Latest Articles (Page 1245)

Right, although we recorded this podcast yesterday, Donlan isn't around to write this week's blog post. So, as a result, don't be expecting any clever tangents in which I delight in some historical anecdote I've just read in The Guardian, or whatever it is he usually does. I'm here to tell you about the contents of today's episode. And that's your lot.

Conan survival game Conan Exiles comes to PC early access 31st January 2017, and to Xbox One Game Preview spring 2017.

The people behind the Resident Evil movies are making a Monster Hunter movie next.

After a hard day's space questing, every Mass Effect player knows there's only one place to head back to - the Normandy: your ship, your home and a place to catch up with your crew.

Pokémon Sun and Moon shifted an astonishing 1,905,107 units during the game's opening weekend in Japan.

My experience playing Rollercoaster Tycoon World began with confusion. Upon launching, it presented me with an entirely black screen, and remained that way for the duration of my mid-afternoon coffee-break. As black screens go it's a very good one, the kind of fathomless void you'd expect Lovecraftian horrors to float around in. In fact, I briefly wondered if this was Rollercoaster Tycoon World's new, avant-garde direction, a theme-park sim set in a dimension where the rides drive you insane.

UPDATE 21/11/2016 10.33pm: Capcom has confirmed that Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney will arrive on iOS devices 1st December.

Uncharted 4 is getting an all new co-op mode, Survival, in mid-December.

The Division's second expansion, Survival, will arrive tomorrow on Xbox One and PC.

Yesterday we talked about Overwatch's PlayStation 4 Pro patch, which only adds superficial improvements. Today, it's the turn of Batman: Return to Arkham - a game that boosts performance but nothing else. It's as if developer Virtuos simply pulled a switch to enable PS4 Pro's additional CPU and GPU power on its base title with little regard as to what would actually happen. The results are predictably variable and rather poor overall, but it may well address unfinished business from our PlayStation 4 Pro review - just what would happen if users had the ability to enable the full resources of the new hardware on existing PS4 titles?

Star Citizen's first-person shooter segment Star Marine is finally nearly here, due to arrive with alpha update 2.6 on 8th December or thereabouts. And Cloud Imperium Games has released lots of new footage of it.

Assassin's Creed: The Ezio Collection launched last week, bundling Assassin's Creeds 2, Brotherhood and Revelations onto the current generation of consoles - which is good really, as it's about time the Xbox One and PS4 got a decent assassin.

A day one update for Final Fantasy 15 will add in a sprinkling of new features not yet finished when the game was pressed onto disc.

UPDATE 2.15pm: Final Fantasy 15 publisher Square Enix has responded to the game's broken street date, after early copies of the game were sold in South America and streamed online.

UPDATE 3.05pm Like the wagging appendage of a real-life canine, Watch Dogs 2 publisher Ubisoft is hoping its game's sales will have a long tail.

Mobile smash hit Pokémon Go will receive an in-game event to mark the US holiday of Thanksgiving this week.

I can safely say that in all my years playing fantasy video games I have never seen a jewellery slot for genitals. Nor have I ever considered that equipping something valuable down there may result in my willy being chopped off. Not a cheering thought, is it?

I am absolutely ready for Steep, and I have high hopes that Steep is ready for us. I've been ready for absolutely ages, in fact, desperate for a game that gives me a snowboard, a weighty sense of downhill pelt and an entire freakin mountain to play with. What I am after - and here I suspect Steep might diverge from my hopes very slightly - is Burnout Paradise stuck to the side of a giant bloody Alp. SSX? I've given up waiting for a new one. Maybe I just haven't been good enough to deserve it. Snow? I had a brief flirtation, but it was very early days. Steep? Yes please!

How open is open development? A question Star Citizen has pondered for four years. Things change; targets move, dates are missed - and then fingers point. It's taking too long! You're not telling the truth! But if you can't see the entire picture, why presume otherwise? It's a vicious cycle Chris Roberts and team want to break. The solution? Go a step further: reveal, for the first time, internal development schedules.

If you've ever been to Disneyland, California, you'll probably know about the so-called stretch rooms that kick off the park's legendary Haunted Mansion ride. On entering Disney's spooky old house, you're ushered into a windowless chamber that begins to change almost imperceptibly as your disembodied host bids you welcome, elongating so that its once perfectly innocent paintings stretch into ghoulish tableaux revealing the gristly fates of the mansion's inhabitants. And then, with a flash of lightning, it's onto the ride proper.

The government's schools adviser has been criticised for dismissing the usefulness of Minecraft in education.

Disappointment is an inherent part of motorsport. Maybe it's not where you'll find the bulk of the appeal, but it's certainly a massive part of the reality. It's about crashing out in your final ever home grand prix, coasting to a halt within minutes of a surefire victory in a 24 hour race or frittering away thousands of your own hard-earned cash for the unsung glory of a midfield finish; it's the heartbreak that defines the sport, and it's something that's central to Motorsport Manager's depiction of it. Here's a racing simulation that'll have your heart sinking more often than your pulse racing, and it's all the better for it.

The speculative fiction of videogames is generally no more capable of predicting the future than horoscopes or US election polls. Occasionally, though, a game predicts future events with the spooky foresight that would have gotten you burned as a witch in the 16th century.

If you've heard of the Amnesia games before, then you've probably also heard that they're scary. I've certainly come across several claims that they are the "scariest games of all time" and even a few people have suggested that the games are too scary to complete. The success of the first game in the series, Frictional Games' 2011 Amnesia: Dark Descent, was contingent on its terrifying nature; its cat and mouse chases featuring in a hundred Let's Plays and streams, where grown adults hid in corners, faced the wall and whispered to themselves repeatedly that "everything is going to be OK".

There was some excitement when Blizzard announced that PS4 Pro support had been implemented for its superb shooter, Overwatch. This was quickly followed by confusion when it appeared that the enhancements added were minimal to say the least. Indeed, to the naked eye, improvements during fast-paced action seem almost non-existent. Well, after breaking down the new update, we think it's fair to say that it's certainly one of the least impressive Pro upgrades seen to date.

There is a phrase in the media, you've probably heard it: 'development hell'. It refers to a film, television programme or, yes, video game, that has languished for many months, perhaps even years, in a state of tragic semi-production, often cast from one studio to another, perhaps re-written a few times, perhaps abandoned, only to be picked up later. Well, I have been to development hell - it is actually where I began and ended my career in game design, and where I learned one incredibly valuable lesson about why people play games. This is the story of Swarm Troopers.

Watch Dogs 2 certainly isn't shy when it comes to Easter eggs. You can spot them in its mission titles, in the character dialogue and even squirreled away in the background scenery. The sheer quantity of cheeky references in this game is truly impressive so, for one last time, I've invited my kale-loving alter-ego Ian Hipster to show off eleven of his favourites.

Acclaimed puzzle game developer Zachary Barth (SpaceChem, Infinifactory and TIS-100) has just released his latest game, Shenzhen I/O, for PC, Mac and Linux on Steam.

Overwatch: First Strike, the graphic novel covering the origins of Blizzard's popular competitive shooter, has been cancelled.

UPDATE 19/11/2016 12.14am: Bethesda has confirmed that the mobile versions of Bethesda Pinball will be out on 8th December, while the rest are still on track for the 6th.