Road to E3 2016: The Next Legend of Zelda
Brace yourselves: E3 2016 is nearly upon us! From June 12-16, the entire gaming industry will converge on Los Angeles to showcase the biggest games that we’ll be playing this year and beyond. We’ve been updating our Games of E3 List whenever news drops, but now we’re going to go even deeper. Every day leading up to the show, we’re going to be highlight one of the biggest games that we hope to see more of at E3. Up today: The Legend of Zelda!
Daily Deals: Uncharted PS4 Bundle, Amiibo Discounts, Logitech Keyboards and Speakers
Save $40 on the Special Edition Uncharted PlayStation
New Groupin users can enter code TECHB10 (hint: make a new account) to get 10% discount on this special edition PS4 with Uncharted 4: A Thief's End 0 - that's the largest discount I've seen for this bundle. Existing users can use code TECHB5 for a 5% discount.
Alienation Review
Housemarque has produced action games with an old school pedigree for years, but Alienation may be its most intense release yet. The epitome of the retro-style, overhead four-player shooter done up with new school technology, this is a game that clearly shows off the developer's skills at crafting intense action experiences. Alienation isn’t that far removed from Housemarque’s Dead Nation; the aliens you fight here frequently move in a zombie-like fashion. The overhead, isometric perspective and focus on team-based survival feel very familiar, too. However: the devil is in the details. There’s a decided focus on refinement over Housemarque's past games in Alienation.
The world has been overrun by aliens, much of the population has either been killed or mutated, and the only hope for turning the tide rests upon a squad of four heavily modified soldiers. Levels have plenty of space to explore, with mission objectives that force you to scour maps from end to end. Exploring the game's side pockets and out of the way places is a rewarding pursuit, with items, weapons, and currency in abundance, allowing you to level up both your soldier and weapons in an RPG-like fashion.
There are three distinct classes to choose from before you get started, each offering a different style of gameplay. The tank is just what you’d expect—big, bulky, and tough. He can generate shields and unleash massive bursts of energy for special attacks. At first, the saboteur seems like an odd choice for a decidedly non-stealth focused game, but he ultimately proves to be a valuable asset during coop. They can turn invisible and sneak past aliens, double dash, and unleash a devastating aerial bombing attack. Lastly, the bio-specialist is a valuable assist character that can heal teammates and choke enemies with clouds of poison. Alienation's three classes compliment each other well on a full team, with the tank taking the direct approach and shielding his teammates, while the saboteur handles outliers quickly, and the bio-specialist backs them up with healing and the poison cloud attacks that whittles enemies down.
All three offer a range of upgrade options; every ability has an upgrade path with sub-choices that can be switched on the fly. You might opt for a slightly faster recharge rate for a special attack, or slightly more attack damage. As you progress, new weapons can be picked up from fallen enemies or scattered crates. When you acquire a new weapon, you can either equip or salvage it. Salvaging weapons rather oddly lets you “re-roll” the stats of your guns, so you can potentially get them powered up without actively adding upgrades to them.
Housemarque's talent for delivering exceptional gunplay is on full display.
There are shiny “cores” to pick up too, which allow you to increase the power levels of guns—everything from damage to clip size is modifiable. Since you can upgrade on the fly, the results of any re-roll or upgrade to your character or weapon are immediately noticeable, adding a huge boost of instant gratification to the leveling system. Each player’s loadout consists of three weapons—a primary, secondary, and heavy. In addition, there’s a grenade slot that recharges after each use and can include mines and a boomerang, among other destructive toys. Housemarque's talent for delivering exceptional gunplay is on full display; the shotgun has a satisfying oomph and the flamethrower's chaotic fountain of fire is a joy to unleash.
Starting off in Alaska, Alienation moves you to places like Brazil, Russia, and onto alien ships. Depending on the number of players, difficulty level, and specific map, its 20 missions can each take anywhere from 20-30 minutes to nearly an hour each.
You're given a variety of 'go here, scan this, kill that' type of objectives within each mission, but the appearance of random events helps mix things up--sudden boss battles or a horde of aliens can appear at a moment’s notice. These random events get deeper the farther you go and beating the game introduces new gameplay elements like special assignments, alien hideouts, mysterious artifacts, and other goodies. These extras do a great job of incentivizing you to dive back in.
Though you can play Alienation on your own, it's absolutely focused on its online multiplayer. Levels get blisteringly hard after a while, even with a full team, and coordinated attacks can be a near-necessity later in the game. There are respawn points spread throughout the map where dead characters will respawn. Yet, the game is almost sadistic in its respawning of aliens. Dying means having to plow through whatever lost ground you suffered, which will be completely repopulated--frequently with more and tougher aliens.
