Despite losing many of its core team to the development of Squad, work continues on famous Battlefield 2 mod Project Reality, whose new update lets users fight out the Falklands War.
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When Video Games Get A Little Too Real
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The Week In Games: Get Ready To Bro
Time to hit the open road with ya’boys, fight some monsters, cry some tears, and maybe in the process find out a little something more about what makes the world tick. Final Fantasy XV is finally here.
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The Best Cyber Monday Deals Available Right Now
Welcome to our home for comprehensive Cyber Monday deal coverage, brought to you by the Kinja Deals team! We’ll be updating this as new deals go live, so bookmark this page, and follow us on Twitter for the latest updates!
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Huge No Man's Sky Update Arrives, Adds Base-Building and Makes a Lot of Changes
As promised, Hello Games has launched a major new update for No Man’s Sky. Called the “Foundation Update,” the patch (1.1) introduces the first parts of the game’s base-building and also serves as a “foundation for things to come.” In a post on the developer’s website, Hello Games explained that this is the first of “many” free patches for No Man’s Sky. A new video for the patch was also released.
The patch also adds three new game modes, each featuring different rulesets:
- Normal mode is the original chilled exploration experience
- Creative mode allows players to explore the universe without limits, and build a huge base
- Survival mode really changes the game, creating a much more challenging endurance experience
As for the base-building feature, you can create an outpost using “modular structures and decorations,” made using resources you find while exploring the game world. You can also do the following with the base-building feature:
- Recruit alien lifeforms to help research new technology. Farming, engineer, weapons and science specialists are hirable from Space Stations
- Use Terminus Teleporters in Space Stations to teleport to and from your base at will
- Expand your base with storage containers to stockpile precious resources and rare products
- Find an even more beautiful location and you can simply dismantle your previous homestead to refund all of the spent resources
The No Man’s Sky Foundation update also adds a farming system and the ability to purchase and customize interstellar freighters to transfer resources, while new biome and star-specific resource types can be discovered; they can then be used to craft new items.
There are also visual changes in this update, as motion blur has been added to “accentuate the feeling of speed, particularly when in-flight.” You can turn this on or off from the Options menu. Temporal Anti-Aliasing has also been implemented. This should remove “jagged edges” and is also optional. Use the slider tool below to compare the motion blur and TAA effects.
The Foundation Update also changes and adds some UI elements, one part of which are new arrow indicators being added to better emphasize shield and life support changes. Additionally, scanned primary resources now have specific symbols to allow you to differentiate between them more easily.
If you could have lived our lives over the last months, you’d know how meaningful this is.
Here’s update 1.1https://t.co/4TelmFIgsK
— Sean Murray (@NoMansSky) November 27, 2016
No Man’s Sky launched in August for PS4 and PC without a number of features that director Sean Murray discussed prior to launch; the game and its creators were criticized for this. Earlier this month, PlayStation executive Shawn Layden acknowledged that Hello Games is “still working at it.”
No Man’s Sky Foundation Update Patch Notes:
- General Gameplay
- Fixed technology becoming instantly fully charged when repaired
- Fixed ship appearing on incorrect pad in space station after loading
- Added interactable objects that required certain tech to collect
- Added shootable objects that require certain tech to mine
- Rebalanced resource availability and technology charge requirements
- Fixed initial game flow – where travelling to space too quickly after visiting the monolith could prevent the first atlas station notification appearing
- Prevented player being prompted to scan for buildings before leaving the system after visiting the monolith
- Prevented laser and melee attacks while in space from attempting to edit terrain
- Improved calculation of resources received when mining terrain
- Renamed Signal Scanners to Signal Boosters
- Signal booster objects updated to search for playable bases, suit upgrade pods, and mineable resources
- Removed signal booster from being distributed on terrain, as player can now build them
- Improved accuracy of environment detection, fixing cases where it rained inside caves
- Fixed galactic waypoints not loading correctly across saves
- Removed atlas pass v1 requirement from doors in stations
- Suit upgrade pods are no longer spawned in stations
- Suit upgrade pods can now only be used once
- Fixed collision in anomaly that was causing issues when exiting larger ships
- Increased the number of different NPC character models generated per system
- Fixed the game always remaining in day time for players who began their save prior to patch 1.03
- Fixed a potential crash in foliage instance renderer
- Localisation
- Fixed stats page in asian languages
- Fixed multiple issues with asian language formatting
- Multiple improvements and fixes to localisation text in all languages
- UI
- Added new icons for specific types of primary resources
- Fixed health bars not appearing on some targets
- Added hazard and life support drain indicators
- Fixed mission messages not appearing in a timely fashion
- Beacons now notify the player that they will save the game
- Fixed crash when creature IK animations were updated under certain conditions on the discovery screen
