Tonight was the event gamers have been waiting for, Ubisoft have unveiled their next offerings in their showcase event Ubisoft Forward
Showcasing many of the big name titles, unfortunately due to the social media age some were leaked before hand.
So here is my run down of the events :
So first up we have the colossal FPS franchise FarCry with the next instalment FarCry 6, those of you out there who are big Breaking Bad fans you will notice the familiar face of Giancarlo Esposito or Gus as we know him. Set in the vast open war torn world of Yara FarCry 6 is available 18th February 2021.
Next up we have another huge title from Ubisoft, the next Assassins Creed instalment, Assassins Creed Valhalla. Available 17th November 2020 this time Assassins Creed takes place in the time of the Vikings, check out the trailer below and see for yourself :
Up next Ubisoft are going mobile, Ubisoft are bringing the free to play fighter Brawlhalla, which already has over 40 million users on consoles to mobile devices 6th August 2020. Check out the trailer below:
Up next is the one I am most looking forward to being a fan of the franchise, Watchdogs Legion is coming 29th October 2020. Set in a dystopian London city setting, the chase is on…. check out the trailer :
Coming next is a new title, Hyperscape – a new battle royale game with a futuristic twist, get into the game with the open beta live on PC now, the full game releases this summer on consoles. Take a look at the trailer here :
Coming next the Tom Clancy announcement, Tom Clancy’s Elite Squad is coming to mobiles soon. Bringing the famous Tom Clancy Rainbow Six 5v5 multiplayer time mobile with a cartoony art style, check out the trailer below;
Lastly we have the mythical Might and Magic Era of Chaos coming to mobiles.
If you like Dark Souls and love a bit of Dead Space then you need to take a look at this.
Coming July 30th from Cradle Games is the new space horror RPG title Hellpoint.
The game takes place in Irid Novo a derelict space colony in a deep dark black hole. You play as a Spawn, a mechanical and soulless slave forced into taking part in a scientific experiment that hides deep dark secrets….. WELL HELL you had me at hello !!!!
Hellpoint is available 30th July on all platforms, you can preorder now by clicking on this link (you can also receives discount) –
Stay tuned for more updates as we get them and to see more of Hellpoint check out Cradle Games on Twitter @CradleGames and check out the website playhellpoint.com
PlayStation have released images of what we can expect the next gen of games to look like when they appear on ship shelves later this year.
Using the art from upcoming Spiderman title Myles Morales (the one I’m most looking forward to) PlayStation have given us an idea of the overall concept :
So what’s your thoughts? I think it’s a good progression from PS4.
2K have released the latest gameplay trailer for the upcoming title WWE Battlegrounds:
Wrestling with a difference, brawl with superstars or brawl with legends but most importantly you can brawl with your friends and settle those old feuds the right way … on the mat.
WWE 2K Battlegrounds is released September 18th across all platforms.
Price : £4.99 (currently reduced to £3.99 on Xbox Store)
Platforms Available On : Xbox One, Playstation 4, Nintendo Switch and Steam
Reviewed on Xbox One.
Overview:
Clash Force are tasked to take down the evil Dr Crackhead and his minions and foil his fiendish plans.
You guide the team of Voom, Scorpido and Echid through many different levels including deep forests and sun beaten deserts ending at Crackheads flying fortress in the final battle.
Gameplay
If you ever played videogames or sat on the sofa watching cartoons back in the good old pixel days this is going to definitely appeal to you. Fast paced action aplenty with baddies on every turn,some more difficult to deal with than others.
When you load up you are greeted with a menu screen taken straight from the arcades of the early 90s full of colour and badass characters to choose from.
Choosing the characters you have the full choice of Voom and his gang, I picked Voom simply because he looked like a badass leader. Off you go into the world to thwart Dr Crackhead (I love that name) into very similar platform settings and it’s easy to see that the inspiration has come from the games and cultures of the “pixel age” or late 80s early 90s to be precise, and believe me this isn’t a bad thing whatsoever.