Alienation is a refined and intense shooter that looks and sounds great, and offers fantastically chaotic and violent action.
There are a couple odd bits of frustration though. For one, Alienation only supports online multiplayer--local co-op has yet to be implemented. Another annoyance is that, even when playing alone, you can’t actually pause the game. Finally, Vita owners will find that the control scheme requires a lot of tweaking to be playable on the small screen.
Alienation is a refined and intense shooter that looks and sounds great, and offers fantastically chaotic and violent action. While the game sometimes feels a little too eager to kill players and lacks local play, with a full troop online, it’s easily one of the best all-out action multiplayer games in recent memory.
Wrestling Wrap Up: RIP Jericho’s $15,000 Jacket
I know RAW had a few notable moments, and also that WWE fired a bunch of people this week, but I kind of only want to talk about the "No Mas" match between Sexy Star and Mariposa on Lucha Underground. One of the most brutal televised women's matches since the days when TNA used to book Daffney to bump on thumbtacks in Monster's Ball bouts. Twas incredible, you guys.
Civil War Directors Reveal Chinese Superhero Project
Anthony and Joe Russo—the directors of Captain America: Civil War—will begin production on their "mind-bending Chinese superhero film" this year.
According to Variety, the brothers appeared at an event in Beijing to announce their new project, The Hero's Awakening. The film is the first of a new partnership between the director-duo, Chinese production company United Entertainment Partners, and equity firm HDQH.
The Russos were reportedly approached by a Chinese filmmaker regarding a film about "a character who can control things with his mind." Anthony and Joe Russo will serve as producers on the film, which will be released in late 2017 or early 2018.
Orange Is the New Black: Season 4 Trailer Revealed
Netflix has pulled back the curtain on the first official trailer for Orange Is the New Black: Season 4.
Get a sneak peek at what lies ahead for Piper Chapman (Taylor Schilling) and the rest of the inmates of Litchfield Penitentiary in the clip below.
Orange Is the New Black: Season 4 makes its Netflix debut on Friday, June 17 at 12:01am. Earlier this year, Netflix and Lionsgate announced three additional seasons for the popular television drama, with Seasons 5, 6 and 7 arriving sometime in the years ahead.
Next Mass Effect: Andromeda News Coming at E3
Our next piece of news regarding Mass Effect: Andromeda will be coming at the EA Play event on June 12.
EA Play is essentially replacing EA's old press conference and booth at E3, and instead fans will be invited to play games at the free event from June 12 - 14.
Aaryn Flynn, general manager of Bioware, also confirmed we won't be seeing Mass Effect: Andromeda until early 2017, saying "we need the right amount of time to make sure we deliver everything the game can be and should be. This confirms what EA's CFO Blake Jorgensen already said back in March about a delay.
Raiders! Trailer Debut for the Hot Documentary
Feast your eyes on the new trailer for Raiders!: The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made, the forthcoming documentary chronicling the story of the decades-spanning production of a shot-for-shot remake of Steven Spielberg’s Raiders of the Lost Ark by three childhood best friends.
After Raiders of the Lost Ark was released in 1981, three 11-year-old boys -- Chris Strompolos, Eric Zala, and Jayson Lamb -- set out on what would become a 7-year-long labor of love and tribute to their favorite film: a faithful, shot-for-shot adaptation of the action adventure film. They finished every scene except one; the film's explosive airplane set-piece. Over two decades later, the trio reunited with the original cast members from their childhood in order to complete their masterpiece.
Halo 5’s Infection Mode Detailed
Halo 5: Guardians will receive its Memories of Reach update later this month, and with it 343 Industries is unveiling fan-favorite gameplay mode Infection.
Infection—which started as a fan-made multiplayer variant but eventually became a Halo staple—pits humans against zombies. For the humans to win, they've got to survive. For zombies to prevail, they've got to take out all the humans.
In an interview with Game Informer, community coordinator John Junyszek and multiplayer engineer Geoff Landskov discussed the ways Infection is different in Halo 5.
Kojima’s New Game Is for Fans of AAA Action
Hideo Kojima has given a few snippets of information about what his first game since leaving Konami will be.
In an interview with Famitsu, via Hachima with a translation from Siliconera, Kojima says "I won't say that it's an open-world title, but those that enjoy playing today's AAA titles such as The Division and Uncharted will be able to play it smoothly."
"When it gets announced, some may think that it's not as way-out as they had expected, but I'm sure they'll understand once they play it. The genre is action."