Take Photos of Neo-Victorian London in The Order’s Update
The latest update for The Order: 1886 will add filters and a Photo Mode with a fully untethered camera.
According to a post on the PS Blog, "fans expressed an overwhelming desire to see and share the realism, beauty and detail of our Neo-Victorian world."
The tool will not only allow you to adjust multiple camera settings and take a picture of the action from any angle you want, there's the option to "Lock Grading", which will save any presets you have enabled and allow you to play the whole game that way.
To find out more about The Order: 1886, check out IGN's review, where it's described as a "stylish adventure", although "there just isn't a lot to it."
New Halo 5: Guardians Teaser Surfaces
A new teaser for Halo 5: Guardians has surfaced on 343 Industries' Hunt the Truth promotional website.
The third episode in the campaign's audio log series, conducted by fictional journalist Benjamin Giraud, has been released. It's titled "Critical Condition," and centers around the mystery of John 117 and his home planet.
The log explores a different side of the Master Chief, as detailed by conversations with retired members of the military, and if the recently released live-action teaser is any indication, Agent Locke has a bone to pick over some of the events that transpired in the Spartan's cloudy past.
Deepwater Horizon Film Reportedly Adds Cast Members
Kurt Russell and The Maze Runner's Dylan O'Brien are reportedly in talks to join Mark Wahlberg in Lionsgate's Deepwater Horizon--a new film from Battleship director Peter Berg.
Variety reports that Russell is in negotiations to join the film based on the 2010 BP oil-rig explosion that killed eleven crew members and spilled oil into the Gulf of Mexico for 87 days. He joins Mark Wahlberg, who will play a manager aboard the rig, and Jane the Virgin's Gina Rodriguez.
Kurt Russell and Dylan O'Brien
Game of Thrones Season 5 Premiere Free on Xbox Live
Starting today, Xbox Live subscribers can watch the Season 5 Game of Thrones premiere for free on Xbox One and Xbox 360.
The Game of Thrones hub on the Xbox dashboard also includes trailers, behind-the-scenes videos with set tours, and a Westeros trivia test led by the show's cast members.
The offer expires on April 16, so watch "The Wars to Come" before it's gone.
Season 5, Episode 1 of Game of Thrones premiered on April 12. Check out our The Wars to Come review to see our thoughts on the opening episode.
Slaughtering With Signs: The Magic of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
Signs -- the spells used by witchers to disable or destroy their opponents -- often felt inessential in The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings. The utility magic certainly served its purpose in numerous situations, but those encounters rarely required much more than sword slashes between dodge rolls. I used them when I remembered I had them, and forgot shortly after. In The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Geralt of Rivia lives and dies by both the sword and the spell. Even on the easiest difficulty, ignoring Signs is the quickest way to lose in battle.
Combat in The Witcher 3 is complex and challenging in a way that’s even more satisfying than the last two games. The newfound importance of magic is secretly the most important reason why. Early on, each of Geralt’s five Signs function similarly to The Witcher 2: useful, satisfying, but unsophisticated. The flaming Igni and telekinetic Aard spells operate similarly, blasting an energetic force toward enemies. Igni’s small chance to set enemies alight is its differentiating factor, but as it levels and becomes a devastating, targeted flamethrower, it starts serving a different purpose than Aard’s fierce knockback and increasingly effective crowd-control. The Quen shield, like it did before, can deal damage by exploding when it takes enough damage. It also comes with the invaluable benefit of converting damage into health when leveled appropriately.
Turn: Washington’s Spies – The Conflict Within
With Turn: Washington's Spies returning to AMC tonight, IGN has an exclusive clip from the two-hour season premiere event. You can check out the video above, featuring a heated conversation between Ben Talmadge (Seth Numrich) and Caleb Brewster (Daniel Henshall) regarding orders from none other than George Washington.
Turn follows New York farmer, Abe Woodhull (Jamie Bell), who bands together with a group of childhood friends to form The Culper Ring, an unlikely group of spies who turn the tide in America's fight for independence.