I churned through the first few levels with ease and thought to myself “aah well this will be a quick blast” ooooooh how wrong was I and I didn’t see that I was being lulled into some false sense of security, with that said along came the frustration of being killed at different points of the level and having to go back to the beginning to start again, along came the over jumping moving platforms and falling to my death, good job I have a soft sofa as my controller was slammed into it on numerous occasions.
As frustrating as this game gets it starts to become some sort of addiction as you just have to beat the level and you lose hours doing so.
The gameplay is really well thought out and works well although I would’ve liked to be able to shoot in multiple directions using the analogue stick as sometimes when the baddies are coming from different directions shooting just left and right can be difficult, but that would be my only gripe.
At the end of the chapter you get into the bonus stage giving you the chance to get hold of one of the awesome guns available, giving you better firepower to start the next chapter.
At the end of each level you get the obligatory boss battle and these are so much fun, although can get bloody frustrating (or maybe that’s just me) but the frustration turns to jubilation when you pull off the killer shot. The boss battles remind me of the battles with Dr Robotnik from Sonic with similar mechanics and this certainly isn’t a bad thing at all it only brings me more pleasure in the gameplay.
Graphics and Sounds
If you are from the pixel age as I am you will find the graphical style of Clash Force a pleasure to look at and a joy to play as all the nostalgia vibes. All the levels are really well put together and great to look at and all the inspiration of past styles comes through.
All the characters are well put together and they look good which is important you can actually see what they are, it does sound daft but having played many pixel platformers it can be quite difficult to see what’s what.
The soundtrack is an epic chiptune nod to the cartoons and games of yesterday, I also love the sounds of the different guns (I know it sounds weird) the different guns sound and handle different not just a cosmetic thing.
Summary
Summarising what my thoughts are on Clash Force – it’s basically a very very good game with some slight adjustments making it a great game. Making additions such as adding couch co-op mode or adding the multi direction shooting but please don’t think it’s any detriment to the actual game.
Overall I would recommend the game to anyone and it is one I will keep going back to, at the moment for £3.99 why wouldn’t you ?
Rating out of 5⭐️
I give Clash Force 4⭐️ out of 5
A good overall game that is a lot of fun to play, a couple of adjustments needed (in my opinion) to make it better.
Welcome to the first of the series of pieces where I grab a developer and fire some questions at them to delve a bit deeper into the developer mind.
For this first part I have managed to grab hold of a talented up and coming developer Nidal Nijm, a solo developer working on a new FPS with a difference – Fursan al-Aqsa – Knights of al-Aqsa Mosque.
Let’s get down to business –
What made you want to make games? From since I was a kid, being from Arab ascendance, and a practising muslim who always loved videogames, I always asked myself why the marjority of games I loved to play portray us, Arab and Muslims as terrorists. Why can’t there be some kind of “Islamic Rambo”? From then I decided that whenever I grow up, I would make a game in which we, Arab and Muslims are the good guys.
What games are you into at the moment? About playing games, unfortunately, I am from 2018 without playing games, just focusing my free time on developing my game, as I have a very full time agenda which I need to divide between my real life job of Web Designer, my family (Wife and daughter). But I did play games regularly from 2017 till 2018, one entire year on my PS Vita, especially to get ideas for my game, getting some inspiration. I played a LOT of games, and from each game I got some idea, even if it was small as some on screen information. For example, from Resident Evil Revelations I got the idea of the damage Hud Screen, but in the end, I made it a bit clean, similar to Call of Duty, after feedback received on the videos I publish regularly showcasing my game’s development progress. Another example is from Hotline Miami I got the gameplay design philosophy. In that game you need to die thousands of times until being able to elaborate a strategy to kill the enemies, you need to memorize each enemy position, so after you got a strategy, you can complete the mission. And this same gameplay design I used on my game. I am very proud that people until today, even after one month of the release of the demo, are playing the demo, fighting to get Rank A (it’s hard, truly hard). I am sure the final game (Episode 1) will give players at least 20 hours of gameplay (maybe even more) until the player is able to beat all Missions and get ranking A on all Maps. Also there are some old games which inspired me, like Goldeneye 007 on Nintendo 64 (one of the best games ever), the mission briefing menu is inspired by this classic game.
