Atomik Monster

Video Games?

[atomikmonstlr]

Microsoft Cancels Project Knoxville and Fable Legends, Discusses Studio Closure

It is with a heavy heart I report that Microsoft announced this morning that two of their games in development have been canned and talks to wind down the activities of the studios behind them.

One such developer is Lionhead Studios. Co-founded by video game auteur Peter Molyneux back in 2001, they produced some stellar games like Black & White, The Movies and the Fable series. Even though Molyneux left the studio after the completion of the Kinect adventure Fable: The Journey, Lionhead had been hard at work on the free-to-play Fable Legends. The game, intended to pit a team of four heroes against one player controlled bad guy, had been in development since 2012 and was briefly touted as an Xbox One launch game. It was announced via a blog post made by Hanno Lemke, the General Manager for Microsoft Studios Europe, discussion had begun within the company and the team at Lionhead to shutter the studio completely.

Along with Lionhead, the Denmark-based Press Play, developers of Max: The Curse of Brotherhood and Max and the Magic Marker, have closed their doors as well. It’s a shame Project Knoxville, their multiplayer survival game which was still in development, will never see the light of day. After all, it was a fan favourite, voted on as from three different video game concepts.

The blog post outlines Microsoft’s commitment to “working closely with those affected by today’s new to find them new opportunities at Xbox, or partnering with the  broader development community to help place them in jobs elsewhere in the games industry should they desire.”

The news that one of my favourite UK developers closing down is utterly wretched, but my thoughts go out to everyone affected at both studios. Hopefully Microsoft shops around for another studio to take over the Fable series, I would be elated to see a proper Fable 4.

[atomikmonstlr]

Xbox 10 Compatibility List Leak

A file named Package.StoreAssociation.xml was unearthed in the Gears of War Ultimate Edition released to the Windows Store. It contains this list of Game ID's for the Windows Store. Some of the standouts have been bolded, games that are interesting or I recognize. There are even a handful of these already on the Windows Store.

If there’s a game you are trying to find and it isn't on the list it is possibly because they are under a working title or just not a part of this list.

*     Microsoft.Gunpowder

*     Microsoft.4Elements2

*     Microsoft.AWorldOfKeflings

*     Microsoft.Adera

*     Microsoft.Adera-Lite

*     Microsoft.AgeCastles (Age of Empires Castle)

*     Microsoft.AgeofEmapiresCastleSiege (Age of Empires Castle)

*     Microsoft.AlphaJax

*     Microsoft.AoECastleBeta (Age of Empires Castle)

*     Microsoft.ApexPG (Forza Motorsport 6: Apex)

*     Microsoft.ArvadaBeta

*     Microsoft.AtariGameOver

*     Microsoft.Ausar

*     Microsoft.BigBuckHunter

*     Microsoft.Bingo-Beta

*     Microsoft.BulldogThreshold

*     Microsoft.BulldogThresholdClosedBeta

*     Microsoft.ColdAlley

*     Microsoft.CrashCourse2

*     Microsoft.DisneyFairies

*     Microsoft.DisneyFairiesHiddenTreasures-Lite

*     Microsoft.DisneysLittleMermaid

*     Microsoft.EdenFalls (Trademark taken in 2014)

*     Microsoft.EdenFallsBeta

*     Microsoft.EndlessSkater

*     Microsoft.EveryStreetUnited (Sports Game)

*     Microsoft.FableLegends

*     Microsoft.FieldStreamFishing

*     Microsoft.Fishdom3SpecialEdition

*     Microsoft.GalacticReign

*     Microsoft.CollateralDamage

*     Microsoft.GNS-TEST-APP

*     Microsoft.GoCargoBeta

*     Microsoft.GoCargoBeta2

*     Microsoft.GunpowderLITE

*     Microsoft.HaloChannel

*     Microsoft.HaloSpartanAssault

*     Microsoft.HaloSpartanAssault2

*     Microsoft.HaloSpartanAssaultiOS

*     Microsoft.HaloSpartanStrike-Beta

*     Microsoft.HaloSpartanStrikeiOS

*     Microsoft.HaloSpartanAssaultLite

*     Microsoft.Hexic

*     Microsoft.HoganThreshold

*     Microsoft.HoganThresholdClosedBeta

*     Microsoft.HoloStudio (HoloLens HDK)

