24 Entertainment, a Chinese development studio, staffed by experienced developers from across the world, is delighted to announce NARAKA: BLADEPOINT at the 2019 Game Awards. Developed in close cooperation across multiple territories, eastern influences meet western style in a raucous online multiplayer combat title, due for release in 2020.

NARAKA: BLADEPOINT offers close-range action set on the mysterious Eastern realm of Morus.

The game features a boundless movement system that allows players to climb, hang, and even parkour. With an aim-at-whatever-you-want grappling hook and a sophisticated yet beginner-friendly combat system involving accessible block & parry mechanics, NARAKA: BLADEPOINT is designed to provide a brand-new experience of melee combat and world exploration. Integrating Eastern aesthetic and philosophy, NARAKA: BLADEPOINT presents a forsaken island of splendid landscapes as well as inexplicable enigmas.

“In NARAKA: BLADEPOINT, players will feel every attack and utilise everything in their skillset and armoury to achieve victory”, said Ray, Producer, NARAKA BLADEPOINT. “Our teams have created something visually stunning and instantly appealing to fans of multiplayer online combat, and we can’t wait to share more details on NARAKA: BLADEPOINT in early in 2020.”

NARAKA: BLADEPOINT is set for release globally in 2020.

The post NARAKA: BLADEPOINT Coming in 2020 appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

The next set of updates and new features is set to be added to the Red Dead Online Beta on February the 26th 2019 as Rockstar implement many new improvements and enhancements to the game’s open world, including a new Law and Bounty system, weapons balancing, changes to player blips on the mini-map and more.

As part of their response to community feedback on how to minimize certain types of destructive player behavior, there have been some changes to the way player blips will appear on the map.

Firstly, they’re reducing the visibility of blips over long distances – your map position won’t display to other players unless you are nearby (within 150 meters) and if you are slightly further away you will only appear when firing your weapon.  Players in other towns or regions, for example, won’t be visible. This prevents players from being repeatedly targeted across the map at long distances.

Rockstar are also introducing a new system that highlights overly aggressive players. If your style of play becomes more hostile, your map position (and the position of your Posse members) will become more visible to other players with a progressively darkening dot that incrementally shifts from blue to dark red. Your visibility increases through bad deeds such as attacking and killing other players or their horses outside of a structured mode, Free Roam Mission, event or competition, and the shorter the time between bad acts, the more your visibility increases. Shift back to a more righteous path and your visibility will fade over time.

Also introduced is Posse-wide Parleys and improving Feuds. You’ll soon be able to initiate Parley that applies to your attacker’s entire Posse after just a single kill. Alternatively, if you’d rather challenge your opponent, you can initiate a Feud, Posse Feud or Leader Feud after one kill, quickly turning a dispute into a timed mini-deathmatch for rival players to fight out amongst themselves in Free Roam, earning points for each kill on the opposing player.

At the same time, players who have racked up high bounties will have a chance to be beset by NPC Bounty Hunters who will attempt to kill them and collect their reward.

Criminal behavior will have bounty values and honor consequences that scale based on the severity of the crime. For example, killing another player can incur a higher bounty, while assaulting townsfolk or animal cruelty could give you a lesser bounty if the crime is reported, while lower level crimes like looting and ransacking will only decrease your honor.

If your bounty exceeds a certain threshold and Bounty Hunters take notice, you will be wanted dead and alerted to their pursuit. The higher your bounty, the greater your value and the more difficult the pursuit becomes for you and your Posse.

Also added is a variety of Daily Challenges to take on across the Red Dead Online Beta. Complete individual objectives that cover every aspect of life on the frontier to earn Gold Nuggets and XP. Challenges will range from foraging for herbs, selling items at a Fence, hunting and skinning animals, clearing hideouts, winning Feuds and so much more. These Daily Challenges will continue to expand and evolve over time bringing specialty challenges and rewards, streak bonuses and more.

Select weapons will be re-balanced including the Varmint Rifle, which will have its accuracy brought more in line with other longarm weapons ;  voice chat will be reduced to work at closer proximity, and while fixes to horse cargo are numerous and ongoing we plan to introduce some improvements to making pelts and carcasses more persistent after death or respawning.

Meanwhile, there are chances to earn more XP to rank up ahead of February 26th, 2019. Playing in a Posse will bring benefits like earning increased XP in Free Roam Missions and Free Roam Events. Posse up this week to earn twice as much increased XP on these activities, and next week earn 20% more XP across all activities in the Red Dead Online Beta.