Season 2 of Turn: Washington's Spies begins Monday, April 13th at 9/8c.
Max Nicholson is a writer for IGN, and he desperately seeks your approval. Show him some love by following @Max_Nicholson on Twitter or MaxNicholson on IGN.
Destiny House of Wolves Expansion Release Date Announced
Destiny's second expansion, titled House of Wolves, will be released on Tuesday, May 19.
Activision has announced the release date for the new content and promised a new trailer offering more information will be provided shortly.
This falls in line with a previous leak that suggested May 19 would be the magic date when we'd be able to play the new expansion. Of course, if none of this takes your fancy, Bungie's meant to have much more in the pipeline for the shooter. Yet another leak claims the biggest content release yet is coming after House of Wolves.
Street Fighter 5 Will Cater to New Players
Street Fighter V will be a fighter that aims to expand Capcom's fan base by offering up something unexpected for gamers, according to series producer Yoshinori Ono.
"With Street Fighter V, we have a fantastic opportunity to create something with a larger scope. A game that encompasses all that Street Fighter has become in the last few years, but which also expands on that to become something it has never been before as well," Ono told Edge (via GamesRadar).
"So now we want to create something that nobody is expecting," Ono went on to add. "It’s going to be a title that caters to fans, of course, but one that also invites completely new players onto the scene. Street Fighter IV was about reviving a passion. Street Fighter V is about growing that passion."
Villain Yellowjacket Kicks Ass in Second Ant-Man Trailer
After a tantalising tease gave us a hint of what to expect yesterday, Marvel's gone ahead and dropped the second full trailer for the upcoming Ant-Man movie adaptation.
With more humour when compared with the first trailer's serious tone, the scenes on show here also give us a chance to see the villainous Yellowjacket in action - previously, we'd only had a brief glimpse of his outfit.
Earlier this year, Marvel released a slew of new images from the film, including some concept art that showed what Corey Stoll would be wearing as Darren Cross/Yellowjacket. Cross' outfit is far more advanced than the one worn by Scott Lang/Ant-Man (Paul Rudd), as shown in their first big encounter.
Titan Souls Review
Titan Souls is a game of contradictions. It's difficult until it isn't. It's compelling until it isn't. And it's fun until it isn't, which fortunately the game understands, drawing to a close after four hours or so when the triumphs no longer outweigh the aggravations. It is the subject of difficulty that makes Titan Souls so unusual, however. This is a game about--and only about--boss battles. Your first step into an arena is likely to lead to death in a matter of seconds, but your moment of triumph, which might come after five, 10, or 20 attempts, may end the boss in a similarly brief span. And suddenly, a challenge that seemed insurmountable minutes before is now over before you can take a single breath. And you must wonder: How can something so hard also be so...easy?
The answer lies within Titan Souls' very structure. You are a tiny archer who takes up very little space on screen, a pixelized adventurer with a single arrow providing your only protection from the monstrosities you face. The 2D world you explore may try to calm you with curlicues of wind, gently swaying brush, and light snowfall, but the dark forests and stone temples offer no hope to those that seek it. This place has no healing springs, no wildlife to tame, and no wolves to slay with a few well-aimed shots. It only hides bizarre deviants made of flesh and metal, each monstrosity designed to tower above your miniature frame moments before before destroying it.
Each boss fight, in turn, presents itself first as a puzzle to solve, and then as a challenge to be overcome. Entering an arena may lead to death in a mere second or two before you're able to even get your bearings. With each attempt comes more understanding, however. That tumbling yeti will likely squash you the first time you ever see him, and probably the tenth time too. A giant coal-powered skeleton head propels itself around the arena with spiked orbs, killing you not just by crushing you, but by driving you to cross the flames that rise from the arena's floor vents. So you process the relevant information. What is the creature's weak point? How does it move through the arena? Do you defeat it by using the arena in any way? Where one enemy is concerned, avoiding death means noting where shadows appear on the ground before you can be crushed by the objects that caused them. For another boss, counting the number of times it rotates before resting for a moment can prove helpful.
