Gamespot's Site Mashup

Written By Kom Limpulnam on Jumat, 31 Januari 2014 | 23.26

Gamespot's Site MashupCheaper Xbox One model for 2014 rumor corroborated by new sourceInsurgency Starter GuideTeam Fortress 2 Review

http://auth.gamespot.com/ Gamespot's Everything Feed! News, Reviews, Videos. Exploding with content? You bet. en-us Fri, 31 Jan 2014 08:15:24 -0800 http://www.gamespot.com/articles/cheaper-xbox-one-model-for-2014-rumor-corroborated-by-new-source/1100-6417445/ <figure data-align="center" data-size="large" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/1493/14930800/2428839-0011656096-23828.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2428839" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/1493/14930800/2428839-0011656096-23828.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2428839"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_super/1493/14930800/2428839-0011656096-23828.jpg"></a></figure>Earlier this week, a flurry of leaks suggested, <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/update-white-xbox-one-coming-in-2014-halo-2-anniversary-edition-and-titanfall-console-spotted-report/1100-6417425/">among other juicy details</a>, that Microsoft is on track to release a new, cheaper Xbox One model in 2014. Now a new source has <a href="http://www.vg247.com/2014/01/31/senior-publishing-source-confirms-new-cheaper-xbox-one-release-for-2014/" rel="nofollow">corroborated to VG247</a> that Microsoft is looking to release an Xbox One model for less than the machine's current $499 price point.The "senior source" could not confirm rumors that the machine would lose its Blu-Ray drive and feature a Bluetooth adapter, however.Additionally, the source said that Microsoft will drop the price of the current Xbox One revision to $399--or the same price as Sony's PlayStation 4.Other Microsoft rumors that have emerged this week say that the company is working on releasing a white Xbox One console. As for games, the leaker claims that Halo 5 will be coming in 2015 while Halo 2 Anniversary will be released this year, and that Crackdown 3 is going to be announced at E3 2014.Microsoft has said to GameSpot that it does not comment on rumor and speculation.<div data-embed-type="video" data-ref-id="2300-6417030" data-width="100%" data-height="100%"><iframe src="/videos/embed/6417030/" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe></div> Fri, 31 Jan 2014 07:26:00 -0800 http://www.gamespot.com/articles/cheaper-xbox-one-model-for-2014-rumor-corroborated-by-new-source/1100-6417445/ http://www.gamespot.com/videos/insurgency-starter-guide/2300-6417033/ Aaron grabs a shotgun and guides you through your first few matches of Insurgency. Thu, 30 Jan 2014 16:32:00 -0800 http://www.gamespot.com/videos/insurgency-starter-guide/2300-6417033/ http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/team-fortress-2-review/1900-6415650/ Longevity is tough for competitive shooters. Hardly a month goes by without new virtual arenas cropping up and enticing you into some fresh conflict, and only a few popular games manage to sustain active player bases even a year after their initial release. And then there's Team Fortress 2. Released in 2007, this class-based classic is still going strong well into its seventh year, thanks largely to its lively and creative community. Since GameSpot's original <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/team-fortress-2-review/1900-6190347/" data-ref-id="1900-6190347">TF2 review</a>, the game has benefited from numerous updates and made the jump to a free-to-play business model. So how well is Team Fortress 2 faring in 2014 among the current crop of competitors for your time and money?The short answer is, it's holding up very well. The core action pits two teams of players against each other in a battle to capture points, move a cart, or steal a briefcase. The objective is always very straightforward; it's the interplay between the nine playable classes that makes things so varied and interesting. The speedy scout, the militant heavy, the diligent engineer, the conniving medic, the pesky sniper, the sneaky spy, the feisty pyro, the explosive soldier, and the even-more-explosive demoman all have unique weapons, attributes, and abilities that complement each other and clash in myriad ways. Encounters can vary widely depending on the match type and the makeup of each team, and this unpredictability is crucial to TF2's long-standing appeal.<div data-embed-type="video" data-ref-id="2300-6417016" data-width="100%" data-height="100%"><iframe src="/videos/embed/6417016/" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe></div> When you come out of the gate as a heavy with a medic in tow, you're a formidable offensive force, but if a spy loops around to backstab the medic and you round the corner on a pyro, it can all come undone in a matter of seconds. Snipers can cover expected enemy paths, but rocket-jumping soldiers have a knack for finding alternative routes and raining explosive death from above. You may think you have a comparatively weak scout dead to rights, only to be stunned by a baseball and beaten to death. As you watch your giblets splatter on the ground and see a freeze-frame of your gleeful killer, it's hard not to chuckle at the sheer variety of ways you can meet an untimely demise. And the humorous quips, ridiculous outfits, and histrionic announcer help cultivate this lighthearted tone. Of course, this core dynamic has persisted for most of TF2's life span, so if you stopped playing it a few years ago and come back for a few matches, you'll find things are very familiar. Learning the ropes and getting the hang of your chosen role is still a gratifying experience, and mastering advanced techniques doesn't just make you deadlier; it gives you more options for how to approach combat. Keeping your options open is still valuable too, because being flexible with your choice of character can help you avoid ending up on a catastrophically imbalanced squad. It is Team Fortress, after all.But though there is much that has remained constant about the core game, there have been some notable changes over the years, as well as regular infusions of new weapons and items. Of the hundreds of things available in the online store, some can be unlocked through play, while others must be purchased with actual money. From small doodads that cost less than a dollar to massive bundles that cost hundreds, there's a wide range of ways to customize your experience.<figure data-align="right" data-size="medium" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/542/5424362/2427703-%23%23%2300006.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2427703" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/542/5424362/2427703-%23%23%2300006.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2427703"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_medium/542/5424362/2427703-%23%23%2300006.jpg"></a></figure>Many of the items offer nothing more than a playful twist on the game's already cheeky cartoon aesthetic. You can buy hats, shirts, shoes, and other cosmetic gear to dress up like a character from Adult Swim or don spooky seasonal garb that you can wear only during Halloween or a full moon. Even if you don't fancy shelling out for any of this stuff, it's fun to see some visual variety as you try to light your opponents on fire.Other weapons have more of an impact, like the ones that give your character a new chargeable and expendable power. The scout can build hype, which turns his usual double jump into a triple, quadruple, or quintuple jump, and the soldier can build rage, which allows him to rally his nearby teammates to do extra damage. Skills like these have more of a meaningful impact on the action, bringing something new to the table that your enemies must contend with. And then there are the totally out-there loadouts, like the one that turns the grenade-launching demoman into an extra from the movie Braveheart.In addition to the cosmetic options, there are a lot of weapons and items that offer small buffs or subtle tweaks to your attributes. Depending on which healing gun the medic equips, for example, he can imbue himself and his targeted ally with extra damage resistance or enable himself to match the speed of his target. Differences like these don't do much to change the core action, but they do give experienced players substantial room for strategic variation.These options broaden the field of viable strategies, which helps keep combat lively and varied. And fortunately, none of the purchasable weapons or items tip the scales unfairly towards those willing to pay. Buffs and bonuses usually come with caveats, and the weapons that bestow new abilities are usually unlocked for free. For this review, I spent some money on goofy hats and some of the stranger weaponry on offer, like the pyro's flamethrower that actually shoots bubbles and rainbows. It was fun to play with the new gear, but I still found myself switching my loadout between free and paid weapons regularly to adapt to the match situation.<figure data-align="center" data-size="large" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/542/5424362/2427671-%23%23%2300010.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2427671" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/542/5424362/2427671-%23%23%2300010.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2427671"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_super/542/5424362/2427671-%23%23%2300010.jpg"></a><figcaption>Mow 'em down and get paid.</figcaption></figure>The biggest divergence from the game's origins comes in the cooperative mode, Mann vs. Machine. In it, you and a few other human players must prevent hordes of robotic incarnations of TF2's classes from delivering a bomb to your base. The money you earn from destroying robots can be spent on mid-match upgrades to your attributes and weaponry, which can be crucial to success. Even on the easiest level, the robot legions are fierce enough to test the mettle of an unorganized team. This is a mode where carefully planned weapon choices and defensive strategies can mean the difference between succeeding and having to try, try again. You can play this mode for free, but you won't be eligible to earn rare prizes or complete challenges unless you pay a dollar for a Tour of Duty ticket. Though it lacks the frenetic unpredictability of competitive play, the cooperative mode can still provide satisfaction for those dedicated enough to see it through.But competition is the real draw, and the Team Fortress 2 community can certainly be competitive. On some servers, you might be berated for unwitting breaches of etiquette, while on others, you might be welcomed with helpful tips and ubercharges. You can even ask for help on certain servers and be paired up with another player who is willing to give you some tips through chat. The community around TF2 is an intriguing one, not just for their deep knowledge of and passion for the game, but for their creative efforts in designing new weapons, items, and maps that have since become part of the experience. It feels like a community of curators, without whom the game may well have dwindled away and passed into obsolescence years ago.Staying relevant even a year after release is rare for a competitive shooter, and yet, here's Team Fortress 2, still lively after seven years in the business. At times it feels like the same game you could have played back then, and at other times it feels like no one will ever quite nail class-based shooter competition the way TF2 does. The experience has evolved over the years without compromising what made it so great in the first place, so though your free-to-play options may have increased considerably in the past few years, there are few that do it as well as Team Fortress 2. Thu, 30 Jan 2014 06:00:00 -0800 http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/team-fortress-2-review/1900-6415650/

