Author: Admin

PSA: Grab Too Human On Xbox (Free) Before It Goes Away


Too Human broke real ground after its launch in 2008, and not because of anything in the game play itself. Along with several other Silicon Knights products, it stands as one of the only titles in the industry to have a judge order all stock be recalled and destroyed. Way back in the year of 2007, developer Silicon Knights headed by President Denis Dyack filed a lawsuit against Epic Games over contract disputes, mostly alleging inadequate support and missing deadlines with the Unreal Engine. Sometime during the trial information came forward that Silicon Knights had filed the lawsuit while simultaneously stealing the Unreal Engine source code to build their own platform. Thousands and thousands of lines with typos and developer commentary were stolen, with Epic’s copyrights ripped out, and claimed as Silicon Knights creation.

Thanks to the company’s criminal behavior Silicon Knights lost their lawsuit, lost a countersuit by Epic, and was forced to pay millions in damages and recall all copies of the games developed using the Unreal Engine code and the company went bankrupt and shut down shortly after. Founder Denis Dyack has gone on to form new developers in the time since, however has had no luck in crowdfunding at least partially due to the controversy surrounding his name.

Coming as quite a surprise and after six years of the game being unavailable for purchase on digital stores, Microsoft re-released Too Human and has made the game backwards compatible and available for free on the Xbox Store. You’ll want to activate the game to your account sooner rather than later, as the game won’t be around long. For a week, you can pick up the game plus the pre-order armor pack, as well as two themes if you are still going to play this on your 360.

Diaries From Washington DC: The Division 2 First Ten Levels


The Division 2 is a very Division-esque title, which is going to be a good thing or a bad thing depending on how you approach the franchise. If you like your sequels to take the prior title and expand upon it, you’re golden. If you hated everything about The Division down to its core mechanics, you’re not going to find much to love here.

I want to talk about some immediately obvious positives in The Division 2, and particularly that the game is a whole lot less jank than its predecessor. The Division was pretty great when it came to movement and it’s kind of amazing to think back to the trailers when we were mostly all in awe at the simple idea that your character would close a car door automatically while taking cover behind it. That said, movement in the original game was kind of rough in spots and your character felt like he was walking on a treadmill leading to more confined areas being a real pain to get through. Additionally, while enemy AI wasn’t terrible it wasn’t exactly intelligent, and Ubisoft balanced this by making the game into a bullet sponge festival.

Thankfully The Division 2 has mostly fixed all of this.

Enemy AI is going to surprise you quite a bit as you experience what this game has to offer. Evidently the Washington DC wasteland still has plenty of brain food, as raiders will intelligently flank you, use grenades to push you out of hiding, send in suicide melee squads to force you from your cover, and just generally utilize more coordinated tactics than you might anticipate from such a game. It’s almost unfair at times when you get pitted against a dozen or so baddies in an open space and suddenly find yourself knocked out of cover while the sniper forcing your attention made way for the two guys who just appeared behind you. Unlike its predecessor, I have rarely come out of a death concluding that the game was cheating me.

On the other side of this coin the bullet sponge enemies are mostly gone and good riddance to them. I would say that The Division lands mostly on the realistic side of the Tom Clancy media spectrum so the idea of having gang leaders walking around with no noticeable body armor but somehow still needing two full reloads of shotgun shells from close range in order to kill is just ridiculous. The Division 2 still has named enemies, and they are more powerful than their low-tier mook buddies, but they aren’t sponges. They might have armored vests or helmets, and take a couple more shots to put down. There are a few enemies scattered about during missions that are covered in full body SWAT-tier bomb squad armor that take a lot of bullets to kill. They are far less present and can be dealt with easier than their predecessors.

It’s also nice to be able to walk around the various locations without your character bumping into everything like a drunken bumper car operator.

