With a Summer of jam-packed conventions just around the corner, it seemed only fitting that long standing heavyweight, MCM London Comic Con kick off the festivities. Taking place on the weekend of May 27th-29th, it delivered another dose of geeky goodness to the masses as they descended upon London’s Excel Centre for a whole weekend of fun, mayhem, and pop-culture inspired frivolity.
As an old hat to this particular convention, it’s safe to say I’ve seen it evolve a lot over the years. It’s grown in number (a whopping 133,000+ people attended this year alone) but it’s also seriously upped it’s game in terms of attending guests. It’s starting to take on a real American-con kind of feel, with media heavyweights in attendance, along with the quirkier, more niche market of creators we’ve come to know and love over the years.
Some of the major names drawing a crowd this year included members of theAgents of Shield & Arrow casts, Agent Carter’s Lotte Verbeek, The Big Bang Theory’s Kunal Nayyar and Melissa Raunch, Batman v Superman star Jesse Eisenberg, and over 200 (yes you heard me, 200!) comic creators and talent in this year’s comic village.
With some recognisable names in attendance, it would be easy to perhaps get bogged down in a sea of people (as has happened in previous years) as crowds come out in full force to see their idols, but this May, MCM seem to have taken on board a lot of the criticism from years passed and worked to fix it! It’s still busy – it’s always going to be busy when you have that many people in a confined space, but the manoeuvrability afforded by the use of both sides of the halls, and the better organisation of exhibitor layouts meant there was enough breathing room to not feel smothered which is a huge improvement on the cattle market feel of years gone by.
The ticketing again, also seemed to be a lot more streamlined for attendees and the lack of having to walk halfway around the building simply to get inside, did seem to go down very well with most weekend wristband holders. So in terms of organisation, it’s an event that has at least learnt from past mistakes, and started to take a closer look at fan experience, as opposed to just getting bodies in the door.
As for the convention itself, it was a wonderfully laid back experience, helped as always, by the swathes of gloriously dressed people who had turned out for the occasion in cosplay. I’m not quite sure how half of these people manage to nail their characters and costumes so perfectly;but suffice to say, attendees have seriously upped their game with some works of art, that are not only a testament to their ingenuity and crafting skill – but also to the level of performance they put in. I’m inclined to think the World Cosplay Summit qualifiers might’ve had something to do with it, but honestly, it’s far more likely that the British cosplay scene has begun to seriously up it’s game.
Aside from visual wonders wandering the halls, MCM also saw the inclusion of some top comic talent (an area which it has previously been lacking), in the form of Watchmen’s Dave Gibbons, 2000AD’s Gary Erskine, and Iron Man’s Bob Layton to name but a few. It’s often been a point of contention at conventions like this, that fall under the remit of comic cons, to be sorely lacking in actual comic talent, but here we have MCM, yet again holding true to it’s namesake and making sure all facets of the geeky spectrum are catered for.
All in all, it was actually a wonderful change of pace to have such a calm, casual and laid back convention taking place and I sincerely look forward to seeing it’s return in October and looking at just how much further it can continue to improve and grow. With any luck, I’ll hopefully see you there!
MCM Comic Con will return to London’s Excel Centre from October 28-30th 2016.
The show opened with “Don’t Stop Me Now” by Queen and dancers promoting JustDance 17. Bonus points for Queen straight off!As they said “You haven’t lived until you’ve had a lion singing to you from your TV”. Just Dance 17 will be released by Ubisoft on Xbox One, Playstation 4 and PC in October.
It’s Ubisoft’s 30th birthday this year, and they’re determined to celebrate with lots of great new games and experiences.
“You may remember he next game from the end of last year’s show, when it BLEW YOUR F@#$!ING MINDS!”
Bolivia is a country where the Coca leaf is used for everything – From refreshing soft drinks to treating airsickness. In Wildlands, a Mexican drug cartel, the Santa Blanca cartel, takes over the country in cooperation with a corrupt government, and uses the coca leaves for another product – Cocaine. this makes Bolivia the world#s biggest narco state. The Ghosts are sent in to topple the partnership, and the the drugs. It’s all about options and freedom, so they showed us an example mission centered around “El Pozolero”, or The Stewmaker. He is called this because he makes bodies ‘disappear’, so he really does know where the bodies are (or aren’t) buried. The ghosts in this case are opting to find him, and find out what he knows instead of killing him straight up:
After getting us all worked up, they then broke the news – Wildlands will be released on March 7th, 2017. It’s going to be a long year!
The next section started with a very odd video, but all became clear when Trey Parker and Matt Stone were introduced.Talking about South Park – The Fractured But Whole, they talked about changes they made to the sequel The Stick of Truth. you’re still paying the new kid, but after being Kig of the world, you’re now back to being just the new kid, but with a funny crown. All the kids are playing at being super heroes now (With Cartman somehow responsible for their ‘tragic backstories’) in a twisted real life RPG (You fill out a character sheet on “CoonsterGram”).
