Category: Games

As if one weren’t good enough, Blizzard’s given us another Overwatch tease this week, but it’s not for a new character or map this time. Instead, it’s turning its eyes to a lore database, beginning with a loving letter Torbjörn penned to his wife.

Earlier this week, the Overwatch Twitter revealed the after-action report of an operation called “White Dome.” Things didn’t go exactly as planned, and the team was ambushed, leading Reinhart to take the charge and rescue an injured Torbjörn.

The most recent update to this story details a letter Torbjörn wrote to his wife, Ingrid, from the hospital, promising her that all is well. From the letter, it appears this is the battle in which he lost his arm.

“I know that by now you have gotten news of my injuries in our latest mission. While the descriptions may sound terrible, the doctors are quite sure I’ll make a full recovery. Even Angela came to visit me! On the matter of my arm, I promise to make it my first priority to construct a suitable prosthesis that will make everyone forget that it was ever gone. If only Angela’s dreams of tissue regeneration were a reality! I told her she should be working harder!”

The letter also details a few other sweet details about Torbjörn and his family, so it’s worth checking out. We recommend grabbing some tissues first; find the letter in its totality here.

The “Story Update” appears to be part of an ongoing Overwatch lore archive. This will give fans “secret clearance” to art, videos, stories and more about the title’s characters and world, good or evil. As of right now, there is not an exclusive section on the Overwatch website to find the rest of this lore database’s entries.

In other Overwatch news, this story might not make you quite as emotional as Torbjörn’s letter. Blizzard made Zenyatta walk, and it’s as weird as you’d expect.

It’s always a risky proposition to take a beloved classic franchise and move it forward with added twists. Change too much, and a reimagined retro game can lose its nostalgic charm. Don’t change enough, and players might not see the point at all. Bandai Namco has been toeing this razor-thin line with Pac-Man for quite a few years, but with good results. In 2007, Pac-Man: Championship Edition bolstered the series’ simple maze template with different modes, challenges, map configurations, and eye-catching effects–and the result was one of the best arcade revamps ever made.

Fast-forward nine years, and Bandai Namco has successfully rejuvenated Pac-Man once again in Pac-Man: Championship Edition 2. It’s so overhauled, in fact, that it uses a progression meter to unlock new modes–starting with a tutorial. Who’d have thought that a Pac-Man game would need instructions? Yet Championship Edition 2 definitely does. Rather than merely teach you how to play, it also serves as a quick trip down the road of game design to see how developers can successfully evolve a game from 1980.

The first major enhancement comes courtesy of Pac-Man’s relationship with the ghosts, Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde. Pac-Man can touch them now, after decades of doing his best to avoid making contact. Even though you won’t outright die if you bump into a ghost, it can still have dangerous side effects–and after the third bump, the ghosts will doggedly chase down Pac-Man and kill him on contact.

The game includes sleeping ghosts as well, who wake up when Pac-Man gets near and immediately rush to join their leader. The veritable trains that form after waking up multiple ghosts are vital for achieving high scores, because when Pac-Man eats the power pill that allows him to devour weakened spirits, he can gobble up multiple ghosts in quick succession. When it’s time to feast on the dead, the game switches to a cinematic 3D view, allowing you revel in your success in style.

Boss battles are also included now–but done in proper Pac-Man style. You don’t attack a boss directly, since they float above and below the board (they’re usually massive ghosts made up of hundreds of blocks). Instead, you fight through a series of maps by collecting every last piece of fruit. On the final stage, Pac-Man must eat enough dots to make a power pill appear. The resulting mayhem isn’t quite as interactive as it could be–the power pill merely kicks off a cutscene where Pac-Man devours the boss on his own.

The final twists are bombs and bomb jumps. Essentially, if Pac-Man gets himself into a tight spot, a quick button press will send him back to his starting point. This is important, because Pac must tactically change course sometimes in order to evade ghosts or catch floating fruit that runs away from him.

The first Championship Edition was a triumph of style, and the same can be said here. The classic Pac-Man theme is present and accounted for–remixed and enhanced like everything else–and the overall presentation is terrific. All these elements come together across the game’s many levels to create an experience that’s still absolutely Pac-Man but advanced in ways that make it far more interesting and strategic.

