We’ve just rolled out an update that makes it easier to find downloadable content for your favorite games. Any game that offers DLC will now have a sortable, featured page of all of its DLC in one place. Furthermore, (and especially for games that have a tons of DLC) we’re providing ways for developers to customize how these pages by creating lists, adding branding and specifying which titles to feature.
Posted by: xSicKxBot - 01-13-2019, 07:20 AM - Forum: Lounge
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Halo 5 Is Free On Xbox One This Weekend
Looking for something new to play this weekend and don't want to spend any money? Microsoft has announced that Halo 5: Guardians is completely free to download and play starting now and running through the end of the weekend.
It's free on Xbox One as part of Microsoft's Free Play Days promotion which sees games drop to the low, low price of $0.00 for periods of time, usually on weekends. The one catch, if you can call it that, is that you need to have Xbox Live Gold.
Xbox Live Gold members can play Halo 5 for free today through Sunday as part of @Xbox Free Play Days. Jump in and join the Master Chief for an action-packed weekend! pic.twitter.com/PHAOxHWnKp
To sweeten the deal, Halo 5 is offering double XP for the duration of the free play weekend, while the fun-time playlists Holiday Fiesta and Castle Wars are in rotation. The Holiday Fiesta playlist is aimed at celebrating the holidays, of course, and it features "snow-themed" variants of Halo 5 arena maps. Castle Wars, meanwhile, is a large-scale capture-the-flag mode that supports 16 players.
Halo 5 still has a very active player population, so you should have no trouble at all finding multiplayer matches. The game is also free with Xbox Game Pass, which further helps the game reach even more players.
The next mainline Halo game is Halo Infinite, which is in development for Xbox One and PC. We still don't know a whole lot about it, but Halo boss Frank O'Connor recently talked about how the game's multiplayer is tons of fun.
Nintendo New York Store Hosting Private Event Next Week
The Nintendo New York Twitter account has revealed the second floor of the store will be closed until 11:30am on 15th January due to a private event. Here’s the official tweet below:
So, what could be happening? It’s hard to say at this point. All we do know is that this type of event has happened before and details haven’t always been revealed. If we do find out anything, we’ll be sure to let you know.
In the meantime, feel free to wildly speculate in the comments below.
Posted by: xSicKxBot - 01-13-2019, 12:54 AM - Forum: Lounge
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Here's A Really Good Overwatch Drum Cover
Andrew Fleming, the drummer of Islander and maker of excellent drum cover videos of video game songs, is back with his latest--and it's all about Overwatch.
Fleming takes Overwatch's mostly serene, piano-filled "Hollywood" track and dials up the intensity with double-bass, fills galore, and open hi-hat. It's quite great.
The video caught the attention of Overwatch developer Blizzard. The official Overwatch Twitter account re-tweeted Fleming's video and congratulated him with a nice animated GIF of J.K. Simmons from the music movie Whiplash.
Video: Playing New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe Blindfolded Because We Can
Many people have voiced their opinion about New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe being just too sodding easy for their tastes, and whilst we don’t think the whole game is a cakewalk in the traditional sense, it isn’t exactly the Dark Souls of platformers to use an overused and somewhat polygonal expression.
So to ramp up the difficulty a smidgen and a half we thought it would be a “good” idea to slap a makeshift blindfold over our peepers and try to hammer our way through just the first level that the game offers. So after literally several attempts to memorise the layout, we managed to procure enough footage to make the video above, so give it a watch.
Have you ever wondered what certain other devices and items in your household would look like as a Switch? Well, wonder no more! A big Nintendo fan and Reddit user known as u/logbies has crafted rather large Joy-Con shelves to place alongside their television.
As can be seen in the above and below photos, both Joy-Con shelves are designed to match the height of a 55″ television, transforming it into a gigantic Nintendo Switch that can hold up to 40 games. The talented individual behind the creation also goes by the name of Switch_dreamer here on Nintendo Life.
This isn’t the first time Logbies has created a larger than life Switch-themed household item. A previous creation he has posted includes a fancy Nintendo Switch coffee table with built-in lights. Have a look at it in the below video:
Would you like these Switch-themed creations in your own living room? Tell us below.
Destiny 3 Coming In 2020, Analyst Predicts Amid Bungie/Activision Breakup
One of the biggest gaming news stories so far in 2019 broke today when Activision and Bungie confirmed they are ending their publishing deal for Destiny. Going forward, Bungie will take on development and publishing duties for Destiny, while Activision will focus on its own franchises, like Call of Duty.
Research firm Cowen & Company shared its thoughts on the news in a note to investors today, and one prediction the company made was that Bungie will release Destiny 3 in 2020. This is not an altogether surprising revelation, as the Destiny series normally releases new mainline entries every three years.
