Robert Pattinson’s Bruce Wayne has found himself a brand-new partner in the Gotham City Police Department in Jeffery Wright (Westworld, Marvel’s What If…?), who is currently in talks to play Commissioner Jim Gordon according to THR. Wright is the first confirmed citizen of The Batman’s Gotham City, though THR has reported that the casting process for a “who’s who” of Batman villains and rogues is underway.
Commissioner Gordon has served as a staple of Batman’s war on crime from the very beginning as one of Bruce Wayne’s most important points of contact within the GCPD and the sole person responsible for the activation of the Bat-Signal.
Very little is known about The Batman aside from a few details shared by writer/director Matt Reeves, who called the film “a point of view-driven, noir Batman tale,” that will focus on Batman in his role as a detective rather than an action hero. Also, it will not cross over with the upcoming Joker solo film, according to Joker director Todd Philips–so don’t expect Wright to be going head to head with Joaquin Phoenix any time soon.
Up a short flight of stairs and down an alleyway from the initial hub of the first major area in The Surge 2 is a door that can only be opened from the other side. Roughly a dozen hours later you will find yourself standing on the other side of this door before opening it and returning to the very place in which you began, keenly aware of how far you’ve progressed while not really traveling anywhere at all.
Yes, The Surge 2 is that kind of game: an action RPG with a looping, labyrinthine structure and a heavy debt owed to Dark Souls. It’s a hard game in the sense that it demands patience and attention to detail, but it’s not especially punishing. Sure, when you die or rest at a medbay (read: bonfire) all the enemies respawn and many of them can kill you in a couple of hits. And sure, you have to make it back to where you died to recover your tech scrap (read: souls). But as with the Souls series and its ilk, this isn’t really a game about clearing an area and leveling up; it’s about learning through repetition and deepening your understanding of the game.
On a purely mechanical level, the robust combat engine, intricate level design and substantive gear, and crafting systems all leave The Surge 2 far from embarrassed by the From Software comparison. Yet where The Surge 2’s blushes are not spared is in giving you a reason to care about anything you’re doing. Lackluster world-building, forgettable characters and cringeworthy dialogue all conspire against persuading you this is a world worth saving.
It begins with a plane crash. On board was some sort of nanotechnology that triggers an environmental disaster requiring a city-wide quarantine and leaving those infected to wander the streets with a permanently hostile demeanor. You were also on the plane, yet somehow survived the crash and, at the start of the game, wake up in the medical wing of the Jericho City Police Department. Soon you’re having sporadic visions of a young girl, the granddaughter of the CEO of nanotech firm CREO Industries, who you’re sure was also on the plane and now appears to have been kidnapped by a mysterious security force.
There’s not a great deal to the story and what little there is quickly reduces to stale sci-fi musings about the relationship between humans and machines and all sorts of hackneyed military-industrial complex pot-boiling. Your pursuit of the elusive young girl is essentially the pretext for exploring the multi-faceted and interconnected districts of Jericho City and whacking nearly all of its inhabitants in the face.
Fighting in The Surge 2 feels strategic and skillful. There’s the element of stamina management you’d expect–you’ve got to understand when you can commit and when you need to pull back and recover. There’s the ability to manage multiple enemies when any one of them alone is dangerous enough to be life-threatening if you’re not careful. And there’s the necessity of learning to read enemy attack patterns–one may be quick and aggressive, while another is slower and turtles behind a shield, and a third may hang back and takes pot shots.
Combat is almost exclusively focused on melee attacks. There are dozens of weapons to be wielded in one hand or two and each can be deployed in heavy and light attacks as well as combos that alternate between the two. Movesets are shared across a weapon class but various stats–such as base damage, stamina consumption or additional damage types–serve to differentiate unique weapons within the same class. All spears, for example, have the same long reach and forward thrusting attacks, but this one hits slightly quicker for less damage while that one consumes more stamina per attack but delivers bonus electrical damage every hit.
