News
2 CommentsWar Thunder’s latest update promises a co-operative horde mode
War Thunder, the free-to-play vehicular combat game, has launched its first update of 2017. Called Assault, update 1.67 will add a kind of co-operative horde mode to the game for the first time and feature new maps, vehicles and animations.
Assault Mode will task small groups of players with defending a single location against waves of tanks or aircraft. Enemies will approach from all sides, and players will have to be strategic about where and how they maneuver. Pilots will have an even tougher time, as wave after wave of enemy bombers at different altitudes will pound the area.
A new arcade multiplayer map, called Guiana Highlands, is a fantastical plateau cut through with deep canyons. The cloud layer is actually below ground level, which sits at 6,000 feet. It promises some intense...
News
199 CommentsMass Effect: Andromeda’s character animations continue to be mocked online
Mass Effect: Andromeda will be released on March 21, but pre-release copies are already in the hands of critics and streamers. That’s not good news for BioWare, as people are having a field day capturing moments in which the in-game animation system breaks down. The facial animations, in particular, aren’t looking great.
This isn’t the first time the game’s animations have proven to be a problem before launch. But the reports, videos and gifs that show off the game’s flawed animations have increased since review copies have been released.
Reports are varied about how bad the issue is, and how much it affects players’ enjoyment of the game, but it does seem like the animations could have used a bit more time to be perfected.
You can watch the game’s first hour if you’d like to get a...
Cover Story
Issue
26
February 27, 2017
What the game industry thinks of Nintendo’s Switch
We talk with third-party developers and industry executives about what to expect.
Read moreNews
7 CommentsHearthstone PSA: You can win one free Journey to Un’Goro card pack this week
Hearthstone’s next expansion pack, Journey to Un’Goro, is still a little ways out, currently planned for launch some time in April. But that doesn’t mean you can’t start preparing now.
Today, Blizzard launched the latest Tavern Brawl in the game, and it’s a repeat of one we’ve seen a bunch of times in the past: “Encounter at the Crossroads.” In this Brawl, players choose a class and then are given completely randomized decks including cards specific to that class. Pretty simple stuff, and not a lot of strategy beyond playing over and over until you manage to get a less terrible random deck than your opponent.
There’s a catch, though. In most weeks, the reward for Tavern Brawl is a single classic pack, which is useful for players new to the game but arguably less so for anyone who’s been...
News
24 CommentsThe Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild wins Best of Gamescom 2016
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild took top honors in Gamescom 2016's list of award winners shown at the four-day expo.
Breath of the Wild, which caused near-stampedes at E3 2016, was tapped for Best of Gamescom as well as best console game for Wii U. For Honor, Ubisoft Montreal's hack-and-slash game, was named best game on both PC and the PlayStation 4 (it will also launch on Xbox One). Sea of Thieves, the pirate adventure from Rare, was named best Xbox One game and best multiplayer game. All three are due to release in 2017.
Little Nightmares, by Tarsier Games (to be published by Bandai Namco), took the Gamescom Indie Award and Electronic Arts' forthcoming Battlefield 1 claimed best action honors as well as Gamescom's Consumer Award.
The full list of winners may be seen here....
Video
13 CommentsWe played Dawn of War 3 multiplayer, and it’s really good
While playing Dawn of War 3, there are times when I'm transported back 20 years, to the first flush of real-time strategy's '90s boom. A character urges, "we're under attack." It's very much like an Orc in WarCraft 2 (1995), scuttling away from a marauding herd of Paladins.
Although the RTS has changed little in terms of basic format, the details have been tweaked so fundamentally, that the genre has been deceptively transformed.
Few developers have done more to effect this transformation than Relic, which, since its founding in 1997, has dedicated itself almost entirely to one genre.
Relic Entertainment
Dawn of War 3
Through the Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War series, and its World War II kin Company of Heroes, Relic has tweaked and refined the RTS, forever...
News
33 CommentsCapcom bundles up its Disney Afternoon NES classics for PS4, Xbox One and PC
Next month, Capcom goes barreling down your 90’s-kid memory lane with The Disney Afternoon Collection on PlayStation 4, Windows PC and Xbox One. It's a six-game anthology of the 8-bit adaptations of four beloved Disney cartoons.
Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers and its sequel, Darkwing Duck, DuckTales and DuckTales 2, and TaleSpin, all of which first appeared on the Nintendo Entertainment System in the early 1990s, are included. These are not remastered, so bask in the 8-bit sprites and chiptunes of days gone by.
The collection launches April 18 for $19.99. It will also offer some new content and options, including boss rush and time-attack modes, plus a rewind feature that allows players to start over just before a mistake was made rather than replay an entire level. A museum mode also will...
News
4 CommentsSeveral thousand get temporary bans as For Honor battles experience-farming exploit
About 1,500 people have gotten three-day bans and another 4,000 have been warned as Ubisoft moves to contain the so-called "AFK Farming" exploit in its fighting game, For Honor.
The exploit rather crudely takes advantage of doing nothing within a match yet still earning end-game rewards and level progression. "AFK farming" entails keeping a character moving somehow during a match (typically by hooking a rubber band to the thumbstick) without playing.
