Company of Heroes, the 2006 World War II RTS that earned a 9/10 in GameSpot’s PC review, is coming to phones. The game, which came to iPads earlier this year, has been reconfigured for smaller mobile devices. This phone version will release on September 10, and the iPhone version will be free for anyone who already bought it on iPad.
The game, which follows the events from D-Day through to the storming of Normandy, has a new trailer to show how it plays on phones. The trailer’s short, but gives some impressions of how touch controls might work–you can see a line of fences being built with what must have been a sweep of the finger.
The game will cost $13.99 / £13.99 / €14,99.
This phone port comes from Feral Interactive, which recently handled the Switch port of Grid Autosport.
This version of Company of Heroes will be compatible with the following phone models:
iPhone 6 or better
Google Pixel 2 or better
Samsung Galaxy S8 or better
Samsung Galaxy Note8 or better
OnePlus 5T / 6T / 7 / 8
Sony Xperia 1 / XZ2 Compact
HTC U12+
LG V30+
Motorola Moto Z2 Force
Nokia 8
Xiaomi Mi 6 / Mi 9 / Mi 9T
Xiaomi Pocophone F1
Xiaomi Redmi Note 8 Pro
Company of Heroes received a sequel on PC, Company of Heroes 2. It released in 2013, and no mobile port has been announced as of yet.
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Battletoads is back. The series, which has been dormant since 1994’s Battletoads Arcade (last seen in Rare Replay), has returned to Xbox One and PC, in a self-aware game that repeatedly winks at how long it’s been. This new game, which leans into the comedy hard and switches up gameplay styles between levels, hasn’t received universally glowing reviews, but reactions have trended towards positive.
The original NES game is a classic that holds a fond place in many people’s hearts–albeit one that was brutally, infamously difficult. The new game lets you choose your own difficulty level, and tellingly, the highest one is simply called “Battletoads”. Still, this iteration tries to be a bit more accessible.
In addition to GameSpot’s own review, other outlets have weighed in on how this style of game holds up. Opinions differ on whether the game is funny or not, whether more levels should focus on the series’ staple brawling gameplay, and how effective a reboot it is.
The game is available through Xbox Game Pass, so if the reviews pique your interest and you’re a subscriber you can check it out yourself at no additional cost. If you’re a Sea of Thieves fan, you might want to play it just to unlock the new ship set.
Here’s what the reviews have to say about Battletoads. To see even more, check out GameSpot sister site Metacritic.
Game: Battletoads
Platforms: PC, Xbox One
Developer: Dlala Studios
Release date: August 20
Price: $20
GameSpot – 6/10
“I walked away wishing there was a lot more Battletoads. Most of the game’s foundation is solid. The beat-’em-up combat, the art, and a lot of secondary gameplay is surprising and fun. Though its blend of gameplay variations feels unbalanced at times, and it isn’t always the laugh-riot it tries to be, Battletoads is an entertaining little romp.” – Mike Epstein [Full Review]
Video Games Chronicle – 5/5
“Battletoads fends off any hint of monotony by mixing things up with a diverse and complex fight system, wonderfully varied and bonkers enemies, interesting levels full of obstacles and puzzles, and entirely new and inventive variant stages with gameplay that spans entirely different genres. The slapstick humor is intentionally corny, but its characters end up being genuinely lovable, the plot is nonsensical but charmingly self-aware and doesn’t take itself seriously, and the soundtrack is absolutely banging. Battletoads isn’t just a worthy reboot, it’s one of the best beat-em-ups in a brilliant year for the genre.” – Mike Jackson [Full Review]
IGN – 8/10
“After more than a quarter of a century in limbo, this new iteration of the legendarily difficult Battletoads takes everything that made the NES original memorable and reworks it into a friendlier, funnier beat ‘em up. Entertaining characters with a great visual style, simple but rewarding combat and minigames, and a rad soundtrack coalesce into a respectably enjoyable revival, with its most notable shortcomings being that enemy variety is a little slim and the story is over too quickly.” – Terence Wiggins [Full Review]
Pure Xbox – 8/10
