Gamers get another way to play with the ASUS ROG Ally.

ASUS has entered the portable gaming console ring with its Windows 11-based, AMD-powered ROG Ally. I spent an afternoon trying out this new handheld gaming device.

When it comes to PC gaming, ASUS is at the top of the game. The company’s PC components and gaming laptops are about the best you will get. I find the ASUS TUF and Republic of Gamers (ROG) brands are synonymous with quality gaming PC components. ROG gaming laptops squeeze a tremendous amount of PC gaming power in impressively small devices.

But, with the ROG Ally, ASUS has gone one better.

I was invited, along with a select gathering of local media, to check out the ROG Ally Windows 11 handheld gaming device in advance of its 13th June 2023 release in Australia and New Zealand. ASUS promises AAA PC gaming in the palm of your hand via a device five years in the making.

I did, however, have some reasons to be apprehensive on my way to the product demonstration. I don’t really get on with “gaming on the go”. In the past, though, I’ve had a lot of fun with the PSP and PS Vita, and I have a Nintendo Switch. But they’ve all felt a bit awkward in the hand, especially the Switch, which feels like you are holding a slab.

The performance of portable gaming devices always seems to be too much of a compromise for my liking. Apart from the odd play on it now and again, my Switch is reserved for plane trips and when I’m away from my gaming rig, PS5, or Xbox Series X. I had similar fears for the ROG Ally.

The ROG handheld is based on an AMD Ryzen Z1 processor.

This is both a Ryzen CPU and an AMD RDNA 3 architecture-based GPU. The Ryzen Z1 is available as both an 8-core / 16-thread “Extreme” version and a 6-core / 16-thread standard version. The ROG Ally launching in June will utilise the 8-ore / 12-thread AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme processor, with a lower spec version of the handheld based on the standard Ryzen Z1 launching at a later date.

Complementing the Ryzen Z1 processor the ROG Ally has 16GB LPDDR5 dual-channel RAM and 512GB of user upgradable PCIe Gen 4 NVMe SSD storage.

The display is a full HD 120Hz IPS touch-screen with a 7ms response time and a brightness of 500 nits. Audio is provided by front-facing Dolby Atmos dual speakers. There’s also a UHS-II MicroSD slot, which is likely only useful for media files and data transfer. The top of the device also has a USB Type-C port adjacent to the propriety Asus port used with the USB port to plug in an Asus ROG XG Mobile graphics extender- boosting game performance with the help of a top-of-the-range Nvidia RTX GPU.

I have no idea what the actual performance of a Ryzen Z1 compares to and I’m looking forward to benchmarking it. But it had no trouble running Halo Infinite. The device makes good use of AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution upscaling to increase game performance. I’m a little concerned about the 16GB of RAM, as it seems that this is shared with the GPU. 16GB or GDDR memory is pretty standard for a modern GPU, but I’d expect a PC to have at least 16GB of system memory as well. Unless there’s some dark magic going on, I’m apprehensive about just what the ROG Ally’s long-term capabilities are.

But, thank goodness that the rather paltry 512GB SSD is upgradable.

With the above in mind, it is a bit unfair to compare the ROG Ally to a desktop gaming PC.

Like gaming laptops, there are some compromises to be made for the luxury of portable gaming. Putting technical specs aside, the Ally is a rather spectacularly designed device. The device feels great in your hands the grips moulded like that of a game controller. There are two shoulder buttons on each side with triggers underneath. The seven-inch screen fills the centre of the device, flanked on both sides by the familiar thumbsticks, D-pad, and XYAB buttons you’ll find on an Xbox controller. There are also four menu/system buttons positioned on either side of the screen. The power button on the top is also a fingerprint reader compatible with Windows Hello.

It’s worth remembering that as a Windows 11-based device this is effectively a Microsoft portable gaming console. In theory, if it runs on a PC, it should run on the ROG Ally, which opens up all sorts of uses. To make the experience a bit more user-friendly, ASUS have overlaid Windows 11 with a special version of their ROG Armory Crate application. This will likely be particularly useful if you find using the Windows desktop a bit challenging on a 7-inch screen.

The device is loaded with all the main PC gaming clients such as Steam, Epic, Ubisoft Connect, the EA app, and GOG Galaxy 2.0. The device comes with a 3-month subscription to Microsoft Game Pass Ultimate unlocking hundreds of games via the included Game Pass app.

Not only can you download and play games from the Game Pass, but you can also stream games from Microsoft’s cloud gaming. This means instant access to many games regardless of their hardware performance requirements. I tested Forza Horizon 5 which worked well. As with all cloud gaming, your experience is very much dependent on your network and Internet connection.