Anyone who finishes a match is eligible for bonuses and some specific challenges, called "orders" set participating in or completing certain types of matches, or with certain fighters, as a condition to receive even more XP.
Writing on the For Honor subreddit, For Honor's development team explained both the bans and the offending conduct....
Video
12 CommentsWatch the first hour of Mass Effect: Andromeda
Mass Effect: Andromeda is nearly here: The game launches on March 21. Polygon has already spent considerable time with BioWare’s latest alien romance simulator (with a side of action gameplay), and we’ve recorded our first hour with Andromeda above.
Watch us get introduced to Commander Ryder, the new hero of the fourth Mass Effect game. It’s the first time fans will play as someone other than Commander Shepherd, but we think they’re going to like her ... or him, depending on which choice they make. (We went with the lady Ryder.)
Although customizing Ryder typically takes way, way longer than our video suggests, thanks to all those options, we jump into the game itself for a taste of how Andromeda plays. As we wrote in our preview late last month, there’s a lot to figure out about the...
News
2 CommentsDCS: Normandy 1944 adds 93,000 square kilometers of Europe to fight over
DCS World, the free-to-play vehicle combat simulator from Eagle Dynamics, is getting a massive new update called DCS: Normandy 1944 Map and WWII Assets Pack. When combined with opther WWII-era fighter modules, it promises to be one of the most interesting additions to the combat flight sim genre in a decade.
The basic version of DCS World comes with a basic set of maps, as well as flyable modern-day Russian attack aircraft and the trainer version of the WWII-era P-51. Additional modules, available for as little at $9.99 and as much as $59.99, add new aircraft as well as the ability to take command of ground-based vehicles in a real-time strategy game.
DCS: Normandy 1944 will retail for $59.99, and include “the famous D-Day landing beaches and the ‘Atlantic Wall,’ rolling bocage fields...
News
11 CommentsSystem Shock 3 is coming to consoles, thanks to new publisher
System Shock 3 is heading to PC and consoles with help from Starbreeze, the Swedish publisher whose catalogue ranges from Payday 2 and Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons to 2018’s Psychonauts 2.
The company announced that it’s investing $12 million in the project, currently in development at Otherside Entertainment. Starbreeze is one of several big names, attached to the long-awaited System Shock game, narrative design veteran Warren Spector (Deus Ex) chief among them.
Starbreeze’s investment enables Otherside Entertainment to retain all rights of the System Shock 3 property while benefiting from the publisher’s marketing and promotional muscle. The distribution-only partnership is similar to the one Starbreeze has with Double Fine Productions, makers of Psychonauts 2.
System Shock 3...
News
1 CommentOverwatch’s new hero Orisa goes live on consoles and PC next week
Orisa, the new Overwatch hero that’s been in testing on Windows PC for the past two weeks, will be live and playable in all versions of the game starting on Tuesday, March 21, Blizzard Entertainment announced today.
Blizzard also released a new behind-the-scenes look at Overwatch’s 24th hero today, which you can watch in the video above. Blizzard dives into the origin and design philosophy of the character, and talks about her earliest iterations. Orisa is the third post-release character to join Overwatch after Ana and Sombra.
Orisa is the creation of an 11-year-old robotics engineering prodigy, Efi Oladele. Designed as a peacekeeping robot, Orisa is technically the game’s youngest hero. Blizzard describes her role as “the central anchor of her team” who can protect her teammates with...
News
7 CommentsRetro shooter Strafe delayed to May
The release of Strafe, the ’90s-tastic first-person shooter from indie studio Pixel Titans, has been pushed back to May 9, publisher Devolver Digital announced today.
That represents a delay of six weeks: Devolver Digital said in January that it planned to launch Strafe on March 28. (If you’ve seen the trailer that the company put out to announce that release date, you’ll notice that the new one above is an exact duplicate, except with the new date.) The May 9 date will apply for the game’s PlayStation 4 version along with Mac and Windows PC, a Devolver Digital representative confirmed to Polygon. The company has not yet announced the price of the game.
“Strafe requires over 150,000 meticulously placed polygons to create its bleeding edge graphics,” said Thom Glunt, game director on S...
News
2 CommentsNo Man’s Sky update lets you drive around any planet
No Man’s Sky developer Hello Games recently patched the game with a minor update concerning exocraft, the pilotable vehicles that the studio introduced in last week’s massive Path Finder Update.
The Path Finder Update gave players new navigation options in the form of three types of exocraft, which could be generated by building a pad called a “geobay.” However, it was only possible to construct geobays on one’s home planet. If you visited another planet, you’d be stuck with the old method of getting around: flying across the world, which requires a lot of plutonium to fuel your aircraft’s launch thrusters.
Hello Games recently released the version 1.22 patch for No Man’s Sky, which allows players to build a geobay on any planet. Now it’s possible to summon a vehicle anywhere in the...
News
2 CommentsRocket League getting free new mode with an electrified ball
Developer Psyonix will release a new mode for Rocket League next week that will mix up how players score goals and will introduce a new concept — damage — thanks to an electrified ball.