Gamespot's Site MashupCheaper Xbox One model for 2014 rumor corroborated by new sourceInsurgency Starter GuideTeam Fortress 2 Review

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Team Fortress 2 - Heavy Defends the Bomb

Written By Kom Limpulnam on Kamis, 30 Januari 2014 | 23.26

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Team Fortress 2 Review

Longevity is tough for competitive shooters. Hardly a month goes by without new virtual arenas cropping up and enticing you into some fresh conflict, and only a few popular games manage to sustain active player bases even a year after their initial release. And then there's Team Fortress 2. Released in 2007, this class-based classic is still going strong well into its seventh year, thanks largely to its lively and creative community. Since GameSpot's original TF2 review, the game has benefited from numerous updates and made the jump to a free-to-play business model. So how well is Team Fortress 2 faring in 2014 among the current crop of competitors for your time and money?

The short answer is, it's holding up very well. The core action pits two teams of players against each other in a battle to capture points, move a cart, or steal a briefcase. The objective is always very straightforward; it's the interplay between the nine playable classes that makes things so varied and interesting. The speedy scout, the militant heavy, the diligent engineer, the conniving medic, the pesky sniper, the sneaky spy, the feisty pyro, the explosive soldier, and the even-more-explosive demoman all have unique weapons, attributes, and abilities that complement each other and clash in myriad ways. Encounters can vary widely depending on the match type and the makeup of each team, and this unpredictability is crucial to TF2's long-standing appeal.

When you come out of the gate as a heavy with a medic in tow, you're a formidable offensive force, but if a spy loops around to backstab the medic and you round the corner on a pyro, it can all come undone in a matter of seconds. Snipers can cover expected enemy paths, but rocket-jumping soldiers have a knack for finding alternative routes and raining explosive death from above. You may think you have a comparatively weak scout dead to rights, only to be stunned by a baseball and beaten to death. As you watch your giblets splatter on the ground and see a freeze-frame of your gleeful killer, it's hard not to chuckle at the sheer variety of ways you can meet an untimely demise. And the humorous quips, ridiculous outfits, and histrionic announcer help cultivate this lighthearted tone.

Of course, this core dynamic has persisted for most of TF2's life span, so if you stopped playing it a few years ago and come back for a few matches, you'll find things are very familiar. Learning the ropes and getting the hang of your chosen role is still a gratifying experience, and mastering advanced techniques doesn't just make you deadlier; it gives you more options for how to approach combat. Keeping your options open is still valuable too, because being flexible with your choice of character can help you avoid ending up on a catastrophically imbalanced squad. It is Team Fortress, after all.

But though there is much that has remained constant about the core game, there have been some notable changes over the years, as well as regular infusions of new weapons and items. Of the hundreds of things available in the online store, some can be unlocked through play, while others must be purchased with actual money. From small doodads that cost less than a dollar to massive bundles that cost hundreds, there's a wide range of ways to customize your experience.

Many of the items offer nothing more than a playful twist on the game's already cheeky cartoon aesthetic. You can buy hats, shirts, shoes, and other cosmetic gear to dress up like a character from Adult Swim or don spooky seasonal garb that you can wear only during Halloween or a full moon. Even if you don't fancy shelling out for any of this stuff, it's fun to see some visual variety as you try to light your opponents on fire.

Other weapons have more of an impact, like the ones that give your character a new chargeable and expendable power. The scout can build hype, which turns his usual double jump into a triple, quadruple, or quintuple jump, and the soldier can build rage, which allows him to rally his nearby teammates to do extra damage. Skills like these have more of a meaningful impact on the action, bringing something new to the table that your enemies must contend with. And then there are the totally out-there loadouts, like the one that turns the grenade-launching demoman into an extra from the movie Braveheart.In addition to the cosmetic options, there are a lot of weapons and items that offer small buffs or subtle tweaks to your attributes. Depending on which healing gun the medic equips, for example, he can imbue himself and his targeted ally with extra damage resistance or enable himself to match the speed of his target. Differences like these don't do much to change the core action, but they do give experienced players substantial room for strategic variation.