Talking about the changes they made between the 2 games, Trey talked about how he’s a big tabletop gamer, and implied that this influenced their process when making changes to the combat system. Characters can now move during combat, to seek advantage or cover. You and your enemies are able to use, or be affected by scenery, and some powers will move people or scenery to help you win. In a growth from The Stick of Truth, your farts are now so powerful they can affect time, allowing you to reorder the game turns.
Due for a December 6th release, preorders on XBox One, Playstation 4 and Steam will get The Stick of Truth free from Ubisoft.
Next they looked at the Division. Having broken records on release, there are now over 10 million players, and they average 3 hours gameplay per day – Not too bad!
The free expansions have been introduced to the game, but here they look at the paid expansions for Season Pass holders. The first expansion, out on 28/6/17 for PC and Xbox 1, and 2/7/16 for Playstation 4 is Underground, introducing new missions in the sewers to pursue a new enemy – Every time you venture down, the mission will be different. And it will just be the first!
As a present for Ubisoft’s 30th birthday, when Underground is released, Ubisoft Club will offer 3 new FREE skins:
Ghost Recon
Splinter Cell
Rainbow 6
Celebrating the success of the Tom Clancy franchise for Ubisoft. I can’t wait for that, and Aisha Tyler said she couldn’t wait to run around New York in a skin tight black outfit without getting arrested!!
They then introduced us to Survival, the next Division expansion:
Stuck in a blizzard, no food, water or comms, let alone weapons – It’s survival of the fittest. Will you survive?
2016, of course, is the year of VR – HTC Vive, the Oculus Rift – and Ubisoft started by showing Eagle Flight, a flight sim with a difference. Available soon for all VR systems, Eagle Flight is set in Paris without humans. Everything is overgrown, and the animals have escaped the zoos and taken over. Playing as 2 groups of 3 eagles, the demo crew, including Palmer Luckey, the creator of the Oculus Rift, fought to support each other and get the prey (a rabbit) back to the nest before their opponents could intercept the.
With brightly coloured, cartoony graphics and a clear interface, it was very impressive and fluid. Eagle Flight will be available in the Fall/Autumn.
Next, we’re told that “VR is all about opening up the Final Frontier”, and a familiar voice says “Captain’s Log…”
LeVar Burton comes on stage to discuss the fun he, Karl Urban and Jeri Ryan had playing the game -It looks epic. apparently at the Engineer position, it was easy to slip back into being Geordie, with all the technobable, but the Captain’s chair was much more challenging for someone used to taking orders…. It definitely looks like a lot of fun, though the Artemis crew may be a bit downhearted.
Next we’re introduced to a new game from Ubisoft: For Honor…
Looking at the background of the story, you can choose 3 paths. As a Knight, you can join the Blackstone Legion. A a Samurai, you can help the Empire regain it’s honor, rebuild and grow. But as a Viking – You can help your people survive the disaster, and rediscover what it means to raid, to plunder – To live!!
Even in Alpha it’s impressively fluid in melee combat, and the interface is kept minimal – I’ll be keeping an eye on this one! Its released on Valentine’s Day, 2017 – So remember, wanton slaughter and conquest mean “I love you”
Ubisoft Reflections is about experimental and unusual games. Last year, Ubisoft brought us Grow Home, and people fell in love with a little red robot that wanted to learn to fly and get home. This year, it’s time to Grow Up.
Released in August, Grow Up will be available on PC, Playstation 4 and Xbox One.
After a booming, wrestling-style into, new tag team of the creators of Blood Dragon and Trials came on stage. With a booming intro, it was time to meat Trials of the Blood Dragons:
Out now on PC, Playstation 4 and Xbox One, it just goes to show that the 80s is back in fashion! Ubisoft have definitely given us an unexpected mash up there. I’ll just leave my socks off when I put my loafers on for work in the morning….
The next session looked at the upcoming Assassin’s Creed movie – They really do mean multiplatform now, but no game this year, so everyone can take their controllers to the cinema and try to take over Michael Fassbender – some more so than others 😉
They threw in an Exclusive Behind the Scenes feature:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fV7xjzbe9Js
Our next section looks at a game we’ve only officially know about for a few days – Watchdogs 2.
It’s definitely looking dynamic, with hacking, melee, parkour and anarchy.The environment can be hacked and manipulated about you for various reasons, giving you lots of options as you move about San Francisco. Other players can also be encountered, just like in the original -there’s a definite modern day, irreverent take that reminds me a little of Hackers –Not a bad thing.
