gamescom2019
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EA meets with gamers to help curb toxic behavior online
EA knows online harassment is a problem with its games like anyone else's, and it's taking some (small) steps toward creating a less toxic space. The publisher used the recent Gamescom expo to hold the first meeting of the Healthy Communities Player Council, a group of gamers teaming with EA to address vile behavior in online gaming. While EA focused on sharing updates on its own efforts (including improved harassment reporting tools and research into disruptive behavior), the Council offered feedback on what EA could do better -- and it apparently had a few ideas.
Yakuza's many remasters are about to pay off big time
Ryu Ga Gotoku (RGG) Studio is in a fantastic position. The Sega-owned developer has just released Judgment, a well-received detective game starring Japanese actor and singer Takuya Kimura as the lead. Now, the team is turning its attention back to Yakuza, a long-running series about Kazama Kiryu and his complex, often violent entanglements with Japan's criminal underbelly.
'El Hijo' is a Spaghetti Western stealth game with heart
The art at the top of El Hijo's website says it all. A young boy in a red poncho stands at the edge of a cliff, overlooking a sun-bleached desert valley with a stuffed bear dangling from his fingertips. His shadow unfurls across the rock behind him, the teddy bear transformed into a pistol. This little boy is a fighter.
Sega is becoming its weird and wonderful self again
Sega is in an unexpectedly good place right now. The company was never on top of the industry; it's been beaten by Nintendo, by Sony, by the decline of the arcade. It spent years nursing the wounds from its fall from grace in the '90s, and through the '00s and early '10s could seemingly do little right.
'Dark Crystal: Tactics' and the evolution of Netflix's video game strategy
Stranger Things was Netflix's first experiment with making video games. Developed by Texas studio BonusXP, the Stranger Things mobile game came out in October 2017, and it was a basic, accessible experience for anyone even vaguely familiar with the franchise, regardless of their gaming prowess. Stranger Things garnered 3 million downloads in its first week, and it set the stage for Netflix to get excited about -- and throw money at -- video games. Since then, the studio has released a sequel, Stranger Things 3: The Game, which is essentially an expanded, isometric take on the same formula, but built for consoles instead of smartphones.
‘Streets of Rage 4’ is shaping up to be a worthy sequel
Streets of Rage 4's announcement landed with a bit of a thud. The original trilogy of Genesis games is beloved, and for many remains the benchmark for the genre. It's now been 15 years since Streets of Rage 3, and a teaser trailer for a new game showing a cast of hand-drawn characters against some decidedly modern music looked more like a Saturday morning cartoon than a faithful new chapter. While many were excited for the return, a vocal group voiced their concerns.
'Windjammers 2' is a stylish update to a Neo Geo classic
Windjammers is basically Pong on steroids. The original, released for the Neo Geo arcade system in 1994, had two players throwing a frisbee -- sorry, "ultimate flying disc" -- across a net. If you managed to hit the opponent's end zone, you got some points. Simple, right? Yes and no. Lobs, curved shots and character-specific special moves added a surprising amount of strategy to each game. And now, there's Windjammers 2. The sequel, developed by French studio Dotemu, has a brand-new art style and some extra mechanics to keep the action and inevitable mind games fresh. It is, in a word, brilliant.
'Blair Witch' expertly remixes horror gaming's greatest hits
Blair Witch is scary. That's not a revelation for most people, considering the pop culture status the movie achieved when it came out in 1999, ushering in an enduring age of found-footage horror films. But, that's not what we're talking about here.
'Blacksad' is a promising detective game based on a cult comic
Blacksad is a long-running graphic novel series that covers some heavy topics through a noir detective window. Set in the 1950s, it follows hardboiled detective John Blacksad, with each book focusing on a new case. It's one of my favorite series, but there's always been one problem: There's not enough of it. The first book was released in 2000, book five came in 2014 and book six is due to be published "soon" after years of delays. My excitement when a Blacksad video game telling an all-new story was announced, then, was palpable. After playing 45 minutes of Blacksad: Under The Skin today, I'm still excited.
‘Disintegration’ is a tactical shooter that questions transhumanism
At a glance, Disintegration looks a tad generic. The battle-ready robots, dressed in fashionable jackets and scarves, feel like they were ripped straight out of a Destiny artbook. And there's a reason for that -- the game is being developed by Halo co-creator Marcus Lehto and his indie studio V1 Interactive. Don't be fooled by the overly-familiar character designs, though. Disintegration has a world and technological fiction that is intriguing and different from the vast majority of science fiction shooters, including those that Lehto worked on during his long career at Bungie.
