Feature List

Days 3-7

Now that I’ve finally unlocked Conquest mode in Smite, I don’t see myself leaving anytime soon, regardless of the other modes that I’m sure I will be unlocked in the near future. Conquest is a tried and true MOBA map, and it feels great running around it from one point to another, and the controls are great and customizable to the point where there’s something for everybody. As a result, everything simply flows together and just work. I was curious how Hi-Rez would solve the problem of not being able to move the camera off the controlled immortal, as can be done in other MOBAs. The studio worked around this by giving all allies and enemies in vision a faint outline with a health bar on the field, making them easy to see. The only crucial thing to take away from what I just said is that everything works how one would expect on a PC, which is all anyone is really asking for.

Anyway, remember how I pretty much only played Ymir in Arena? Well, by day three I had discovered playing Ymir in the support position, and I fell in love with him all over again. The little bit of skill I had built up on Ymir from Arena definitely gave me a leg up over players trying new champions. I’m fortunate to have discovered an immortal that I can thoroughly enjoy so early on. I was setting up kill after kill for the carry, a support’s job, and being able to actively see a player snowball their advantage into something massive is a beautiful sight to behold. But after close to a week of playing Conquest, I’ve begun to notice some trends in most players that are easily fixable and would improve everyone’s play. Granted, some of the following do’s and don’ts apply to more than just Smite, but that doesn’t lessen their value here in the slightest.

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Effective immediately, the standard 500 GB Xbox One has been given a price drop to $349 USD, Microsoft announced today. Would-be Xbox owners who still want to pay the original price, however, will again get that option when Microsoft releases a new 1 TB model of its games console for $399 on June 16 in the United States and later this month in additional “select markets.”

On top of more storage space, the new SKU will also feature a matte black finish, a USB 3.0 drive and the oft-rumored new Xbox One game controller. This new controller features retooled bumpers, the ability to receive wireless firmware updates and a new 3.5 mm headset jack that will allow gamers to plug headphones directly into their controllers.

The new console will come bundled with Halo: The Master Chief Collection for a limited time in select regions.

With the new Xbox gamepad in hand, gamers will be able to adjust headset volume, mic monitoring and in-game voice and game audio balance through the Xbox One’s Settings menu. Microsoft also said that headset audio quality will be improved and the max volume level will be increased. All previously released controller accessories will function with the new pad, including the Stereo Headset Adapter, which puts headset audio controls at players’ fingertips.

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A good co-op game is hard to come by. Even harder to come by, is one that requires a level of communication so demanding that you feel like you’re actually experiencing a game with the other person instead of just playing your own games side by side.

Asteroid Base’s Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime is trying to achieve just that, while also trying to complement each player’s gaming style, their strengths and weaknesses.

Inspired by the scene in Star Wars in which Han and Luke are climbing ladders and shooting TIE fighters in the Millennium Falcon, Lovers is a game that demands communication.

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Welcome to part one of a multi-part series in which I plan to document my time with Smite to show how I grow as a player in the beta, which should help show new players what to expect. I went into Smite with hundreds of hours of League of Legends logged and even more time spent watching professional matches, plusan occasional dabble in Dota 2. One might think that my modest amount of time spent in the genre might translate over into Smite, but I can say without a doubt, it didn’t give me a leg up over the competition, as evidenced by how poorly my first handful of games went.

Day 1

The game starts with a simple enough tutorial, but, like most MOBAs, it barely even scratches the surface before it sends players on their merry way. The only mode available to players when they first start is called Arena, and that’s where I spent the entirety of my first day.

Arena is shaped like the Colosseum, with jungle camps along the side that provide buffs to players. It’s an excellent place to start, because it avoids the deeper intricacies of a standard match and allows players to focus on finding a god or immortal that fits their play style and novoices to feel good about themselves. Everything seemed to be working well when I first got into a match: the store was easy to navigate; I could decipher what was going on with little problems; and I felt adequately prepared to get started.

Of course I was dead wrong, I finished my first game with a 1/11/11 (kills/deaths/assists) score line as Ares and felt lost. It felt as though I was missing everything, and even though I had these great combos in my head I just couldn’t seem to pull them off. All my skillshots always “just” missed, and I couldn’t seem to land a single auto attack, regardless of if it was melee or ranged. After two more games where I did as bad if not worse than the first, I decided it was time to turn to everyone’s greatest resource: the internet.

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There was once a time we now call the “Good Old Days.” In those days, instant classics spewed forth from every developer’s spicket at such a torrid pace that there was nary an excuse to ever emerge from your parents’ basement and absorb so much as a single UV ray.