“The good far outweighs the bad here, though, and the result is a game that has completely turned our expectations inside out, considering how worried the trailers had made some of us. Rest assured, the Battletoads are back, and now they’re here we hope this isn’t the last we’ll hear of them. Battletoads is without a doubt one of the funniest games of this generation, and it’s a pretty nifty beat ’em up to boot. It does have the occasional lull when things start to feel a little repetitive, but by and large it’s a hugely entertaining experience and well worth your time.” – Chris Scullion [Full Review]
Destructoid – 7/10
“Battletoads is another one of 2020’s infamous oddities. I suspect it’s going to be highly polarizing (not only due to the adherence to retro style difficulty but the newness of the art and humor), but it somewhat won me over due to sheer force of will. I also can safely assume that I’m going to be on the higher-end of the spectrum of liking it: but if we never see these dudes again because this game was an absolute cacophony, I’ll be a bit bummed.” – Chris Carter [Full Review]
Game Informer – 5/10
“The kindest thing I can say about Battletoads is this: It works. The controls are fine, I encountered no major technical issues, and an optional invincibility feature allows you to easily clear sections that are giving you too much trouble. Simply being playable from beginning to end is a tragically low bar to clear, but it’s the main thing Battletoads has going for it. Otherwise, this baffling experience digs through decades of gaming history to unearth the Battletoads name only to drag it through the mud.” – Joe Juba [Full Review]
Attack of the Fanboy – 2/5
“The original Battletoads games had a lot of variety in their level design, but the core gameplay remained the same throughout and had consistency outside of levels like the Turbo Tunnel. In comparison, the new Battletoads felt like a game that couldn’t make up its mind on what it wanted to be compared to something like the very enjoyable return of Streets of Rage earlier this year. Having so many different stage types, a majority of which are way too short, makes the game almost feel like a mini-game collection than the full scale Battletoads game that fans have been waiting for all these years.” – Dean James [Full Review]
Hypnospace Outlaw, a beautiful and strange game with an affection for the Internet of old, is coming to Switch (as well as Xbox One and PS4). A demo is available now on Switch, so you can see how the game, which is largely set within a browser, handles with traditional controls. However, you’ll also be able to play it with a full PC control set-up.
On Twitter, Mike Rose–owner of publisher No More Robots–shared that the Switch version will support a keyboard and mouse. This was Nintendo’s suggestion, apparently.
The Switch only supports USB, not bluetooth, and you’ll likely need to play docked to take advantage of this. In comments under the tweet, Rose also confirmed that the Switch version will support gyro and pointer controls.
Another user asked if the Xbox version will support mouse and keyboard, and Rose said that it should, although they haven’t tested it.
Hypnospace Outlaw received an 8/10 in GameSpot’s review of the PC version. “As an exploration of early-ish internet culture, Hypnospace Outlaw demonstrates how far we’ve travelled online over the past 20 years while at the same time asking whether we’ve gone anywhere at all,” wrote reviewer David Wildgoose.
The game will launch for Switch, PS4, and XBox One (through Game Pass) on August 27.
The Halo 3: ODST closed beta tests have begun on PC, and if you didn’t get into the first wave of the preview test, you should check your email again.
343’s Tyler Davis wrote on Twitter that the developer has sent out more than 100,000 additional invitations to Halo Insider members on Steam. You can sign up for the free Halo Insider program here. Invitations are sent to the email address tied to the account.
PSA: Emails for an additional 100k+ Invites are rolling out now to Halo Insiders for Steam. Keep an eye out if you’ve been wanting to get in on the action!
This is a normal process for Halo’s beta tests on PC for The Master Chief Collection. The tests begin with a limited number of participants before more people are invited in to further test the game at scale.
Those invited can try out six campaign missions and seven Firefight maps, plus some of the new changes and improvements coming to the Master Chief Collection, including new weapon skins and guns for Halo 3 some 13 years after the iconic shooter originally launched.
