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In 2014, Devolver Digital announced a Kickstarter campaign for a retro action-adventure game called Crossing Souls. The renowned Texas-native publisher has served up multiple hits like Hotline Miami, Shadow Warrior, and Broforce. This time around, they’ve collaborated with Spanish indie developer Fourattic to bring Crossing Souls to life. The game, which is about friendship and the coexistence of life and death, came out last February.

Set in the year 1986, Crossing Souls takes us across (no pun intended) a small Californian town called Tajunga. The story follows five young best friends on their two-dimensional adventure after a horrifying storm takes place. Blue-haired Chris is the short-range baseball bat swinger and leader of the group. Hat-clad Kevin is Chris’ troublesome younger brother. Blonde Matt sets an example for blonds by being a genius with a long-range laser gun, a jetpack, and an unsurpassed love for science. Sloppy yet tough, Big Joe is a practitioner of hand-to-hand combat and enjoys heavy-lifting. Redheaded Charlie is a strong, independent female who’s fast on her feet. She whips anyone that presses her buttons within her radius.

One day, Kevin reveals to his friends that he found a dead body by the lake. They investigate it to discover a pink, pyramid-shaped stone known as the Duat. Literally, Duat translates to the realm of the dead in Ancient Egyptian mythology. In the game, the Duat is a key to another dimension that recharges by draining energy, even if it means taking a life. Once the fragment feeds off a soul, it’s transported to the dimension of the dead. You can imagine how coming across a stone like that can change the lives of five kids in the 1980s. Once they discover they can make contact with the dead using the Duat, they are constantly on the run. They fight their way through both living and dead enemies, in order to prevent the stone from falling into the wrong hands of the power-crazed archenemy, Major Oh Rus.

In Crossing Souls, all five characters are playable. Without spoiling anything, they are interchangeably playable – with up to two characters simultaneously. Both the mechanics and controls are quite simple. What makes the gameplay challenging are specific in-game elements like the availability of checkpoints, as well as rarity of resources. In order to save your progress, you need to play through the chapters enough until you reach the floppy disk checkpoints.

The gap between one save game checkpoint and the next increases the more you play through the game. The more you have to play, the more likely you’ll lose all your health. Keep in mind that the need for health refill items increases while they become rarer. Speaking of items, you can store collected health-regenerating candies, blinding flashes, and time bombs in your inventory. There are also scattered documents, VHS tapes, game cartridges, and cassette tapes for you to look for. From “POWNG” to “Trek Wars VI”, references in Crossing Souls made one nostalgic about the 1980s.

What gave Crossing Souls an RPG feel is the enemy health bars. The enemies you face throughout the game can be alive or dead; where they range from gang thugs to possessed entities. The same applies to bosses, from cursed souls to the living henchmen of Major Oh Rus. However, despite the presence of patterns within boss fights, the developers didn’t hold back from getting creative with them. They were also quite smart with balancing the alternation between enemy encounters, puzzles, and boss fights. Each boss would be at a new location, with a different level design, as well as different tactics needed to defeat them. This prevented the game from becoming monotone, keeping the experience refreshing and engaging.

What’s frustrating about the gameplay experience, however, is the bugs. There were a couple of bugs that made me question how the testers missed them. For instance, sometimes the playable character would get stuck in a vacant, out of bounds zone of the map. Another bug caused the playable character to be spontaneously immobile in any direction, where it would only twirl around itself. To get rid of these bugs, you have to exit and reload the game. This could respawn you to an even earlier checkpoint if you didn’t save the game around the time of the bug’s occurrence. Considering that the game saves get rarer the further you get into Crossing Souls, the additional burden of said bugs was quite disappointing.

The first thing about Crossing Souls that catches your eye is the art. For a pixel art game, it’s gorgeous, and fans of old school video games could confirm that. Details such as shading and lighting were well-rendered for a retro game like this one. The UI and HUD designs are also quite friendly and organized. The designers weren’t restrictive; they made sure the characters convey emotion through their limited pixels. As for the map and location designs, they were splendid. There were over 10 locations in-game – including Tajunga’s suburbs, school, cemetery, library, diner, as well as others beyond the town’s habitable borders.