Smartly, no weapons are simply outright better than the others, meaning your choice of armament comes down to a combination of what you’ve managed to find, which particular mix of moveset and stats suit your preferred playstyle, and to a lesser extent the nature of the obstacle you’re trying to overcome. Some weapons are better suited to certain situations, but ultimately it comes down to how you want to approach combat. Weapons taken from the one-handed (think futuristic longswords) and twin-rigged (think futuristic knuckle-dusters) classes hit with speed and will let you get the drop on an enemy then deliver a swift combo. Hammers and anything from the heavy-duty class will instead take longer to wind up but when they hit they hit hard and can easily stagger an opponent.
I enjoyed the flexibility of the double-duty class, a weapon type that can transform between slow, heavy hits and a quick flurry of blows. And for situations that warranted a different tactic I switched to a staff for the longer reach of its whirlwind attack and some added nano damage. There’s a huge amount of variety here and, after briefly testing out each new weapon I found during my initial playthrough, I’m looking forward to exploring different weapon loadouts in future playthroughs.
That’s mostly because fighting in The Surge 2 feels really good. Aided by the meaty impact of the sound effects and the responsiveness of the character animations, you can feel the weight of each attack in a manner that never fails to satisfy. Successfully deflecting an attack rewards you with wonderfully gratifying “whomp!” sound, a brief freeze-frame and slow-motion interlude as the enemy is staggered and you’re given the opening to launch a critical strike. Better, perhaps, are the cinematic slow-mos seen when you are able to sever the limb of your opponent, with your character drawing from an impressively wide range of stylish deathblow animations that are solely interested in making you look like the most effortless badass in the post-apocalypse. Be warned, however: they are not for the squeamish (and, fortunately, there’s an option to disable these scenes to reduce the gore factor.)
But it gets even more complex. When locked on to an enemy you are able to target individual limbs, switching between the head, body, arms, and legs with a flick of the right analogue stick. You want to do this for two reasons. One, some limbs may be unarmoured, thus targeting an exposed left arm will let you do more damage and hasten the kill. Two, if you do enough damage to a particular limb you’ll get the opportunity to chop it off and, in a curious application of game logic, claim it as a material for crafting. Once you’ve beheaded an enemy enough times you’ll have the materials necessary to craft a new piece of headgear or upgrade your existing one. The tantalizing risk/reward here is obvious: do you go for the weak point or prolong the fight in order to get that vital crafting component? Boss fights double down on this element, with some of them forcing you to hack off multiple limbs to bring it down while others drop special boss weapons if you target the relevant limb during the fight.
Furthering the complexity, you can also block attacks (assuming you have sufficient stamina) by holding down L1/LB, but to deflect an attack you’ve got to block and flick the right stick in the direction of the incoming blow at the precise moment; mis-time your attempt and you’re going to take the hit. It’s not just another great risk/reward setup, it also reveals one of the clever ways The Surge 2 handles its difficulty. While there aren’t selectable difficulty levels per se, you can equip various implants that boost your character in certain ways, one of which provides a UI indicator letting you know from which direction the next attack is incoming. So if you want to adopt a playstyle around deflecting attacks and you’re not yet familiar with reading enemy attack animations, you can equip this implant and receive a very useful visual aid.
It’s a really smart system that extends into other areas, too. Implants consume core power, a character stat that increases as you level up, and typically the more useful an implant the more power it consumes. Armour also draws power from the same source, and–yep, you guessed it–the better the defensive stats, the more power it draws. You never have enough core power to simply equip your best armour set and all your favorite implants, so this is where you have to make tough choices about what type of character you’re going to be. There were plenty of periods, especially in the early to mid-game, where I had to leave some armour and implant slots empty because I simply didn’t have the power available to fill them. It’s in these situations, when you’re having to sacrifice useful tools and really commit to a playstyle, that The Surge 2 shines as an RPG.
It also shines in its level design–at least it does so in a somewhat cold, theoretical fashion. Like Dark Souls, The Surge 2 trades heavily on a Metroidvania structure that sees you traversing its levels in a kind of circular fashion, pressing forward until you find yourself back where you started only now you’ve unlocked a shortcut that lets you press further forward. Later, you will return to many of the previously visited locations and explore them anew, having acquired certain key items that allow you to access areas previously inaccessible.
