July 2018 – Page 102

The First Purge Review

The Purge franchise has always served as satirical horror, even as its political elements have become more overt with The Purge: Election Year. Satire often works best when there’s a message behind it, but this is now a problem with The First Purge.

Director Gerard McMurray and screenwriter James DeMonaco have directly lifted moments from the real world, including the rise of Trump, police brutalities, the Russian collusion investigation, and mass shootings. There’s even an unmistakable joke on the “grab them by the p—y” controversy. Instead of re-contextualizing these moments or presenting a new argument, The First Purge veers so forcefully towards exploitation that its message gets lost among all the “F— you”s to the Trump administration. I’m not fully convinced there was much of a message to begin with beyond playing out a revenge fantasy on the Trump regime.

Red Faction: Guerrilla Re-Mars-tered Review

When we first reviewed Red Faction: Guerrilla in 2009, we gave it an 8.0, for Great. Here’s what we said about it back then:

If all you care about is blasting things to pieces, you’re going to love Red Faction: Guerrilla. Seeing a tower topple to the ground in a seemingly realistic fashion after smacking away its support beams with a sledgehammer is really a thrill, and though it may lose its appeal as you continue through the lengthy campaign, it’s still worth checking out, particularly after you unlock some of the better weapons. What’s more disappointing about Volition’s effort is the rocky mission design, bland artistic style, weak plot and anemic character development, which shifts too much focus to the element of destruction to maintain a level of excitement. Its enjoyable gunplay mechanics, along with the weapons and opportunity for tearing apart structures, carry over into the online space, where Volition has built an impressive multiplayer suite that includes stat tracking, unlocks, and a number of game modes that focus on flattening buildings. While the game may not do everything right, it’s your best bet for free-form demolition and unpretentious entertainment. – Charles Onyett

Pokemon Quest: Can You Transfer from Switch to Mobile?

See if and how to transfer from Pokemon Quest’s Switch version to mobile.

Yvette Nicole Brown Replacing Chris Hardwick as Walking Dead Comic-Con Panel Moderator

Yvette Nicole Brown is set to replace Chris Hardwick as the San Diego Comic-Con panel moderator for The Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead.

Variety reports Brown will take over moderating duties for Hardwick after he stepped down following accusations of sexual abuse made by his ex-girlfriend, Chloe Dykstra.

AMC also pulled the season premiere of Hardwick’s chat show Talking with Chris Hardwick in the wake of the allegations. Hardwick has since denied the accusations.

Sea of Thieves Getting 3 New Content Updates This Year

There are at least three more big content updates planned for Sea of Thieves this year.

The three unannounced content expansions will follow the content roadmap Rare has already projected to run through September – The Hungering Deep which was released on May 29, Cursed Sails coming some time in July, and Forsaken Shores dropping in September.

Speaking to IGN, Rare studio head Craig Duncan and Sea of Thieves design director Mike Chapman revealed the team’s new strategy for keeping a quick cadence of content creation going in the coming months and years.

“We’ve always talked about wanting to change perceptions of what multiplayer could be,” Chapman said. “One way you could look at it is we’ve done the really hard part. And now we’ve got this magical opportunity to make all the areas of the game richer. And beyond The Hungering Deep, Cursed Sails, and Forsaken Shores is coming, there’s going to be three more this year as well.”

Beyond: Our Precious PlayStation Memories

This episode of Beyond was recorded in front of a live audience! If you couldn’t be in that audience, please join Max Scoville, Alanah Pearce, Jonathon Dornbush, Zach Ryan, Barrett Courtney, Casey DeFreitas, and Miranda Sanchez as they share their favorite memories that have involved a PlayStation in some way.

Also, this is sadly Alanah’s last episode of Beyond. If you wanna keep up with her, go subscribe to her YouTube channel

Best Lapboards for Gaming

Be sure to visit IGN Tech for all the latest comprehensive hands-on reviews and best-of roundups. Note that if you click on one of these links to buy the product, IGN may get a share of the sale. For more, read our Terms of Use.

PC gaming with a mouse and keyboard at a desk is awesome and everything, but sometimes you want to recline on your couch instead of sit in a chair for hours. This setup gives you the best of both worlds; the accuracy of a keyboard and mouse with the comfort of a couch while enjoying that huge TV in your living room. To pull this off, you’re going to need some specialized equipment, though, and the most critical is a lapboard. It’s essentially a lap-sized tray that holds your keyboard and mouse in such a way that using them on your lap feels natural, as opposed to a wobbly board that makes it harder to aim your mouse or type with your keyboard.

Shenmue 1 & 2 Release Date Confirmed For August

Following its apparent leak on the Australian Microsoft Store, Sega has confirmed pricing and release details for the upcoming Shenmue I & II collection. The combo pack will launch for PS4, Xbox One, and PC via Steam on August 21, and it’ll retail for the budget price of US $30 / £25 / AU $49.95.

First announced during the Sega Fes fan event earlier this year, the Shenmue I & II collection combines both Dreamcast classics together in one package. The games come with a handful of improvements, although they aren’t true HD remakes or remasters. Among the new features players can enjoy are modern and classic control schemes, an updated user interface, scalable screen resolution, and both English and Japanese voiceovers.

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Shenmue was created by famed game designer Yu Suzuki, who directed a number of Sega’s arcade hits, including Out Run and Virtua Fighter. The first title originally launched for Dreamcast in 1999. At the time of its release, it had the distinction of being the most expensive video game ever created. Its sequel, Shenmue II, arrived in 2001, although it would only be released on Dreamcast in Europe and Japan. The game would be subsequently ported to the original Xbox the following year.

Both games cast players in the role Ryo Hazuki, a young martial artist on a quest to avenge his father’s death and ultimately uncover the secret behind a mysterious relic known as the Dragon Mirror. The titles were renowned for their impressive open world, deep battle system, and variety of minigames. You can learn more about each in GameSpot’s original Shenmue review and Shenmue II review.

A third installment in the series, Shenmue III, was announced during Sony’s E3 2015 press conference. The game is currently in development for PS4 and PC, and like its predecessors, it is being directed by series creator Yu Suzuki. Shenmue III was originally slated to launch this year, but was delayed into 2019 in order to further refine the game. Publisher Deep Silver recently revealed that Shenmue III will require a whopping 100 GB of storage space on PC.

The Best Cheap PC Games On Steam You Can Buy Right Now

Due to the nature of the platform, PC has the broadest array of games you’ll find anywhere. With the majority of those games playable on modern hardware, save for occasional instances where current operating systems don’t support certain games, that means you have a Herculean task in front of you when deciding what to buy and play.

Similarly, whereas console and handheld games see discounts on a more irregular basis, there are constantly sales on places like Steam, GOG, Humble, Itch.io, and so on. But sale or not, there are plenty of years-old games that are now low-priced but nevertheless worth playing.

As such, it can be downright overwhelming when you decide to pick up something you haven’t played before. You have decades of games to choose from. Even if you set yourself a price limit–say, $20 in the US–that does very little to actually reduce the number of games you have to consider. And that’s where we come in.

Above, we’re rounding up some of the best games you can find on PC for no more than $20. Due to what’s described above, this is far from comprehensive–it’s simply impossible to highlight every noteworthy PC game that you can pick up for relatively cheap. But we’ve assembled a list of games that we think you’ll be quite pleased to play, and we’ll continue to expand the selection over time.

All of these games are regularly priced at no more than $20–whether or not there’s a Steam sale going on. There’s usually such a promotion not far off, which means you can get these already budget-priced games for even cheaper. If you’re looking for picks based on what’s on sale, we’ve got recommendations for the best Steam summer sale 2018 deals.