Destructoid |
- Here's Virtua Fighter 5: Ultimate Showdown's roster in all their boxy, retro glory
- Review: Biomutant
- Whatcha been playing this week, Destructoid?
- Destructoid is live on Twitch to finish The Evil Within
- Unreal Engine 5 demo's robot dabs if you input the Konami code
- Strangeland - Review in 3 Minutes
- Microsoft Flight Simulator patch brings down its base file size
- Gamer Girl Spotlight: PikaChulita
- Beam Software's Shadowrun is a hot summer night you can stick in your SNES
- Little Nightmares is free on Steam right now and it's yours to keep
- PSA: Scarlet Nexus' demo is live on Xbox and PlayStation
- Review: Miitopia
- Crystal Dynamics has opened new digs in Austin, Texas
- Backbone brings its anthro-noir mysteries to PC next month
- Far Cry 6 ignites the revolution on October 7
- Channel your inner action hero with Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War's free weekend
- Monster Hunter Rise hits seven million shipped, edging it closer to Capcom's all-time top five list
- Chicory: A Colorful Tale will color your world June 10
- Gearbox says it was 'required' to remove Borderlands 3 cross-play for PlayStation consoles
| Here's Virtua Fighter 5: Ultimate Showdown's roster in all their boxy, retro glory Posted: 29 May 2021 03:00 AM PDT Earlier in the week, we revealed that Sega's upcoming slugger Virtua Fighter 5: Ultimate Showdown was getting an amusing DLC bundle, offering players the opportunity to play as the entire Virtua Fighter 5 clan in a fashion recalling their old-school, polygonal roots. The "Legendary Pack" DLC, which launches June 1 for $10, features two skins for each of VF 5's pugilists, reflecting each character's P1 and P2 regalia. Best of all, latter-day characters such as Brad Burns and El Blaze also receive VF 1-style skins, giving us a glimpse of what might have been had they appeared in the formative projects of Sega AM2. For funsies, I took an in-game shot of every roster member sporting the new skins. They all look pretty great and some, such as Brad Burns and Vanessa, have two distinctly different looks to choose from. Sadly, the faces are not animated, so we don't get to see Lau's creepy, eyebrow-raising sneer. The Legendary Pack also includes an option to replace the redesigned U.I. with that of the original release in this classic series. Now all we need are a full range of Figmas. Make it happen, Good Smile Co.! Virtua Fighter 5: Ultimate Showdown launches June 1 on PS4. It will be included in June's PlayStation Plus selection, or can be purchased separately for $30, which includes the DLC.  |
| Posted: 29 May 2021 01:00 AM PDT The open-world genre gives me hesitation these days; it’s almost a bad word. I blame Ubisoft. Not another waypoint! Not another tower to climb! Not another cathedral to parkour through! I’ll get to the main plot soon, I promise! Just a few more collectibles! It’s not that I’m entirely down on the genre. I’ll readily admit to enjoying it. Games like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Spider-Man have captured my attention and drawn me in, but to me, it’s like eating a bag of chips; my brain tells me I love it while it’s happening, but almost as soon as I’m done, I feel empty. The expanse of the vacuum varies, but I think even the best open-world games have given me this feeling. What gave me further pause about Biomutant was its protracted development time. It was announced back in 2017, I pre-ordered it in 2019, and here is finally in 2021. Its feature list has always struck me as over-ambitious, especially for a small team like Experiment 101. It was billed as this fully adaptable game that let you make all the decisions in what you do and how you approach the game’s main objectives. I had my doubts that it would deliver, and now that it’s finally here, I can firmly say that no, it doesn’t quite make it. It’s a bag of chips. Delicious, delicious chips.  |
| Whatcha been playing this week, Destructoid? Posted: 28 May 2021 10:00 PM PDT Something wicked this way comes. It starts with an "E" and it ends with a "3". Except it doesn't end, because that is the way of modern gaming media. What was once a half-week of constant excitement, reveals, news drops, and hard work has become a drawn out, months-long gala of constant streams, hours dedicated to individual games, and 160-minute PC showcases. Still, it's hard not to feel the vibe as we approach gaming's biggest week. Who knows what we will see? I guess it comes down to what you want to see. Regardless, the best part of E3 is spending it with y'all, and we hope that this year you'll join us in the comments once again with your takes on this year's industry offerings. You'll make it all worth the effort. You always do.  |
| Destructoid is live on Twitch to finish The Evil Within Posted: 28 May 2021 12:45 PM PDT Tonight we wrap up The Evil Within 1 and 2 on Destructoid's Twitch channel starting at 9:00 p.m. ET. I had played through most of the sequel before launching the first Evil Within cus I didn't really mind any spoilers and it was sitting in my Steam library, but the first game was so gripping that I fully paused my other playthrough to knock this one out. We've been happily chipping away at The Evil Within for a few weeks now, and I'm super excited to see how it plays out before revisiting where we left off in the sequel. These games are my personal peak of survival horror (cool twists, RPG aspects, immersive story, and so many details); I'm thoroughly enjoying experiencing them to their fullest with you. Hope to catch you there!
