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Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege has been steadily grinding out content since its December 2015 release date. Ubisoft has been supporting the game extremely well; providing new contents and updates, as well as patches that improve the user experience. In fact, Rainbow Six Siege is just about to wrap up their latest event, Operation Health, where the whole purpose was to patch in improved content and eliminate as many bugs as possible. Flash forward to today, Ubisoft has announced a free weekend for the fast-growing FPS just in time for the next content update, Operation Blood Orchid, and the Pro League Finals.

Fans of videogames often bemoan the industry because of a perceived lack of new IP from developers. Their feeling is that many of them seem to continue to just rehash the same old tired gaming tropes over and over. Well, THQ Nordic is stepping out on a limb and bringing a totally new open-world action RPG to consoles very soon.

The gaming company that brought us titles Battle Chasers: Nightwar, Sine Mora EX and Spellforce 3 announced today that their new game Biomutant, a new and original open-world action RPG for the PS4, Xbox One and PC, will allow you to explore a world in turmoil and define its fate.

Set in an imaginative post-apocalyptic universe, Biomutant is a kung fu fable filled with fantastic creatures to discover, dangerous factions to navigate, and colorful worlds to explore with mechs, paragliders, balloons, mounts, jet skis and more.

Biomutant’s unique design lets players change their character’s abilities and appearance with powerful mutations, bionic prosthetics and weapons. You can grow claws, sprout wings, or attach a robotic leg – each choice will impact the way your hero plays in real-time combat that blends melee martial arts and firearms.

While THQ Nordic haven’t revealed a specific launch date as of yet, they did report that Biomutant is expected to launch sometime in 2018. Check out the cool reveal trailer below. I’m actually excited for this one and am hoping that it plays as cool as it looks.

Inspired by old school, twin stick arcade games, Next Up Hero offers a very unique take on multiplayer hotseat type games. There are currently nine heroes available in the Next Hero Up beta (two of which must be unlocked somehow) and each one sports two different offensive abilities. The primary attack is essentially the auto-attack ability. It can be spammed over and over. The secondary attack is a bit more powerful and consumes energy from the character’s “special bar.” I never felt low on energy though as the bar regenerates rather quickly over time.

Character selection screen.

The faint, transparent person attacking the enemies is another player’s “Echo.”

Stage selection screen.

Piggybacking off of the success that EA found with the indie darling Unravel in 2015, the company started a new initiative called the EA Originals Program; a way for small indie studios to receive a triple A publisher to distribute their hard work. The very first game supported by the program was Fe by Zoink Games which was intended to be released this year. However, publishing dates were moved around and the release was left up in the air entirely. Until now, when EA gave the small indie game a release window of early 2018 as well as a list of supported platforms.

In some ways, Nadia Was Here feels like familiar ground. There’s a party of a thief, a mage, and a fighter, traveling through the kingdom looking to solve some mysteries and to discover secrets about their pasts. There are gods and monsters and ancient temples and a secret plot to stop the adventurers from reaching their goal. In other ways, Nadia Was Here holds unique takes on some classic RPG game mechanics and pleasant surprises for anyone who’s moaned about level grinding.

The game begins by introducing us to a very young titular character Nadia, mysteriously appearing in a desert town and being adopted by a gang of bandits. There’s an abrupt change of pace when we switch to many years later as an old soldier named Hogan has a special shield stolen from him and sets off to get it back. Hogan teams up with Nadia as she escapes from a prison, having followed in her foster family’s footsteps to become a thief. At first Hogan is simply strong-arming Nadia into helping him recover his shield, but when they are joined by Tereshan, a mage in self-exile from his home, they suddenly have a mystery to solve, with every step revealing more secrets that need to be uncovered.

The battle mechanic is unusual and takes a bit of getting used to. Your party appears in a line along the right side of the screen with enemies on the left side. Nadia and Tereshan have multiple moves and can learn new ones when they encounter new enemies, Tereshan by using a “Study” move and Nadia by outright stealing them. Hogan only has one move but can switch easily between different shields that have different abilities (increasing evasion, ignoring enemy defenses, that kind of thing).