Ah yes, they were glorious, those days, weren’t they? Every game was a masterpiece of innovation and craftsmanship, and there wasn’t a single rushed sequel or licensed shovelware release in sight. Replay values were always near infinite, color palettes were consistently varied and vibrant and every single game featured stellar multiplayer and single-player modes.

There’s just one problem with the Good Old Days – they weren’t really that perfect. Certainly it was exciting to grow up during the days of gaming’s so-called Golden Age – sometime between the late ‘70s and mid ‘90s, depending on whom you ask. Everything was new and exciting back then, but not everything was necessarily better. There were good games and bad, just like today. One thing that was almost universally true, though, is that every game was much harder than modern games are. But that doesn’t mean today’s developers should rush to emulate that difficulty – at least not without providing some conceits.

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Like most worlds The Behemoth has created, that of Game 4 is a little outrageous and more than a little deranged. If you know anything at all about the studio’s fourth game, it’s probably that a gargantuan, six-limbed, space-faring bear has slammed into the planet and unleashed all manner of chaos. So comically massive is this Goro-like animal that it’s a wonder anything on the hapless planet it strikes survives the impact. But survive some inhabitants do; after all, it would be more than a bit tricky to build a turn-based strategy game without a plethora of units to conscript and command.

Though the early section of Game 4 on display at PAX East is brief, we see or hear about units as varied as humans, trolls, robots and some sort of living cupcake creatures. Yeah, cupcakes. Playes are given control of Horatio, a simple blueberry farmer and father of one. The extravagantly mustachioed Horatio is forced to take up arms when a band of “Child Eaters” threatening to — what else? — eat his child show up alongside an unseen narrator hurling threats at him. Before you know it, green bear blood pours down from the sky and destroys Horatio’s house, killing his son in the process. It’s as dark as it sounds.

At least, it would be if not for the fact that Game 4 is also utterly goofy. In a repeat performance from his turn in The Behemoth’s BattleBlock Theater, narrator Will Stamper uses his absurd, tangent-filled rants to bring the funnies while also making you question whether or not it’s appropriate to chuckle after witnessing a child being disintegrated by caustic alien bear blood. Of course, this sort of irreverence is nothing new for The Behemoth. Castle Crashers had poop-propelled deer mounts, a literal catfish that coughed up hairball projectiles and princess make-out sessions. Then there was BattleBlock Theater, for which the setup was a group of anthropomorphic cat overlords forcing shipwrecked sailors to perform in a deadly game show. Game 4 is clearly being made from the same mold.

Dan Paladin has served as the main art director for all of The Behemoth’s games, and it shows. But you get the sense that even were Game 4 bereft of Paladin’s bright and charming visuals, you’d still pick up on the connection to the studio’s other games, despite the fact that they are all set in different genres. Production Coordinator Ian Moreno agrees that The Behemoth’s titles all carry a similar tone, but he’s not entirely sure how that happens. Or even whether or not it’s on purpose.

“It’s very much…” he says before pausing a few seconds to search for the answer, “there’s an overall feel and vibe. It’s not just a platformer or a shooter or a turn-based strategy [game]. There’s always more to it, and, yeah, that’s a really tough question. I think it’s just in our DNA, whether it’s the humor and the way we present things, we like to present things very differently.

“When you look at say, how we design our HUD or something, it has to have a little more nuance to it, whether the nuance is just humor or is just offbeat or different.”

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As retro-inspired two-dimensional indie games have gaga’d critics everywhere, the now-classic three-dimensional games from later generations have been ignored for a decade. Seriously, when was the last time you played a new 3D action-platformer? The people at GRIN Studios were thinking the same thing. So, they made Woolfe: The Red Hood Diaries, a faithful iteration on the forgotten formula.

If you were a fan of Ratchet & Clank, Prince of Persia, Banjo-Kazooie, Crash Bandicoot, or one of the many games like them, you know what I’m talking about. Moving platforms, perfect double jumps, timed switches, labyrinthine puzzles, combat combos, magic attacks… it’s all here. And it has a modern coat of paint, a dramatic story and a beautiful setting to bring it into 2015.

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“This is Adam Orth, creator of Adr1ft,” a PR man states matter-of-factly.

Orth is the game developer best known for causing a 2013 internet riot with his infamous #dealwithit tweet. Here at an AMC Loews theater in Boston the weekend of PAX East, he stands up in front of a handful of media members to talk briefly about his game. The whole scene feels pleasantly at odds with the commotion and excitement (real and feigned) back at the convention center I’ve just left. Orth is soft-spoken and unassuming, and aside from just showing the game, there is scarcely any attempt made to hype up the audience. None is needed, because when I pull on an Oculus Rift moments later, I am immediately impressed by Adr1ft.