This game did not feature any voice-over, and instead used a dialogue box system to deliver the narrative. If you’re not a fan of reading, or if you die and respawn at a point with previously read dialogue, just keep pressing X to skip it all. The dialogue, however, was well-written; you could smirk at some humorous remarks, and feel a little sad when needed. The sound effects built the ambiance for the various in-game environments. Adequate sounds, like the chirping of birds or echoing of thunder, set the mood for each level perfectly.

As for the music, it was exquisite. German composer Chris Köbke and Electronica artist Timecop1983 composed the original soundtrack for Crossing Souls. The main menu of the game had no music. Thus, upon starting the game, you wouldn’t really know what to expect. But once you hear the orchestral-sounding and synth-pop tracks, they grow on you. Though reminiscent of 80’s classics’ soundtracks, like those of Back to the Future and Ghostbusters, the original soundtrack for Crossing Souls stands out for its authenticity and expressiveness.

Crossing Souls represented the fusion of the 80s with mythology quite seamlessly. Fourattic have paid a loving tribute to the decade of Walkmans, Ataris, and high-concept films. With gameplay that rarely bores, and a story that puts a spotlight on friendship, Crossing Souls has proven itself to be a very impressive debut for Fourattic. This eight-chapter game has replay value due to the availability of collectibles and trophies you might miss on the first playthrough. So, if you love the 1980s, were born then, or are just obsessed with Netflix’s Stranger Things, you might find this game quite enjoyable for $14.99.

This review is based on a retail copy of the game provided by the publisher.

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The beat’em up genre is one that has always been challenging yet enjoyable. From Double Dragon to Streets of Rage and even Scott Pilgrim vs The World, being able to clear out a screen full of enemies is oddly satisfying. Following in the footsteps of those amazing games comes Full Metal Furies.

In Full Metal Furies, you control two of four playable characters (yes, I did say two). With the Sniper class, you have the ability to take out ranged targets but you can’t move when you fire. This puts you at a disadvantage with quick enemies and makes you think about when you want to attempt to attack. The Tank uses a giant shield to block attacks and a dash ability to get closer to her targets. The Engineer does high damage with her pistol and has a turret that reminds me of Borderlands. However, you can’t do any melee damage. And last but not least, the Fighter uses a giant hammer that she swings around wildly. These unique play styles would make for great gameplay by itself but the kicker here is that when you play single player, you control two characters at the same time.

In combat, you are tasked with managing your own attacks and making sure you counter your opponents with the right skills. Each hero is color-coded and the enemies will have shields that match those colors. What this means for gameplay is that you will not be able to burn through levels with just one character. You are going to have to make sure you are switching between characters in order to destroy shields and deal damage. Levels are a little on the short side, and the overworld map reminds me of something out of Castle Crashers, but this adds to the charm of the game.

The story is almost standard at this point: beings are fighting over power and your characters are stuck in the middle. Go into Full Metal Furies expecting lots of jokes and wise-cracks. Enemies are over the top and it is very easy to get surrounded in this game. Placement is everything and if you are not careful you will get backed into a corner and knocked out before you know it.

The thing that ended up working for me was finding two characters that worked together – the Sniper and the Fighter – and using them to balance each other out. When using the Fighter, I would create distance between myself and my target and them switch to the Sniper in order to pick off my targets at a distance. Having to balance two different characters with two separate fighting styles in the same fight is stressful at first but becomes second nature with practice.

Throughout the game, you will collect gold that you can spend on upgrades to skills for each character. Beating bosses will allow you to get modifiers that change the way a skill works for that character. Each upgrade has funny, cheeky text that goes along with it, adding to the life of the world that the game takes place in.

In fact, my only real complaint on this game would have to be the random difficulty spikes. Since the switching system is something you have to get used to, you might find yourself dying over and over again due to punishing enemies. This is something I eventually got over until the game decided to smack me down again later on. The jarring change in difficulty made for choppy gameplay at times and took me right out of the fun the game supplies in droves.

Overall, Full Metal Furies is an amazing experience and one I can’t wait to come to systems like the Nintendo Switch. Its bite-size gameplay is perfect for a console; you can pick up and take with you. Pick up Full Metal Furies is you are into fast-paced gameplay with interesting systems and a light but slightly hilarious narrative.

This review is based on a retail copy of the game provided by the publisher.