Pac-Man: Championship Edition 2 creates an exciting dynamic where ghosts are still dangerous, but the overall game is more forgiving than the original–and it’s more entertaining as a result. Arcade ports tend to be games we play in short bursts–mostly for the nostalgia factor. Pac-Man: Championship Edition 2 certainly relies on that nostalgia to a point, but it handles the classic game in a way that plays with expectations to surprise you. It’s the same game enhanced in the right directions to be make an old concept fun, innovative, and challenging all over again.

Update: Just released on the Switch in a slightly enhanced “Plus” version, Pac-Man feels perfectly at home on the portable system. Pac-Man Championship Edition 2 Plus retains all the same game modes, features, and good looks of the previous console versions, but smartly adds a two-player version where two Pac-Men must work together to foil the ghosts.

This Plus2P version is more than just a thrown together cooperative play mode. You can opt to play with a second CPU-controlled Pac-man, instead of a second player, which changes the dynamics a bit. In the single player version, you’ll merge with the CPU Pac at times and then send the AI off after ghosts thanks to Power Pellets. The AI Pac will chase after blue ghosts, but to eat them, you have to trap the ghosts from the other side. In boss rounds, the CPU can automatically go after pellets, then connect with your Pac-man to attack the boss. There’s jumping from one wall to another in these segments, but the game is designed well enough to still feel like a natural evolution of the core game.

In the actual two-player mode, the sense of teamwork is more palpable and there’s a distinct sense of accomplishment when two players work together to trap a whole string of delicious frightened ghosts for big points. Beyond that, this is the same great game it was on the other consoles with the same terrifically trippy neon visuals and gameplay.

Editor’s note: Just released on Switch in a slightly enhanced “Plus” version, Pac-Man Championship Edition 2 feels perfectly at home on the portable system. It retains all the same game modes, features, and good looks of the previous console versions, but smartly adds a two-player mode, where the sense of teamwork is more palpable and there’s a distinct sense of accomplishment when two players work together to trap a whole string of delicious frightened ghosts for big points.

You can also opt to play with a second CPU-controlled Pac-Man, instead of a second player, which changes the dynamics a bit. You’ll merge with the AI-driven Pac at times and then send it off to chase after blue ghosts. But to eat them, you have to trap the ghosts from the other side. In boss rounds, the CPU can automatically go after pellets, then connect with your Pac-Man to attack the boss.

Beyond that, this is the same great game it was on the other consoles with the same great visuals and gameplay. – Jason D’Aprile, Feb. 24, 11:00 AM PT

The Total War series continues to go strong after nearly 20 years, but it didn’t start out as a no-brainer success story. The debut title, Shogun: Total War, was released in 2000 by Creative Assembly, a developer that was not exactly known for its experience with the strategy genre.

Prior to Shogun’s release, many of the studio’s previous titles had been based on rugby and cricket. And while the past two decades have seen it try its hands at some different types of games–it developed 2014 horror game Alien: Isolation, for instance–it has almost exclusively focused on strategy games with Total War in the title.

In the video above, we dive into the history of the Total War series, which now consists of more than a dozen games. We look primarily at the core entries in the series, which have often been based on historical settings–although recent years have also brought Warhammer-inspired entries, which we also explore. Although the games share a familiar underpinning, Creative Assembly has managed to introduce wrinkles to keep the series fresh across so many titles, thanks in part to shifting between radically different settings.

Things aren’t slowing down for Total War in the near future by any means. Following Warhammer II‘s release last year, Total War Saga: Thrones of Britannia is due out in April. Beyond that, there’s the next big historical entry, Total War: Three Kingdoms, and the free-to-play spin-off Total War: Arena. And while it has not yet been announced, Creative Assembly has not been shy about making it clear that its Warhammer games are viewed as a trilogy.