The Switch needs more Saturn games like ‘Panzer Dragoon’
If you love the Sega Genesis (or the Mega Drive, depending on where you live), there are countless ways to get your 16-bit fix. You can boot up a modern compilation, play them for free on your smartphone, or, soon, buy an adorable microconsole that plugs straight into your HDMI-equipped TV. The Sega Saturn, though? That's a trickier proposition. A smattering of games have been re-released on PC and Xbox. The vast majority of the console's library, however, is inaccessible unless you own the original hardware or want to dive into the legally murky world of emulation.
Tencent's own battle royale game has hackable zombies
At first glance, Synced: Off-Planet looks like a battle-royale blend of Left 4 Dead, The Division and World War Z. When Tencent Next Studios debuted the game at NVIDIA's Gamescom 2019 press conference, social media lit up with comparisons to these existing franchises. Some comments wrote off the game as a cheap clone, while others were intrigued by the idea of a new, yet familiar-looking shooter. "You can argue it looks like World War Z and The Division," Next creative director Clark Jiayang Yang said the day after Synced's reveal. "But to be honest, having so many players -- we have 48 players in a round and 1,500 AI zombies in the same place. That's something that in any other games we haven't really seen before."
‘Need for Speed Heat’ isn’t anything like ‘Payback’
The long-running Need for Speed franchise is stuck in a rut. The 2015 reboot, simply titled Need for Speed, was criticized for its cringeworthy live-action cutscenes. Its successor two years ago, Need for Speed Payback, had an irritating upgrade system built around collectible Speed Cards. The last game to broach the 80 mark on Metacritic, Need for Speed Most Wanted, was developed by Criterion and released in 2012. The pressure is therefore rising around Ghost Games, the series' current steward, and its next entry, Need for Speed Heat.
Playing Marvel's Avengers, a living RPG with microtransactions
When Engadget's UK Bureau Chief Mat Smith attended the first-ever gameplay demonstration of Marvel's Avengers at E3, he walked away worried. The level he saw was essentially a tutorial, introducing the basic mechanics of each Avenger. It was unclear how all of the characters -- Black Widow, Iron Man, The Hulk, Thor and Captain America -- would play together, and they each seemed to be overpowered in comparison to the minions that flooded their way on the Golden Gate Bridge. He said the game looked hollow, but he couldn't pinpoint exactly why.
FIFA 20's Volta mode is good enough to be its own game
There's a lot to Volta, FIFA 20's new street soccer mode. Rather than a one-off sideshow to the main game, it's actually multiple offline and online game styles and a full story campaign, rolled into a cohesive and enjoyable package. Off the bat, there are three main game styles, which will be familiar to anyone that's kicked a ball around with friends. You can play with rush keepers (a term for having no defined goalkeeper) in teams of three or four. This style has tiny goals and barely any rules apart from quick free kicks for blatant fouls. Then there's street with keepers, which uses larger futsal goals and dedicated keepers, but is similarly light on rules. The last style is futsal, which plays as you'd expect if you've ever watched it: Five-a-side with keepers, kick-ons and corners, on-the-fly substitutions, accumulated fouls leading to penalties and an actual referee who will dish out yellow and red cards. All of the modes ditch the stamina, fatigue and injury systems of the regular game.
NVIDIA's latest GPU drivers pack a speed boost for 'Apex Legends'
It's common for graphics card drivers to provide optimizations for games, but the improvements aren't often this conspicuous. NVIDIA has released a Gamescom Game Ready Driver that offers significant speedups for multiple games, most notably Apex Legends. If you're using one of the company's GeForce RTX Super cards, you can expect performance jumps between 15 to 23 percent at 1080p resolution -- that could make all the difference in such a frame rate-sensitive shooter. You'll also see a roughly 13 to 17 percent gain in Forza Horizon 4 at 1440p as well as milder improvements for Battlefield V, Strange Brigade and World War Z.
Watch the first 'Disintegration' trailer from the co-creator of 'Halo'
Halo co-creator Marcus Lehto's new project Disintegration was announced in July, but there wasn't a lot of information about it available. Some plot details have since been shared, but now we have the first gameplay trailer to get our teeth into.
'The Witcher 3' comes to the Switch on October 15th
We first heard that The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was coming to the Switch back in June, but now, thanks to an announcement at Gamescom, we have an official release date: October 15th.
Watch the Gamescom Opening Night Live event in 17 minutes
The Gamescom news has been coming thick and fast, so we've put together a supercut of the Opening Night Live event to show you everything you need to know.
Watch the Google Stadia event in 10 minutes
Google's Stadia Connect livestream for Gamescom can give you a bigger idea of what to expect from its upcoming video game streaming platform -- and you can watch all the most important tidbits right here. Stadia's Ray Bautista started off with a reminder to pre-order the Stadia Founder's Edition, which will serve as your entry to the service as one of its first players. As a nice perk, it will also come with the full Destiny 2 experience.
