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Love is a complex force, capable of binding opposed minds together, but also tearing lives apart. Evidently, Intelligent Systems realises that ‘It’s complicated’ is more than a trite Facebook status, because its newest Fire Emblem game (subtitled If in Japan) is as much about warring hearts as clashing blades. Where 2012’s Fire Emblem: Awakening focused on bringing your party together, forging bonds between characters on the bloodied fields of turn-based battle that had ramifications far beyond helpful boosts in combat, If’s three strands revolve around the tangled emotions involved in taking a Falchion to family ties.

You are the focal point for all this familial angst, torn between the people who raised you in Nohr and the ones who gave you birth in Hoshido, two kingdoms of tinder a spark away from all-out war. It’s a clear shift from Awakening, where amnesiac avatar Robin played a supporting role to prince Chrom, and now you’re responsible for shaping the path of not one civilisation, but two. Accordingly, making choices is being talked up as a major part of the game, but we know the details of only one and it’s a decision many Japanese players will have to make in a store. Split across two physical versions in Nintendo’s homeland, one for each kingdom, If branches off at the sixth chapter to become two different games. Side with Hoshido and you’re in for a more traditional take on series convention, with a gentler difficulty level. The Nohr campaign, meanwhile, makes you a renegade seeking to change your kingdom from within, which represents a far steeper challenge. The digital download version locks off whichever choice you eschew at first, but at least it won’t force fans to decide from the box art alone. Whichever side you don’t take at first becomes DLC, with a third, separate campaign thread due to arrive after launch.

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It’s not the first time a Nintendo game has come in two variants, and the world and cast will be consistent, so perhaps it’s wise to withhold judgement until the specifics of campaign length and western pricing emerge. However, talk of character codes for favourites such as Marth, Lucina and Minerva tied to the card game launching alongside  If in the east suggest that the contents of wallets is as important here as the contents of hearts. The pricing structure is sure to be contentious, then, but what we’ve seen of If evinces many sound tweaks to the formula of 2012’s premier 3DS strategy game. For one, the split run looks to bring greater moral complexity to the plotting, while continuing the nuanced characterisations emblematic of this series. Yes, Hoshido is the noble, peaceful white to the blacker garb and vainglorious ambitions of Nohr, but there’s a greater sense of the grey areas between them, something a straight-up righteous quest to save the world from ancient evil would lack. The plot could still twist that way, of course, with glances of the hulking Nosferatu not to be confused with the spell and your dragon form hinting at a supernatural undercurrent, but that can’t sap the potential in exploring Nohr’s nuances. And beyond granting characters feet Awakening’s cast was infamously en pointe If’s improved visuals will tie the abstract grid and 3D battle sequences together better. The camera now zooms from sprite-based tactical map to 3D locations, landmarks and even crowds of soldiers visible around heroes as they clash, affording more of a sense of controlling the key units in a war. But the greatest change is that the Dual System is no longer limited to your side, foes mimicking Awakening’s paired units, which could turn aside blows or dish out a combined attack. Just weeks away from its Japanese release, it’s understandable that feelings about If are complex. On the one hand, it bears all the hallmarks of a thoughtful, if incremental, upgrade of a template adored by many. But it’s hard to trust a game where you know more about the DLC than what you get in the box. After all, we’ve been hurt before. Florence Knightingale  The Nohrian forces aren’t generically European, but seem to specifically draw on  Italian inspirations, gondolas floating on the water of a palatial theatre, a golden lion face being a key device on Marx’s shield, and a Mouth Of Truth-headed golem shown in CGI only thus far smashing aside the more eastern-tinged forces of Hoshido. There’s a playing-card motif at work here too, with hearts, clubs and diamonds all visible on horse armour, perhaps hinting at a duality within the kingdom to mirror the two colours in a deck. One gameplay ramification that is not yet fully understood is how two very different styles of armament will merge into the weapon triangle of yore (swords beat axes, axes beat lances, and lances beat swords), or if that long-serving system will be replaced.

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Gunpei Yokoi’s most famous design philosophy suggested that games didn’t require high-end technology to thrive. Indeed, he posited that ideas were often constrained by advanced hardware, since limitations can give rise to creative solutions. After more than five years on the market, 3DS is certainly seasoned technology, and yet HAL has imposed more stringent limitations on itself still, disregarding the portable’s featureset to produce a monochromatic and defiantly 2D platform-puzzler. Had Boxboy  been revealed as a lost Game Boy classic from the early ’90s, few would have been surprised. Only Miiverse functionality and Play Coin hints betray the fact that it wasn’t developed during Yokoi’s heyday. That’s no knock. This is a game that doesn’t so much think outside the box as around it, square player character Qbby conjuring blocks from his own body, which can be thrown or dropped to depress switches, form stairways and build platforms. He’s limited in the number of blocks he can generate on each stage before collectible crowns vanish and by an inability to start building from underneath his feet, though you’ll quickly discover that a way around the latter is to build to the left or right before pushing down to lift Qbby’s feet off the ground. Before long, you’ll be riding a tetromino, creating a protective barrier, or extending and retracting a chain of blocks to snake through narrow gaps, but your powers never extend further than that.