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As you may have guessed from the fairly constant deluge of posts on the matter, Battlefield 1 has been a title close to my heart for the past year and a half. I played the open beta in the summer of 2016 and found myself enraptured by the game’s frighteningly lifelike atmosphere; I picked up the game and season pass at launch in October of the same year, and have been storming trenches and capturing objectives ever since. An accessible historical shooter that combines casual gameplay with stunning design is never something to be sniffed at, and I defy anyone to argue against the overwhelming success of EA’s least controversial – and in my opinion most enjoyable – title.

It is with great sadness, then, that I must inform you that Battlefield 1 is nearing its expiry date. Our subject today is the last of four DLC releases for the game; Apocalypse is a fitting farewell to a game that broke several long-standing records at EA and DICE without once causing anyone to suffer the Reddit equivalent of a crucifixion. Introducing some of the most recognisable battles of the Great War, Apocalypse offers the essence of Battlefield fare: it’s gorgeous, it’s chaotic, it’s frankly cinematic. In fact, it’s bringing a tear to my eye just thinking about it.

Right, enough of the eulogising. Let’s get down to brass tacks. Welcome to the beginning of the end for Battlefield 1.

Maps

Apocalypse brings us 3 new infantry maps to explore/die in – I know, it’s one less than usual, but there’s good reason. First up is Passchendaele, in the Belgian countryside. This is perhaps the most stunningly beautiful map to date, a toxic moonscape of blackened, pockmarked ground, shrivelled trees, and chlorine-infused water that glows an eerie green. Steep surfaces and torturous terrain, paired with low visibility and minimal cover, make this map literally hellish. Prepare to spend most of your time stumbling blindly, gas mask at the ready.

Passchendaele, with the RCS SMG.

Caporetto, also with the RCS SMG.

River Somme, ALSO with the RCS SMG. Yeah, it was the only one I had unlocked for quite a while, okay.

The Howell Automatic. Try to ignore the fact that the sight sits to the left of the barrel like an AA turret.

The AA Rocket Gun. Not unlike the AT Rocket Gun.

See that strange looking car? What is it? HUH?

The Livens Projector, or: “Holy crap! I got a kill with it!”

the Death Toll Affliction may cause aggravation in nearby teammates.

The Open Beta. Where it all began. *sniffs*

If you’re a fan of Nintendo then you probably know about their periodical Nintendo Direct broadcasts. These are the place for them to talk about the new games they’ve been cooking up and what to expect in the coming months. What you might not have known is that one just launched, and it was a doozy. Sit back, relax, and let us share the highlights with you.

First, it seems like the Wario series is getting a new installment after a bit of a hiatus. WarioWare Gold will be launching August 3^rd for the 3DS, bringing back the garlic-craving glutton (gross!) and the “microgame” playstyle his series has become known for.

Speaking of Mario-adjacent titles on the 3DS, it was also announced that the classic Gamecube title Luigi’s Mansion will be getting a handheld remake with promises of “an updated look and new features.” What exactly are those features? It’s as big a mystery as the mansion itself, but I’m just happy to see the green plumber getting a little bit of the limelight back. Expect to be in the mansion and sucking up ghosts at some point this year.

And to round off the Mario-ish games coming to 3DS, Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story will also be getting a remake. Titled Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story + Bowser Jr.’s Journey, it comes off the heels of the remake of Superstar Saga and will probably be similar in execution. Why they decided to skip over Partners in Time is anyone’s guess, but you can expect to be playing with the plumber brothers and their Koopa comrade in 2019.

The Switch also had some exciting announcements, and Nintendo fans have a lot to look forward to in the next few months. Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes will be launching later this year, and though we already knew about Dark Souls Remastered, an accompanying amiibo of Solaire of Astora will be released on the game’s launch! To say that it was unexpected is an understatement, but here we are! Praise the… well, you get it.

Nintendo themselves have also apparently been busy developing new games. Mario Tennis Aces is set to release on June 22^nd of this year and promises to bring back the much-beloved story mode of older titles as well as a variety of new game modes and control schemes. Guess Nintendo really had an ace up their sleeve, eh? Eh? Okay, sorry, that was bad.

Also upcoming is a Switch (and 3DS) version of Captain Toad’s Treasure Tracker, because… there was such a high demand for it? I guess? In any event, the Switch version promises new levels based on worlds from Super Mario Odyssey, so maybe this time around people will give it a try. The 3DS version promises 3D visuals and touchscreen controls, which are—trust us—just as good. Track them down July 13^th, 2018.

