology, the 30th Anniversary Collection is by far the most robust compilation package ever released for the series. We recently had the chance to check out the upcoming collection ahead of its May release to all of its offerings. In addition to getting hands-on with the Nintendo Switch-exclusive Tournament Mode, we dived a bit further into the collection, and got to see just what makes this particular package so special.

The clear focus in the collection is highlighting the many major milestones of the 2D era. Featuring 12 of Street Fighter’s greatest hits, the package includes the original Street Fighter, Street Fighter Alpha 1-3, Street Fighter II, Super Street Fighter II: Turbo, all three versions of Street Fighter III (SFIII, 2nd Impact, and 3rd Strike), and much more. As direct ports of the arcade releases, each game retains much of what hardcore fans can expect from the original games as they were in their traditional arcade cabinets.

Speaking of which, the collection also features a selection of filters and options for how you wish to view each game. Along with the old-fashioned normal mode, you can switch over to arcade and TV filters that show CRT-style scanlines and television tube-like curvature to each game, giving a more retro feel. A significant feature added to several of the games is the inclusion of online play for SFII Turbo: Hyper Fighting, Super Turbo, Alpha 3, and Street Fighter III 3rd Strike. With ranked matching and casual play supporting up to four players, you’ll be able to dive into online matches against other hardcore SF fans. Unfortunately, only these select titles are online-enabled. According to the developers, they focused on offering online play for the most popular entries in the series, instead of having empty online lobbies for the least active games in the package.

The 30th Anniversary collection will also come to the Nintendo Switch–which will have a console-exclusive mode. Called the Tournament Mode, up to 8 players (across four different Switch consoles connected locally) will be able to compete against one another in Super Street Fighter II Tournament Edition as they fight their way up the ladder. During our session, we started off by picking one character and competed against the opposing player. After one round, the match finish screen instructs each player to move over to a new spot on the connected Switch units, bringing their chosen fighter and current progress with them. It sort of felt like a game of musical chairs, except with quick matches of Street Fighter. Though it felt a bit gimmicky, it’s a neat feature for the Switch, and it could be a neat diversion when you have some friends around and some time to kill.

Along with the suite of games, the Anniversary Collection also comes with a special Museum Mode detailing the history and lore of the Street Fighter series. With a viewable Street Fighter Timeline, you can examine entries for each Street Fighter game along with factoids about their respective ports and the resulting impact for the franchise. Moreover, the timeline also details proposed side-games, such as how Street Fighter ’89 eventually became Final Fight, along with some developer notes and art about each major milestone in the series. The bonus mode also features detailed information about each member of the roster, along with an incredibly detailed sprite viewer where you can inspect each character’s individual animations for various moves across multiple games. Seeing the difference in detail between Chun-li’s Hurricane Kick from the original Street Fighter II to 3rd Strike shows how much the series has improved over the years, giving some added respect for the craft that went into each title.

It was fun going through each game and checking out what they had to offer in today’s age. Each entry is represented well, even featuring detailed facts about their development along with a showing of each game’s arcade specific attract mode during your pre-game selection. Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection looks to be the most ambitious compilation the series has seen yet, and a surprisingly educational one as well. The series has been through a lot over the years, and seeing the essential games on display in all their glory offers some neat perspective on how much the series has held up over time, and how it still remains one of the most respected franchises out there.