Miss the last stream? Catch up with the archive for part one and part two of The Evil Within. Come catch me live at Destructoid's Twitch channel every Friday at 9:00 p.m. Eastern! Let's chat it up about anything and everything while playing cool games! I hope to meet you there. :)  |
| Unreal Engine 5 demo's robot dabs if you input the Konami code Posted: 28 May 2021 11:00 AM PDT Games have all kinds of hidden secrets, and few are as infamous as the Konami code. It's so pervasive that it's become the input to trigger Easter eggs in other games, and even demos like one for Unreal Engine 5. Discovered by Jon Terp and shared on social media, and confirmed by an Unreal engineer at Epic, inputting the Konami code during the UE5 demo Valley of the Ancients makes its giant robot dab. And it dabs a lot.
Unreal Engine 5 has been pretty remarkable to see in motion already, but this adds another layer. Hopefully someone ends up recreating this moment in Dreams as well.  |
| Strangeland - Review in 3 Minutes Posted: 28 May 2021 10:30 AM PDT In this 3 Minute Review, The Escapist's Jesse Galena covers Strangeland, a dark point-and-click adventure from Wormwood Studios, the team behind Primordia. I have a phobia of creepy carnivals. There's only so much time each week to check out new games, much less play them — much less fully review them! — and inevitably, plenty of interesting games are destined to slip through the cracks as many of us move onto the next shiny thing. To supplement Destructoid's usual coverage, we're teaming up with our sister site The Escapist to fill in some of these gaps with their helpful 3 Minute Reviews.  |
| Microsoft Flight Simulator patch brings down its base file size Posted: 28 May 2021 10:00 AM PDT Video games are big, and they've kept getting bigger. So it's always nice to see devs find ways to make a reduction in their storage imprint like the Microsoft Flight Simulator team has with v1.16.2.0. In its release notes for an update on May 25, the Microsoft Flight Simulator team notes it has performed some optimizations for the initial full download of the game. Now, the base game should be only 83 GB in size, rather than over 170 GB. That's a boon for anyone trying to save on storage space right now, especially as storage solutions can be fraught. Microsoft Flight Simulator hasn't hit the Xbox Series X or S just yet, but when it does, having a smaller impact on the file storage will be pretty handy. Those expansion cards don't grow on trees, you know. Microsoft's beefy flight sim has been getting steady updates since its launch last year, adding crafted locales and, of course, virtual reality. I'm absolutely terrible at flying anything in it, but the tech behind the sim has resulted in some amazing things, like tracking real-life storms from a virtual cockpit.  |
| Gamer Girl Spotlight: PikaChulita Posted: 28 May 2021 09:30 AM PDT Twitch partner Katie Robinson, who streams games as PikaChulita, is a vocal Womanist and advocate for diversity in gaming. She’s a Black Girl Gamers team member, and has been quoted and interviewed for sites like The Verge and Gayming Magazine. After coming across her engaging streams and Twitter, I reached out to Robinson for the first installment of Gamer Girl Spotlight, a series highlighting women doing great things in gaming. Keep reading for Robinson’s thoughts on activism, what the gaming community needs to change, and her advice to anyone too intimidated by the seemingly male-dominated gaming space.  |
| Beam Software's Shadowrun is a hot summer night you can stick in your SNES Posted: 28 May 2021 09:00 AM PDT The world of the Shadowrun tabletop RPG is the best, stupidest, most tantalizing mash-up ever. High fantasy meets cyberpunk. Elves, mages, and dragons, all mixed amongst political turmoil and megacorporate conspiracies. I get goosebumps just describing it. It’s just a shame that we haven’t gotten what I’d consider the perfect Shadowrun game. I’ll grant you that the games developed by Hairbrained Schemes are fun on a bun. I love them, but at the same time, I’m not in love with them. They certainly tick a lot of my boxes, but there’s something confining about them. However, I can always go back to the Shadowrun titles produced around the birth of the tabletop game. Both just titled Shadowrun, there was one on Genesis in 1994 and one on the SNES in 1993. Released about a year apart, these two games were completely and entirely different, but both are worth playing. The Super Nintendo title was the one I first played and I hold it a smidge closer to my heart. I first picked it up as a child and was completely and utterly confused, yet somehow it made an impact. Now, with adult grey matter at my disposal, I can unwind its unfriendly exterior and eat at its nutritious innards. Have a taste!  |