These options broaden the field of viable strategies, which helps keep combat lively and varied. And fortunately, none of the purchasable weapons or items tip the scales unfairly towards those willing to pay. Buffs and bonuses usually come with caveats, and the weapons that bestow new abilities are usually unlocked for free. For this review, I spent some money on goofy hats and some of the stranger weaponry on offer, like the pyro's flamethrower that actually shoots bubbles and rainbows. It was fun to play with the new gear, but I still found myself switching my loadout between free and paid weapons regularly to adapt to the match situation.

Mow 'em down and get paid.

The biggest divergence from the game's origins comes in the cooperative mode, Mann vs. Machine. In it, you and a few other human players must prevent hordes of robotic incarnations of TF2's classes from delivering a bomb to your base. The money you earn from destroying robots can be spent on mid-match upgrades to your attributes and weaponry, which can be crucial to success. Even on the easiest level, the robot legions are fierce enough to test the mettle of an unorganized team. This is a mode where carefully planned weapon choices and defensive strategies can mean the difference between succeeding and having to try, try again. You can play this mode for free, but you won't be eligible to earn rare prizes or complete challenges unless you pay a dollar for a Tour of Duty ticket. Though it lacks the frenetic unpredictability of competitive play, the cooperative mode can still provide satisfaction for those dedicated enough to see it through.

But competition is the real draw, and the Team Fortress 2 community can certainly be competitive. On some servers, you might be berated for unwitting breaches of etiquette, while on others, you might be welcomed with helpful tips and ubercharges. You can even ask for help on certain servers and be paired up with another player who is willing to give you some tips through chat. The community around TF2 is an intriguing one, not just for their deep knowledge of and passion for the game, but for their creative efforts in designing new weapons, items, and maps that have since become part of the experience. It feels like a community of curators, without whom the game may well have dwindled away and passed into obsolescence years ago.

Staying relevant even a year after release is rare for a competitive shooter, and yet, here's Team Fortress 2, still lively after seven years in the business. At times it feels like the same game you could have played back then, and at other times it feels like no one will ever quite nail class-based shooter competition the way TF2 does. The experience has evolved over the years without compromising what made it so great in the first place, so though your free-to-play options may have increased considerably in the past few years, there are few that do it as well as Team Fortress 2.

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PS4 to Xbox One sales ratio is 1.5:1 in the UK, declares Sony

This is how Sony sees the UK right now.

The ratio of PS4 to Xbox One sales in the UK is currently at 1.5:1, PlayStation boss Fergal Gara said to an audience, including GameSpot, at an event in London today.

The UK MD was more than a little delighted to announce the figure, after revealing that the figure was currently reversed for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3--and that things had been even worse at one point for Sony's last home console.

Gara admitted that his bosses at Sony had told him last year that PlayStation needed to recapture the UK market, after losing ground to Microsoft over the last console generation. He said he wanted the company to "rediscover some grit" and come out fighting, and believed that such an attitude was more inline with the original spirit of the PlayStation brand.

Perhaps with a bit of relief, then, Gara said that Sony's market share of both home and handheld consoles in the UK had grown from 23 percent to 40 percent over the last two years.

Sony was also quick to remind everyone that the PlayStation 4 was the fastest-selling console in UK history after its launch in November 2013. The machine currently sits at 4.2 million sales worldwide, with the PS4 still yet to launch in Sony's home territory of Japan.

Sony also took the opportunity to unveil the UK release date and price of the Vita Slim.

Filed under:: PlayStation 4; Xbox One

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Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 Full Burst Review

Written By Kom Limpulnam on Rabu, 29 Januari 2014 | 23.26

There's a lot to be said for fan service and its role in entertainment. Providing material that speaks directly to an audience with a specific love and appreciation of a given source provides a palpable sense of private-club-like inclusion, allowing fans to feel connected through their shared interest whether they're in the same room or on the other side of the world. Rather than feel isolated and frustrated by an undying love for a given movie, character, comic, or novel, the existence of indulgence-orientated products makes us feel part of something bigger--there are people out there who like this stuff as much as I do. The Ultimate Ninja series has always taken this idea to heart, concentrating its focus to a laser point that other franchises would never dare to attempt for fear of alienating all but the most dedicated of followers. If you're part of the club, then such single-mindedness is great. If you're not, then don't let the door hit you on the way out.

Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 Full Burst is perhaps the most extreme example yet of Namco Bandai's attempt to appeal to the converted and only to the converted. Here's a game not simply for any old Naruto fan, but for Naruto fans who are completely up to date with the story and characters as they currently exist in the anime/manga episodes and are seeking a new way of experiencing previously explored plotlines. If you're not up to date, then not only are you going to struggle enormously with the story as depicted in the game's early stages, but you're going to ruin what you've not yet seen of the TV series. Unfortunately, due to gameplay that is as unwieldy and bloated as its title, Full Burst is not an acceptable way to get yourself up to date with this franchise.

With so many characters, the story is all but impossible to follow without intimate knowledge of prior events.

This may be a beat-'em-up, but the primary Ultimate Adventure mode features so little gameplay in comparison to cutscenes and dialogue-heavy exposition that you'd be forgiven for thinking you're sitting through a barely interactive (albeit combat-heavy) soap opera. It feels as though developer CyberConnect2's plan was to create a condensed edition of the anime in which fight scenes are playable, rather than create a game in its own right. This leads to an experience that features such haphazard and irregular pacing that your principal cause for intrigue rests in trying to work out just how long it's going to be before the game asks you to pick up the controller again--and even when you do, the core combat is a shallow, button mashing affair that requires little in the way of skill. While there's definite and worthwhile value in repackaging the events of a beloved series in a new format, there's also value in a game giving you something to do.

There may be a lack of interaction in story mode, but that doesn't hold true for the package as a whole. Including all of the downloadable content released for the original Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja 3 release, the volume of content on offer is gargantuan. Chief among the additions is the extra Ultimate Adventure chapter, which sees Sasuke and Itachi Uchiha take on the nefarious Sage Kabuto, a segment that is so phenomenally difficult in comparison to the rest of the game that all previously learned tactics become essentially redundant. The same Sage Kabuto is unlockable as a playable character if you have the patience to jump through the numerous hoops to unlock him, and there are also some new costumes to swoon over.

Sage Kabuto is a new and unlockable character, but less interesting to control than he looks.

The biggest, but certainly not most interesting, piece of extra content comes in the form of supplementary challenge missions. One hundred of these have you beating an opponent in a fight while handicapped in some way--removing your ability to jump, for example, or setting a limit on the number of attacks at your disposal. While these missions do add some welcome variety to the combat, they primarily serve to highlight just how shallow the core mechanics are. Without these externally shoehorned twists on battle, fighting suffers from an overwhelming shallowness that sees you engage autopilot once the basics become second nature. Only during set-piece boss battles are you asked to do something out of the ordinary.

