Lacoste

welcome to csblackdevil enjoy your stay good luck - have fun!

Happy Birthday my Friend Whats up Doc? The famous member of CsBlackDevil Enjoy dude it's your Day GL - Have Fun!

v1 , text , blur , border

Welcome - to - CsBlackDevil Enjoy your Stay #GL - Have Fun!

Welcome - to - CsBlackDevil Enjoy your Stay #GL - Have Fun!

As the weekend begins, Cloud Imperium Games has made it a happy one for Star Citizen fans. The developer has officially launched Star Citizen's Alpha 2.0 for all backers. On top of that, the game's crowdfunding is about to reach another major milestone, with the game nearing the $100 million mark. Among the new features debuting in Star Citizen 2.0 are three new flyable ships: the Constellation, the Retaliator, and the Vanduard. Also, it's time to finally get out of the ship and get up close and personal, as the game adds first-person combat for the first time. The Quantum travel ability (putting players at the speed of light) has also been added, for anyone looking to reach their location quickly. Players will also be able to explore the planet Crusader, along with three moons, three space stations, a repair/restock station, and nine comm arrays. It's been over three years since Star Citizen was first unveiled, but Alpha 2.0 appears to be some real progress in the game's ongoing development. For more on the new alpha, let's watch the trailer from last week's Game Awards one more time.

Anyone with even a passing interest in the Final Fantasy series already knows the story of Final Fantasy V, but not everyone may have noticed that some really strange things are happening in the video game industry. In recent years, developers and publishers figured out that they could make a lot of relatively easy money by porting old games to mobile devices, and that's overall been a positive thing. The Android port of Final Fantasy IV is a towering achievement in technology and mobile gaming. Then someone had the idea to take those mobile ports and bring them to PC. Is the PC version of Final Fantasy V anything more than that? Does anything redeem its existence? With scepticism, Cubed3 evaluates the game that doesn't hide the fact that it's a port of a mobile game. No. This is unacceptable. Final Fantasy V on PC is hands-down, no caveats, and no qualifications an inferior version of Final Fantasy V. It would be one thing to say that this is a low-effort port, but that's giving it too much credit. This is a no-effort port, which is apparent the very instant the game is launched. The only niche this version could possibly serve would be to provide a version of the game to players who have no tablet and no smartphone, because severe flaws undermine the otherwise great story and gameplay. For a price that surpasses literally hundreds of worthier games, players can experience the joy of playing an obvious mobile port on PC. A desktop loaded with an Android Operating System would have an almost identical experience, and a phone loaded with Android will have a noticeably better experience. Square Enix ostensibly seeks refuge in audacity, as it proudly brandishes that this is a port of a mobile game, but, "What do you expect? It's a mobile port," does not apply when discussing something people are expected to pay a fair bit of money for. Players will immediately notice the black bars that line the sides of the screen, which is something that has been endlessly criticised about the mobile versions. The Run toggle button fixed in the bottom right corner of the screen also made its way to the PC port—despite being utterly useless, since there is no mouse support. In actuality, the button does still serve the purpose of letting players know if Sprint is toggled, but such minor functions don't justify covering up a portion of the actual on-screen action with tacky remnants of mobile controls. With indie developers capable of releasing PC games at a lower price without such gaudy displays, it becomes virtually undeniable that the only effort put into this port was "enough effort to make it function, more or less." Final Fantasy V does support keyboard input and controllers, but the keyboard defaults to using the arrow keys for movement. This can be changed if players can be bothered to do it - but why should they, whenFinal Fantasy V couldn't be bothered with it, even though using the arrow keys for movement has been considered unoptimal for PC gaming for decades? A controller makes the experience a little more bearable, but the sense of navigating mobile menus using a cursor never dissipates. The small details give this away: instead of pressing L1/LB in order to toggle "Target All," as might be expected, the cursor must be moved over to the "All" button. This very quickly becomes a cacophony of groan-inducing, superfluous button presses. When a game is ported to a different platform, it should be optimised for that platform. Functioning on that platform isn't enough, not for a product people pay for. Menus need to be overhauled to accommodate the controls of the new platform, and graphics need to be modified or even redone so that they are optimised. As it happens, so few optimisations were done and so few changes were made that save files can be freely moved back and forth between the PC and mobile versions for those with the know-how to do it. That doesn't feel right; it feels like that shouldn't be possible.