What’s the game that got you into gaming in the first place? The first game I remember I have ever played was Tetris on the old Gameboy (my first console).
So tell me about your game? Fursan al-Aqsa – Knights of al-Aqsa Mosque is a Third Person Action Game on which you play as Ahmad al-Ghazzawi, a young Palestinian Student who was unjustly tortured and jailed by Israeli Soldiers for 5 years, had all his family killed by an Israeli Airstrike and now after getting out from the prison he seeks revenge against those who wronged him, killed his family and stolen his homeland, by joining a new Palestine Resistance Movement called Fursan al-Aqsa – Knights of al-Aqsa Mosque.
What’s the inspiration behind it? This game is greatly inspired by Hideo Kojima’s Metal Gear Solid, Call of Duty Modern Warfare, Insurgency Sandstorm, Max Payne, Dead to Rights, John Woo Stranglehold, Matrix Path of Neo, My Friend Pedro, Mortal Kombat X (the knife kills fatalities) and Hotline Miami.
What’s the one thing that makes your game stand out from all the other Third Person Shooter games out there? This is kinda “Islamic Max Payne with the violence of Hotline Miami and the difficulty of Dark Souls” which addresses the Israel x Palestine Conflict through the view of the brave Palestine Resistance, breaking the cliché of portraying Arab and Muslims as Terrorists, something never done before in games. In terms of gameplay, players can expect a game with non stop action, advanced 3D graphics and modern gameplay mechanics, however keeping the soul of old school shooters. You will play in missions across ground, sea and sky, with many objectives to accomplish in each mission, epic bosses battles, powerful guns, vehicles to drive, helicopters to take down, and much more. Expect a LOT of Action and Adrenaline! The enemies AI is very advanced and smart, which makes the game hard to beat, yet addicting as soon as you learn how to play it. Also the bullet time effect (i.e Max Payne jump) allows the player to perform spectacular kills at the same time he can deviate from flying bullets in the best John Woo Movies Style 🙂
Will you be adding more to the game in the way of dlc? I plan to release this game into episodes, each episode will come with additional missions, weapons, game modes, some new animations, so technically speaking, yes, each episode is kinda DLC
Do you have any more ideas in the pipeline? My brain is always ruminating on some new gameplay mechanics I can add to my game. This bullet time effect I added recently, after the release of my game’s demo was because the players feedback, which recognized the players`s movement and jump similar to Max Payne. So I said to myself, what if I make it a true Max Payne movement with Bullet Time Effect (Slow motion)? At the moment I think I already added all the gameplay mechanics I want for my game. I was thinking about adding a bullet cam effect (like Sniper Elite), but thinking about it deeply, I gave up this idea, because it will be very hard to implement (programming) and I think it will break the pace of the game (i.e non stop action).
Massive news released from Super Rare today to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the SteamWorld series, two major names from the series SteamWorld Dig and SteamWorld Heist will both get the physical treatment for the first time.
Those not familiar with the SteamWorld franchise here’s a bit of background for you :
SteamWorld Dig – a platform mining adventure with very strong metroidvania influences. You play as Rusty, a lone mining steambot mining through the earth to uncover the riches below also uncovering the threats that lurk there.
A rich Steampunk and Western inspired world awaits you, explore the underground to uncover all the secrets that lurk there and lose yourself in the emergent gameplay.
The beloved indie title is finally available in physical form thanks to Rare Games, also bundled with the game is SteamWorld Dig 2 as a bonus.
SteamWorld Heist – Set a few centuries after SteamWorld Dig 2 you take control of a SteamBot crew to loot and shoot your way round alien spaceships upgrading your crew and weapons as you go.