*     Microsoft.Ilomilo

*     Microsoft.KillerInstinct-Win10

*     Microsoft.KinectimalsUnleashed

*     Microsoft.Kodu

*     Microsoft.Lucille

*     Microsoft.MaxTheCurseofBrotherhood

*     Microsoft.Minecraft

*     Microsoft.MicrosoftBingo

*     Microsoft.MicrosoftJackpot

*     Microsoft.MicrosoftJigsaw

*     Microsoft.MicrosoftMahjong

*     Microsoft.MicrosoftMinesweeper

*     Microsoft.MicrosoftNumberPuzzle

*     Microsoft.MicrosoftSolitaireCollection

*     Microsoft.MicrosoftSolitaireCollectionPreview

*     Microsoft.MicrosoftSudoku

*     Microsoft.MicrosoftTreasureHunt

*     Microsoft.Microsoft.ProjectDenver

*     Microsoft.MinecraftUWP

*     Microsoft.MonstersLoveCandy

*     Microsoft.MSDonuts

*     Microsoft.NFLonWindows10

*     Microsoft.OpusPG (Forza Horizons 3)

*     Microsoft.OriandtheBlindForestDefinitiveEdition

*     Microsoft.ProjectCastlesBeta (Age of Empires)

*     Microsoft.ProjectFlair-Beta (Press Play Game)

*     Microsoft.ProjectFortune (Press Play Game)

*     Microsoft.ProjectKnoxville (Press Play Game)

*     Microsoft.ProjectMercury (Press Play Game)

*     Microsoft.Dakota

*     Microsoft.ProjectSparkWebsite

*     Microsoft.QuantumBreak

*     Microsoft.Studios.RecklessRacingUltimate

*     Microsoft.RecklessRacingUltimateLITE

*     Microsoft.ReCore

*     Microsoft.RocketRiot

*     Microsoft.RosewoodFP

*     Microsoft.RoyalEnvoyIISpecialEdition

*     Microsoft.Scalebound

*     Microsoft.SecretsTreasureTheLostCities

*     Microsoft.SecretsTreasureTheLostCitiesBeta

*     Microsoft.SesameStreetTouchandLearnTV

*     Microsoft.ShadowPackPC

*     Microsoft.ShuffleParty

*     Microsoft.SkullsOfTheShogun

*     Microsoft.Studios.HydroThunderHurricane

*     Microsoft.Studios.PinballFx2

*     Microsoft.Studios.TheWavyTubeManChronicles

*     Microsoft.Studios.ToySoldiersColdWar

*     Microsoft.Studios.Wordament

*     Microsoft.StudiosRMTestApp

*     Microsoft.Taptiles

*     Microsoft.TeamCrossword

*     Microsoft.Tentacles

*     Microsoft.TentaclesII

*     Microsoft.TentaclesEnterTheMind

*     Microsoft.TheGunstringer

*     Microsoft.TheHarvestHD

*     Microsoft.ThisIsOnlyATest

*     Microsoft.TJComboBoxingBeta

*     Microsoft.TYtheTasmanianTiger

*     Microsoft.UglyCastles

*     Microsoft.VisitEdenFalls (Eden Falls Demo maybe)

*     Microsoft.WordamentTapSnap

*     Microsoft.WSOPFullHousePro

*     Microsoft.XboxBriefingE32014

*     Microsoft.XboxFitness

*     Microsoft.XboxSport

*     Microsoft.Zombies

*     Microsoft.ZooTycoon3

*     Microsoft.ZTFBeta

*     Microsoft.zzzXLConfigTest

*     Microsoft.14822C0D9D6C2

There really isn’t a lot here worth the spotlight, except perhaps Scalebound and Forza Horizon 3, most of these are either already announced, known about or placeholders. Here are a couple of the more interesting entries.

Microsoft.CrashCourse2

It seems they were going to bring Doritos Crash Course 2 to Windows at some point. And since the 360 version got removed entirely, and the servers for it shut down, this is almost certainly deader than 3D Doritos.