Disappointing Single-Player MMO From Industry Veterans Xenoblade Chronicles X isn’t the worst game I’ve played all year, but it is easily the most disappointing, and definitely the worst game bearing the Xeno prefix. If you enjoyed Xenogears or Xenosaga, it certainly won’t satisfy any need for some kind of turn-based JRPG nostalgia (not that it should), and unlike Xenoblade Chronicles, it also won’t really scratch the itch for the sort of incredibly weirdness the Xeno games are known for either, at least not in a way that adds up to anything affecting beyond the weirdness for its own sake. Purely from a gameplay perspective, if you were a fan of the original Xenoblade this is probably worth your time, but as someone who ended up detesting that game, I came to detest this just as much. The game begins with the destruction of Earth as it becomes a battleground for two warring alien races, which results in the death of most of Earth’s po[CENSORED]tion -- except for a few stray ships, one of which comes to land on the planet Mira, our setting for the game. Following the prologue, you’re invited to create a character, which is far less common in JRPGs than in their western counterparts. They can be a man or woman (I unfortunately had little luck creating anyone who at the very least looked nonbinary) of various sizes both wide and tall. The palette of skin tones available is seriously worthy of praise, though -- as is far too often the case -- the selection of hairstyles is much more limited, with no options for crinkled or curled styles. You then deck your character out with any number of minor features, including, but not limited to, butterfly face paint, (not my style, but cute!) or nasty facial scarring, perfect for fans of scowling sadboiz (hi). Then our story resumes with our newly-created character waking up from their stasis pod, having survived the crash landing with no memories of their past, and no spoken dialogue. That one of this year’s major JRPG releases plays into the one-two punch of awful JRPG cliches -- silent protagonists and amnesia (after the destruction of their “home town,” planet Earth, no less) -- would be forgivable if were not for two major factors. One: this game was written and directed by life-and-creative partners Tetsuya Takahashi and Soraya Saga, whose immense talent for avoiding JRPG cliche, or at least using it to interesting effect, was more than on display in Xenogears, the Xenosaga games, and Xenoblade Chronicles. Two: while the amnesiac main character can serve a purpose, it simply doesn’t serve that here. As a fan of Takahashi and Saga’s earlier Xeno games, I’m used to following densely detailed fictions with various warring factions, supernatural concepts, high science-fiction, and so on. Perhaps I’m just used to making sense out of gigantic piles of lore. However, by comparison, the world of Chronicles X is fairly simple to digest. You don’t even need to have played the previous Xenoblade Chroniclesto understand it. (Though for actually playing the game that may be a different story.) There is a hub city, New Los Angeles, which is the only human settlement on the planet. BLADE, the de facto government of “NLA” has taken on something of an autocratic structure while society rebuilds, and it’s your player character’s responsibility to protect that city from the threat of monster attacks, rescue other survivors still in stasis pods, and attempt to coexist with the sapient races already living on Mira. To the game’s credit, it’s not very hard to keep track of because the game does a much better job of introducing new narrative concepts at a good pace, especially in comparison to previous Xeno games. And that’s all fine, it just makes me a bit sad to see two writers who were at one point the most wildly experimental in their genre not only slip into cliche, but to misunderstand and misapply it as well. The world of Mira itself is one of the largest and most freely traversable expanses ever presented in a JRPG, a stunning collection of cliffs, beaches, fields, and all manner of environs, filled with investigable debris and meticulous detail, and most importantly, lovingly rendered creatures upon which to inflict your needless wrath. (The less said of the slow shift in JRPGs from “monsters who attack you” to “docile creatures you hunt for material gain,” the better.) If you want a place to come to and just look at, Xenoblade Chronicles X may be worth the price of admission for Mira alone. And, to the game’s credit, it gives you plenty of reasons to explore that wonderful setting, with a wealth of sidequests that easily double the approximate 50-hour playtime of the game’s main story. At every opportunity in the early game, characters gladly remind you that there’s plenty to do for the citizens of NLA besides your BLADE-centered story quests, and you will be doing a lot of them, as the game effectively gates central plot quests behind these side missions and a lot of grinding. While I tried to focus on running through the game in a timely manner, it became increasingly clear Xenoblade Chronicles X had no intention of letting me do that whatsoever. Even unlocking the game’s signature mechs, known as Skells, involves the completion of eight incredibly tedious sidequests totaling about 30 hours of play, compared to Xenogears or Xenosaga where mech combat is introduced as an integral element of the game from the very beginning. The combat is a different subject. Xenoblade Chronicles X is technically a JRPG, but it would probably be more accurate to describe it as a single-player MMO, much in the same vein of its predecessor, or Final Fantasy XII. The combat system in this game is likely familiar to anyone who does play MMOs: you have an auto-attack that continues to work while you cycle through a number of combat skills that all work on a cooldown timer, with bonuses conferring longer cooldowns in exchange for an extra burst of power or utility, as well as certain other situational bonuses. Having never been an MMO player, the appeal of single-player MMOs like these from a play perspective is confusing, to say the least. Why would anyone make a single-player game in a genre whose own fans describe it as incredibly boring to play alone? Why is this game even allowing me to move around my opponent when A) avoiding damage is both the reason why people want it in turn-based JRPGs, and also precisely why those games don’t have character movement, and no amount of moving around an enemy allows me to successfully avoid damage? This is aside from the questions raised by the game’s own unique design flaws not apparent in other MMOs. Why do my combat skills in the early game only do marginally more damage than my regular attacks? And why in god’s name do I need to mash the A button to open a treasure chest? (This is a thing that happens. Scout’s honor.) This is to say nothing of the horrendous user interface which packs as much information on screen as humanly possible in as small fonts as possible. If you play this game on a reasonably-sized television, I’d recommend frequently darting your eyes over different sides of the screen so you can make sure to balance any of the 69,420 different things you need to be keeping track of: character health, skill cooldowns, your position in relation to the enemy, and your party’s morale, which, as far as I could tell, does absolutely nothing. The official manual even says it “affects how you and your party work as a team” without explaining what that could possibly mean. Things only get worse when you finally get the mechs later in the game. Perhaps this is an area where having actually finished the original Xenoblade may come in handy, but I’d hoped the sequel would streamline some of these opaque systems, rather than double down. I was hoping at the very least to be convinced of a reason all of these systems needed to exist, or to keep playing this instead of wishing I was playing Xenogears again. I mentioned before how the game becomes seriously padded with sidequests. Here’s a preview of the kind of sidequest you might be subject to in Chronicles X: two BLADE members task you with finding their missing comrade and getting him back to New Los Angeles. You find him, and then he tells you to go find his comm device, which he has lost, and to bring it back to him. As soon as you do this, the sidequest is immediately over. The man, his teammates, and his cellphone, could not have been more than 3 miles apart from each other. In the words of my roommate, “they could’ve yelled and heard each other from this distance.” This is the sort of intelligence-insulting writing and design that you can expect from Xenoblade Chronicles X on a consistent basis. It was around here that I started to realize something, after I finished that awful sidequest, with the guy who just said “oh sweet baby back ribs!” (actual quote) staring in the general direction of a beautifully rendered dinosaur. This game really doesn’t care about anything that isn’t the planet Mira. You can see it in the incredibly generic art style for the mechs, human characters, and NLA. You can see it in the lazy cliches the writing depends on. You can see it in the absolutely terrible character models, which in cutscenes have zero facial expression and hair that blatantly clips through their armor, something the camera doesn’t even try to hide. You can hear it in the voice acting, which probably didn’t have a very big budget and sounds completely canned. (Apparently the best they could do for good alien voices here was just pitch-shifting stuff until you feel like you’re in a parody of a videogame you might’ve seen on an old Simpsonsepisode.) By contrast, Mira is a place teeming with life, character, and hidden history, po[CENSORED]ted with stunning creation after stunning creation, each more massive and imposing than the last. Clearly the development of this game was centered on Mira to the exclusion of almost everything else. That would work for me if I was playing a PC-exclusive indie darling that was about living in this world and cohabitating with the life on it.Xenoblade is not that game. Aside from the politically troublesome undertones associated with human conquest that make up much of this game’s main story, this is a game about exerting your will as a player onto this world, to conquer it for no other reason than because it is there to be conquered. Those beautiful dinosaurs are ultimately there because, this being this kind of videogame, those are there for you to kill. I couldn’t bring myself to do it. After I got the ability to fly with the Skells, I just ignored everything and flew to as many distant corners of the planet as I could to see what the world had to offer. It was then when I finally got something out of this game, separating myself from its banal story and banal politics and finding peace in the game’s nature. The music accompanying your journey to the far ends of Mira also deserves a nod: Hiroyuki Sawano’s soundtrack is one of the stronger outings of a solo composer in this genre in quite a long time. Sawano’s background is mostly in music for animation, and it shows in a few stylistic quirks: the background music in BLADE HQ sounds like music for a cafe, for example, while the main battle theme incorporates rap in something reminiscent of a shonen anime. That said, there are plenty of grand melodies and dense harmonies that are fitting of both the genre, and this game’s particular sense of scale, and I hope we get to hear more from this composer in the [CENSORED]ure. I set out intending to like Xenoblade Chronicles X. Tetsuya Takahashi and Soraya Saga are interesting, creative people who were, at one point, easily among the most compelling creative voices in videogames. Despite my displeasure with the original Xenoblade Chronicles, it was that creativity and boldness of vision that made me want to see what they’d do next. However, even with the little bit of their unique vision that shines through, everything about this game feels cynical to me. From the focus on the game’s technical accomplishments, to the passive combat that feels like a matter of being the right level rather than making the right decisions, everything here feels like an appeal to commercial interests rather than expression of the people who made it. Ultimately, if you enjoyed the gameplay in Xenoblade Chronicles then this iterates on it in every way you might want it to, but if you have more particular desires for your videogames, you will probably end up hating this as I did.