Again, that isn’t a problem, with HAL supplying a panoply of variations. Each world introduces an idea, explains it simply and then explores it to its logical extent over seven stages before moving onto the next notion. At first, it’s all shutters, lasers and moving blocks. Then you’re linking plus and minus switches to open gates, riding conveyer belts, grappling to new heights and cajoling cranes into carrying you over gaps. Later, you’ll find yourself riding gravity tracks, passing through portals and guiding a hapless AI ally to open the route forward. The delineated structure ensures you’re not simply working through progressively longer, more complex stages, at least until the challenging endgame, which forces you to recall all you’ve learned by combining multiple ideas in each level. Like the best games of its kind, Boxboy is deceptively simple and offers two levels of challenge: you need only reach the exit to progress, but collecting all the crowns requires more care. Score- and time-attack modes extend the longevity of a game that doesn’t need extrinsic gimmickry to compel you to the finish. In fact, all that’s needed is lateral thinking. What a shame Yokoi is no longer around to voice his approval. Hat Box  Retrieving crowns earns you more medals to spend in the in-game shop. The basic music tracks won’t be a priority, and while the technique books are a useful refresher, we expect most players will save their medals for the disarmingly characterful Qbby costumes. Most are purely decorative, although a few convey benefits. The ninja outfit increases movement speed and rabbit ears give you a higher jump, for instance, and both are handy for the challenge modes.

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The assurances of a brochure selling budget package holidays need careful consideration, and the same evidently applies to low-cost interstellar travel. In  Affordable Space Adventures  you’re promised an unforgettable trip to the beautiful Spectaculon, but you’re instead dumped in a bleak wasteland, controlling a rickety craft whose systems aren’t fully operational yet. Naturally, the environments are more hazardous than travel operator UExplore makes out, though the point of challenge here is less about external threat  so much as mastering unconventional controls. The misleadingly named setting is host to a series of dingy, cavernous environments. Your main source of illumination is the ship’s flashlight, the right analogue stick sweeping it across surfaces as you tentatively putter onward. As with all the craft’s systems, the power it expends is displayed on your ingeniously named ‘heads-down display’. While at first you won’t need to dim the beam, you’ll soon need to manage the electricity you’re generating as well as the sound and temperature that you’re radiating: Spectaculon is populated by artefacts that will dispatch any intruders within their radius with a jolting blast if disturbed. Some are responsive to heat signatures, others to noise, which means each discrete stage becomes a tense plate-spinning act as you simultaneously guide your ship while minimising its outputs to remain undetected.

For lone players, switching between regular and touch controls and your attention between TV and GamePad soon becomes a challenge, though there are button shortcuts for most critical inputs, and there’s usually enough breathing space to consider your next move before forging on. Most puzzles allow for different approaches, too: you might turn off your engines to drop past a group of enemies, or use low-level thrust to glide through slowly. Later solutions are more exacting and limiting, but every bit as satisfying, whether you’re using nothing but momentum and frictionless landing gear to accelerate over gaps, or opening shutters to build up sufficient internal heat to survive icier territory. Collaborative play transforms the challenge. With one player guiding the craft via a Pro controller, another operating scanner and searchlight with a Wii Remote, and a third managing the gauges via GamePad, it should be easier, but relying on others to perform instructions in concert invariably leads to as many amusing failures as triumphs. As such, Affordable Space Adventures is a game that could only work on Wii U, which is reason enough to celebrate its existence. But even disregarding that, this is a splendid, imaginative game, and further proof of the talents of its creator. Interplanetary Craft Nifflas has invested serious effort in the details of this universe. UExplore messages and promo videos sporadically play on the GamePad screen, while loading screens display advice in handbook format. The panel cracks under stress, and you’ll also witness an all-too-recognisable reboot sequence. But the best surprise is reserved for the end, where ingenious use of another Wii U feature lends a blackly comic tinge to a strangely touching denouement.

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John Henry is a folk hero who inspires many emotions, poured out in ballads, stories and plays across decades. One hitherto-absent reaction to such works is a desire to gag the most recognisable victim of superman syndrome ever. It took  Code Name: STEAM a turn-based squad strategy game from  Fire Emblem  creator Intelligent Systems to achieve that. It wouldn’t be easy, mind, this legendary hulk bulked up by the boiler on his back and the steam-powered armaments in his hands, plus two mechanical limbs. Yes, this patriotic comic-book reinvention is hardly faithful to the source, but it does look the part, and the same goes for his league of extraordinary teammates. The horrors begin when they open their mouths. “Musta heard me clankin’ around,” he booms with mind-numbing regularity when he passes within sight of an alien. “I never was any good at hidin’,” he bellows, even when enemies stumble across him during their turn, as if a tell were needed when the follow-up is two shots to the face. “So much for stealth!” You don’t say?

