I streamed some of the Destiny Beta on PS4 this morning and thought you guys might fancy a glance at it. Did some Explore mode in Old Russia with my Warlock.
Has anyone else been partaking in the Destiny beta? What do you think so far?
Videos
Celebrate the Fourth of July With a Battlefield 4 CTE Easter Egg
I don’t need to remind you what today is because I think we all know. It’s three days after Canada Day!
Naw, just kidding: it’s Independence Day, the day where the USA celebrates their victory over the British and their freedom from the monarchy which is a feat they accomplished all by themselves and not with the help of the French, no sir.
To commemorate this occasion, the team at DICE LA who are behind the Battlefield 4 Community Test Environment (CTE), which has fixed more bugs in BF4 in a few months than DICE proper fixed in almost eight, added a very special easter egg in their most recent patch. Professional Battlefield 4 sleuth JackFrags (who found the Megalodon in Naval Strike as well) shows off the Fourth of July celebrations added to the map Dawnbreaker:
Pretty cool little Easter Egg from DICE LA in the Battlefield 4 CTE there, I must say. I think the CTE has done great things for Battlefield 4, the “netcode” update being chief among them. I signed up for CTE but haven’t had a chance to try it yet. I hope all of our American Sushians have an excellent Fourth of July!
Watch a Speedrunner Beat Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes in Less Than Four Minutes
Ever since I watched the 30 minute Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain E3 gameplay demo, I’ve been on kind of a Metal Gear Solid kick. I’m interested in Ground Zeroes, the prequel of sorts to TPP, and even though I understand the game has a lot more content than it appears to have at first glance, this speedrunner beating Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes in less than four minutes with an S rank kind of belies that.
He has an almost perfect run and relies pretty heavily on the Reflex mode, but it’s still damn entertaining to watch.
Check Out 30 Minutes of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain Gameplay
I know, we were all pretty down about Hideo Kojima’s latest foray into the ever-retconned mess of the Metal Gear Solid universe when we discussed the E3 2014 trailer in our most recent podcast, but this 30 minute gameplay demo of The Phantom Pain has me intrigued. There’s no uncomfortable sexual torture or ash-smearing, just Big Boss being a fricking bad-ass and infiltrating a Russian outpost to search for intel. As a bonus, we also get a glimpse of Mother Base, which, if memory serves, wasn’t an actual location in Peace Walker. The gameplay demo starts at around 41 minutes into the show, but I suppose you can watch the rest of it if you happen to understand Japanese. Don’t worry, the demo is narrated in English.
It looks like Kojima Productions have made a lot of really smart updates to the formula of Metal Gear Solid. While the “iDroid” is a little out of place for the mid-80s (which is when TPP takes place) it allows you to tackle the open world in a variety of ways thanks to waypoints and soldier-tagging. Also, Fulton-ing sheep looks hilarious. So, did this pique anyone’s interest?
Get Wild With This New Trailer For The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
Just because nobody seems to even care about waiting for E3 anymore, CD Projekt RED drop a metric ton of info about the Witcher 3: Wild Hunt earlier today, including this awesome trailer. It’s actual in-game footage (albeit with fancy cuts) as opposed to the CG-only trailer from last year. It has everything you’d expect from a Witcher game and it also looks super rad. I know CD Projekt RED said they’re drawing some inspiration from Skyrim this time around and I can definitely see that. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt will come out on February 25, 2015 and will be available on the PlayStation 4, PC and Xbox One.
Dead Rising 3 Getting a Steam Version This Summer
Dead Rising 3 was apparently only a timed Xbox One exclusive as the third (ish) chapter in Capcom’s wonderfully silly zombie-slaying franchise is coming out to Steam in Summer 2014. Not only in it getting a PC version but it’s also coming with all the standard Steam bells and whistles. This also coincides nicely with the news that the Xbox One controller can now be used on the PC. I’m excited for some co-op action and a better framerate when I finally get my hands on this. Who’s with me?
Get All Your Super Smash Bros. Info in This Nintendo Direct
Ever since the Nintendo 64, each new Nintendo console has brought us a new Super Smash Bros., Nintendo’s hot franchise-on-franchise brawler. We’ve known that a version of Super Smash Bros. for the Wii U has been in the cards for a while (along with a 3DS version), but thanks to this new Nintendo Direct with Smash Bros. series director Masahiro Sakurai we now know that we’ll be seeing the newest iteration in Winter of 2014 (I assume they mean Q4) with the 3DS version hitting this Summer.
In addition to the release dates, this Nintendo Direct features information on new characters, online play,the 3DS-exclusive Smash Run mode and a few new characters, so check it out!
If this trailer is any indication then the music in the games themselves will be straight bangin’. Smash Bros. games are always good nostalgia trips, and I think that the tripping mechanic has been removed this time around and that makes me a happy camper. What do you guys think? Is Super Smash Bros. for the Wii U and 3DS shaping up pretty nicely?
Hotline Miami 2 Lays Down the Beating
Hotline Miami 2 now has a trailer, and my god, it’s beautiful. The first game was one of my favorites, and it looks like the sequel is upping the ante with some ridiculously cool additions.