It definitely feels familiar, but hopefully they’ve improved on the original, to make it even better. A least in this game, other players are representing different members of DedSec when you bump into them.
They also talked about the cooperation between Ubisoft and Sony on a Watchdogs movie, already announced, and that all DLC for Watchdogs 2 will be exclusive to Playstation 4 for the first 30 days – When will they realise platform exclusives are more frustrating than anything else?!?!? Very few people can afford to buy a new console just for exclusive DLC.
And finally, a mystery release – Steep.
Extreme Sports on a mountainside – How crazy can you go? It’s a simple matter to change “sport” too, so you don’t get stuck easily. The sense of scale and motion is impressive, and it flows well. You can also encounter other players as you move around. Social Gaming, eh?
Challenges suitable for different “sports” are scattered about the mountain to be found on the fly, keeping up your interest and encouraging you to explore all of your options.
The developers who had given talks were invited on stage by the head of Ubisoft at the end for a thank you, in appreciation of the work they put in for us – It’s definitely not a bad thing to remember how much work goes into our hobby – And that the developers are gamers themselves!! So many interesting new games to explore and play, and so much cool new content for games we already play. roll on 2017!!
Fallout 4’s latest DLC ‘Far Harbor’ was released May 19th 2016. For it’s third DLC Bethesda had promised via numerous sources that it’d be the biggest dlc they’d ever made, with some claiming that it’d be bigger than the almighty Skyrim.
It didn’t actually take that long to do a scenic sweep of the island, with a more thorough inspection revealing that the size is not so much based on distance but more so the time taken to discover all that it has to offer. There’s over 50 new locations to unlock, ranging from a new ‘Stepford Wives’ styled vault, national parks, visitor centres, lighthouses and submarines. Although these do become repetitive after a while as each new locations isn’t too disimilar to previously visited ones.
There are the usual marine monsters lurking around the damper parts of the island along with the addition of 3 new types of enemy: Gulpers, Anglers and Fog Crawlers. Up on the higher ground you’re likey to bump into plenty of wolves, Yao Guais, feral ghouls, and the occasional rad chicken, so your probably best levelling up before you set anchor and start exploring.
Based off the coast of Maine the radiation levels here are higher then the rest of the commonwealth (excluding the glowing sea) due to the dense radiated fog, so make sure you’re prepared before venturing out by carrying as many Rad Aways and Stimpaks as you can.
If you’re lacking these wasteland essentials, do not fret as there’s plenty of new gear to be found across the island.
By scavenging, pillaging, and bartering with the islands inhabitants; The Children of Atom, Trappers and Harbormen will provide you with plenty of new marine themed items, including harpoons, hooks and some variations on your old favourites. If you do enough roaming then you’ll also eventually come across a seriously snazzy suit of Vim power armour.
New consumables, recipes, and magazines can be found across the island along with 4 new settlements, a lot of which already come fully stocked with some of the key components required to build a happy thriving post apocolyptic commuity. The fluidity of the workshops seems to have improved, particularly when it comes to lining up walls and floors, again new miscellaneous furnishings along with barn building has been added to the extra items already available through the wasteland workshop dlc.
Far Harbor is unlocked via Nick Valentines detective agency in Diamond City, from here you are sent to the most northern point of the map where you meet a family desperate to locate their missing daughter, who has followed a remote radio signal to a town called Arcadia, located in the depths of the fog engulfed island.
From here the story progresses to reveal an extension of the of synth persecution already seen throughout the commonwealth. Once again you have to decide the fate of warring factions and make decisions which will affect the population of the local community, after all you wouldn’t want a repeat after Megaton, do you?
At the point of release the whole dlc felt very lagged and even crashed a few times, this is something that Bethesda has apparently dealt with during it’s most recent update. Besides the obvious bugs the fact that the island was located off the map meant that returning to the main wasteland was long winded and couldn’t be achieved by simply fast travelling once.
In the end the Far Harbor DLC added gloom and suspense to an already treacherous wasteland by including the use of debilitating fog and other related atmospheric challenges, creating a new yet familiar environment in which to continue exploring.
First off, I was going to make a Video review for this game but, having loaded Total War: Warhammer onto my computer I quickly realised that what use to play games on ultra, can now only deal with medium graphics; at a push. And so, with my shame and with no pretty graphics to show off, I decided upon the oldskool way of reviewing… typey typey.
Soon GTX 1080… soon!
THE REVIEW
For nearly 16 years now the Total War franchise has dominated historical Wargaming, bringing it from quite an obscure subgenre to the relatively main stream, refining as it went along but not deviating too much; until now that is.
With a complete Volt-face Creative Assembly have thrown aside its safe zone, got into bed with the biggest table top Gaming Company in the world, Games Workshop, and launched a Fantasy game… and all the History Nerds did rage; or did they?
