Crystal Dynamics and Square Enix have announced that with 20 years of Lara Croft, they are Celebrating the franchise with a set of festivities for the major milestone. For those at PAX East 2016, fans will be able to celebrate new achievements to the series as well as the protagonist throughout the year.
“Since its introduction, Tomb Raider has held a significant place in video game history, and further cements that with this milestone,” said Ron Rosenberg, Co-Head of Studio at Crystal Dynamics. “We look forward to celebrating with fans, and honoring the iconic Lara Croft with special events, retrospectives, giveaways and other surprises throughout this year of Tomb Raider.”
Originally introduced to the world of gaming in 1996 as Tomb Raider from Core Designs, Lara Croft was introduced as an archeologist that would eventually become one of the most well known names within the gaming industry. As one of the largest names within virtual entertainment, Lara Croft made a name as an ambassador for scientific excellence and even appeared live with famed band U2 while they were on tour. With over 30 titles released to date and has even received numerous awards as a culture icon for over 20 years.
“Tomb Raider has become a cultural phenomenon over the last 20 years, selling millions of copies worldwide, sparking one of the most successful video game film adaptations in history, and inspiring our amazing fans of all ages,” said Scot Amos, Co-Head of Studio at Crystal Dynamics. “It’s incredible to be part of this legend and to see how much the series has evolved over time, and think about what’s yet to come. Here’s to 20 more years of adventure together.”
As part of the 20 year celebration, Square Enix and Crystal Dynamics have teamed up with GameChanger Charity to provide a free digital copy of Tomb Raider from back in 2013 for every donation of at least $1 USD. For those who donate $20 USD will be entered into a drawing to win special Crystal Dynamics swag bags including a collector’s edition of Rise of the Tomb Raider, along with special related items to the series for our favored adventurous lady. GameChanger is a non-profit focused on improving the lives of children suffering from life-threatening diseases. GameChanger delivers video game gifts to hospitals, and provides financial support to deserving families.
With this news, Square Enix and Crystal Dynamics have also announced that Rise of the Tomb Raider’s newest content pack called Cold Darkness Awakened has launched for PC through Steam and the Windows store, but also for Xbox One and Xbox 360. The DLC will tell players about Lara Croft’s adventure through a land where nightmarish predators lurk in an old abandoned Cold War base. The pack is available for Season Pass owenrs or available for 9.99 USD through the Marketplace.
About the Writers:
Dustin is our native console gamer, PlayStation and Nintendo reviewer who has an appetite for anything that crosses the boarders from across the big pond. His interest in JRPG’s, Anime, Handheld Gaming, and Pizza is insatiable. His elitist attitude gives him direction, want, and a need for the hardest difficulties in games, which is fun to watch, and hilarity at its finest. You can find him over on Twitter, Google+, and or you can find him on PSN with RaivynLyken.
If you’ve been playing Hitman, you know there’s a few new things now available if you’ve logged into your game. As of today the Vampire Magician Challenge Pack is now available, improvements to load times have been made, and quite a few more fixes have been released with it. For players on all platforms getting ready to play the game, you’ll see some heavy improvements on the title.
The new update includes the Vampire Magician Challenge Pack, which includes 10 new challenges inspired by how the community has been playing the game. This is a nice little for those who are wanting to see how the game develops in the future. As players undergo these challenges, they’ll find themselves wearing the games new “Vampire Magician” disguise, which will allow players to take down targets using a range of new methods.
As stated, load times have been heavily improved for fans playing the game. Most of these improvements will be notable when loading the mission “The Showstopper”. With that, they’re also heavily working on improving all load times within the game even more. With it menus have been made more responsive while loading images that allows for the games image caching system to improve.
Read below for the rest of the fixes:
Fixed issues with scoring
Primarily, this fixes an issue that resulted in many players earning a “0 second” time bonus and an incorrect score of 210,000. A leaderboard reset will be implemented at a later date.
Continued improvements to connectivity
Server stability improvements.
Missing ‘Requiem Pack’ items have been restored
For those affected, these items will now be available to choose from the planning screen again.
Fixed numerous issues that were causing crashes
General improvements to game stability.
