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Activision has revealed more about what we've got to look forward to in the Special Ops mode that will be included with the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare reboot coming later this month. The four-player co-op modes will see an alliance led by the stalwart forces of good and righteousness at the CIA and FSB working to disrupt the operations of the global terrorist organization Al-Qatala. There was some unhappiness a couple of weeks ago (among PC and Xbox One players, at least) when Activision announced that the "Survival mode" in Special Ops will be PS4-exclusive for a year. Perhaps as a result, today's announcement focuses more heavily on everything else offered by the mode, beginning with Operations, set in various war-torn locales where matchmade teams of four will work to complete various objectives that ultimately lead to the "destruction of a key logistical aspect of the Al-Qatala army." "Employ different strategies. Go in quietly or tackle the insurrection head-on," Activision said. "The enemy reacts to your team’s decisions, meaning the outcome of any battle can change." There will be four multi-stage Operations available at launch, and more will arrive in post-launch seasons, across all platforms simultaneously. Missions in Special Ops will be "a more curated experience where your proficiency with specific weapons, killstreaks, and other tools will be tested," Activision said. Playable solo or in squads of up to four, "Missions are extremely replayable, and you’re able to achieve a 1, 2, or 3-star ranking based on your performance." Like Operations, all post-launch Missions will also be rolled out to all platforms simultaneously. The Survival mode, which will only be available on the PlayStation 4 until October 1, 2020, is a "wave-based horde mode" that pits teams of up to four players against "increasingly difficult and determined combatants in a variety of experiences" on one of three multiplayer maps. Again, presumably cognizant of exclusivity sensitivity, Blizzard emphasized that Survival is an "additional cooperative mode," that is "unrelated to the Special Ops Operations and Missions." All operators, loadouts, and progress made in standard multiplayer modes will carry over to Special Ops, and because the Armistice team fighting Al-Qatala includes both Coalition and Allegiance forces, who are on opposite sides of standard multiplayer modes, all operators are available for selection by all players. Players will also choose specific roles in Special Operations matches—Assault, Recon, Engineer, Demolition, Medic, and Heavy—each of which will come with its own Field Upgrade and class-specific perk. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare comes out on October 25. Despite being nearly two weeks away, the launch trailer arrived yesterday.

Will Make Your stomac hurt ?

The small hatchback has been on sale with relatively minor changes since 2012, yet it enjoyed its best year of sales across Europe in 2018. The Renault-owned brand has been in no hurry to renew it, but it’s expected that the new model will be unveiled late next year ahead of sales commencing in 2021. Although it's wearing heavy disguise and in prototype form, we can see that the new car doesn’t revolutionise the Sandero formula. However, we can see that the shape has moved on a bit, with a clamshell bonnet, a curvier front end, a wider stance and detail upgrades, including modern door handles to replace the current top-hinged items. A pronounced rising beltline can also be seen in the side profile. What will underpin the next Sandero has yet to be confirmed. The current model sits on an ageing Renault-Nissan Alliance platform that has been around since 2002 – as does the current Duster, which was launched last year. Renault plans to have 80% of its Group models on the new compact CMF-B platform - premiered by the new Clio - by 2022. Whether Dacia can adapt a cheaper-to-build version of this platform for the Sandero remains to be seen, but it’s unlikely that the old underpinnings can be extended once more. Either way, given the increasingly tight margins of sub-£10,000 cars, it’s probable that the new Sandero won’t be as affordable as its predecessor. Expect it to retain a utilitarian approach, however, with entry-level variants featuring few creature comforts but higher-end models adopting some of the new tech seen on the Duster. The question mark over the platform makes any speculation on engines difficult, however.

Lycopene - a nutrient found in tomatoes - may boost sperm quality, a study has suggested. Healthy men who took the equivalent of two tablespoons of (concentrated) tomato puree a day as a supplement were found to have better quality sperm. Male infertility affects up to half of couples who cannot conceive. Fertility experts said more studies were needed involving men known to have fertility problems. NHS advice for men experiencing fertility problems currently suggests they adopt a healthy lifestyle and wear loose-fitting underwear. It also suggests reducing stress as much as possible and ensuring they have regular sex around the time their partner ovulates to maximise the chances of conception. But the idea that certain nutrients could boost male fertility has been gaining ground for some time. Lycopene, like vitamin E and zinc which have been the focus of previous research, is an antioxidant which means it prevents oxidation in cells, and therefore damage. It has been linked to other health benefits, including reducing the risk of heart disease and some cancers. The Sheffield team say they used a lactolycopene supplement because the nutrient in food can be harder for the body to absorb and so they could be confident each man received the same amount each day. The men would have needed to eat 2kg of cooked tomatoes each day to get the equivalent dose of lycopene. 'Very encouraging' In the 12-week trial, which was partly funded by the company which makes the supplement, 60 men were randomly selected to take 14 milligrams of lactolycopene per day or a dummy pill. Their sperm was tested at the start, at six weeks and at the end of the study, and while there was no difference in sperm concentration, the proportion of healthy-shaped sperm and motility - how fast sperm can "swim" - was higher in those taking lycopene. Dr Liz Williams, a specialist in human nutrition at the University of Sheffield, who led the research which was published in the European Journal of Nutrition, said: "At the moment, there is very little advice we can give to men. "We tell them to reduce alcohol consumption and eat a healthy diet - but these are very general messages." She added: "This was a small study and we do need to repeat the work in bigger trials, but the results are very encouraging. "The next step is to repeat the exercise in men with fertility problems and see if lycopene can increase sperm quality for those men and whether it helps couples conceive and avoid invasive fertility treatments." Andrew Drakeley, clinical director at Liverpool Women's Hospital's Hewitt Fertility Centre, said: "Optimising the health of the subfertile couple, both male and female can often avoid the need for invasive and expensive fertility treatment." But he said: "Further work in a subfertile po[CENSORED]tion, demonstrating improved fecundity is needed before the treatment can be recommended." Gwenda Burns, of the charity Fertility Network, added: "Although in the very early stages, this study offers hope for improvement of sperm quality and a greater understanding of male fertility in the future."

