Hey. You guys ever play the Lost Planet games? I never played the first one but I did play the second. Heads up, it's aged like Melanie Griffith. But the third installment wasn't half bad. Stick around and I'll tell you why it could be worth going back to now. Read more
Alright so I guess I'm late to the party here but after much anticipation of the Warmastered Edition's release date tomorrow (the 25th of October) it turns out there's been a delay.
According to THQ Nordic, they'll be pushing back the release until November 29th for PC and November 22nd for console. Unfortunately there were no reasons given for the push back but it looks like we'll have to wait another month to jump back into War's Story.
My original article can still be read below, and you can bet that I'm still excited for this one.
You guys know I really like Darksiders from my review of Darksiders 2: Dethinitive Edition that I did did a few months back right? Well, not terribly long ago Nordic Games also announced the remaster of the original Darksiders called the Darksiders: Warmastered Edition, and it's live on October 25th.
I'll certainly be picking this one up. Darksiders was a killer title when it came out and it was one of the first games I got when I built my PC back in 2011. I'm really excited for this one especially if it's anywhere near as good as the last remaster Nordic did for the series.
The Warmastered Edition will be available for PS4 and Xbox One, boasting 1080p at 60 fps. There will also be a Wii U version that will be capped at 30 fps. For those of us who flex our PC muscles, we'll get up to 4k resolution and lots of additional video and control options. All versions of the game will be treated to improved textures and post processing as well as better shadows etc. There won't be any new content but it should still be vastly improved over the original Darksiders, and that's ok with me -I'm very important.
We'll get all the improvements and badassery one would expect from a current gen remaster for the so good price of $20. I can't wait to see how it is and write extensively about it in one of my all too long reviews that I occasionally bore you all with. Of course the rumor mill is still churning with speculation that these remasters are in fact a test for the audience reception of a possible Darksiders 3. One can only hope.
Recently we did a play through of Alan Wake for Twinstiq Game Club and after it was over I had an itch for a good fast paced shooter. I had played Doom not too long ago and as good as it was, I didn't want to start that over again quite yet. I Considered Rage: It was fun and it had some cool elements even if it was hampered by poor texture resolution and lots of pop-ins. Then I saw a rumor going around that there was likely going to be a remaster of Bulletstorm in 2017. "That could be fun" I thought "I haven't played it since it was new". And guess what? It holds up pretty well. Be forewarned that this article contains some bad language... because it's about Bulletstorm. Read more
Still holding out on that reviled Windows 10 "upgrade"? Well you're an adult and far be it for me to tell you what to do, but it's the 19th and Microsoft will only be offering the install for free until July 29th.
Hello Internet and welcome to Twinstiq’s Game Club. Game Club is where we each nominate a game and then, as a team, play the game to completion, talking about it in a little weekly podcast on Sundays.
Lately I've been seeing a lot articles on the good ol' interwebs about certain iconic PC titles that will be turning 20 this year. That got me thinking: I've been a gamer for a pretty long time now. What was I playing some 20 years back? What were some of the other guys from Twinstiq playing then? So I'm going to talk briefly about a couple of titles that really cemented me into the PC gamer category, And we'll hear from a few of the crew about what they had going on from that era as well. Join me in my and a few of the crew's ramblings below. Read more
Well guys, CD Projekt Red is releasing the newest and final expansion for Witcher 3 pretty soon. It was originally stated that it would arrive in the first half of 2016. I for one am looking very forward to it and I've been holding off on playing the Hearts of Stone expansion because I want to go back to back on both stories. More information is coming on May 10th and I'll try to update this article as soon as I learn more.
This latest expansion is called Blood and Wine, and it will take Geralt and Roach to the seemingly peaceful lands of Toussaint; a place where the war has yet to reach, but hides a "bloody secret". Toussaint is said to be as big as all of the Skellige Isles combined and promises to provide us fans with an addition 20 hours of play time with new creatures and quests and even a new Gwent deck.
Blood and Wine will mark the finale of the Witcher as a whole and it looks to be as fine a way to do so as any. Speaking of series finales, this one will probably be one of the only things that gets me away from Dark Souls 3 for a while, until it's expansion content comes around later this year anyway.