There’s nothing especially novel about that structure. The Surge 2 is simply an extremely accomplished version of it. The areas you explore are just so tightly designed, so compact and yet simultaneously sprawling and dense. There’s almost a honeycomb quality to the level design, this vast network of winding tunnels existing almost on top of each other, branching and converging in surprising ways. No space is wasted.
It’s just a shame few of the locations are memorable for reasons other than how they connect to other locations. There’s a midgame detour to a rather scenic wooded parkland, the odd impressive future city skyline vista, and the constant looming presence of the giant metal wall that was hastily erected after the nano-disaster struck. But in between everything is basically the same handful of debris-strewn streets, toxic tunnels and partially collapsed buildings–and it’s all so boringly brown and grey. More than a mere aesthetic complaint, it actually makes it difficult to find your bearings at times. I found myself getting lost and turned around on quite a few occasions thanks to the unremarkable nature of much of the scenery.
Worse, the characters you meet along the way are equally soulless, if not more so. Conversations with major NPCs are written as if they’re throwaway sidequests, eschewing any sense of character development in favor of laboured exposition. The actual sidequests, of course, fare no better–to their advantage at least they’re quick and to the point, even if they barely resolve and rarely offer a reward worth the effort.
Story and sidequests aside, however, The Surge 2 is absolutely worth the effort when the combat is taken in isolation. Not only does it pack a punch, but it also channels plenty of depth in its limb targeting and deflection systems, and is ably supported by a genuinely varied collection of weapons and potential character builds.
This is a mostly spoiler-free review of Fox’s Prodigal Son. We won’t be reviewing every episode weekly, but let us know what you think of the series and whether you plan to keep watching!
From creators Chris Fedak (Chuck, Deception) and Sam Sklaver (Deception, Blunt Talk) comes a new creepy series marked by fun performances from Michael Sheen and The Walking Dead’s Tom Payne. Sheen’s an incarcerated serial killer, who was arrested in the late ’90s for killing 23 people, while Payne plays the killer’s grown son – an erratic, sleepless criminal profiler. Together, like Will Graham and Hannibal Lecter, they crack cases while sifting through complex emotions. Though here, in Prodigal Son, the feelings are familial.
Even with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare releasing next month, Activision continues to support last year’s game, Black Ops 4, with new updates and more content. The newest wave of new content is out now in the form of the Operation Dark Divide update–and it’s a big one.
For the battle royale mode, Blackout, the update restores the map to its normal look from the previous refresh that sets the stage for a new mode. The new mode is Heavy Metal Heroes, and it is a vehicle-focused mode that encourages players to jump into armored ARAVs, ATVs, and motorcycles, while a new vehicle, the tank, has been added.
The tank is … a tank. It is equipped with a mighty powerful weapon that Activision says will “decimate” anyone found in its sights. The tank supports a drive and a passenger who sits in the gunner position. To call in the tank, players must find it on the map or use the flare gun to call it to your location on the map.
Elsewhere in Blackout, the Dark Divide update adds two new weapons taken from the Zombies mode: the Savage Impaler and Winter’s Fury.
Outside of Blackout, the Dark Divide update introduces new Elixirs (Secret Shopper, Power Vacuum) and a new Perk in the form of Blaze Phase. This allows you to transform into a “charging fireball” to scorch your enemies or knock them back.
Those who have the Black Ops Pass, meanwhile, are getting the final chapter in the Zombies Aether storyline; Tag Der Toten is available now. It sees the crew of the Victis travelling to Siberia to fight off even more zombies as they uncover secrets.
For standard multiplayer, the Dark Divide update adds a new map called Lair. This map is set on a volcanic island featuring a laser that players can activate to torch their enemies. A second “new” map is “Launch,” which is a reimagined version of the original Launch map from the first Black Ops.
Go to Activision’s blog to learn more about what’s new in Dark Divide. The update is available now on PlayStation 4 with releases for Xbox One and PC to follow.
