The Walking Dead - Season One Now Available For Xbox One

With Halloween looming over us, Telltale's iconic first season adaptation rises from the grave to make the leap to next gen and grace the screens of the Xbox One.

For any who missed season one's first circulation of XBLA, the five part episodic saga follows convicted felon Lee Everett as he struggles to survive through a grim post-apocalyptic walker infected world with a band of misfit survivors and his innocent daughter figure - Clementine. The series, both critically acclaimed and publically well received, won over 80 game of the year awards and is praised for its bleak emotional tone and peerless storytelling.

The Xbox One edition will set you back £19.99/$24.99 (US) and 4.65 GB for the entire series, and for newcomers to the franchised simply cannot be overlooked. As an extra bonus, if like myself you were eager to transition to next gen, you may have missed the opportunity to experience the second series, in which a more mature Clementine steps into the limelight. You will therefore be pleased to hear that it looks as though series 2 will also be making the journey to Xbox One as well as a third season being announced for future release.    

State of Decay Sells 2 Million Copies!

Congratulations are in order for the zombie developers, Undead Labs, for managing to shift a colossal 2 million copies of their zombie survival simulator, State of Decay. An impressive feat in itself, Undead Labs deserve a special pat on the back when Community Manager Sanya Weathers revealed that the 2 million copies of the game – excluding DLC – were sold with no marketing whatsoever.

 

A seemingly impossible achievement, Weathers states “No marketing, no advertising, just you playing and streaming and spreading the word. You made this happen, and if we could individually thank each person who hit that download button, we would. Your enthusiasm and support have been everything. Thank you.”

She goes on to say “When we hit five hundred thousand copies sold (which was pretty remarkable for a zombie apocalypse simulator with a persistent world and permadeath), we celebrated by starting work on Breakdown. When we hit a million, we gave away some freebies. Two million calls for a hell of a celebration.”

Any gamers who purchased one of the 2 million copies via Xbox Live Arcade or Steam, need to follow the Developers on Twitter at @undeadlabs to not miss any goodies. Amongst which will be reward to players who participate in their #2MMinutes campaign, a compilation of State of Decay gameplay streamed in October by you, the players, making up 2 million minutes of footage.

State of Decay’s Xbox One debut will transpire sometime in 2015 as the Year-One Survival addition, consisting of the original game re-mastered in 1080p, both Breakdown and Lifeline add-ons, and some juicy new content.

Destiny Review

You can get by with a little help from your friends.

 

Bungie’s highly anticipated FPS MMORPG extravaganza is by all accounts a multiplayer experience. There is of course a single player narrative to follow and no obligation whatsoever to even interact with players, however doing so would be depriving yourself of one of the game’s biggest features and Destiny’s greatest asset.

Entirely online, it is impossible to truly feel alone as you’ll come across fellow players all across space, excluding mission areas designed to be traffic-free. Even within the tower, civilisations last cultural hub/equipment supermarket/dance-off arena, you can’t help but notice the buzz of players going about their Guardian shenanigans.

For the socialites, all missions can be embarked with a Fireteam of up to 3 players, cranking up the difficulty and allowing players to revive one another in darkness zones. That being said, even if you don’t have a tightknit Fireteam with your own passwords and secret handshakes, multiplayer is an absolute must to fully experience what destiny has to offer.

If you play without your own band of buddies backing you up, it’s ok. The Guardians are all working together for the greater good but are by nature solo adventurers. Each are individuals with their own race, class and motives, so it’s only natural that when cooperating on strikes some players back up their fellow guardians and put the team first, whilst others chase their own individual goals. Participating in strikes independently will pit you and two other randomly selected guardians through a level of enemies, culminating in a challenging boss fight with respectable loot to claim upon completion.

PvP is introduced via the Crucible – an arena style “training area” – where players choose from 4 classic game types. Players are levelled to match each other regardless of experience, however there is still an aspect of unbalance. As players use their own equipment, higher level player will have significantly better weapons. The Crucible also favours fully automatic weapons due to the fast paced chaos and less on single fire, precision weapons such as scout and sniper rifles, so a guardian’s load out is a large contributor to victory. Where PvP balances out is through the distribution of heavy weapon ammo, which is scattered in randomly selected ammo crates, resulting in a frantic scramble to be the first one to reach the ammunition, as heavy weapons give players a distinct advantage.       

Where Destiny falls short however is with its campaign. Hidden behind the sultry tones of Bill Nighy and Peter Dinklage lies a fairly short, repetitive storyline revolving around Peter Dinklage going all Aiden Peerce over security systems while you fight off waves of varying enemies. Set in a grim future, The Darkness has taken a break from being Jackie Estacado’s snake tentacles and is battling against Earth’s last vanguard, setting out to destroy the Earth’s benevolent floating sphere – the Traveller – and everything good in the galaxy. There are currently four alien races to do battle with from planet to planet, including the multi-limbed, bug faced Fallen (Tyrannids), the subterranean Hive (Locust), the Hulking, militarised  Cabal (Krogan) and the robotic legions of the Geth, I mean Vex. Each race has their own motives and can be seen fighting one another on each world.