A dedicated thread on the Official HITMAN Forums for Update 1.03 has been created.
Please join the discussion there with your feedback.
Our Take:
With the game being an episodic title, the game has already seen some massive changes for the length of time it has been out. These changes have also seen quite a few fixes, which is nice to see, and highly appreciated by fans wanting things to work.
About the Writers:
Dustin is our native console gamer, PlayStation and Nintendo reviewer who has an appetite for anything that crosses the boarders from across the big pond. His interest in JRPG’s, Anime, Handheld Gaming, and Pizza is insatiable. His elitist attitude gives him direction, want, and a need for the hardest difficulties in games, which is fun to watch, and hilarity at its finest. You can find him over on Twitter, Google+, and or you can find him on PSN with RaivynLyken.
If you aren’t familiar with Killing Floor 2 and the fact the game has quite a few of mods, Mod DB, Tripwire teamed together for Killing Floor 2’s official Grindhouse Mapping Contest. With the contest, it continues on from Phase 1 and offers over 50,000 USD to modding winners. For those who are interested in the blood filled contest from Grindhouse, this contest offers up the chance for fans to show off their map creation skills. For those wondering, Phase 2 was held from December 7, 2015 through February 21, 2016. Today’s announcement reveals nine lucky and talented winners, each handpicked by the Tripwire Interactive team. So our hats are off to those who entered and those who won.
“We were overwhelmed by the quality and originality of the various map submissions in the Grindhouse Mapping Contest,” said John Gibson, President of Tripwire Interactive. “Now that we’ve recently added full Steam Workshop functionality in Killing Floor 2, we’re excited to see what the community creates next!”
Tripwire Selections Phase 2 (All maps are on Steam Workshop and available to play now!)
Will wee see you on the battlefield enjoying these new fan created maps? We hope so. As for them being on PlayStation 4? We certainly hope they will be there when the game launches sometime this year.
About the Writers:
Dustin is our native console gamer, PlayStation and Nintendo reviewer who has an appetite for anything that crosses the boarders from across the big pond. His interest in JRPG’s, Anime, Handheld Gaming, and Pizza is insatiable. His elitist attitude gives him direction, want, and a need for the hardest difficulties in games, which is fun to watch, and hilarity at its finest. You can find him over on Twitter, Google+, and or you can find him on PSN with RaivynLyken.
You may already know from our experiences at QuakeCon 2015 that I got my hands on DOOM’s pre-alpha and played the living Hell out of it. The game was absolutely fantastic and lived up to my multiplayer expectations. I even played in the closed Alpha when it launched earlier this year. I still haven’t talked about it due to the NDA’s, but starting tomorrow night at 10:00pm Eastern, 9:00pm Central or 7PM PST? I’ll be playing the living Hell out of it once more, but guess what? This time we’ll have gameplay footage on YouTube, written articles, and even a Live Stream you’ll be able to tune into starting at 9:00pm tomorrow night.
So what’s the schedule for this beta?
Start: Thursday, March 31, 2016 @ 10:00 p.m. Eastern Time (UTC – 5)
End: Sunday, April 3, 2016 @ 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time (UTC – 5)
Official info from Bethesda below:
Stream, Upload, and Share
We encourage you to share your gameplay experiences from the DOOM Closed Beta. If you have any questions about sharing video content, please review our video policy.
For updates on the Beta, be sure to follow @DOOM on Twitter.
About the Writers:
Dustin is our native console gamer, PlayStation and Nintendo reviewer who has an appetite for anything that crosses the boarders from across the big pond. His interest in JRPG’s, Anime, Handheld Gaming, and Pizza is insatiable. His elitist attitude gives him direction, want, and a need for the hardest difficulties in games, which is fun to watch, and hilarity at its finest. You can find him over on Twitter, Google+, and or you can find him on PSN with RaivynLyken.
If you’ve been waiting like myself for a release date on Final Fantasy XV since it was previously announced as Final Fantasy XIII – Versus, our wait is almost over, and that wait is definitely one we can’t wait to have end. According to Push Square an article that popped up on Gematsuhas apparently, the journalism site has received possible word that Final Fantasy XV will be launching on September 30th, 2016.