Turkish warplanes have bombed parts of north-eastern Syria at the start of an offensive which could lead to conflict with Kurdish-led allies of the US. Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the operation was to create a "safe zone" cleared of Kurdish militias which will also house Syrian refugees. The strikes have killed at least two civilians, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said. The alliance vowed to resist any Turkish advance across the border. It asked the US-led coalition against the jihadist group Islamic State (IS) to establish a no-fly zone in the area to stop "attacks on innocent people". The Kurds - key US allies in defeating IS in Syria - guard thousands of IS fighters and their relatives in prisons and camps in areas under their control and it is unclear whether they will continue to be safely detained. Turkish ground forces have been massing on the border. The offensive was launched just days after President Donald Trump controversially withdrew US troops from northern Syria, a decision announced after a phone call with Mr Erdogan that sparked widespread criticism at home and abroad. What is Turkey's plan? On Twitter, Mr Erdogan said the mission "was to prevent the creation of a terror corridor across our southern border, and to bring peace to the area" and that it would "preserve Syria's territorial integrity and liberate local communities from terrorists." The scale of the offensive was not yet clear, and there was no information on whether Turkish ground forces had attempted to enter Syria. Turkey plans to create a "safe zone" cleared of Kurdish militias - regarded by Ankara as terrorists - which will also house two million of Turkey's 3.6 million Syrian refugees. Turkey v Syria's Kurds explained Who are the Kurds? Why the battle for northern Syria matters Civilians were reported to be leaving the towns of Ras al-Ain and Tal Abyad, which were hit by several strikes. Two civilians had been killed and two others injured in the village of Misharrafa, west of Ras al-Ain, according to the SDF. An agonisingly long war BBC's Orla Guerin in Akcakale on the Turkish-Syrian border Police vehicles have been telling civilians to leave the area, and there were sounds of artillery fire and mortar rounds. There has been incoming mortar fire from just across the border but it has not reached Turkish territory. President Erdogan says this is the beginning of Operation Peace Spring. There is no doubt that for the Syrian civilians who are just across the border this is going to be seen as another round of battling in an agonisingly long war. The Kurdish forces have emphasised almost frantically in the last few days that the hard-won gains in their long battle against IS are now being put at risk. The SDF have lost an estimated 11,000 fighters in battling IS. They succeeded with American help. But they point out, for example, that they may have to withdraw their forces from prisons where they are holding IS fighters or from cities that have been liberated from IS. The Kurds are basically saying to the West: the war that we fought on your behalf is now at risk because of what Turkey wants to do. What has the international reaction been? The UK and France planned to request an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council to discuss the situation, and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker urged Turkey to "halt its military operation". Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Turkey had "legitimate security concerns" but that he expected the country to "act with restraint and to ensure that any action... is proportionate and measured US Senator Lindsay Graham, a close ally of Mr Trump, said he would lead an effort in Congress to "make Erdogan pay a heavy price", adding: "Pray for our Kurdish allies who have been shamelessly abandoned by the Trump Administration." Mr Trump had responded to the criticism to his decision by threatening to "obliterate" Turkey's economy if it went "off limits" in the incursion, saying Turkey should "not do anything outside of what we would think is humane" How would an incursion affect the IS situation? The SDF says it is detaining more than 12,000 suspected IS members in seven prisons, and at least 4,000 of them are foreign nationals. The exact locations have not been not revealed, but some are reportedly close to the Turkish border. Media captionInside the camp of IS families in Syria Two camps - Roj and Ain Issa - holding families of suspected IS members are inside the "safe zone". Mr Trump warned Mr Erdogan if he did send troops into Syria, they would be responsible for securing captured IS fighters. On Wednesday, IS militants reportedly carried out three suicide attacks in their former de facto capital of Raqqa. There was no confirmation of casualties.

INFORMATION World of Warcraft (WoW) is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game released in 2004 by Blizzard Entertainment. It is the fourth released game set in the Warcraft fantasy universe. World of Warcraft takes place within the Warcraft world of Azeroth, approximately four years after the events at the conclusion of Blizzard's previous Warcraft release, Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne. The game was announced in 2001, and was released for the 10th anniversary of the Warcraft franchise on November 23, 2004. Since launch, World of Warcraft has had seven major expansion packs released for it: The Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King, Cataclysm, Mists of Pandaria, Warlords of Draenor, Legion, and Battle for Azeroth. World of Warcraft was the world's most po[CENSORED]r MMORPG by player count of nearly 10 million in 2009. The game had a total of over a hundred million registered accounts by 2014.By 2017, the game had grossed over $9.23 billion in revenue, making it one of the highest-grossing video game franchises of all time. At BlizzCon 2017, a vanilla version of the game titled World of Warcraft Classic was announced, which planned to provide a way to experience the base game before any of its expansions launched. It went live at 3pm PDT on August 26, 2019. GAMEPLAY hough massively multiplayer online role-playing games have been around for years, it has taken this long for the genre's breakthrough hit to finally emerge. Here is the online role-playing game you should play, no matter who you are. This is because World of Warcraft brings out all the best aspects of this style of gaming, if not many of the best aspects of gaming in general. It also features many of the specific characteristics that have made Blizzard Entertainment's previous games so entertaining, memorable, long-lasting, and successful. Of course, the company's past track record did not guarantee that World of Warcraft could have turned out this well. Such high quality simply cannot be expected, nor should it be missed. In World of Warcraft, you create your alter ego by choosing from a variety of colorful races and powerful classes, and then you begin exploring, questing, and battling in Azeroth, the fantasy setting featured in Blizzard's Warcraft real-time strategy games. Fans of those games (especially Warcraft III and its expansion pack) will spot tons of references here, and they will be impressed at how faithfully World of Warcraft translates so many of Warcraft's little details and even some of the finer points of its gameplay into such a seemingly different style of game. Meanwhile, fans of other online role-playing games will be impressed at the sheer breadth and volume of content on display in World of Warcraft, whose setting seamlessly connects a bunch of wildly different-looking types of places and somehow makes them appear as if they all belong as parts of a whole. World of Warcraft is superficially similar to numerous other games that came before it, and it clearly draws inspiration from some of them. The fundamentals are all here, such as fighting dangerous creatures (optionally including other players), exploring the countryside either alone or in the company of other players, undertaking various quests, gaining experience levels and new abilities, and acquiring powerful items. However, directly comparing World of Warcraft with any of its predecessors would be almost like pitting a professional sports club against a school team. With all due respect to the other online role-playing games out there, World of Warcraft is in a league of its own. The game clearly benefits from not being the first of its kind, as the design issues that plagued previous online role-playing games are handled extremely well in World of Warcraft. In addition, the game's own subtle innovations turn out to have a dramatic impact on the flow of the action from minute to minute, hour to hour, day to day, and beyond. So the particulars of the game's design--along with its incredibly vast, beautiful, majestic world--translate into a one-of-a-kind experience that seems fresh and original in its own right. Fortunately, the game is very approachable. World of Warcraft is a complex game whose complexity is carefully disguised by a simple, highly legible, uncluttered interface and an impressive 3D graphics engine, which delivers high performance on a wide range of systems while not skimping on pure flash. The game's interface is so slick and easy to learn and understand, and the gameplay itself is so quickly intuitive, that there isn't even a tutorial to wade through; there are just some helpful, optional pop-up tool tips, as well as an excellent printed reference manual that goes into specific detail about most of the various aspects of play. It's also important to point out that World of Warcraft runs fast and smooth. You can go from your desktop to being in-game in just seconds, and it's virtually just one great, big, seamless world. Loading times are as rare as they are brief. They only crop up when traveling across the game's enormous continents or entering some specific higher-level zones that are instanced for each player group, which guarantees you a fresh challenge. So World of Warcraft is painless to get into--with the possible exception of you needing a credit card or prepaid game card to create an account, as well as initially deciding on which sort of character to play, since so many of the options seem like they could be interesting. And it turns out they are. So why not try them all? The game lets you create multiple characters on the dozens of different available "realms," each of which is a unique instance of the gameworld that is capable of hosting thousands of simultaneous players. Some of the realms cater to role-playing fans that prefer to play in character the whole time, while other realms are custom-tailored for player-versus-player action. Regardless, World of Warcraft's realms are nicely (if not densely) po[CENSORED]ted already, and the unfortunate issues with login and lag that plagued the game when it first launched were mostly taken care of in a matter of days. The game just has a solid feel to it that's uncharacteristic of the genre, and for an online RPG, World of Warcraft is surprisingly responsive. Actually, no qualifications are necessary: World of Warcraft boasts the tight control and polished presentation that's desirable in any kind of game. World of Warcraft also sounds uncharacteristically excellent for an online RPG. Subtle ambient effects work wonderfully in concert with the visuals, making the world seem that much more alive. Excellent audio cues highlight key moments, such as when you level up, when a friend of yours comes online, or when you accept or accomplish a quest. Beautifully composed symphonic music punctuates your travels, perfectly synchronizing with the sense of wonder you will likely experience as you set foot into the game's different, colorful regions. The music truly is outstanding, but by default it plays rather softly, mostly just for an extra bit of ambience. Meanwhile, Warcraft III fans will feel right at home during battles, which feature many of the same hard-hitting effects, as well as plenty of new ones. The game even makes great use of stereo effects as well as other audio tricks, resulting in clear and resonant echoes within cavernlike environments, in audio distortion when exploring or fighting underwater, and in other such things. World of Warcraft also makes good use of speech, both for player characters' occasional outbursts and also for all non-player characters, who'll verbally greet you, which helps evoke their personalities. Many of the enemies you'll face also make some rather memorable noises when you manage to draw their wrath. The worst thing about World of Warcraft is that you can't just play it all the time. After all, chances are if you start, you'll never want to stop. Again, though, part of what makes this game so remarkable is it doesn't assume that all you have to do in your busy life is play this one game, and so it delivers a high-quality experience regardless of how much or how little time you're able to invest. Paradoxically, then, it can become the last game you'd need to play for weeks, months...who knows? The point is, World of Warcraft features an overall level of quality that's typically reserved for the best offline games, which have always had a leg up on online games in their ability to present tightly-woven, story-driven settings. But World of Warcraft achieves this in the context of a massive, evolving world po[CENSORED]ted by thousands of other players who you may choose to interact with, which makes the proceedings seem that much more meaningful. This is a stunning achievement that will make you feel privileged to be a game player. GAMEPLAY TRAILER