Rocket League’s new mode, Dropshot, is coming March 22. Instead of bouncing the ball into a goal (or basket) to score points, in Dropshot players will have to break through the floor of the arena to form goal openings and scoring opportunities.
Dropshot matches will take place in a new hexagonal arena called Core 707. Players will have to use the electrified ball to smash holes into the floor of that stadium. Here’s Psyonix’s official description of the new mode and stadium.
Regular goalposts are nowhere to be found in the new stadium, so players must create their own dynamic scoring areas by using an...
Opinion
80 CommentsMeet the guy who spent over $4,000 on No Man’s Sky
I’m a pretty big fan of Hello Games’ No Man’s Sky, although that’s something of an understatement.
I’ve played the game for over 400 hours so far, having explored 415 planets across 135 systems. I’ve been rather prolific on Twitter, sharing experiences and evangelizing the game out of a sense that most unhappy players don’t quite “get” it. I'm a denizen of the related Reddit subs and have gained some small renown there. My wife and 10-year-old daughter are likely very tired of hearing No Man’s Sky anecdotes.
All told, I’ve spent around $4,000 on the game. This is how it happened.
Adding it all up
I first heard of No Man’s Sky in the summer of 2015. The previews looked pretty amazing and, as I had a PS4, I was excited for its release. I also grabbed Elite: Dangerous when it landed on...
Video
13 CommentsTake a look at Battlefield 1: They Shall Not Pass
Last week, I spent a few hours in the company of Battlefield 1's new expansion, They Shall Not Pass. As you can see from the video above, there's no let-up from the frenetic and bloody action of the core game.
With close-quarters combat a major component of this DLC, it's an extremely challenging, die-a-lot offering, even for the most accomplished of players.
This multiplayer release introduces a key component missing from the original game: the French Army. When most of us think of World War I, we tend to picture the Western Front, much of which took place on French land.
Electronic Arts / DICE
Battlefield 1: They Shall Not Pass
This addition is entirely satisfying, with French voices, uniforms and weapons adding a sense of authenticity to the often...
Penny Arcade Expo
11 CommentsToeJam & Earl is coming to Nintendo Switch
Toejam & Earl: Back in the Groove, the long-awaited fourth installment in a series more than 25 years old, is coming to Nintendo Switch when it launches this year. We got our hands on it (although not the Switch version) at PAX East in Boston, and starting it up was like booting up a dusty old Sega Genesis, except with a huge graphics upgrade.
From the shape of that first island, to the speed and rhythm with which the famous Funkotronians walk, the latest entry in the ToeJam & Earl franchise feels like a loving reboot of what made the 1991 original so much fun.
ToeJam & Earl was a franchise that seemed to lose its way over the years, straying far from the isometric exploration that many found so endearing. The development team went back to the series’ roots, even including a level zero,...
News
9 CommentsCities: Skylines celebrates birthday with free DLC
Cities: Skylines has sold more than 3.5 million copies worldwide, publisher Paradox Interactive said on the game's two-year anniversary, and it will celebrate with some free DLC.
The free content will be a building pack called "Pearls From the East." It's three new buildings, the Panda Zoo, the Chinese Temple, and the Shanghai Pearl Tower. They will be made available "soon," Paradox said.
Mariina Hallikainen, the chief executive of Cities: Skylines developer Colossal Order, thanked the game's vibrant community for its long support. "Seeing how many people have rallied around it, and seeing the incredible community sharing their cities and mods has been so rewarding and inspiring," she said in a statement.
Cities: Skylines sold one million copies by April 2015, a month after its launch.
C...
Culture
4 CommentsShadow of War already has a fan-favorite NPC, and a tribute video to him
In what may be a first, an NPC from an alpha build of a game has gotten an official tribute video from its maker, five months before launch. Welcome to the Az-Laar meme.
Az-Laar is the beefy, gate-crashing Kool-Aid Orc from Middle-earth: Shadow of War's gameplay preview earlier this week. Enlisted as a "living battering ram" in a siege, Az-Laar unexpectedly became a fan favorite for his oratorical skills (at 2:51 of the video) and for tearing the head off an enemy (at 4:59).
Alas, he perished, dunked in siege oil and deep-fried like a state fair treat (at 8:36). YouTubers posted their condolences to Az-Laar in the video's comments, enough that the Shadow of War YouTube account noticed. They’re stirring up the masses on Twitter, too.
Az-Laar's doom appears to be an unavoidable...
News
6 CommentsSteam tweaks user review scores again
Steam continues to tinker with how user reviews affect a game's overall score on the marketplace. Now, reviews from those who received the game for free do not count toward a game's overall user score.
This change includes those who received a game as a gift, or during a free weekend. Back in the fall, Steam changed its review structure to scrub reviews from those who bought or acquired activation keys for the game (as opposed to acquiring it from Steam). That was explained as a preventive measure against what Steam viewed as gaming its reviews system.
Steam at the time identified more than 150 games for which user reviews from Steam keys were demonstrably more positive than direct purchases. An analysis later done by Steam Spy found 427 games most affected by the change, with the...
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