Category: Games

When THQ Nordic announced it was remastering 2012’s Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, I was excited to dive back in. This is a western RPG that wasn’t an immediate success but has gained something of a cult following in the years after its developer imploded and the would-be franchise phased into obscurity. However, few cult classics hold up as well on a design level when viewed through a modern lens, and Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning doesn’t buck that trend. It may be an updated version of what was once a forward-looking adventure, but it fails to really deliver on the “Re–” so cheekily jammed into its title by bringing it up to par with its current competition.

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A lot of what our reviewer said then holds true in the 2020 remaster – but nearly every one of those items has an asterisk next to it, all leading to the same footnote: for its time. A western RPG with satisfying action combat? Amazing! …for its time. Being able to re-spec your abilities to try different playstyles whenever you like? Inspired! …for its time. Fully-voiced NPCs throughout the world that don’t all sound like one or two people doing the same voice for all of them? …Okay, I still appreciate that one in 2020 – though you can definitely tell when you run into a Matt Mercer-voiced character now. So many parts of what originally made Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning special in its time now feel mundane, or – at worst – heinously outdated today.

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Amalur’s gameplay – particularly its combat – is still its strongest aspect. It’s a satisfyingly arcadey take on RPG combat, more reminiscent of the God of War series (or perhaps even something by FromSoftware on harder difficulties) than contemporaries like Skyrim or Dragon Age. Timing and skill are almost as important as the abilities you’ve selected or what weapons armor you’ve equipped (and there’s plenty to agonize over in that regard). That being said, while there was a consistent challenge present right up to the final boss, it all felt a bit simplistic when compared to more modern games like 2018’s God of War or Sekiro (or even something like Horizon Zero Dawn), and I found my interest in mastering its limited nuances waning well before I reached the finale after some 40-odd hours.

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Graphics are far and away Amalur’s weakest link, though. Yes, the textures have been reworked for 4K screens and it’s got a boosted framerate and improved anti-aliasing, but the “remastering” here feels like little more than one would see in an “Xbox One X Enhanced” version. Environments are still fairly barren, character models are somewhat blocky and their animations are clunky, and even with the new hardware adjustments the draw distance is surprisingly short. On a technical level, while our original review specifically praised Amalur for its stability (especially relative to other open-world games of the same era) I experienced several crashes and frequent visual glitches throughout my playthrough on a PlayStation 4 Pro.

Similarly, while its menus and interface might have been acceptable eight years ago, today they feel clunky and impractical. Inventory management – something you’ll do a lot of thanks to the frequency at which you’ll collect mountains of new gear – is constantly bogged down in closing one menu only to have to open another, even to do something as simple as select a primary and secondary weapon. Dialogue menus – which are basically just a list of nouns that you can pick to get an NPC to spout lore about that topic – take up two-thirds of the screen for what could easily have been 15 to 20%, maximum, and the “small HUD” option does nothing to help this. It only shrinks the map and stat bars to a nigh-illegibly small size. It’s not a modern redesign by any means.

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That said, there’s a big world to explore with a familiar-but-unique take on classical fantasy. While most of the characters sport a fairly traditional fantasy look and the environments may show their age in terms of density, each area of the map boasts some genuinely interesting and unique location designs. From the spider-silk-covered trees of the Webwood to the massive, gnarled roots bursting out of the swamps of the Drowned Forest, there are plenty of captivating sights all across Amalur’s map – and there’s plenty to do in almost every one.

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Amalur’s main story doesn’t feature the branching paths of, say, Mass Effect 2 or The Witcher 3, but what it lacks in the flexibility of its stories, Amalur makes up for in sheer volume of things to do. Even before you get into the two DLC expansions that are included in Re-Reckoning, there’s an impressive amount of side quests, faction stories, and ancillary adventures. It took me more than 40 hours to reach the end credits – the main story chunk of which was mostly satisfying, despite a few tired cliches and a lot of eleventh-hour exposition – and I definitely wasn’t stopping to smell the roses after the first ten or so hours. If you visited every settlement, dealt with every faction, and accepted every challenge that came your way, you’d likely be looking at well over 100 hours before you cleared everything.