- Improved navigation in discovery UI
- Massive speed improvements to browsing huge discovery lists
- Increased size of discovery storage
- Added option to load “Earliest” previous save in Options menu
- Fixed weapon naming
- Added icon to remind players of the reload button when weapon is empty
- Multiple fixes for viewing discoveries
- PS4
- Added photo mode
- Large optimisations to the engine to accommodate base building
- PC
- Added support for up to 8 mouse buttons
- Fixed better order position history for mouse smoothing
- Fixed bug where setting gamma to zero gave a fully bright rather than fully dark image
- Fixed hard-limiting on save sizes, with appropriate warning about free space on boot
- Player is now notified when shaders are being loaded
- Fixed occasional crash on exit
- Fixed performance of trail renderer for some AMD cards
- Large optimisations to the engine to accommodate base building
- Generation
- Added biome specific plants
- Adopted new method of distributing resource plants on terrain, for more lifelike clumps of plants
- Improved distribution of plant life across all terrain types
- Introduced visual differentiation of red, green and blue star systems
- Introduced new mineable terrain resources found only in red, green and blue star systems
- Reduced average building frequency
- Introduced planets with elevated building density
- Introduced planets with no buildings or sentient life
- Increased the proportion of lush and tropical planets
- Decreased the proportion of lifeless planets
- Fixed bug where multiple ships could appear, overlapping, at the player’s start scene
- Prevented certain building types being incorrectly placed underwater
- Prevented multiple buildings occasionally being placed in overlapping positions
- Prevented buildings occasionally being placed intersecting with the terrain
- Improved and altered per-planet terrain resource generation, improving gameplay and visuals
- Creatures
- Fixed elevation cache mismatches, causing errors in creature knowledge and pathing
- Fixed slow memory leak in creature role allocation
- Improved creature animation speeds
- Fixed issues where some creatures turns had the incorrect frame count
- Fixed occasional crash when interacting with creatures
- Atmospherics
- Increased proportion of vibrant blue skies
- Corrected cloud levels for clear skies
- Improved average cloud level settings
- Fixed cloud rendering while flying in your ship
- Improved atmosphere depth when transitioning to space
- Increased fidelity of atmosphere rendering on nearest planet
- Improved atmospheric fog as you fly to a planet
- Improved fog method for planets seen on the horizon
- Terrain
- Improved terrain generation algorithms
- Improved and extended blend areas between different terrain noise types
- Terrains now generate more open spaces
- Smaller features now appear at nearer lods to improve visuals in the distance
- Fixed objects being placed on incorrect terrain material types
- Improved resolution of distant planet terrain
- Decreased differences between planet as seen from space and actual planet terrain
- Fixed seams on planets when seen from space
- Improvements to terrain material selection and terrain material blending
- Terrain generation priority and cost calculation improvements
- Fixed terrain generation angle calculations, which would previously prevent nearest region being generated first
- We now generate caves on lower terrain lods to decrease visual differences in lower detail terrain
- Introduced more varied and vibrant colouring to terrain for each biome
- Decreased frequency of brown terrain colour selections
- Changed texture scales to improve transition between terrain lods
- Improved terrain colour combinations to add variety and better match terrain contouring
- Improved terrain texture blending method to better retain vibrant colours
- Improved settings for hue, saturation and value noise variation on terrain
- Fixed a number of issues causing holes to be seen in the planet terrain
- Fixed occasional crash when mining terrain
- Visuals
- Fixed colour of muzzle flashes on player weapons
- Added muzzle flashes to ship weapons
- Added cockpit lighting for damage and weapon firing
- Added debris to freighter explosion effect
- Improved freighter cargo explosions
- Improved photon cannon hit and space explosion effects
- Improved turret explosion effect
- Improved grass colour selection
- Improved grass colouring method to match underlying terrain colour
- Improved grass placement to match gradient of terrain, and rocky terrain slope patches
- Improved lighting on grass
- Improved alpha cutoffs and blending for grass in the distance
- Improved colouring method for on-planet buildings
- Fixed “pop” in lighting when flying between planets
- Fixed incorrect lighting seen in shadow areas
- Improved lighting method when rendering tree leaves
- Fixed procedural texturing on objects with multiple overlapping textures
- Fixed size of certain texture atlas normal maps
- Fixed texture scaling on asteroids
- Zinc plant is now more obvious when it has been gathered
- Fixed occasional rendering errors due to precision on cockpit during warp
- Fixed pulse lines not appearing when pulse driving out from planet atmosphere
- Fixed shadowing artefacts on imposters
- Space
- Improved asteroids to allow much denser fields
- Improved explosion effects
- Fixed scale of moons on the space map
- Added freighter groups to the space map
- Changed distribution of resources in asteroids
- AI ships will now clear asteroids in their path
- Planets are now scannable from space to see their resources
- Space Combat
- Fixed bounty targets warping out too soon
- Improved HUD indicators in space combat
- Added damaged ship effect on AI starships
- Added formation flying
- Improved locking on passive starships
- Improved AI combat flight patterns
- Added new ship weapon technology
- Holding brake whilst turning now activates drift for fast turns