To compound matters, the most members of the enormous character roster plays in the same way. You swap between characters regularly during Ultimate Adventure, but this is done predominantly to facilitate the narrative rather than to spice up gameplay through variety and diversity. Granted, significant and impressive visual flair is achieved by switching often between characters with attacks that are literally out of this world, but that aesthetic quality doesn't remain interesting long enough for the combat inadequacies to be forgiven. Clearly, this is not a game with the remotest desire to cement its place in the bastion of hardcore fighting game legacy, but that doesn't excuse the fact that there's so little meat to the gameplay that you're essentially feasting on elaborately painted bones.

Similar problems exist with Ultimate Adventure's role-playing-game-lite elements, which allow you to roam around a number of different environments with a view to collecting and buying items to use in combat (health potions, strength buffs, and so on) and optionally talking to loitering non-player characters. At times, these moments provide a welcome break from the cutscene/fight/cutscene pattern, but more often than not, they feel designed to artificially lengthen the game and trick you into thinking you're playing something with genuine genre-blending aspirations.

The Sasuke/Itachi vs. Sage Kabuto battle is the most difficult in the game.

The closest comparison to this format is Asura's Wrath, another of CyberConnect2's offerings. However, where Asura's Wrath succeeds in this style of storytelling thanks to its short length and ferocious pace, Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 suffers from attempting to cover far too much ground for the core mechanics to handle. If you do classify yourself as a Naruto aficionado, then simply having another medium through which to consume the narrative is potentially going to be enough to satisfy you. Without a doubt, everyone else should look elsewhere.

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War of the Vikings Developer Commentary - PDXCon 2014

Posted by Jeremy Jayne | Jan. 29, 2014 6:00am

Executive producer, Gordon Van Dyke, sits down to play the latest update, split some skulls, and tell us what's new and exciting in War of the Vikings.

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Assassin's Creed doesn't have an overall ending after all, Ubisoft admits

Last year, Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag director Ashraf IsmaiI said that Ubisoft had a brief outline of the Assassin's Creed series, including an overall ending.

This year, however, Revelations and Black Flag lead writer Darby McDevitt has said that's "not exactly true," and that Ubisoft's annual blockbuster cash cow has no definitive end in sight.

"There's been a bit of confusion in that [Ismail] once said that Assassin's Creed has an ending--that's not exactly true," explained McDevitt in an interview with Edge.

The Assassin's Creed universe was likened to Doctor Who, with McDevitt saying there can be individual endings as part of an perpetually ongoing story. "Because all of history is open to us we see the universe as a Doctor Who type thing. There are so many possibilities we don't want to definitively end the universe, but we can have storylines that have endings."

Reflecting on the series so far, McDevitt spoke about how putting a firm date into Desmond-era titles created a challenge for the writers. "The problem with the Desmond trilogy was that back in 2007 they set a date with Abstergo launching a satellite that was going to control people's minds," he said.

"That unfortunately took a back seat in ACII when they swapped the plot point for the end of the world, which was conveniently going to happen in the same month in 2012. This was a hard date we were going to hit--we realised very quickly that Assassin's Creed is a popular franchise and we'd like to keep it going."

As for the series after Desmond, McDevitt says "we've moved on from specifically defining when a story will end" in future titles.

Looking forward, McDevitt said that an in-game list of future settings for the Assassin's Creed series found in Black Flag--which included Shogun-era Japan, Victorian London, the Wild West, and the French Revolution, among others--was Ubisoft parodying the locations that fans most request. "So the fans generated that list, we didn't generate that list," he added.

But is any of the fan speculation based in reality? "I will say that fans definitely think alike. We have the same goals for the series, let's say. I'll leave it at that. We always want to surprise," McDevitt concluded.

Filed under:: Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag

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Bioshock Infinite: Burial at Sea Episode 2 - Preview Impressions

Written By Kom Limpulnam on Selasa, 28 Januari 2014 | 23.26

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Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition Review

Examining ancient relics is just one small aspect of an archeologist's job. Sure, in-depth knowledge of deceased civilizations is important, but much less so than mastery of a deadly bow or a knack for a quick recovery after a bloody fight. Excitement defines the actions of an adventurous archeologist, no matter how reluctant you might be to bear arms, and you see this chaotic lifestyle through the eyes of perpetual survivor Lara Croft. Her life is one of bloodshed and misery, strength peppered with pain, and as she overcomes every crushing setback, she learns what kind of person she truly is. Such endeavors are so fantastical that her story of emotional growth is often overshadowed by the wildly unrealistic events, but the overwhelming beauty of the island is so gripping, and the exploration so expertly designed, that you become invested in Lara Croft's incredible journey.

The Definitive Edition of Tomb Raider is a lot like Lara Croft's excellent adventure from last year, only with enhanced visuals and extra features. Just about all of the downloadable content from the 2013 release is now located right on the disc. There are a host of new multiplayer maps to gun down your friends (or enemies) in, weapons pulled straight from Hitman: Absolution, and a handful of new characters to play as. Single player hasn't been ignored, either. One new tomb lets you flex your puzzle-solving muscle, and a variety of outfits give you more stylistic flexibility. Have you ever wanted Lara to dress like a 1930s explorer? Now's your chance! None of these additions are all that interesting, so if you've already played through Tomb Raider on an older console, there's little incentive to jump in again. Unless, that is, you love voice communication. Both the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 versions support commands, so just saying "map" or "pistol" immediately does what you'd expect. It's not the most novel functionality, but at least it works.

Lara Croft is a junior member of a small crew searching for the remains of a lost kingdom that mysteriously vanished. Her companions encompass typical archetypes that are at once recognizable and forgettable. There's the scientifically minded man who wears glasses and shirts with geeky puns, the muscled fisherman who defies his impressive physique by repeatedly showing just how sensitive he is, and a stoic mercenary who's also a long-term mentor to Lara. Their names don't matter, because with such little development of their personalities, you quickly forget who they were as soon as they're offscreen. This tired cast is thrust into a story filled with equally tired tropes, so you rarely care about the overarching events.

It's unfortunate how poor so much of the exposition is, because Lara herself is well defined. She starts out as a strong-headed recent graduate determined to scout unexplored lands in search of this lost civilization, but quickly realizes the terrible predicament she's in when things go awry. You understand her unwillingness to believe the terrible events that have transpired, and feel as squeamish as she does when she's forced to kill an attacker. Killing eventually becomes commonplace for Lara, and though it's hard to accept how quickly she adjusts to this bloody lifestyle, her anxious cries during battle and exhausted collapses afterward make you see the scared person hiding beneath the surface. And when she finally cracks halfway through the adventure, shifting from someone fighting to defend herself to a person clearly on the offensive, you understand that, too, because everyone has a breaking point.