If you enjoy diving into the lore of a game’s world, there’s plenty to love in Kingdoms of Amalur. There are thousands of years of history to read into, developed by popular fantasy author R.A. Salvatore, and that’s something the NPCs throughout the world are all too happy to give you a lesson on. While the option to dive headfirst into such a detailed mythos is appreciated, it’s something of a double-edged sword: Yes, there’s a lot to learn about if you want, but plenty of times throughout the campaign it felt like characters were simply vomiting exposition and oral histories to a point where my eyes started to glaze over, eager to get back to stabbing things. Don’t get me wrong – it’s something that enhances the world the first time you hear or read it, but the second time around you probably won’t have that same sense of discovery.

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It’s worth noting that the development team did take steps to make Amalur more replayable – especially towards its endgame, adjusting the math behind the scenes that determines the difficulty and rarity of loot available in a given zone. It may not sound like a huge adjustment, but I honestly can’t imagine revisiting locations to finish side quests only to grind through low-level enemies and finding chests full of worthless gear, so this was a significant improvement.

 

Shadow Man Remastered is coming in 2021, and now developer Nightdive Studios has released a new trailer for the update.

The game will feature not just upscaled graphics, with higher resolutions–the controls and AI will also be improved, and the soundtrack has been remastered. Furthermore, content that was cut from the original release of the game has been restored, so Shadow Man fans might fight elements they don’t remember from the original.

In the trailer below, though, you can see the numerous ways in which the game has aged–whether the third-person shooter action is satisfying by modern standards remains to be seen.

Shadow Man Remastered is coming to PC, Xbox, PS4, and Switch. This remaster adds modern resolution support, restores cut content, responsive controls, updated AI, and improved gameplay and features a remastered soundtrack.

The original game launched on PC, PS1, N64, and DreamCast. It was moderately well-received, aside from the PlayStation port. GameSpot was not so big on it at release–the game received a 5/10 in the original 1999 review.

Nightdive Studios has also shown off the sharpened cutscenes from Blade Runner: Enhanced Edition.

With the advent of the new console generation, some publishers have chosen to raise prices by $10 USD for the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X editions of their games. However, CD Projekt Red won’t be among them for the next-gen versions of Cyberpunk 2077.

As part of the latest CD Projekt Red investor briefing, executive Michal Nowakowski said the Polish company won’t raise prices by $10 as others have.

“When it comes to USD, we launched our preorders at 60 USD and of course we’re going to keep that price for the consumers,” he said. “We’re not going to change it at the last minute to 70 USD. So just to confirm–these prices are out in the market anyway; you can check them on various sites: 59.99 USD and 69.99 EUR is what we’re going for.”

Cyberpunk 2077’s next-gen edition will be available as a free upgrade for those who bought the game already on one of the current-generation consoles. The same is true for the just-announced PS5/Xbox Series X edition of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt that’s coming in 2021.

The two highest-profile examples of the $10 price increase are NBA 2K21 and Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, which are charging $70 USD for their PS5/Xbox Series X editions. In Call of Duty’s case, $70 gets you a cross-gen bundle. For NBA 2K21, $70 is just the normal price for the PS5/Xbox Series X edition of the game.

Before the $10 price increase for NBA 2K21 was announced, PlayStation boss Shawn Layden spoke about how the current AAA games business is unsustainable.

“It’s been $59.99 since I started in this business, but the cost of (making) games have gone up ten times,” Layden told GI.biz. “If you don’t have elasticity on the price-point, but you have huge volatility on the cost line, the model becomes more difficult. I think this generation is going to see those two imperatives collide.”

For more on the subject of rising game prices, check out GameSpot’s editorial, “$70 Games May Become PS5 And Xbox Series X’s Standard.”

What does a 2020-era Crysis look like when pushed to its max settings? After gaining a reputation for being one of the most graphically realistic and demanding games back in 2007, Crysis is back to test PC rigs once more.

While Crytek has shown off how the remaster will look on consoles–including a very impressive Switch port that launched earlier this year in July–the latest post on the Crysis Twitter has been dedicated to the PC community. It shows off what has been called “Can It Run Crysis?” mode, a PC exclusive mode “designed to demand every last bit of your hardware with unlimited settings.”

Fans have posted screenshots of the same vista in the original game, in case you wanted to compare:

While the game has clearly come a long way since leaked screenshots led to fan outcry and the remaster reveal being temporarily delayed, the comments on this tweet are mixed. Some have criticised the color scheme for being far more saturated than the original version, while others have compared it to more recent releases running on their highest graphical settings.

Of course, there’s only so much Crytek can do with the original Crysis, given that the project is just a remaster and not a full remake. These days there is steep competition for both graphical realism and hardware demands, with Microsoft Flight Simulator recently making waves in both.