It'll be released on all supported platforms at the same time, thank god, no bullshit timed exclusivity purchase that comes with a useless hat or some such nonsense. Now to wait for Cyberpunk 2077 and see if Yoda0vgs and I have speculated correctly that Ciri has some involvement there.
The official release date for Blood and Wine is confirmed to be May 31st. It's also said that this final expansion will add an extra 30 hours to the game, approximately, through the main and side quest lines. You can also expect to a new "point of interest" system and it sounds like Geralt will even get a house to live in.
Of course if you own the Witcher 3 season pass, you'll just get your copy when it's released at the end of this month. If you didn't participate in a season pass, then you can buy a digital copy separately for $19.99. Or if you prefer, you'll also be able to get ahold of a physical copy for $29.99 that will include the Northern Realms and Nilfgaard, Gwent decks along with a game guide and Gwent tokens to use while you play. The physical copy is supposedly a limited edition so grab one while you can I suppose, even though I'm fairly sure the chances of running out of boxed copies is slim.
This is supposed to be Geralt's last Witcher game. Maybe that means some time in the future we'll see Ciri get her own Witcher title, maybe? Or perhaps it's over forever. In any case it's been a blast and I for one have been looking forward to Blood and Wine since I first heard about it. Gonna be great I'm sure.
Maybe it's a latent masochistic part of me who likes this sort of punishing and unforgiving game play, maybe it's the fact that nowadays games are so full of assistance and hand holding that they basically play themselves, but there's something about this series that grabs me and won't let go. Admittedly the Dark Souls 1 PC port was a travesty that was only really even playable with a fan made patch, but I couldn't have asked for a better introduction to a series. When I started hearing about Dark Souls 2 I was glued to news sites trying to learn as much as possible, and even though it had a different director I loved it. I've been anticipating Dark Souls 3 since I first learned about it, and I'll probably play it for as long as it's up and running. I've never played Demon Souls and I don't have a PS4 so I haven't played Bloodborne, but I'd love to change those things as well.
I've been playing, and dying repeatedly in Dark Souls 3 now for over 100 hours and I feel like I can finally get my thoughts down. Continue further for my review and thoughts on the series in general. Read more
Alright well we've all seen free to play ARPG's out there and most of them are too good to be true. They allow you play to a certain level then charge you money to continue playing, or they lock specific gear you need to continue behind a pay wall or some such nonsense that makes an otherwise fun, free game, much less free or fun.
But some get it right. Path of Exile, for instance created and published by Grinding Gear Games, is a great fantasy ARPG. Nothing locked behind pay walls, and donations are made for cosmetic items only if you so choose. All content is free and fully accessible and the support is excellent. It remains one of the best examples of how the free to play model can really work. But let's say you're sick of the typical dungeon crawler, D&D fantasy style isometric Diablo clone ARPG.
Enter, Marvel Heroes. It pretty much speaks for itself but here's the rundown. You'll be a super hero or villain from the Marvel Universe and follow a very graphic novel style story that takes you around the world to see places like New York and the Savage Lands while giving you home bases like Avengers Tower and Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. The story is told through missions as you play of course, but also with some very cool comic book style cut scenes.
I've been playing this pretty consistently for a while now and I'm noticing that this another good example of a player friendly free to play model. So let's look at this game a bit and see why it's such a good experience. It's 100% free. You can grab Marvel Heroes on Steam if you have an account, or you can download it right from the source at the official site and soon enough you'll be confronted with a choice of what hero or villain you want to become. When you first start you'll have access to 12 heroes and after the prologue that number increases to 55 and more are still being added. Here's the current list of playable characters.
You'll be able to play every hero or villain until level 10 and then the game reminds you to remember to switch out heroes or choose to "uncap" the current one. They give you one hero for free to level all the way to 60 but want you to play as many as you can so that you can make an educated choice. I tried: War Machine, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, X-23, Juggernaut, The Thing, and Cable, to name a few (there were more) before finally deciding to continue on with Captain Marvel. The rest of the heroes and villains remain playable at any time you wish from just about anywhere in the game. So if you feel like you need a quick change just press "T" and choose a new hero; no need to log out and back in to switch. It's a pretty smooth operation.