Her shift from wide-eyed adventurer to full-fledged killer makes sense, and that's precisely why it's so uncomfortable. We're forced to put ourselves in her shoes, question how we would respond to attacks on our lives, and wonder if we'd be able to fight when it would be so much easier to surrender. Smart pacing ensures that there is plenty of time to examine what transpired in that last deadly fight. With only a half dozen or so attackers, most battles are over before you get lulled into a rhythm that demands you turn off your moral leanings. So you scavenge for a while, explore the environments, and then face five minutes of chaos and screaming before you're once again left by yourself. Such deliberate and rare steps into bloodshed make every fight so much more effective and emotionally taxing. As smartly as Tomb Raider handles its rare forays into combat, it does a poor job of showing death. Lara is tortured in such sensational ways that it's downright gratuitous, as if the game is reveling in her torment.

The overwhelming beauty of the island is so gripping, and the exploration so expertly designed, that you become invested in Lara Croft's incredible journey.

Lara has no fear of being dangerously close to flames in very cramped places.

Thankfully, you can avoid such glorification if you want. Just don't die! Though that's often easier said than done. The early moments of Tomb Raider, and many other sections sprinkled throughout the adventure, are composed of quick-time events in which one mistimed button press leads to an immediate end. Often, these brief sequences are a welcome change of pace. When you're ambushed on a narrow bridge, or are running away from an avalanche, your heart races, and these sequences end quickly enough so that you don't get weighed down by your lack of input. However, by cramming so many QTEs in the first 10 minutes, the game makes you wade through tedious encounters before everything opens up. It's a shame that the early sections are so dry, because the rest of Lara's trip is full of excitement, but it's a small price to pay for the graphical brilliance these sections carry with them.

From the opening moments, Tomb Raider showcases its gorgeous visual design. Yes, the Definitive Edition sports better textures, lighting, and a variety of other technical effects than its PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 counterparts, but it's the art style that makes you want to venture deeper into this haunted island. As Lara picks her way through a claustrophobic cave, or hunts deer in a forest bursting with life, you feel as if you're a part of this world. Summit a mountain and then look toward the horizon; the delicate light streaming through the clouds creates a sense of romantic wonder that would please any couple on their honeymoon. This is a stunning game that shows how technical expertise can enhance artistic brilliance, and vice versa, as just about every element draws you ever more into Lara's world. The odd hiccups, such as flames that defy reality, stand out amid the well-realized look that seeps into just about every other element.

And you have plenty of time to admire the view. Lara travels through many different sections of the expansive map, and almost every one is a small-scale open environment. Hidden goodies are sprinkled throughout; some add details to the backstory, and others let you examine ancient treasures. Though none of them have much of a tangible impact, the sheer joy of uncovering their hiding places is endlessly satisfying. Tools that you gain throughout the adventure open up more pieces of the environment, letting you pull down structures with a rope arrow, blast through doors with a shotgun, and overcome other roadblocks as well. This encourages you to revisit sections to ferret out every lost doodad, and I spent hours just trampling through the environment in search of condor nests and flags.

Come on, Lara, stop and smell the trees and worry about surviving later.

There are optional tombs to plunder as well. It's strange that a game titled Tomb Raider places so little emphasis on, well, raiding, but the bite-size side quests certainly add a nice puzzle-solving element. Tombs hide elaborate mechanical structures that need to be appropriately manipulated in order to make your way through them. You may have to balance a platform with weighted barrels or use the power of wind just right, and there's a thrilling rush when you figure out what needs to be done. Granted, many of these areas contain only one or two puzzles, so you may spend only five or so minutes in one before you find the treasure at the end. But even though they're brief, they provide a nice detour that urges you to use your cunning along with your various abilities to discover every secret.

Such deliberate and rare steps into bloodshed make every fight so much more effective and emotionally taxing.

Eventually, you have to pull your attention from burial masks to the armed men attacking you. Lara has a vulnerability that leads to a quick end if you get hit more than a couple of times, so combat is built on smart movement and steely precision in the face of danger. By standing near chest-high barriers, Lara automatically crouches safely out of harm's way, though don't expect to stand your ground as your killers swarm toward you. With Molotov cocktails and well-positioned shots, attackers make you pay for standing still, so you must be as fast on your feet as you are with your trigger finger. Roll from one pillar to the next, or climb up to higher ground to relish a brief moment of respite. Enemies pursue you, leaving themselves exposed as they try to mimic your motions, and it's satisfying to loose an arrow or pick them off with a pistol as they stumble clumsily behind you. There are some silly moments, such as when you merely wait for a dumb guy to stick his head out from cover, but combat is so fast and exciting that such missteps are easy to overlook.

Part of the reason the combat enthralls from beginning to end is how brief fights are. With only a few enemies present in most fights, you can eliminate threats within a few minutes, so you're back exploring the impressive locales in no time. That makes you appreciate each encounter all the more, and there is enough variety so that every fight feels different. You may approach a camp in the dead of night and have the choice to pick enemies off stealthily or take your chances with a full-out rush, or, in another scenario, you're hanging upside down in a snare while enemies rush toward you. Other times you're rolling around in a room with destructible pillars, or plunging through a burning building, and every fight requires a slightly different approach. This variety helps keep the fights exciting. Plus, even though you have a standard assortment of guns, the bow proves to be both more satisfying to use and more challenging. Taking out someone with the bow with one perfectly logged headshot feels so empowering that I deliberately fought without guns so that every fight could be as exciting as possible.

A gun? How gouche.

Unfortunately, while the single-player exploits are both inventive and exciting, when you venture into multiplayer, things lose that glow. Everything here feels fine. Sticking an arrow right through someone's head is just as satisfying here as it is against an AI opponent, and there are even traps to stop unsuspecting players in their tracks. But it's all so expected. Whereas the solo quest veered from the norms in interesting ways, such as by offering fully explorable environments and putting such a small emphasis on combat, the multiplayer just recycles much of what has become the standard in competitive arenas. Sure, there isn't anything inherently wrong with such uninspired battles, but it's a shame there aren't more interesting elements to wrestle away your attention from other games out there.

What's most remarkable about Tomb Raider is how its many elements so perfectly complement each other, so that no matter which activity you're currently engaged in, you're fully invested. Even the straightforward platforming, in which Lara's sticky hands ensure there's little chance of failure, is thrilling thanks to brief quick-time events that keep your mind focused on even your smallest actions. There are two things that hit me when I first played Tomb Raider last year, and then resurfaced when I played through the Definitive Edition, that cement this as one of my recent favorites. Lara herself is so well crafted that I grew attached to her exploits and was sad to say goodbye when the credits rolled. And the exquisite visual design is so breathtaking that I continually found myself staring at the scenery instead of pushing onward. Tomb Raider is a great reinvention of this enduring franchise that made me eager to see where Lara goes in her future.

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Kickstarter rival Indiegogo raises $40 million

Kickstarter rival Indiegogo announced today that it has raised $40 million in a Series B round of venture financing, which The New York Times notes is meant to "speed growth." The money came from venture capital firms IVP and Kleiner Perkins.

The San Francisco-based Indiegogo said the funds would be used for "making key hires, expanding globally, and improving the user experience with a focus on mobile, personalization, and trust."