Welcome - to - CsBlackDevil Enjoy your Stay #GL - Have Fun!

Welcome to "CsBlackDevil" Enjoy your Stay #GL - Have Fun! P.S: Dont Forget to Read Rules! First.

Fallout 4 throws you into a post-apocalyptic wasteland based in the pre-war state of Massachusetts, now called The Commonwealth. You were one of the lucky few to be granted into one of the numerous Vaultec bunkers, protecting you from the war that raged on outside. However your bunker was not like the others, instead of living out your days underground you were instead frozen in stasis, left to dream away the years. You awoke only once to bear witness to a terrible event before you were quickly frozen again. When you awake again and find the world in ruin you have only one goal in mind: to right the wrong that was done to you on that tragic day. With 7 years between titles you’d be expecting a large upgrade in graphics and Fallout 4 certainly delivers that. All of the expected current generation trimmings are there like advanced lighting effects, dynamic weather and scenes that are chock full of detail. When compared to its current peers though it’s a little below average, with lower poly count models and less detailed textures, however that’s likely a function of the large draw distance that Fallout 4 favours. Indeed there are many other areas that likely received a lot more focus than the graphics and, considering the mod-centric approach Bethesda takes towards their games, it’s likely something they felt would be remedied without a lot of additional effort on their part. Fallout 4 has a breadth of detail that’s hard to do justice in a single summarizing paragraph and I’m sure there’s things in the game I simply didn’t see even with the large amount of time I spent in it. At its core Fallout 4 is an open world FPS RPG with city building thrown in as an extra distraction and progression mechanic. There’s a main quest line you can pursue if you so wish or you’re free to wander off into the wasteland, searching for hidden places or doing battle with the various inhabitants. You can barter for gear or craft your own, something which takes a rather large amount of investment but is most certainly worth the pay off. You can join factions and help them in their crusade to better The Commonwealth and bring companions along with you who provide interesting dialogue and can do certain things for you. In all seriousness there’s something for pretty much everyone in Fallout 4 as it can be pretty much whatever kind of game you want it to be. Combat feels very much the same as its predecessor, retaining the VATS percentage based attack system alongside the more traditional FPS style play. I had chosen to not invest points in VATS skills in order to put them elsewhere, hoping that my FPS skill could make up for the difference. Whilst that’s true to some degree Fallout 4’s combat is most certainly based around the use of VATS and I found myself relying on it more and more as I continued to play. That could be partially due to the fact that the FPS experience isn’t as polished as say Call of Duty‘s as the reticle didn’t always seem to be in complete alignment with where my bullets were going. Your mileage may vary depending on your build though as I’ve heard aiming isn’t much of an issue if you’ve built yourself a melee slugger. Levelling up in Fallout 4 seems to come often enough so long as you’re engaging in some form of activity. Pretty much everything you do, from exploring to building cities to doing quests, will grant you some amount of XP. If you’re looking to power level (like I was) then investing heavily in INT early on is a must as I was rocketing past my friends who had a similar amount of play time. If you’ve focused your build elsewhere there are other ways to increase your XP gain, like the [CENSORED] Savant perk. Whilst the inclusion of a respec ability or service would’ve been great the relatively easy levelling means that you were never too far off unlocking a perk you wanted. Again if you’re reading this some time after Fallout 4’s initial release I’m sure there’s already a mod that can help you in that regard. The city building part of Fallout 4 is anything but shoe horned in and provides a very effective way to progress other aspects of your character that might be lacking. The picture below is my purified water farm out at Sanctuary, something which provided me both with a reliable supply of caps as well as a relatively effective and free healing item. Getting your settlements up to a good size, with all the right trimmings, does take some effort to get done (especially if you need to go hunting down certain materials) but the rewards are most certainly worth it. It would be nice to have a bit more clarity around what influences certain things, like what attracts more settlers or what influences raids, but after a while you start to get a feel for what works and what doesn’t. The crafting system feels like a double edged sword. On the one hand it’s hard to deny that the crafting system is deep and rewarding as some of the things you can craft (or mod) are really quite overpowered. On the other hand however it’s marred by the age old inventory problem, where you can never be sure what you’ll need and so you feel compelled to grab everything in sight. Whilst the tag for search system is a great addition it would’ve been nice to have something akin to a recipes book that I could consult whilst in the field. Sometimes I know I wanted to make a certain mod but hadn’t flagged the items for search before I had left my workshop. Jumping out of the quest, going to a workbench, and then trucking back in isn’t something that I’d call fun which is why I often left it. Once your settlement gets to a certain level you can get around this a bit with stores, but it’s still a bit of a pain. It wouldn’t be a Bethesda game if it wasn’t extremely janky and Fallout 4 is no exception. In my first hour I encountered no less than 3 bugs which completely broke the game for me, leaving my character unable to progress. The most irritating one of these was when I’d go to use a console and then get stuck when I quit out of it. As it turns out this was an issue with systems that would render higher than 60fps, as the physics simulation is tied to the render rate. This meant my character would jerk out too fast and get stuck in his own body with every control proving to be unresponsive. To fix this I had to set an FPS limit on my graphics driver in order for the game to work properly. I have not once had to do that before and honestly it’s astonishing that you could have a PC that’s too good to play a game. It’s telling that my in game save says I’ve played for about 27 hours but Steam says 31 as that’s how much time I’ve lost to bugs that could only be solved by reloading the game. It’s not just game breaking bugs either, there are some design decisions made in Fallout 4 that just don’t make sense on the PC platform. The 4 choice dialogue system, with its summaries that often don’t match up with what your character actually says, feels like a backwards step. I can understand the pip boy interface is part of Fallout’s aesthetic but actually using it on PC is an exercise in frustration. The city building, whilst brilliant in almost all other regards, lacks an overarching interface to manage many of the banal tasks like assigning resources to task or identifying new settlers. These are all things that aren’t above being fixed but it’s obvious that Bethesda’s priorities were elsewhere and a lot of the clean up is going to have to be done by the modding community. The main storyline is pretty average with the clichéd opening cinematic giving you a pretty good indication of what to expect. When I was discussing it with some of my Smoothskins we came to the conclusion that if you’re looking for a solid, directed narrative in a Bethesda game you’re likely to be disappointed. Instead the real story comes from your experiences in the game, how you influenced events and what decisions you decided to make. Indeed after finishing the main questline I felt like nothing had really happened apart from being made to eradicate the opposing factions with extreme prejudice, no choice of saving them or bringing them under my wing. With that in mind I think Fallout 4’s story is best left alone and the tales of your westland journey take overinstead. Fallout 4 is exactly the kind of game we’ve come to expect from Bethesda: a grand sweeping world upon which you can build your own story (whilst enduring the trademark jankiness). The incredible girth of the game cannot be understated as it can be easily described as a FPS, an RPG and even a fully fledged city builder and simulator. The numerous ancillary mechanics are all well done, allowing you to really craft a character the way you want. However it’s irreversibly tainted by the numerous issues that are guaranteed to plague anyone who wants to brave the wastelands of The Commonwealth, something which can only be solved by mad quicksaving. Overall Fallout 4 is one of this years must play games but it might be best served after a patch or two with maybe a mod on the side.