| Little Nightmares is free on Steam right now and it's yours to keep Posted: 28 May 2021 08:45 AM PDT It's time to finally play Little Nightmares — it's free to claim and keep on Steam. Now, I won't lie: you're probably going to get frustrated with the tiny-character-in-a-big-zoomed-out-world camera and controls in certain spots, and some of the exciting horror-action chase scenes can be weirdly finicky, but Little Nightmares has such a rich, bleak, effed-up world. The three-part side-story DLC isn't included, and that stuff is worth playing too, but don't miss this chance. The sequel's great. Steam is also giving out the full version of Company of Heroes 2 and the American Armed Forces standalone single-player campaign Ardennes Assault. Real-time strategy fans should look into this series even if World War II games typically fall outside of your wheelhouse. CoH can break through. According to Steam's fine print, the deadline to grab Little Nightmares is May 30 at 10:00 a.m. Pacific, while Company of Heroes 2 will be offered for free until May 31 at 10:00 a.m. Pacific. Go get 'em. If you're not opposed to spending a bit of money in the name of bargain binning, Steam is currently hosting an Open World Sale with discounts on sprawled-out worlds. Kind of. It's a huge swath of games. But yeah, Little Nightmares. I never recovered from that tidal wave of contorted bodies. [Thanks, ZelosXT]  |
| PSA: Scarlet Nexus' demo is live on Xbox and PlayStation Posted: 28 May 2021 08:30 AM PDT [Update: The Scarlet Nexus demo is now playable on PS4 and PS5.] Action-RPG Scarlet Nexus is just a little over a month away, but if you've got an Xbox console handy, you can try it out today. A new demo for Bandai Namco's stylish anime action game is out today for Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S. In it, you can play as either of the two main characters: Yuito Sumeragi or Kasane Randall. According to Xbox, you'll also get some in-game rewards for playing the demo. PlayStation owners won't have to wait long to try it out, as Bandai Namco says the Scarlet Nexus demo will come to PlayStation 4 and 5 on May 28, one week from today. If you're looking for something flashy and filled with combat to eat up some time this weekend, sounds like Scarlet Nexus might be able to make that happen. Scarlet Nexus is coming to PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, and PS5 on June 25, 2021.  |
| Posted: 28 May 2021 08:00 AM PDT Miis...I miss 'em! It feels like just yesterday that I was using StreetPass to accumulate an endless amount of Mii friends. Remember Everybody Votes? Ah, we're past our nostalgia limit for the day. It's time to look to the future! Or the past, in the case of Miitopia on Switch.  |
| Crystal Dynamics has opened new digs in Austin, Texas Posted: 28 May 2021 07:00 AM PDT Crystal Dynamics has announced the founding of a brand new studio in Austin, Texas. Officially dubbed Crystal Southwest, the studio has already set to work on multiple projects, with the fledgling studio expected to be "a major part of all current and future Crystal Dynamics titles." Crystal Southwest is headed up by the fantastically named Dallas Dickinson, a 20-year industry veteran who has previously worked as a producer at Sony, as well as BioWare's Head of Production. Crystal Dynamics has already transitioned several staff members into the new offices, but is also currently recruiting for multiple company roles. It's good news for the long-time developer, currently on the backfoot a little following the less-than-stellar reception to Square Enix' Marvel's The Avengers. Expected to be a long-term, service game title, the comic-book epic struggled to find its intended audience, failing to meet its publisher's expectations and seeing its next-gen editions hit with an unfortunate delay. Hopefully the new studio expansion will signal an upswing for the developer's future.  |
| Backbone brings its anthro-noir mysteries to PC next month Posted: 28 May 2021 06:00 AM PDT For those who like their grizzled, hard-boiled, detective fiction a little on the fuzzy side, you're in luck, as publisher Raw Fury has finally offered up a street date for its anthropomorphic noir adventure, Backbone, which will raise the curtain on its sinister mysteries come June 8. Developed by international indie outfit EggNut, Backbone is set in an alternate Vancouver, all foggy streets, flickering neon lights, and shadowed alleyways that play house to life-threatening dangers. Into this miserable, burned-out cityscape city steps raccoon private-eye Howard Lotor who, after many years of bum-deals and dead-end cases, is about to embark upon a job like none other.  |