A beta test is also available on Xbox One, but it’s not clear if that test is being expanded like it is on PC. Whatever the case, the ODST campaign has been available on the Xbox One version of the Master Chief Collection since 2015, but Firefight, the wave-based multiplayer mode, is making its long-awaited debut. Both the campaign and Firefight are heading to PC for the very first time.
ODST was originally released back in 2009 for the Xbox 360. Critic Tom McShea awarded it a score of 9/10 in GameSpot’s Halo 3: ODST review, saying, “The delicate construction of the story adds a new wrinkle to the typical Halo plot, and the action-packed campaign levels are full of intense battles and surprising encounters. Firefight mode is a standout addition, crafting highly addictive cooperative battles for players to experience.”
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Whenever I board a passenger jet to go somewhere, my stomach sinks and my brain says, “Well, I guess you’re gonna die now.” But the thought of flying is still magical to me. Whether it’s fighter jets in Ace Combat 7 or TIE Interceptors in Star Wars: Squadrons, the idea of a hunk of metal flying through the air (or space) is an exciting, fantastical idea. Flight is very real, of course, even if a lot of science behind it can initially seem unreal. With the return of Microsoft Flight Simulator, a game that is built to mimic reality as best as current technology will allow it, I can wield that magic for myself, operating and flying a plane with the understanding that the actions I’m performing have a strong basis in real life. It is terrifying. And it is absolutely phenomenal.
Microsoft Flight Simulator’s greatest boon is how easy it is to start experiencing the wonder of flight. It’s a simulator first and foremost, of course–the amount of buttons, knobs, indicators in any one aircraft is staggering. Nearly all of them have a tangible function, too, and it’s easy to see how the game could be used to train actual pilots to operate particular planes or navigate certain routes. But the first thing Flight Simulator throws up at you is a menu to determine your level of assistance–a whole manner of optional modifiers and notifications are there to help you get in the air or guide you on what to do and how to do it. At its most basic level, it’s easy to get into the sky very quickly with minimal input using only a gamepad.
Microsoft Flight Simulator pushes you to learn more, though. The tutorial attempts to teach you how to read the dials and meters in your cockpit, runs you through basic flight theory and etiquette, and guides you on how to navigate your way through the air by yourself. While my experience with arcade flight games led me to choose a middle-ground experience that let me control the plane in a mostly realistic manner, I found myself very eager to learn more. I wanted to stay in the incredibly detailed cockpit view more often in order to try and internalise the meter readings. I wanted to know what all the dials and buttons did and when to use them. At the time of writing, I’m now at the point where I’m operating my plane primarily through manual activation with my mouse and keyboard, using a controller only for its analog stick, and I feel incredibly accomplished.
In my mind, it feels like I’m actually learning how to operate the plane in the exact manner I would in real life–and though that’s something I can’t confirm, it is a fascinating idea that continues to motivate me to try new planes, see what all the buttons do, and try to keep them up in the sky. Microsoft Flight Simulator drives this feeling so much that after hours of virtual flight time, I’m more eager than ever for more tutorials. I want more lessons about the intricacies of flight theory and wish the game had included plane-specific training sessions or airport-specific practice exercises where you can get run-throughs of the quirks of everything.
In fact, once you’re done with training, Microsoft Flight Simulator offers very little in terms of structured activities. There are Landing Challenges, which give you specific conditions to land planes in as best you can in order to slap a high score on a leaderboard. There is also a small selection of Bush Flights–multi-leg journeys through locations that challenge your navigational skills and endurance–which range from seven to nine hours in length, a fact I only realised an hour into one.
But the core of Microsoft Flight Simulator, and the game’s most remarkable feature, is its freeform mode where you pick and customise an aircraft, set your time of day and weather conditions, maybe chart a predetermined route, and then literally fly anywhere you want on a faithful, one-to-one recreation of the planet Earth. The whole Earth.