Ever wondered what it would feel like to grapple onto a moving missile and ride it, or hijack an airborne plane and nosedive it into a military compound or simply tether an enemy soldier to moving traffic? Just Cause 3 is a game that allows players to experience all that and much more. Just Cause franchise puts players in control of Rico Rodriguez, a one man army who specializes in overthrowing military dictators through chaos and destruction as an agent of American “Agency”. Just Cause 3 finds Rico leaving The Agency and returning to his homeland of Medici, a fictional Mediterranean island, which is under the control of General Di Ravello. The game’s narrative follows Rico’s journey, as he meets former friends, new acquaintances and hordes of soldiers in his quest of helping the fledgling rebels to liberate Medici from Di Ravello’s fascist dictatorship. From the game’s 80’s action movie vibe to never ending supply of quips and one-liners from NPCs and Rico’s flamboyant Latin Hero archetype, everything in Just Cause 3’s narrative is over the top. Just like its predecessors, the game’s story does not take itself too seriously and is not the focal point of the Just Cause 3 experience. The main focus of Just Cause 3 is in allowing players the tools and ability to create unscripted, on the fly, action set pieces. While an open world third person shooter at heart, Just Cause 3 focuses less on standard shooting mechanics and more on maneuverability and creating chaos and destruction through its physics engine. The game is structured around 3 large island regions which are split into different provinces containing military bases, outposts and towns. Liberating these settlements around Medici, via destroying chaos objects, opens up different challenges, missions and miscellaneous opportunities. Other than destroying enemy targets, Just Cause 3’s missions also include glorified fetch quests requiring wading through heavy armed resistance and escort missions requiring Rico to protect NPCs from waves of enemies. Aside from main missions and challenges, the game world is peppered with random encounters that lead to short missions that are akin to save-the-citizen missions from Spiderman 2 from PS2 days. While the diversity in type of missions available in Just Cause 3 might not seem like much, the true gameplay variety comes from the unstructured nature of achieving each mission and the plethora of tools and abilities at players’ disposal to achieve their goals. Just Cause 3 features a huge map that while comparable to Just Cause 2’s map area, features more volumetric depth by introducing landscapes like caves and subterranean caverns. This makes traversal a crucial gameplay factor and thus the most important ability in the game is the huge assortment of ways available to the player for traversing the game’s 400 square mile map. From tractors to sports cars and helicopters to motorboats, Just Cause 3 features around 80 different types of vehicles for players to collect and operate, however the thing that separates Just Cause 3 from other open world sandbox games like GTA is the use of traversal items. Returning from Just Cause 2 is Rico’s ability to use the grappling hook to grab on to any surface and quickly pull himself towards his destination as well as the use of parachute to float his way down from great heights and low. While this combination of traversal method served players well in the previous game, it caused movement to slow down when descending great heights via Rico’s parachute. Just Cause 3 remedies this issue by adding wingsuit to Rico’s arsenal. The new combination of Grappling Hook, Parachute and Wingsuit allows Rico to glide through Medici akin to Batman in Arkham games and greatly increases the constant pace of traversal throughout the game. Controlling the grappling hook and wingsuit needs some getting used to, however, once the players get a hang of it, they can soar through the islands of Medici like a cross between Spiderman, Batman and Superman. While Avalanche Studios has managed to make this traversal method truly exhilarating, the movements do not work as well in narrow and restrictive spaces and can become imprecise and loose to the level of frustration. Aside from the variety in methods of getting from A to B, Rico also has a large assortment of weaponry available at his disposal to deal with enemy soldiers and encampments. The game gives Rico a selection of pistols, assault rifles, grenade and rocket launchers as well as explosives to reign destruction upon General Di Ravello’s forces. However the most distinguishing weapon in Rico’s arsenal is his unlimited supply of tethers. Rico can use his grappling hook to tether different objects together and then adjust the tether’s tensile strength to forcefully pull the objects toward each other resulting in destruction and mayhem. From tethering explosives to chaos targets and making them explode, to simply attaching a soldier to a moving vehicle and watching him drag to his death; the tether is a versatile item that can be utilized in multitude of creative ways to destroy the enemy without expending ammunition. Additionally Rico’s equipment, weapons, vehicles and abilities can be upgraded via the game’s “Gear Mods” which can be earned by completing their respective challenges that open up in liberated areas of Medici. These weapons and vehicles can also be requested as “rebel drops” to be delivered anywhere on the map, similar to the drop mechanic available in Just Cause 2. However Just Cause 3 adds the ability for Rico to request up to 3 different types of equipment in a single rebel drop. For example the player can choose to have an assault rifle, a rocket launcher and a helicopter delivered through one drop request. Unlike MGS V, the type of equipment ordered in a drop does not cost any money or credit; however the game balances this by limiting drops to number of flare beacons in the players’ inventory. All this variety truly makes Just Cause 3 a dynamic sandbox gameplay experience filled with exciting opportunities where the player is never left empty handed or without options. Therefore it is doubly painful when such a robust gameplay experience is mired by quality related issues. On the PS4, Just Cause 3 suffers from infuriatingly long loading times and compounds the frustration by prevalence of bugs that cause game to crash, not just in random situations but during progression missions. Furthermore the game suffers from severe slow down when the map user interface is brought up, making the simple and frequent action of placing waypoints a frustrating ordeal. This slowdown also creeps its head when things occasionally get really hectic during gameplay however, thankfully, Just Cause 3 does not feature debilitating framerate drops during normal play. On the more positive side; the game’s world is beautifully realized and looks great in motion. Just Cause 3 is full of breath taking vistas. Snow capped mountains, Sun soaked paradise with shimmering waters and vibrant fields of lavender and sunflowers. With its dynamic time and weather changes the game world looks absolutely stunning from a far but the character models, aside from Rico, and other details are not that impressive up close. Additionally the new havoc based effects create impressive physics based destruction for every building and object as well as the debris created by each explosion and demolition. The game also features a fairly competent sound design with great audial effects for explosions as well as the weapons and vehicles that Rico gets to utilize. Overall, Just Cause 3’s presentation of its humongous open world is nearly as impressive as the amount of gameplay variety stuffed in its in-game world. The game even keeps track of every minutia of actions performed to facilitate its asynchronous multiplayer, in which challenges and races have leaderboards that you and your friends can try and top. There is always something to do in Just Cause 3, from completing the story, to completing side challenges for unlocking weapon and equipment mods to undertaking pure mindless destruction. Just Cause 3’s gameplay tools are all about giving players empowerment. Whether it is soaring through tropical island with a wingsuit, speeding through the roads on a sports car, riding the waves in a boat or simply blowing things up, everything in game is designed to allow players to create their own adrenaline filled adventure. While it is mired by some technical irregularities, Just Cause 3 is a true sandbox full of tools to mix and match and therefore would appeal to anyone who is interested in creating chaos by letting their creativity run wild. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDjeTrTT0Fk&feature=youtu.be