It's important to remember that every playable character is free until level 10. I reiterate that because if you grab this game on Steam you'll see some fairly pricey DLC on the list that includes heroes. Those DLC packs include cosmetic items and alternate costumes which you can purchase separately in-game. They'll also uncap that hero for you but the most useful thing they include is a character specific inventory, which would actually be pretty great because inventory and stash space is shared and storage is kind of limited if you're going to play more than one hero. It's also important to know that if you do decide to uncap more than one hero you can do that via the game store with real money, or if you're patient you can collect "eternity splinters" (items that drop off enemies) and use them to purchase your next uncap. They aren't very rare and the game will even provide you with a pack of 400 of them as a login reward and that alone is enough to buy most heroes, they range from 200 to 600 splinters each. The point here is that you only need to spend actual money if you want to.
I've chosen to purchase an alternate costume for my Captain Marvel because it's not expensive to do so in most cases (some cost more than others) and I figured I'd support the title in at least a small way. And like most free to play games Marvel Heroes has deals and sales on bundles of items and the like pretty often.
Need a sidekick? Get a team-up hero. The game will provide you with at least one, but all the playable heroes and some extras (like Carnage, Agent Venom and many more) can be purchased as a team-up. They have their own items and skills and gain levels just like you do. Plus if for some reason you need to go AFK for a bit they'll hang out and protect you.
My only real complaint is that I think this game needs a lot of balancing. Now don't get me wrong I know that it makes sense to be vastly powerful what with being a super being and all, but there's almost no challenge at all. It's possible to wipe a out a group of dozens of mobs with the use of one skill. In fact the only times I've been defeated since I started playing regularly are in the "Patrol maps" where everything is stronger and bosses come at you in multiples. To be fair though there is supposed to be end-game content for level 60 heroes that provide a much better challenge, but since I'm only level 41 at the time of this writing I can't speak to that myself. Also co-op play with friends will increase the difficulty of enemies on the map. 
So there we have it, my recommendation to play a really good, friendly, free to play title with a great model. Marvel Heroes uses Unreal Engine 3 Engine so it runs great while looking great, and there's even a Mac port in case you use one of those things for games.
Our own Yoda0vgs introduced me to this in a sort of trial by fire live stream that we did a few days ago. You can see the video here on our Twinstiq LP channel, skip ahead to around the 11 minute mark to actually see us start playing.
This year my goal was to finish Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, Halo 5, Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak and finally Grim Fandango. I am sad to report, I failed, and miserably. I had a 50% completion rate in no small part due to the release of several games including the time sink of Xcom 2 (reviewed on our site here by Scroo). What this exercise really hammered home is the dilemma of the modern gamer, prioritization.
Assassin’s Creed Syndicate:
First to touch on the games I played, Assassin’s Creed Syndicate was a solid experience, the game finally delivered on the promise of the franchise that has been missing in the last three entries. While I love Black Flag’s sailing mechanic the story missed out on a lot of elements and made me feel uncomfortable with the protagonist but not nearly as much as I outright disliked the leads of both Rogue and Unity. Simplification was the key, the use of the Frye twins (which was very hard to not make Futurama jokes about) kept the narrative fresh by switching between the two depending on the type of mission and preserving stylistic integrity of the character preventing ludonarrative dissonance from being a problem. This is one of the few times I’ve actually gone for completionism, the side quests were all solid fun and while they were plentiful they were never overwhelming like in Unity (which I basically just walked away from saying “screw this” when I couldn’t see my objectives for all the clutter of side quests). This title is well worth playing.
Halo 5: Guardians
Having bought this at the same time as Syndicate and not touched it I was actually able to finish the game rather quickly. Splitting the narrative between Blue Team with its succulently voiced Master Chief and Osiris led by Spartan Locke (or the Master Chief Grouch) the game was solid enough. There were some changes, Locke originally portrayed by Mike Colter (who is busy now being Luke Cage) didn’t return and was replaced by sound alike actor Ikè Amadi. Honestly, unless I was told, I wouldn’t have heard a difference. Amadi does his best with a bad script. I went into the game relishing the opportunity to spend time with Buck (aka my Mancrush Nathan “Captain Mal Reynolds” Fillion) to find very little actual interplay between the team members. There’s some random background chatter and the lush and beautifully rendered cut scenes which would actually make for a great movie/tv series on their own but beyond that there was no real difference who you were playing with.