While we speculate this rumor might be just that, we know that Square Enix has been keeping their lips tight on any information regarding the titles launch, and even any press inquiries regarding this information. We have reached out to Square Enix for some validity to this news. Stay tuned.
About the Writers:
Dustin is our native console gamer, PlayStation and Nintendo reviewer who has an appetite for anything that crosses the boarders from across the big pond. His interest in JRPG’s, Anime, Handheld Gaming, and Pizza is insatiable. His elitist attitude gives him direction, want, and a need for the hardest difficulties in games, which is fun to watch, and hilarity at its finest. You can find him over on Twitter, Google+, and or you can find him on PSN with RaivynLyken.
Pros:
+Shinobi Girls Heart has returned from Shinovi Versus
+Tons of new stages. Eight to Nine Chapters with around 7 stages.
+Dialogue is rather hilarious. Come for the fanservice, stay for the stories
+Soundtrack offers a few standout tracks such, read the review for more on this
Cons:
-Feels more like a side story to Shinovi Versus than a proper sequel
-Levels tend to be re-used quite a bit. Only differences are mission goals.
-Background score tends to be repeats from previous titles
-Both PlayStation 4 and Vita versions suffer from minor frame rate drops
-Fanservice has gotten even worse
When you read the pros and cons above, it’s hard to not-state that the series is all about the fan service in regards to the high-school aged or slightly older girls. It’s what Senran Kagura is known for, but in this latest version? It’s getting to be just about that. When we first experienced Senran Kagura almost two years ago, the series has become one that we highly appreciate for its combat mechanics, knee-slap worthy jokes, and even the anime-esque art style that keeps the series alive. Let alone does the series keep us around for that, it also keeps us around because the combat tends to be quite enjoyable, but so does the DLC when it actually has something to offer to the game.
Having been plying the game since its Japanese release thanks to co-writer and co-reviewer Greg F, we’ve taken a note of a few things in our joint review. Senran Kagura Estival Versus has seen some minor changes to its previous title. There are a few new mechanics such as bomb throwing, wall combat, and even special knock-outs that essentially go into a cut scene and humiliate the enemy characters in the best possible way. This isn’t odd for the franchise though, it’s all about the knee-slapping jokes and the heavy fan service and these new “Creative Knock-outs” or as in the Japanese version “Purupuru” offers a unique twist to the game. The first one players are introduced to is one of the girls being knocked up into a taito drum and getting her butt literally spanked with taito drum sticks. Literally.
While it’s worthwhile that we can shake our heads and laugh about this, this is a theme that sticks around for quite sometime throughout the entry. Something we’ve gotten used to by now even, but the real look at the game isn’t the fact that the main chapters are rather short leaving players to fly through the main campaign in roughly six hours. While that can be a disgruntling feature, one that has returned and remains soft in our hearts is the return of Shinobi Girls Heart. Or as Greg puts it, “Yo dog, I heard you like side stories so I put side stories in your side stories.”
While the main story is short, Shinobi Girls Heart allows us to once more take to the side stories to uncover new side stories to each of the girls. This giving us a true look behind the events of each character so that we get a bit more of a view from their side of things related to what’s going on with Estival Versus. While this is enjoyable, it’d be nice to see the main-campaign getting much of the same treatment. However, this wasn’t the case, and that leaves us with the feeling that this game is more of a continuation of Shinovi Versus instead of a true sequel. While that can be considered a troublesome flaw, we’ll cope with it for now. It’d be nice to see a true continuation with some of the girls either graduating from their schools or even becoming “Master’s” or in their case “Mistresses” of their schools to allow for a new and more dynamic cast.