But perhaps these too-frequent quips would sting less were they not reminders of how often Code Name: STEAM punctures its own combat systems, letting the air out of a template of no small promise. There is still much to like: your squad, which soon fills out to four, is picked from a growing selection box of quirky literary characters, each with a main gun, a selectable subweapon and an often delightful one-shot special ability. These are directly controlled during your turn in real time, with moves between the grid squares superimposed on top of charming 3D maps consuming a unit of steam from your tank. Fine adjustments on a tile are effectively free, and you can also backpedal, reclaiming your steam. You aim manually, using either New 3DS’s second-stick nub, the touchscreen or the face buttons, seeking the weakspots on enemy forces to increase damage. The result is a tactical system that emphasises finesse and spatial positioning at least when it isn’t fighting against the lack of a tactical map, and the overwatch mechanic. As in X-Com, both your team and ranged aliens can adopt a state where they’ll take a snap reaction shot at opponents that move into sight and range during their turn. All this requires is enough steam left in the tank to fire your equipped weapon, and a gun that supports it. But there’s a decided inequality between the two sides, emphasised particularly in the mid-game, where the difficulty spikes repeatedly. Weapon ranges are ambiguous, so it’s hard to judge exactly when aliens pose a threat, and the chunky nature of movement and aiming means that you’ll almost always trigger reaction fire before you can loose your own shots (at least until you unlock two characters with very long-ranged guns deep into the campaign). Your foe suffers no such disadvantage, leading to painful moments where you view a squadmate on overwatch get bypassed or riddled from just out of range without answering fire. Every mission, meanwhile, is designed to keep your squad moving, fresh enemies spawning in to discourage dawdling. Early in the campaign, scenarios are also introduced where you’ll face orbital bombardment if you don’t crack on. In short, this is a design where a spiked wall pushes you forward into the snare traps in your path. At least a patch that speeds up enemy turns means it will no longer drag while it does so. Punishing systems are  part of this design document, of course, but Intelligent Systems doesn’t always know when to end the pain. Some enemies barely move, leaving multiple reaction shots in the tank. Since these are an unknown quantity and will be triggered by the tiniest fraction of movement, you can take several hits once you’re in danger. Even X-Com never punished you for turning on the spot to aim. Reaction shots also come with a chance to induce stun, robbing a teammate of the rest of their go and making them more vulnerable to damage. Failing in a Hail Mary sprint to the goal because the game spawned two enemies outside the exit this turn, which dish out a hail of reaction shots and stun your last man, is sure to raise your blood pressure. You’ll also face tiny insects in the sky whose every shot stuns and are near-impossible to hit, bobbing teasingly out of your crosshairs even when directly overhead. The thing is, while all the aliens have harsh tricks, several are far more manageable, so the sensation flip flops between fighting stacked odds and ill-tuned systems.Where Code Name: STEAM partially redeems itself is in its hammy tone and variety of inventive guns and mission types. For a tale that draws heavily from HP Lovecraft, there’s something endearing about putting Abraham Lincoln in a wheezing, steam-wreathed mech suit to battle a gigantic blue monster in a minute-long boss fight, and sprinkling the script with hot-air puns. And Wil Wheaton’s Honest Abe is so tonally right as  to almost justify leaving the voice volume slider alone. There is guilty pleasure to be had in wielding shuriken launchers and exploding metal penguins, too, or using Henry’s Bear Grenade to set up sympathetic explosions with the delayed-fuse jack-o’-lantern bombs that The Wizard Of Oz’s scarecrow can lay down. King Queg’s (AKA Queequeg) harpoon special is an animated treat; Tiger Lily’s healing mortar enlivens a traditionally boring role. The mission objectives are no less varied, with saving civilians, hunting queens and defending airships all complementing the get-to-the-goal basics. None, however, can grant enough clemency for the thorny, regular gameplay failings. Clanking is fine on an aesthetic level, but Code Name: STEAM’s rattling parts would have had a lot more appeal if they had stayed confined to these heroes’ backs.

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GTA V PC New Screenshots

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GTA V PC New Screenshots

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LEGO Dimensions - Official Announce Trailer When a mysterious and powerful vortex suddenly appears in various LEGO® worlds, different characters from DC Comics™, The Lord of the Rings™ and The LEGO® Movie are swept away. To save their friends, Batman™, Gandalf™ and Wyldstyle™ bravely jump into the vortex and quickly find themselves fighting to save all of LEGO humanity. 

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Beyond Eyes is a modern fairy tale about finding courage and friendship as you carefully guide young Rae on a life changing journey, uncovering an incredible world, step by step. Blinded as a young child, and reluctant to leave the protection of her family home, Rae’s world is once more shattered as Nani, her pet cat, goes missing. Summoning up all the courage she can muster, Rae learns to face her fears and ventures out into the world, to find her best friend.

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Believe it or not, the Dynasty Warriors games famed for their massive battles where you carve your way through quite literally thousands of enemy troops as your chosen hero actually have their roots in the Romance of the Three Kingdom’ series, some of the most intimidatingly deep strategy games ever. The Empires spin-offs mix a bit of this strategy into the tried-and-tested format. Instead of simply hacking through Chinese historical battles, this time you have a bit of a stake in what goes on behind the scenes. Your chosen general can cut about the country as a mercenary vagabond, making money by allying with various leaders, fighting their battles or betraying them as you see fit.

Or, you can raise a flag all of your own and start building an army while trying to convince China’s greatest warriors to join your cause. of course, the battles all take place in classic Dynasty Warriors style with you fighting hundreds and hundreds of enemy soldiers. always a pleasure.

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New to this iteration, you can now create your own general from scratch to fight against and alongside the massive cast of historical figures. There’s also a couple of new weapons, both of which further stretch the already at-breaking-point historical accuracy of the whole affair. There’s the Formation Rod, which enables you place markers on the map which create zones you can fill with magical explosions. also, there’s the Revolving Crossbow, which is a feudal-era Gatling gun. The core of it might be the traditional Dynasty Warriors thing and you’ll likely know if you’re a fan of that by now, but the more strategic leanings of this release with Empire mode letting you shape history as you see fit offer a different take on our favourite historical kill-’em-up.