Microsoft.TJComboBoxingBeta

My assumption would be this is sort kind of Kill Instinct mobile spin-off. But I’m going off nothing but the title.

Microsoft.XboxFitness

I guess Xbox Fitness will be headed to Windows 10. There really isn’t much more to say on the subject, but there is the part where I can’t comprehend why Microsoft would bother to port it, especially since the majority of those who use Kinect, most aren’t on PC.

Microsoft.XboxSport

My prediction is for some sort of sports thing for Xbox.

Microsoft.MSDonuts

Most likely an application for testing. Using dev kits for the original Xbox, Microsoft created a mini game with a donut theme. There’s no real footage or anything, but this thing, whatever it is, might be something comparable.

Microsoft.ZTFBeta

it's Zoo Tycoon: Friends. A Free-to-Play spinoff of Zoo Tycoon that shut down last April.

[atomikmonstlr]

Senran Kagura: Estival Versus Gets a Live-Action Trailer

With the release of Senran Kagura: Estival Versus for the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita not too far off, Marvelous continues to tease fans with information and a series of spiffy live-action trailers leading up to the March 18 release date.

The first in the three part trailer series is about an everyday, regular normal guy, just like you or I. The trailer, which you can see down below, pokes a bit of good natured fun at the passion fans have for the series, in particular their unbridled lust for collector’s editions. It’s nice to see a mostly ridiculous ad for a video game again, the sort that kind of fell out of vogue sometime around the mid-to-late naughts.

Marvelous also outlined their DLC plans, offering a bountiful assortment of new content up until April.

[atomikmonstlr]

Superhot Review

SUPER! HOT!

Superhot started life as a game jam project that revolved around an awesome mechanic. That slick prototype has finally been released as an honest-to-goodness PC game that polished and built on those fundamentals in some interesting ways and packages it all with a cool narrative framing.

In Superhot, time is your greatest ally, until it’s not. While it doesn’t stop entirely, time is slowed right down when you aren’t moving, kind of like old roguelike games. This lets you, in effect, pause the action, evaluate your environment and plan your strategy. The goal is simple in premise: nullify all of the enemies in a level without getting glassed yourself. It’s very much a puzzle game like that. You can totally move forward slowly and tactfully, carefully working out the best way to commit gun violence while literally dodging bullets. Failure simply restarts the whole level. If you’re victorious the game repeats SUPER! HOT! over a replay of your successful run until you’re ready to proceed. Everything about the action is movie level crazy, so being able to watch everything play out in real-time is super cool.

It’s pretty easy to elicit that feeling of cool throughout the main story, running 32 levels, but the excitement comes from hashing out the proper moves. It’s really a brilliantly simple puzzle game. It excels in putting you in situations that facilitate creativity thinking. Do you want to melee an enemy, snatch their gun, dispatch the enemy across the room with the gun and then throw that same gun at the last enemy rushing in? It’s difficult to convey the urgency in every moment of Superhot in words, but even with the power to substantially slow the passage of time it can be nail biting.

The levels all adhere to the same visual aesthetic and are really well put together. The style of the game even believably ties into the overarching narrative thread. You’re playing a hacked game received from some friendly individual through instant messaging. You load up a neat old timey OS filled with ASCII to rummage through, some nifty little ASCII games, and the cracked Superhot executable. The OS and the interactions through the chat are both fantastic. It’s not a grandiose narrative or anything, but the game gives you more than enough tidbits of information about the world and game you are playing. Sufficed to say the levels themselves aren’t the only time you’ll feel that movie level of badassery and there’s plenty of great moments throughout the story too.

When you have cleared through what that has to offer, Superhot presents you with their endless mode which includes a bunch of different modifiers. From there it’s all about the number of red enemies you can dispatch in 60 seconds of time in game, or of real-life actual time, or using only specific weapons. With the way the game generates the enemies, wave by wave, things can get ramped up in a matter of seconds and you can start to feel the heat.