The demo unit had a limited number of games installed so, as I mentioned above, I selected to play Halo Infinite, a game that I’m very familiar with. Performance-wise, the game looked great. The thumbsticks did feel a bit weird, but I think that is more to do with them being different from the Xbox controller that I’m used to. I also played Halo Infinite on the ROG Ally via the upcoming hub adapter plugged into a large TV / monitor. Using an Xbox controller, the game performance seemed at least on par with that of an Xbox Series S, if not an Xbox Series X. Quite impressive for a device that fits in your pocket.

At first, the AUD$1,299 / NZ$1,499 price tag made me gasp.

If the PS5 and Xbox Series X were not expensive enough, that’s a lot of money to drop on a tiny game console. But then I thought, realistically, what are you going to pay for a decent gaming PC?

You are not going to get much south of two grand and for a gaming laptop, you can add on another grand. The ROG Ally isn’t just a handheld gaming console, it is also probably the cheapest way to realistically play AAA PC games. Asus has stated that it is working with major game publishers to ensure that gamers get the very best experience with the ROG Ally.

There’s no doubt that the ROG Ally is a great-looking device and it performed very well during my short time with it. There are still a lot of blanks, however, that can only be filled with a good review / test and some benchmarking. I’d like to see where the Ally lands compared to a gaming desktop and a gaming laptop as well as how far I can push it, as not just a handheld gaming device but also a handheld PC.

The ASUS ROG Ally is available for pre-order now in Australia and New Zealand from JB Hi-Fi and PBTech (NZ only) and released on 13th June 2023.

The post ASUS ROG ALLY Hands-On Play appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Death’s Door developer Acid Nerve were clearly onto something with their first game release, Titan Souls.

That title took the beating, gruesome heart of the soulsborne genre, the bosses, and whittled down what made that experience essential in a unique and striking way by limiting a boss to one health point and your character to one arrow.

But its game jam roots showed through the seams, and it was ultimately a title with limited reach and interest. Death’s Door thankfully takes the most compelling parts of Titan Souls and addresses nearly every complaint levelled at it.

While ultimately Death’s Door has the same end goal of Titan Souls – defeat a small number of powerful bosses (who grant the cheekily-titled Giant Souls) – the entire rest of the structure has been expanded into a full-blown Zelda-esque experience. And did I mention that you’re a crow?

For a start, Death’s Door is much more like a traditional action-adventure game with the introduction of a fully realised world to explore.

While not entirely open world, there are plenty of hidden paths, pickups to discover and small puzzles to solve. As someone who enjoys the slow, diegetic worldbuilding of the soulsborne genre, I was impressed with the details added around the environment from creepy statues to creaking signs.

The environments are well designed, but have a bit of a blocky appearance that can feel a little samey. NPCs though, were well developed, and each made a strong impression with clever dialogue.

These areas give the game space to more fully explore the expanded array of attacks and dodges of Death’s Door’s combat system.

Instead of just an arrow strike, your little crow now has a full array of fast light attacks, slower heavy attacks, a bow and arrow (though still with a limited number of arrows at any one time), and a nicely-animated dodge.

There is no shield however, at least not in my time with the game, so combat is a relatively fast-paced affair where you try and cut down the enemy before they can cause mortal damage.

With only four life bars – one being lost with each hit you take – there isn’t much room for error, and health regeneration opportunities are spotty at best.

The move from the top down 2D pixel art to an isometric perspective helps here, giving yourself and your little crow a better sense of the battlefield and all the attacks that can fill it up.

Compared to a traditional souls game there was a larger amount of ranged attacks to deal with, so maintaining situational awareness is key to survival.

All of this is set against a still-mysterious story arc. Your crow is actually a Reaper, given what seems like a job it is clearly bored with collecting souls from the recently dead.

But after one collection goes awry, your crow is in a race against time to collect the Giant Souls before it dies too to open the eponymous Death’s Door. It is an intriguing concept, but we will have to wait to see until the full release to see if it pays off.

I did have some minor technical issues with the game, with the resolution and framerate settings never quite working properly, but I expect these to be addressed as the full release approaches.

Otherwise Death’s Door is a promising title, and Acid Nerve should be commended for successfully expanding from the unique but limited Titan Souls to what was undoubtedly a bigger project for the team in Death’s Door. While there is more to see in the full version – I didn’t truly get to see the effects of character upgrades in the early access version – what I was able to try is a well-crafted and thoughtful game that fans of the genre shouldn’t hesitate to try.

The post Death’s Door (PC – Early Access) Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

New weapons, new characters and a new adventure. Our beloved Lombax, Ratchet comes out of retirement and brings his trusted cynical sidekick Clank along for a full on visual and gameplay fest.

Insomniac Games who have been at the helm of the Ratchet & Clank franchise since the first title released in 2002 exclusive to the PlayStation 2.

