Red Faction: Guerrilla Remastered Gameplay

Red Faction: Guerrilla Remastered–or Re-mars-tered as it’s officially dubbed–is just a few days away from release, and now we’re getting an early look at gameplay. The PS4, Xbox One, and PC remaster looks better and runs way smoother than the original 2009 release, and you can watch us play through the first mission above to see us destroy a base with explosives and do a whole lot of damage with a hammer.

The remaster primarily improves upon the original’s visuals, as you can see in our PS4 Pro gameplay: there are new textures, lighting, shadow rendering, and post-processing. It also adds 4K support, and is way easier to play; the frame-rate is smooth and the game no longer struggles to keep up with the action.

Red Faction Guerrilla is known for its physics-friendly destructive gameplay, where you can use weapons, vehicles, and explosives to wreak havoc on your environment. Thanks to the remastered graphics and performance, this has never been more enjoyable. In GameSpot’s original Red Faction Guerilla review, Randolph Ramsay gave the game an 8.5/10 and praised its fun action and long, challenging single-player campaign.

“You’ll end up hearing that ‘thunk’ a lot in Red Faction: Guerrilla, but you’ll never get tired of it because its deep, crunchy sound is tied so intrinsically to the satisfying visual destruction you see,” he wrote of the game’s iconic sledgehammer weapon.

“Guerrilla’s gameplay is similar–many of the missions may feel like they’re at the same, loud, all-out pace, but when devastation is this well presented, it’s difficult not to get swept along by its primal energy. Red Faction: Guerrilla mixes a long and involving single-player campaign with a fun and satisfying online segment, with both adding up to a game that proves that a little chaos (or in this case, a lot) can be a positive thing.” The remaster officially releases on July 3 and will cost $30.

Nintendo Switch Could Get More Monster Hunter Games, But Not The One You Want

Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate is scheduled to come to Nintendo Switch on August 28, but everyone wants to know if 2018’s critically acclaimed Monster Hunter World could have a future on the console as well. According to Siliconera, Capcom responded to the question in a Q&A session held after the company’s 39th shareholders meeting.

Turns out the answer is a resounding “no.” Though disappointing, Capcom has its reasons. Monster Hunter World is literally too large a game for Nintendo Switch. Capcom did follow up with the announcement that the Switch might see another Monster Hunter game, something other than Generations Ultimate, added to its library, though.

Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate is the expanded version of 2015’s Monster Hunter Generations for 3DS. We gave the original game an 8/10. In our Monster Hunter Generations review, Justin Haywald said, “After dozens of hours I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface of this adventure–there are other weapons and Hunter Art combinations I want to try, and of course, there are many more monsters to hunt. With Monster Hunter you get out what you put into the game, and Monster Hunter Generations is a game that compels me to put in more of my time.”

Even if it’s not coming to Switch, Monster Hunter World is getting an update on Xbox One and PS4. On July 13, the game’s summer event, titled Summer Twilight Fest, brings new quests, limited-time bounties, and aesthetic changes to the action RPG. Monster Hunter World comes to PC this fall.

Ubisoft CEO Believes Streaming May Open Door to 5 Billion Players in a Decade

Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot says he believes that streaming games could allow for extreme growth in gaming.

In the YouTube video Q&A, Guillemot responds to a question about console cycles, and noted his belief that the advancements of streaming could add billions of players to the industry over the coming years.

“What we are dreaming is that technology will allow us to actually stream our games to all the TVs, mobile phones, and tablets in the future, and that we will be able to give an opportunity to all our brands to reach 2.5 billion in five years and maybe five billion players within ten years,” Guillemot said.

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Forza Horizon 4: IGN’s Real-Life Horizon Road Trip

The Forza Horizon series has been taking us around the globe since 2012. Colorado. Southern Europe. Australia. Now we’re going to Britain.

What do I think of when I think of Britain? Mary Poppins. Michael Caine. Moles?

I dunno; maybe that’s a little unfair. I mean, Australia and Britain aren’t really that different, culturally speaking. Yeah, we love fish and chips too, and we also drive on the left, and we have the same old lady on the back of our money. Sure, there are dissimilarities in the temperature we serve our beer and the amount of venom packed into our spiders, but the differences aren’t really as stark as I think we all like to pretend they are.

Geographically, though? That’s a different story. However, while I’ve been to Britain to visit developers a bunch of times over the past 15 years I still really haven’t seen that much of it in person. The places I’ve experienced are airports, motorways, and the inside of a few pubs. I’ve never really seen the Britain between all that.

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Pillars of Eternity Director Would Rather Have the Constraints of Crowdfunding

For years, Obsidian Entertainment had long been one of the video game industry’s unluckiest studios. Between Sega canceling their role-playing game based on the Aliens franchise, Microsoft canceling the lofty “million-man raids” of Stormlands, or THQ folding shortly after acquiring the publishing rights for South Park: The Stick of Truth, publishers just weren’t looking like a good idea for the struggling team. Instead, Obsidian began to look towards the success of the Double Fine Adventure Kickstarter (which later became Broken Age), seeing it as a way for the team to make their pitch directly to fans of the studio’s work. In this month’s IGN Unfiltered, Pillars of Eternity director Josh Sawyer elaborates on how the change in the landscape of game publishing has impacted the studio, and how he prefers both the freedoms and limitations of crowdfunding.