Destiny 1 launched in 2014, with Destiny 2 coming in 2017. According to Cowen & Company, the initial deal between Activision and Bungie called for new Destiny games every two years, but this shifted to one new game every three years. This slip might have contributed to what Cowen & Company called a "growing divergence" between Activision and Bungie's respective visions for where the Destiny franchise should go.
While Destiny and Destiny 2 might have been commercially successful on a unit basis, the games did not achievement the kind of "recurring revenue stream" that Activision wanted, Cowen & Company said. Indeed, Activision management recently said Destiny 2: Forsaken failed to meet its commercial expectations, and as a result, the company was looking at ways to bring more microtransactions to the game. Whether or not that's still the case now that Bungie operates Destiny 2 by itself remains to be seen.
According to Cowen, Bungie's attempts to broaden the Destiny player community with a more casual friendly Destiny 2 didn't work out, and while Destiny 2: Forsaken was praised by critics and fans, it didn't do a good enough job at bringing back lapsed players.
Cowen estimates that Activision severed ties with Bungie and Activision to focus on strengthening its own fully owned franchises like Call of Duty, even if it meant taking a financial hit in the short term. The upside of investing in its own franchises was greater than continuing to sink resources into an under-performing series like Destiny, Cowen said.
Also in the report, Cowen said Bungie likely paid Activision a fee to reclaim the Destiny publishing rights, but the figure is not likely "enormously significant," it said.
Losing Destiny will hurt Activision Blizzard's bottom line, Cowen said, estimating that the company will announce lowered financial guidance when it reports earnings next in February.
"Ultimately, we think this decision is probably for the best for Destiny as a franchise, as we think having two head cooks in the kitchen with somewhat divergent views created some issues with the development process and led the game down some blind alleys," Cowen said. "Destiny was a worthwhile attempt by Activision to build another cornerstone franchise, one that just didn't quite pan out as they had hoped (underlining once again the high difficulty of creating and managing a successful live service game business), in our view."
There continue to be unanswered questions about the Bungie/Activision breakup, including what it means for Destiny support studios High Moon and Vicarious Visions. Those studios, which are owned by Activision, might shift to other Activision projects, but no official announcements have been made at this point.
For more on the big Destiny news, check out the stories linked below.
The mobile gamer can look back at 2018 with an affectionate and misty eye, secure in the knowledge that gaming on mobile devices gets more diverse, sophisticated and polished with each year. In this respect, 2019 also is shaping up to be a banner year on this front.
Roughly speaking, the most exciting upcoming games can be split into three groups: the name-brand megahits-in-waiting, boardgame adaptations, and indie projects. Read on to see what the who’s who of mobile gaming are cooking up for this year’s treats.
Evolution (Board Game)
This was on the ‘MIA’ until recently, when North Star Digital announced that it would finally be releasing on February 12th. This is a digital adaptation of the popular boardgame of the same name, where you play as emergent species attempting to survive and adapt. You must use cards and combine traits to make sure your species gets the food it needs to live. This is a game of up to four players, and will feature a solo campaign vs. AI, as well as cross-platform online multiplayer.
Mario Kart Tour (Racing)
It’s been practically a year since this title was first announced and outlined with few concrete details added between now and then. Nintendo’s mobile offerings have run the gamut, from the premium Mario Run, the Miitomo social & style app everyone tried and forgot about, to the successful and generally great Fire Emblem: Warriors. Mario Kart is a treasured and classic franchise, even amongst Nintendo offerings, so that reputation guarantees some level of careful handling. It remains an open question whether the game will be a premium or freemium model, but the launch date is still projected to be March.
Diablo Immortal (Action RPG)
Diablo Immortal will draw some side-eye and mockery, having been already made notorious because of its horribly mistimed announcement. (Yes, we have phones, but read the room, Activision-Blizzard). Even more puzzlingly, the game is being created in partnership with NetEase, a Chinese developer whose resume already includes ‘Eternal Realm’ (无尽神域) itself essentially a Diablo clone. Weird stuff: the official license merging with a pretender to the throne to make a hybrid project together. Concerns about endless grind or re-skinning of Eternal Realm are well-founded, but while most of us will be as judge-y as possible we’ll also probably still give the final product a try. Good action RPGs live or die by loot, character progression and above all, delicate-yet-accurate controls, so it will be interesting to see if Diablo Immortal will be a good game as well as the inevitable cash cow.