Having remained consistent throughout the years both is story and gameplay elements our hero’s arch nemesis Dr. Nefarious has always tried to wreak havoc, take over the Universe and basically been super annoying to Ratchet’s hope for a peaceful existence.

Coming real soon exclusively to PlayStation 5 is Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart where an alternate Universe exists that runs parallel to the one that Ratchet and Clank exist in.

In this alternate world there is only one hero – Rivet. A strong, brave and no mucking about female Lombax goes solo fighting against Nefarious who in this reality has actually taken over the Galaxy.

Rivet, although a little socially awkwardly shy and used to needing to be self-reliant and resourceful, she has a good heart as she is fierce in battle.

As rifts begin to appear between the two realities you as both Ratchet and Rivet at game specific intervals will conquer Nefarious and his legion of baddies in a story full of humour that we have come to love from prior games.

With the new specs available for the PlayStation 5 (PS5) Insomniac have not held back, maximizing the visuals on screen with some very real-world like effects such as ray-tracing and depth of field.

I was honoured to have been apart of an exclusive show and tell Insomniac breakout session where creators, animators, story-tellers, developers and even the legendary Mark Mothersbaugh (from 80s band DEVO) speaking and sampling portions of the game and it’s soundtrack.

Those that have played any Ratchet & Clank game in the past will be familiar with the very original and unique weapons on offer. I don’t want to give any spoilers in this preview, so all I can say is expect a more and even more zany yet amusingly deadly arsenal.

While the breakout sessions touched upon only some of the game that we will be able to play – it was apparent that Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart is going to be a massively larger than life expansive game.

Mark Mothersbaugh who has done soundtracks for films and TV series was bought in to create the 3D audio pop synth music that you’re likely to find your foot tapping away too while you play.

Each and every Ratchet & Clank game has tested the power of the PlayStation console (including portables) that it has released on, Rift Apart is absolutely no different in that respect.

In a few weeks expect another Galactic adventure saving not one but two Universes in the ultimate Ratchet & Clank title yet, Rift Apart.

The post Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart Preview appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Open-world space combat game, Everspace 2 is now in early access for PC on Steam. We check it out.

Whilst still only in early access, Everspace 2 is already shaping up to be so much more than its predecessor. Whilst I found 2017’s Everspace fun to play, it wasn’t the open-world space game that I thought it would be. For Everspace 2, developer Rockfish have embraced the genre to bring us what could be a spiritual successor to Freelancer.

Everspace 2 plays a bit like a less complex and more immediately rewarding Elite: Dangerous with the flight characteristics of a less pedantic No Man’s Sky. Really though, it’s neither of those open-ended games.

Early access only gives players a slice of what the full game promises, but it’s still a vast part of space. The mission-based gameplay requires players to fly from location to location across large distances. Locations are reached using the ship’s jump drive. It takes a little bit of time to travel to each new location, but nowhere near as long as it does in Elite: Dangerous. Once there, activating cruise quickly gets you to where you want to go. Then the controls become more akin to that of a regular shooter.

The game pacing is pretty good, with a nice mix of mission types. Whilst there’s a good amount of combat, some missions are more like puzzles, with players exploring installations and wreckage, unlocking puzzles, and retrieving items.

There are also plenty of ports and bases that players can use to patch up their ships, restock and purchase equipment. Some of these ports will have side-missions on offer.

The third-person view of your spaceship puts the game in arcade territory rather than that of a simulator, and I’m happy with that. Whilst I love Elite: Dangerous, it can get a bit mealy. Everspace 2 seems to rely less on a procedurally generated universe. The result is a more sculpted environment that offers players a hand-curated space adventure.

The visuals are clean and very polished. It would seem that by early access the developer means that the engine and gameplay has been refined to a release standard and that they are just working on content. If only some retail releases were this refined.

Even location in deep space features environmental effects with the light from distant suns silhouetting asteroids barely visible through celestial clouds. The locations look pretty stunning.

As well as locations on atmospheric planets, Everspace 2 has players visiting bases tucked away on the surface of asteroids and investigating giant wreaked space hulks. Even at this early stage, the developers have given players a fully-formed part of the galaxy to explore.

The various outposts and bases, along with the huge wreckages all look spectacular. The animations when landing and taking off look very cinematic, as do the cut-scenes with their Firefly / BSG-style use of focus.

The game has all the staples of a role-playing game. Players are tasked with upgrading their ships’ armaments and hulls by purchasing hardware, salvaging, or looting it from fallen enemies. The XP system unlocks perks that can also be applied to the ship.

The combat is slick, aided by smooth and easy-to-understand controls.The vast array of weapons and customisable load-outs makes encounters fun.

Credit must go to the collision detection. The game rewards pilots’ fancy flying by enabling them to traverse through debris and the wrecks, if skilled enough, without hitting invincible objects. The ships handle well with finely tuned and very responsive controls.

