It’s a cliché, I know, but sometimes it’s true that the more things change, the more they stay the same. But while that happens to be the case with the sci-fi third-person Gears Of War 4 (Xbox One, Ultimate Edition Xbox One, PC, Ultimate Edition PC), it’s actually the changes that make this otherwise familiar game feel refreshed and revitalized.
Originally released on Xbox One and PC, the third-person acrobatic action game Rise Of The Tomb Raider was an invigorating adventure that was easily one of the year’s best games and a worthy successor to 2013’s Tomb Raider. Now we have Rise Of The Tomb Raider 20 Year Celebration (PlayStation 4), which not only brings this game to Sony’s system, but it also includes both new and previously available story add-ons and challenge modes, making this the definitive edition of a great game.
Since it began, the sci-fi, cover-based, third-person shooters in the Gears Of War series have been as much about their multiplayer and co-op modes as they are their story-driven campaigns. More so for some people. And the same is certainly true for the newest, Gears Of War 4 (Xbox One, Ultimate Edition Xbox One, PC, Ultimate Edition PC). But while we wait for the game to come out so I can test its online modes, here’s an assessment of the game’s story-driven campaign.
With Dishonored 2 on track to be released November 11th for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC, the good people at Arkane Studios and Bethesda Softworks held an event at The Edison in Los Angeles, California, where they gave members of the media a chance to play a somewhat elaborate mission from the game.
Suffice it to say, spoilers follow.
Though it’s only been out a month or so, the cyberpunk shooting adventure game Deus Ex Mankind Divided (Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC) is already getting a story-driven expansion. But while Deus Ex Mankind Divided System Rift (also Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC) isn’t a radical departure from the main game, it is a short but challenging one-off mission that has all of the elements, and all of the engagement, of the main game.
In a recent interview (which you can read here), Bungie’s Community Manager Deej said that while their first-person sci-fi shooter Destiny is focused on multiplayer, “Lone wolves are welcome in our living social world. We’ve even made adjustments to the paths that lead to the top of the power scale to accommodate players who prefer to go it alone.” Well, as someone who doesn’t play well with others, I decided to test this by playing the Destiny Rise Of Iron expansion — which is available both digitally (PlayStation 4, Xbox One) and in Destiny The Collection (PlayStation 4, Xbox One) along with the rest of the game — solo to see how well this game works if you are a lone wolf who prefers to go it alone.
Between the introduction of Ms. Marvel, the gender swapping of Thor, and Captain Marvel getting her own movie, it’s a good time to be a woman in Marvel Comics. But it’s also a good time to be a fan of those ladies and pinball thanks to Zen Studios, whose newest tables for Zen Pinball 2 (PlayStation 4, PlayStation 4, Vita), Pinball FX 2 (Xbox One, Xbox 360, PC), and Zen Pinball (iOS, Android, Amazon) are the Marvel’s Women Of Power Two Pack, which feature the ladies of A-Force, Ms. Marvel, and Spider-Gwen, as well as a host of bad gals.
With the strategy game Halo Wars 2 (Xbox One, PC) not coming out until February 21st of 2017, fans of the Halo games are undoubtedly going through withdrawal. Thankfully, Gallery Book has a fix in the form of Halo Fractures (paperback, digital), a collection of short stories from such sci-fi writers as John Jackson Miller (Star Wars: A New Dawn), such Halo novelists as Tobias Buckell (Halo: The Cole Protocol), and even such Halo game writers as Brian Reed, who co-wrote Halo 4 and was the lead writer on Halo 5: Guardians, and also penned the comic books Halo: Initiation, Halo: Escalation, and Halo: Fall Of Reach, the graphic novel adaptation of Eric Nyland’s prequel novel, Halo: The Fall Of Reach.
To find out more about the stories in Halo Fractures, I posed (mostly) the same questions to three of the books contributors: Matt Forbeck, who wrote the novel Halo: New Blood; Halo: Last Light writer Troy Denning; and Christie Golden, who’s new to the Halo cannon, but has written novels based on the StarCraft games as well as the worlds of Star Wars and Star Trek.
Funko have announced that they’ll release POP! toys of characters from the Call Of Duty games this November.