INFORMATION INSIDE is a puzzle-platformer adventure game developed and published by Playdead in 2016 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Microsoft Windows. The game was released for iOS in December 2017. The player controls a boy in a dystopic world, solving environmental puzzles and avoiding death. It is the spiritual successor to Playdead's 2010 game Limbo, and features similar 2.5D gameplay. Playdead began work on Inside shortly after the release of Limbo, using Limbo's custom game engine. The team switched to Unity to simplify development, adding their own rendering routines, later released as open source, to create a signature look. The game was partially funded by a grant from the Danish Film Institute. Inside premiered at Microsoft's E3 2014 conference, with a planned release in 2015. The game was released for Xbox One on June 29, 2016, Microsoft Windows on July 7, PlayStation 4 on August 23, for iOS and Apple TV on December 15, 2017 and for Nintendo Switch on June 28, 2018. GAMEPLAY A world, broken at the hands of technological progress, decays in silence and darkness. Cowed and enslaved people shuffle mindlessly through the streets. Overseers dressed in masks and black clothes stand at the corners, waiting for one of the slaves to fall out of line, watching the soulless masses as they are forced to jump and dance. A featureless boy in the midst of it all walks through this dystopia wearing a red shirt, one of the only touches of color in this oppressive world. This is Inside, the second game from Limbo developer Playdead. Like Limbo, the gameplay is simple: you have to walk, jump, and grab objects in order to solve puzzles and overcome obstacles. Ultimately, however, the game is about your journey through a tyrannical, unknowable, and apocalyptic world. Over the course of a few hours, you descend ever deeper into the heart of a malicious and immense construct that threatens to suffocate agency and humanity. Limbo followed a character moving through a strange and primitive land. Death came easily to the character, but it rarely felt like murder. Inside, on the other hand, exudes violence, cruelty, and artifice. The game highlights the old and shattered parts of a society that you discover has been dragged into a hell of human experimentation. As you progress through Inside, you experience stretches of quiet and calm punctuated by flashes of complete absurdity. The game encourages you to relish these often shocking or brutal twists, which incite feelings of revulsion and confusion. They make you want to know more. These moments remain vivid in my memory even a few days after completing the game. A mindless horde of figures followed me off a cliff only to slam into the ground, creating a squelchy pile of flesh. A wispy, feminine creature tenaciously stalked me through underwater regions. I led my character to many deaths that were immediate and gruesome. I loved the game most during its quiet lulls when the oppressive feeling of the world was most apparent, but the in-your-face moments showed a different and darkly comedic side of Inside. I sometimes couldn't help but laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of what it threw at me. Solving puzzles can be as simple as moving a box up to the base of a high ledge in order to jump up to the top, or as complex as synchronizing multiple automatons to flip switches, lift objects, and move carts so that you can open a door. Some early puzzles rely more on cautious movement than logic as you attempt to avoid murder or abduction at the hands of masked figures. Later puzzles, on the other hand, require more patience and thought. Some make you open sequences of doors to move objects through a room, while others require delicately timed jumps or switches to complete. There comes a time when Inside leans too heavily on its puzzles to keep you engaged. In these moments, I felt that my driving motivation had shifted from exploring the world to simply flipping the right switch. It's a problem that plagued Limbo, and Inside nearly falls into a similar trap in its middle act when it takes you deep underground. You must complete the game's most time-consuming puzzles during its most narrative-light sections, and the suspense that the game worked so hard to build nearly falls apart. All of it--the setting, the sound, the beautiful art--builds to the discovery of the secret of this compound, but what I found at the end almost ruined the entire experience. Subtlety was thrown out the window and I was left reeling, unable to process the turn. The oppressive, quiet, slow-moving, and mysterious story that dominated most of the game changed in a flash of complete absurdity. I didn't know whether to laugh or yell in horror as Inside twisted in on itself. When the credits began to crawl, I sat in silence for a few minutes, unable to decide what to make of it. But as time passed, those final moments grew on me. I still find the ending somewhat odd, but upon playing through Inside a second time, I found endearing elements that fit with the overall story more effectively than I first thought. The ending is self-aware in a way that is simultaneously overwrought and humorous, poking fun at itself and at Limbo. It's also cathartic, releasing all of the tension that built over the rest of Inside in one scene. This is a beautiful, haunting, and memorable game, a worthy follow-up to Limbo. Its puzzles, although rarely difficult, are engaging complements to the story. The real achievement of this game, though, is the way that it crafts its narrative: detailed environments convey the bizarre world that you travel through; introspective moments are filled with minimalist sound design and just the barest touches of music; and the things you must do to complete your journey force you to confront the realities of humanity, freedom, and existence. The puzzles might not bring you back to play it again, but the opportunity to learn more about the world alone is enough motivation to return to Inside's dystopia. GAMEPLAY TRAILER