Xbox One and PlayStation 4 owners get ready for some new content. PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 owners; get ready for some disappointing news. A new free expansion pack for GTA V was announced today for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC. The new update will be available for download on December 15 and is centered around customizable houses, apartments and a brand new top-of-the-line Super Yacht (Yes, the Yacht can be customized to your liking as well). Along with the new add-ons, members of the GTA online community now have the ability to dive into new co-op Jobs and challenges. Also, players who create their own operation (VIP’s) are now granted with the power to hire and fire other players as their bodyguards. In addition, bodyguards now gain unique stat boots for working with VIP operations. Xbox One and PlayStation 4 owners get ready for some new content. PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 owners; get ready for some disappointing news. A new free expansion pack for GTA V was announced today for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC. The new update will be available for download on December 15 and is centered around customizable houses, apartments and a brand new top-of-the-line Super Yacht (Yes, the Yacht can be customized to your liking as well). Along with the new add-ons, members of the GTA online community now have the ability to dive into new co-op Jobs and challenges. Also, players who create their own operation (VIP’s) are now granted with the power to hire and fire other players as their bodyguards. In addition, bodyguards now gain unique stat boots for working with VIP operations.

Assassin’s Creed Syndicate is receiving a pretty small update today that focuses on small bugs and performance issues. Assassin’s Creed Syndicate patch 1.3 weighs in at ~100MB on PS4 and Xbox One, only small changes. Just two weeks have gone by since the last update, 1.2, was released at a more hefty 700MB’s. Thus far any fixes have been focusing on any smaller issues that were likely not as easy to spot during in-house testing. Overall, Assassin’s Creed Syndicate seems to run fairly well, with few actual game breaking bugs. Even the PC version tends to run fairly well. This game is certainly more optimized when compared to Assassin’s Creed Unity and even Black Flag. The full patch notes: Online · Fixed a display issue with add-on price for the Season Pass owners · Fixed an issue where sometimes The Ubisoft Club Rewards couldn’t be equipped right after redeeming them AI/NPC · Fixed an issue in the Gang War activity where enemy NPCs would sometimes disappear after eliminating the gang leader Game System · Fixed an issue where it was sometimes possible to switch gear when the player was not supposed to · Fixed an issue where switching characters could cause two instances of Evie to appear Advertisements World/3D/Menu/HUD · Fixed an issue where the “Letter from the Front“ collectibles would not appear on the minimap · Fixed an issue with the brightness of the map in the “Strange Bed fellows” mission · Fixed some collisions and navigation issues · Fixed some icons issues · Fixed an issue where the Kenway flag model would not appear after obtaining it Fight · Fixed an issue where, in some cases, the player would not always play his hurt animation Mission · Fixed an issue with ally stations that sometimes prevented the player from hiring them · Fixed an issue in the “Change of Plans” mission where the gate from the sewers could be locked, thus blocking the player’s progression Behavior · Fixed some issues with the player’s animations · Fixed some issues where the player could get stuck in specific places · Fixed an issue in the “Darwin kidnapping” mission where, in some cases, the player could not carry him anymore Stability/Performance Improved performance and stability