The game itself is freaking gorgeous. Obviously I’m saying this from the stance of someone with a computer good enough to run the game on its highest settings but boy did Ubisoft put a lot into making the DC wasteland look beautiful and create a living world in the process. The city itself tells a story and everywhere you look you can see the remains of failed quarantines, rescue efforts, and people just trying to survive. You come across a regular bounty of random events including public executions, propaganda broadcasts, and more, that can be easy targets for some quick loot. My personal favorite are the supply drops, where you’ll come across three supply crates that you can salvage for gear and resources. The caveat to this is that the various other factions are also out for these and can actually steal them from you. As far as random encounters go, the supply crates offered the most varied fun for me.

Gear, at least in the first ten levels, has been pretty great. The Division has been throwing enough stuff at me via the main missions, side missions, and generally tracking down and looting stuff in the wilderness that I haven’t felt bereft of new toys to play with.

The first ten levels of Division 2 have taken up around five and a half hours of gameplay, and so far I have to say I am enjoying this far more than I did with The Division. I am looking forward to discussing the game more as I continue playing.

PSA: How To Get Early Access To Steam New User Interface


The big UI overhaul is coming to Steam in the next few weeks, but if you are just too excited and don’t want to wait, you are in luck. As it turns out, the new interface is already publicly available thanks to some assets dropped in the Chinese Counter Strike: Global Offensive launcher.

You can get your hands on an early version of the launcher by following the steps below. Keep in mind that the interface is going to look a bit ugly right now as many developers have not yet uploaded assets to fit in with the new box design on the library page. On the other hand, it appears that the new interface has dumped the random Rock Paper Shotgun articles that you all loved seeing spammed in your game news feeds.

MMO Fallout can confirm that this works, the images included in this article were from my own test.

Amazon Game Studios Suffers Layoffs, Cancellations


Amazon Game Studios confirmed this week that it has laid off dozens of employees in a report published by Jason Schreier of Kotaku.

Affected employees have been told that they have 60 days to seek new positions within Amazon or they will receive a severance package upon dismissal. An Amazon spokesperson stated to Kotaku:

“These moves are the result of regular business planning cycles where we align resources to match evolving, long-range priorities. We’re working closely with all employees affected by these changes to assist them in finding new roles within Amazon.”

Amazon began building its gaming division in 2014 and so far the company has yet to produce much of anything. The layoffs accompany the cancellation of multiple unannounced titles.

NM: Grab Enter the Gungeon Free on Epic Game Store


Epic Game Store has unveiled their next free title: Enter the Gungeon. Available at no cost outside of downloading and using the Epic Game Store, Enter the Gungeon will be available until June 20 after which the free game will be Rebel Galaxy. Add it to your account now, keep it forever.

It should be noted that the Epic Store edition is notably missing platform achievements as the client does not currently support them. Enter the Gungeon does have in-game achievements.

Source: Epic Games

Knights Chronicle Celebrates Anniversary With Events


After a year of what has been described as enthusiastic fan support, mobile RPG Knights Chronicle is celebrating its 1-year anniversary with a slew of content. Starting today, players can enjoy new labyrinth dungeons. Choose your heroes carefully though, as you won’t be able to re-join in on other labyrinths until they are refreshed.

Events surrounding the update include:

  • New Awakenings for Electra and Edwin – Both Electra and Edwin can now be awoken by using growth materials and a six? version of either hero to achieve increased statistics, a new Awakened Passive skill upon reaching max Awakening level, and a new in-game appearance.
  • First-Year Anniversary Event – By playing the newly added ‘Blizzaria’ Advent Dungeon, players can acquire ‘1 Year Anniversary Summon Tickets’, which can be used to summon individual Heroes.

Knights Chronicle features classic turn-based role-playing gameplay, a beautiful Japanese animation-inspired art style and a compelling story showing the same standard of quality as console and PC RPGs. The game also sports standout features, including real-time party play where fans can form parties of up to five members to challenge multiplayer dungeons, explosive 3D-animated skills that demonstrate the game’s flashy and gorgeously detailed visuals, and over 100 heroes for players to choose from.