While playing the game on both the PlayStation Vita and PlayStation 4, both in Japanese and English versions for the Vita, we did take note of several things. The Japanese versions patch file has been staying ahead for a few weeks now. With the launch of 1.19 the game has seen a few changes while the American version is still sitting at 1.17, which only added in some of the new Purupuru Knock-Outs, a few bug fixes, and a few other behind the scenes notes. The biggest thing though is how the game has kept up since the Japanese version, which is pretty stable and runs as one would expect for a PlayStation Vita title. Just like the Japanese version, both the American PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita versions run into occasional frame rate drops that can make the game seem as if it were stuttering a bit. Nothing like sitting at a smooth 60fps until combat gets nuts and a lot of animated characters appear on screen knocking that frame rate down to what feels like between 45-50fps until combat lightens down a bit. While this seems like it is isolated to the PlayStation 4 variant. The PS Vita version seems to see the same framerate drops, but hardly as noticeable since that version tends to stick around an estimated 30fps. However, the PS4 version sees a lot more stability in the long run of things.
While performance does remain a question at hand, we do take a peek at the PlayStation Vita TV since Greg ran some tests on it just to ensure our review would be as accurate as possible. While we are used to seeing the PS TV get ignored a bit, the Vita TV still remains an important part to reviewing since many owners do use it and tend to prefer it so that they can play their Vita games on TV with the luxury of not staring at a tiny screen, but for those wondering if the game scales to the PS TV? You’re not getting that treatment this time around it seems. Without a post-release update, the Vita TV remains without proper scaling and looks almost atrocious on Vita TV. It’s best to get the PlayStation 4 version for the 10 USD more. Just not that the PS4 versions enemies all seem to render onscreen at once while the Vita version has pop-in enemies, rather extra waves of enemies in comparison to the Vita version. Or so it seems.
While we do discuss the video capabilities and performance, the game does continue on with traditional cutscenes that variate between walls of text, character model reactions, and well animated shorts. All of this works well for the game as the narrating remains on-par with previous titles. But the one thing that comes down to really looking at the game isn’t necessarily just the graphics and video performance, but also controls. While we’ve become used to the franchise stun-locking our characters in combat, we’ve also seen the infamous return of button mashing in order to keep our enemies at bay, the title does enter in with some new combat mechanics. This includes wall-attacks, knock-up specials, and even parry attacks that tend to leave enemies pretty much out of the fray due to their inability to fight back. Just like before, players can use things such as bombs to knock enemies away, poison them, or simply do what I prefer and blow them up.
Sadly? That’s all that is truly new to the game outside of the Purupuru finishers that leave rival school characters in rather provocative positions while being in what little clothing they have or none only to be covered by glowing gold lights. While this is hilarious, it may deter some new series adopters left shaking their head, and wondering where the series is going to go from there. For those wanting to know about the disturbing Vita groping mechanics. It’s still there and still causes us to shake our heads. At least they censored the girls ages from the Japanese version so that American fans won’t feel as if they should be ashamed of themselves at the end of the day.
Senran Kagura: Estival Versus- PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita [Reviewed on both] Developer: MARVELOUS Publisher: XSEED Games Price: 49.99 USD and 59.99 USD Released: Available Now
While there could be more to go on about, it’s going to be hard to do so without looking at all the fan-service that has been given to this game, but at the heart of it all? Senran Kagura is a brawler that tries to take itself seriously when it comes down to core fighting mechanics unlike it’s comedic narrative that could leave a grown man or woman blushing. While fighting mechanics are at the games core, they’ve not grown enough to make themselves substantially different from previous titles. However, if you want to continue on laughing, blushing, and button smashing? This is the game for you if you can get over all the tits and arse this game has to offer.
Our review is based on a review copy that was provided to us by the games publisher. For information about our ethics policy please clickhere.
Final Score: 7 out of 10
About the Writers:
Dustin is our native console gamer, PlayStation and Nintendo reviewer who has an appetite for anything that crosses the boarders from across the big pond. His interest in JRPG’s, Anime, Handheld Gaming, and Pizza is insatiable. His elitist attitude gives him direction, want, and a need for the hardest difficulties in games, which is fun to watch, and hilarity at its finest. You can find him over on Twitter, Google+, and or you can find him on PSN with RaivynLyken.
Greg F. is an RPG enthusiast whom absolutely enjoys the niche titles that come across from the East. When it comes to beat-’em-up brawlers such as Senran Kagura. Greg knows the titles just about as good as anyone else, but his passion not-so-secretly sits with his love for retro games from the NES and Sega period. In his free time Greg contributes to B.A.T.G.R. with his knowledge of such feedback.