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So Dead or Alive makes its Xbox One debut with this definitive version of DoA5. Well, definitive until the next Final Superlative GOTY edition gets announced. Here, the final boss from the very first Dead or Alive Raidou makes an unexpected comeback. You might already know (okay, you probably don't) that he was killed at the end of the 1996 original. Well, he's been turned into a cyborg (of course he has) and... doesn't change the story at all. He's just there for selection, using other people's moves and looking mean. Slow, powerful your typical tank. Also new for this version is the sweet and innocent Honoka. While her chipper personality and young Britney Spears-lookalike appearance will win her many fans, her movelist is essentially a best-of collection snaffled from all the other fighters she's studied (notice a trend here?). So when she performs Jann Lee's tension-tastic Dragon Fist, it may be super-cute, but it's also a bit cheap-feeling. Especially as her aping ability could have allowed something as exciting as switching to her opponent's entire moveset mid-round. It doesn't.

The fighting is still slick, speedy and explosive if a little one-note offering intuitive, mashable controls for newbies while serving a complex parry/counter game for pros. It's too frantic to offer Virtua Fighter levels of tactical depth (despite four VF characters appearing in the roster), but at least intelligent use of launchers and air juggles will see your practice rewarded with spectacular combo chains.

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Spectacular, however, is not a word that best describes the Xbox One conversion. It's virtually indistinguishable from vanilla DoA5 on Xbox 360. It's still good, and the female characters' faces are absolutely beautiful (still a little bit in love with Britney, sorry), but technically it's unremarkable. The story scenes still run at 30fps not 60fps (why?), plus some iffy textures and even slight slowdown and screen tearing mean this is hardly a showcase for your  shiny new wonder-machine. But if  your attention isn't more on the graphical representation of soaked T-shirt fabric, this probably isn't the game for you anyway.

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Evolve’s four-chums-hunt-a-monster is a lot like your first day at school. not in the sense that you’ll probably wet yourself or get told off for eating handfuls of sand, although you’re more than welcome to try. it’s more that initial feeling that it’s going to be terrible, and for the first few matches, it arguably is but once you get into the flow,  start making friends and become au fait with Evolve’s unique pace, it turns out that it’s not all that bad after all. It takes a while to warm up because turtle Rock expects you to know its mechanics just to survive to the end of a round. You’ll neglect certain items or ideas because they don’t have instant payoff or because you don’t even know how to activate them, your team dynamic begins and ends with four keen hunters stampeding off in four different directions and when you do stay together you often find yourself accidentally separated from the pack because you wanted to deal with an intriguing dinosaur and then, oh no, now you’ve been accidentally separated from your limbs. tough luck, pal.

Part of the reason the game starts off slowly is that more than half of the content is shut off from the outset. Unlocking new characters and monsters requires mastery of the ones you already have levelling up your weapons to one star each will give you access to the next hunter in the same class, forcing you to get to grips with everyone’s basics. it’s a slow start, for sure, especially if the weapon or skill in question requires input from the monster such as you having to trap them a certain number of times. Play against a sneakier monster and you might never level up. Fix the fight Push through the early confusion and start throwing down sound spikes and healing grenades in time with a battle’s throbbing rhythm, however, and Evolve transforms into a totally different experience. no longer as overwhelming as it was to begin with, your fight will be less about running away and more about engineering things to go your way with the tools at your disposal. it also allows you to enjoy the game’s neat take on the traditional FPS campaign.

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Evacuation is a sprawling five-match marathon strung together from different modes, with each outcome impacting the following map pick. if the beast wins, the next map might be cloaked in hunter-choking gas. if hunters win, they might activate force fields to limit the monster’s freedom. it’s cleverly done. match types keep it nice and varied, from the standard hide-and-seek of hunt, to the frantic race-to-find-survivors mode of Rescue and the egg-destroying nest mode. the latter’s too friendly towards the hunters, but they’re otherwise nicely balanced. Finally, there’s the all-out defend finale, pitting a full-strength monster and two respawning minions against your team of hunters. no more hiding or skulking around here, because this one’s all about charging at each other, guns and grenades blazing like that bit in braveheart but with less facepaint. If evacuation does a nice job of crafting a narrative, however simple, over the five fights, the maps don’t do it any favours. they’re all a bit dull, with ‘grey foggy wilderness’ and ‘scratched, industrial metal’ being the aesthetic order of the day. there’s some variation parachuting into a hole at the top of the aviary’s huge birdcage is notable but for the most part, the 16 maps are barely distinguishable from one another. does it matter so much when the mixture of battle types, teams, monsters and classes offer a new experience every time? nah. The class system is what kept us coming back for another pop at the monster. each character’s four skills may look simple on the surface, but allow for incredible tactical depth. the trapper class, a role we’ve not seen in a multiplayer game before, has tools that aim to find the monster and then keep it as close as possible. the first trapper character, maggie, has a pet trapjaw that can track the monster, as well as harpoon traps that hold the monster in place and a mobile arena that stops the beast from escaping. Unlocking the second character, griffin, gives you a harpoon gun, a more controllable version of maggie’s traps and sound spikes that tell you where the monster is when you can’t rely on the flocks of birds being scared away by its presence. abe, who looks a lot  like griffin but with an even better moustache, uses tracking darts and stasis grenades to pursue and slow down a monster that would much rather run and hide. The other three assault, medic and Support are similarly varied, with instruments that range from machine guns to healing grenades (for the person who feels that normal healthcare isn’t nearly explosive enough). Evolve wants you to get intimate with its characters oh god, not like that, no to make the game work the way it’s supposed to. and it does a great job of keeping you in the moment in the actual execution of your abilities. tracking three depleting life bars as the medic is a very different prospect to making judgement calls as to who deserves the Support’s shield at any given time. the assault is a more conservative role, but even they can target weak spots created by others. Knowledge is power getting your head around the intricacies of your weapons and feeling like a total boss is a highlight an efficient team member can make everyone’s lives a lot easier, and being the badass with a good handle on when and where you’re needed makes you the best person. it also explains why we’re drawn to the hunters over the monster no matter how well it does, it must party alone. This sense of effective role-playing is the crux of Evolve, and proves both its downfall and its salvation. when the hunters gel, knowing their jobs well enough to provide support and death in  equal measures, and the player behind the monster behaves unpredictably and keeps them on their toes well, that’s when the game excels. to achieve this level of excellence, you’ll need a team you’re familiar with, voice chat to share tactics, most if not all of the cast  unlocked for the maximum potential of skill combinations, and a good personal mastery of all your weapons. and that’s assuming the matchmaking system doesn’t give you an ai hunter or monster, or mess up the class choice you can rank your choices, but we found ourselves being forced to play our fifth choice more than we’d have expected, especially given we never played as our third or fourth choice. Unlocking all that stuff requires you to put a good few hours into the game, too, even if you’re mainlining one character from the start. if you want extra bonuses stat buffs such as faster movement or reload times you can add even more hours on top of that. if you can’t enlist four dedicated, well-trained friends to play and chat with, you’ll be thrust into the chaotic world of the matchmaking system, which pairs the good with the bad indiscriminately. if there’s even one idiot on your team, the balance is thrown way off. hey, better that than play against four bots in limp solo play.when we look over our time with the game the balance of great battles to wash-outs is reasonably matched; it’s testament to the former’s quality that we’ve given it the score we have. it’s a great game built around ideas with an dangerously large scope to go wrong a rubbish monster that is found in one unsatisfying minute, or a moronic team member who tries to do battle alone rather than wait for his team to respawn. Unless you have four friends with time on their hands it’s difficult to get quality battles on tap, but when the planets do align there are few shooters quite like it.