Regardless if you were the Chief or Locke your companions were pretty brain dead AIs. Playing on Heroic the game never felt too tough, I was able to make it through the game with some strategy but the AIs of your companions are downright stupid often ignoring pleas for help or just running blindly into fire. Your enemies on the other hand would often coordinate attacks and make use of flanking and cover very effictively. If only my squad were so smart! The squad level commands were Spartan (forgive the pun) at best. You essentially had resurrect me, go here, use this vehicle and attack that. You don’t want to be worrying about issuing a ton of commands in a combat heavy game, understood, but some more strategy and differing play styles by your AI companions would be nice. Even the ability to set behaviour like in Mass Effect would have been cool (like get Buck to use heavy weapons or Fred to focus on sniping).
The story itself is the framing device to the next arc of the Halo universe. It feels like we may finally be done with the Flood/Covenant/Precursor story and introducing something entirely new. Allies become enemies and new alliances are forged but in the end the story felt annoying because of some of the reversals that just felt silly and the fact that much of this could have been resolved with a simple call back to base or a 5 minute conversation. That being said, the same could be said about 90% of action movies out there so there’s that.
Multiplayer is tight with none of the Halo Master Chief Collector’s Edition issues and due to its design even joining in months later thanks to a lack of a class system I didn’t feel overpowered by my opponents. The arena material was classic halo and the addition of mobility powers and clambering change the dynamic enough to make it feel fresh. The best part though is the addition of Warzone. This adds large scale team vs. team vs. environment play and is a sort of capture and hold based game play with points being accrued for destroying Precursor and Covenant who drop into the field of play. This is the most fun and revolutionary addition that could be a game on its own. One little possible concern is the addition of card packs but having played the multiplayer it’s easy enough to earn these requisition packs which unlock gear in Warzone matches as well as cosmetic material. That said, all of this can be earned simply by playing the game and I’ve not once had to buy any in game or even been compelled to consider it.
In short, if you like Halo and the universe Bungie created you’ll enjoy where 343 Industries are taking it. If you don’t you may not really enjoy the gameplay which can be at times frustrating due to working with team AIs that feel like they have brain damage. However, given the ability to play co-op, this could change the feel of the game especially with friends you can to something more enjoyable. Really with a 16 mission campaign that depending on play style can be run in 5 to 6 hours unless you are a fan of the universe or the multiplayer I’d suggest waiting for a sale.
That brings us to my shameful failures, Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak and Grim Fandango, to be honest I barely touched them. I did get a bit more time in with Homeworld but I found the lack of ability to issue commands in formation or line up where my units sat on the 3D environment frustrating and over the month of February, I had several betas pop up that were limited time, a couple of “Seasonal events” roll around in a few games I regularly play and the release of several new titles.
When I started gaming in the late 70s there were literally a handful of games a year. Many of them rehashes of existing games with just different plastic sheets you'd tape to your TV.
During the 80s and 90s it picked up but it still wasn’t the same kind of frantic pace you have today. You could get away with buying “all the games you want” because even at its peak during the "Holiday Season" it was still only a few dozen games at most which means you wont be overwhelmed.
But now we have new games showing up on a weekly basis. This doesn't count Betas, DLC, season events and so on. All of this makes it a challenge to just focus. I have access to Steam, PlayStation and Xbox and these libraries are littered with titles I’ve not finished. Many of these games are great - as long as I'm playing them - but I never really seem to make any headway through my backlog because of the sheer constant barrage of New Hotness that might be floating around in the gaming world. Thankfully, those games in those libraries aren’t going anywhere and I can always return to them, but as time marches forward it feels harder and hard to return to these abandoned games.
It makes me wonder if it wouldn’t be better if game companies cut development in half and focused on titles making really amazing experiences versus the constant iterations on old titles, re-releases, HD Upgrades, and the crazy release schedule we deal with now. In the end, no one forces me to buy these games and I’m lucky enough to have disposable income enough that I can live easily with my poor impulse control, but if I was a kid who didn’t have a lot of cash it would have been frustrating. I guess I’m lucky enough to have grown up in a time where 5 of my friends could split the cost of a game and share it using floppy disks to copy the game. Man, how the times have changed.