Indiegogo's size and reach doesn't match Kickstarter. That site that has spawned numerous high-profile video game projects like Tim Schafer's Broken Age, the Ouya console, Oculus Rift, and Wasteland 2, among many others.

However, Indiegogo is proving attractive for some developers as well. Just yesterday, Square Enix launched its "Collective" crowdfunding program through a partnership with Indiegogo. In addition, Lab Zero Games successfully took to Indiegogo last year to raise money for five Skullgirls DLC characters.

Unlike Kickstarter, which is all-or-nothing, Indiegogo creators have the option of creating campaigns that allow them to keep what they earned--even if they don't reach their target.

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Gamespot's Site Mashup

Written By Kom Limpulnam on Senin, 27 Januari 2014 | 23.26

Gamespot's Site MashupEpic: Gears of War sale doesn't mean we've quit game developmentPlayer vs Gamer Episode 5: Mad About MaddenMight & Magic X: Legacy

http://auth.gamespot.com/ Gamespot's Everything Feed! News, Reviews, Videos. Exploding with content? You bet. en-us Mon, 27 Jan 2014 07:36:33 -0800 http://www.gamespot.com/articles/epic-gears-of-war-sale-doesn-t-mean-we-ve-quit-game-development/1100-6417364/ When Epic Games <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/microsoft-buys-gears-of-war-from-epic/1100-6417361/" data-ref-id="1100-6417361">announced today that it had sold its popular Gears of War franchise to Microsoft</a>, some saw it as news of Epic leaving development and focusing only on its <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/fbi-using-unreal-engine-3-crime-scene-sim/1100-6368256/" data-ref-id="1100-6368256">Unreal Engine licensing and government contract businesses</a>.<figure data-align="left" data-size="medium" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/1179/11799911/2425721-epic.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2425721" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/1179/11799911/2425721-epic.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2425721"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_medium/1179/11799911/2425721-epic.jpg"></a><figcaption>The Epic Games headquarters in Cary, NC.</figcaption></figure> This isn't the case, Epic Games PR managers have said."For people saying Epic isn't making games anymore, we currently have multiple games in development, including <a href="/fortnite/" data-ref-id="false">Fortnite</a>," Phillips <a href="https://twitter.com/WesPhillips/status/427808767866961920" rel="nofollow" data-ref-id="false">said on Twitter today</a>. Another PR manager at Epic, Dana Cowley, <a href="https://twitter.com/danacowley/status/427808757503242240" rel="nofollow" data-ref-id="false">said</a> much the same: "We're still making games, don't worry."Fortnite, a PC-exclusive survival game, is Epic Games' only announced project right now. Asked to name another project the studio is working on, Phillips said, "#secrets." Some of Epic's other franchises include Infinity Blade, Unreal Tournament, and Shadow Complex.Chinese Internet behemoth <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/chinese-internet-company-owns-40-percent-of-epic-games/1100-6405749/" data-ref-id="1100-6405749">Tencent owns 40 percent of Epic Games</a> and has two seats on the company's board of directors.<div data-embed-type="video" data-ref-id="2300-6405701" data-width="100%" data-height="100%"><iframe src="/videos/embed/6405701/" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe></div> Mon, 27 Jan 2014 07:06:00 -0800 http://www.gamespot.com/articles/epic-gears-of-war-sale-doesn-t-mean-we-ve-quit-game-development/1100-6417364/ http://www.gamespot.com/videos/player-vs-gamer-episode-5-mad-about-madden/2300-6416958/ DeSean Jackson of the Philadelphia Eagles & Recording Artist Mike Posner test their Madden might and go head to head in Madden 25. Mon, 27 Jan 2014 03:00:00 -0800 http://www.gamespot.com/videos/player-vs-gamer-episode-5-mad-about-madden/2300-6416958/ http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/might-magic-x-legacy/1900-6415645/ You need to have the nostalgia gene to fully appreciate Might & Magic X: Legacy. I do, especially when it comes to role-playing games, so I did. But this is one of those "genre within a genre" retro affairs that self-consciously turns its back on modern conventions and embraces what us old folks were stuck with back in that antediluvian era known as the 1990s. Limbic Entertainment has created an old-fashioned RPG epic that might well have landed on some "best of" lists at the end of 1996. If you're the sort of person who fondly remembers a time before the Might & Magic name meant nothing but turn-based fantasy strategy, this game is for you.Noting that M&MXL is not for everyone isn't necessarily an insult, either. On the contrary, it's clear from the very first moments of the game that the developers are trying to be as unfashionable as a pair of acid-washed jeans. Everything about this game can be traced back to first-person party-based RPGs from the 1990s, like the original M&M games, the Wizardry series, and even the Eye of the Beholder D&D line. The campaign setting of Ashan is all new for this franchise, however, having been ported over from Might & Magic Heroes right down to the goofy winged helmets. Oddly enough, this approach actually makes M&MXL more of a traditional fantasy game than its forebears, as the original M&M role-players blended spaceships in with their swords and sorcery. Still, the general objective seems to have been to create a new game that picks up right where this style of RPG left off about 15 years ago.<figure data-align="center" data-size="large" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2423600-0001.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2423600" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2423600-0001.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2423600"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_super/416/4161502/2423600-0001.jpg"></a><figcaption>The M&MXL bestiary includes the usual roster of fantasy monsters and mythological creatures, like this manticore, which almost looks like a cute puppy dog about to tear your throat out at this angle.</figcaption></figure>And that mission has been accomplished. Well, mostly. Several core components of the game are well done. There is a fair amount of choice when it comes to character creation, with four races and 12 classes (three per race) spread along the might and magic spectrums. Don't expect anything more revolutionary than the likes of dwarven defenders, human freemages, elven bladedancers, and orc barbarians in the beginning, but you have a lot of freedom to specialize once your party starts leveling up and you begin doling out points between attribute stats and skills. You can specialize in everything from maces and bows to a whopping seven schools of magic, allowing for the custom-crafting of almost any sort of heroic adventurer that you can dream up. The sheer amount of liberty even allows for some evolution during gameplay. I started off with an elven ranger who I thought would be good in ranged combat, but I eventually realized that she worked better as a second spellcaster who specialized in healing. A few levels later, and I had an impressive cleric wannabe curing poison and dishing out restoration incantations when she wasn't offing foes with her bow and arrow.<blockquote data-align="right" data-size="large">It's clear from the very first moments of the game that the developers are trying to be as unfashionable as a pair of acid-washed jeans.