Enemies have a skill rating that needs to be watched else you get into a firefight that’s out of your league. You need to switch weapons to take out shields before pummelling their hulls to oblivion. With a bit of fancy flying and a few mines, I didn’t have too much trouble thinning the enemy squadrons when things started getting out of hand. A few times, though, I did find myself pursuing side quests and exploring to get some better equipment to get past a tricky situation.

The early access gives players about six hours of content if they burn through it. But there is a sizable area to explore. It should be noted that the game is currently in development. Savegames may not carry over to new versions, so there’s a good chance that you’ll lose all your progress at some point.

Everspace 2 is in pretty good shape for an early access game.

It’s actually more polished than some of the recent AAA releases of late. If you are a fan of the original or space combat RPGs, in general, you should check it out.

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The post Everspace 2 Early Access (PC) Preview appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

2020 has been a year of absolute horrors, and if you told me in advance that PlayStation having Early Access games was going to be a thing then I would have said that belonged right there.

Well that was until I started playing Temtem, and along with Immortals: Fenyx Rising this may be the best way to end this horror year.

Temtem is a Pokemon clone and, well, do you know what? I could probably finish the review there, 8 out of 10.

But seriously it is an unabashed Pokemon clone in so many ways, and despite Pokemon having two home console released games now on the Switch this may actually be the one we were waiting for. The gameplay is classic Pokemon through and through.

You create your character who is a Temtem trainer. You go to the professor’s lab to choose your starting Temtem. Then you head out to learn about the world of Temtem and start getting your catching on. There is a light story, but it is as paper thin as original Pokemon games, but it’s that gameplay loop that keeps you hooked.

You run around taming wild Temtem in tall grass by weakening them and throwing Temcards.  They have elemental strengths and weaknesses, and you heal your Temtem at  Temporiums. I mean I can go on and on about how much inspiration it has taken from Pokemon, but that is boring. How about what the game does better?

Your Temtem can have up to four moves equipped at a time, and battles are arranged with up to two Temtem on the field on each side at a time. The game already smokes Pokemon out of the water with one feature, the ability to switch your Temtems moves. Instead of having to forget a move when they learn a new one, in the menu you can swap all your learned moves in and out without having to track down some random guy on the map to remember old moves. It’s sooo good.

The other major feature Temtem has going for it is that instead of moves having a limited number of uses until you next find a recovery place, Temtem have a power meter for the moves they can use before they start damaging themselves to use an attack. Different moves use different amounts of exhaustion, and the bar refills for every fight.

The game is technically a MMO and you see other people walking around the world with you.  The interactions are limited with the exception of specific ways to have battles, but it’s a MMO lite. Temtem is fundamentally a single player game with people around, and that makes it kinda great.

The other thing that kicks ass is the complete lack of history. Because Pokemon iterations have a bunch of old Pokemon, you can’t help but look for ones you know. Temtem regains that feeling of total discovery. I don’t know what a Temtem is going to be like or evolve into until I try, and that is awesome.

Temtem is in Early Access and the game crashed plenty, but I never lost progress and I can’t see how they continue to enhance it. As it stands now this game is well worth checking out if you want to play a Pokemon clone on your PS5 as it is that pure simple JRPG fun that we have loved for so many years.

The post Temtem (PlayStation 5) Preview appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

How do you improve on the already epic?

Triple A game development studio Naughty Dog also quizzed this when the idea of a second chapter to 2013’s The Last of Us broke both gameplay and graphical barriers on the PlayStation 3, becoming the last and greatest game there ever was for that console.

Now we are nearing the next gen of PlayStation with official PS5 details to be revealed soon (Sony have postponed the June 4th date).

I can now say that I have been honoured to have an advanced copy of The Last of Us Part 2 and have been playing the cinematic masterpiece for a couple of weeks now.

No, I’m not going to give any spoilers nor even break down the narrative of the game, but I will do an overview of what all PlayStation gamers can expect.

The Last of Us Part 2 continues the story, taking us through the timeline to where we are now.

Old relationships remain, new ones are formed and broken. Moments of elation, tension, drama and tragedy ensue that is of a higher caliber than a blockbuster movie.

Ellie is older, a survivor and a force to be reckoned with.

The infected still roam the lands that you’ll traverse in within varying stages of decay and infection.

The Last of Us Part 2 has retained that solid RPG element too.

Graphically, you’ll need to play it. Screenshots and YouTube videos and trailers do not do it justice.

Best played at 4K, 60 FPS on a PS4 Pro if you can, this is potentially THE game of 2020. One that when you begin there’s just no putting the controller down.