All of the high intensity gameplay is counterpointed by a simplistic, yet eye catching style. All of the backgrounds for the levels have a stark white design that serves to help the always red enemies stand out. The weapons you can pick up, like baseball bats or swords, a variety of guns and pool balls to name a few are all coloured black and are equally easy to discern in the environment. The shatter effect when you dispatch enemies is fantastic and the explosion of polygons is great fun to watch. The entire package is really cohesive. The ASCII OS and the weird chat stuff, the look of the tube screen like we used to use, and everything coalesce into what feels like a cohesive realised world of some crazy futuristic past.

Even the replays have a believable place in the world, found in Superhot’s entirely real, fake online service Killstagram, created for the singular purpose of highlighting these clips. The game saves your run when you’ve wrapped one up and presents a bare-bones editing suite to create an animated GIF sort of loop and posts it. Superhot facilitates insane moments and it’s fantastic good fun to watch the things other people have managed to do with their mastery of time. Of the two things that could significantly contribute to the longevity of Superhot, Killstagram is one of them. The other would be a map editor and the ability to let others tackle your creations, but that’s a whole other thing entirely.

Overall, Superhot definitely has more than a few hours of fast-paced slo-mo action for anyone interested. The story setup is good enough to get into and make you want to keep playing, and the engaging gameplay and aesthetic keep you glued to the screen. It’s pretty easy to clear through the entire story thing in an evening, but the endless mode and high score hunting will keep you coming back. If you’re in the market for a puzzle game that doesn’t necessarily feel like a puzzle game, check out Superhot.

SUPER!

HOT!

SUPER!

HOT!

[paoferrante]

[atomikmonstlr]

It’s Almost Time to Take Back the City, Here’s The Division Launch Trailer

With just about a week left before Tom Clancy’s The Division releases for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC on March 8th, publisher Ubisoft has released the highly anticipated cover shooter’s official launch trailer.

Though it doesn’t show off anything we haven’t seen before, it certainly reminded me to be excited for the game’s long awaited arrival. Maybe I’ll take off work. I’m going to take off work.

[atomikmonstlr]

I Prepared and Did Die a Whole Bunch in Slashy Souls, Out Now

Slashy Souls is out, it’s something, and I am bad at it. Oh, it’s also free. Bandai Namco and GameStop confirmed the mobile title’s existence yesterday and as announced, it’s now available for both Android and iOS users. Except for my neighbors in the North, according to my Canadian sources the game isn’t on their app stores yet.

Aside from the Souls moniker and difficulty, the retro-inspired endless runner shares little in common with the increasingly popular role playing game. There’s some clipping, the swipe controls aren’t nearly as responsive as they could be resulting in trap related deaths, my phone’s screen has frozen a few times, and the You Died banner has stuck around longer than necessary, essentially taking over my entire screen and preventing me from seeing what was going on behind it.

It’s buggy, but fun. It took me a bit to finally beat the giant skeleton man in a cloak and break my *cough* impressive high score of 3500. There’s no tutorial and everything, including the menu, is very simple. Many of my complaints, if not all of them, are likely to be resolved following a few updates. Until then, I’ll keep attempting to demolish my Slashy Souls best while enjoying the same try, die, try again, die again, and inevitably succeed gameplay loop that makes the Souls series so satisfying.

[atomikmonstlr]

Prepare To Die... On Your Phone!

If you thought there was only one Souls game on the horizon you would be wrong. Today, Bandai Namco confirmed some early speculation and revealed Slashy Souls. It’s an offshoot of the popular console and PC role playing game series for mobile. The icing on the cake? It is set to release on February 28.

Brick and mortar video game retailer GameStop is working with Bandai Namco to put out Slashy Souls. GameStop has progressively been edging its way into the video game publishing side of the business, inking a deal with storied developer Insomniac Games and their new project Song of the Deep.

According to Bandai Namco, the 16-bit Slashy Souls is an endless runner inspired by the series, but has no connection to it aside from the Souls moniker and crushing difficulty. The gameplay takes influence from endless runners like Canabalt and Jetpack Joyride and has some familiar spells, weapons and bosses.

There’s no word on whether Slashy Souls will be a free-to-play app or a premium product, but it’s being released for both iOS and Android users tomorrow. 