What the story lacks is any explanation. Throughout the game it is unclear as to which race is your true enemy and whether or not the final boss fight is the Darkness or just a particularly powerful baddie. Players don’t really need to pay attention to the story and can plough through the game focussing on their immediate goals, guided by their ghost to undoubtedly scan some computers and fight off a couple of waves of alien nasties. The upside to the campaign is that it unlocks some truly breath-taking open world planets for players to explore, ranging from ancient ruins and crumbling cities to vast swamps and sandy dunes. Destiny’s visuals are stunning and makes grinding through enemies a little less mind numbing.

Verdict   8/10

Ups:

• Crisp combat

• Mesmerising Locations

• Great multiplayer interaction and gameplay

Downs:

• Repetitive missions

• Farming for upgrades and XP is tedious

• Plot doesn’t do the game justice

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Child of Light Review

 

After making the leap to Xbox One and viewing my – admittedly limited – games collection, I noticed that there was something missing, in that the current Xbox One titles are lacking in RPG’s. Now it’s arguable that such games as Dead Rising 3 and Black Flag have roleplaying elements to them, but there are no true RPG’s available to players. It’s true that with Destiny just around the corner and Dragon Age: Inquisition set for release in October that we won’t need to wait long, but in the meantime here’s a little gem to help you get your fix.

Despite critical acclaim, with such a hype for Watch Dogs, Ubisoft’s arcade release Child of Light was significantly over shadowed and swept under the rug somewhat. The story follows Aurora, a Child of Light as she adventures through the fairy tale-esque land of Lemuria in search of the Sun, Moon and Stars stolen by the Queen of Night.

Players travel through the levels as a 2D platformer, solving puzzles and collecting items to progress to the next areas, much in a way like fellow arcade hit, Limbo. The game encourages re-playable exploration of areas by making collectable items only available after later sections of the game are completed, such as players acquiring the ability of flight. Combat is turn based with an ‘active time battle system’ much like within the Final Fantasy series, with Aurora and one of seven party member facing up to three enemy monsters. Aurora’s party consists of a variety of creatures ranging from magical gnomes to feral beasts from all across Lemuria, each with their own stats and skill trees.

However your best friend within the game is Igniculus, a firefly and the first person Aurora encounters when she awakens in Lemuria. Igniculus aids players both in and out of combat with his glow, measured by his own glow meter. Out of combat, his glow lights dark passages, blinds foes and unlocks magical chests, whereas in combat Igniculus can heal friendly characters as well as slowing enemies on the timeline.

The game also includes a crafting system with Oculi, precious gems scattered across the land that provide special effects to damage, defence and skills. When combined in the crafting menu, these gems can create more powerful Oculi or entirely new Oculi types.

Playing Child of Light is like moving through a painting with its stunning yet simplistic visuals and inkblot transitions, accompanied by a beautifully orchestrated musical score, it creates a truly charming gaming experience. Child of Light provides a fairy tale adventure filled with friendship, betrayal, victory and loss, and for £11.99 is the perfect way to settle your RPG cravings.  

Dragon Age: Inquisition Gameplay

 

There has been a lot of previews to Bioware’s upcoming title Dragon Age: Inquisition, revealing everything from recurring characters to unexplored regions of Thedas. The most in depth of which being Bioware’s two part E3 demo gameplay series, narrated by creative director Mike Laidlaw.

The series showcases the most in depth look at the world of Dragon Age and the mechanics of player combat and navigation. It is immediately clear from the gameplay footage at just how far Bioware has come since Dragon Age II and just how big of a leap the studio has taken visually. We are introduced to a beautifully and painstakingly crafted world, much bigger than anything we’ve ever seen from a Dragon age game. In order to traverse the enormous maps, Bioware has finally introduced mounts to the series, ranging from your standard bay horses to more ‘exotic’ creatures.

Combat proves to be more fluid than ever before, jumping in and out of battle seamlessly. However, Inquisition also pulls back to its tactical roots, drawing inspiration from Dragon Age: Origins’ combat system. Players now have the option of playing more strategically than the previous Dragon Age titles – ducking in and out of the tactical combat camera to inspect enemy weaknesses and issue orders to party members to exploit them, before jumping back into real time. This also encourages players to utilise their entire party, playing as each character, rather than controlling them via pre-programmed orders for every fight.   As well as skills and spells powered by stamina and mana, a new ‘focus’ system has been introduced, allowing players to unleash powerful, strategic team attacks for tougher foes.          