INFORMATION South Park: The Stick of Truth is a 2014 role-playing video game developed by Obsidian Entertainment in collaboration with South Park Digital Studios and published by Ubisoft. Based on the American adult animated television series South Park, the game follows the New Kid, who has moved to the eponymous town and becomes involved in an epic role-play fantasy war involving humans, wizards, and elves, who are fighting for control of the all-powerful Stick of Truth. Their game quickly escalates out of control and brings them into conflict with aliens, Nazi zombies, and gnomes, threatening the entire town with destruction. The game is played from a 2.5D, third-person perspective replicating the aesthetic of the television series. The New Kid is able to freely explore the town of South Park, interacting with characters and undertaking quests, and accessing new areas by progressing through the main story. Selecting one of four character archetypes, Fighter, Thief, Mage, and Jew, each offering specific abilities, the New Kid and a supporting party of characters use a variety of melee, ranged, and magical fart attacks to combat with their enemies. GAMEPLAY Let's get super cereal, shall we? South Park: The Stick of Truth is the closest there is to an interactive South Park film. It nails the animated television show's look, its humor, and its obsession with the human anus. If you come to The Stick of Truth for the South Park-ness of it all--for Cartman's aggressive profanity, for Butters' good intentions, for Randy Marsh's masturbation addiction--then you'll enjoy 10 or so hours of hysterical, offensive, gross buffoonery. Does the phrase "anal beads" make you giggle? Have you daydreamed of tossing poop at the people you hate? Then you know where you can shove The Stick of Truth: right into your console's disc drive. That limited play time is a consideration, however. Of course, even if you love South Park, 10 or 11 hours of listening to Cartman call you a douchebag could prove tiring. Nevertheless, given developer Obsidian Entertainment's pedigree, you would rightfully expect a certain amount of systemic depth, or perhaps an epic-length quest loaded with narrative choices. As role-playing games go, however, The Stick of Truth is notably light on, well, everything. It's light on challenge: on medium difficulty, combat is a cakewalk, entertaining to watch but rarely engaging your mental faculties. (If you were hoping to turn your brain off and laugh at abortion jokes, you might see this as a mark in the game's favor.) It's also light on depth: if it weren't for the profanity, cartoon genitalia, and the sight of a grown man engaged in gentle coitus with a farm animal, you might have retitled The Stick of Truth as Baby's First RPG. As for choice, the game asks you to make very few narrative decisions, and the one that most obviously masquerades as a game-changing opportunity is quickly thrown away and rendered moot. The most valuable combat items aren't the most effective, but rather the most entertaining to unleash. I used every toilet I came across in The Stick of Truth, because doing so yielded feces I could fling in combat to gross out the hobos and hall monitors I was fighting. I could have used those turns for more effective attacks, perhaps, but watching bullies barf every turn was too fun of a possibility to pass up. Your choice of which buddy to invite into battle with you is similarly balanced in favor of fun over effectiveness. Only one other character can be in your party at any one time (Butters, Cartman, and Jimmy are among the choices), and while your buddies all have different skills, there's no real advantage in choosing one over another. In fact, apart from the moments the game forces a particular party member upon you, you could easily stick with a single buddy from beginning to end.. The mechanics of those battles are utterly simplistic: the two teams take turns beating each other up until the bad guys are defeated. There are some peripheral considerations like power points (aka PP, aka peepee) and mana, but there's not a lot to them. There are two major reasons to stay fully conscious during combat. Firstly, battles capture the essence of the show and the essence of each character. It's almost impossible not to adore the ever-sweet Butters when he heals you by patting you on the back and giving you a little pep talk. And I dare you to suppress your guffaws when Jimmy takes the stage, stuttering out a madrigal that rhymes "hollow" with "swallow" before dropping the mic. Secondly, almost every attack requires some kind of interaction--sometimes in the form of a well-timed button tap, sometimes in the form of a twirl of the thumbstick, and sometimes in the form of a Dance Dance Revolution-type minigame. (PC players: plug in an Xbox 360 controller. Doing so will save you the frustration of discovering the many keyboard-unfriendly ways in which this is a console game through and through.) Battles might be easy, but at least they keep your fingers occupied, if not your brain. But The Stick of Truth cannot be separated from its license, and it's in its vulgar attitude that it finds redemption. On your Facebook wall, which functions as your in-game menu system, Priest Maxi writes: "I'm glad you found Christ, my son. Be ever vigilant, for He may be found in the unlikeliest of places in the time of need. I found Him in my chimney once." South Park: The Stick of Truth is not the second coming of role-playing games, so if you come seeking Jesus, you'll be disappointed by the veritable second-rate televangelist you find in His place. But it's as funny as the merry tune of Stratford, and more enjoyable than Butters' favorite game, Hello Kitty: Island Adventure. GAMEPLAYTRAILER