- Improved AI ship freighter attacking
- Improved freighter targeting code when under attack by enemy ships
- Freighters
- Fixed pulse drive to prevent travel through freighters
- Improved docking code
- Added hangar to the lead freighter
- Added docking in freighters
- Added icon to accessible freighter hangars
- Added colouring to cargo drops to identify what is in them
- You can now only pick up cargo drops that will fit in your inventory
- Added auxiliary freight ships to freighter groups
- Added alert lights and alarm audio for when freighters are in combat
- Improved turret lights and explosions
- Improved muzzle flashes on freighter turrets
- Added indicator of cargo contents
- Freighter Commanders now give rewards for rescuing them from pirate attack
- Fixed collision on freighter cargo containers
- Audio
- Updated the lush ambience to make the wind sounds less noisy
- Ambient background fauna now checks for the presence of creatures
- Added rain on foliage
- Added rain on ship
- Added freighter specific footsteps
- When on a dead planet, no music will play
- Round table prop now plays an appropriate sound
- Added more music to the loading sequence and game start
- Added audio to new base building props
- Created sounds for new base building props
- Added audio to freighter doors and internal freighter ambiences
- Added freighter explosions
- Added freighter alarm
- Added ambient radio comms when approaching a freighter
- Fixed missing sounds when in a space station due to the mix settings
- Multi-tool upgrades now affect audio
- Lots of minor mix changes
- Changed some compression settings for PS4 audio to make the sub-channel audio play more reliably
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Final Fantasy 15 PS4 and Xbox One File Sizes Revealed
With Final Fantasy XV‘s release coming up very soon, the long-in-development RPG’s file sizes for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One have been revealed.
DualShockers reports that the file size is 50.698 on PS4, with 6.593 GB required to install before you can play the first part of the game. The Xbox One’s file size, as revealed earlier this month, is apparently 50.94 GB, according to DualShockers.
The PlayStation Store page mentions a 40.5 GB install size for Final Fantasy XV, while the Xbox Store shows a 51.82 GB install size. Those may not be entirely accurate, as it sometimes the case with pre-release listings.
Final Fantasy XV will have a significant day one patch, called the “Crown” update, that includes a “variety of updates, minor bug fixes, and new features to greatly enhance the overall story and gameplay experience.” Read GameSpot’s previous coverage to see the patch notes.
After years of development and multiple delays, Final Fantasy XV finally comes out on November 29.
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Modern Review: Slain: Back from Hell (PS Vita)
A fallen warrior is woken from the eternal slumber of death and tasked with ridding the land of hordes of foetid, rotting aberrations summoned by the evil Lord Vroll. Reluctantly, the grizzled and battle weary Bathoryn dons his armour and grips his heavy sword once again, and turns into the blistering wind. Thunder and lightning crackle through the angry, swirling clouds; the incessant rain cutting like a thousand razor blades across the barren and desolate landscape. The raw power of a thousand electric guitars harmonises with a baseline being played by an orchestra of angels as cold steel meets skull once again and Bathoryn begins a quest to return tranquility to the cursed earth upon which he walks. Welcome to the world of Slain: Back from Hell.
Slain is a gothic-horror inspired 2D side-scrolling hack ’n slash that is very much in the vein (no pun intended) of games like Castlevania and Metroid. However, you’ll be pleased to learn that I’m not a fan of the dreaded portmanteau associated with this type of mash up, and so it shall not be given the dignity of a mention here. That said, Slain does borrow heavily from both game in terms of visual style and gameplay, so if ever it was warranted it’s here. Playing as the undead warrior Bathoryn, players are tasked with running left to right and up and down (when required), hacking and slashing enemies with a sword, blocking, reversing attacks and using werewolf-themed special attacks to rid each stage of evil. In traditional 2D side-scrolling fashion, you’ll also find yourself jumping on moving platforms, hitting switches to open doors and facing off against screen filling mid and end level bosses.
Before I continue with this review, let’s just get something out of the way: the main reason I was drawn to Slain was the visual trappings. The game is a pure masterclass of retro-inspired pixel art mixed with gothic design and Lovecraftian overtones not witnessed since Bloodborne. The version I’m actually reviewing is the PS Vita release, which was the most recent one to drop and while I’m aware that the game has been available on the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC for a couple of months by this point, it really pops on the Vita’s little screen. The level of detail is astounding; the light sourcing and the enemy designs, the amazing atmosphere and overwhelming sense of dread and despair lavished upon the environments through which Bathoryn runs – his grey locks flowing in his wake – are amongst some of the best I’ve seen in a game of this type. Enemy designs are gloriously gruesome and hellishly inventive, mixing macabre overtones of the occult with familiar fantasy and horror. The music too, is utterly brilliant. The heavy metal soundtrack matches the visuals perfectly, the quiet interludes and amazing crescendos effortlessly matching what the eyes are drinking in…Slain is without doubt the perfect marriage of kick ass visuals and spine tingling metal. It’s with crushing disappointment then, that I say that the rest of the game fails to live up to these incredible aesthetics.