Inquisition features a wide new range of monsters and villains to take on - naturally dragons remain the Alpha dogs when it comes to enemies, ranging from mere hatchlings to the fearsome High Dragons. With such impressive foes, Bioware has altered how players engage with the winged beasts, including the ability to attack a dragon’s limbs and wings, bringing it down and turning the tides of battle.

You are forgiven to believe that Inquisition is based around combat with its sophisticated tactical and real time battles and random dragon encounters – yet Inquisition remains true to the series and continues to be narrative based and story driven. The members of your party are enough to alter the story during specific quests, allowing options that would be unavailable to players with different characters accompanying them.

Any fans of the series or simply gamers excited for the release of Dragon Age: Inquisition should take a look at the mini-series and allow the creative director to inform you of the games’ features, as you’ll find it difficult to come across anyone else to talk about Inquisition as passionately as Laidlaw.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDVdSPpCj7M

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fe_KAi9flTY

News for Dragon Age:Inquisition

With more and more details being revealed, a couple new trailers, and now a release date, the hype for Dragon Age: Inquisition is at an all-time high.

Living in the shadow of one of the greatest RPG series ever made is both a blessing and a curse. BioWare’s masterpiece has cemented the studio as one of the top dogs with its blend of adrenaline pumping action, cause and effect morality choices and truly epic story telling. However, as proved with Dragon Age II, not everything from Mass Effect is transferrable. It seems you can’t just give Shepard a broadsword and call him “Knight-Commander Shepard”. 

There was a lot of negativity towards Dragon Age II, mainly referring to repetitive dungeon levels and the limited character creation of the original, Dragon Age: Origins. Have no fear however, it seems as though BioWare has been listening. The studio made a big deal of traipsing through all the Dragon Age II feedback and using it as a source for the design of Inquisition, and has significant changes in store to ground the game back to its roots. “We’re missing our top-down tactical mode we had in Origins, so lets do it. But saying that, you take that feedback and you want to look between the lines a little bit, and also combine that with where you want to take the franchise, so it kind of gets a bit of a spin”, explains producer Cameron Lee

The most obvious change to Inquisition is its return to a wider range of character creation options that were available in Origins. The transition to a named, voiced human character was not a popular one. Inquisition will therefore revert to allowing players the option of multiple race choices, including Human, Elf and Dwarf. Players will also get to choose between the standard fantasy classes (Warrior, Mage, Rouge), as well as new unlockable sub classes. Warriors may choose between Champion, Templar and Reaver, Mages have the option of choosing between Rift Mage, Necromancer and Knight Enchanter, whereas Rouges pick between Assassin, Artificer or Tempest.

Being able to customise your character is important to the spirit of Inquisition believes Lee. He states that “One of the principles that we’re working towards is that Dragon Age: Inquisition is your game – we want you to be able to create the character you want to create, which is why races are there as well, why you can customise the way you look, the way your followers look, crafting is more complex than any BioWare game we’ve done before”.

This principle of players playing “their game” is not only reflected in characters, but the world around them. The most exciting change being implemented is the shift from sandbox to an open world environment. Players are now free to explore Thedas in whichever way they see fit. It’s no secret that the developers have designed Inquisition as a ‘Skyrim Killer’ and have extensively researched the environment of Bethesda’s epic adventure. Where Inquisition differs however is that players can physically alter the world around them both knowing and unknowingly. This is where BioWare is in its element, decision making. Mass Effect veterans will know that every action has a consequence in a BioWare game. Saving a life in Mass Effect may spare a life in Mass Effect 3, whereas aiding a human fleet may brand you as xenophobic for the entirety of the series.

Inquisition expands upon the typical paragon and renegade dialogue choices to achieve change to the world around you. Instead the world is fluid and constantly in flux. If a player finds his or herself gallivanting past a village under attack by bandits, they have no obligation to assist the townsfolk and doing so will not affect the main storyline, however if they allow the village to be destroyed then it may disappear from the world forever. Lee explains the mechanics of the world as “based on an emergent system that adjusts what you’ll encounter based on how your actions tip the balance in the area. You’ll see towns attacked by bandits, deer fleeing from wolves, giant’s feeding on bears, and countless other scenarios”. It’s as if BioWare are fulfilling all the promises of Peter Molyneux.

Areas announced for Inquisition include a return to Ferelden as well as the French inspired land of Orlais, of which includes The Dales, a mass elven graveyard in memory of the fallen Elves. To gain an idea of the size of the map, it’s claimed that one area of Inquisition is larger than every area of Dragon Age II combined.

With such a large transition from Dragon Age II, BioWare certainly has a tall order ahead of them. That being said, the attention to fan feedback is truly touching and Inquisition appears to keep true to what makes a great BioWare game. A vivid world to explore filled with a rich backstory, and simply unmatched storytelling.