Just Cause 3 went gold on October 22nd, meaning there are a full forty days between completed development of the game and its December 1st release. Based on my time playing the game so far, I wouldn’t be surprised if the development team has been squashing bugs for 15 hours a day since then. The story of Rico Rodriguez’s return to his island home of Medici is one of beauty, majesty and explosive fun, but I cannot get over just how janky, unoptimized and downright frustrating my gameplay experience has been. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0P_K4d3fPk&feature=youtu.be Just Cause 3 starts up a few years after the event of the previous game, with Rico leaving the Agency to come back home. Life is not what it was once like for the citizens of the collected Mediterranian islands, however, as General Sebastiano Di Ravello has risen to power to become the de facto dictator. His goal is to command and conquer by playing as the voice of reason to the people, with over 70 collectible tapes illustrating his slow, but methodic, rise to power. His bigger quest is for world domination, a path possible by harnessing the explosive power of the Medici-exclusive mineral called “bavarium.” Your job is to take back your homeland with the help of the rebel forces, in part led by your childhood friend, Mario. Old friends and new are also around to help you out, in addition to helping to upgrade your abilities. Just Cause 3 carries the series’ traditions in its playfulness with aerial traversal, and the single biggest upgrade in that regard comes in an attached wingsuit. If your traditional parachute takes too long to travel, just break out the wingsuit to whip through the skies like a flying squirrel. It’s the perfect trade-in for vehicle-based launch maneuvers, intended to give the players options to pick up speed both horizontally and vertically. Medici, itself, is a sight to behold. The mountainous islands are home to lush greenery, Spanish-inspired colorful towns, aqua blue waters and ripe opportunity. Though the main missions will mostly involve you destroying targets of interest (militia, strongholds, etc.), most of the dozens of hours of possible gameplay exists in the liberation of the provinces and cities of the islands. Each city has targets to destroy, labeled red and white for easy marking. Blowing up transformers, taking down propaganda such as billboards plus shooting, exploding or grappling the local militia are all key steps in being able to raise the rebel flag of victory, slowly but surely liberating your country. Most importantly, tethering is back and better than ever. In Just Cause 3, most of the entire game is completely playable without firing a single bullet. While it may get some getting used to, you can use your tethering abilities to pull close and push objects together, providing opportunities for both offensive and defensive measure. The freedom of choice is well received, giving players the ability to take down massive compounds in unique ways that fall to the user’s sensibilities. Just Cause 3 is a gameplay-centric open world title, however, with a mostly middling story. The voice acting of Rico is directed at a series best, though, with our protagonist acting a bit more playful than in Just Cause 2. That’s not to say much about the VA’s abilities, as most dialogue lines in the game are basic and cliched in their action movie origins. Each character acts in a manner with purpose and determination to their cause, but outside of the lovably proud and sarcastic Dimah, they all fit a very familiar bill. If only that were biggest issue facing this game. Just Cause 3 is in an unpolished state that I have only seen one other time during any gameplay experience on the Xbox One; in playing the demo version of to-be launch title, Dead Rising 3. Performance issues come in two major factors; publisher intervention and technical deficiencies. The gameplay of Just Cause 3 is strictly single-player, yet everything you do in the game is being judged by both your peers and Square Enix in an asynchronous online leaderboard. Again, despite no gameplay interaction with anyone else, upon loading the game you are prompted into logging into the Square Enix servers. That way, every high score imaginable (height gained from parachute, wingsuit timing records, single-reload killstreaks, etc.) can be recorded and shared in real-time, as well as leaderboards for the hundreds of unique challenges. However, should you have a spotty connection or a review allotment when servers aren’t running optimally, your enjoyment of the game is severely limited. Imagine a scenario where every time you opened up a menu screen you were forced to attempt a login. Your options, during spotty times, is to let the game spend 30 seconds trying to log in, picking “play offline” and pray you don’t need to open a menu again (repeating the process), or log in briefly, only to lose connection a minute later and go through the first process again. Single player games do not need online logins. There is no single online factor involved that enhances my Just Cause 3 gameplay experience, especially considering no aspect of The Cloud™ is being used to enhance enemy or ally AI in any noticeable way. Instead, it resulted in a frustrating breaking of immersive gameplay. It makes the most varied part of the game, Just Cause 3’s challenges, frustrating. They carry some of the most enjoyable mini-missions, which are crucial to upgrading Rico’s abilities and equipment, but each has to be loaded in. Worse, if you perform poorly in an attempt, you have to re-load the challenge once again, almost defeating the want to improve upon your score. Coming up short of an upgrade is devastating, to the point where re-attempts are barely even bothered with.No, the more troubling problem with Just Cause 3 is on the game’s technical limitations. I can only speak for my time playing the Xbox One version, but the load times are absolutely ridiculous. I played before and after the Day 1 patch, and on either side I encountered situations where I was waiting more than 100 seconds on a loading screen. The overall load times are, on average, quicker since the patch, but waiting for minutes on end for the game to load the overworld is a momentum-crushing occurrence that happens way too often. To further complicate things, the reason load screens take forever is that the world of Medici is so packed with content that it’s no wonder the Xbox One can’t keep up. Just Cause 3 has yet another 400 square foot map, but because of the leaps in hardware specifications, there is a certain depth in verticality. It’s actually fun to tether and parachute up mountains, hideouts and enemy encampments, but when you’re taking down gigantic structures and causing massive explosions, it is not uncommon to see slowdown and frame rate drops reminiscent of SNES-era gameplay. It makes maneuverability (and survivability) difficult when you can’t properly input a proper reaction to enemies launching missiles at you because of it. Finally, I have a final issue that seems out of place in a game where parachutes, wingsuits, and aerial traversal take precedence. A lot of the random encounters and events in Just Cause 3 involve driving vehicles. In fact, once you liberate each city you can bring vehicles back to local garages for easy-to-prepare weapon and vehicle beacon drops. Whoever is responsible to implementing the game’s driving mechanics must still be working on completing their full license, because the driving mechanics are sluggish and hard to maneuver to a factor reminiscent of Grand Theft Auto IV. It’s that bad.