</blockquote>Managing your party is more involved than in most RPGs, so you can't just storm off looking for adventure. First, you need to take care of business by buying food. Without it, you're not allowed to rest, which soon causes your party to grow tired and drop ability scores. You also need to rest to regain health and mana, because neither regenerates on its own over time. Not much of this is spelled out, and the tooltips offered up at the start of the game don't do much to explain the basics. All becomes clear if you're patient, though, or if you remember doing this stuff many years ago. Nevertheless, the game could use more hand-holding in the beginning.<figure data-align="right" data-size="medium" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2423601-0002.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2423601" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2423601-0002.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2423601"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_medium/416/4161502/2423601-0002.jpg"></a><figcaption>Battles in M&MXL are spectacularly hard and unforgiving. It took three hours to beat these guys. Well, not really, but it felt that long.</figcaption></figure>Like most RPGs released when grunge was still a thing, M&MXL features a first-person camera and grid-based movement where you move one step at a time. This system works relatively smoothly. Yes, you're stuck with an odd perspective that forces you to view the world as if the party were crammed into a car and looking out through the windshield, and the entire four-person party has to trudge as one through dungeons and forests, like a tank bristling with battle-axes and magic wands. But you soon get used to navigating in such a restricted fashion.Movement has even been improved from the days of yore. M&MXL features turn-based combat, so you can't gimmick the system. Back in the day, it was common to cheat through real-time battles with tricks like the Eye of the Beholder Two Step, where you would zip forward to hit a monster and then immediately retreat before it could hit you back. Here, you're locked into battle once an enemy closes and the fight begins. So instead of dipsy-doodling back and forth, you're stuck going toe-to-toe with the bad guys. This results in some grueling combat, since you have virtually no range of motion once melee combat has started and no ability at all to choose the better part of valor and run away.<blockquote data-size="large" data-align="left">Managing your party is more involved than in most RPGs, so you can't just storm off looking for adventure.</blockquote>In some ways, the game goes too far. Not only does it take away the exploits common to first-person RPGs in the '90s, but it hammers away at you relentlessly (even at the lower "adventurer" setting). Combat is unforgiving right from the opening tutorial quest to clean spiders out of an underground lair. Monsters flank and surround you in almost every other fight, frequently spawning in out of nowhere to your rear. Just when you've got your hands full with that minotaur in your face, along come two more to hassle you from behind. Most monsters also have devastating special abilities. Almost every enemy has the ability to stun you, poison you, enfeeble you, petrify you, hit you with extra attacks, and more. Wolves and goblins can insta-kill party members if they get lucky. I don't recall an easy battle in the entire campaign. That sounds sort of fun and intense, but really, I could have done without titanic half-hour struggles to best the likes of two goblins, a couple of cavemen, and a pack of panthers.<figure data-align="left" data-size="medium" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2423610-0003.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2423610" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2423610-0003.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2423610"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_medium/416/4161502/2423610-0003.jpg"></a><figcaption>Balance can be an issue in spots. You can easily run into enemies that will slice you to ribbons for not being at a high-enough level, like these nasty spectres.</figcaption></figure>M&MXL isn't impossibly hard, but the punishing difficulty can lead to tedium. You can (eventually) beat any monster, group of monsters, or even the game's collection of brutally tough bosses by thinking about what you're doing when it comes to strategizing and spellcasting. The extreme challenge is a natural fit for a revamped classic, but that doesn't make the occasional bitter pill of a battle easier to swallow. When actually playing the game, I was too busy cursing out the nagas or spiders gooning me from all sides to appreciate the retro character of the battle difficulty.How dated M&MXL is in other areas is harder to appreciate. The story isn't particularly well developed. The opening preamble is about as exciting as listening to someone recite a tax return, and there isn't much of a tale told during the game itself. Your party consists of a bunch of heroes, oddly called "raiders," who are out to do good things for the human empire in a time of unrest. There isn't much role-playing to be had here; the game is a dry tactical affair where combat is the first order of the day, followed up by the odd puzzle.Monster stock is limited. Areas and dungeons are populated by just a few specific types of creatures or human thugs, and the pace can drag because fighting the same fight over and over again. Loot isn't varied or particularly imaginative, either when it's dropped or when you check out what's available in shops. It gets better as you go, but there isn't a lot of memorable "gotta have it" gear. As a result, you can go for hours with few serious upgrades of weapons and armor. How items are doled out is also strange. Monsters don't tend to drop much when they're slain, but chests loaded with goodies and gold are strewn all over the wilderness like some kind of medieval take on geocaching.<figure data-align="center" data-size="large" data-img-src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2423612-0004.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2423612" data-resize-url="" data-resized="" data-embed-type="image"><a href="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/416/4161502/2423612-0004.jpg" data-ref-id="1300-2423612"><img src="http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_super/416/4161502/2423612-0004.jpg"></a><figcaption>Minotaurs aren't too hellish in a labyrinth, but you don't want to be surrounded by three or four of them in a forest.</figcaption></figure>The throwback production values are as traditional as the adventure itself, though these elements have not aged all that tastefully. Animations can be choppy, especially in forests, and slowdown is a common occurrence in the wilderness and when there are multiple lighting effects on the screen at the same time. Sound is also sparse, with what seems like a handful of weapon and monster effects. Hero battle boasts like the orc warrior's "I kill you!" are repeated constantly. Even worse, your heroes shout their cries of sadness about being knocked out or killed a few seconds before the blow is actually delivered, so you get advance warning when somebody is about to be taken down. This makes battles a teensy bit anticlimactic.Might & Magic X: Legacy is a somewhat successful trip back in time to an era when RPGs were both simpler and more complicated than they are today, and a lot more demanding of players when it came to combat. If nostalgia drives you to visit this particular kingdom, you'll not likely regret the time spend there. If your good old days weren't brimming with games of this nature, it's more difficult to appreciate the take-no-prisoners challenge and overlook the limitations. Fri, 24 Jan 2014 12:01:00 -0800 http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/might-magic-x-legacy/1900-6415645/