Stay tuned to us here at STG for more feature adds and updates as they are announced!

The post New Features & More Coming to Red Dead 2 Online appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

If Rockstar’s behemoth western game; Red Dead Redemption 2 wasn’t already large enough, it’s about to get a whole lot bigger!

Now that you have had a chance over the past month to experience the story of Arthur Morgan and the Van der Linde gang in Red Dead Redemption 2, it is almost time to begin the beta period for Red Dead Online. Early access to the Red Dead Online beta begins tomorrow on Wednesday, November 28th 2018, working up to full public access on Saturday,  December 1st, 2018.

Built from the ground up for the latest hardware, Red Dead Online blends the classic multiplayer of the original Red Dead Redemption with the best of everything we have learned since then about creating deep multiplayer experiences. The result is something completely new and fun, and an experience that will continue to expand and evolve over time.

With the gameplay of Red Dead Redemption 2 as its foundation, Red Dead Online transforms the vast and deeply detailed landscapes, cities, towns and habitats of Red Dead Redemption 2 into a new, living online world ready to be shared by multiple players. Create and customize your character, tailor your abilities to suit your play style and head out into a new frontier full of things to experience.

Explore the world solo or with friends. Form or join a Posse to ride with up to seven players; gather around the fire at your Camp; head out hunting or fishing; visit bustling towns; battle enemy gangs and attack their hideouts; hunt for treasure; take on missions and interact with familiar characters from across the five states; or fight against other outlaws in both spontaneous skirmishes and pitched set-piece battles; compete with other players or whole Posses in open world challenges and much more.

The launch of the Red Dead Online Beta is the first step in what will be a continually expanding and dynamic world, and the beta period will allow us to deal with the inevitable turbulence of launching any online experience of this size and scale.

During this process, Rockstar Games will be looking to their dedicated community to help us report and fix problems, share ideas, and assist in shaping the future of the full Online experience. As with all of their releases, they will strive to make the launch of Red Dead Online the best it can possibly be, and they ask that the community share that spirit with them over the next weeks and months.

To help ease into the beta and to mitigate major issues, Rockstar Games will begin the early access period starting Wednesday, November 28th, 2018 at 00:30am AEDT (Australian Eastern Daylight Time), and gradually scale the player base up to full access beginning on Saturday, December 1st, 2018. This will help ensure that their servers can handle a steadily growing volume of concurrent players in the early hours and first days of the Beta and hopefully reduce the likelihood of any server crashes during the launch week as they get things up and running.  Full rollout details are as follows:

– Wednesday, November 28, 2018: All Red Dead Redemption 2: Ultimate Edition owners. Please note, players who purchased the physical Ultimate Edition must redeem the Ultimate Edition code in the packaging to be eligible.

– Thursday, November 29, 2018: All players who played Red Dead Redemption 2 on October 26th according to our data.

– Friday, November 30, 2018: All players who played Red Dead Redemption 2 between October 26th to October 29th according to our data.

-Saturday, December 1st, 2018: All players who own Red Dead Redemption 2.

The Red Dead Online Beta will be available to anyone who owns Red Dead Redemption 2 on PlayStation 4 or Xbox One starting Saturday, December 1st, 2018. When booting up Red Dead Redemption 2 and arriving to the title menu, you will see an option in the top right of the screen to select Online.

Stay tuned for more details about Red Dead Online modes, gameplay and more.

The post Red Dead Online Beta appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

First person games offering full mobility tend to be an enormous challenge of dexterity in PSVR titles, at least while the technology is evolving and maturing. With one to one precision in head tracking and close to that in hand tracking, the jank in locomotion moving through 3D space, has typically been the “Achilles heel” of immersion.

Games that instead provide dualshock controller support sacrifice the more natural hand tracking that move controllers provide, so immersion is compromised either way.

Then there’s the aim controller. The welcome step towards bridging this tenuous gap.

I recently had the opportunity to pair the aim controller with one of the most lauded FPS titles, if not PSVR game in general, Firewall – Zero Hour that was released only a few weeks back.

The aim controller is a “gun” peripheral with point to point precision tracking, and with all of the functionality of a standard PS4 controller mapped to its chassis – including dual thumbsticks in sensible locations near the trigger and foregrip. Super comfortable, and super intuitive to operate. This device, in my opinion, is a necessity for enjoying Firewall – Zero Hour to its full extent.