SteamWorld Heist Ultimate Edition will be fully optimised for the Nintendo Switch and for the first time will come fully bundled with content only previously available as DLC including loads of weapons, upgrades, hats and new missions.
A steampunk out of this world adventure awaits you as you put your strategic skills to the test to work your way through the worlds along with an awesome catchy soundtrack from Steam Powered Giraffe.
Both games are available to preorder from 9th July at 6pm (BST) £30 for the single game or as a collectors double pack at £60 exclusively from Super Rare, follow this link to place your order:
There are limited numbers on this release, only 5,000 worldwide of SteamWorld Dig (SteamWorld Dig 2 included) and SteamWorld Heist only 6,000 worldwide
July’s PS+ titles have been announced and to be fair it’s a strong line up.
First up you have the daddy of NBA games (my opinion) NBA 2K20 –
A strong title (a shame I bought it recently for £3) and one you definitely need in your collection, with a slamming soundtrack and awesome graphics it’s a must for any fan.
Next up is the latest instalment of the adventure franchise Tomb Raider – Rise Of The Tomb Raider (20 year celebration edition) –
Again another strong title and one I haven’t got round to playing so will definitely give this a go.
Lastly this month we also have a third game on offer – Erica an interactive thriller –
Again not played it but from the look of the trailer it’s like a choose your own adventure book come to life which being a lover of that genre from my childhood days (choose you own adventure not thrillers!!) I’ll definitely take a look.
Make sure you head on over to the PS Store and pick up your free games from July 7th
I have recently had the chance of reviewing the latest release from Ratalaika Games Radio Squid
Info
Developed by : Pixelteriyaki
Published by : Ratalaika Games
Platform Available on : PS4, Nintendo Switch and Xbox One (Reviewed on Xbox One)
Available now priced at £4.99 (£3.99 on offer 25/06/20)
Gameplay
You play as a young squid who has been cursed and it’s up to you to explore the depths of the sea to lift the curse and of course this being a game you will come across beasties a plenty on the way you will need to use the power of siren song to vanquish your foes.
Once you gather the power of the siren song (a music note in a bubble) you fire shots off in various directions, you can control the direction using the analog stick, this gives the game a more shmup feel to it which ticks the box for me. Firing your shots into the walls can be a bonus trick to killing foes but be careful as it can also be fateful to you if you’re not careful.
Radio Squid has a lot to offer the player as you have 24 different levels to work your way through, each getting more challenging as you go.
It would be nice to have seen a multiplayer aspect added to it like a couch co-op mode but it’s still a fun game to play and pass the time with.
Graphics and Sounds
I personally love the graphical style they have gone with here as it definitely nods back to the gaming of yesteryear with the graphics similar to that of the gameboy and really gives you that retro nostalgia feeling, you can also change the colour of the pixel art to suit your own preference which is a nice touch.
With the sounds if you are of the retro persuasion you will love the chiptune beats on offer and adds to the feel of the game.
Summary
To summarise my thoughts of Radio Squid it is a fun game to play and easy enough to pick up and put down (although putting it down can be hard), although it wouldn’t really be a game I would probably pick over others in my collection it is still definitely one worth having one the collection for a quick blast every now and then.
Verdict – out of 5⭐️:
⭐️⭐️⭐️
I’m going to give Radio Squid 3 out of 5 stars – a game I’d recommend especially at the price point it’s at but it does lack a longevity maybe adding a multiplayer would add that something to it.
The much anticipated next instalment to the Halo franchise Halo Infinite has teased a trailer confirming a much wanted addition
Yes fellow FPS followers the Banished are back in Halo, the Banished being the splinter of the Covenant, we first came across this group in the Halo Wars 2 and it will be exciting to see how they are coming back to Infinite.
More news and gameplay is expected to be released at the Microsoft event coming up in July – we will give you more as soon as we get it.