INFORMATION Stronghold: Crusader is the successor to Firefly Studios's 2001 real-time strategy video game Stronghold. Crusader has much in common with the original Stronghold, but differs from its predecessor in the fact that the game is no longer set in England, instead being set in the Middle East during the Crusades. The game features a multitude of new Arabian units that can be purchased in a new building, the mercenary post. Though the Arabian troops do not require any weapons to produce, they are rather expensive. The game was also released as Stronghold Warchest. This version was a compendium of Stronghold and an enhanced version of Stronghold: Crusader, containing additional characters and an additional Crusader Trail. Stronghold Warchest was only released in limited number of countries (i.e. USA or Poland), meaning players in the rest of the world have never encountered the second Crusader Trail, or second set of characters. This changed when an updated version of Stronghold Crusader, Stronghold: Crusader Extreme was released in early 2008. GAMEPLAY tronghold: Crusader is the stand-alone successor to Stronghold, meaning you don't need the original Stronghold to play it. It takes Stronghold out of Europe and into the Holy Lands, giving it a tighter focus and a more exotic flavor. The economic missions that had you racing against the clock to fulfill contrived objectives have been removed from the game. Instead, Stronghold: Crusader places more emphasis on the fine art of defending or storming a castle. After all, isn't this what you want when you pick up a box with a knight standing in front of a castle? When players first looked at the box for the original Stronghold, they probably wouldn't have guessed that they'd be spending their time accumulating 500 units of cheese. Indeed, the original Stronghold divided its single-player missions into two types: military and economic, though the latter, which generally involved raising crops and stockpiling resources, wasn't as po[CENSORED]r as the military missions. It also had a single-player skirmish mode and head-to-head multiplayer. But Stronghold: Crusader presents you with many more options. For instance, you can play skirmish games against AI opponents on a number of different maps, even in multiplayer. Some are completely even playing fields, while some feature interesting balance dilemmas, giving advantages and disadvantages to each player. The skirmish maps can be played against your choice of AI opponents or in multiplayer games. However, players who are new to Stronghold's economic model, which actually folds elegantly into its combat model without upstaging it, will likely want to start out by playing with the castle-builder option. This is a sandbox mode that, like in the original game, lets you learn the unique features of Crusader's new desert maps without having to worry about fielding an army to defend against attacks. But the centerpiece of the single-player game is the "crusader trail," which presents a series of 50 battles, each more difficult than the last. As you play, your performance determines the ongoing date, which serves as your score. You can go backward to replay old missions, and if you do better, the date will roll back. Although this doesn't have much impact on the actual missions, it's an interesting alternative to tracking a score based on points. There are some other differences between Stronghold: Crusader and the previous game that may seem subtle at first. For instance, religion and ale have more impact on your people's happiness in Stronghold: Crusader. Religion cost too much gold and ale required too many steps in the resource chain to be really useful in the original game. But in Stronghold: Crusader, they have a more powerful benefit--they are effective ways to offset high taxes, food shortages, and crowding. Even better, you can improve efficiency by adorning your castle with more "bad things," like gallows and dungeons, while serving up religion and ale to counter the happiness penalties. Although these may seem like minor tweaks, they do a good job of adding more choices to how you play. After fighting Stronghold's European warlords (who make a return appearance in Crusader), it's nice to get out and see the world. The desert terrain and buildings look great, breathing a lot of new life into the game's detailed 2D engine. The new music is rousing and distinctive, and it's always a thrill to hear the war cry when you mass-select a group of soldiers and give them attack orders. Visually and aurally, Stronghold: Crusader certainly does justice to its subject matter. The Middle Eastern setting allows for a new architectural look and terrain set, but unlike the changes to the architecture, the changes to the terrain aren't simply cosmetic. Because you can't build farms in the desert, the patches of fertile land on some maps are important strategic points. This also makes Crusader play like a more conventional RTS, since this can take the focus off the castles themselves. Now each side has to secure fertile land to maintain a food supply in these barren environments. Stronghold: Crusader's interface still has some of the same problems that the first game had. The building tabs are still haphazardly arranged at the bottom of the screen. There's no way to jump to the subject of important messages such as "We're under attack!" Stronghold could use more tooltips, range indicators for missile units, and a few more hotkeys to keep you from having to wade through your castles and armies to get where you need to go. Because there are no effective unit formations, the tactical AI still requires a fair amount of micromanagement to mount a successful siege, and computer opponents still seem fond of sending units in a steady trickle rather than amassing effective assaults. But other than these minor problems, Stronghold: Crusader is a marked improvement over the previous game. Considering its new campaign options, more-satisfying single-player missions, and tweaked gameplay, it's a safe bet that fans of the original game will have even more fun storming the castle. GAMEPLAY TRAILER

Name Game: FROSTPUNK: GAME OF THE YEAR EDITION Price: 27.46 to 15.41 The Discount Rate: 44% Link Store: Steam Offer Ends Up After : IDK

Fortnite continues to be catnip for lawyers, this time finding itself targeted by a Montreal legal firm that's requested authorisation for a class action lawsuit on behalf of parents of two children who are allegedly addicted to the battle royale. Calex Légal says it was contacted by parents who claimed that their children had become dependent on the game, which they would not have let them play had they realised there was a risk. The firm compared Fortnite to cocaine and tobacco, claiming that Epic "knowingly put on the market a very, very addictive game which was also geared toward youth." It believes the case has the same legal basis as a 2015 class action lawsuit against tobacco companies for not informing customers about the danger to their health. Earlier this year, the World Health Organisation officially recognised "gaming disorder" as a disease, a decision that's brought up in the authorisation request, which also alleges that Epic hired psychologists and "really dug into the human brain and they really made the effort to make it as addictive as possible." Even before the WHO decision, Fortnite was a magnet for lawsuits, particularly over its use of existing dance moves for its emotes. Several artists began legal proceedings against Epic for using their dances without permission or attribution, though they hit some speed bumps and were put on ice in March. While Fortnite includes a waiver to stop people from being part of a class action lawsuit, Calex Légal claims that, in Quebec, it would be negated by the Consumer Protection Act, which requires companies to warn customers about potential risks, like addiction.

