Cblogs Recaps: Week 26

-Nior goes back to looking at Brazil's culture of gaming with this look at a Brazil-made indie platformer.

-Lord Spencer reviews Wild 9 as part of his PS1 REVIEWS blogging series.

-Lord Spencer writes a report on Retro Sanctuary's Top 100-91 games as part of his PS1 REVIEWS blogging series.

-Flegma does a quick impression on Bridge Strike on the Switch.

-Shoggoth2588 responds to this month's Band of Bloggers prompt regarding advertisement in games with this look at Death Stranding.

-STUNAD looks at the cosmetics market in Valorant.

-Black Red Gaming continues his coverage of this year's online E3 events with this look at this IGN-centric event.

-Exber does a gaming report on the second (COVID-affected) quarter of 2020.

-Nior thinks that Devil Engine is the greatest Shmup you shouldn't play yet.

-Flegma shares his thoughts regarding the 1993 game, Iron Helix.

-Black Red Gaming writes about the disconnect between critics and the public through a look at The Last of Us Part II.

In our first hands-on preview of Cyberpunk 2077, Tamoor Hussain lamented the relative lack of humanity he witnessed in the game's main questline as he played through the opening hours as a street kid. After all, in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, the most impactful stories were often the smaller, more intimate ones. He eventually found a glimpse of that in a sidequest involving two monk brothers and their vow of non-violence, which complicated a rescue mission with grey decisions.

With the benefit of this knowledge and my own Cyberpunk 2077 demo to play, I went in with the express purpose of trying to find more of those glimpses. Above and beyond CD Projekt Red's proven ability to create complex, humane storytelling, the cyberpunk genre itself is attractive because of its portrayal of its people and communities in an extreme future. As David Rayfield wrote back in 2018 (around the time when CD Projekt began to tease Cyberpunk's resurfacing after a long silence), cyberpunk media draws us in with its cool-as-hell aesthetic, but the best cyberpunk stories "reveal to us modern society's worst tendencies and offenders."

And so I went into the opening hours of Cyberpunk 2077 with these questions in my head: How does 2077 use and play with cyberpunk conventions? What stories does 2077 want to tell outside its grandiose main questline? Does 2077 actually feel like a cyberpunk world beyond its flashy tech and neon-soaked Asian-inspired aesthetic? The results were... a little mixed.

Turn 10 has banned the Confederate flag in the Forza games.

A tweet by the official Forza support page said the use of the Confederate flag on any car and under any circumstances will be categorised as a "notorious iconography" in developer Turn 10's enforcement guidelines, "and its use will result in a ban".

Forza's enforcement guidelines for user generated content lists what it deems notorious iconography. The Confederate flag joins swastikas, SS-runes, Wolfsangel, Black Sun, Arrow Cross, Iron Cross (with contextual clues), and the Rising Sun on the banned list.

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Several years ago, Dead Island and Dying Light developer Techland announced the first-person fantasy combat game Hellraid. It was set to be a violent and brutal action game and even received a puzzle spinoff title for mobile, but it was ultimately shelved as Techland moved forward with Dying Light 2. However, it will live on as DLC for Dying Light, and you'll be able to play the new content next month.

Out July 23 for PS4, Xbox One, and PC, Dying Light: Hellraid is accessed through an eerie arcade machine within the Tower in Dying Light. You're sent directly to Hell after using the machine and can battle against demons using axes, hammers, and swords. The DLC has its own Hellraid rank as well as bounties that you can complete for additional rewards.

As with the main game, you can play Dying Light: Hellraid either cooperatively or solo. Up to four players can slaughter demons together.

Blast baddies with your Heavy Machinegun on Metal Slug: Code J, a 3D side-scroller headed to mobile in 2020.

The post Metal Slug: Code J Is a 3D Metal Slug Game for Mobile Devices appeared first on Siliconera.

Blimey, that didn’t take long, did it? Less than a week after its announcement, Bloodstained: Curse Of The Moon 2 has a new trailer and – more importantly – a proper release date. The sequel to an 8-bit spin-off of Castelvania’s crowdfunded successor Bloodstained: Ritual Of The Night, Curse Of The Moon 2’s pixellated platform-slashing is coming to Steam in just under two weeks.

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State of Decay 2 can be a stressful experience, a survival zombie game that keeps players on their toes.

But an update adds a new difficulty level to Undead Labs' undead-packed game, dubbed the Green Zone - and it's here players will be able to let their hair down.

"Think of the Green Zone as a more relaxed, accessible apocalypse, designed for all those gamers who'd like to explore what's possible in State of Decay 2 without enduring quite so much stress," Undead Labs said in a post on State of Decay 2's Steam page.

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Metal Gear Solid and Death Stranding creator Hideo Kojima is working on the concept for a new game and has been teasing on Twitter. 

In the tweets below (via Resetera) Kojima-san describes his workflow alongside artist Yoji Shinkawa (who also worked on both the Metal Gear Solid series and Death Stranding) as they discuss the setting for characters, the background, the world, the color palette, and more details while working from home, mostly via e-mail, and so forth.

He also showcases what appears to be concept artwork, possibly of spaceships or similar flying vehicles. 

Interestingly, you can read “Bridges” on one of the vehicles, labeled as a  “landing ship,” but this likely shouldn’t be taken as a surefire confirmation that Kojima-san is working on a Death Stranding sequel, considering that the “Bridges” brand could appear pretty much anywhere.

Incidentally, when he talks about an illustration by Shusei Nagaoka, he simply means the cover art of the Oasis album by Kitaro, not the hand-drawn sketches.