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Batman vs Nega-Batman sounds like the best thing ever OMG OMG batman batman batman YAY! That’s pretty much what we were thinking, yeah. there’s a new trailer for Arkham Knight and it’s sexier than christian Bale in Batspeedos. Featuring Harley Quinn, the riddler and two-Face among other villains and a superfluity of goons, their aim is to take down Batman. But you’re Batman, and you’re not going to Bat-take this. I tried to watch the trailer and it told me i wasn’t old enough. What gives? sorry, friend, this game is a PEGI 18. that’s both good and bad: bad for under-18s, obviously, but great in the sense that it’s going to be darker, scarier and maybe gorier than before. expect sad Batman times. emotions. dead parents. More emotions. Moping on rooftops. oh, it’s going to be so good.

How does it look? So good. it captures the grittiness of a Gotham under siege without resorting to too much grey and brown, and the city itself is lit up with art deco neons like Bioshock’s rapture. there’s some brilliant verticality too, and in one scene we see Batman freefalling from a skyscraper, so we can only assume that will be something we get to do. Bat-wheeee! Who is the arkham Knight, then? He’s Batman’s new enemy essentially, he’s Nega-Batman. He’s got a cool Nega-Batsuit and he’s been lurking in the background for a while, Nega-Batwatching and Nega-Batwaiting. He seems to know who Batman is, and how to exploit him and his gadgetry. He could also be someone from Batman’s Batpast with a grudge…

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More importantly: what about the batmobile?  it’s sharper, edgier, and full of more gadgets than James Bond’s pockets. Looks like you can jump in fairly seamlessly, firing missiles as you drive, and the trailer also has it putting down covering fire with a turret as Batman does his punchy thing in the foreground. you know what they say: a Batman’s best friend is his souped-up megacar.

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A list of leaked rumours, you say? Must be a job for… Speculation Man! More Star Wars info? ooh, gimme! Careful, now. We should point out that all of the following are rumours, straight from an unofficial fan site, but they do look interesting enough to warrant reporting on. For example: the campaign will span “pretty much  the entire Star Wars  saga” including upcoming new film, The Force Awakens. No way. tell me more about the force awakens  bits. It won’t contain too much from the film, as Disney has that pretty locked down, but characters, DLC packs, vehicles and powerful multiplayer ‘hero’ characters will all be tied in to The Force Awakens. The apparently leaked info also potentially confirms that Tatooine will be in The Force Awakens. Exciting!

But who are these characters? The information is vague on details, but some things are made clear: you can play as both the good and the bad guys (Republic and Rebellion vs Separatists and the Empire) and there will be a character with the surname Tarkin. Could they be related to Grand Moff Tarkin, he of the sharp cheekbones? He does have a great bone structure. What about multiplayer ? It sounds like Battlefront’s multiplayer component will be absolutely massive,  with two teams of 32 players apiece. Extra-powerful ‘hero’ characters who boast different abilities will be unlocked through you accumulating points as you play.

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Now tell me all the other bits of info that didn’t fit into a nice question/answer format. okay! There are tons of new ships and vehicles; the campaign takes place mostly during the original trilogy era; you’ll participate in battles from The Clone Wars and Revenge of the Sith; the DLC plan has been described as ‘aggressive’, with up to five packs in the works, the first few of which will be based on The Force Awakens; each DLC pack will feature at least three new maps, new characters and vehicles; it looks like there will be missions on Hoth, Endor, Alderaan and Tatooine. but, most crucially of all, these are all rumours and we definitely can’t confirm any of these until much, much closer to release at the end of the year.