Gamespot's Site MashupEpic: Gears of War sale doesn't mean we've quit game developmentPlayer vs Gamer Episode 5: Mad About MaddenMight & Magic X: Legacy

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Top 5 Skyrim Mods of the Week - Top Immersion Mods

Written By Kom Limpulnam on Minggu, 26 Januari 2014 | 23.26

Top 5 Skyrim Mods trawls the enormous mod catalogue so you don't have to, bringing the very best world-changing mods to your screen. From high detailed armour mods to exploding chickens, there's nothing our bold adventurers won't try.

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Might & Magic X: Legacy

You need to have the nostalgia gene to fully appreciate Might & Magic X: Legacy. I do, especially when it comes to role-playing games, so I did. But this is one of those "genre within a genre" retro affairs that self-consciously turns its back on modern conventions and embraces what us old folks were stuck with back in that antediluvian era known as the 1990s. Limbic Entertainment has created an old-fashioned RPG epic that might well have landed on some "best of" lists at the end of 1996. If you're the sort of person who fondly remembers a time before the Might & Magic name meant nothing but turn-based fantasy strategy, this game is for you.

Noting that M&MXL is not for everyone isn't necessarily an insult, either. On the contrary, it's clear from the very first moments of the game that the developers are trying to be as unfashionable as a pair of acid-washed jeans. Everything about this game can be traced back to first-person party-based RPGs from the 1990s, like the original M&M games, the Wizardry series, and even the Eye of the Beholder D&D line. The campaign setting of Ashan is all new for this franchise, however, having been ported over from Might & Magic Heroes right down to the goofy winged helmets. Oddly enough, this approach actually makes M&MXL more of a traditional fantasy game than its forebears, as the original M&M role-players blended spaceships in with their swords and sorcery. Still, the general objective seems to have been to create a new game that picks up right where this style of RPG left off about 15 years ago.

The M&MXL bestiary includes the usual roster of fantasy monsters and mythological creatures, like this manticore, which almost looks like a cute puppy dog about to tear your throat out at this angle.

And that mission has been accomplished. Well, mostly. Several core components of the game are well done. There is a fair amount of choice when it comes to character creation, with four races and 12 classes (three per race) spread along the might and magic spectrums. Don't expect anything more revolutionary than the likes of dwarven defenders, human freemages, elven bladedancers, and orc barbarians in the beginning, but you have a lot of freedom to specialize once your party starts leveling up and you begin doling out points between attribute stats and skills. You can specialize in everything from maces and bows to a whopping seven schools of magic, allowing for the custom-crafting of almost any sort of heroic adventurer that you can dream up. The sheer amount of liberty even allows for some evolution during gameplay. I started off with an elven ranger who I thought would be good in ranged combat, but I eventually realized that she worked better as a second spellcaster who specialized in healing. A few levels later, and I had an impressive cleric wannabe curing poison and dishing out restoration incantations when she wasn't offing foes with her bow and arrow.

It's clear from the very first moments of the game that the developers are trying to be as unfashionable as a pair of acid-washed jeans.

Managing your party is more involved than in most RPGs, so you can't just storm off looking for adventure. First, you need to take care of business by buying food. Without it, you're not allowed to rest, which soon causes your party to grow tired and drop ability scores. You also need to rest to regain health and mana, because neither regenerates on its own over time. Not much of this is spelled out, and the tooltips offered up at the start of the game don't do much to explain the basics. All becomes clear if you're patient, though, or if you remember doing this stuff many years ago. Nevertheless, the game could use more hand-holding in the beginning.

Battles in M&MXL are spectacularly hard and unforgiving. It took three hours to beat these guys. Well, not really, but it felt that long.

Like most RPGs released when grunge was still a thing, M&MXL features a first-person camera and grid-based movement where you move one step at a time. This system works relatively smoothly. Yes, you're stuck with an odd perspective that forces you to view the world as if the party were crammed into a car and looking out through the windshield, and the entire four-person party has to trudge as one through dungeons and forests, like a tank bristling with battle-axes and magic wands. But you soon get used to navigating in such a restricted fashion.

Movement has even been improved from the days of yore. M&MXL features turn-based combat, so you can't gimmick the system. Back in the day, it was common to cheat through real-time battles with tricks like the Eye of the Beholder Two Step, where you would zip forward to hit a monster and then immediately retreat before it could hit you back. Here, you're locked into battle once an enemy closes and the fight begins. So instead of dipsy-doodling back and forth, you're stuck going toe-to-toe with the bad guys. This results in some grueling combat, since you have virtually no range of motion once melee combat has started and no ability at all to choose the better part of valor and run away.

Managing your party is more involved than in most RPGs, so you can't just storm off looking for adventure.

In some ways, the game goes too far. Not only does it take away the exploits common to first-person RPGs in the '90s, but it hammers away at you relentlessly (even at the lower "adventurer" setting). Combat is unforgiving right from the opening tutorial quest to clean spiders out of an underground lair. Monsters flank and surround you in almost every other fight, frequently spawning in out of nowhere to your rear. Just when you've got your hands full with that minotaur in your face, along come two more to hassle you from behind. Most monsters also have devastating special abilities. Almost every enemy has the ability to stun you, poison you, enfeeble you, petrify you, hit you with extra attacks, and more. Wolves and goblins can insta-kill party members if they get lucky. I don't recall an easy battle in the entire campaign. That sounds sort of fun and intense, but really, I could have done without titanic half-hour struggles to best the likes of two goblins, a couple of cavemen, and a pack of panthers.

Balance can be an issue in spots. You can easily run into enemies that will slice you to ribbons for not being at a high-enough level, like these nasty spectres.

M&MXL isn't impossibly hard, but the punishing difficulty can lead to tedium. You can (eventually) beat any monster, group of monsters, or even the game's collection of brutally tough bosses by thinking about what you're doing when it comes to strategizing and spellcasting. The extreme challenge is a natural fit for a revamped classic, but that doesn't make the occasional bitter pill of a battle easier to swallow. When actually playing the game, I was too busy cursing out the nagas or spiders gooning me from all sides to appreciate the retro character of the battle difficulty.

How dated M&MXL is in other areas is harder to appreciate. The story isn't particularly well developed. The opening preamble is about as exciting as listening to someone recite a tax return, and there isn't much of a tale told during the game itself. Your party consists of a bunch of heroes, oddly called "raiders," who are out to do good things for the human empire in a time of unrest. There isn't much role-playing to be had here; the game is a dry tactical affair where combat is the first order of the day, followed up by the odd puzzle.

Monster stock is limited. Areas and dungeons are populated by just a few specific types of creatures or human thugs, and the pace can drag because fighting the same fight over and over again. Loot isn't varied or particularly imaginative, either when it's dropped or when you check out what's available in shops. It gets better as you go, but there isn't a lot of memorable "gotta have it" gear. As a result, you can go for hours with few serious upgrades of weapons and armor. How items are doled out is also strange. Monsters don't tend to drop much when they're slain, but chests loaded with goodies and gold are strewn all over the wilderness like some kind of medieval take on geocaching.

Minotaurs aren't too hellish in a labyrinth, but you don't want to be surrounded by three or four of them in a forest.

The throwback production values are as traditional as the adventure itself, though these elements have not aged all that tastefully. Animations can be choppy, especially in forests, and slowdown is a common occurrence in the wilderness and when there are multiple lighting effects on the screen at the same time. Sound is also sparse, with what seems like a handful of weapon and monster effects. Hero battle boasts like the orc warrior's "I kill you!" are repeated constantly. Even worse, your heroes shout their cries of sadness about being knocked out or killed a few seconds before the blow is actually delivered, so you get advance warning when somebody is about to be taken down. This makes battles a teensy bit anticlimactic.

Might & Magic X: Legacy is a somewhat successful trip back in time to an era when RPGs were both simpler and more complicated than they are today, and a lot more demanding of players when it came to combat. If nostalgia drives you to visit this particular kingdom, you'll not likely regret the time spend there. If your good old days weren't brimming with games of this nature, it's more difficult to appreciate the take-no-prisoners challenge and overlook the limitations.

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