Instead of your traditional turn-based combat, this is a little more like Child of Light where different moves take different amounts of time to “load”, if you will. However, aside from HP, there are no additional stats that affect your ability to cast spells or choose attacks. Characters will perform the same move in perpetuity until they run out of HP, though status effects like poison, berserk, sleep, and sticky can affect whether or not the attack lands. Your party does have an energy meter based on how much damage they are dealing and taking, which allows them to summon different spirits for different kinds of attacks or benefits to the party. These cannot be switched during combat, which can become really frustrating based on the way battles are structured. (More on that in a bit.)

Early on in the tutorial-esque escape from the prison tower, you learn that you can dodge enemy attacks by moving characters between lanes on the left side. When you have three party members, you might start thinking that the mechanic is pointless (especially since you have three party members for the majority of the game). However, when you start learning more about which characters are effective or immune against which enemies, being able to swap positions mid-battle can be quite effective.

Another interesting difference from most RPGs is the lack of “revive” items. If one member of your party dies, you lose. Period. This affects which spirit you choose to have on deck for summoning, which items you stock up on, how hard you work to reach the free items laying around the dungeons. Even though the characters do NOT level up (because there are no levels), there’s a convenient replacement for stereotypical level grinding- a coliseum where you can face off against monsters you’ve already seen for big boosts to gold and “dust” (more on THAT later). I did this a couple of times because I found it a lot easier to keep some poison darts and shurikens on hand for enemies that have healing abilities.

The lack of leveling is counterbalanced by magical amulets that CAN be leveled up by spending gold and dust at a particular location in the kingdom. An amulet that gives 5 extra HP can be leveled up to give 15, an amulet that increased evasion by 15% can be leveled up to 45%, so on and so forth. Each character can only hold three amulets and each amulet is only attainable by solving a puzzle that DOESN’T help you finish the dungeon, so this becomes a really strategic part of going into battle.

Which brings us to how and when you fight. There are a decent number of enemies on dungeon maps that can be avoided altogether, as well as enemies that are smack-dab blocking the way to the next portion of the map. The longest battles however take place when going to a new location on the map. These are marathon battles with multiple sets (somewhere from 3 – 7) of enemies. During my playthrough, I more often died during these big battle sets than during boss battles. I also knew that if there was only one set of enemies on the road to the next city, it was going to essentially be another boss battle.

I feel like combat is actually less than half of what I spent my time on during this game. Solving the dungeons- I say dungeons but I actually mean secret libraries, abandoned mines, forests, caves, temples, and occasionally an actual dungeon- usually involved spacial puzzles, managing to collect a new item that allowed you to interact with the environment in a new way, and MORE spacial puzzles based around your new ability.

The cool thing about that is that there are very obviously some areas you can’t get to from the very first area in the game, so you keep heading back to old locations to see what you missed. This is also the maddening thing because if you’re a competitionist, you’re going to constantly go back through the same levels over and over trying to figure out if you’ve finally discovered all the secrets. This is compounded by the side quest to take pictures of various plants that are ALWAYS just out of reach.

Many people will be pulled in by Nadia’s classic 8-bit art and sound, and will stay for the story that is revealed piece by piece as you explore the world of Amytah. I think that equal numbers of people will be enticed and repelled by the fact that there are essentially zero let’s plays, walkthroughs, or hint guides for the game. Although there are a very few people active on Steam’s community group for the game (who are being happily assisted by the game’s developers, by the way!), when you get stuck in this game, you are effectively on your own.

Overall, Nadia Was Here is an interesting play for fans of RPGs and puzzle-lovers. But if you depend on hints to get you through the puzzles, you may want to wait until the following has a little bit longer to develop. Until then, you can always check out the demo for free.

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

The post REVIEW / Nadia Was Here (PC) appeared first on That VideoGame Blog.

I think we all enjoyed Kung Fu Panda a bit more than we’d all like to admit. There’s just something about a bunch of humanoid animals kicking, chopping, and Wuxi Finger Holding their way across our screens that fills our hearts with a sort of enthralled amusement. Or, I mean, maybe there isn’t; maybe I’m talking utter trash, in which case, BioMutant makes a whole lot less sense.

