Tag Archives: Video Games

Final Fantasy XVI is coming to PC on September 17

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PC gamers have had to bide their time for the long-promised port of Final Fantasy XVI to hit their preferred platform, but the wait is almost over. The action RPG will hit Steam and the Epic Games Store on September 17. Both paid expansions, which are included in the complete edition, will be available on the same day.

Until now, the game has only been available on PlayStation 5. PC players can get a taste of what’s in store for them right now by checking out a demo that just went live on Steam and the Epic store.

Final Fantasy XVI forged a new path for the series by switching up the classic turn-based combat and opting for more action and hack-and-slash fighting. This helped make the game more approachable for those who don’t much care for the more tactics-based format, but the shift rankled some long-time fans.

In any case, Final Fantasy XVI is fun, though it's relatively easy. The cast deliver strong performances and the massive boss battles mesh well with the epic cinematic scope. The combat system, which is based on elemental attacks, helps make your fights look exciting too.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/pc/final-fantasy-xvi-is-coming-to-pc-on-september-17-172824223.html?src=rss

The adorable building game Tiny Glade is coming to Steam on September 23

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The castle construction game Tiny Glade that’s got the Internet uttering a collective “Awwwww, ain’t that cuuuute?” has a release date. Wholesome Games announced today in a new trailer that Tiny Glade will be released on September 23 on Steam. If you can’t wait that long or just wanna get a head start on your virtual village, a demo is available right now on the game’s Steam page.

Tiny Glade is a sandbox building game that seems to go against the competitive grain of most construction games. City building and construction games are fun, but maintaining a huge, virtual metropolis can get harrowing sometimes. You’re just trying to relax at the end of a hard day by playing a game and before you know it, you’re stressing over things like sewer taxes, industrial zones and giant monster attacks.

Tiny Glade is carving out its own space in the building game genre by eliminating all those annoying municipal obstacles and just letting you build something simply for the joy of building it. You can construct huge towering castles or just an adorable little British hamlet that would look like the perfect setting for an Elizabethan-era love story.

The level of detail that you can control is stunning as well. As you move your cursor to build a brick wall or tiled roof, you can see every individual piece pop out of thin air and gradually pile up into your imaginative creations. Everything you can click in your model village can be altered, added or decorated. There are tools to alter the terrain so you can create hills or smooth out the land and add a pristine pond with lily pads, trees and even wildlife like ducks.

Best of all, you don’t have to worry if your hours of creation are in danger of being sacked and torn down by invading hordes or warring factions. Based on this trailer, it looks like Tiny Glade is the relaxing gaming equivalent of taking a long, warm bath.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/pc/the-adorable-building-game-tiny-glade-is-coming-to-steam-on-september-23-165958935.html?src=rss

Doom meets Dredd in Defect, a squad-based shooter with a Mick Gordon soundtrack

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Dystopian shooters with strong echoes of Doom are a dime a dozen. But when the people behind the recent entries for that hellishly good franchise are the ones making a new game, it's worth taking a look. Today the trailer dropped for a new game called Defect from a new studio called Emptyvessel. 

Think multiplayer Doom gameplay with a heavy layer of Dredd. The game is set in a city governed by a sinister AI and rocked by violence as different factions trying to secure power. The trailer is mostly setting the atmosphere and showcasing shiny graphics courtesy of Unreal Engine 5. But it does include a few snippets of pre-production gameplay that show some of the arsenal. The one that stands out is a weapon with a screen showing highlighted enemies, even ones behind walls. The gadget indicates that there will be a strategic side to the gameplay on top of the gory destruction. Defect also promises multiple objectives with different finales for each of the matches.

Emptyvessel boasts veterans from many of the heavy-hitting titles in AAA game development. There's a lot of alumni from Doom, as well as experienced creatives from Call of Duty, Uncharted, Tomb Raider and The Last of Us.

One notable team member is Mick Gordon, previously responsible for a ripping and tearing soundtrack in the rebooted Doom games, who is the composer for the project. But you'd know that from the sudden urge to start headbanging as you watch the trailer. And since he and leadership at id Software had a very public falling out after Doom Eternal, fans will be happy to have him attached to a new franchise.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/doom-meets-dredd-in-defect-a-squad-based-shooter-with-a-mick-gordon-soundtrack-221144042.html?src=rss

Arizona Sunshine Remake brings the undead back to VR with enhanced graphics

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It’s only been seven years since the “Fred” started to rise up in the VR zombie shooter Arizona Sunshine, but a remake is already lumbering your way and will land on VR headsets on October 17. Vertigo Games announced the upcoming release of Arizona Sunshine Remake at the first VR Games Showcase. It's slated to come to the Meta Quest 2 and 3, PS VR2 and Steam.

The Arizona Sunshine Remake will feature the same central story and multiplayer modes but with a noticeable graphics update. The zombies look more defined and real in the trailer, with an advanced mutilation system that looks bloody great (pun intended). The remake also comes with all five of the game’s DLC storylines and gameplay modes.