Hopefully it’s decent enough to tide me over until the genuine article drops in April!

[atomikmonstlr]

Firewatch Review

Firewatch is an adventure game laden with mystery and set in the beautiful wilderness of Wyoming circa 1989. You play as Henry, a man with a past. A past that he is trying to hide from. He ran and got a job watching for fires in remote parts of the forest. One of the perks is, of course, being almost entirely alone. His one and only link to the outside world is the operator of another tower, Delilah via a walkie talkie. Everything seems normal enough as Henry learns the lay of the land, but it isn’t long before they’re both embroiled in mystery and entertaining dialogue.  

It’s a game like Gone Home by Fullbright. You hike through the forest as Henry, a stout guy with stubby hands like the old guy from Up. There is a lot of hiking and things like lockboxes to open, items to manipulate, conversations to be had and raccoons. Or maybe just the same raccoon. Either way, as the game progresses Firewatch unravels a deeply personal narrative and a mystery that takes players on a ride for about 5 hours.

Since there isn’t much else to dissect besides that mystery and that mystery is intrinsically tied to the narrative I’ll have to discuss the story at least a little. Expect some minor spoilers. For what it’s worth, I think if you’re interested in Firewatch it’s better to go into it without having anything ruined. But if you’re hungry for some details then please continue.

Shoshone National Forest is almost as much as a character as Henry or Delilah. It gives off a feeling of loneliness, of isolation, but also a serene beauty. It simultaneously feels carefully constructed and wide open, with things being placed just right to amplify the sense of foreboding. The presentation is amplified by the great sound design. Firewatch absolutely sounds like being miles away from civilization in a dense forest. The footsteps and rustling as you walk over the underbrush, the sounds of branches snapping, and even the fairly subdued soundtrack heightens the suspense.

These things make the lack of modern conveniences much more apparent. As Firewatch takes place many, many years before the widespread dissemination of GPS technology the only things to help guide you are a map and a compass. Like Far Cry 2 you will need to whip the map out out to get your bearings, which I am a big fan of. Save for a tiny blip that indicates your position there is no indicators. No mission markers, clocks, health pools, nothing. Everything you’ll need is conveyed in world and it allows a more organic consumption of the gorgeous wilderness. It’s all quite painterly in its design, illustrated with striking pastels and illuminated with one hell of a sun. Despite being quite open to exploration, you are kept on a fairly linear path on your way through the forest it’s never not beautiful. In fact, things probably wouldn’t look as fantastic as they did if Firewatch was less of a directed experience.

The characters and story are the center of Firewatch’s enjoyment and they’re pretty great. Even though I thought Delilah and Henry’s relationship was a little too overwrought to be relatable, I sure did love listening to them talk. The stellar performances from Cissy Jones and Rich Sommer replicate the sort of companionship shared by Master Chief and Cortana. Delilah’s wry demeanor, Henry’s awkward quips, they both bely a dynamic relationship that pulls you in and just makes you want to hear more.

That said, when writers write they are basically attempting to manipulate the audience into making an emotional investment. There are many tools and conventions a writer can use to help the work resonate emotionally with the audience. I don’t really think Firewatch gets too blatant, but it definitely feels calculated. Ill wife, aggressively flirtatious woman shrouded in mystery, the animal sidekick, they’re all tropes, and like all tropes they can be executed well or miss the mark.

We can sidestep the character politics and look at the story as a whole and how it changes the characters. When Firewatch wraps up, has anything actually changed for anyone involved? Next to nothing, potentially. Firewatch is like a summer romance in that way. The whole thing is just a moment in time from the lives of some people, but the story doesn’t really bring anyone through an arch. It could have. Firewatch could have done plenty of things, but it stopped shy of delivering and left it to the ambiguity of the players to deal with the rest. I think it’s lazy storytelling. Firewatch is the video game equivalent of walking into a spooky empty room and finding out your your cat knocked over a dresser. I still enjoyed it, but it might leave some people feeling like the game has wasted their time.