This is no bad thing, of course, and there are many out there who will revel in a car that serves up 95% of a 720S’s searing straight-line pace and wrist-flick agility but is also relatively easy to live with. Yet for all that, our only test of the GT has been on the launch event in the south of France, which concentrated its driving route on the serpentine roads that wriggle their way through the hills above St Tropez. To truly judge a GT you need a sterner challenge, such as driving the length of France and then onto the UK, where its ride comfort in particular would be sorely tested. Which is exactly what we did next. Before that, it’s probably worth a quick recap. McLaren says the GT is a stand-alone model but, in terms of price and performance, it fits somewhere between a 570GT and a 720S. Around two-thirds of the car is new, with much of the changes being found in the virtually all-new sheet metal (and carbonfibre) body. Until the Speedtail arrives, the GT is the longest car the brand makes, while the extended glasshouse, powered rear hatch and long nose all hint at the GT’s more practical and usable remit. Find an Autocar car review Driven this week Audi Q3 Sportback 2019 UK first drive review - hero front 8 OCTOBER 2019 FIRST DRIVE Audi Q3 Sportback 2019 UK review Audi thinks the world needs a Q3 with a lower roofline and slightly less rear... McLaren GT 2019 UK first drive review - hero front 8 OCTOBER 2019 FIRST DRIVE McLaren GT 2019 UK review How does the McLaren GT shape up on a proper cross-continent journey and on... BMW 3 Series Touring 330d 2019 UK first drive review - hero front 7 OCTOBER 2019 FIRST DRIVE BMW 3 Series Touring 330d xDrive 2019 UK review BMW staple trades some handling precision in the transition from saloon to... The interior is an exercise in contemporary luxury, all beautifully stitched leather and varying types of real metal finish - the knurled infotainment knob and perforated Bowers & Wilkins speaker grilles are particular highlights. There’s also that large 420-litre luggage compartment at the rear, complete with its hard-wearing, Nasa-specification lining. McLaren channels air from the side pods under the boot floor to keep it cool (no more than 40deg C, they say, which is hardly cool), but on hot days and in slow-moving traffic, any items stored at the very rear over the exhausts do get a trifle warm. Under the sleek and elongated body is a new version of the familiar carbonfibre tub, while slung between the axles is a 4.0-litre V8 that features bespoke pistons, a higher compression ratio and smaller, quicker-acting turbos. Added together, it results in 612bhp at 7500rpm and 465lb ft at a heady 5500rpm - although much of the muscle is available from around 2000rpm. There’s an adaptive sports exhaust that aims to be less bombastic on start-up, while extra sound-deadening promises to soften the edges of the flat-plane crank’s occasionally industrial overtures. Much of the suspension hardware is familiar, but with softened spring rates and the first stand-alone use of the firm’s algorithmically orchestrated adaptive dampers - we’ve seen them on the 720S, where they work in combination with the interconnected suspension. There’s more soundproofing here, while the steering has been tuned to sacrifice some shimmy and chatter in the name of refinement. If you love driving above all else, then this is the GT for you. No matter which way you slice it, as a device to pick apart rolling and twisting roads, the McLaren leaves its heavier and more traditionally engineered rivals looking like drunks with two left feet. In terms of grip, balance, poise and agility, the GT takes some beating. Yes, the steering is calmer, but it’s still quick and full of feel, while the rest of the car appears to rotate around your hips in precise relation to the amount of lock you wind on. Better still, the slightly softer suspension (in Comfort and Sport, at least; Track is still too firm for the road) and less aggressive turbo lag allow you to start maniting your line through a corner, both on and off the throttle. However, this is all expected of a McLaren, as is the searing performance, but what about its GT credentials? On the long drag back to the UK, it proves more relaxing than you’d expect. No, it’s not nearly as supple and soothing as a Bentley Continental GT, but it’s more effortless than you’d expect, especially for a car that’s so sharp in the mountains. On the smoothly surfaced French autoroutes there’s decent suppleness, while the Pirelli P Zeros seem not to get overly vocal, even over coarser surfaces.

Two women with incurable breast cancer whose lives were "flipped upside down" by the diagnosis have set up a group to offer hope to others. Nicky Newman and Laura Middleton-Hughes, both 31, have stage four cancer that has spread around their bodies. When Nicky, from Guildford, was told her secondary cancer was incurable, she said it sent her into a "blind panic". The pair said they hoped their online community, Secondary Sisters, would help others facing such difficult news. Laura, from Norwich, said it had given them both a "positive, therapeutic, way of talking about our cancer". "We both potentially face a very bumpy future, but we do have a future and we are going to live it," she said. "And if we can help even one person feel better about themselves and like they are part of a community, that's amazing." Both women are supporting Stand Up To Cancer, a joint fundraising campaign from Cancer Research UK and Channel 4. Nicky and her husband Alex were undergoing IVF treatment when she found a lump in her breast. She said even before cancer was mentioned she could "see it in the doctor's face". During tests, she mentioned back pains, so was referred for specialist imaging. "The surgeon said to me: 'I'm really sorry, there's nothing I can do'. It sent me into a blind panic," she said. However, she was given a drug called Palbociclib, which had only just been approved for NHS use. "If it hadn't, my prognosis would have been very different," Nicky said. What is secondary breast cancer? In stage four breast cancer, the breast cancer cells have spread to other parts of the body, such as the bones, lungs, liver or brain. It is also called advanced cancer, secondary breast cancer, or metastatic breast cancer. The cancer is not curable at this point but may be controlled with treatment for some years. Possible treatments include hormone therapy, chemotherapy, targeted drug therapy and radiotherapy. Source: Cancer Research UK Treatment may have halted the spread of the disease but it has robbed both women of the chance to have children. Nicky said when she left hospital, she was "grieving more for the fact that I had lost my chance to be a mother than because I had cancer". Breast cancer: Genetic screening for all call Sisters find out why breast cancer plagues family 'Cancer treatment broke my heart, but I've survived' Laura was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2014 after finding a lump while on holiday. She underwent a mastectomy and chemotherapy and recovered well. But in April 2016, pain in Laura's right shoulder got steadily worse and she was referred for a scan. A tumour had overtaken the head of the humerus - the bone in the arm between the shoulder and elbow. "It was terrifying, 2016 was a rubbish year, a really rubbish year," she said. Laura has traces of breast cancer in her spine, 12 vertebrae and pelvis but said: "I'm very grateful the treatment I'm having is managing to give me a fairly normal life."

A No 10 source has said a Brexit deal is "essentially impossible" after a call between the PM and Angela Merkel. Boris Johnson and the German chancellor spoke earlier about the proposals he put forward to the EU - but the source said she made clear a deal based on them was "overwhelmingly unlikely". The BBC's Adam Fleming said there was "scepticism" within the EU that Mrs Merkel would have used such language. And the EU's top official warned the UK against a "stupid blame game". President of the European Council Donald Tusk sent a public tweet to Mr Johnson, writing: "What's at stake is not winning some stupid blame game. At stake is the future of Europe and the UK as well as the security and interests of our people." Ireland's Tánaiste (Deputy Prime Minister), Simon Coveney said a deal was still possible but "not any at cost" - and the UK must accept it had "responsibilities" on the island of Ireland. Mrs Merkel's spokesman said her office would not reveal details of "private, closed" conversations. Latest on Brexit deal talks Is no-deal about to become PM's policy? How does the border plan differ from the backstop? But Norbert Rottgen, an ally of the chancellor who is chair of the Bundestag's Foreign Affairs Committee, said there was "no new German position". He tweeted that a deal based on the UK's latest proposals had "been unrealistic from the beginning and yet the EU has been willing to engage". The BBC's Europe editor Katya Adler said it was "no secret" Berlin found the UK's proposed new customs solution for Northern Ireland problematic, but it had not yet given up hope. There has been little sign of progress in talks between the two sides since Mr Johnson sent new proposals for a deal to Brussels last week, with the EU demanding "fundamental changes". Officially, the prime minister's spokesman said the talks - aimed at securing an agreement at next week's EU summit - were "at a crucial point", but denied they were over. Scotland's First Minister and leader of the SNP, Nicola Sturgeon, said Downing Street's response to the phone call was an "attempt to shift the blame for the Brexit fiasco". hat is despite legislation passed by MPs last month, known as the Benn Act, which requires Mr Johnson to write to the EU requesting a further delay if no deal is signed off by Parliament by 19 October - unless MPs agree to a no-deal Brexit. The key focus of the new UK plans is to replace the so-called backstop - the policy negotiated by Theresa May and the EU to prevent a hard border returning to the island of Ireland - which has long been a sticking point. Stormont parties clash over customs union 'demand' Judge dismisses no-deal Brexit court move What is in Boris Johnson's Brexit plan? After presenting them, government sources hoped the sides might be able to enter an intense 10-day period of talks almost immediately, but a number of senior EU figures, including Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, warned they did not form the basis for deeper negotiations - even if they believed a deal could still be done. The No 10 source said Tuesday morning's phone call - which was not discussed at cabinet - had been a "clarifying moment", adding: "Talks in Brussels are close to breaking down, despite the fact that the UK has moved a long way." The UK's chief negotiator, David Frost, is continuing to meet EU counterparts in Brussels, but one European official said he had so little room for manoeuvre, it called into question whether Britain was serious about getting a deal.