Astăzi, Ubisoft a anunțat nu unul, ci două titluri din seria Assassin’s Creed: Chronicles, care vor avea loc în India și Russia. Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: India va fi lansat pentru PC, PS4 și Xbox One pe 12 ianuarie 2016, iar Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: Russia va fi disponibil începând cu 9 februarie 2016 pentru aceleași platforme. Primul titlu al seriei, care a avut loc în China, a fost lansat la mijlocul acestui an, iar gameplay-ul adus de perspectiva 2.5D a fost în general apreciat de jucători, deși mulți au criticat încercarea studioului de a se apropia de Mark of the Ninja, și de a se distnața de seria principală, după cum recenziile de pe pagina sa Steam atestă. Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: India va avea loc în 1841, urmârind tensiunile dintre Imperiul Sikh și East India Company. Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: Russia va duce jucătorii în 1918, unde războiul dintre bolșevici și imperiul țarist îl duce pe asasinul Nikolaï Orelov în apărarea prințesei Anastasia. The Assassin’s Creed Chronicles Trilogy Pack, care însumează toate cele trei titluri, va fi lansat pe 9 februarie 2016 pentru PC, PS4 și Xbox One, și va veni pe PS Vita în data de 5 aprilie.

Pe scena The Game Awards 2015, Ubisoft a dezvăluit o nouă mecanică de joc din viitorul Far Cry Primal. Astfel, eroul principal Takkar va dobândi puterea Beast Master, prin intermediul căreia va putea domestici animalele sălbatice şi le va putea folosi împotriva inamicilor. Mai mult, pe lângă un scurt trailer, a fost dezvăluit un întreg segment de gameplay din Far Cry Primal, precum şi un material de tip developer diary în care sunt oferite mai multe detalii despre abilitatea Beast Master. Far Cry Primal este primul joc al seriei a cărui acţiune va avea loc în Epoca de Piatră. Eroul Takkar este un vânător experimentat, ultimul rămas în viaţă din tribul său, povestea jocului urmând să se desfăşoare în tărâmul Oros, cu peste 10 000 de ani înaintea erei noastre. Pentru a reuşi să rămână în viaţă, eroul va trebui să lupte împotriva pericolelor de tot felul, de la mamuţi imenşi, latigri cu dinţi sabie şi până la alte triburi de oameni. În aventura sa, Takkar va fi nevoit să vâneze pentru a mânca, să descopere şi să stăpânească focul, să se apere de prădători, dar şi să-şi construiască propriile arme şi unelte din oasele animalelor doborâte. Far Cry Primal promite să fie o aventură single player de proporţii, jocul fiind dezvoltat de studioul Ubisoft Montreal, în colaborare cu Ubisoft Toronto, Ubisoft Shanghai şi Ubisoft Kiev. Far Cry Primal va fi lansat pe 23 februarie 2016, în versiuni pentru PlayStation 4 şi Xbox One. Ediţia pentru PC va fi disponibilă mai târziu, în cursul lunii martie 2016.

There's a new Batman game coming, or rather the first in another slew of episodic Batman games, and its scheduled for 2016. One can expect it to be a winner since it is being created by Telltale Here is what the press release about the game put out by Telltale CEO Kevin Bruner says: "At Telltale, we've been honored to bring our unique approach to interactive storytelling to some of the biggest entertainment franchises in the world, and we're excited to announce that we'll soon be exploring what it means to be Batman in an all-new series starting next year... This iteration of Batman will give fans a first-hand opportunity to dive deeper into the complex life and mind of Bruce Wayne, the duality of his own identity, and the struggle of responsibility in saving a city overcome with corruption and villainy." Why should one look forward expectantly and excitedly to this new game featuring the Dark Knight when a slew of Batman game titles have always been in the gaming market? Simple because it is being created by Telltale, the name matters! Telltale had happy gaming fans with its Borderlands, Walking Dead Series, The Wolf Among Us and Game of Thrones. It is unlikely Telltale will let its fans down with a Dark Knight narrative in gaming format. It will be released in 2016 for PC, Mac, home consoles, and mobile. Telltale is workign with Warner Bros and DC Comics in creating this episodic series. "Telltale has an established track record of creating award-winning content for some of the best properties in the world," said David Haddad, President, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. "We look forward to working with the team as they deliver a new interactive way for fans and gamers to experience the rich narrative world of Batman." Batman games or games featuring Batman as one of the characters have been released across two decades in a variety of formats. Batman, Batman: The Caped Crusader and Batman: The Movie were produced by Sunsoft and Ocean Software, before the Batman Returns license was passed onto Konami and Sega, and the Batman Forever and Batman and Robin licenses were awarded to Acclaim. The video game version of Batman Begins was published by Electronic Arts. The latest Batman gaming titles out there released in 2015 were Infinite Crisis, a multiplayer online battle arena video game loosely based on the DC comics by the same title, and Lego Dimensions, released in September 2015, in which Batman features as a character along with the wizard Gandalf from The Lord of the Rings and Wildstyle from the Lego movie. Telltale Games, probably the most successful producer of episodic games, has chosen scene The Game Awards 2015 to present, for the first time, the new partnership signed with Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and DC Entertainment. It is a new game Batman, which will probably be done in the style of other successful titles from Telltale, like The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones. Not yet chosen a title for the forthcoming Batman from Telltale Games, but according to the press release sent by the producers, the first episode should be released during 2016. Series Batman from Telltale Games will be carried out consoles, PC, Mac and mobile devices.