Metal Gear Survive is demanding, oppressive, obtuse, and not what most people would traditionally think of as “fun.” I’ve played for hours and haven’t achieved anything meaningful. My most dependable method of defeating the zombie-like Wanderers littered around its barren world is still poking at them with a sharp stick from the other side of a chain link fence. And I spend the majority of my time throwing up because I drank dirty water and contracted a horrible stomach bug.

And yet, I keep coming back to it. Not just because I’m obligated to soldier on and review the game, but because on the other side of the desperation and stress is a small nugget of satisfaction; the sweet release of endorphins that comes with completing an objective. I’m the rat pushing a button for a food pellet, and by god I can’t stop.

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This manipulation of human psychology as game design has always been a tenet of role-playing games, but it has become a pervasive part of most genres of late. Metal Gear Survive pushes it to its most ruthless, demanding extremes to make good on its classification as an action game focused on survival.

The game is set shortly after the attack on Mother Base in Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes. During this siege, a wormhole into a parallel world appears, sucking in a chunk of Mother Base, along with the members of Snake’s Diamond Dogs and the attacking XOF forces. Your character is seemingly killed or rendered unconscious while defending Mother Base, but is brought back by an enigmatic UN scientist and constantly frowning Laurence Fishburne look-alike named Goodluck.

Upon waking up, you’re told you’ve been infected by a parasite that has overrun Dite, the world on the other side of the aforementioned wormhole. Your mission is to travel there to seek out a cure for yourself, and also find out what has become of your comrades, including a close friend. In typical Metal Gear Solid fashion, there’s more to Goodluck than meets the eye, and since the parasite that transforms people into Wanderers first showed up during the Vietnam War, there’s some questions around its true nature too. Dite also happens to have a special crystalised resource called Kuban, which can be extracted from Wanderers and harvested from the environment.

From the moment you land in Dite, you’re on the back foot. Survive wants you to know that success in this hellscape will come through struggling and pushing forward in the face of overwhelming adversity, and to that end the game tracks hunger, thirst, and oxygen on-screen. These ever-visible bars are constantly depleting, counting down to death if not kept topped up. The food and water needed to replenish them are scarce, and even the act of seeking them out expends resources in a way that will make you pause and really think about if it’s all worth it. It’s a grueling grind where the material rewards offer just a fleeting respite.

But all this also serves to intensify that rush of satisfaction you get when you manage to complete a mission or successfully take a trip to gather edible herbs, meat, or dirty water that has a good chance of making you sick. By stacking the odds so heavily against you, these successes–big or small–feel like an act of defiance.

By stacking the odds so heavily against you, successes–big or small–feel like an act of defiance

The narrative is advanced by taking on main missions that send you into a distant, poisonous cloud of dust that envelops your home base. There you’re tasked with recovering data that can restore Vergil, the AI that ran previous missions into Dite, to full functionality and, hopefully, help track down a cure and return everyone home. These operations usually send the player into Wanderer-infested territory, where Survive’s rudimentary combat comes into play. The Phantom Pain felt like the meeting of slick, refined combat mechanics and enemy behaviour that was dynamic, reactive, and very often surprising, Survive–in its opening hours–feels restrictive and lethargic, and its enemies do little to challenge you outside of attacking in large groups.

Since you’re burning resources, be it recovery items, stamina, or weapon durability, engaging them is usually a fruitless endeavour. The Kuban energy that can be harvested from Wanderers is the only reason to actually take them on, and since Kuban is used to craft items as well as level up the character and unlock perks that improve stats or add combat moves, it’s a good one. But the smarter player will isolate straggling Wanderers and bring them down by either approaching from behind to deliver a one-hit kill, jabbing them in the big crystal weak points located where their heads should be, or firing an arrow at them from a distance. It’s not very exciting.

Of course, I’m still early in the game, so there’s plenty of room for it to develop into something more, especially as additional enemy types are introduced and I gain access to advanced weaponry. The game certainly is motioning towards this, as I recently encountered the larger Bomber enemy type, which has a less opportune weak point and a giant pustule on its head that would probably have exploded had I stuck around to find out.