¤ Name[/nickname]:RiZ3R ¤ Age:19 ¤ Country:Pakistan ¤ Occupation:Student ¤ A short description about you: Active/Honest And Hate liers ¤ How did you found out Csblackdevil Community: Well long time using gametracker ¤ Favorite games:CSGO/PUBG/TITAN FALL 2/NFS ¤ Favorite server [community only]: Highlifezm ¤ A picture of you: ?

INFORMATION Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones is an action-adventure video game developed and published by Ubisoft Montreal. It was released in December, 2005 in North America for the Xbox, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 2, and the Nintendo GameCube. It was ported to the PlayStation Portable and Wii under the title Prince of Persia: Rival Swords with the Wii version utilizing the motion-sensing functionality of its controller, while the PSP version added exclusive content. A remastered, high-definition version of The Two Thrones was released on the PlayStation Network for the PlayStation 3 on December 21, 2010. GAMEPLAY The Prince of Persia: Sands of Time trilogy has always been known for its tight controls and satisfying environmental puzzles set in beautiful levels. The series' control scheme has served as a model for countless other games that also feature an acrobatic protagonist like the prince. The same great interface remains in the third game of the series, The Two Thrones. Like the other two games, you'll find yourself wall running, jumping, flipping, and vaulting your way up fiendishly designed environmental puzzles, as well as fighting vicious enemies with the improved combat system introduced in the last game, Warrior Within. The prince has a few new tricks up his sleeve as well, but longtime fans of the series should still feel right at home. The story of the Sands of Time trilogy began with the prince's army attacking and conquering the capital of the Indian empire. In the midst of the battle, however, an evil vizier caused the release of the sands of time, wreaking havoc over the city and the surrounding countryside. The prince and an Indian princess named Farah battled together to defeat the vizier, bottled up the sands, and restored the world to a normal state. The story continued in Warrior Within, where an embittered prince set sail for the Island of Time, seeking sanctuary from an unstoppable time creature called the Dahaka, who pursued him endlessly because of his part in unleashing the sands of time. There, the prince battled not only the Dahaka, but also Kaileena, the Empress of Time. Fans of the first game felt the series lost a lot of its soul in Warrior Within, as the suddenly cynical prince was much more arrogant and less likable. The Two Thrones begins with the prince returning to Babylon from the Island of Time with the mortal Kaileena as his new lover (this part of the plot may be confusing to those who didn't see the alternate ending of Warrior Within). As they pull in to the harbor at Babylon, the duo finds the city under siege. Their ship is wrecked by the invaders, and Kaileena is captured by the enemies. You quickly find that the vizier is back and responsible for the uprising. He murders Kaileena and unleashes the sands of time upon Babylon, and the prince must battle to regain his kingdom and avenge Kaileena's death. The Two Thrones marks a fitting end to a fantastic trilogy. The plot ties up all the loose ends and should prove satisfying for fans of the series. Though some new gameplay mechanics have been introduced, such as the speed kill and the new tricks of the dark prince, The Two Thrones is still basically very similar to the other two games--if you didn't like those for some reason, this game's not likely to pull you in. But for those of us who love solving the environmental puzzles and seeing the beautiful environments that the series is known for, The Two Thrones delivers in spades. GAMEPLAY TRAILER

INFORMATION No Man's Sky is an action-adventure survival game developed and published by the indie studio Hello Games. It was released worldwide for the PlayStation 4 and Microsoft Windows in August 2016, and for Xbox One in July 2018. The game is built around four pillars: exploration, survival, combat, and trading. Players are free to perform within the entirety of a procedurally generated deterministic open world universe, which includes over 18 quintillion planets. Through the game's procedural generation system, planets have their own ecosystems with unique forms of flora and fauna, and various sentient alien species may engage the player in combat or trade within planetary systems. Players advance in the game by mining for resources to power and improve their equipment, buying and selling resources using credits earned by documenting flora and fauna, and otherwise seeking out the mystery around the Atlas, an entity at the center of the galaxy. GAMEPLAY After 45 hours in No Man’s Sky, I’ve warped through hundreds of solar systems, landed on almost 200 planets, and I’ve cataloged over 500 different alien species. Yet oddly for an open-world gameperhaps the biggest open-world game ever madeI don’t have many stories to tell. My experience has been at times enjoyable and relaxing, at other times awkward and frustrating, but unfortunately it’s not something our favorite Vulcan space traveler would call “fascinating.” I’ve touched an infinite universe and walked away with some nice vacation photos. No Man’s Sky, the first-person space exploration and survival game developed by Hello Games, presents us a universe filled with some 18 quintillion procedurally generated planets. You begin standing on a single one, gazing at the hull of your broken starship. Within minutes, the core of the game is revealed: slowly wander the planet on foot (and awkwardly fly using a jetpack) looking for resources: plutonium for powering your ship, iron and carbon for crafting technology, and more exotic minerals for building better tech or selling on the galactic market. You’re armed with a multi-tool that can be used as both a mining laser and a blaster to fend off each planet’s robotic guardians, who attack if you harvest endangered resources or get too ambitious with your mining. Having repaired your ship and added a warp drive, you’re then free to explore the galaxy, either by visiting random stars, following a path toward the galactic core, or investigating a mysterious ancient alien race. The solar systems of No Man’s Sky aren’t really systems, but rather a handful of planets and moons bunched shoulder to shoulder, which provides some lovely views and vistas straight off the cover of pulp sci-fi novels. I’ve seen some very pretty planets on my travels: fields of pink grass, vast purple oceans, amber skies, alien trees with slowly writhing branches, and plenty of cool rock formations. Playing space photographer is fun: I enjoy positioning my ship on the top of a hill against a crimson sunset, or taking screenshots of alien plant life and stone spires with nearby planets and moons hanging in the background. Not every planet is a postcard, naturally, but many inspire a few pleasant moments of appreciation before getting down the the business of murdering rocks for fuel. But even the most heavenly bodies ultimately feel very uniform. There are caves but no massive gorges, trees but no dense forests, hills and cliffs but no looming mountain ranges. There are hazards: extreme heat and cold, acid rain, and radiation, but they exist only as a slowly depleting protection meter and verbal warnings from your exosuit’s speaker system. I’ve been in storms yet have never seen a lightning bolt or a volcanic eruption, and I’ve never experienced an asteroid strike or planetquake. Some planets may be dangerous, but they certainly never feel deadly or truly alien. GAMEPLAY TRAILER