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Clearly not content with working on the upcoming successor to the critically acclaimed Fire Emblem Awakening, as well as a crossover with Shin Megami Tensei studio Atlus, Intelligent Systems is also turning its hand to a brand new IP that adds a third-person viewpoint to the studio’s trademark turn-based strategy. Code Name: STEAM is set in a steampunk version of London, one under attack by invading Lovecraftian aliens. Players take control of Henry Fleming, a member of the Unit STEAM combat force, as he tries to end the alien menace while encountering and teaming up with like-minded soldiers on the way. Fans of the Valkyria Chronicles games will be immediately familiar with Code Name: STEAM’s central mechanics. The game essentially takes the grid-based gameplay Intelligent Systems used in Advance Wars and Fire Emblemand moves it to a third-person perspective, meaning attacking your enemy becomes as much about aiming precision as it is simply moving your unit within range.

What makes things interesting is the lack of a top-down map view, meaning the only way you can plan ahead is by actively moving your units forward and exploring the literally uncharted territory around you. In true turn-based fashion, movement is limited per turn, with each unit powered by a steam gauge that depletes as they move forward, fire weapons or perform a physical action. While moving ahead will decrease your steam, returning to your starting point replenishes it: this gives a little scope for exploration and prevents you walking blindly into an enemyfest with no means of going “whoops” and quickly leaving.

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Units can also end their turn with some steamleft, allowing themto perform ‘overwatch’ attacks. Also seen  in  the XCOM games, these give your unit the ability to fire their weapons during an enemy’s turn if it comes within range. They can  do  the  same during your turn, however, meaning running up to an alien head-on frequently results in themgetting the first attack in. The game’s general feel, then, is that of a more patient version of Gears Of War, in which  each extraterrestrial enemy has to be stealthily approached fromout of sight and taken out before it has the chance to spot you. This all takes place within a curious aesthetic that certainly doesn’t feel like it comes from a Nintendo studio. That steampunk has been overused over the years is something of an understatement, and it’s odd to see a first-party 3DS game dishing out thick helpings of the greys and browns non-Nintendo systems are often criticised for placing too much emphasis on. Its comic book style dialogue panels and Lovecraftian enemy designs are more pleasing to the eye though, and give the game some much-needed character. Given that Nintendo’s amiibo figures are all the rage at the moment, it’s no surprise that Code Name: STEAM is the latest game to confirm support for its NFC characters. Mario, Link and other common characters will have to sit on the sidelines this time though, with Intelligent Systems instead choosing only to make the game compatible with the four Fire Emblem amiibo. As a result, anyone owning the Marth, Ike, Lucina or Robin figures will be able to scan them (only on the New 3DS for now) and unlock them as playable squad members in the game. Given that swords and magic rather than gunplay are the order of the day in Fire Emblem, adding these characters to the mix should put an interesting spin on things. With its steampunk setting Code Name: STEAM may not have the most original premise, but the proof is in the playing and so far we’ve been impressed. The lack of a map means there are often moments during enemy phases where you’re just standing there often behind cover staring at a wall while aliens you can’t see move around, but these awkward moments aside, Intelligent Systems may very well be onto another turn-based winner.

[n2gus]

We’ve always had something of a disconnect with rollercoaster games. As enjoyable and satisfying as it is to craft a rail-runner that would make The Big One look like the little one, it all feels a little bit pointless. Hitting the button to actually ride your creation just amplifies the difference between videogames and real life there’s no real thrill to watching a rollercoaster ride through a television screen. Screamride’s mission is to rectify this long-standing issue, by empowering you to actually control the car as it careens over the rails. Yes, you might not be able to change direction or drift around corners, but Screamride lets you determine how hard you want to take a bend, how quickly you’re going, and even lets you push it to the absolute  limit or suffer the consequences your car flying off the rails and crashing into the surrounding scenery, smashing it to pieces in the process.

Frontier’s latest is actually divided into three distinct sections. The aforementioned rail-riding is your introduction to this oddly anodyne world of faceless robot people and gurning thrill-seekers, but it’s not the only way to fly. You can, of course, build your own coaster, in the finest Frontier tradition, and the game sets you a series of specific construction missions in order to learn the intricacies of what is a very accessible toolset. Rounding up the trio is, aptly, the option to shatter everything into dust. Destruction challenges let you fire a group of hapless Screamride testers out of a trebuchet, into a building, and watch as it comes collapsing to earth in a most satisfying fashion.