Graphically, asides from the 4K eye candy The Last of Us Part 2 is what the first game did for PS3, it’s pushing the PS4s capabilities to a maximum and then some.

Likely The Last of Us Part 2 will be one of the last legendary titles for PS4 as we embrace PlayStation 5 towards the latter part of this year, if all stays on track.

Stick with us for our full review (without spoilers) on The Last of Us Part 2’s release date; 19th if June 2020.

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The post The Last of Us Part 2 (PlayStation 4) Preview appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Set in the world of League of Legends, Legends of Runeterra (LoR) is a digital strategy card game where skill, creativity, and cleverness determine your success.

In LoR you will go forth in heated battles building decks with your favorite League champions (and new characters) from the regions of Runeterra, each with their own style and strategic advantage.

Face off in dynamic, alternating combat full of opportunities for outplay and earn cards for free as you play or buy exactly what you want in the store, you’re fully in control of your collection.

But that’s just the beginning…

LoR is still in active development, but Riot Games are gearing up for beta in early 2020. In the meantime, they’re granting limited access for a couple preview patches (this is the second of the two).

The Expeditions Preview Patch runs from 3 AM AEDT on November 15 through 3 AM AEDT on November 20th, 2019 (this is the global turn on/turn off time).

These patches are a way for the devs to give an early look at the game while it’s still in development, showcase new features as they go… and squash some bugs in the process. And as a bonus for playing in these preview patches, you will receive a bunch of wildcards up front to help jump-start your deckbuilding experience.

This preview patch is all about the new Expeditions mode, so they are also providing some new bonuses to get you started on your runs, one Expeditions Token and 8000 shards.

In the Expeditions mode, you draft a deck as you go, overcoming as many opponents as you can with an evolving set of cards.

So you’ve found your favorite champs and learned the art of battle. But there’s more than one way to play Legends of Runeterra, and different skills you can master.

Like building a deck from scratch and crafting your strategy on the fly. Can you navigate the unknown, adapting to new cards and new foes, and still come out victorious?

In the Expeditions mode, you draft a deck as you go, overcoming as many opponents as you can with an evolving set of cards. The farther you journey, the greater the challenge; but when you’re on an Expedition, it’s not over til it’s over.

Unlike other modes, in Expeditions you don’t use any of the cards from your collection. Instead, you build a deck as you go with a series of picks and trades.

Every pick offers a different, random combination of champions, units, and spells. The cards in each pick are bundled together based on deck archetypes: You might select Disruption to add stuns and recalls to your arsenal, or Scrapheap for ways to cycle through your cards in search of the perfect play. There are over 20 archetypes to pick from, but over time you’ll create a strategy that’s entirely your own.

You start by choosing a couple of champions. As you continue drafting your deck, you’ll alternate between two types of picks: synergy and wild.

Synergy picks are based on the archetypes you chose previously; the cards in each pick are random, but they’re sure to work well with what you’ve drafted so far.

On the other hand, wild picks offer archetypes that may be totally different from what you’ve selected before. You might pick up a great option for enhancing what you already have, or change course after encountering an unexpected gem. You can even combine cards from three regions of Runeterra for a deck that can only be created in an Expedition. No matter what you choose during the initial draft, you’re guaranteed to come across more cards to support your strategy, but you’ll never know which ones you’ll find.

The draft doesn’t end when the matches begin.

After each match you get another chance to upgrade your deck, including additional champion picks to fill out your roster with more heavy hitters. But it’s the trade picks where your deckbuilding skill can really shine.

Trade what you have for what you need, refining your strategy with every swap. You can smooth out your mana curve, pick up some much needed spell support, or double down with multiple tried-and-true cards, even breaking the normal limit of 3 copies. You’ll continue to evolve and improve your deck all the way to the final match.

Your trial continues until you either win seven matches or lose two consecutive ones. Even if you fumble a match, one victory is all it takes to get back in the game. If you’re skilled enough to reach six wins, you’ll enter sudden death. The next match decides it all – will you get the coveted seventh win, or end your trial right then and there?

If your first trial doesn’t work out the way you want, don’t worry, every Expedition consists of two trials, and the better performance determines your rewards. That means you have an extra chance to make it to seven wins, or a free pass to try a completely wild strategy.

After you’ve completed both trials (or retired early), it’s time to collect your winnings. The rewards can be bountiful, and the more you win, the better they’ll be. No matter how you do, you’ll always receive at least one champion; but win enough matches, and your rewards can fully fund your next Expedition as well!

You can embark on three new Expeditions each week using Shards, Coins, or Expedition Tokens. After completing these, die-hard explorers who seek adventure purely for the experience can continue their trials in Open Play.

Whether it’s your first time drafting a deck or a glorious return to the seven-win Expedition, there are always more strategies to explore and another chance to claim victory. Pick your path, adapt your deck, and see how far you can go.

