Well what an exciting week it was last week. The Game Awards and Sony’s PlayStation Experience both taking place, resulting in plenty of game announcements. I’ve actually started this week’s Geekly Review on the Saturday night in anticipation for Monday morning, as I’ve completely enjoyed the week’s news and wanted to contribute to the GR, but when Will presses the publish button on this post i’ll be in New York, so wanted to get some thoughts in before I headed off to New York for the week.
PlayStation Experience 2016
So let’s start with my personal highlight of the year with regards to video game conferences. This thing was astronomical. It had been heavily rumoured that Sony’s slower year of reveals and no show for Paris Games week meant they were holding back for their own stage show. It would appear that was the case as the show was a constant barrage of new announced games, or new trailers for the games we’re already hyped about. The spectacular thing about this PSX is that they got so much hype and excitement without even referencing the new God of War, Spiderman PS4 game, Final Fantasy Remake, Shenmue 3 or Red Dead Redemption 2. It’s a quite staggering list of games that they revealed and reminded us of.
To finally get a look at the Crash Bandicoot original trilogy remaster, and to actually be happy with how it looked. I admit after seeing the Crash from Skylanders, I’d worried that this character model would be used for the new remasters. Fortunately that is not the case, and the N.Sane Trilogy as it’s known as looks perfect. The nostalgia from seeing some of those levels I’d played years ago but in new visuals. Wonderful stuff.
I could go on and on about it, but I don’t need to on the GR as I’ve got a nice summarized (and since I published it, updated with MORE trailers) post of all the games that were revealed to us at PSX right here. I Will just leave The Last of us Part 2 trailer here though.
Death Stranding
So a game that will be coming to PS4, and has massive help in getting to where it is from Sony had a new trailer drop at the Game Awards. I won’t say much more about it other than you must watch it. Featuring Norman Reedus, Mads Mikkelsen & Guillermo Del Toro. I’m upset that the Silent Hills game from Kojima staring these guys was initially cancelled, but from that cancellation and fuck over from Konami, Sony and PS4 players are in a better place for it as Kojima is given the freedom to create what he wanted, and still got his ideal cast members to star in this game. What a remarkable event to come out from that cancellation.
Decima Engine Announced
During one of the panels from PlayStation Experience, Guerllia Games (Horizon: Zero Dawn & Killzone) announced the new video game engine in which Kojima’s Death Stranding is being built from Decima. It’s created by Guerilla Games, so it’s really awesome to see them and Kojima working closely for the engine to be used for his first game away from Konami. Back in the year Kojima and PS4 Lead Architect (and creator of KNACK) went on a global trip visiting each of Sony’s first party studio developers. It was believed they were looking for an engine for Kojima’s at the time unannounced game.
On the visit to Guerilla Games, it was revealed on this panel that they literally handed over a box to Kojima containing the Decima engine source code before any agreements or contracts for the games exclusivity had taken place. So that’s some gesture of good faith.
Also during the panel, Kojima confirmed that his studio’s Kojima Productions was to be opening a second office in Amsterdam which is where Guerilla Games are based. Can you smell that Sony / Kojima partnership grow ever more?
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 Trailer
Away from the video games news, shortly after the PlayStation Experience, Marvel dropped a new trailer out for Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2. All I can say is I love baby Groot.
The Game Awards 2016
And back to the games, The newly revamped Game Awards took place over the weekend at an un godly hour in the UK on a work night. So we were a few hours late getting the posts up. There were some new trailers for games, and some new games revealed altogether.
Check out the winners here, and check out the world premier trailers here.
And with that I’m off to New York, I’ll be back in the UK on the 13th December, so no blurb from me till then.
– Murr
Arma 3 Apex
I’ve had Arma 3 for a while and have played it a little sporadically since I’ve owned it, but recently I’ve been playing it again on the new Tanoa map and have been having a blast!
Me and my group have mostly been playing Wasteland which essentially makes the map a sandbox shooter with both PVP and PVE elements to it. You can earn money by completing dynamic missions that pop up all over the map, some are simply clearing out enemies from an area whilst others are a little more challenging like taking out a squadron of helicopters.
One thing I had never tried before this weekend was the co-op missions for the game, but I had played a few of them and have to say that they’re actually really good fun. There is a lot of tactical play to it and it was really good fun making little plays to take out multiple enemies without alerting others, it’s also super atmospheric with one mission taking place at night in the rain and it’s just awesome.
For the most part though we do just play multiplayer and mess about – most of the time we’re just messing about and getting ourselves blown up. It’s kind of like GTA V really, just without the pedestrians and it’s a lot of fun!
The Tanoa map is also really cool, the jungle parts are super dense and very easy to get mixed up and lost in, or lose sight of enemies in.
I’ve never really played any Arma 3 mods properly, but if we keep playing it like we are at the moment then I will definitely be looking in to some.
The Division Survival
I’ve finally had the chance to try out the latest DLC from The Division – Survival. Granted I haven’t had too long on it, but from what I played of it, I thought it was really good.
In Survival you enter in to a session – either PVE or PVP, but all still online and you have to work towards crafting gear to get extracted from the DarkZone, to do this you’ll need to craft a mask and a flare gun, then enter the DarkZone and set off your flare. The game mode takes place across the whole map and you start out with only a pistol and limited clothing. You can craft new guns, clothing armour and other items from scavenging around the map and killing enemies.
You start to freeze when you’re out in the open and if you don’t have very warm clothing on, you can also starve, die from thirst and from virus infection. If you find yourself freezing, you can warm up either by fire barrels found randomly or by going in buildings.
I only survived around 25 minutes on my first try and that was just in the PVE mode. It was tough and unforgiving, but it was really good fun and a great direction for the game. It also looks really good with snow heavily falling meaning visibility is at a minimum which creates an excellent atmosphere.
If you survive you can get random loot rewards, but you also get rewarded depending on other factors like how many other players are left, how many enemies you kill etc… I was about 15th on my first run and got rewarded with some decent loot.
I can see myself playing this mode quite a lot!
-Will