Games have evolved over time and are more than they were when the medium began. Firewatch resembles a stage play or an interactive novel more than it does Super Mario or Doom. It’s a thing being held up entirely by the prose and narrative and you just can’t please everyone on that front. Even if you hate Super Meat Boy it’s hard to argue the game’s mechanics aren’t finely tuned, but with something like Firewatch the mileage will vary more dramatically because not everyone will dig this particular sort of non-ending ending.

There’s a difference between disappointing the characters and disappointing the audience. You don’t want to do the latter. There can still be properly disappointed characters in a satisfying ending. I think that if Ned’s ruse had been hinted at, revealed slowly before confirming it by finding Brian’s body, the pacing would have been much more even. I don’t mean something like the research notes about tracking elk, but finding Ned’s rough drafts. Anything that more clearly says “what you think is happening very clearly isn’t” without actually answering questions. Instead, the plot comes screeching to a halt, and all of the answers are just handed out in an exposition dump by narration. It’s not satisfying because the player’s not discovering anything, it’s just being told to them. The way the narrative drops off two thirds of the way was pretty disappointing. I think Firewatch would have been a truly smashing game if it had been paced more evenly.

But these things didn’t stop me from enjoying Firewatch a great deal. Despite its shortcomings, what it does right thoroughly overshadows them. The beauty of the forest is captivating, but the real meat of the game is found in the engrossing narrative. Firewatch takes direction from mysteries and thrillers, and mixes in a personal story of two interesting characters carried by performances that are something special. It turns a scrying lens on the walls people put up around their moments of weakness, the segregation we impose on ourselves to keep our odious improprieties from everyone else. Firewatch is a game that drives home a point: we must face external threats, we can’t run from the transgressor of our self-constructed safety, much like we can’t run from a raging forest fire. I’d recommend Firewatch, but admit some people just aren’t looking for what it has to offer.  

[atomikmonstlr]

Layers of Fear on the PlayStation 4

[atomikmonstlr]

Dark Souls III remains depressing and full of lethal monsters looking to ruin your day in its latest trailer. Oh, and it’s set to a haunting rendition of Cyndi Lauper’s “True Colors” which is surprisingly very fitting.

Prepare to die April 12th in North America for PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4.

[atomikmonstlr]

Prototype/alpha/beta thing showing off Indivisible by Lab Zero!

[atomikmonstlr]

Dark Zone Survival Guide: The Basics

I have put an embarrassingly large number of hours playing both beta releases of Tom Clancy’s The Division. This game ships pretty soon, March 8, and I can’t get enough. For the newly activated Agents taking their first fevered steps out into the Dark Zone, I noticed a bunch of bush league mistakes. In light of this, here are some super Canadian tips for players that want to survive ambushes or the marauding packs of Rogue agents on the hunt for fresh meat. They might seem like common sense, but bear with me, because these simple observations could save your life in the Wild West that is the Dark Zone.

1. Know The Map. Situational awareness is key. Knowing when to duck into which alley will allow you to make better escapes or lead anyone tailing you into a trap. Try not to back yourself into a corner. If you do it’s pretty much game over,  grenades and teams will be able take you out easier like a fish in a barrel.   2. Play Intelligently. Don't intentionally put yourself in a bad spot. Be choosey about when and where you engage. Taking the time to be thoughtful about your next move can be the difference between life and loot or absolutely nothing. Ideally, you want opponents to make the first bad move so you can capitalize on it. I like to use grenades to move the player to less cover or down a dead end street. Think about where you toss the grenade and what kind it is. If lobbed to the left, most people will move to the right to stay clear of it. Corral them and guide them away from cover. I find if someone is behind a car along the roadside, aim the grenade on the street-facing side.  This will influence them to move toward the buildings. This leaves an opening to lay on the hurt. They will be stuck between the building and your grenade in the street. 3. Corners. Use corners when on the approach. Use corners when people chase you. I got the upper hand on at least six people chasing me down by doing this and completely evaded many more. Boogie around a corner then turn around toss a grenade at that corner. Most people will come barreling around the corner with little disregard for personal safety to try to kill you. They inevitably run into the grenade and you will be standing there with a weapon trained on them. Bonus marks for launching a sticky grenade as the thrown grenade pops. Boom, baby!