Draft mode is a great way to experiment with new strategies, some that you might never try otherwise, based on the different cards available to you each time. The downside is that it’s riskier than other formats, what happens if you get a weak selection of cards, or end a run early after an unfortunate loss at the beginning?

As with everything else in Legends of Runeterra, Riot Games have tried to keep what’s great and improve what’s not. Here’s a run down on what they came up with for Expeditions:

● Embark once, play twice. With two trials in every Expedition, you’re essentially playing two drafts every time. You can use it as a second chance after a bust, or an opportunity to build something crazy before try-harding your way to seven wins.

● Less stress losses. In a traditional draft, an early loss puts a crazy amount of pressure on you to not screw up. By changing it so a given trial ends after two consecutive losses, there’s a lot less stress and much more of a chance to continue on to victory.
● Strategic support. In other draft modes, the cards you get are completely arbitrary, which means you could work toward a cool strategy early, but then get no good options for it later. In Expeditions, the cards you encounter are still random, but if you start drafting a certain strategy early, you’re guaranteed to come across at least some options for it later as well. You’ll never know which cards you’ll get, but you’ll never be totally out
of luck either.
● Accessible & competitive. While we’ve made changes to make our version of drafting more accessible, it’s still a challenge for those that want to compete. Sudden death means seven wins is a real accomplishment (less than 10% of players will succeed). And of course, there’s the potential to combine three regions in your deck, compared to two in a normal game. We don’t want to give anything away, but we’re excited to see what new combinations you come up with.

To sum it up, Expeditions is a great mode for players who want to try out new regions, champions, and strategies in a real game without committing to unlocking them. It’s also a great way to challenge a different set of skills, especially your ability to adapt and evolve a deck over time. Whether you’re just starting out or simply looking for something fresh, each draft is a chance to explore Legends of Runeterra in a totally new way.

What else has changed since the last preview patch?

● As a thank you for playing this preview patch, Riot Games are giving a ton of bonus wildcards up front to help jump-start your deckbuilding experience (if you were in the first preview patch, you’ve already received these).

● They are also giving you an Expedition Token and 8000 Shards, so you can play all three Expeditions for free during this preview patch!

● The Vault opens Sunday, 17th November 2019 at 11:00 PM AEDT.

Legends of Runeterra is set to release its full version as soon as the developers have landed on an exact date for launch, but you can pre-register right now on both PC and mobile.

Pre-registering on PC gives you a chance to play in the closed beta on PC in early 2020, as well as during this preview patch right now.

The post Expeditions for Legends of Runeterra appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

I recently entered a world of old lags, muppets and geezers for a trip to the East-End London with PlayStation AU and their up-coming PSVR game, Blood & Truth.

Blood & Truth comes to us from SIE London Studio, the same developers that knocked out the VR Worlds anthology title for PSVR. The new game is an extension of their acclaimed The London Heist sequence that was the highlight of VR Worlds.

The Lord Dudley is one of Sydney’s most unashamedly British pubs. A fitting location for the game preview. Back in the day I can imagine it being the sort of drinking establishment whereby punters enter through the door, but leave through the window.

As I crossed the threshold, a moody-looking fella in a sharp suit placed a tattooed hand on my chest and demanded, “Password”. Thankfully, I’d been briefed about this, likely saving myself from a proper hiding round the back, by stating, “Apples and pears”. With a silent nod of acknowledgement, the doorman gestured towards the stairs leading to the event.

The most impressive thing I find with VR is the hardest to explain. As much as your AAA gaming experiences draw you into their amazing worlds, you are never actually IN those amazing worlds, you are still just an observer. VR takes players, literately, into the game, becoming as much a part of the game world as the elements around them.

Blood & Truth is a “room-scale” VR experience that casts players in role of Ryan Marks, a former British SAS operative. He has returned home to London only to become embroiled in his family’s gangland dealings. This violent underworld has been created at 1:1 scale to immerse players right into the thick of the action.

If you are familiar with Guy Ritchie films like Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch, you are on the right track. This is a game chock-full of violent Cockney villains, so expect loads of tasty-looking, tooled-up geezers, lots of swearing and comedy East-End accents.

I sat down for some hands-on with a fifteen-minute sequence from the game. With the VR headset in place I was handed a couple of PlayStation Move controllers. Looking down, there were holsters either side of my waist and an ammo belt across my chest holding a spare clip. In my left hand (curiously, as I’d not told the game I was left handed) was a pistol. I was able to “throw” the handgun from one hand to the other.

A tutorial showed me the basics of the game. For movement, Blood & Truth swaps out teleporting or stomach-churning smooth motion for a more manageable move-to-cover system. Perfect for VR, it allows players to concentrate on shooting stuff rather than running into walls. It’s kind of like Time Crisis, but not quite so on-rails. Players have a choice of cover locations and can freely move back and forth.

