mechanics-preview

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  • Revival talks about death, decoration, and defenses

    by 
    Eliot Lefebvre
    Eliot Lefebvre
    01.07.2015

    You remember Revival, right? You know, the game funding its development by selling in-game houses? That one. The developers haven't been quiet over the holiday season, with several recent blog posts detailing the high-end concepts behind several of the game's key mechanics -- for example, dying, which doesn't simply leave you to run back to your corpse but forces you to traverse the spirit realm, fighting off malicious spirits and seeking the Mortality Gate to drag yourself back from the dead. Of course, you can stay alive longer by making use of combat mechanics like the shield wall to defend yourself from dying. You can also use your continued "being alive" status to take advantage of the decoration kits available for housing, which allow you to convert existing rooms with certain fixtures to more functional equivalents. It's all interesting stuff and worth considering if you're sorely tempted to drop a bunch of money on the promise of virtual real estate.

  • Infinite Crisis reveals the Man of Steel as a champion

    by 
    Eliot Lefebvre
    Eliot Lefebvre
    01.22.2014

    Modeling Superman in any video game is kind of problematic, since his whole schtick is that he's faster than anything, invulnerable, and strong enough to fling the moon into the sun if he really wanted to. This already presents some problems when balancing for a single-player game, but in a game like Infinite Crisis, how can you make sure that the Man of Steel feels like himself without making him massively overpowered? The video past the cut shows off Turbine's take on the character. In essence, each of Superman's skills gives him a damage shield, with subsequent skills improving the shield, making him much harder to take down. His iconic abilities are all in place -- super-speed, strength, heat vision, and the like -- all adding up to a character that hits hard while being difficult to take down. Take a gander at the video to see just how the Last Son of Krypton will perform in the arena. [Source: Turbine press release]