NetherRealm Studios de- revealed the second Kombat Pack for Mortal Kombat X, which is expected to add anotherfour additional characters fighting game published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. In a manner similar to the first such package Kombat Pack 2 will be composed of both fighters Mortal Kombat classics series and the characters invited. The first category will include Bo Rai Cho, shaolin master drunkard and Tri-Borg, a cyber ninja that will bring together the powers of cyrax, Sektor and robotic version of Smoke. The seats will be occupied by guests Leatherface (from several Texas Chainsaw Massacre horror movies) and Alien(alien xenomorf for films of the same name). For the first time in a game, it will be put on the fight of the most feared aliens of all time: Alien and Predator (the latter was offered in the first Kombat Pack). Mortal Kombat X and the first Kombat Pack, available in versions for Playstation 4, Xbox One and PC. WarriorsKombat Pack 2 will be released next year.

Remedy Entertainment a fost reprezentată pe scena The Game Awards 2015 de Shawn Ashmore, actorul ce îl interpretează pe Jack Joyce, eroul principal din viitorul third person shooter Quantum Break. Acesta a avut privilegiul de a prezenta noul trailer al jocului, pe care îl puteţi urmări în continuare. Quantum Break este un shooter third person dezvoltat în exclusivitate pentru Xbox One, în care eroul principal va avea la dispoziţie, pe lângă posibilitatea de a folosi un sistem de cover avansat, şi abilitatea de a mani[CENSORED] trecerea timpului. Quantum Break se va desfăşura pe două planuri: în jocul video propriu-zis protagonistul va avea de înfruntat o corporaţie malefică - Monarch, în timp ce serialul omonim se va concentra pe dezvăluirea evenimentelor ce vor avea loc în cadrul acestei corporaţii. Din distributia jocului (şi a serialului aferent) va face parte si Aidan Gillen (Game of Thrones, Maze Runner: The Scorched Trials). Quantum Break va fi lansat pe 5 aprilie 2016, exclusiv pentru Xbox One.

Lonely Planet, known as the first and last word on travel, has come out with its list of Top 10 destinations for 2016. From offbeat countries like Botswana and Uruguay, to the ever po[CENSORED]r Australia and US, there is a bit of something for every kind of traveller. Here's a list of the best destinations for the new year. 1. Botsawana: Invigoratingly wild, is how many describe Botswana. In 2016, the country celebrates 50 years of independence, which is a great reason to visit in itself. The other would be the way it has developed its natural riches for tourists. 2. Japan: One of the most po[CENSORED]r destinations for those intending to explore the Orient, Japan is a great combination of heritage and modernity. While on the one hand you have the latest technology, on the other there are traditions that date back centuries. The Cherry Blossom season remains the most po[CENSORED]r. 3. USA: Indians in the post-independence era have always been fascinated with the United States, and why not. The American dream, as it's called, has played on the minds of countless enterprising youths who have gone ahead and made a life there. So, as the country turns 100 in 2016, savour the natural riches at the 56-odd national parks, while visiting relatives in New York. 4. Palau: This is unquestionably one of the most magical diving and snorkelling destinations in the world. Dubbed a ‘Serengeti’ of the sea, this far-flung Pacific archipelago is a dream destination for lovers of the deep blue. 5. Latvia: Over the past five years, eastern Europe has slowly, but steadily, piqued the interest of Indian travellers. Though, the west is still po[CENSORED]r, there has been an increased flow of tourists to the countries of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. 2016 is Latvia's silver anniversary, and the country is reviving its ancient traditions, restoring crumbling castles and manor houses hidden in its pine forests. 6. Australia: The island continent is full of wonders — from the sea to the great outback, there is something for every kind of tourist. Though, not one of the cheapest trips to go on, the faltering currency has sort of brought it within the reach of many. Pack your swimming gear and head to the Great Barrier Reef, and the multitude of cuisines that Australia has now come to be known for, much thanks to Masterchef Australia. 7. Poland: Wroclaw, the largest city in western Poland has been selected as the European Capital of Culture for 2016 — which makes it a great time to head towards the Baltic country. Gdansk, Kraków, Szczecin and Katowice are the other cities worth visiting. 8. Uruguay: Known as the ‘Switzerland of America’, Uruguay is expecting a record number of tourists in 2016. Sandwiched between the more po[CENSORED]r Argentina and Brazil, Uruguay has much to offer in terms of gaucho (cowboy) fantasy, and nightlife on sea amid the glamour of Punta del Este. 9. Greenland: Which better place to watch the midnight sun, the splatter of green with the Aurora Borealis dancing across the ice sheet. This Arctic wonderland is a must-visit for any cold lover. 10. Fiji: Chill out in one of the many Fijian resorts that's bound to help you unwind — which is exactly what a vacation is supposed to do. From the latest extreme sport, to the classic pursuits of diving, sailing and angling, soak up the sun at this tropical archipelago.

LIMASSOL, CYPRUS: Two British RAF tornado fighter jets land at RAF Akrotiri after returning from a mission over Iraq in 2014. The British Parliament voted this week to allow the jets to strike in Syria.British fighter planes have carried out their first sorties against the ISIS terrorist group in Syria. But in Iraq, the government has a message for Turkish forces who say they are fighting ISIS, as well: Please get out. The British Ministry of Defense said its Typhoon and Tornado jets had carried out a series of airstrikes on the ISIS-controlled oilfield at Omar, in eastern Syria. The ministry's statement said the jets used Paveway IV guided bombs to hit wellheads as they conducted eight strikes Friday evening. In an updated statement Saturday, the ministry said Typhoon and Tornado jets based at Akrotiri, a Royal Air Force Base on the Mediterranean Island of Cyprus, had carried out more strikes on the "very large" Omar oilfield. The smart bombs were guided to hit wellheads to cut off ISIS' oil revenue, the ministry statement said. "Eight attacks were carried out, and early reports suggest that they were successful," the ministry statement said. "Our aircraft then remained on patrol to collect intelligence on possible terrorist positions and be ready to strike any further targets that might be identified in eastern Syria or western Iraq."