The main problem is the difficulty level. While I’m not one to shy away from a challenge, I found that after a while the constant deaths and checkpoint restarts weren’t really down to my ineptitude controlling Bathoryn, but more down to the – how do I say this – fuzziness of the combat scheme. You get a single attack button, a jump button and a block button. Hammering the attack button will unleash a flurry or sword blows against the myriad ground based and flying enemies you’ll encounter. Blocking an incoming attack at the right moment will allow you to reverse the blow and make a critical counterstrike. You also have extra attacks that chip away at the mana meter that lives under your health bar and these come in the form of a charged sword attack, or a special which is activated by hitting the right shoulder button (on Vita). You also get a dodge button (located by default on the left shoulder button), but to be honest I hardly ever found the need to use it, and as such it is pretty redundant.
While the number of attacks is fairly decent and standard for this style of game, combat feels very inaccurate and usually boils down to just hitting the attack button over and over until the enemies lining up to eat your blade crumble. There’s little point trying to use the block/reversal simply because it’s so difficult to judge when the enemy attack will come; and invariably ends up with you getting slapped across your stupid bearded face, diminishing even more of your precious life bar. If land based enemies are one level of annoyance though, flying enemies are a different prospect entirely. They hover around taking almost unavoidable, slow moving pot shots at you while you frantically jump around like a buffoon swinging your sword about like an idiot. It all just feels so random – sometimes you can run through a hoard of enemies just ploughing the attack button and effortlessly glide through them all as if your sword were a hot knife cutting through a block of butter; other times it’s like you’re going up against an army of invincible cyborgs, all of which have had their ‘nope’ levels dialled up to 12. Back to the checkpoint, infidel.
On top of all this, there are environmental instant death situations at every turn. Pools of lava, acid, traps…you name it. If it looks unpleasant, the chances are that it is…and getting within a pixel of it will send you back to the last checkpoint (again). On the subject of enemies, their AI seems fairly rudimentary at best – they just seem to hone in and amble towards Bathoryn, regardless of whether there’s a pit of unpleasant goo between him and them. Invariably this means they’ll just wade in and kill themselves…which is an awfully nice gesture given the circumstances.
Sometimes though, just getting too close to a moving platform will turn our hardened warrior into a pile of bones, which actually seems like a glitch to me. Now, the checkpoints aren’t generally that far apart in the levels, but sometimes you’ll pass one and then there won’t be another one for ages, with an entire army of marauding baddies and instant-death jumps and moving platforms before you get to the next. The number of times I almost got to the next checkpoint before dying because a massive enemy just appeared out of nowhere almost had me biting my Vita in half at times. Believe me, Turok 2 ain’t a patch on Slain.
I have to admit that I haven’t finished Slain at the time of writing this review, and that’s because there’s a glitch that makes moving past a certain point in the game impossible. The developer has tweeted that this is being worked on, but it’s not ideal.
That said, there’s a lot to love in the parts of Slain you can play. The visuals are absolutely glorious, and the soundtrack is utterly brilliant. Controls are decent too, if a little on the twitchy side. It’s just that the combat – the main component of a game like this – is somewhat unbalanced and imprecise. Coupled with a steep leaning curve and unforgiving difficulty level, it makes Slain something of an acquired taste. If you’re looking for an alternative to Castlevania: Symphony of the Night on Vita and you’ve already played Axiom Verge to death, then by all means give Slain a whirl. Just expect to die a lot and see that restart screen more times that you’re used to. Unless you’re a veteran of Bloodborne or Dark Souls…then you’ll probably 1cc Slain in half an hour. Probably.
Slain: Back from Hell trailer
{youtube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5NakGttzWg}
Link: Official Slain: Back from Hell website
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Kotaku 'Shop Contest: Watch Pokémon, Winners!
Week three of the ‘shop contest 3.0 has come and gone, so here I am to announce the winners. I asked you to hack some Pokémon into Watch Dogs 2‘s San Francisco and here we are, awash in elemental critters and over-exposed cityscapes.
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VOLLEYGON Is An Arcade Cabinet That Wants To Bring People Together
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Saturday's Best Deals: Black Friday Leftovers, Refurb iPhones, Ticket to Ride, and More
The best remaining deals from Black Friday, Ticket To Ride, and refurbished iPhones lead off Saturday’s best deals.
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