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Wreckfest Review: Crashing The Party

If there’s anything to be learned from a game like Wreckfest, it’s that thrashing around old bangers, running opponents into concrete barriers, and threading the needle between a group of crashing cars can, even in 2018, be brilliantly fun. After a four-year stint in Steam’s early access, Wreckfest has hit the track with surprising confidence. Showing off its impressive soft-body collision system that lets colliding cars twist and crush with brutal realism and some fierce AI, every event is brimming with satisfaction. Wreckfest succeeds where it matters, becoming one of the most surprising and gratifying racing games of the year.

Wreckfest’s career mode is made up of five different championships, each consisting of various events–from multi-race championships to one-off demolition derbys–that each gradually unlock as you gain XP and increase your driver level. In addition to XP, rewards are doled out regularly in the form of performance parts along with credits to buy new cars and parts with, so even a poor finish, which will happen, never feels like wasted time.

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Most career events are a simple race to the finish where you’ll have a handful of laps to hunt down the opposition and score as good a position as possible, giving you a chance to serve up mayhem while slicing through the field. Race starts are a gorgeous, chaotic mess that can feel like running a gauntlet as cars jostle and barge for position. They’re also where the game’s marquee destruction engine shows off its capabilities as cars fly off the course through wooden fences and tire barriers, sending debris scattering into the air and across the road. It can be spectacular to watch from a distance when tailing a pack of cars or during a replay, but equally brutal when you’re the one involved in it.

Other event types include demolition derbys, where you try to turn your opponents’ cars into cubes of twisted steel by smashing into them as hard as you can, and elimination-style heat races that normally take place on a closed figure eight track or an oval. There’s also the occasional lawnmower derby, which shows off the game’s slightly twisted sense of humor. Each mode not only offers some variety in destruction but is also visually spectacular in its own right. Landing a perfectly timed swipe that puts an opponent into the path of an oncoming car and watching the resulting destruction behind you looks just as great as slamming a school bus into a pack of Minis.

Damage in Wreckfest has two settings: normal and realistic. On normal, you and your opponents can survive more than your fair share of hard hits, making heavy impacts much more forgiving. But with realistic conditions, things get a lot tougher and a bit more spectacular too. Longer races become tests of survival, as all it takes is one bad collision to put a car out of contention (or at least change how it handles). A bad landing off a jump could destroy your suspension and send you into a wall of concrete that shatters spectacularly upon impact, and that’s your race done. There’s no rewinding time to fix your mistakes, either; you’ll need to restart the race if it all goes south. But while this kind of repetition would normally be grating, the act of racing is so good that it takes the edge off.

When you do manage to escape the chaos and settle into a good driving rhythm, Wreckfest shows off some wonderful driving physics. The transition between different road surfaces is sublime, and regardless of whether you’re driving with a top-of-the-line racing wheel or a gamepad, the sensation of sliding around a corner, catching the rear end, and gassing it all the way out feels superb. Tires slip and slide through the dirt but scream for grip on the tarmac, and you can almost feel them flexing as the car rolls through the corners.

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Each type of car, from the hulking school bus all the way down to the miniature two-door Killerbee, feels different to drive. Some are heavier and more sluggish, while others are lighter and can corner better but suffer more in collisions. Upgrades to vehicles can substantially alter the handling, whether it’s through better performance or a stronger chassis that’s better at taking damage. Although having no way of saving upgrade sets can result in some minor headaches when optimising for each event type, overall it’s a meaningful upgrade system with tangible effects on the already diverse feel of racing.

AI drivers race unapologetically no matter the scenario or difficulty level, unafraid to punt you off the road if they decide they want to get past or smashing into to you head first in an effort to take you out. If competing against AI isn’t your bag, you can take it online and race against others on dedicated servers or set up your own custom race server with your own rules, and it all works smoothly.

It’s rare when a racing game manages to modernize and reinvigorate an old formula with spectacular confidence, but Wreckfest does just that.

Compared to the dynamic gameplay, Wreckfest’s user experience is a bit frustrating. The UI is surprisingly bland for such a technically impressive game, with static menus and a heavy rock soundtrack that’s obnoxious enough to warrant immediately turning the music off. With that out of the way, you can more fully appreciate the game’s excellent sound effects. Throaty engines belch and roar loudly–except for the lawnmower, which sounds like thousands of angry mosquitos–and crash sounds are impactful and bone-crunching. Equally as good are the game’s visuals. The cars themselves, while all old, banged-up muscle cars, look suitably mean and ready for thrashing. Debris stays on the track over the course of a race, as do the littered remains of cars that don’t make the distance. Heat races show off the course at different times of day, with the later heats often taking place as the sun starts to set and rays of sunlight pour through the gaps in the grandstands and trees. Replays give you the chance to relive your best moments, although the lack of a rewind function makes it a pain to focus in on specifics, forcing you to restart the replay from the beginning.

It’s rare when a racing game manages to modernize and reinvigorate an old formula with spectacular confidence, but Wreckfest does just that. Minor issues with menus and its soundtrack aside, it wows with a gorgeous look and wonderful driving feel, along with a damage system that satisfies in the most brutal of fashions. With its array of different cars, tracks, and event types, Wreckfest is a brilliantly fun and frenetic racing game that can be thoroughly enjoyed by anyone, not just racing game fans.