Crysis Remastered has already released on Switch, and will be coming to PC (via the Epic Games Store), PS4, and Xbox One on September 18. The system requirements are surprisingly reasonable given Crysis’s reputation–check them out here.

Cyberpunk 2077‘s multiplayer experience, which is coming after the single-player game releases, will have some form of microtransaction system, and now developer CD Projekt Red has shared some additional insight on its approach to them.

CD Projekt Red president Adam Kicinski said in an earnings report that the developer is looking for ways to get people to spend money and be happy about it.

“Well, we’re never aggressive towards our fans!” he said. “We treat them fairly and we’re friendly. So of course not–we won’t be aggressive–but you can expect great things to be bought. The goal is to design monetization in a way that makes people happy to spend money. I’m not trying to be cynical or hide something; it’s about creating a feeling of value.”

Kicinski’s comments match up with what executives from other giant game companies like EA, Take-Two, and Activision have said about their approach to microtransactions. They want to create a transaction where the consumer feels they are getting value for their money.

“Same as with our single-player games: we want gamers to be happy while spending money on our products,” Kicinski said. “The same is true for microtransactions: you can expect them, of course, and [Cyberpunk 2077] is a great setting for selling things, but it won’t be aggressive; it won’t upset gamers but it’ll make them happy–that’s our goal at least.”

Cyberpunk 2077’s multiplayer has yet to be formally announced, so it’s too soon to say or guess at what its microtransactions might look like. In addition to these microtransactions for multiplayer, Cyberpunk 2077’s single-player game will have free DLC and paid expansions, just like The Witcher 3 before it.

“You can expect more, actually. We’re not going into too many details today, but everything will be clear before release,” Kicinski said. “As we are close to the release, expect the post-release plans to be revealed fairly soon; a series of free DLCs and expansions will be described–as I said, you can expect it fairly soon and then everything will be made clear.”

Cyberpunk 2077’s multiplayer spin-off is not going to come out anytime soon. The last we heard, CD Projekt Red said you should expect it to release in 2022 at the soonest.

In other CD Projekt Red news, the developer has confirmed that The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is coming to PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X in 2021.

Mamma mia! Dusk, a delightfully retro first-person shooter first released in 2018, is adding a new endless level in the form of a Super Mario homage. Announced at developer 3D Realms’ Realms Deep event over the weekend, the new level turns Super Mario 64‘s iconic castle into a “Flesh Palace” full of monsters to explode into glorious low-poly particle effects.

While the trailer kicks off with some iconic Super Mario music and sound effects, the comments clarify that the Mario sounds won’t actually be included in the level release. The second half of the video should give you an idea of how the music and sound effects will actually sound.

Even without ripping Mario’s iconic sound design, however, it’s unsure if this monstrous version of Peach’s castle will manage to get past Nintendo’s notoriously aggressive lawyers–especially as the level is planned to be released exclusively for Nintendo’s own console. A comment on the video from publisher New Blood Interactive reads “please don’t sue us Nintendo.”

3D Realms is no stranger to copyright lawsuits, however. Last year, its planned Duke Nukem successor Ion Maiden had to change its name to Ion Fury in response to a legal challenge from the band Iron Maiden.

Dusk will be coming to Switch on Halloween this year–October 31. It’s already available for PC, including Linux and Mac.

It’s been a while since we’ve had a look at Nightdive Studios’ System Shock Remastered, but the wait was well worth it. Two new videos posted by the remaster-specializing studio show a satisfyingly gory dismemberment system, as well as our first look at how players will traverse cyberspace in 2020.

The System Shock remake was funded through an incredibly successful Kickstarter back in 2016, but has been pushed back a number of times. After a long hiatus, the project re-emerged this year, ready to share the progress that has been made since we last heard from the System Shock Remastered team.

Most recently, we’re getting a look at two new systems for the game–the first is a Dead Space-esque dismemberment, which is fitting given that Dead Space has its roots in the System Shock franchise. The goal of the dismemberment system is to make the combat feel more visceral and real–even when the enemy being taken down is a robot.

The second system, and one we’re seeing in the remake for the first time, is cyberspace–a gameplay mode that has seen a big update from its wireframe origins. While the remake holds true to the essence of cyberspace, it’s also received a huge graphical update–and a rocking soundtrack to boot.

The System Shock Remastered alpha demo is currently available on GOG and Steam, while the full game can be pre-ordered through Backerkit. The game is expected to release on PS4, Xbox One, and PC in 2020.