When the new Tomb Raider was first released in March of 2013, it was rightfully hailed as the year’s first great game. Now, nearly a year later, an updated edition dubbed Tomb Raider Definitive Edition is coming to Xbox One and PlayStation 4, with spiffy new visuals and all of the original’s added content thrown in. But while it makes this great game look even better, is that enough to warrant an upgrade?
As a Halo fan who’s old enough to remember when shooters couldn’t be first-person, you’d think a Halo-flavored version of Robotron: 2084 or Smash TV would be right up my alley. But while Halo: Spartan Assault for the Xbox One never hits the effortless stride we’ve come to expect from a Halo game, it’s still has plenty of addictive arcade-y action.
If there’s one thing you can say about most next-gen games that’ve come out so far, it’s that they kind of feel last-gen. Sure, they look amazing, and are fun in their own ways, but when you play such games as Ryse: Son Of Rome (my review of which you can read here) or Forza Motorsport 5 on the Xbox One, or such PlayStation 4 games as Knack or Killzone: Shadow Fall (which I also reviewed), you quickly realize they’re nothing we haven’t seen before.
And the same can be said for Max: The Curse Of Brotherhood, a puzzling, side-scrolling platformer for the Xbox One that’s good looking and engaging, but doesn’t do anything on Microsoft’s new system that couldn’t be done on their previous machine.
For Call Of Duty Ghosts (Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, WiiU, PC), Activision hired writer/director Stephen Gaghan — who penned Steven Soderbergh’s 2000 movie Traffic and both wrote and directed 2005’s Syriana — to help with the campaign’s story. With the game done and out the door, I spoke to Mr. Gaghan about how he got the gig, how he feels about the way stories are told in games, and how he feels about the game’s critically-maligned ending. As a result…
WARNING: THIS INTERVIEW HAS SPOILERS ABOUT CALL OF DUTY GHOSTS.
McFarlane Toys have announced that they will release a limited edition statue of Edward Kenway from Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag on December 13.
In many ways, Call Of Duty: Ghost — which Activision is releasing on the Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, WiiU, and PC — isn’t just a new game, it’s also a new beginning, as it’s the first non-sequel in this series since 2008’s World At War.
It was with this in mind that I spoke to Infinity Ward’s Mark Rubin, the game’s Executive Producer, at a recent event where journalists were given an opportunity to play the game so we could review it for our respective outlets (look for mine in an upcoming issue of @gamer). As a result…
WARNING: THIS INTERVIEW HAS SPOILERS ABOUT CALL OF DUTY: GHOSTS.
As the saying goes, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” Clearly, it’s one that, DICE, the makers of the Battlefield games, have taken to heart because after failing repeatedly to make a single-player mode that’s as compelling as their online multiplayer ones, they’ve finally pulled it off with Battlefield 4.
Oh, and the multiplayer is still good, too.
Considering how competition is such a big part of video games, it’s hardly surprising that there are rivalries between different games as well. But few rivalries are as feisty as the one between Battlefield and Call of Duty.
Unless, of course, you’re writer Jesse Stern, who co-wrote 2007’s Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and 2009’s Modern Warfare 2 but most recently worked on Battlefield 4.
But while some might see this as a betrayal, or as revenge — especially since he’s also helping the ex-C.O.D. people at Respawn with their upcoming game, Titanfall — Stern actually doesn’t see it that way.