Artifact (CCG)
Two juggernauts of early-aughts gaming, Valve and Richard Garfield, collaborated to create Artifact, a lane-based card game with its theme and heroes lifted from DOTA 2. Launching on desktops this November, the game has been universally praised for its gameplay and just as roundly (and soundly, I might add) panned for its multi-layered pay scheme, which presents significant barriers to entry and requires quite the investment. The game is a purchase upfront, with tournament tickets and the chance to earn cards in-game through other methods both requiring further shills at some point. Yes, there is an individual card market which allows powerful and rapid deckbuilding, but at what cost? Amazing game with an incredibly rocky launch, but its trade winds are already shifting. The game is excellent and its market & monetization can only improve. Watch this space.
Five Tribes (Boardgame)
Five Tribes, oldie but goodie, will make its digital debut this year. Days of Wonder has been updating and digitising its catalogue at a steady pace and with fantastic results. Five Tribes central mechanic is just like mancala. Pick a space and drop the meeples one by one along the path. Dead simple, but if you think it makes the game easy, you’d be dead wrong. The Five Tribes each possess unique scoring criteria and effects, and the turn-order bid means timing depends on correctly valuing the current layout. Many simple bits add up to make a nigh-perfect game.
Scythe: Digital Edition (Boardgame)
In another history, the Great War also ruined Europe and annihilated a generation, but its nations and technologies faced the blight and devastation quite differently. With large mechs, steampunk agricultural combines and faux-Eurasian player nations, Scythe gives each player a unique entity to steer to victory. Engine building games are always efficiency races, conversion puzzles, but Scythe’s unique setting, eye-catching miniatures and indirect player confrontation quickly made a it a fan favorite amongst the gaming community. Its rollout on Steam has been smooth experience, with decent AI and a robust tutorial. The assets and UI will translate well to mobile and what used to cost near three figures will be available to most anyone for a fraction of the price.
Terraforming Mars (Boardgame)
Terraforming Mars sounds like a noble goal for all of humanity. In reality, the game is a push-and-pull competition for corporations to garner by prestige by…terraforming Mars. Three categories: oxygen, temperature and ocean coverage dictate the endgame, but to get there, players will reshape the red planet into a bright blue hope. It’s a Euro though-and-though: precisely balanced, intricately co-dependent and inevitably point-based. But the close match between theme and mechanic makes this game deeply satisfying and intuitive to learn and explain, and the action selection mechanic is uniquely innovative and inspired. Just when I think boardgame design is tapped out, something truly exceptional rises to the top.
Mew-Genics (Sim)
This one has been incubating forever but should be worth it when it finally gets here. Ed McMillen (of Binding of Isaac fame) has been teasing this cat-breeding simulator for ages. The game has been described as a mix of Tamagotchi, Pokemon and the Sims, with its signature art style courtesy of McMillen. All bets for a playful wild game about the weirdness, sweetness, malice and all-around havoc of cat-raising seem to be right on the money. The ideas are there, the premise is promising, the only question remaining is when it will get here.
Overland (Finji) (TBS/Survival)
Overland is tactical turn-based survival meets cross-country road trip (from hell). Each waypoint is a battle, a flashpoint conflict over some minor life-extending objective. Its overland map and procedural generation seem reminiscent of FTL (or its follow-up Into the Beach) but the setting here is familiar people struggling with post-apocalyptic daily hardship. Water, medicine, gas, weapons: the items are banal but vital. The game uses minimalism and scarcity to great effect, sketching characters and strategic scenarios alike with the barest elements.
Impossible Bottles (Rhythm/Action)
Various robots move about in their bottles and raging about like a bull in a china shop. Each level presents one of these Impossible Bottles for the player to fix by manipulating the environment and repairing the situation, or at the very least soothing its sole occupant. A scientist built these robots as part of a perpetual motion machine for unlimited energy, but they don’t quite work as is. The secret to fixing everything is music, or in gameplay terms: rhythm. One-touch gameplay and lush, fantastic art, with a slated mid-year release.
Nowhere Prophet (Card Game)
Nowhere Prophet: this one is a doozy and a little secretive. The dark horse of this race, if you will. In the game, post-apocalyptic leaders trek across a scabrous landscape to gather supporters and supplies, occasionally clashing with foes or environmental dangers. This card game has grid-based combat as well procedurally generated encounters. It’s a card-battler roguelike, essentially, with a unique setting and what seems to be a robust battle system.
Heaven’s Vault (Interactive Fiction)
Inkle (of 80 Days interactive fiction fame) has been teasing their mechanically ambitious Heaven’s Vault for some time now. An archaeologist-slash-xenolinguist explores the dusty remains of an alien civilization on an unknown planet, with a vivid backdrop of sienna sand and celestial blue. There’s some pretty nifty procedural tricks behind the code-breaking and translation, and while its approach to storytelling is a little less handcrafted, it has the potential to have even more surprises and replayability than the globe-trotting 80 Days.