Source: Knights Chronicle

Battle Royale Comes To Lineage II: Revolution


Battle Royale is coming to Lineage II: Revolution, because of course it is.

Netmarble this week announced that the popular mobile MMO will receive a 25-player battle royale mode. Utilizing one of four battle royale specific characters, players will engage in combat and avoid penalty zones that apply debuffs. Players can also acquire exclusive skills from NPCs and various buff zones on the map, all in the effort to become the sole survivor.

Lineage II: Revolution players will also have access to the following events and items:

  • Sailor Costumes – Costumes that transform players into sailors are now available through the in-game Shop. Players will receive a Hat and Outfit, both of which increase Combat Power (CP) once owned.
  • Water Gun Weapon Costume – Cool off during the summer with the Water Gun Weapon Costume, now available in the in Shop. This also increases CP when owned.
  • In-Game Events – Netmarble is celebrating today’s new Battle Royale update with special events, such as:
    • Bingo events, where players earn points to complete an in-game bingo board by completing missions, for special rewards;
    • Attendance events, where Heroes receive prizes by logging in every day for up to fourteen consecutive days;
    • The Megakurin Web Events, where players collect stamina to evolve their Kukurin mount to receive various rewards for each evolving step.

Source: Netmarble Press Release

Black Desert Hits PS4 This Year


Black Desert is continuing to expand its reach into the gaming world, and this week Pearl Abyss took the opportunity at E3 to announce that the game will launch in just a few months on Playstation 4. Originally launched on PC, Black Desert expanded onto the Xbox One earlier this year. Pre-orders are set to begin on July 2 with early access to the full game and additional rewards.

“Our team has been working diligently to make Black Desert the best that it can be, and we’re finally ready to reward our patient player base,” said Kwangsam Kim, Lead Producer of Black Desert at Pearl Abyss. “If you’ve been looking for a open-world action MMORPG on the PS4 with deep personalization to fit your gameplay experience, we encourage you to pre-order this July.”

Pearl Abyss has promised an optimized user interface as well as 4k support for Pro owners. In addition, Black Desert Mobile will launch in 2019 worldwide for iOS and Android platforms.

More information in the weeks to come.

(Source: Pearl Abyss Press Release)

The Outer Worlds Announced For October 25


Private Division and Obsidian Entertainment have announced that The Outer Worlds will be coming to PC and consoles on October 25. The RPG emphasizes player choice, companion stories, and endgame scenarios wrapped in a neat package of science fiction, aliens, laser weapons, and big monsters.

“When I found myself contractually obligated to work with Leonard, we decided to make the game we always wanted,” said Tim Cain, Co-Game Director at Obsidian. “A game where player agency matters, and allows you to approach any situation however you’d like. Because it’s your story. And, because we haven’t figured out how to contractually oblige you to play how we want you to. Yet.”

The Outer Worlds will be available on Windows Game Store and the Epic Game Store for one year, after which it will be made available on other digital platforms.

“All kidding aside,” said Leonard Boyarsky, Co-Game Director at Obsidian, “Tim is truly honored to be working with me again on a game that focuses not only on a player-driven story, but also on establishing a new universe that is fun for players to explore with depth, humor, and corporate approved action.”

More information, as well as where to pre-order, can be found at the official website.

Ubisoft Announces UPlay Subscription Service: $14.99/mo


What more could we ask for from E3 2019? If your answer is Ubisoft launching its own version of EA Access, your oddly-specific wish has been granted.

Ubisoft today announced Uplay+, a subscription service coming to PC in September and for the absolutely monetary cost of $14.99 per month, you can get access to over 100 PC games including all of Ubisoft’s new launches. Yes, that means getting access to the upcoming Ghost Recon: Breakpoint and Watch Dogs: Legion the day they hit store shelves. Where Uplay+ sets itself apart from EA Access for instance is that the service promises to offer the most premium version of each game, meaning you won’t need to pay for DLC or expansions.

If you are still on the bench, people who register now will be able to get a free month once the service goes live on September 3. No purchase necessary.