Category: Gamespot

The Ace Attorney (or Gyakuten Saiban) series has gone to some odd places before. Phoenix Wright has deal with scores of shady characters in equally sketchy situations, from WWE-like wrestlers masquerading as ancient demons to scarred young women who alter their faces and personalities to resemble their dead siblings. Phoenix’s time in the courtroom has been a rollercoaster, but the series’ latest, Ace Attorney 6, may just take the cake.

I went hands-on with Ace Attorney 6 during Tokyo Game Show this week, and while I only had one case to play in the franchise’s native Japanese, I was able to get a clear sense of where the game is going. Phoenix–named Ryuichi Naruhodo in Japanese—has left the games’ usual location in a country of mixed Japanese and American sensibilities for an exotic oriental country called Kulain. Kulain’s people are more in tune with the spirit world and have an inclination towards the supernatural, giving Ace Attorney 6 a more mystical framework on which it builds its story.

In the case I played, Phoenix’s local tour guide, a child named Bokuto, is accused of murdering a man and stealing an old artifact. Phoenix, being the good guy he is, steps into Kulain’s court system to defend Bokuto. As with every Ace Attorney game, the courtroom is presided over by a somewhat silly judge who provides more comic relief than sound judgment. In Bokuto’s case, Phoenix faces off against a prosecutor who looks a lot like Winston Payne in a new fancy hat. He taunted Phoenix, and Phoenix tried his hardest to keep calm and remain clear-headed.

In addition to its logical law puzzles, the Ace Attorney series is known for introducing a new deduction mechanic in each game. In Ace Attorney 6, this is “spirit vision,” in which a medium visually conjures the final moments of the dead. This is how Kulain finds and convicts its murderers, by summoning the dead’s final moments. Phoenix must poke through the final thoughts and sights of these dead people and poke holes in the vision by comparing the vision to the evidence log. In this way, Phoenix can point out thoughts and visual elements that don’t make sense with witness testimony.

Enter Leifa, the princess of Kulain and a spirit medium who shows the final memories of the dead in a pool of water in the center of the courtroom. In the case I played, Lefia conjured the murdered man’s last thoughts, which clearly showed Bokuto. I was able to rewatch the vision Lefia conjured until I found the pieces that didn’t quite make sense–pieces that exonerated Bokuto. Leifa was far from happy, and this case did a good job of setting her up at Phoenix’s rival. Of course, Phoenix has dealt with spiritual-based testimonies before, but this time around the rival prosecutor feels a little meaner, and a little more dangerous.

Ace Attorney 6 features all the staples of the series so far, and I enjoyed the mystical twist. Taking the franchise into a more fantastical direction offers a fresh spin on its classic logical puzzles, and I’m looking forward to playing the full localized version when it launches in the west in 2016 for Nintendo 3DS.

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Lara Croft is one of the most famous video game characters of all time, but despite the ongoing massive popularity of the Tomb Raider games, it’s been 12 years since the character last appeared on cinema screens. Now the Tracking Board have reported further news about the reboot of the film series that is currently in development.

The project is a collaboration between four companies–GK Films, Warner Bros, MGM, and games publisher Eidos Interactive–and three directors are rumoured to be under consideration. Kathryn Bigelow is the biggest name on the list, and her work on such acclaimed films as The Hurt Locker, Point Break, and Zero Dark Thirty clearly mark her out as an obvious choice to direct Lara Croft’s next movie adventure.

The other filmmakers being discussed are Catherine Hardwicke, the director of the first Twilight movie, and Mimi Leder, best known for her ’90s action films The Peacemaker and Deep Impact.

Earlier this year, it was reported that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles writer Evan Daugherty had been hired to write the script, and that the movie was “on a fast track”.

The previous two Tomb Raider films–2001’s Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and 2003’s Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life–starred Angelina Jolie as the iconic British archaeologist. The first movie remains the highest grossing video game adaptation ever in the US, but the disappointing box office for The Cradle of Life, combined with Jolie’s reluctance to revisit the character, meant that a third film never materialised.

The next Tomb Raider game–Rise of the Tomb Raider–is scheduled for release on November 10 for Xbox One and Xbox 360, with PC and PlayStation versions coming in 2016.

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Konami has published an in-depth gameplay video that reveals key details about Metal Gear Online, the multiplayer component of Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain.