The game puts you in the shoes of an unnamed survivor who treats the presence of zombies the way you’d treat a noisy upstairs neighbor who can’t take a hint. The protagonist calls the shambling ghouls “Fred” as a way to mentally normalize the madness and mayhem unfolding around him as he treks across the titular state, following a radio signal in the hopes of finding other human survivors.

Arizona Sunshine was one of the first big breakout titles in VR that didn’t have a connection to another pop culture property like Marvel Comics or the Batman Arkham games. It came out the same year as other big VR hits like Superhot VR, the first I Expect You to Die puzzle game and Job Simulator. It’s part of a boom time of sorts for VR gaming when the medium was able to find its footing.

Arizona Sunshine is not just a mindless zombie killing machine even if it has multiplayer and endless swarming modes if that’s all you want to do. It’s got a great mix of VR gaming elements with puzzles to solve, strategies to plan as you prepare for a big wave of “Fred” and some genuine tense, immersive moments. It’s everything I always wanted from a zombie apocalypse and the remake sounds like a fun way to play with “Fred” all over again.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/arizona-sunshine-remake-brings-the-undead-back-to-vr-with-enhanced-graphics-194535362.html?src=rss

Trombone Champ is coming to VR headsets this fall

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Trombone Champ, a ridiculous rhythm game that gets funnier the worse you are at it, is coming to virtual reality headsets. You won't have to wait an incredibly long time to try Trombone Champ: Unflattened either: it's coming to Meta Quest, Steam VR and PlayStation VR2 this fall.

Flat2VR Studios worked on the "reimiagining" of Holy Wow Studios' original game. You can perform on a virtual stage as notes careen toward you in a Guitar Hero-esque fashion. Your trombone is customizable as you can spray on the colors of your choosing and have absurd variants of the instrument.

There are more than 50 songs to play through. However, as with Guitar Hero and Rock Band, it's possible to mod the game and add your own tracks and characters. So if you really wanted to toot your way through "Baby One More Time" on a trombone with a fish attached, you could probably do just that.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/trombone-champ-is-coming-to-vr-headsets-this-fall-193041345.html?src=rss

Activision is finally addressing those massive Call of Duty download sizes

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Activision is finally taking some steps to stop Call of Duty games from hogging up hard drive space. The games are notoriously giant but the company is going to lessen the load a bit ahead of the October 25 release of Black Ops 6.

How will this work? One big change is that Warzone is being decoupled from the rest of the games with regard to the default download for annual titles. This change happens on August 21, accompanying the launch of Season 5 Reloaded, and should actually help a lot. Warzone is huge (around 130GB) and this can be frustrating for those who don’t even participate in the battle royale-style mode.

As a matter of fact, when folks purchase an annual title in the near future, they’ll only download files for that particular game. Hard drives everywhere suddenly have a bit of spring in their step. Of course, the masochistic among us will still be able to opt-in and add Warzone game files with any purchase.

That’s not the only action Activision is taking, though it’s likely the most important one. The company is also expanding its usage of texture streaming, starting with the forthcoming Warzone update. This means that users won’t have to download everything directly to their hard drives, as the devs will “cycle content that is less frequently used by players to a streaming cache.”

The devs do warn, however, that this could result in some of this content appearing at a lower quality until the streaming cache has fully loaded. To that end, there are multiple settings for this feature. Finally, forthcoming PS5 downloads will be split into multiple parts, many of which can be scooped up ahead of time. These downloads will also include file optimizations to further reduce the size.

As previously stated, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 hits consoles and PCs on October 26. It’s also going to be available on Game Pass from release day.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/activision-is-finally-addressing-those-massive-call-of-duty-download-sizes-191616063.html?src=rss

Cute adventure game The Plucky Squire arrives on September 17

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The Plucky Squire has been one of my most anticipated games ever since it started popping up in showcases a couple of years ago. It was delayed out of 2023 and into this year, unfortunately, but the long wait to play it is almost over. Publisher Devolver Digital and developer All Possible Futures have revealed that The Plucky Squire is coming to PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and Nintendo Switch on September 17. It'll be available in the PlayStation Plus Game Catalog for Extra and Premium members at no additional cost on day one.

The action centers around a storybook. After the evil Humgrump realizes he's the villain of his own tale, he removes the titular squire (aka Jot) from the pages to try and change the narrative. Jot has to navigate 3D and 2D environments as he leaps between planes on his journey to save his friends and make sure there's a happy ending to the saga.

The visuals look absolutely adorable in both 2D and 3D formats. It looks like a mashup of top-down Zelda games, modern Mario and LittleBigPlanet. The first project from All Possible Futures (one of the heads of which is a former Pokémon artist) is an absurdly promising one. I can't wait to check it out next month. 

Meanwhile, Sony has unveiled some new details about a couple of other indie games. A new version of the first point-and-click Broken Sword game, The Shadow of the Templars, is coming to PS5 on September 19, 28 years after the original incarnation debuted. Revolution Software has reanimated the game in 4K with over 50 times the resolution of the original PlayStation version. 