The added immersion of the VR headset helps, to be sure. But Orth insists that his game was designed to captivate players with or without another reality strapped to their faces. Certainly some of the enveloping feeling of space’s vastness is lost when the headset comes off. After it does, however, watching XBLA Fans’ John Laster and Jill Randolph play on a regular old TV screen is still a treat. Spectating their non-VR play sessions makes me want to get back into this game that is somehow being built by the small team at Three One Zero.

Adr1ft doesn’t seem like something that a diminutive indie developer could create in short order — but that’s exactly what it is. After less than a year in development at Three One Zero, the game’s Gravity-like take on space exploration mission turned disaster is moving. Floating aimlessly through the wreckage of a space station, I take in the little things, like a single leaf escaping from the station’s garden as it collides softly with my helmet. Turning to watch this green speck drift away, I’m dumbstruck and a little frightened by the vast emptiness of space engulfing it. Turning again, I find myself confronted with a familiar, comforting image that I have to assume has left many real-world astronauts breathing a little easier: Earth.

Later, Orth will ask what we think this sort of experience is worth and what games we think it’s in the same class with; he seems sincerely interested in knowing what value others place on his project. It’s a degree of humbleness his many detractors from two years ago might not expect from him.

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Last month, XBLA Fans was streaming Resident Evil Revelations 2 on our Twitch channel when something unexpected happened: the feed abruptly cut to the pause screen pictured above. XBLA Fans’ Michael Cheng hadn’t stopped playing and was still attempting to actively broadcast gameplay, so we knew something external was affecting the stream.

That something was Capcom. The game’s developer-slash-publisher, in an effort to minimize gamers’ exposure to certain scenes that are critical to determining what ending players receive, blocks segments of Revelations 2 from being streamed via the Xbox Twitch app. Capcom kicks all Xbox Twitch streams to the pause screen during the final boss fight, cutscenes, credits and after-credits cutscene. Speaking with XBLA Fans, a representative for the company explained that it wants to “give players a pure and un-spoiled experience,” so it “chose to disable the native capture so that video sharing during those segments was limited.”

This got us thinking: how do other ID@Xbox game developers view Twitch streaming? Are they worried about potential gameplay or story segments being ruined for viewers? We asked a few developers if they had official Twitch policies and whether or not they felt streamers were helping their games to find larger audiences. Official stances on Twitch were a bit mixed, but everyone we talked to agreed that streaming could benefit them. One in particular, however, cautioned against giving streaming codes to anyone and everyone and noted that not all games companies need help from streamers.

Of streams and spoilers

There is perhaps no ID@Xbox developer more well-known for story-driven experiences than Telltale Games. Unfortunately, the studio that popularized episodic game releases declined to comment directly on the issue. Telltale, however, did partner with The Nerdist to stream the entirety of the first Tales from the Borderlands episode a week ahead of its release last November. It also got together with voice actors Troy Baker and Laura Bailey to stream the second episode a few days after its release late last month. It remains to be seen whether or not Telltale will be so eager to stream the season’s surely spoiler-filled final episode in full, but its past actions paint a picture of a studio that does not shy away from streaming spoilers.

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It could be said that time has not been kind to the humble shoot-em-up. Over thirty years ago, games like Space Invaders, Defender, Asteroids and Galaxian were drawing mullet-sporting teens in stonewashed skinny jeans and tight leather jackets to amusement arcades like moths to the glowing neon lights that would hang above the entrance. Today, such arcades are a rarity; mostly replaced by shops or trendy bars and often pulled down entirely, whilst the teenagers of 2015 queue all night outside their local grocery store to buy the latest copy of Call of Duty minutes after its launch.

The shoot-em-up genre has never been keen to go quietly into the night, however, and every generation of consoles has had its fair share of classic static, scrolling and roaming shoot-em-ups for players to consider. I’ve been lucky enough to spend a couple of days with Project Root, an upcoming shooter from Argentinian developer OPQAM that is positioning itself as the definitive next-generation take on this classic genre.

Project Root claims to feature a unique open world aspect in addition to crisp controls, cutting edge graphics, a comprehensive upgrade system and a truly exceptional level of challenge. The game isn’t scheduled for release for a few more weeks, but my experience with it over the past couple of days leads me to suggest that it may yet need a little work to live up to the lofty expectations set by the forebears which it aims to emulate.

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