It is surreal, and it is astonishing. The first real thing I did in Flight Simulator was hop into a 787 Dreamliner at Kingsford Smith Airport in Sydney and immediately shat myself looking at the overwhelmingly imposing control panel–the tutorial propeller plane had certainly not prepared me for this. The next real thing I did was take to the air and find the Sydney Opera House. Then, I found my office and performed my commute home, following the roads back to my house and identifying major landmarks along the way. I continued following roads and highways I knew to my parents’ house–in a suburb that I thought I would never, ever see in a video game–and performed a terrible landing at the regional airport near where I grew up. Flight Simulator uses a combination of machine learning, map data, and a technique called photogrammetry to create an accurate depiction of our world. While this first flight of mine was incredibly mundane, the familiarity of the streets and buildings I was seeing as I flew my passenger jet far too close to the ground made it a stupefying experience, demonstrating to me the fact that this simulation was pulling no punches. It’s hard not to be impressed by the feat of it.
The feeling of being able to tame a realistic simulation of a complex flight machine is exciting, and the feeling is magnified by being able to use those actions to fly over and visit what you understand to be authentic recreations of real-world locations from high in the air. Microsoft Flight Simulator is an astounding tool for virtual tourism. I continue to have my breath taken away flying over both familiar locations and places I can now only dream of visiting in real life–Mt. Fuji, Mecca, the North Pole, the Amazon rainforest, and that really good taco stand in Downtown LA. Live weather, time, and air traffic data add an extra layer of simulated realism that can make these trips feel extra special, but playing with the simulation to create your own scenarios (like trying to land a plane in the San Francisco fog) is just as delightful. The endless possibilities for self-guided activities are inspiring.
Charting and flying a real-time route from A to B will regularly result in long stretches where your ability to competently fly a plane won’t be tested at any great length, and in these moments it’s wonderful to just turn on the autopilot and quietly admire the exquisite scenery out the window, thinking about how insignificant you are in the grand scheme of things. It’s a unique and sublime experience you can lose yourself again and again. You can also share the experience flying tandem online with friends, which is a very pleasant way to catch up and chat (Where we droppin’? Literally anywhere on Earth.)
Flight Simulator’s recreation of our world isn’t perfect, however. The algorithmic mapping has its fair share of amusing oddities that presented themselves to me right away–while the Sydney Opera House’s unique shape was modelled in-game, the iconic arch of the nearby Sydney Harbour Bridge was rendered as a flat freeway. But when you’re cruising at 30,000 feet in the air, very little of that actually matters. It should be noted, however, that an online marketplace is there to provide options for real-world purchases from official and third-party developers, one of which includes more detailed building models specifically for London. It should also be noted that Flight Simulator features long loading times, even on solid-state hard drives, and the occasional performance drop, even on machines that fly far and above the game’s recommended PC specifications. This is likely due to the density and scope of the simulation, as well as the fact that Flight Simulator constantly downloads data to populate the world (though you can tell it not to, at the expense of environment detail).
It’s a game that gives me anxiety about having to upgrade my computer. But it’s also a game that gives me a great sense of calm as I cruise through clouds far above the Earth. Microsoft Flight Simulator is a tremendous experience that makes you appreciate natural beauty and man-made ingenuity in equal measures. Being encouraged to dive into the rabbit hole of learning how to operate genuine, complex machines to perform amazing feats of science is giddying, as is being able to journey across a realistic, mostly accurate depiction of our entire, beautiful planet. Microsoft Flight Simulator is a spectacular technical achievement and a deeply inspiring experience filled with glorious possibilities.
Battletoads has just released for Xbox One and PC, and thanks to Xbox Game Pass many Xbox players can get their hands on it right now. If you’re a Sea of Thieves player, you might want to put some time into this throwback to an earlier Rare series–thanks to an in-game promotion, you can unlock ship parts by doing so.
If you finish Act 1 of Battletoads, now or at any point in the future, you’ll unlock the Battletoads ship set for Sea of Thieves. This allows you to kit out your entire ship, from the masthead to the wheel to the sails, in Battletoads-themed paraphernalia.