| Far Cry 6 ignites the revolution on October 7 Posted: 28 May 2021 05:40 AM PDT Ubisoft has locked in the date for its next Far Cry game. Far Cry 6 will kick off the revolution in Yara on Oct. 7, 2021. Set in the fictional country of Yara, Far Cry 6 will focus on a modern-day guerrilla revolution against the regime of dictator Anton Castillo (played by Breaking Bad's Giancarlo Esposito). Playing as Dani Rojas, you can use a variety of weapons, both standard and improvised—from machine guns to a compact disc launcher. Far Cry 6 was delayed off its February launch earlier this year due to the impact of COVID-19 and work-from-home development. Now, it looks like Ubisoft's latest shooter is all set to launch this fall. You'll have animal companions like the tiny little Chorizo to help you out, rides ranging from horses to tanks, and a giant city to explore. Essentially, it's Far Cry—but it's Far Cry coming to the new consoles. We'll see how the open-world mayhem works out in Yara when Far Cry 6 launches for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, PS5, PC, Google Stadia, and Amazon Luna on Oct. 7, 2021.  |
| Channel your inner action hero with Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War's free weekend Posted: 28 May 2021 05:00 AM PDT If you have the itchiest of trigger fingers this weekend, then you might want to exercise those digits in the ridiculous mayhem of Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War. Developer Treyarch has kicked off another free-to-play weekend, opening up multiple game modes on all platforms to all players. From now until Tuesday, June 1, players can jump into Cold War's competitive multiplayer mode, or pop armies of decaying corpses in the great, region-hopping "Zombies Outbreak" mode. Cold War is also currently entertaining its destructive "'80s Action Heroes" event, complete with dynamic sound effects and cock-rock soundtrack. "Rambo Gun Game" in particular offers a crazy, non-stop-action experience.  |
| Monster Hunter Rise hits seven million shipped, edging it closer to Capcom's all-time top five list Posted: 28 May 2021 04:30 AM PDT Monster Hunter Rise has been doing well for itself, with steady gains since launch. Now it just hit a new milestone: seven million shipped. While "shipped" is often a point of contention, it's the only number that matters to Capcom, and they're celebrating it with another free item pack. If you log on now and head to the mailman you can snag "Kamura Pack 3," which nets you 30 Mega Potions, 20 Well-done Steaks, 10 Large Barrel Bombs, five Mega Demondrugs and five Mega Armorskins. So where does that put Rise in regards to the all-time seller conversation? Well, Capcom's "Platinum Title" list has just six games ahead of it. Monster Hunter World: Iceborne is the next milestone to beat with 7.7 million, followed by Resident Evil 6 at 7.8m, then RE5 at 7.8m. Rise still has a ways to go until it bests that cluster, but if it keeps the momentum, it could easily end up in the top five. That's not including any sales from the PC version that's due in 2022. In other words, this is going to happen at some point.  |
| Chicory: A Colorful Tale will color your world June 10 Posted: 28 May 2021 04:00 AM PDT Publisher Finji has announced that Greg Lobanov's cheerful Chicory: A Colorful Tale is finally ready to open its big box o' paints. The watercolor-based fantasy adventure will launch on PC and PlayStation platforms on June 10, a mere fortnight away.  |
| Gearbox says it was 'required' to remove Borderlands 3 cross-play for PlayStation consoles Posted: 28 May 2021 03:30 AM PDT "Borderlands 3 supports cross-play" is now a statement that will need a major asterisk next to it, seemingly through no fault of the game's publisher. Speaking publicly on Twitter, Gearbox box Randy Pitchford openly sheds some light on Borderlands 3's cross-play feature, giving us "good and bad news." The good news is that an update is being prepped now that will "allow cross-play." The bad news is that cross-play will not include any PlayStation consoles. In a move that isn't replicated by many industry players, Pitchford notes that "for certification, we have been required by the publisher to remove cross-play support for PlayStation consoles." This mirrors rare cases where studios openly spar with Sony on the issue. Note, however, that this could be a classic publisher dispute, and 2K and Sony didn't come to terms (though Sony requiring caveats for cross-play doesn't help). We've reached out to both parties for clarification. We do have a little insight, though. As Forbes points out, this was former PlayStation's head of global second-party games Gio Corsi's response to cross-play, which came to light during the Epic v Apple trial: "As you know, many companies are exploring this idea and not a single one can explain how cross-console play improves the PlayStation business." Yikes! That same trial also brought to light a Sony policy that requires "compensation" for allowing cross-play, as a sort of "hazard pay" for theoretically removing money from Sony's pockets. This is why some games have PlayStation cross-play and some don't. This whole saga feels years-old at this point, and you'd think that Sony eventually caving and allowing cross-play in some form would be the end of it. Nope! There's still plenty of battles to be waged, like this one Pitchford just inserted himself into. Randy Pitchford [Twitter via Forbes]  |
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