So you’ve gotten your hands on the International Version of Dark Souls III and have already begun your endless onslaught of enemies while you die, die again, and die a lot more times. Congratulations, it’s a beautiful game from everything we’ve seen on it from YouTube videos and official press kits. However, in an email from Bandai Namco, we’ve learned a few things about this version of the game that may just make you want to wait a few more weeks before opening your copies. We know we are waiting for our release version for sure.
Bandai Namco has not gone without being thankful for the anticipation of the game with its Japanese launch having already happened, but for those int he west? Well there’s a bit more to your version that’s not there. While the game launches on April 12th of this year, a few fans have gotten their hands on the game already. According to Bandai Namco, the version of the game that’s out now doesn’t exactly have all of it’s Day One capabilities there such as multiplayer or other contents that will help further optimize the game for PlayStation 4. While the international release date for the game is on April 12th, it’s out in the wild already. For those of you that have it? Prepare for a bit of a download for your game to have a fully glorious experience.
About the Writer:
Dustin is our native console gamer, PlayStation and Nintendo reviewer who has an appetite for anything that crosses the boarders from across the big pond. His interest in JRPG’s, Anime, Handheld Gaming, and Pizza is insatiable. His elitist attitude gives him direction, want, and a need for the hardest difficulties in games, which is fun to watch, and hilarity at its finest. You can find him over on Twitter, Google+, and or you can find him on PSN with RaivynLyken.
If you’re looking to go to QuakeCon and want in. Bethesda has announced that the “BYOC Select-a-Seat’ package is set to open today, March 23rd at 7pm CT/8pm ET at: registration.quakecon.org.
The ‘BYOC Select-a-Seat’ package ($40 | limit of 2,100 packages available), with guaranteed reserved seating, includes:
Select and Reserve a guaranteed seat of your choice in the BYOC area
Official QuakeCon 2016 Lanyard
For those of you looking to go without a BYOC seating, general attendee’s can still get in free while also wishing to participate in the QuakeCon events. For those interested in winning a BYOC spot, stay tuned to their social media giveaways, contests, and their event partners leading up to the show. Be sure to keep an eye on our QuakeCon Twitter account and QuakeCon Facebook page for all the details on how to win!
Stay tuned to our page for QuakeCon coverage this summer.
About the Writer:
David Murphy is B.A.T.G.R.’s behind the scenes man who helps get things up and going as well as keeping things in order. Don’t be surprised to know that the old man contributes rather heavily to editing, news, and information he digs up so that editorials as well as articles are done properly. He also likes Fallout… A lot. We’re not sure he’s not secretly the Vault Boy in disguise.
If helping out the Wastelands of Boston wasn’t enough, today Bethesda has released the latest DLC for Fallout 4 by the name of Automatron. This DLC features the role of a mysterious and mischievous enemy by the name of the Mechanist who is sending hordes of evil robots into the Commonwealth. This enemy also includes the devious Robobrain. As players explore the cause of this threat, they must hunt down, harvest their own parts to build their own minions. This includes the choosing hundreds of mods including limbs, armor, abilities, weapons including the all-new lightning chain gun. Players will be able to customize the paint schemes and even choose their robotic companions voices. This will be available for characters level fifteen and up.
As the first expansion to Fallout 4, Bethesda has also announced that they are expanding the capabilities of settlements within the Wasteland Workshop, and in May, you’ll be able to head outside of the Commonwealth of Boston to Main for the upcoming DLC Far Harbor, which is the largest landmass has ever created post-game development by Bethesda Game Studios. And that’s just the beginning of what they are announcing. All DLC is available via the season pass for 49.99 USD on Steam, PlayStation Store, and the Xbox Live Marketplace or your local retailer. With more DLC coming later this year, they have also announced new small updates such as Survival Mode and the Creation kit, which will allow mods to be created on PC then shared to consoles. Stay tuned for our upcoming review for each of the DLC’s as they become available.