But about the game itself…

Firewall – Zero Hour is a pvp tactical first person shooter that heavily promotes cooperative play and strategy, in a similar vein to, say, Rainbow Six titles.

Outside of tutorials and practice bot-matches, there is one mode – presumably to keep the smaller VR community from being too spread out. This mode is called Contracts, and involves teams of 4 taking turns locating firewall points within the map to breach, leaving a laptop located somewhere in the map vulnerable to hack. The contract is fulfilled if the laptop is successfully hacked within the 5 minute time limit, or revoked if the opposing team successfully defends or eliminates all opposing players.

There are no respawns, but players from either team killed during a match are able to cycle through CCTV cameras and continue communicating with the still active members of their team – providing a thrilling strategic element I wasn’t expecting to enjoy as much as I did.

And that’s just it – often games are won or lost by the effectiveness of your team’s communication. This was definitely something I had reservations about, as I tend to be a pretty antisocial online gamer thanks to the often obnoxious decorum of many online players. This feels different though. Online gamers here seem to be both super supportive of newbies, and much more sensible. I actually found myself instinctively participating in the comms even though I initially swore I wouldn’t.

There are 9 maps – which doesn’t sound like many, but fewer maps and shorter rounds keeps you out of matchmaking lobbies for too long. All maps are well designed, and asymmetric, offering a great variety from shipping docks, to offices, to underground bunkers. There are no standouts or weaker efforts here, and they all have open hub areas and narrow choke points to keep combat varied.   

While in the lobby, players can choose their contractor (character). Each contractor has a unique ability, such as faster player revive, extra ammo, or ability to take more damage, encouraging a mix in the team – but no “classes”, means not being locked to specific weapon loadouts, which is a relief.

You earn XP in game, which feeds an XP meter for leveling up, and currency based on your success in your contracts. Specific level tiers unlock items for purchase including weapons, weapon skins, attachments, new contractors, new attachment / gadget slots etc. To be honest, I was impressed at how much there is here to work towards. Consequently, watching the cash and XP slowly increase after every short match has the same effect as Netflix binge watching – “just one more and THEN i’ll go to bed”.

The game looks stunning for a VR title on PS4 Pro – albeit with some heavy antialiasing providing some detail blur to mitigate jagged edges. But the environments are quite realistic and detailed. There are obvious shortcomings that don’t matter a great deal, such as lack of physics or destructible objects. But, since this isn’t a Twitch shooter, bullets aren’t flying in John-Woo style hyperbole so it’s not overly noticeable.

Comfort options include vignetting for movement and turning, smooth or incremental turning. Oddly enough though, this game gave me no issues with motion sickness or disorientation even with all comfort settings turned off. It’s worth playing it this way.

Other than personal taste, there is really only a couple of issues that may turn some people off.

The first issue is the offsetting of the in-game weapon with the aim controller. When aiming down sights, one-to-one gun mapping would require the player to move the aim controller directly in front of the VR headset sensors. This would become an conflict issue with tracking. To prevent this, the in-game gun (during gameplay – not in the lobby) is set about 20cm higher than the aim controller, meaning ADS targeting requires the aim controller to only be raised to about chest height. This is disconcerting at first, but with tenacity and grit you do get used to it.

The second is a gameplay mechanic where certain contractors have the ability to place jammers on the map that can be difficult to find. Jammers prevent the laptop being hacked until destroyed, and if there are multiple contractors of this type on the defending opposition, multiple jammers can be placed. This can be frustrating with such a narrow time limit.

Otherwise – Firewall – Zero Hour is a must have, especially if bundled with the aim controller. But, if you have a PSVR and are still actively using it, there’s a good chance you already have this game in your collection.

The post Firewall – Zero Hour (PlayStation 4 / PSVR) Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Rare have had somewhat of a checkered past. While they excelled under Nintendo back in the N64 days with the likes of Golden Eye and Banjo Kazooie, their games under Microsoft haven’t been as well received among fans.

Shaking off their recent Kinect-orientated past, Rare have finally come back with a game that has many fans intrigued with Sea of Thieves.

Sea of Thieves is unlike any game I have played before. Rare themselves have taken to calling it a Shared World Adventure Game (SWAG) which is a reasonably apt description. The basic premise of the game is to sail the seas with a small group of pirates while going on adventures.