Last but not least, Sulfur is a stylized first-person shooter with a lot of playstyle flexibility. There are said to be more than 35 million weapon and modification combos available. The next project from developer Perfect Random is coming to to PS4 and PS5 in 2025.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/cute-adventure-game-the-plucky-squire-arrives-on-september-17-163651349.html?src=rss

Dragon Age: The Veilguard comes out on October 31

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Dragon Age: The Veilguard will be released on October 31. The BioWare action RPG is the first installment in the franchise since 2014’s Dragon Age: Inquisition. That’s right. We’ve been waiting ten long years for this game and now it’s almost here. Check out the release date trailer below.

This is the fourth major game in the franchise and there’s a lot of hype around it, despite the (relatively) lukewarm response to Inquisition. We had a chance to see the game in action back in June and came away impressed, though cautious. The character creation tool is, as expected, robust and the various landscapes are easy on the eyes.

We actually watched a playthrough of the entire opening chapter of the game and immediately noticed a more cartoonish style when compared to its predecessors. It’s not quite Fable, but it’s getting there. The game does, however, bring back fan favorite characters like Varric and Solas. The latter looks to be the primary antagonist this time around.

It also looks to play a bit faster than the earlier titles, though you can still pause the game to consider tactics. There’s a quick launch menu for activating hotkeys and, of course, a decision wheel for making narrative and dialogue choices that will no doubt come back to bite you in the butt at a later part of the game.

Like previous entries, this is an action RPG. Parries seem to make up the core defense mechanic and party members will work to strip away armor and magical protections before going in to do actual damage. There will be a diverse array of accessibility options, including standard difficulty modes but also custom settings to make select aspects of the game more forgiving.

As for the “caution” mentioned above, we only got a brief look at the game in action, so there are still plenty of unknowns. In any event, we don’t have long to find out. Dragon Age: The Veilguard will be available for PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC. Preorders are available right now. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/dragon-age-the-veilguard-comes-out-on-october-31-161317701.html?src=rss

Throwback survival-horror game Hollowbody is coming on September 12

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Hollowbody was one of the standouts from Steam Next Fest earlier this year, and it’s coming out real soon.

At a time when everyone is extremely nervous about the upcoming Silent Hill 2 remake, Hollowbody feels like a total throwback to that PlayStation era of survival horror. Set in a near-future dystopia, you play as a black market runner who crashes their flying car into a grim UK housing estate full of weird things going on.

The game is presented in a semi-retro style — ’90s vibes on modern tech — and makes smart use of fixed camera angles to build tension. It has its own twists on classic survival-horror gameplay like logic puzzles and sporadic save points. There’s not a ton in the way of combat, and apparently there will be options to dial back the action further to focus on creepy exploration instead.

Hollowbody is a new project from Nathan Hamley, who aimed to create an entire game — story, art, code and even music — solo. He raised over $35,000 on Kickstarter on the strength of his previous game, Chasing Static, and a pretty compelling trailer and pitch. Fom the Next Fest demo I played after reading a very positive writeup on VG247, his singular focus on this project has kinda worked? Hopefully those backers are happy.

I’m intrigued to see how the full game pans out — and there’s not too long to wait. It’ll be available on PC (Steam or GOG) on September 12.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/pc/throwback-survival-horror-game-hollowbody-is-coming-on-september-12-140029101.html?src=rss

Meet the man who set a world record by hooking up 444 consoles to one TV

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Chances are you’ve got a couple of old video game consoles gathering dust in your closet right now. Would you be able to hook all of them up to your TV without some kind of adapter? Meet a guy who owns 444 game consoles and has them all hooked up to a single television, according to the Guinness Book of World Records.

Ibrahim Al-Nasser of Riyadh holds a Guinness World Record for the most video game consoles hooked up to a single television. His collection includes some of the classics such as the first Sony PlayStation, the Nintendo 64 and (his personal favorite) the Sega Genesis, complete with the 32x and Sega CD expansions. He also owns and can play games on those handheld plug-and-play consoles with arcade classics like Ms. Pac-Man and Dig Dug that you find in Target, classic and modern handhelds like the Hyperkin SuperBoy and obscure consoles like the Magnavox Odyssey.

Al-Nasser uses a series of switchers to play each console on a single screen. He keeps track of their location and powering procedure on an Excel spreadsheet. He’s even organized his collection so the cables aren’t showing or creating the kind of tangled mess most of us have to deal with when we have just two consoles hooked up to a single television.

That may sound like a lot of video game consoles for one collection but it’s far from the actual record. Linda Guillory of Garland, Texas currently holds the record for the largest collection of playable gaming systems with her collection of 2,430 items, according to Guinness World Records.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/meet-the-man-who-set-a-world-record-by-hooking-up-444-consoles-to-one-tv-171848639.html?src=rss