Other big Switch announcements included the reveal of a Switch port of the Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy, marking the first time ever the marsupial has been on a Nintendo system. You can pick it up starting July 10^th. If you’re looking for a new Switch game a little sooner, check out the port of South Park: The Fractured But Whole, dropping on April 24^th. Nintendo’s own Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition will also be arriving soon, with a release date of May 18^th, and includes all content from previous versions of the game.

Last but certainly not least, there was a ton revealed about Splatoon 2! Not only is the 3.0 version dropping this April with tons of new content, but a giant new single-player DLC called the “Octo Expansion” is coming this summer, and promises the ability to play as the fan-favorite Octolings! Plus, amiibo for the characters Pearl and Marina will be arriving July 13^th, meaning tons of new content for Splatoon fans!

…Wait, did we say that was the last announcement? We could have sworn there was something else. We mentioned the Captain Toad rerelease, right? What else could there be…?

Oh, right: Super Smash Bros. will be coming to the Nintendo Switch this year! While there are scant details so far, the Inklings from Splatoon are confirmed newcomers, and Mario and Link will definitely be returning. The hype is already tangible, people.

So that was the Nintendo Direct! While there were some other announcements made (like Undertale coming to the Nintendo eshop, woo!), these were the highlights. If you want to see the whole thing for yourself, including some of the smaller titles being launched soon, you can check it out here.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I gotta go brush up on my Smash Bros. skills.

The post What you missed in the Nintendo Direct appeared first on That VideoGame Blog.

For an action game that hinges on surviving a hostile alien world and contending with Lovecraftian atrocities, DOLMEN certainly is pretty.

Massive Work Studio has formally announced that their new action-RPG DOLMEN, which looks to be the awesome illegitimate lovechild of Dead Space and Bloodborne, is making its north American debut this year at GDC. Between March 21st and 23rd at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco, attendees will be able to explore the desolate alien world of Revion Prime, experiencing for themselves DOLMEN’s high-tension combat and scavenger survivalism at Booth PL4146 in the GDC Play area.

As the sole survivor of a crew pulled through space and stranded on a forsaken planet, you awake with no supplies, no friends and no idea how you got there. Forced to adapt to survive, players must make use of only what they find littering the surface of Revion Prime to arm themselves, and keep them alive. In true SoulsBorne fashion, the game touts itself as fast-paced and unforgiving, emphasizing preparedness and care over the kind of shoot-em-up, “lets throw caution to the wind, ‘cause I’ve got like max shields” combat you usually find in an action-RPG.

But as I’ve mentioned above, the real draw of DOLMEN so far?

The ambiance.

Now, I might be biased (I am the girl who has been obsessively refreshing the Call of Cthulhu webpage over and over again, waiting for a release date), but I think this is a gorgeous looking game. It’s creepy and dark, but organically beautiful, drawing its inspiration from the wonderfully macabre works of H.R. Giger and H.P. Lovecraft, and within its bloody hellscape is a vast, dark history for players to uncover and explore. From what I’ve seen so far, DOLMEN looks to combine the rich, twisted and beautiful landscapes of the Dark Souls series, with the technology and alien threat of Prey or Dead Space, in an unknown world shrouded in hostility.

If you are planning to attend GDC 2018 (or if you are going to be in the San Francisco area between March 21-23rd, and you’re looking for something to do) stop by Massive Work Studio’s booth to check out DOLMEN first-hand. And if you can’t make it, but the sound of Giger-esque action-RPG really tickles your fancy, keep up-to-date with the team on their official site.

For those hardcore fans who have been patiently waiting for DJMAX RESPECT’s western launch, we have some good news: you can find it now on PS4 for $49.99!

And for rhythm-action fans who are new to the DJMAX series, fret not! With tons of new features, this is arguably the most robust and easily accessible game for you to start with.

After a decade of hard work on behalf of Neowiz and Rocky Studio, RESPECT comes to western audiences with 40 brand new songs developed exclusively for this title, as well as 147 fan-favorites in the base game alone. In addition, players have access to exclusive DLC, which includes every song available in the entire series.

(If you’re thinking that can’t possibly be as extensive as it sounds, make like me and google it: it’ll knock you out of your seat, I promise).

DJMAX RESPECT takes full advantage of the PlayStation Network, allowing players to compete locally and online for the first time ever, and updated achievements, leaderboards and collections let you test your mettle against players worldwide. The icing on the cake? Running at 1080p with 60FPS gameplay, all classic songs have had a complete makeover, so you can rediscover some familiar favorites in all their technicolour glory.