It was a brave move for CA to take a leap into fantasy gaming, and risk alienating their fan base, but to me I think it was the natural progression. Granted phalanxes and Roman legions aren’t really anywhere near undead armies and magic but I mean, they were running out of eras to move to, without having to completely reinvent their fighting mechanics (something I think they should do to be honest but that is a point for another time) and so instead of making a Shogun 3, or Empire 2, they took a gamble that History Geeks and Warhammer Geeks have a lot in common made a decisive change and it paid off; nearly 500,000 copies sold in the first few days of sales.
Their movement to Fantasy let them throw off the proverbial shackles of Historic War gaming and opened up not only combat but also how the units interact on the Campaign map. It is, in short, a breath of fresh air, in an aging franchise that needed somewhere new to go.
Anyway, on to the game.
For those of you unsure still if you will enjoy the change in proverbial scenery, then let me reassure you that, despite the façade of massive change, the core mechanics and style of play are still pretty similar; including most battle commands and campaign map. They have just taken a few things out and added a few additional bells and whistles.
There are numerous factions in the game with current playable ones being (depending if you have the chaos expansion or not) Empire, Dwarves, Orks, Vampire Counts, and of course Chaos; Bretonians can be unlocked) . All with their differing play style, abilities and victory conditions.
Dwarves and Humans are more like traditional TW factions, well apart from the magic and the huge flying griffins and gyro copters, but Orks, Vampire Counts and Chaos are, pun intended, completely different beasts, with Orks needing to fight, or be consumed by it within their own ranks, and Vampire counts having to spread their specific corruption before moving into new lands; or risk losing units pre fight.
Heroes and lords, which now replace agents, get skill trees that can be upgraded and tweaked to turn them into one man army bashers and, in a lot of cases, someone who, if present, can turn the tide of battle.
Gone are the days when your Commander is surround by a retinue, no, he’s a single unit on his own, though I did find myself attaching them to units using the grouping keys, just for extra protection and ease of play.
As well as being Super units, the Heroes also get given Quests as the game goes on and although quite entertaining, giving you hero a story line (something the historic games never did) it started to be a bit, well tiresome, and unattainable as time went on. Asking me to attack areas and armies deep in enemy territory, something I couldn’t afford to do, with chaos at my door; or as was the case in a few occasions, in my front room rampaging for biscuits.
City management is similar to Rome 2, a more streamlined version from the older games, and helps speed up the campaign game play a bit without over complicating things.
This being said I did find it slightly annoying that your upgrades had no impact on the design of the city, it just stayed as it was. Personally I liked the old days where villages turned into towns and towns turned into cities and cities turned into mega cities but I guess they had to cut some things out.
And why they did that? Well to give you one of the most spectacular looking Campaign maps yet and due to the nature of the proverbial beast, you have some extremely diverse and pretty awe inspiring areas. Ranging from Vast snow cap mountains and fiery volcanoes to rolling hills, forests and Barren, corrupted plains.
An added bonus is when spreading your corruption with the Vampire Counts it actually affects the look of the map, which was a nice touch and of course, wafting through all of these diverse vistas you have the winds of Magic, which actually affects the amount of magic you get in your battles.
One thing to say, on a side note is, regular weather doesn’t seem to have a huge part to play in the game and is more geographical than seasonal, as it used to be. In its place you can now gamble on the winds of Magic, so in an old game where you would wait to see if it would stop raining, in TW:WH you gamble to see if you will get more or less magical wind; just like the weather it can have a dramatic effect on how you fight your battle, and in some cases can be the difference between winning and losing.
The use of Magic in general is a big change for this franchise and I think they have dealt with it well. Instead of having units that can just spit out magical fire spells all they want, decimating entire armies, you have different types of wizards who can tap into the winds and for a cost can cast varying strengths of spells. The Thing to note though, is that once the winds are gone, and you have used up all your allocation, that’s it, no more magic.
Apart from the latter and the fact that you have Hero and flying units now (which is pretty bitching) the baseline mechanics of battles is the same… bar one thing, and this makes me very happy: they brought back reinforcements!
I’ve always made it clear that the unit cap of 20, restricts the game somewhat, especially in the historic battles, where you can’t really have an EPIC fight, because you just don’t have enough units. In TWWH though, this has been partially remedied with the reintroduction of Reinforcements, giving you a chance to field up to 40 units; something that has been extended to skirmishes and multiplayer, where you can now fight larger armies…BOOM!!
My final comment on battles, and something that really made me nod my head in acceptance, was the use of timers,for one side, depending on if you are attacking or defending. If you are attacking you have a time limit to destroy your enemy in and if you don’t, they win. This stops armies from just camping and waiting for the enemy to hit them. Something I realised quickly when I attacked some orks, found I was near a hill, stood on it and the Orks just looked at me as the time ran down; I soon moved!