The eleven-minute video, published below, discusses the three different player classes; the scout, the enforcer, and the infiltrator. It also talks through mission types, strategies, and player abilities. Meanwhile, Konami has confirmed that servers for MGO are set to go live on October 6.

Footage shows that MGO uses the same control scheme as MGSV, and much of the same equipment and techniques. Players can kidnap enemies using Fulton Recovery chutes, and can even interrogate them. It also appears that, after you mark enemies, your entire team will know of their position. It also shows that players can edit the MGO character they made at the outset of Metal Gear Solid V’s campaign, or if they wish, create a new character from scratch.

Here’s more details on the three classes, as discussed in the video.

Infiltrator

Infiltrators are best suited for close-quarters combat, and are particularly useful when wearing stealth camouflage.

Scout

Scouts are well balanced, and excel at marking enemies from a distance. They are also said to be skilled at gathering intel. Sniper rifles are best suited for this class.

Enforcer

Enforcers are classic deathmatch soldiers. They are heavily equipped, and excel at combat. They possess high stamina and use heavy weapons.

A fourth class that Konami briefly showcased is Unique Characters, with the video showing Ocelot and Snake as playable characters in MGO. Ocelot can duel-weird revolvers, while Snake can attack foes with his rocket-propelled prosthetic arm.

Later in the video, Konami showcases a Bounty Hunter Mission. This is essentially a team deathmatch mode, where both groups are given a ticket number (in the demo, 30) that they must drive down to zero by killing enemies or capturing them with Fultons.

There are also bounty points, which are essentially reputation points, that players accrue based on how dangerous they are. If you Fulton an enemy who has a high bounty score, it appears that their effect on the ticket score is reset. This means the that capturing enemies, while harder to pull off, is far more effective than shooting them from safety.

Further below, Konami has provided a host of new images showcasing how MGO looks across its levels and gameplay modes.

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Social media giant Facebook has announced plans for a “Dislike” button. During a town hall-style Q&A on Tuesday, founder Mark Zuckerberg said the company is gearing up to release the button to testers soon.

“People have asked about the ‘dislike’ button for many years, and probably hundreds of people have asked about this, and today is a special day because today is the day that I actually get to say we are working on it, and are very close to shipping a test of it,” he said, as reported by CNBC.

The new button is aiming to allow users to communicate feelings other than “like.” Instead, Zuckerberg explained that the button will allow you to “express empathy.”

“If you are sharing something that is sad…then it may not feel comfortable to ‘like’ that post,” he said.

The button may not say “Dislike,” but rather something more nuanced. Zuckerberg said he doesn’t want Facebook to become a forum in which your posts can be “downvoted,” as they can on Reddit and Imgur.

“That doesn’t seem like the kind of community that we want to create,” he explained. “You don’t want to go through the process of sharing some moment that was important to you in your day and have someone ‘downvote’ it.’”

Facebook just recently hit another milestone: 1 billion daily users.

How you would like to see Facebook’s “Dislike” button be implemented? Share your thoughts below.

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Production on Rogue One, the first Star Wars spinoff, is well underway and currently filming in London. Now some on-set pictures have been released by TMZ. They show the scene of a spaceship crash, together with dead Imperial Stormtroopers visible near the wreckage, plus some assorted crew shots.

Check them out below:

Rogue One is the first of the planned spinoff films that will run alongside the ongoing saga movies. Set before the original 1977 Star Wars, it’s directed by Godzilla‘s Gareth Edwards, and will focus upon a group of mercenaries who are hired to capture the plans to the Death Star.

Last month at Disney’s D23 expo, the first official image from the film was released, revealing a cast that includes Felicity Jones, Riz Ahmed, Ben Mendelsohn, Forest Whitaker, and Donnie Yen.

At the same event, producer Kathleen Kennedy described the film as a “departure” from the core, saga movies.

“It goes into new territory, exploring the galactic struggle from a ground-war perspective while maintaining that essential Star Wars feel that fans have come to know,” she said. “Gareth is such an innovative director and I’m so excited to be working with him and the extraordinary ensemble cast he’s selected for Rogue One.”

The film is due for release on December 16, 2016, while the next part of the saga, Episode 7 – The Force Awakens, arrives on December 18 this year.

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