By injecting new mechanics into an old school shooter — or maybe they injected old mechanics into a new school shooter — the good people at ID Software have done something interesting with the new Doom (Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC). Though how much you’ll enjoy this sci-fi first-person shooter will depend more on how much you appreciate those old school mechanics more than the new ones.
With Shadow Of The Beast (PlayStation 4), the good people at Heavy Spectrum Entertainment Labs have resurrected a cult favorite that dates back to the era of the Commodore Amiga. Even cooler, they’ve made an compelling and addictive 2D side-scrolling hack & slash action game that doesn’t require you to be familiar with the original, or even the Commode Amiga, to get a kick out of. Or slice out of, as the case may be.
Much like their Borderlands games, for which this is an obvious spiritual successor, Battleborn (Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC) is a sci-fi first-person that was designed by the good people of Gearbox Software to be a co-op game, but could be played solo if you really felt like it. But while some co-op games work well solo (The Division, Destiny), not all of them do (Rainbow Six Siege). And it’s somewhere in between, though leaning more towards the former, that we find Battleborn.
With Uncharted 4 A Thief’s End (PlayStation 4), Naughty Dog are saying good bye to the third-person action-packed adventure series they first launched in 2007 with Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. But while it’s not the best game in this series (it’s no Uncharted 2) nor the best game of its kind in recent years (it’s no Rise Of The Tomb Raider), it’s still an epic adventure and an equally compelling workout for your reflexes. Well, once it gets going, anyway.
When thinking about movies that could inspire fun pinball tables, the Alien series is second only to Indiana Jones, and even then just because the former has that iconic scene with a giant ball.
But while we wait for Doctor Jones to get his butt in gear, we can enjoy the new Aliens Vs Pinball Pack for Zen Pinball 2 (PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Vita), Pinball FX 2 (Xbox One, Xbox 360, PC), and Zen Pinball (iOS, Android, Amazon). Well, for the most part.
With a name like Alienation (PlayStation 4), and a release date of 4-26, you might think Housemarque’s new shooter might not be serious. Or that it’s connected to the Alien movies. Turns out that neither are true. Instead, Alienation is a new, and rather interesting arcade shooter that layers the genre’s classic and still viable tenets with some creative mechanics not normally associated with this kind of game.
At dinner, some people don’t want to eat their entre, they just want to skip to dessert. And it’s the same with gaming; some people don’t want to have to fight their way through tons of grunts just to get to the boss battle. It’s for those people that The Game Bakers are making the upcoming third-person action game Furi (PlayStation 4, PC). Earlier this week, I had a chance to see the game in action, and to ask Emeric Thoa (the game’s creative director, producer, and game designer) and Audrey Leprince (its executive producer and writer) about how the game is played, what story it’s going to tell, and how they got Takashi Okazaki — who wrote and drew the original Afro Samurai manga and worked on both animes and the first, but not the second, Afro Samurai game — to design the Furi‘s unique-looking characters.
In anticipation of the third-person sci-fi shooter Gears Of War 4 being released for Xbox One on October 11th, Microsoft and The Coalition are holding an open beta for the game’s multiplayer modes starting April 18th for those who bought the Gears Of War: Ultimate Edition, and for everyone who has Xbox Live Gold status beginning April 25th.
Because most video game remakes only improve the graphics, and even then only slightly, they’re usually pointless for anyone who’s already played the original. But the good people at Insomniac have thankfully bucked this trend, and in a big way, with this upgraded and (more importantly) updated version of Ratchet & Clank (PlayStation 4).