It does certainly contain a sandbox element as it tries to provide the wide-open world of charted and uncharted islands strewn across an expanse of sea for players to explore at their leisure. The world provided, is quite a well-polished and beautiful one. It has many great aspects, from amazing water mechanics to gorgeous islands and some of the prettiest and dynamic skylines in a game.

These visually impressive elements however don’t quite make up for the small selection of engaging in game content.

There are of course things to do. Your adventures in the game are driven by undertaking missions for Trading Companies. There are currently three of these Trading Companies in the game: The Gold Hoarders, The Merchant Alliance and The Order of the Souls.

Each of these has players roaming the world, searching for either, chests, skeleton hordes or trade goods. The Gold Hoarder missions, as might imply, revolves around finding treasure. These can provide for a decent amount of fun as they can include figuring out riddles and searching for the right island and then figuring out the exact spot of X on the map. This mission set is the most rewarding, both in sense of fun and actual loot.

Facing skeleton hordes can provide some fun but I feel isn’t as rewarding as chest hunting. Destroying waves of skeletons takes time and then the end boss might not drop a very valuable skull but there are those that still quite enjoy this line of quests. The Merchant Alliance quests, however, are easily the worst. There is a lot of work and little reward. Going to random islands to capture a specific coloured pig, chicken or snake and then return to a specific Outpost, in a given time limit while trying to keep some animals alive isn’t by any means enjoyable.

The final event in game that provides opportunity to get the ever-sought-after loot is Skull Forts. These usually provide a good chance of PvP interaction. A giant skull will randomly appear over and active fort. These forts contain a fairly good haul of various treasures. To obtain the treasure however many waves of skeletons need to be defeated, the boss skeleton killed, a key retrieved and then open the locked treasure room.

The interesting part is, everyone on the map can see the beacon in the sky, meaning you will likely also need to fend off or work with other crews, who could be as sneaky and back stabbing as you plan to be. These events can provide a good spot of fun but can draw on as you fend off both waves of skeletons and players. The most recent update has seemingly helped fixed the respawn issues around this.

While these provided aspects can be entertaining the most fun in the game comes through the things that happen to you on your adventures through player interactions. Accidently beaching your ship, fending off other viscous pirates, or simply playfully trash talking crew mates is what makes the game truly enjoyable. Collecting a chicken, naming it Dobby and keeping it as the first mate to then having the crew continuously hide him around the ship and threaten to throw him overboard is the sort of mischief players can get up to that make a session memorable and terribly entertaining.

Though if you just join up with the next galleon setting sail and just plan to play the game, well it can become dull quickly. While loot is the be all end all, all it actually gains you is cosmetic changes. You can alter what you shovel looks like, get a fancier hat, a pretty sail, but all these things can be quite expensive and so the game does get quite grindy if you are serious about obtaining certain aesthetics like ship cosmetics.

Apart from other players and skull forts, players can randomly encounter the kraken. It’s sadly not as exciting as it sounds. It’s just giant tentacles poking out of the water that might impede your progress a bit and can almost be ignored. Even if you defeat one, there isn’t currently a reward for doing so.

The game is particularly lacking in AI controlled things that can kill you. The main enemy type is skeletons. These are the enemies you will be encountering wherever you go. There is some variation in types of skeletons but fundamentally they all just skeletons. Sharks can get an honorable mention as it does make exploring a sunken ship or collecting resources in floating barrels just a bit more intense.

The best thing I can say about the current state of Sea of Thieves is that it provides a great foundation to a game. Unfortunately, the state the game is currently in doesn’t build upon this foundation enough to provide what feels like a complete experience. The game feels like is has about 30% of the content it should for it to be considered a complete game.

The good news is that Rare has promised to continually build upon this game by adding free new content. The question is though whether the fanbase will stick by it long enough for this content to be released. In its current state I feel a large portion of the audience will be turned off the game.

Sea of Thieves was never going to be the sort of game that reviews particularly well. It relies on your interactions with others rather than pure interaction with the world. That said there is still plenty of fun to be had and friends to make sailing the high seas.

It also is a game that will hopefully continually improve and evolve over time to further enhance the pirating experience.