CONCLUSION
All in all, I’ve really enjoyed my time playing Totalwar: Warhammer and it has been a breath of magic winded air, in an increasingly stale franchise. Don’t get me wrong there are a few additional niggles, like Formation movement, some stupid and overly aggressive AI and the lack of navel combat but as it is, I would say, and this is pretty hard for me to admit being a history geek, ione of the best titles they have created and something they can defiantly build upon.
I just hope they don’t give up on the Historic side of things and start to innovate a bit more when it comes to mechanic and formations; you’ve made this step CA, why not go all the way through the looking glass.
The last conference of the first day, no one knows what quite to expect from Bethesda. Fallout DLC is obviously one of the big ones, as well as more information on Dishonoured 2, and rumors have been circling of a Skyrim remake for current consoles. Well at 3:20am the conference started, and things started with a bang!
After the trailer finishes running, Tim Willits (Studio Director, ID Software) took to the stage to announce their new first person shooter for the PC. Much like the original Quake from the ’90s, this will be a purely multiplayer game featuring a broad range of characters with personal loadouts and abilities. Tim finished off by announcing the Quake launchplan – Bethesda will officially support tournaments outside of Quakecon. More details will be revealed at Quakecon later this year.
Next took the stagePete Hines (Global VP of PR and Marketing, Bethesda) to officially launch the showcase. First of all he gave a recap of 2015, detailing all the accolades and awards won by Elder Scrolls Online, Fallout Shelter, Fallout 4 and Doom. He then led the discussion onto Elder Scrolls: Legends. He talked about the story mode and gameplay, which gave a unique twist on Blizzard’s Hearthstone format. More people would be allowed into the Beta, and It’ll be coming to iPhone, Mac, Android Tablets and PC.
Steering the attention to one of its showstoppers last year, Todd Howard thanked fans for their support and invited us to take a look at the next DLC; Contraptions, Vault Tec Workshop and Nuka World. Fallout Shelter, which was released at their conference last year, will have a big update which includes new quests, a gameplay overhaul, new locations, and will heading to PC July 2016. Before leaving us, Todd confirmed the rumors of an Elder Scrolls V Remaster Edition – Skyrim Special Edition, which will include mod support on consoles.
Next, Raphael Colantonio from Arcane took to the stage to lead us into a trailer for a new game – PREY. Presumably a re-imagining of the PREY 2 game which was only ever announced by Bethesda, we are stuck on Talos-1, a spacestation in the year 2032. Part of a ‘key experiment’, the station is overrun unexpectedly by invading aliens. Heading to the XBox One / PS4 / PC, it too will be given more details at Quakecon.
Some multiplayer improvements are coming to DOOM: new modes, including classic deathmatch, and a new DLC pack with new maps, a new demon, new armour and new guns. Pete Hines took to the stage again, and revealed that Bethesda intended to offer the first level of Doom as demo (Steam, PS4, XBO) for this week only.
Next came Matt Firor, Game Director for Elder Scrolls Online, revealing that on June 23 Japan would join the 7 million players. Additinally, he announced ‘One Tamriel’, which modified the MMO to get rid of level restrictions on alliances and questing ‘this fall’.
Next, Pete returned to reveal that Bethesda would be expanding into Virtual Reality – DOOM and Fallout 4 are headed to the HTC Vive in 2017.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNFtACeifcU
Finally, Harvey Smith – creative director of Dishonoured 2 – came onstage to rather nervously introduce Bethesda’s final showpiece. He opened with a reveal of in-game footage, as well as revealing the custom game engine they had made for the game, the Void Engine. With a 11.11.16 release, this game is not one to miss.
Before finishing the show, Dishonoured 2 Collector’s Edition was announced – featuring props like Emily’s ring, and Corvo’s mask. In limited supply, if you preorder before a certain time, you would also receive Dishonoured Definitive Edition.
This year, rather than attending E3, Electronic Arts (EA) decided to jump the gun, holding a simultaneous event in LA and London, to tease and taunt us with what we’ll be buying from them over the next year or so. EA CEO Andrew Wilson presented from Novo in LA, while Chief competition Officer Peter Moore presented from the Hammersmith Apollo in London. Both locations also had live audiences, who could try out the games on site.
The EA Play site promoted teasers for Battlefield 1, Titanfall 2, NHL 17, FIFA 17 and Madden 17 ahead of the show, making sure we had an idea what to look forward to!
Andrew and Peter talked about the philosophy behind EA Play, and the fact they have to keep on finding ways to keep the 2.6 BILLION (and growing) gamers happy. Play is about remembering that these are games, and we both want and need to play, meaning they announced the first livestream of Battlefield 1 after the event – 32 vs 32.