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This is definitely a more varied theme park than we’ve had in recent years, although don’t expect any sort of broad management overview Screamride is, quite simply, all about rollercoasters. Build, ride, destroy. Quite why it’s set in a universe that seems to be part Portal and part  Remember Me, with robots that also look like fencers, is anyone’s guess. Given, then, that the game insists on splitting things into threes, it makes sense for us to do the same. Riding the rails is probably the most interesting aspect of Screamride because it genuinely feels new. Obviously we’ve had plenty of fast-paced racing games that let you spin through loops and leap over massive gaps before, from F-Zero to Extreme G, but rarely have they been truly on-rails. Screamride makes up for this relative lack of interaction by allowing you to lean into bends, shifting the car’s weight up onto two ‘wheels’ and gaining the maximum amount of lateral G-force before you topple over and send your poor crew into the ocean below. Also, sections of the tracks are highlighted, and give you a turbo boost if you can time an ‘X’ button press just  as  you’re  about  to exit them. Build up your boost and you can shave seconds off your time, but go too fast and,  once  again,  you’ll  be  in  the  drink.  It’s  a surprisingly enjoyable and speedy experience, somewhere between a racer and a rhythm action game without ever reaching the heights of either genre. Still, there’s something to be said about actually riding a rollercoaster you built yourself in Sandbox mode. Plus, the building itself is very slick. Early construction missions charge you with simply completing small sections of track (with the freedom to shape them how you wish), but as you progress you’ll learn how to maximise your screams-per-second by building structures so grand and terrifying that no sane human being would ever dare ride them. And not just because they’re likely to fly off into a nearby building, although that’s probably a lot of the reason. Anything you can build can be destroyed. Destruction mode sits somewhere between Angry Birds  and short-lived Kinect effort Wreckateer. You can aim a sort of spinning trebuchet at the buildings ahead of you, then control its rotational sped before lining up your shot and letting go. A little bit of aftertouch brings to mind Burnout’s crash mode, but basically this is a mode about slinging a ball into a building and watching it fall down. The physics are a little iffy buildings tend to crumble at the slightest nudge – but who cares when it’s so enjoyable to watch it all come crashing down. This is probably the slenderest of Screamride’s trifecta of rollercoaster action, but it’s undeniably enjoyable. Perhaps best of all is the combination of all three elements.Building a deliberately dangerous coaster, riding it into oblivion, then controlling your free-flying car as it crushes a shiny structure, genuinely fun stuff. Sadly, it’s nothing that can sustain your attention for much time. Unless you’re a true rollercoaster obsessive and the thought of architecturally challenging yourself to build the best and most beautiful rides in history really does it for you, Screamride’s  a  game  that  will  burn  brightly and then quickly flicker out. It feels like a great fit for a younger audience in fact, the kind who obsess over Minecraft secrets and still get a kick out of the simpler things in life building stuff up just to watch it all fall down. Screamride will likely enjoy a core audience and Although it’s always a bit ugly to say it probably make for an excellent Games With Gold addition later on in the year. It’s not the type of mainstream-breaking breakout hit like Theme Park once was this satisfies a curious and very specific niche. Well-made, enjoyable, and completely forgettable. Kind of like a rollercoaster.

[n2gus]

Mario is back and this time, the most recognisable character in gaming has been redesigned and transformed into an unstoppable wind-up toy. He needs to be guided across treacherous platforms, ranging from factory floors to sizzling deserts. In a familiar scenario, it’s up to you to save poor Mario, Peach, Toadstool and Pauline from spikes, evil monkeys, and of course fire-spewing flowers. Collect coins and companions to make it through and be rewarded with one, two or three stars depending on how fast you finish the level and the amount of coins. The more stars you gain, the more bonus levels you can unlock all rather familiar really.

Despite being the sixth title in the Mario Vs. Donkey Kong series, Tipping Stars Marks the first time a Nintendo game is available as a (eShop only) cross-buy as well as a cross-play. In an age of cloud storage and mobile  gaming,  this  function  is an excellent new step, and likely to make playing on Wii U more appealing. Available for download, it’s an economical 2-for-1. It’s an interesting move from Nintendo, and a curious choice of game for it. Despitethe Mario series being Nintendo’s undefeated crown jewel, this offering is hardly a huge release, signifying Nintendo might simply be dipping its to ein the waters of cross-platform gaming, using this instalment in as a careful experiment.

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The shared platform approach might also be why the developers decided to forego adding 3D elements to the game, which is a shame. Despite being the feature that sets Nintendo’s handheld apart, the 3D functionality doesn’t make an appearance. The platform style and cartoonish design would have allowed for some experimentation in terms of 3D layering, and the timing couldn't have been better with the new 3DS XL just out. Additionally, the controls for the 3DS version are rather limited, relying solely on the touch screen (which gets fiddly at times) and rendering all other buttons practically useless. The trackpad gets a consolation prize in the formof the function to scroll throughlevels whenthey extendbeyond the screen’s borders. With all these functions going unused, gameplay seems to be geared more towards theWii Uplayer. However, despite the limited gameplay, this game has more to offer than meets the eye. What would otherwise bea pretty bog standard platform game is elevated by the workshop option, where players can modify and create their own levels. You can choose to build froma pre-made template or tostart fromscratch. This, alongwiththe price and the community section (where players can share levels, and scores), is where the game begins to redeem itself, and offers a little more than yet another instalment in a the Mario Vs Donkey Kong series.

[n2gus]

It’s actually pretty sad that in this day and age an age where games are going places no one ever imagined they would that it’s actually a shock for a developer to do something decidedly different. With Battlefield Hardline, EA have done just that, and taken what has been one of the world’s premiere FPS shooters since 2002 and ditched its very foundation and essence war. Real war, that is. Hardline gives us war of another kind. A war of the streets. Of Cops and Criminals. Prepare for a tighter, faster, and very different experience. At its core, Hardline is still the Battlefield game you know and love. The gunplay and overall feel remain intact to DICE’s decade plus of refinement and polish, but it’s most certainly a new experience, and one which makes a lot of sense to be a series of its own away from the main installments. Palming the development off to EA’s own Visceral Games (the good folks responsible for browning your pants with their Dead Space franchise), a fresh set of eyes were free to craft a game that stands out from the rest, made around the theme of Cops vs Robbers. It’s a wonder this hasn’t been tapped much before in the gaming world, given its timeless nature.