Under development at the hands of ex-Avalanche studios creative director Stefan Ljungqvist (you know, the guys who make Just Cause), BioMutant promises to be an ambitious open-world adventure that pairs a post-apocalyptic environment with a bunch of cybernetically-enhanced fauna. Boy, that was a good run of hyphens. Check out the trailer – courtesy of IGN – if you’re a little confused:

I’m probably the biggest Assassin’s Creed fan I know, even with the recent missteps and questionable directions the series went. After the announcement that the series was going to be put on hold for a year after Syndicate, my mind raced with all of the ways that the franchise could be upgraded and completely revitalized. Ever since the second entry I’ve always wanted the series to explore ancient Egypt; I loved learning about the culture in school and it’s probably the most ripe for that mythological happenstance that is Assassin’s Creed’s bread and butter. Recently at Gamescom, Ubisoft revealed a brand new cinematic trailer for the latest entry in the long running series, Assassin’s Creed Origins.

It was announced today by Grinding Gear Games that Path of Exile: The Fall of Oriath is scheduled to launch on the Xbox one August 24th at 2PM Pacific Time. This is the first console release of the game.

The Fall of Oriath was originally released on PC in early August and has accumulated quite the following. With the game’s overall success, Path of Exile has seen an average audience growth of about 27% over each of their last four releases.

Path of Exile: The Fall of Oriath is Grinding Gear’s biggest launch of new game content since the game originally released in October 2013. With the release of The Fall of Oriath, the game features six brand new acts which doubles the size of the current game.

To get your hands on Path of Exile‘s Xbox One release, go to the Xbox One store on your dashboard on or after August 24th at 2PM Pacific where it will be made available FREE for all Xbox One owners.

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I don’t think it can be denied that fans of the space shooter genre that has now evolved into Bullet Hell are pretty hardcore. They like their action fast and furious and are willing to go up against almost suicidal odds just to get a thrill. There are so many excellent game franchises that make up this category of gaming and one that many of you will know is the Raiden series. Fans of these titles are going to be very pleased to hear that the latest installment will be coming to Playstation 4 this October in the shape of Raiden V: Directors Cut.

PQube are excited to announce the European release of the latest installment in the Raiden series which will be hitting your PS4 on October 6th. The game will also launch with a limited edition physical copy including an exclusive Raiden V Soundtrack CD.

The title will continue a 27 year old tradition of fast paced, exhilarating gameplay. You can expect a fully narrated campaign which will blast you into the skies of real-life locations such as Paris, New York and London. After the planet’s most powerful weapons have been taken by the alien Cranassians, the Raiden supersonic attack fighter squad is scrambled to counter the alien threat and save the planet from destruction.

Apart from a thrilling story you can expect a few other new additions to this well loved series of games. You will have control of three all new ships with vastly different abilities and weapons. In addition to this and moving away from the, “one hit and you’re dead,” trope we’re all used to you’ll also find yourself with a health bar. This may seem like a no-brainer in any game but in a game such as this it really is a luxury.

For players who enjoy sharing their thrills with a friend Raiden V: Directors Cut will support multi-player allowing you and your buddy to take the fight to the aliens together.

This is a game series I’m rather fond of and one that I remember well from being a child, (yes it’s almost as old as I am,) it’ll be great to see it re-emerge to tantalise a new generation of Bullet Hell fans and fanatics. This is definitely going to be one worth keeping an eye on and a potential highlight for this October.

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Right … well I’m not sure where to even begin with this one. I’ve either been doing this for to long and I’m hallucinating again or I’ve just spent an exceptionally large amount of time around lethal cows, bandits and immensely silly humor. Wait … no it’s just West of Loathing and boy am I going to have fun telling you about this game.

You’ll meet dozens of hillarious characters on your quest.

There’s tons of dialogue but it never gets tedious.

Some perks are cosmetic

Snakes will be the least of your worries