They handed over to Vince Zampella to talk about Titanfall 2. Firstly, he announced that Titanfall 2 would be coming to PS4 as well as PC and Xbox One (insert cheers). He then showed us some more gameplay – As you might expect, there were Big Mechs, Big Guns, Big explosions and many agile little pilots, alongside sequences showing pilots leaping over and about the scenery. There’s even a sequence of 2 pilots heading up the rope, and you use a cable to latch onto the other pilot and pull him close to finish him. Pretty nice, Vince! then he announces (“For the 4 people that didn’t see the leak this morning!”) a single player mode, to help players become more immersed in the game world.
Next came Madden 17, their American football franchise. After the new trailer, they talked not just about Madden, but about their new approach to eSports – Focusing not just on the high profile pro players, but giving everyone a chance to compete. They’ll be hosting Challenger, Premier and EA major events that allow ordinary gamers the chance to participate and qualify for the live finals and the prize money!
https://youtu.be/VEmQEFCBp2c
They talked about the first EA Sports Major Event, happening as part of the LA Play event – The Madden 16 Finals, with the top 8 players from a million people that started trying to qualify online. We met Eric Wright (“Problem”), and Zack Lane (“Serious Moe”), 2 of the players, and then all 8 finalists – Serious Moe had an arm in a sling because his shoe laces were left untied – Bad start there!! Next year, EA are putting up a total of $1 million in eSports Prize money to keep the fans playing online!
They followed Madden with Bioware’s next release – Mass Effect: Andromeda. Set after the original trilogy, it follows a mission to establish a new home for the human race away from the Reapers and other threats – The Andromeda galaxy! New challenges, new characters, new aliens and technology!
Now, in Andromeda, the Human Race, and YOU, are the aliens, discovering a whole new galaxy of challenges and threats. With tantalising glimpses of ships, aliens, planets and ground vehicles, it looks like it’s going to be quite a ride! they promise they’re keeping in mind the original games, while giving us something… More – We shall see!
Next, they committed to new content and updates for their existing games moving forward, and announced that for the week following Play, the EA Vault would have a number of free games accessible to everyone on Origin.
They also announced EA “Play to Give“, a new initiative to tie gaming activities to charitable giving. they’re supporting some good causes, including STEM education (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths). they’re leading with events in Battlefield 4, Battlefield Hardline, Star Wars Battlefront and Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes that can trigger donations to charity.
EA’s “Free Play Days” promotion was also mentioned, giving Origin subscribers the ability to play a number of games free this week coming, as if you were a member of EA Access.
The next part of the presentation looked at FIFA 17 – In production annually since 1193, it’s now the most popular sports game on the planet – That definitely has to upset some of the Americans…
We’re introduced to a young man called Alex Hunter in football kit on the stage, who talks about his hopes and dreams of playing football professionally, then we see a new trailer:
A big new part of the FIFA 17 experience is “The Journey” – A way to control and play your Premier League career off the field, as well as on. You’ll play AS Alex Hunter, and steering his life in the Premier League… and out of it?
This means that managers will be in the game for the first time, such as Jugen Klopp, Arsene Wenger and even Jose Maurinho, who they brought up on stage. Peter Moore, a Liverpool fan, didn’t pass up an opportunity to invite Jose to bring Manchest United to Anfield “To learn how to pay real football”. they then brought out the Line Producer from the Vancouver studio, Aaaron McHardy, to discuss the 4 biggest changes to on-pitch play:
Rewritten set pieces
Updated and improved physical play to improve it – Rewritten from the ground up!
New Artificial Intelligence, to make the game more realistic and challenging
New and expanded ways to create chances and score goals
All of which accompany the usual stunning graphics.
Next up, we were introduced to “EA Originals”, EA’s new program to support and work with independent studios to get their games to market. They say it’s part of their attempt to help these indies to innovate and develop new, exciting games – Apparently the aim is that they should also keep all the money from the games. I’ll be interested to see what happens next!
The first EA Original game was show, produced by Zoink from Sweden. It’s called ‘FE’, and in it you play a cub who awakes in a forest clearing with no memory, or knowledge of who you are. All the other creatures int he forest communicate in music. Even the plants have melodies. To discover more about yourself, you must explore the forest and learn the animal’s songs to communicate with them. Your enemy is “The Silents”, who still the music of the forest wherever they go, killing it. It definitely LOOKS cool, and I’ll be interested to try it!
Next we step into a Galaxy far, far away, as EA talks about their Star Wars franchise. With 3 games in release currently (Galaxy of Heroes, The Old Republic and Battlefront), they talked about making the most of the existing games, and also working with new studios to bring new and exciting takes on the Star Wars Galaxy.