Single player see’s the player thrust into a story-driven campaign structured like a TV show, with ‘Episodes’ as levels, complete with Previously/Next Time On context, and even a corny starting credits scene during the first ep. While starting off strong, and having some serious potential if it were to embrace the ‘Cops & Robbers’ theme in earnest, the story just falls flat into a pit of bad TV drama clichés delivered with bad video game ones. I did have a lot of fun, due to the solid gameplay and new stealth elements, but the whole ordeal is little more than a low budget scripted walkthrough, not unlike a certain other FPS series we all know and love (hate). Only, you know, with significantly less explosions. As I said, the stealth was a saving grace. Hardline introduces the ability to take on almost every situation in a sneaky, and super-violent-but-non-lethal manner. You get extra points, which unlock new weapons, for arrests and takedowns. I found myself going out of my way to try and cuff every bastard I could see, which also greatly increases game time. The AI is solid, and can be tricked and manipulated, investigating your position and noises. I gotta give Hardline some brownie points for delivering what you might call collectables (a dirty word in the game world, I know) in a refreshing way; in every Episode, there’s a handful of suspects with outstanding warrants who give off massive XP bonuses when arrested, and you have to find them, as well as pieces of Evidence which branch episodes the campaign over to solve optional related cases, awarding new items and Battlepacks for Multiplayer use. A great incentive if you ask me!

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And finally that brings us to why we’re all here; the multiplayer! Not that anyone is surprised, but this again the only real reason to be picking up the latest Battlefield game. With new game modes, an overhauled customisation and unlock system, and the translation to the new style all working exceptionally well – not to mention a very smooth launch – the multiplayer game in Hardline is one of the series’ strongest yet. Gameplay is a lot more riveting than we’re used to, mainly due to the increase in player speed, and the smaller, tighter maps, which still hold up to the usual 64 player max. This results in some serious chaos, and when you take into consideration the lack of military grade weaponry and vehicles, means you have some of the finest gunplay and firefights you’ll ever see in an FPS. The new customisation mode is a welcome change, too. Instead of simply unlocking new items through XP, you earn Money as you play, and can buy the weapons, the attachments and the gadgets as you please. There’s a double edged sword in the equipment available. Err, not literally. Hardline gives us access to a very noticeable lack of guns, likely to keep in tune with the lack of military. It’s not great, as you can usually just buy your most preferred weapons at your first chance, meaning you have little to work towards with character customisation. It losses a little value when the second cheapest gun is my favorite, and I can buy it with no need to ‘upgrade’ for that class again. But while we have access to and options for much fewer weaponry, the game is actually a lot more balanced because of it. The new class set-ups and loadouts make way for a very tuned gameplay experience that the developers have painstakingly tested, meaning while streamlined, it’s never unfair or uneven. This, along with the somewhat shocking server stability, is a first for a Battlefield launch. It all just works so perfectly. The Battlefield staple Conquest makes a welcome return as the primary game mode you’ll find online, but it’s the new additions that really stand out. Blood Money and Heist are two 32-player modes which play on the theme, involving money and the gracious act of stealing it. Heist particularly is noteworthy as an attack/defend type mode, and is arguably the most tactical in the game. No matter how you want to play, there’s a perfect place for you on the team. Blood Money is very unique too, with both teams tasked with stealing from the same money grab and returning to home base, but things get interesting when you can also rob the oppositions own vault. These matches can be lengthy, close and full of action. New also is Hotwire, a conquest style mode where the bases are actually cars that you need to drive to hold down. This is just pure unadulterated fun, the vehicular combat with primarily civilian vehicles is so different for a Battlefield game, requiring some real team work – or just some great driving skills to take the win. Finally, there are two more new modes which take a very different tone. Crosshair and Rescue; with a max of 10 players, and no respawns, on paper these game modes just don’t sound like they belong anywhere near a Battlefield game. In practice however, they just work. Short rounds and tense standoffs, things can be over in seconds or come right down to the hair in the last seconds. They make for a refreshing change of pace and are a good place to test your stealth and cunning, not just your brute firepower. A terrific addition to the formula that I hope sticks around. Just give us Rush back, please. Hardline is a mixed bag visually, scoring major points with attention to detail and design. The level design is superb, in multiplayer at least, and the setting fresh. But it’s strange to me that this game, released more than a year since the last installment, can’t manage to stand shoulder to shoulder with Battlefield 4. The cutscene animation is great, but apart from that the character and gun models, and the scenery, are definably ugly. It’s a step back from what we’ve been promised from the Frostbite 3 engine, and I think goes to show that catering to the last generation of consoles with new games only goes to hurt them. A fall from grace for the series which has set new benchmarks with every release. Thankfully, the folks in the audio department lived up to the reputation the name holds. Hardline sounds brilliant, especially in surround sound. When things heat up in the game, there’s nothing that makes you feel it like the audio. It’s loud, abrasive and suits the tone of the game, the gunplay and explosions having substantial weight and the attitude from the characters fitting right into the mix. The performances in the campaign are great, with some Hollywood talent adding some recognizable faces and polishing off the narrative. Also a small, but noticeable addition, is an in-game radio which plays a variety of songs (hip-hop and rock) while you drive around in multiplayer. It doesn’t add much, but is a nice touch when you’re playing something like Hotwire that has you in a vehicle almost the whole time. You can change the songs or turn it off completely, but it actually does make a high speed chase all that much cooler with some music blasting.