"Look ma, no face," growls Marcus Fenix as I land a headshot on an Elite Sniper from across the map. The foley, wet with viscera and meat, drips and gloops in my ears. A nearby Locust roars its outrage, a chainsaw revs up to my left, and there's a big meaty slap of muscle on flesh as a Drone ambushes my right flank and tackles me to the floor. Gears of War is back, alright, and it's like it never left.
The early access launch of Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve kicked off on a down note due to some confusion regarding one of the game's pre-order bonuses. Pre-orders of the flight action game include a copy of 2006's Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War, but early adopters discovered it was not a standalone product, contrary to what they were lead to believe when they pre-ordered the game.
James Bond game 007 First Light is getting free DLC today in an Extended Operations update. This adds much-asked-for features to the game - such as New Game Plus, a new harder difficulty mode, a photo mode - as well as more TacSim mission challenges and a couple of game adjustments.png?width=690&quality=85&format=jpg&auto=webp)
AI image upscaling is coming to PlayStation 5, Sony has announced, and it's available already in two games: Marvel's Wolverine and Ghost of Yotei.
Gears of War: E-Day arrived for early adopters yesterday, available for anyone who bought either the Premium Edition, Premium Upgrade Edition, or Collector's Edition version of the game. As it arrived, however, some players noted 'missing' features that have appeared in past Gears games, but not in The Coalition's latest.
A second hotfix has been released for The Witcher 3 Remastered edition that directly addresses lighting concerns on PC, as well as a couple of other notable issues.
A few years ago, I had the chance to ask Alex Ward, the co-founder of Criterion Games, about the driving model for the Burnout series. I had heard from a friend that beneath the arcadey immediacy lay physics of rare nuance and beauty. I was reverent in my questioning, even if I was slightly clueless - is it a driving model or a handling model or a physics model? - and Ward, thankfully, was having none of it. He told me that in the very early Burnout games, the cars, such as they were, didn't actually have wheels. How's that for nuance.
We recently learned that Microsoft gave development of its next Halo game to Activision, where "a new purpose-built team" - separate from the teams working on Call of Duty - has been created to oversee the franchise going forward. Now, in a report from well-known Halo and Xbox insider Rebs Gaming, a possible timeline about how the process progressed internally at Microsoft has started to take form. And the report suggests that Activision's take on Xbox's premiere sci-fi shooter will be a reboot of the series -one that possibly explores Master Chief's origins.
Grand Theft Auto 6 may feature actual sex scenes. The suggestion comes from an age-rating description for GTA 6 on the PlayStation Store, which states - if viewing the New Zealand or Australian versions of the Store - there are "sex scenes" in the game.
Warhorse Studios co-founder Martin Klima - the developer behind last year's historical RPG Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 - is crossing his fingers for higher game prices, and he thinks GTA 6 might be the one to usher in a new normal.
Hello and welcome back to our regular feature where we write a little about the games we've been playing. This week, Bertie's witcher skills are a bit rusty; Dom goes through the Gears; Kelsey enjoys a horror game that feels just like home; and Chris does an incredible impression of a butler that no one acknowledged.
Buoyed by some commendatory early reviews and fantastic initial player numbers, Gears of War: E-Day has found a solid audience a weekend before general release. And a large part of its appeal is the combat; I noted in my review I think it's the tightest Gears has ever been, augmented by some innovative thinking around the series' (in)famous weaponry, and a combat system that allows for a gushing release of tension with every wet, crunchy kill.
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Aion 2's much-awaited worldwide release is days away, following its release in Korea and Taiwan roughly a year ago. Despite this, the MMO has soared - high up Steam's most played game chart.
Former PlayStation boss Shawn Layden has some thoughts on where Team Xbox is at right now and where the green machine can go from here, but the console maker needs to "pick a lane" with exclusive games, either way.
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