Motive are working with Dice to create additional content for the games already out, including from The Force Awakens, Rogue One and continuing forward – We’ve not been forgotten! Meanwhile Visceral Games Are working on a new game – New characters, and a new setting in the Star Wars Universe. We got to see them doing Motion Capture for some dynamic Light saber combat. They also talked about the difficulty of telling an authentic Star Wars story, and how it’s more than just the setting. I’ll be interested to hear more about that!
Battlefront will of course continue to get new environments, characters and other shinies as the new films are released, and Galaxy of Heroes is confirmed to receive more characters from ALL the films, all eras, and beyond(?).
Finally, and with quite a reaction from the crowd, they came to Battlefield 1. They teased a little of the new reveal, before going back over the importance they’d put on community involvement with the new game – With over 60 million Battlefield players, they feel driven to do something new, but don’t want to let them down!
Their big emphasis is on uniqueness – No 2 games should be the same, even with the same people playing. Like almost all the games shown tonight, it uses the Frostbite engine to drive it – EA are definitely getting their money’s worth there! They want damage and destruction to be more ‘natural’, and dynamic weather to complicate issues.
On top of this, as well as many new vehicles, players will need to get to grips with the Behemoths!! With Battleships, Armoured Trains and, of course – ZEPPELINS!!!
The game will be out on the 21st October, 2016, and they’re committing to an open beta in late summer – Apparently Insiders get first dibs. After showing us the game, they made their goodbyes and handed off to the 64 player livestream, to show what Battlefield 1 could do with a full server.
Overall, they covered all the areas we expected, slipped a couple of surprises in, but largely reassured us it was more of what we have come to expect that we can look forward to over the coming 12 months and beyond! Not always a bad thing. Let’s just keep a copy of the videos and hop forward in time… See if everything adds up!
We’ll have lots more coverage still to come for E3, and for EA throughout the week!
The footage opens with an introduction from Bioware stating that Andromeda will be built on ‘what you loved about Mass Effect’s amazing stories and game play’ and now they’re letting their ‘imaginations run wild’, so ‘how far will we go’? Before continuing on to say that the game will be an advance on the previous games with new features where ‘you get to be the alien’.
Bioware unfortunately kept it short and sweet, but we did get a few new pieces of information.
https://youtu.be/0F7qYaDWe74
Mass Effect: Andromeda will be the first of its kind to be built using the Frostbite engine, which already shows stunning visuals for both game play and what looks like cut scenes. Although very little actual game play was shown, the bits we did see included the use of the preempted jet pack being used during combat to deliver what looked like a powerful ground attack.
The new ship looks all too familiar, resembling a mini adapted version of the citadel it and displaying the name ‘Tempest’ along the side. This would make sense as the technology used to reach Andromeda would need to be far more advanced than our own, along with the name Tempest that is normally associated with super storms and whirlwinds.
One of the attacking new species also look familiar, could this be where the previous shadow brokers extinct race ‘the Yargs’ retreated to? Also, the familiar faces of an Asari, Krogen and what looks like a Thresher Maw is a welcoming sight as it shows the game isn’t wandering too far from its roots.
The final clip shows what looks to be the new female protagonist waking up from some form or hyper sleep exhaling ‘we made it’. Although we finally get a good look behind the mask, which looks slightly similar to Mass Effect’s previous heroine Ashley Williams, Bioware have still given no confirmation on the name of our now star player, for now it seems that Ryder may still be on the cards.
Bioware gave no insight into a release date yet, although they did state that further updates will be available this fall. For now, for those of you who may have missed it, here’s Jennifer Hale’s (aka fem-Shep’s) emotional sign off from last years N7 day.
It’s Sunday 12th June and that means one thing for us here at GP, the biggest event on the calendar for the gaming industry is about to kick off. Before the party really gets started, let’s take a look at what we can expect from E3 2016, along with when and where to watch.
Taking place at the Los Angeles Convention Center on 14th-16th June, with the major showcases happening before the event officially begins, E3 really kicks off this evening for us Brits at 9PM with the EA Play showcase. Following suit with Nintendo in previous years, EA have opted for their own event, rather than hosting a conference at E3. Folk are hoping for Mass Effect Andromedanews this evening, so it’s definitely one to watch, along with more on Battlefield 1 and FIFA 17.
Bethesda follows in the early hours of Monday morning, with Fallout 4 and Doom expansions expected to be announced. News on The Elder Scrolls: Legends should also be included in the conference, which was initially announced at last year’s event.
Gears of War 4and possible console or hardware announcements are expected from Microsoft on Monday, with plenty of rumours flying around about complete Xbox integration into Windows 10 or a slimmer console. Ubisoft and PC Gaming conferences are also lined up for Monday evening, with Watch Dogs 2anticipated as the focus for Ubi.