The set-piece moments thus far have been when I’ve tried to activate wormhole transporters, which enable Survive’s equivalent of fast travel. Doing this summons a wave of Wanderers to your location, and at this point the game becomes about building fortifications and holding off advancements long enough for the machine to power up and release a wave of energy that wipes them out. To its credit, these moments are tense, high-octane bouts of action that involve running between locations, managing enemy numbers, setting up barriers, and maintaining your own health and stamina.

Given that Metal Gear Survive only became playable to press on its launch day, I haven’t played enough to deliver a more comprehensive review. There are other aspects to its gameplay that haven’t had the time to properly develop: the base building, crafting, and online multiplayer for example. And there are also characters who are slowly appearing that need the chance to grow before I can make a judgment on them.

I’m still playing Metal Gear Survive and formulating my thoughts, but, from the outset, there’s something strangely compelling about it, despite the fact it’s designed to treat players so harshly. Fundamentally, the loop of exploring, scavenging, and marginally improving your existence in Dite is satisfying. That, in essence, is the core of all survival games and what has drawn people to titles like Don’t Starve, Subnautica, Terraria, and even Stardew Valley. In that respect, Survive succeeds in what it sets out to achieve–it’s perhaps one of the most hardcore survival games available. But there’s also room for it to grow into something more and put its unique stamp on the genre.

Metal Gear Survive’s high-profile baggage, and the fact that it is created from the building blocks of a much different experience, provide more to consider and analyse. I’m going to stick with it and in the coming days will deliver a finalised review. For now though, if the idea of a brutal game where you scavenge and fight for survival sounds like the way you want to spend your gaming hours, it’s worth considering.

Celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, Arc System Works has been a mainstay of the fighting game community since the release of the original Guilty Gear. After its recent success with Dragon Ball FighterZ, the developers are looking to their immediate future with BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle, with grander plans to expand their audience. In BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle, launching June 5 in North America, characters from Persona 4 Arena, RWBY, Under Night: In-Birth–and of course BlazBlue–will face off in fast-paced tag battles. Launching with 20 characters, along with another 20 set for post-launch DLC, Cross Tag Battle, pulls from a number of games from Arc’s past while also bringing in some first-timers to the fray.

Using a more accessible gameplay setup designed around a traditional controller, Cross Tag Battle incorporates many of the characters from their respective games into a fighting game that’s easy to pick up, but challenging to master. We had the opportunity to chat with president and founder of Arc System Works Minoru Kidooka, BlazBlue creator Toshimichi Mori, and Guilty Gear director Daisuke Ishiwatari, they spoke about their plans to expand in the future, and how they want to dominate the Evo fighting game tournament in the years to come.

Arc System Works has been around for sometime, celebrating 30 years in 2018. Can you talk about how it was like seeing the developer grow over the years, and how things are looking at the moment?

Minoru Kidooka: Being the 30th anniversary for us, it’s all really thanks to our fans. The fans recognize us for our fighting games, but there are a lot of other games we’ve made in the past as well. But their passion for our games have kept us going for many years. This game is one of the pinnacles of our 30 years, but we’ve also opened a new North American office, along with the success of Dragon Ball FighterZ. We didn’t expect to do this all at once, but we want to move forward in big ways. We’re always thinking about how we’re going to survive for the next ten to 30 years–so in a way, this anniversary for us a new start for us to continue growing.

Toshimichi Mori: Thank you for recognizing the 30th anniversary, and we’d also like to add that it’s the tenth anniversary for BlazBlue, and the twentieth anniversary for Guilty Gear. So it’s really a great time for these characters in the game. But at the same time, this game isn’t necessarily the end-product of our years making fighting games, more of like the first step of something more.

Can you talk about how you went about incorporating all these characters into Cross Tag Battle? Especially considering that they all come from different titles with their own unique combat mechanics.

Mori: There was originally a controller set-up called the Stylish Mode for earlier Arc System works games; that was the basis for the Persona games. The Stylish Mode is the basis for the combat mechanics in BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle as well. But for this, we feature characters from other games and we had to completely redo the controls. It took time to design how to bring in RWBY [characters], the first time these in a game, but we were able to get it to work after some time. Under Night characters were a bit of a challenge, as their mechanics were set and had to be redesigned to fit our game.