Reloading is carried out by stuffing clips into your weapons from your ammo belt. You can stow your sidearms in your holsters and pickup/put away your larger guns over your shoulder. Using the Move controllers for your guns is slick and very polished. When the bar is full, pressing the two Move buttons on the controller’s triggers focus-mode, slowing down time, but more on that later.

After completing the target-shooting tutorial, the game dropped me in a back alley, somewhere in London’s East-End, judging from the Cockney accents of the mouthy tooled-up thugs in front of me. Moving forward I came face-to-face with one of the gun-toting oiks. He discharged an expletive-ridden warning to his fellow muppets. Before he had a chance to fire, I was off, moving between the cars, like an action hero, unloading the contents of my gun into their ugly mugs.

Pausing that for a minute, Blood & Truth, places you right there in a near flawless recreation of East London. It’s like standing on a movie set. The cars, the buildings, even the ground, 100% immersing you into the game world. As fun as the gunplay is, it’s the experience, the sense of actually being right there in the game, that gets you.

Whilst I hail from the south-east of England, I’m no Cockney. Truth be known, I was born closer to France, for my sins, than the sound of Bow bells. But I’ve most certainly spent a bit of my youth in and around the part of the world that Blood & Truth resides. I can tell you this, SIE London Studio have the game’s design aesthetics down to a tee.

Back to the game preview.

Whilst I was unable to pick-up my opponents firearms. Someone did leave a grenade lying about, which was nice of them. Tossing grenades adds to the mayhem in the game and gives players plenty of opportunity to park their Move controllers in their TV screens.

Remember those two holsters? Well, yep, you can use two handguns for some very satisfying akimbo gunplay. As I progressed, I came across and assault rifle, SMG and my personal favourite, and very fitting for the genre, a sawn-off shotgun.

As if blowing holes in gangsters with a shotgun wasn’t fun enough, triggering focus mode slowed everything down. It allowed me to target, fire twice, throw a couple of shells in the air catch them in the gun, cock it and do it all again. Blood & Truth does all it can to unleash your inner action hero.

If this was 2D, I’d agree that all this is a bit of shooting gallery, but in VR you are actually aiming and firing the gun. I even aimed though the sight of an assault rifle to pop a wine bottle. Enemies are coming at you from all over the place and they seem like they are really there shooting, shouting and swearing at you.

The demonstration continued with me approaching a tower block that looked like it was being prepared for demolition. Having taken out the guards lurking atop some scaffolding at the entrance, in an explosive fashion, I needed to gain access to the door. Using the Move controller as a screwdriver, I unscrewed a panel, inserted a fuse and flipped a switch, opening the door.

As I continued through the tower the game introduced a few more mechanics, such as climbing (including a huge climb up the outside of the building), breaking down doors and picking locks. Again, using your Move controllers, you need to actually manipulate the pins in barrel locks to unlock doors.

As the demo came to a close, Marks reached his destination- his imprisoned, feisty mother, handcuffed to a pipe and enclosed in electrified rebar. Mrs. Marks was none too pleased to see her little boy, and even less impressed by his potty-mouth.

This final sequence was the only NPC interaction in the game preview. But it bodes well for the rest of the game. Ryan’s mum offered the same sharp character acting as that of The London Heist, which is exactly what the game needs to round it off.

From my brief look at Blood & Truth, it certainly seems to be the extension of VR World’s The London Heist that we’ve been after. The London gangland setting is ripe for an eight-hour immersive VR experience. With interactive diversions such as lock-picking punctuating the very refined gunplay, this may be a PSVR game to watch out for when it releases on 29th of May 2019.

The post Blood & Truth PSVR Hands-On Preview appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Etherborn is a fascinating low-poly puzzle platform soon to be out on a variety of game platforms, including PC and Switch.

Here at STG we were given the opportunity to give a small chunk of the game a look in ahead of schedule, to see what players can expect when it launches soon.

Set in a pastel-infused world, you are a semi-transparent character trying to make it from A to B. Along the way, and in between levels, you’ll be confronted by vague allusions to a story; mysterious quotes that sometimes left me scratching my head. All of this though is in service of the puzzles. While some puzzle platforms are 3D, only a rare few truly make use of all dimensions available to them. This is where Etherborn comes in, and demonstrates it’s unique selling point.

The game takes clear inspiration from surrealist images such as those by M.C. Escher, and cleverly works in not just the aesthetic of his work, but brings it deeply into the gameplay too. The trick is this, at all time your characters gravity is perpendicular to the ground they are currently walking on. This means you can walk around the levels in ways that frankly sometimes broke my mind. Each level is like a diorama that you’re turning around in your hands, searching for the key to unlock that path that you need to take.