One of the defining features of 2020’s Watch Dogs Legion is that you’re able to take control of basically anyone in the game’s version of London. Associate producer Shelley Johnson said in a new interview that the technical underpinnings of Legion are “complex almost beyond description.”
“This is probably one of the most ambitious games Ubi has ever imagined,” Johnson told Stevivor. “It was certainly from a management standpoint and a creative standpoint, the biggest challenge yet, certainly for me personally.”
Johnson told Gamecrate earlier this year that there is no limit to the number of different NPCs that players can assume control of in Legion. “One of the numbers that was floating around at one point was 9 million,” she said. “They’re procedurally generated characters. So we’ve spent four years building the technology to be able to deliver on this promise and that includes the ability to piece together this huge city of characters as far as animation, dialogue, census data, like all those bio pieces that you see when you profile somebody, faces, character kids, all of this comes together to produce a unique character every time.”
Johnson told Stevivor that it was an expensive, time-consuming process to make Legion a reality as it relates to the ambition under the hood. “[To] play as anyone, as a pillar–to really fulfil on the promise of that–it’s expensive,” she said. “This game is, in as far as challenge is concerned, complex almost beyond description.”
Testing a game like Legion sounds like a big challenge, and Johnson said it’s the first game from Ubisoft that reached the limits of what human testing was capable of. She added that, in the future, games with the complexity and scale of Legion may need to make use of AI to pick up “some of the heavy lifting.”
Watch Dogs Legion launches in March 2020 for PS4, Xbox One, and PC. Check out the video embedded above to learn more.
The Emmys celebrate ground-breaking entertainment in the form of television, whether it be on network TV or on a streaming service platform. The September 22 celebration honored the best in TV for the year, giving plenty of awards out to some great series.
However, we’re living in a new era of television where people have come to watch the rise in streaming services and the quality of content they bring their subscribers. We’ve gotten to a point where places like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Video are on equal footing with major networks now. What a world we live in.
What most people want to know is which channel or network had the most Emmy awards over the course of the evening? Who is the king of television for the next year? We’re breaking down all the winners from the Emmys and seeing which network reigned supreme. Check it all out below.
It’s been three years since Pokemon Go burst onto mobile devices, and while the days of seeing players stopping traffic to catch rare Pokemon may be over, the game continues to be a huge success. Last month in particular was a big one for the title; market research company SuperData reports it was Pokemon Go’s best month since 2016.
According to SuperData, Pokemon Go generated $176 million during August 2019. Not only did that mark “its highest point since peaking in 2016,” it also made Go the top-earning game for the month on mobile devices, dislodging the usual No. 1 title, Honour of Kings.
August is typically Pokemon Go’s strongest month of the year in terms of revenue, and SuperData attributes last month’s huge earnings in part to the numerous events Niantic held in the game. The developer has been gradually ramping up the cadence of in-game events occurring in Go; August alone saw the debut of both Shiny Rayquaza and Jirachi, the return of the Water Festival, a gift-giving event, and more.
It doesn’t appear Pokemon Go will be slowing down anytime soon. Between the rollout of the game’s Ultra Bonuses and the debut of Gen 5 Pokemon and the new Unova Stone, September was an equally busy month for the game in terms of events. Before the month ends, the Legendary Pokemon Giratina is also returning for another stint in Raid Battles.
Meanwhile, Pokemon Go’s next Community Day is set for Saturday, October 12. The event will take place early in the day–from 11 AM to 2 PM local time–and will feature the Gen 3 Ground Pokemon Trapinch. You’ll also be able to earn three times the usual amount of XP for catching Pokemon during October’s Community Day.
EA’s FIFA 20 is just a few days from its global September 27 launch on Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. As tree leaves begin to fall, so too do the reviews for FIFA 20. While our own review is still in-progress as we test out a few more features like Pro Clubs and Ultimate Team, several outlets have published reviews for EA’s annual sports title. Check below for a roundup of what some critics thought of the game and its new Volta mode, and head over to GameSpot’s sister site Metacritic for even more FIFA 20 reviews as they funnel in.