That’s not to say that the game is easy, far from it. While you can do a number of moves pretty quickly, the number of ways to execute them in combos and tag mechanics is quite complex. It should be quite fun to see how players take advantage of the mechanics.

In addition to the anniversary, Arc System Works will have three unique titles present during the Evo 2018 fighting game tournament, which is a rare honor as most developers have just one game. Do you have comments about that?

Kidooka: Yes, we’ve got three titles at EVO, and that’s exciting. Guilty Gear Xrd, BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle, and Dragon Ball FighterZ–which we developed with Bandai Namco. That’s all exciting, but we want to dominate EVO entirely. Maybe in 10 years. [Laughs] Last year, we had a booth at EVO for everyone to come visit, and it was a big success for us.

Daisuke Ishiwatari: As you know, Arc System Works’ titles over the years have been mostly fighting games, and with big titles like Street Fighter and Tekken on the market, we’ve been mostly focused on offering more niche titles that offer a bit more originality. While we have a dedicated following, they’re still niche games. So moving forward, we want to bring in more fans to understand the Arc System Style.

Kidooka: This year, we’ll be trying to figure out how to make our games more user-friendly and how we can become closer to the fans. It’s really an honor to have three games at EVO. But oftentimes, we find that it’s mostly Japanese players making it to the finals. With the new American office, we want to expand our user base. We want to someday see Western players make it to the finals with our games. That will show that we’ve made the games more approachable. We want a more global user base, and we’ll be working hard to make that happen.

Looking back, are there any games that stand out over the years as your favorites? Whether you simply liked working on them or because they represent something greater for you.

Kidooka: I have two answers, because I’m currently president, but I also started out as a programmer. The foundation of this company is Guilty Gear, and that came out for the PlayStation. That took three years to make, and there was a big discussion to figure out whether or not to make it 2D or 3D. We settled on 2D and there were comments from other developers asking why we were making it 2D instead of 3D. 20 years later, and the franchise is still alive and well with many fans all over the world. As president, releasing the original Guilty Gear was very important for me.

But as a programmer, there were a lot of nightmares I don’t want to revisit. But I will say that the first project for Arc System Works was the Master System port for Double Dragon, and now today, we own the IP. In the future, Double Dragon is definitely an IP we’d love to use.

Pokemon Go’s second Community Day is here. The real-world event takes place today, February 24, and will give players around the world another opportunity to earn in-game bonuses and obtain a rare Pokemon with a special move.

Unlike past real-world events for Pokemon Go, Community Day isn’t localized at a specific venue; rather, the event takes place during a set window of time, which will differ depending upon your region. In the US, the Community Day kicks off at 11 AM PT / 2 PM ET and runs until 2 PM PT / 5 PM ET, while Europe’s event begins at 10 AM GMT and concludes at 1 PM GMT.

During the event hours, players will earn triple the normal amount of Stardust for any Pokemon they capture, while Lure Modules will last for three hours. Additionally, each Community Day features a particular rare Pokemon, which will spawn in greater numbers and is capable of learning an exclusive move that it can’t normally use in Pokemon Go. This time around, the featured Pokemon is the Dragon-type Dratini.

For the duration of the Community Day, players will encounter increased swarms of Dratini. If you manage to evolve its evolution, Dragonair, into a Dragonite during the event, the Pokemon will learn the powerful Dragon-type attack Draco Meteor. This applies to any Dragonair you own, even ones that were obtained prior to this month’s Community Day. However, the Pokemon will only learn Draco Meteor if it evolves during the event hours.

In addition to this month’s Community Day, players still have an opportunity to capture Pokemon Go’s latest Legendary Pokemon, Rayquaza. The powerful Gen 3 Dragon-type will appear in Raid Battles at Gyms until March 16. Rayquaza arrived earlier this month alongside a new batch of Gen 3 Pokemon, which also included Salamence, Metagross, and Altaria. In addition to Rayquaza, players also have another chance to catch Kyogre and Groudon as part of Pokemon Go Legendary Week, which is underway now.