4. Dodge, Duck, Dip, Dive and Dodge. Self explanatory. Do these things.

5. Swapping is Faster. Now this tip. This tip is one I didn’t particularly want to share. Competitive advantage and all that. I don’t see many others do this besides myself.  Stop reloading.  Yup, you read that right. It’s not like it’s a new concept, in fact, plenty of games directly tell you to swap weapons because it’s downright quicker than reloading. When locked in a heated firefight against another agent, how many times have you barrel rolled behind an abandoned hatchback to reload while the other person continues to rain lead on you or starts to reload themselves? I have dispatched so many agents after I drained my primary of bullets by switching to my pistol while the other person is reloading or scrambling for cover. People really underestimate the pistol, especially against players on the last bar of their neatly segmented health. If you see them have less than one segment of health left, the pistol is going to do more damage than the other two weapons at semi-close ranges due to the Expert talent all pistols get.

6. Extraction Zones Are Almost Always a Trap. If you don't have people to watch your back play it smart. If you see people in the area without yellow bags observe them for a moment. Look for signs they might want to try to take you out. One decent tactic is to not immediately extract the gear in bag right away, wait a few seconds. Rogue agents tend to wait for unsuspecting players to start loading their goodies to toss a grenade and swiftly eviscerate them. Of course, I’ve done this. For, you know, science. If you wait a few seconds it might save your life and your hard won gear.   They might seem like general advice for any game featuring gun violence, but still hope some of them help you out at least a little. And hey, remember that when all else fails, just stack health and rush everyone like a hungry wolverine.

[atomikmonstlr]

[atomikmonstlr]

[atomikmonstlr]

First Three Fallout 4 DLCs Revealed

Intrepid explorers of the wasteland will see new content arrive each month from now until May and its first story expansion. 

Just this morning Bethesda unveiled their intentions for a year of Fallout 4 downloadable content and provided more concrete information about the DLC content to come over the next handful of months.

The most substantial of the bunch, Far Harbor, will be released in May and cost $24.99. It will see the player and fan favourite hard boiled detective Nick Valentine on a case looking for a young woman and a secret colony of synths off the coast of Maine. For Far Harbor, Bethesda have created the largest landmass of any of their previous expansions, complete with faction quests, settlements and new gear. There will be some sort of conflict with the Children of Atom, a faction not really explored much in the base game, so I’m pretty interested to see what comes from that. To be honest, the narrative framework of taking a case with Valentine has me more intrigued than I probably would have been otherwise.  

But you needn’t wait until May for more Fallout, the Automatron DLC will be released in March for $9.99 and the Wasteland Workshop DLC drops in April for only $4.99. In the Automatron, the commonwealth sees an infestation of evil robots sweep over it. This includes the Robobrain not seen since Fallout New Vegas. It also allows players to build and fully customize their own robot companion, making use of robot parts they might find. Wasteland Workshop on the other hand comes with new materials and building designs for settlements and a new system for catching enemies. Not only capturing them, but fighting them. “..from raiders to Deathclaws! Tame them or have them face off in battle, even against your fellow settlers.” Finally, my dream of hosting tournaments in my own personal thunderdome can finally come to fruition.

Bethesda also announced their changing the price on the season pass. Over the cost of the year, Bethesda will deliver “more than $60 worth of new Fallout adventure and features,” however with the way the first round of DLC prices came out it’s difficult to infer anything about the scope of the rest. Could it mean a couple of moderately sized releases of DLC? One more large expansion like Far Harbor? A bunch of the smaller stuff? It’s almost impossible to know.

If you’ve purchased the season pass already then you’re locked into that price, but for anyone who wants to pick it up after March 1, they’ll pay the increased price.

Bethesda has been pretty busy releasing gameplay tweaks and technical fixes. They’ve been talking up a major overhaul to Survival Mode that’s in the works which will include danger, diseases, sleep, and food and more. I haven’t return to the commonwealth since getting the platinum trophy and seeing what I imagine is everything, but the changes to Survival Mode and the upcoming DLCs sound interesting at the very least.

[1jps]