One moment you might be walking straight along a path, before climbing up a wall and then dropping “down” onto another platform horizontally. Along the way you will also be collecting orbs of light that allow you to open switches, raise bridges and move the environment around. When multiple of these switches come into play for one puzzle it can be a real mind-bender, and the difficulty of this game can really ramp up. Fortunately there is no punishment for failing, so experimentation is easy and natural. There’s no combat and mercifully no time limits, so the focus really is on just getting through to the end.

On another note, the music in the game so far is excellent, and is a strong reminder that even in an indie game such as this, music can still be of very high quality. The low-poly visual design is also a plus, and works well to highlight what can be interacted with – here there are no superfluous details that could distract or confuse you.

Etherborn is shaping up to be an intriguing game designed around the eureka moment of working out how to get through a level that on first glance seemed almost visually incomprehensible. The levels are smartly designed, it looks great and so has seemingly all the fundamentals firmly established. It will be a test to see whether the developers can keep up the creativity for the length of a full game, no mean feat. But what we have seen is a fantastic start, and should give the backers of the game on Fig (a crowdfunding platform where you buy slices of revenue as well) hope that their money is well spent.

For the rest of us, this taste of the game is alike a fun-size candy bar, enough to get a taste, but leaves us looking to the full size one, coming later this year.

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Recently I found myself in a darkened underground bunker-like setting filled with the bodies of the infected and an array of screens in Sydney, Australia which set the scene for an exclusive preview event of Sony PlayStations’ newest IP, Days Gone.

The extended hands-on session saw selected media and influencers take on the role of Deacon. A former patched bikie gang member, rough, ruthless yet loyal to his closest, trying to survive in the back-waters, dirt roads of small state U.S. in the aftermath of an outbreak that caused people to turn into ravenous infected zombie-like creatures.

The infected, known as ‘Freakers’ have varying stages and in some humans the outbreak had differing affects. It’s not just humans that turned with the viral outbreak, animals too. So during your time with Days Gone, you always need to watch your back and be careful in the shadows and in the wilderness.

Within the hands-one preview I experienced Newts, which will hide and wait for the right moment to attack you and Hordes, which are exactly as they sound. Hordes means exactly that, expect to see hundreds of ‘Freakers’ in an area, if one sees you they all come running, stumbling over each other, all in a crazed panicked frenzy to eat your living flesh.

A wildly expansive game environment, this open world will see many places ripe and ready for exploring. Scrap and salvage is what you need to obtain – and asides from gameplay specific items that you will need to go and scour the environment for, you will always come across nests of infected or small to large groups of them roaming about.

Your foes are not only the ‘Freakers’. Fellow non-infected humans are out for their own. Some solo, some in groups.

For the most part of the preview session Deacon was very much on his own – and as the game tutorial tells you – it’s okay to run if you need to. And on occasion I had to.

Ammo can be limited like all resources, melee combat is made possible usually with something that you find within the environment or have crafted, and if you’re lucky and abandoned camp might have a few bullets.

Some ‘friendly’ inhabited camps usually offer up the service of upgrading your weapons, acquiring new ones and even picking up new objectives and missions.

To say that vital resources are scarce is an understatement. You will very quickly learn the art of crafting items, from salvage and other bits that you pick up. This can be for anything and everything, to heal you, for a weapon, tools or to patch up your bike, which also can take damage if you are not careful. Gas is a commodity in short supply aswell. Gas cans can be found, so always look out for them, but if you run out of gas – you’re on foot.

Days Gone is a game that you can play your way. Go for the main story, but you don’t need to play through it in linear parts. Break away from it for a while, go exploring, go back to it. Your usual open world foray – but a narrative that is suited to your play style. You can complete the story, but in your own way.

There are some very tense moments I experienced in the preview, which I will not divulge here. I don’t want to throw in any spoilers.

An overlaying theme throughout the gameplay is the personality of Deacon. He is a brutal chap and has had a very colourful background, before the outbreak. Scarred emotionally from tragedy and physically from many gang related brawls. His prize possession is his bike and in the game, you do get to ride and ride some more. Deacon is humble, but fierce.

But now he takes care of his own, aims to do the right thing – but if he is crossed, he won’t let the offender or offenders forget it, or forgive them (or even show any mercy).

Days Gone could easily be mistaken for ‘another zombie infested’ game. It’s not.

Similar to The Last of Us series but much much bigger, it breaks away from this cliché franchise and successfully paces and places a path of its own.

A brand new cinematically scoped IP for Sony and one that I can see turning in to a franchise.

Days Gone developed by Bend Studios (most known for the Syphon Filter series) releases on the 26th of April 2019 and needs to be on your must have games of this year.

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