Dat dual wielding in multi directions, tho.
Here’s a Megalodon in Battlefield 4 for Your Friday Afternoon
A couple months ago the Battlefield 4 community went crazy over the netcode the possibility of a megalodon existing on the Paracel Storm map. Well, four days after the release of the newest expansion Naval Strike on the PC, YouTuber and professional Battlefield 4 Easter Egg hunter JackFrags has found the giant shark and it is beautiful. Check out his video below:
What’s your favorite Easter Egg? This ranks pretty high up for me.
Optimus Prime in Titanfall is the Greatest April Fools’ Joke Ever
April 1 is probably the worst day of the year for a frequent Internet browser. You can’t believe most of what you read and sometimes the hoaxes are actually kind of rad and make you wish they were real. Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon started out as an April Fools’ joke, but somehow I don’t think this trailer for Titanfall DLC which brings in Optimus Prime will become a real thing, which is a shame. Take a look at what the greatest Autobot would look like in Titanfall below.
I’ll admit I thought this was real for a second before I watched it because it seems like such a natural fit. Would you guys want to transform and roll out in Titanfall?
President Obama Talks Smack in Titanfall
This video needs very little introduction, other than saying that someone who does a very good Obama impersonation plays a lot of Titanfall and pretends he’s the President of the United States. The results are pretty glorious, mostly because everyone else is playing along and enjoying the shtick.
Celebrate Katamari’s 10 Year Anniversary with Awesome Music
Crazy how time flies, huh? Katamari Damacy, that lovable game where you play as the Prince of the Cosmos, rolling all over the world in a great big ball, turns 10 years old today.
It’s interesting to think back on that time of my life, where I lived carefree in college and listened to that game’s rad soundtrack while driving all over Tallahassee. Who else has fond memories of Katamari Damacy?
Little Known Nintendo 64 Facts
It’s so fascinating to hear bits of our gaming history these days, especially with systems that I was old enough to read about and care about in the days leading up to their release. Here’s a video about the development of the Nintendo 64, including a list of really cool tidbits such as why Nintendo claimed to stick to cartridges, the system’s original name, how Goldeneye was developed and more.
I’ve got some fond memories of this fine machine. Crazy to think that it came out almost 20 years ago. What are some of your favorite N64 memories?
Check Out The Official Trailer for Batman: Arkham Knight
This morning Batman: Arkham Knight got rumored and confirmed in a whirlwind of profession games journalism (hats off to you, boys) and now we have the first official trailer “Father to Son”. Rocksteady is once again taking up the cowl but this doesn’t look anything like a Silver Age Batman, which was rumored to be their next project. Batman: Arkham Knight drops this fall for the Xbox One, PS4 and PC. Check out the trailer below!
Gods Will Be Watching This Summer
Gods Will Be Watching, a self-dubbed “point-and-click thriller”, puts you in a variety of harrowing moral dilemmas set against the backdrop of space. From the sound of it, there’s no walking around or gathering items, just tense, thrilling scenes that give you choices with big ramifications throughout the game. What’s really interesting is the game also provides you with no moral compass of sorts, it just lets your choices be your choices.
I know that pixel art is getting a bit cliche these days, but there’s something really timeless about the art style that hits me just right. And I’ll be damned if these short, story-based, tense kind of dilemma games don’t ring my bell just right.
Check Out This Gorgeous Metroid Mod for Spelunky
Since Nintendo seems unwilling to give us a new Metroid game, an intrepid modder has taken it upon himself to make a nearly fully-featured Metroid flavored mod for Spelunky. The narrator for this video says a few facepalm-worthy things are a couple points, but it’s worth a watch.
Fifteen Minutes of 4K Titanfall PC Gameplay
Want to watch fifteen minutes of glorious Titanfall footage in 4K? Well, you’re in luck as YouTuber JackFrags just posted some Titanfall PC Beta gameplay. Let that soak into your peepers.
Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze 3DS Easter Egg
In the upcoming Wii U platformer Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, DK will play with a 3DS if you leave him alone long enough. YouTube Channel GameXplain shows you a clip of this as well as analyzing the sounds the 3DS makes to figure out exactly what games the platforming ape is playing!
Watch Six Minutes of Evolve Gameplay Because Why Not
Evolve, the up-coming asymmetrical multiplayer shooter from Turtle RockStudios, of Left 4 Dead fame, made a big splash during its Game Informer cover reveal last month. Recently a passel of gaming journalists, such as Kotaku’s Kirk Hamilton, got to check out the game, which is due to launch on the PS4, Xbox One and the PC later this year. Mr. Hamilton compiled six minutes of Evolve footage, so give it a watch.
Evolve looks like a lot of fun, and this video (I prefer text explanations to narration, at least in this case) shed a lot of light on some mechanics of Evolve that I was previously fuzzy on. The only thing I don’t dig about Evolve are the human characters, but that’s a small gripe. So, how is Evolve shaping up for you?
Videogames: The Only Art Form That Punishes You For Sucking
For your Friday afternoon enjoyment: an excerpt from Irish comedian Dara O Briain’s “Craic Dealer” where he bemoans the world of games that won’t let you get to the good parts.