The post Sea of Thieves (Xbox One) Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Pop Cap took its 2D tower defense style game, Plants vs. Zombies 1 & 2, and turned it into a third person shooter. To our pleasant surprise we ended up with a very entertaining Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare. They now continue the mayhem between vegetation and undead with Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare 2 on Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC. This, while being more of the same fun craziness, does bring a few new things to the table.

The most alluring aspect of this game is the online. As you would suspect there are two sides, Plants and Zombies. Each side of this absurd conflict has their own unique selection of characters.

There are currently six game modes to play. The only playable ones are Turf Takeover and Team Vanquish. The other four game modes are nothing new and sadly there is no one playing them. With massive teams needed, waiting around as the only player in the game is not exactly what I want to do when I sit down for a session.

Turf Takeover is quite similar to the previous Garden Warfare’s Gardens’ & Graveyards but here the tables can be turned. Where it previously was always the zombies on attack and the plants on defense, now it can be either way. When taking over turf it is really any ones game and I would have to say my favourite of all. Team Vanquish is, of course, the standard team death match which is fun but just not as epic.

All the original classes return, from the healing sunflowers to the scientist zombies, it is quite the amusing array of classes. Garden Warfare 2 has introduced three new classes for each side. Plants now have a futuristic orange, a stalk of corn and the ever popular magic rose. The zombie side of things brings us a hobbling pirate, a super hero zombie, and a little guy who can summon titan-like mechs. The little guy, known as the Imp, is easily one of my favourite new classes. These mechs are audaciously named the Z7 and once inside one of these mechs it is quite fun to go trampling the plant life.

All of the new classes allow for interesting team dynamics and give rise to new playing styles. While ‘new’ is fun for a bit I do still very much enjoy playing the original classes. I did notice some of the new characters feel a bit more powerful, specifically the Rose, and you do soon find yourself in or versing teams mostly consisting of the Rose class. That said it is still quite an amusing experience.

Gameplay mechanics have not changed and feel very much the same to that of the first game. That said, I never had any complaints with the original so if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Each class has a selection of variations, for instance the Sunflower has a Fire Flower and an Alien Sunflower version, to mention a couple. The original classes now have few extra variations but all the variants need to be unlocked.

The game uses a sticker pack system to unlock and gain new customization options and class variants. What you get from a sticker pack is quite random. With new characters requiring several stickers to complete it can take a while to actually unlock a new character. However, you can purchase a character pack but this sticker pack is quite expensive and also random so you might not get a character you particularly like to play.

All these purchases are made with in-game coins that are earned through playing the game. There is an option to spend actual money to purchase more in-game coins. Some of you may be thinking ‘pay to win’ but I don’t feel being prettier gives a player any particular advantage in game. The only benefit I can see is accessing the extra characters and accessories sooner. New characters aren’t more powerful they are just slightly different but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t have liked quicker or easier access to them. Though, I wasn’t about to spend real money on it either.

I was happy to find my many hours of playing the first one did not go to waste. You can import all the class variations from the previous game to the new one. This did make things more exciting as I wasn’t stuck unlocking characters I had already seen or played as. It’s nice to be using those hard earned coins to unlock new unseen characters.

One big new feature is the offline hub that players go to pretty much do everything else in the game. The base gives players access to various things. You can do your basic things such as customize your characters, access your sticker book, view stats and purchase new stickers.

This is not all this area has to offer. There is now an offline story mode that offers a whole set of quests to play through. Describing it as a story mode may be too strong a term but it does follow some vague plot. I found these missions mostly enjoyable and not too long. The difficulty can be adjusted and completing these missions unlocks bonus bling for some characters. Though not online, you still earn experience and coins, meaning you don’t miss out on the opportunity level up and purchase those ever needed sticker packs.

Each side has a similar style base of operations. When not playing online you are planted at either the plant or zombie base and can swap sides at any time. The bases are set in an open map that can be traversed. You can go exploring the map outside to discover and collect bonus coins from chests and participate in small mini-game side missions. There is a bunch of AI zombies and plants roaming this area which helps it seem less barren.

It was nice to see the option for local play with split -screen. You are limited to what you can play but it’s great to have game I can play with a friend in the same room.

Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare 2 is brilliantly colourful and a simply delightful game. It is fun and knows not to take itself too seriously. I enjoyed both offline and online components. The new aspects certainly give you reason move up from the first one, or just try it out if you have never played. Don’t let its silliness put you off. Once you are out there shooting rainbows of healing from you decked out sunflower, there is simply no going back.