Sony is another early morning/all-nighter for us Brits, taking place in the early hours of Tuesday morning. Rumours of a more powerful console are doing the rounds, but Sony are denying and console unveils during the event. Nintendo finish off the major conferences on Tuesday evening, once again not presenting at the show itself but with their own ‘Nintendo Treehouse’ event. This promises to be entirely focused on the upcoming Legend of Zelda game for 2017, but Nintendo are also denying any console unveiling for the NX. As a massive Zelda fan, this is sure to be my highlight of the conference and I’m hoping to hear much more about the game that keeps getting pushed back.
Other rumours for the event include an unveiling of a sequel to Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption which would be pretty darn fabulous, as well as something to celebrate Lara Croft’s 20th Anniversary this year. Virtual Reality is likely to be another popular topic, with possible news about Sony’s Playstation VR.
Geek Pride are going to be with you throughout E3, bringing plenty of updates, round-ups and exciting announcements. We’ll be covering the major conferences, pulling plenty of all-nighters and keeping our lovely readers informed. For now, here’s a run down of the major Press Conferences taking place over the next few days, along with where to stream the event.
Press Conference Schedule (BST)
EA – Sunday 12th June, 9:00PM Bethesda – Monday 13th June, 03:00AM Microsoft – Monday 13th June, 5:30PM PC Gaming – Monday 13th June, 8:00PM Ubisoft – Monday 13th June, 9:00PM Sony – Tuesday 14th June, 02:00AM Nintendo Treehouse – Tuesday 14th June, 5:00PM
How to Watch E3 2016
There are plenty of places to watch E3 conferences online, along with various apps to watch directly on your Xbox One, PS4 or handheld devices like phones and tablets. Reliable streams can be found via the following links for YouTube, IGN and Twitch.
Injustice: Gods Among Us was a fighting game released in 2013 by NetherRealm Studios, the studio responsible for the recent iterations of the Mortal Kombat series. Injustice featured a DC world where Superman decided to turn into a tyrant, using his powers to threaten and kill those who would threaten the peace. Batman stood against Superman’s Regime, and was on the verge of losing when heroes from the regular DC universe were pulled in and decided to stand against the tyrannical Superman.
Recently, an ongoing comic series has detailed the struggles of Batman against the Regime before the game set in years, and answers several questions fans had about notable characters who were missing or dead in the alternate dimension. The universe was even referenced in DC’s big Convergence event, and was presumably destroyed. Since then, the Injustice comic has been counting down its last days as it comes to the point of the video game.
However, a trailer has emerged for the sequel to the game, and it’s not even E3 yet!
Not long after, a gameplay trailer was released, showing off some new characters and what we can expect from the sequel. It looks like Supergirl, Atrocitus and Gorilla Grodd will be joining the roster of playable characters (with no official word on Black Manta, though I have my fingers crossed), and you will unlock a variety of costumes as you play to customise your character. For example, in the cinematic trailer you see characters change costumes mid-battle, and in the gameplay video you characters wearing different costumes, which will no doubt be references to some fan-favourites (hopefully, most of them are unlockable and not hidden behind a paywall).
“We’re always interested in pushing the genre forward and allowing players to customize and level-up their favorite DC Super Heroes and Super-Villains is a significant leap.” – Ed Boon, Creative Director for NetherRealm Studios
In terms of plot, Injustice 2 is set to continue the story from the first game as Batman and his allies work towards putting the pieces of society back together while facing off against those who want to restore Superman’s regime. In the midst of the chaos, a new threat appears that will put Earth’s existence at risk. Battles will take place across arenas that have evolved in scale and span across iconic locations such as Metropolis, Gotham City and Atlantis.
With E3 on the horizon, you can expect more news on the way.
TV shows based on comics are popping up everywhere these days it seems. The thing the majority of them have in common is they involve superheroes, with the occasional exception like Wynona Earp and the recently premiered Outcast (for my thoughts on that go here).
Another one of those exceptions to the rule, potentially anyways, could be Nancy in Hell.
Nancy in Hell is a gloriously bad taste Grindhouse horror comic created by writer El Torres. The short version is cheerleader Nancy finds herself in Hell and fighting her way out against demons with a chainsaw (I reviewed the follow up Nancy in Hell (on Earth) a while back). Now the comic could potentially become a TV series. If obscure properties like Wynona Earp can become TV shows,hit shows at that, then anything can happen really. And Ash Vs Evil Dead has shown that bad taste horror can work as a TV show.
Producer/Screen writer Jennifer Van Gessel of Far From Everything films is raising funds for a proof of concept film to show networks that are interested. There’s less than 48 hours to go with perks ranging from digital copies of the graphic novels, graphic novels signed by writer El Torres to original art by a host of different artists amongst other things.
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