Ki Won Lee, CEO of Neowiz, says they have been “dying to bring DJMAX RESPECT to western audiences for a long time now,” and with “over a decade’s worth of content, plus some truly fantastic new songs and features, [they’re] confident that every rhythm game fan will find something to love in RESPECT.”

You can purchase RESPECT on the PlayStation Store now for $49.99. With the amount of love and hard work that went into this game, whether you’re an old fan of the series or a tenderfoot rookie, it is sure to impress.

The post Popular rhythm-action game DJMAX RESPECT now available on PS4 for western audiences appeared first on That VideoGame Blog.

Are you a fan of videogame music? If you are going to PAX East 2018 you will have a chance to hear from some of the industry’s best!

Five different composers will be taking part in a panel Saturday, April 7th, 4:00pm-5:00pm.

The panel is being moderated by Emily Reese, award-winning radio host and producer of “LEVEL with Emily Reese” podcast.

The “Maestros” of the panel are the following with notable games they have made music for…

Wilbert Roget, II

Call of Duty: WWII, Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire, Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris.

Cris Velasco

Dauntless, Overwatch, Resident Evil 7 biohazard, Bloodborne, God of War.

Darren Korb

Pyre, Transistor, Bastion.

Tom Salta

For anyone going to the event, the composers will have a meet & greet/autograph session. For anyone like me who will not be able to go, hopefully there will be a video version of the panel somewhere.

The Swords of Ditto is an adorable cooperative action RPG developed by onebitbeyond and published by Devolver Digital. It’s a unique, compact RPG which allows you to trade penguins for bomb upgrades, fast travel by using a kazoo and sometimes play as a frog with a teeny tiny crown. The Swords of Ditto is set to release on PS4 and PC on April 24th.

There is this very bizarre view adopted by people in certain areas of the world that if you’re European there is a very good chance you’re a football fan. I can say with utter honesty that I’m English and that if I absolutely wanted to see a bunch of men in excruciatingly tiny shorts diving a lot, I’d go to a swimming pool. So as with all things, the rule obviously doesn’t always apply. For FIFA and PRO Evo. fans out there (and I know there are millions of you) there might be something interesting happening in the VR world. In this particular case, I’m referring to VRFC, which launched for PSVR and PC via the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift today.

I think what we can expect from this title is pretty straightforward. You all know how football (soccer to you lot on the other side of the pond) works. If you don’t, you’ve probably been living in a cave for some time now. I’m not going to insult your intelligence by explaining the basic rules of the game. I’m more interested (as quite probably you are) in how all this is going to translate into a VR setting.

Created in Unreal and using Cherry Pop Games’ K4 physics engine, VRFC allows you to kick, dribble, tackle and shoot in VR. This title also sees a first time VR implementation of Agile Locomotion; this basically means you’re not only going to be using your body when you play but that this translates into full body simulation and animation. Put very simply, this means no more floating hands and feet.

Allowing for up to eight players online at any one time, VRFC is a competitive online and crossplay compatible VR game, where all the action shines from a 1st person view point. For reasons that I’ve already mentioned, this title won’t just be exercising your neck muscles but giving you a full upper-body workout while you play. As with the real sport, it’s pretty easy to learn but also difficult to master. VRFC offers a series of training activities to help you develop your skills, but ultimately it’s going to come down to your own ability when proving how good you are behind the ball.

So that’s the gist of things. Now for the fun bit. Who want’s to see a launch trailer? I thought you might. I’ll leave you with this then and let you football/VR addicts have a drool. When you’ve finished, you may want to go to your designated stores and have a further look at the game. You might be giving more than your thumbs a workout in no time at all.

Since its release, For Honor has been plagued by issues with its multiplayer functionality. Desync issues, lag exploitation, you name it. For a long time people have been asking for substantial changes to the way online hosting works in the game, and last month Ubisoft responded. Their success with dedicated servers for PC (generally the guinea pig for possibly costly decisions) opened the door to the same upgrades being made to the console versions of the game.

Today, March 6th, Ubisoft is rolling out dedicated servers for Playstation 4 and Xbox One and hoping you forget about the last year and what a mess it was.

No matter what, this game will always look badass

If you want a whipping boy, these guys are as good as it gets