Name Game: No Mans Sky Price: 59.99 to 29.99 The Discount Rate: 50% Link Store: Steam Offer Ends Up After : 10/14/2019

INFORMATION A Way Out is an action-adventure game developed by Hazelight Studios and published by Electronic Arts under their EA Originals program. It is the second video game to be directed by Josef Fares after Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons. The game has no single-player option: it is only playable in either online or local split screen co-op between two players. The game was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on March 23, 2018, selling over a million copies in two weeks. GAMEPLAY A Way Out is an action-adventure game played from a third-person perspective. It is specifically designed for split-screen cooperative multiplayer, which means that it must be played with another player through either local or online play. In the game, players control Leo and Vincent, two convicted prisoners who must break out of prison and stay on the run from authorities. As the story of both protagonists is told simultaneously, their progress may not be synchronized, which may result in one player being able to control their character, while another is watching a cutscene. Players need to cooperate with each other in order to progress, and each situation can be approached differently, with both characters taking different roles. For instance, during an early segment of the game, the player controlling Vincent needs to distract a nurse and guard, so the player controlling Leo can find a chisel needed to aid their escape. These roles are not fixed, so Leo and Vincent can swap their roles in another playthrough. Players can interact with many non-playable characters, and there are dialogue options for players to choose. A Way Out is laced with small cooperative moments outside of just dialogue, too, like having to tap X simultaneously to bust through a door, or one person splashing around in a pond to chase the fish toward the other player holding a spear. But even though it’s focused on its story sequences, A Way Out is decidedly not a “walking simulator”-style adventure – in fact, it’s more like a collection of largely enjoyable minigames. Sometimes you’re sneaking around in tall grass like Sam Fisher, choking out bad guys. Sometimes you’re punching people from a 2.5D side-scrolling camera like it’s a Double Dragon remake. Sometimes you’re driving a car, or throwing darts, or playing a banjo, or shooting hoops, or arm wrestling, or fishing, or...you get the idea. All of that variety is a double-edged sword: though this swath of activities often left me smiling, the trade-off is that none of them control and feel as good as games dedicated to those ideas. The baseball segment won’t be unseating MLB The Show 18, is what I’m saying, but even so it put a smile on my face. “Clunky” is probably the best description of the worst A Way Out’s minigames ever get, with the gunplay feeling particularly subpar in this, the age of spectacularly polished shooters. A Way Out’s finest moments come when it’s at its most cinematic. The brilliantly choreographed hospital escape scene, for example, maintains one unbroken “camera shot” even as controls are cleverly trading back and forth between Leo and Vincent, while the aforementioned ending blends cinematography and gameplay in clever ways. And a Splinter Cell-esque back-to-back climb up a tall maintenance shaft requires the utmost cooperation and communication and had us laughing at every misstep. It was the peak of the mandatory cooperative gameplay that’s enforced here. And commendably, you get a free download token to give to a friend, so you only have to buy one copy to play online. GAMEPLAY TRAILER

INFORMATION Might & Magic Heroes VII is a turn-based strategy game in the Heroes of Might and Magic series. Like the other games in the series, players control leaders with magical abilities termed as "heroes", who recruit a variety of forces from strongholds. The heroes and their armies battle the opponents, who also use heroes to lead their forces. It features a campaign series of levels, standalone and multiplayer scenarios. In 2016, the downloadable content Lost Tales of Axeoth was released. On August 4, 2016 Trial by Fire was released, featuring two new campaigns, new faction (fortress) and many gameplay improvements available for all owners of the main game as well. However, the expansion itself is sold as standalone. Along with the expansion the game was updated to feature Denuvo DRM (since version 2.0). While all versions of MMH7 include a random map generator in the map editor[2], the Trial by Fire expansion added an in-game random map generator (which can also be used in other version of MMH7 GAMEPLAY As a game critic, I typically try to distance my emotions from my ability to judge a game; I think I do a pretty good job. However, once in a while a game comes along that I truly wish was better. In the case of Might and Magic Heroes, it’s a series I’ve been playing off and on for years. I’ll never forget the first time I experienced the franchise. I got a copy of Heroes of Might and Magic III at a garage sale almost entirely because of the epic box art. At the time, I was primarily a console gamer, so strategy games involving turn-based tactics, resource management, and ruling over armies was entirely foreign to me. I ended up playing for several hours in one sitting and was hooked. In the years since, the game from my childhood has been re-released in HD with mixed results, and the next four games in the series have all been either loved or hated. It’s a long-running series that’s changed developers and publishers more than once, yet they continue to churn out new games every few years. And time after time, the HoMM games are released before they are ready. It’s a reality of the games industry nowadays that if you buy a new game from a AAA publisher, there will be bugs. There are lots of reasons for this, including the sheer size and scope of modern games making it impossible to find every issue, and the fact that in many cases, publishers would rather release an unfinished project than miss their launch window and delay things further. In the case of HoMM VII, it desperately needed more time. For starters, the lack of stability was unbearable. It crashed on me numerous times during each play session. Everything from clicking something in the UI, to the loading screen, and even just leaving the game on without doing anything would cause it to crash. It became like a game-within-the-game just to see how much continuous play-time I could get in before running into an issue. Even a game like this, though, still has positive aspects. First of all, it shows that Ubisoft hasn’t forgotten about the franchise, which means that maybe next time they can do a better job. The maps themselves are visually interesting and well laid-out. The skill selections for heroes make sense and feel useful, at least more so than in VII. But all of that is essentially meaningless when the AI itself lacks the ability to put up an intelligent fight. While playing Heroes of Might and Magic VII, I was struck with an overwhelming wave of disappointment like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. I truly wanted this game to recapture the magic that the series has been lacking for so many years, but it’s not even close. If you’re interested in seeing what these games are about, then I insist you try HoMM V instead for single player, or HoMM VI for multiplayer since V is no longer supported. GAMEPLAY TRAILER