Now you know what must be done, and it's time to execute on your plan. Charging up your shot leaves your tiny archer unable to move--and retrieving your arrow means either picking it up where it last fell, or holding a button to summon it to you, a process that also stills you for as long as the button is held. The behemoth might be vulnerable to your single arrow for a fraction of a second, so you exploit the boss fight's rhythms as best you can, trying and trying until the moment comes, your arrow finds its mark, and the beast falls without a single cry of pain or declaration of future vengeance. It is simply stilled, accompanied by a dramatic drum cue, and the screen turns a sepia hue, reflecting the loss of the soul that once existed here. When you summon your arrow back to your bow, you also pull points of light representing the boss's soul to you, and they swirl about you as the music swells; it's a beautiful moment of triumph, and one of many examples of how Titan Souls' excellent audio design instills excitement and eases mounting frustration.
Victorious sound effects aside, Titan Souls' very design can lead to a disappointing anticlimax. Just as a swimming leviathan can murder you in a single stroke, so too can you murder it in a blink of an eye. A well-timed arrow shot just seconds after the battle begins can bring the baddie down, and leave you wondering why you stressed over such a simple endeavor. It was so hard--until it was easy. It's naturally fulfilling when you put this game's lessons to good use, but after eight or nine different boss battles, you know how each fight will end: you will make many attempts to fell the boss--and on a few frustrating occasions, many many attempts--before one last go, upon which you will deliver a precise shot that ends the action before it begins.
And that is why Titan Souls is compelling--until it isn't. What starts as an interesting idea loses its shine as it nears its conclusion, and along with it, the sense of reward. Success can be its own reward in video games, but in Titan Souls' distilled formula, the only mystery to uncover is the behavior of the titan you have next to face. Some of these encounters are cleverly designed, but the cleverness is not so great as to mask the game's intrinsic austerity. Titan Souls also provides structural rewards that, frankly, aren't very interesting. Hard mode; a mode in which you cannot run or dodge; a mode in which you only have one life to live: these don't provide much reason to return unless you thrive on speedruns and ultimate mastery, nor does the final reveal, which you are privy to only if you defeat every boss, which is not required for you to officially beat the game.
Not that austerity must be a bad thing, only that Titan Souls stretches its single idea as far as it can go--and then a few battles beyond the limit. It's fitting that the world surrounding those battle is similarly simple. Unlike Shadow of the Colossus, the game I would say it most recalls, Titan Souls doesn't tell much of a story with its world, but it's at least a lovely place to be. You access boss fights from themed hubs, so you walk a short distance from a nearby save point to each nearby boss arena--and moving from one hub to another is a few minutes' journey. Those journeys have you crossing stone pathways, swimming across shallow pools, and riding mechanical platforms; giant eyeballs adorning nearby doorways follow you as you travel past, instilling unease.
It is the soundtrack and general audio that deserves the most credit for making this world enjoyable to pass through. (I wouldn't say "explore" is the right word, since there are no treasures to unearth or truly commanding sights to drink in.) One of the first bosses is a disembodied brain encased in ice, and the resounding clank it makes as it collides with walls gives the entire battle a tremendous sense of pressure and weight, while vivacious bongos exacerbate the battle's percussive feel. When you leave sunshine behind for snowy fields, the open strings of a fiddle recall similar tunes from the film Fargo, which also takes place in a frigid land. When green grass returns, a flute and guitar engage in a leisurely minuet, making your stroll feel particularly pleasant.
Don't let the soothing songs lull you, however: stress is always just a minute away, and once you have internalized Titan Souls' lessons, so is relief. In time, those lessons become exhausting; you keep studying the exam, yet fail it over and over again until, suddenly, you pass with little fanfare, and a new class begins. Luckily, before work comes joy, and in the few hours that Titan Souls maintains your interest, you prove that you--and the diminutive hero that you play--can change the world with incredible patience, and a single arrow.