FIFA 20 marks the 27th entry in EA’s long-running football simulation franchise, which first launched in 1993 with FIFA International Soccer on a plethora of systems including the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo Entertainment System. FIFA 20 sees the addition of Volta Football, a new mode that has a lot in common with FIFA Street. FIFA’s popular Pro Clubs has seen some changes for this year’s iteration as well, adding greater customization options and increasing the impact player weight and height.
If you’re eager to try out FIFA 20, a demo went live earlier this month for PS4 and Xbox One. The demo includes six playable teams–with Liverpool and Real Madrid among them–and the option to play matches between them in regular game modes or FIFA 20’s new Volta Football.
“Flawed and iterative, but comforting, complete, and compelling, FIFA 20 is as frustrating and as essential as ever. The Journey and FIFA Street will continue to be missed, but Volta offers a genuinely different option for those who want to dip in and out across FIFA’s smorgasbord of game types, while Ultimate Team continues its route to world domination. It’s just a shame Career Mode continues to stagnate–even if EA has finally remembered it exists.” — Oscar Dayus [Full review]
Eurogamer — UnScored
“FIFA 20 is all these things but it’s also better than FIFA 19. I’ve already played loads of games against Eurogamer’s second-best FIFA player, Chris Tapsell, and I’ve had a great laugh. I’ve scored some screamers. I’ve lost to added time goals. We’ve leapt off the sofa at shocking refereeing decisions, missed open goals by Marcus Rashford and magic from Mason Mount. We’ve picked apart the game, worked out what’s changed, what’s better and what’s worse. We’ve had bloody good fun. And it’s all undermined by corporate greed and a stubborn refusal to do what’s right. A bit like real football, then.” — Wesley Yin-Poole [Full review]
GamesRadar+ — In-Progress
“Even so, we’ve reached the stage of this generation where I don’t believe EA can win over the FIFA community’s more vocal contingent. Battle lines are too entrenched and the more the series promotes itself as an eSports contest, the more its audience wants the RNG element–Sergio Aguero missing an open goal, AFC Wimbledon overcoming Arsenal–done away with. Ultimate Team remains a supremely moreish fantasy offering: when on song, the best mode in the entire sports genre. But it still isn’t one where the superior player always wins, and the likelihood of that changing anytime soon feels infinitesimal.” — Ben Wilson [Full review]
IGN — 7.8/10
“Volta is a significant addition to FIFA and while it doesn’t all hit the right notes, it’s a largely enjoyable way to play a wealth of content, including a story mode that’s more concise and engaging than The Journey. Elsewhere, improvements have been made to the core FIFA 20 experience, especially when it comes to defending, but overall controlling the ball feels less consistently fluid. For someone not attracted by the allure of Volta, the stilted pace, coupled with a neglect of offline modes such as Career, make it FIFA 20 an adequate but underwhelming entry into the series.” — Simon Cardy [Full review]
USGamer — 4/5
“FIFA 20 revives the old Street series with a new mode featuring futsal and outdoor soccer, but it’s the core gameplay that shines brightest this year, bringing down the pace in a way that feels nuanced and enjoyable. With additional updates to Career Mode and FIFA Ultimate Team, this year’s version is easy to recommend to lapsed fans and newcomers alike.” — Kat Bailey [Full review]
VG24/7 — 4/5
“Without much cosmetic polish to fall back on, FIFA 20 needed to bring something new to the table. Although the core gameplay isn’t mind-blowingly different, it’s still the best football game, and the addition of Volta is a whole new way to play.” — James Billcliffe [Full review]
VideoGamesChronicle — 4/5
“With the addition of Volta to the already numerous modes on offer, FIFA 20 may finally be the FIFA game where it’s impossible to play everything. Volta offers a fresh new way of playing the game, but the new reward-based Seasons in Ultimate Team means players invested in that will find it difficult to justify spending time playing Volta that could be spent in FUT earning more XP for their next reward. As long as you aren’t the type who needs to see and do everything, and are content with the idea of picking one or two modes and focusing most of your attention on those, FIFA 20 remains as high quality as ever.” — Chris Scullion [Full review]