Other Missing Games From 2018
As a reminder, here is a quick list of some other games we were expecting last year, but never turned up:
Void Tyrant (card game/RPG)
Bad North (RTS)
Exodus: Proxima Centauri (Boardgame)
Dungeon Warfare 2 (Tower Defence)
Epic Card Game (Card Game)
Lord of the Rings Living Card Game (Card Game)
Monster Slayers (Card Game)
EVE: War of Ascension (MMO)
Seen any other games coming out this year you’re excited about? Let us know in the comments.
As CES 2019 comes to an end, we're looking back at all the announcements and new pieces of tech shown off during the event. A bunch of laptops and PCs were displayed at this year's CES, and GameSpot's sister site, CNET, compiled a list. We've gone ahead and narrowed it down to ones best for playing video games.
If you're looking to invest in a new gaming machine, then you'll want to check out the Acer Nitro 5, Zotac Mek 1, or Dell Inspiron Gaming Desktop. The latter two are PCs, while the Acer is a laptop. The Acer Nitro 5 has a 15.6-inch screen and is powered by AMD, with a Radeon RX560 GPU and Ryzen CPU. The price for the laptop isn't all that bad, with a starting price of $800 USD getting you a 512 gigabyte SSD hard drive.
You're getting a lot more bang with the Zotac Mek 1, but it's going to cost you a lot more bucks. The desktop will have a starting price between $1200 and $1400, but you get a machine with a seventh generation Intel processor and Nvidia GeForce 1070Ti CPU. The Dell Inspiron Gaming Desktop falls between the two in terms of performance and price, costing a little over $800 with an eight generation Intel processor and Nvidia GeForce 1070 CPU.
If you just need a new laptop and don't want to use it for gaming, but still need the processing power to render and edit videos or photos, then ideally all the aforementioned computers should work. However, you can also look at a few other options that are primarily designed for business people and artists. The Dell XPS 15 2-in-1 and HP Spectre x360 are the powerhouses of the non-gaming laptops shown off at CES, but they will each set you back at least $1300. Both the Asus Zenbook Flip 14 and HP Envy x2 are the new kids on the block--neither are out or priced yet--but they boast very impressive specs as well. The Flip 14 includes a Nvidia GeForce MX150 GPU, eight generation Intel CPU, and a 512 gigabyte SSD. The Envy x2 is basically a souped up version of HP's laptop from last year, with a seventh generation Intel processor increasing the speed of the machine's performance.
Plenty of other pieces of tech were announced at CES this year. There wasn't much specifically geared towards gaming, but a few things hinted at a change in the industry landscape. Also, some products were just really weird.
Headup Games Is Bringing Four Games To Switch Over The Next Few Months
Headup Games has brought a lovely little collection of games to Switch over the past year and a half, publishing the likes of Runbow, Slime-san, The Inner World, Bridge Constructor Portal, and Earth Atlantis to name a few. Now, the studio has got in touch to share some of its best and biggest games launching this year, and four of them are coming to Switch.
Some of these have already previously been confirmed, but we now have updated release windows and information for each title. So, shall we?
Trüberbrook
Release: Mid-March
A highly-stylised graphic adventure arriving on all platforms, Trüberbrook comes complete with its very own ‘Interrogation’ trailer (which we’ve included below). The blurb sets the scene for this one:
“The past few weeks a lot has happened in our little Trüberbrook: Most of the villagers have been given their voices, all the houses, squares and secret science labs have been built and the team is about to go on a great journey…”
Windscape
Release: End of March
Described as being a Zelda-like game, Windscape has you playing as a young girl living on your parents’ farm, set in a “lovely world made up of floating islands in the sky”. As you discover the world you learn that something has gone terribly wrong, however, with islands breaking apart and falling from the sky.
Dead End Job
Release: Q2 2019
Dead End Job is a twin-stick shooter that sees you take on the role of Hector Plasm, (an employee of a paranormal pest control company called ‘Ghoul-B-Gone’). Your aim is to become the employee of the month, at which point you will be deemed ready to avenge the murder of an ex-coworker.
Silver Chains
Release: Q3 2019
The debut title from developer Cracked Heads Games, Silver Chains is a first-person horror coming to Switch a little later in the year, slightly after its Q2 release for PC. The game uses Unreal Engine 4 to bring to life the “hauntingly beautiful” interiors of an early 20th century English manor. This Victorian architecture is said to play its part in creating an eerie atmosphere throughout.
Do any of these games take your fancy? Will you be keeping an eye out for them as they arrive over the next few months? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