About the Writer:
Dustin is our native console gamer, PlayStation and Nintendo reviewer who has an appetite for anything that crosses the boarders from across the big pond. His interest in JRPG’s, Anime, Handheld Gaming, and Pizza is insatiable. His elitist attitude gives him direction, want, and a need for the hardest difficulties in games, which is fun to watch, and hilarity at its finest. You can find him over on Twitter, Google+, and or you can find him on PSN with RaivynLyken.
Rust is a wonderful PVP sandbox game that was original released in December 2013. As of now the game is still in alpha, early access through Steam. That being said there are several wonderful things about this game, some of which can be a downside. After hands on play for over 200 hours there is plenty to say about Rust. One on the biggest things to mention about Rust is that even after 2 years post launch the developers are still continuing to do weekly updates to the game. On top of that they are good about keep us in the community up to date with new concepts they are working on. Along with the game having strong developer support it also has a large community that supports it.
The community includes both server hosting and mods. I myself have a server that has several mods that run on it. Servers can be hosted personally or rented from server hosting websites. If rented – depending on the hosting site and the size of the server that you want – price on average can vary from $9 to as much as $20. Whether hosting a server oneself or just joining an active server Rust has an easy to navigate server browser. Servers can be found in one of there major categories, which are as follows Official, Community, and Modded. Along with this you can see the servers you have previously visited, ones in which your friends are on and all the ones you have tagged as favorite.
Another nice feature is the ability to be able to search for servers by name. Just like Rust there are several games out there that have modding support. All games that do have mods have ones that fall into categories ranging from cosmetic to changing the game play. As of now most mods for rust fall into one of two categories, User Interface or gameplay Out of these mods many of the top ones are UI. To note a few: InfoPanel, StackSize Controller and Death Notes. Some of the top gameplay mods are teleportation System, Kits abd Levels Remastered. One mod that is neither gameplay or UI is the one named Weather Controller. This one is great if for no other reason than it can help make the game run smoother for those who cant handle the weather effects.
The graphics included in this game are beautiful, from the bright sunny days to the dense fog that rolls over the land. That being said the graphics that make is so beautiful is also a problem. When you start up rust you choose your resolution and one of five graphic settings. However, once you are in game there are more in-depth graphic adjustments available. This means whether you have a top of the line graphics card or one that is not the graphic settings can be modify. Hopefully enough so one can not just run Rust, but also allow you to play. Even if graphics have to be turned down to the lowest settings it is still a great game to play. If you have to turn the graphics down to a lower setting this can still result in lag and death of player in PvP situations.
Rust – PC
Developer: Facepunch Studios Publisher:Facepunch Studios Cost:19.99 USD Release Date: Now Available – Early Access
Rust being a PvP (Player vs Player) sandbox game it is both exhilarating and annoying at the same time. This is due to the fact that while you are harvesting or build a base it is not uncommon to be targeted, killed and/or raided. This PvP aspect is one of the appeal facets of Rust. Even with that being the case there are players who don’t enjoy the PvP form of play. Keeping this in mind several servers are run as PvE (Player vs Environment) servers but still have PvP turned on. Playing PvE is not without it own types of dangers from radiation zones, fall damage and even wild animal attacks.
As a whole Rust is a entertaining and pleasant take on the sandbox genre. With being an alpha early access title expect more changes and/or additions to the game. Even if you do not enjoy the PvP aspect of this game but are a fan of the sandbox genre you should give Rust a play. If you do whether you play on a PvP or PvE server, that does or doesn’t use mods Rust is a wonderful game.
About the Writer:
Chris Adee is one of B.A.T.G.R.’s newest writers who seems to love three things. Sleep, games, and MOBA’s when he’s not goofing around on Warframe and SMITE. He also likes games. A lot. Oh and anime. Did we mention anime?
David Murphy is B.A.T.G.R.’s behind the scenes man who helps get things up and going as well as keeping things in order. Don’t be surprised to know that the old man contributes rather heavily to editing, news, and information he digs up so that editorials as well as articles are done properly. He also likes Fallout… A lot. We’re not sure he’s not secretly the Vault Boy in disguise.
Chris Adee is one of B.A.T.G.R.’s newest writers who seems to love three things. Sleep, games, and MOBA’s when he’s not goofing around on Warframe and SMITE. He also likes games. A lot. Oh and anime. Did we mention anime?