You can check it out below. The game’s first Act isn’t too long, although the first speeder bike level might take some persistence.
The Battletoads return tomorrow, August 20th, courtesy of @dlalastudios! To celebrate, anyone who finishes Act One of the raucous multi-genre adventure, at any time, will be able to festoon their ship with a family of fighting frogs! Or are they toads? We hear it’s a wart thing. pic.twitter.com/1BRKaglxHE
Although Battletoads is a classic Rare game, this new version was developed by Dlala Studios. It earned a 6/10 in GameSpot’s review, and it’s worth a look if you have Game Pass.
Sea of Thieves recently announced that 15 million players have jumped into its wide open sea since its 2018 launch. This isn’t the first time an Xbox game has crossed over with it–in 2019, a Halo ship set was released.
Amazon’s video game efforts so far have not been entirely successful, with the company’s latest title, Crucible, failing to find an audience and recently returning to closed beta status. Now, Amazon Games is making another big move in gaming by partnering with the Korean developer Smilegate for a new game to be released in 2021.
Smilegate developed the massively popular Crossfire game, which has a breathtaking 670 million registered users and reached a concurrent player record of 8 million people. Building off the success of the game in Korea, Smilegate partnered with Microsoft to bring a console version of the game, CrossfireX, to Xbox One.
Amazon Games boss Christoph Hartman said in a statement that Smilegate is an ideal partner because the company makes the types of “growing online games” that Amazon is trying to develop.
In addition to this mysterious new project with Smilegate, Amazon Games is developing multiple MMOs, including New World and The Lord of the Rings. The company is also working on “several unannounced projects.”
Amazon’s new game with Smilegate will be published in North America and Europe. Financial terms of the deal between Amazon and Smilegate were not announced.
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Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout has become something of a phenomenon, and out all the game’s players, one of them is the best–but they did not have proof until now. The Fall Guys Twitter account has said that one player out there, the “statistical best” one, has received an early costume–but they can’t say who.
OKAY, I’VE GONE ROGUE AND DONE A MEME
I’ve found the player who is STATISTICALLY the BEST
The hashtag “#TheFallenOne” is now trending on Twitter, but the account reports that they’re still not sure who has the costume. Will the best Fall Guys player identify themselves? Are they watching Twitter?
Are they, perhaps, reading GameSpot right now?
lol I really thought we’d find out who it was straight away…
If you’ve looked in your inventory and it’s not you, please can you tweet:
The social media team for Fall Guys has been putting the work in. They recently promised to delete the yellow team if a tweet hit 1 million retweets–it’s currently hovering at just over 200,000. They’ve also been pitting brands off against each other in a bidding war for a Fall Guys costume, which would cost them a charitable donation.
Fall Guys is available on PS4 and PC, and might eventually come to other platforms. The game’s latest patch tweaks a few finale games and prevents multiple team games in a row, which might or might not help you finally snag that crown.
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Activision finally confirmed Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War with a teaser video, teeing up an announcement next week. But the company isn’t going into full radio silence until then, as Treyarch has now released a piece of key art.
The artwork shows gruff-looking soldiers on both sides of the conflict, American and Soviet, overlayed with various pieces of printed propaganda. This is similar in tone to the teaser video, which featured real-life KGB defector Yuri Bezmenov talking about active measures to destabilize governments.
Aside from the art, the tweet from Treyarch simply reiterates the reveal date of August 26 that was already announced. That announcement promised that the reveal will take place in Verdansk, the fictional city that serves as the map for Call of Duty: Warzone.
That video reveal was from Pawn Takes Pawn, the apparent culmination of a lengthy ARG that laid out puzzles and riddles for fans to uncover. That promotional event included dropping mystery boxes and even fans discovering a nuke. Some fans have speculated that the nuke could be used to reshape the Verdansk map to make it reflect the new Black Ops multiplayer, since Activision has spoken before about the free-to-play battle royale continuing across several annual Call of Duty releases.
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