SNK has announced a brand new Metal Slug game - for mobiles.

The arcade series has been somewhat dormant for over a decade, with ports and re-releases filling the void left in the wake of the release of Metal Slug 7 in 2008.

But things are hotting up in the world of Metal Slug. There is a new console Metal Slug game in the works, apparently due out at some point in 2020, and today SNK announced Metal Slug Code: J (working title), a mobile game developed by Call of Duty: Mobile maker Timi Studios for Chinese megacorp Tencent.

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This week we meet a cool old guy, listen to a bunch of “Hurt” covers, check out a creepy Jar-Jar Binks toy, see more Keanu in Cyberpunk and watch a pretty pancake die.

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Tales Of Arise

, the latest in a long line of Bandai Namco’s Tales Of JRPGs (Berseria, Symphonia, Legendia, etcetera), isn’t coming out this year. Revealed last year and in development since before the announcement of Tales Of Vesperia: Definitive Edition, the Japanese firm’s fantastical tale of two warring planets needs a little more time to tell properly, postponing the game’s release indefinitely.

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Disco Elysium is being turned into a TV show.

Developer ZA/UM is working with production company dj2 Entertainment to develop a series based on the game, Variety reports.

dj2 CEO and founder Dmitri M. Johnson was co-producer of Sonic the Hedgehog, the highest-grossing video game-based film of all time.

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I didn't expect to be playing Torchlight III so soon, and definitely not in Early Access, but here we are. Well, here some of us are. After a surprise release over the weekend, the dust has settled. It's playable.

One glance at the Steam user reviews paints a grim picture; that's what happens when a (currently) online-only sequel to a popular series comes out of the gate with server issues. For my part, I didn't start playing Torchlight III until Monday – by that point, at least for me, the connection issues weren't as prevalent – but I still faced a few way-too-long loading screens that kicked me back to the menu.

The thing is, it's not just disconnects. While I initially thought people were being too hard on the game (and some of the knee-jerk reactions undoubtedly were), there are also fundamental design concerns.

Is Torchlight III worth playing yet? For most people – even longtime fans – probably not.

The Metal Slug series has been missing in action for more than a decade, with ports and re-releases the only mainline games fans of SNK's run-and-gun franchise have had to get excited about. That's changing soon, however, as SNK and developer Timi Studios are currently working on a new entry for mobile devices. Somewhat surprisingly, the game actually looks like it could stick to what make the classic Metal Slug games so popular.

Metal Slug Code: J, which is only a working title for the game, is a sidescrolling shooter like the rest of the series, and it has virtual buttons on the screen as well as an analog stick to handle shooting, aiming, and movement, along with other actions. In a game as frantic as Metal Slug, it remains to be seen if this will be effective, but the art style and music both appear to be spot-on for the series.

Vehicles are also available, giving extra firepower and armor when you come across one in a level, and this will be necessary for dealing with some of the game's more powerful bosses.

Dying Light gets DLC based on Techland's unreleased dark fantasy game Hellraid in July.

Hellraid is Techland's on-hold first-person fantasy game pitched as a mashup of The Elder Scrolls and Dying Light, and the spiritual successor to Hexen and Witchhaven.

With the future of Hellraid as a standalone game in doubt, Techland has incorporated it into first-person zombie game Dying Light as DLC. Both games are of course very different, so Techland created a fun in-game portal between their worlds - triggered by an arcade machine. Here's the official blurb:

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This week's Arcade Archives release has me stumped, as Seibu Kaihatsu's Wiz - now available to download on PS4 and Nintendo Switch - is one of the few games to grace Hamster's retro range that I've never encountered once in my extended life of coin-op classics.

Released back in 1985, Wiz is a side-scrolling adventure which sees players put on their wizard's cloak and hat in order to journey through a selection of realms on a quest to face off against a ferocious dragon. Our little sorcerer will travel through deep forests, underground caverns, and into the clouds themselves on his quest, battling baddies with a selection of magical skills such as a fireball, a protective barrier and... erm... "Hitting".

You can check out the action in this video, courtesy of YouTuber Replay Burners.

The AMD Ryzen 3950X processor has 16 cores and 32 threads, clocking up to a maximum of 4.7GHz. It's the flagship of AMD's super-successful Ryzen 3000 series and a CPU that demolished Intel's high-end desktop processor line-up. And now, as insane and impossible as it might sound, you can run it in a laptop - a 15-inch laptop, no less. So, let's have a moment of hushed awe for the XMG Apex 15, which must surely be the most powerful notebook available right now on the market - certainly in CPU terms. Going into this one, I had a range of questions. How can this possibly work? Why doesn't it just immediately overheat and shutdown?

Answers start to become clear when we consider the nature of the XMG Apex 15 beyond the CPU. Built by a firm that specialises in configurable notebooks, XMG - in common with other PC 'boutique' sellers - uses barebone designs from an ODM (original design manufacturer) which are then customised. This particular chassis is remarkable in that its mainboard is based on AMD's B450 chipset and retains the original AM4 socket, meaning that XMG can insert any desktop CPU in there you want when you order, and later on down the line, you can upgrade it yourself.

The firm was generous enough to supply a new Apex 15 for review kitted out with the Ryzen 9 3950X, 16GB of 3200MHz DDR4 and a Samsung 970 Evo Plus NVMe SSD. Beyond that, it's simplicity itself to remove the lower cover where you have nigh-on instant access to the innards - and there we see just how upgradable this machine is. The memory isn't soldered to the motherboard, you can swap in your own SODIMMs. Next to the NVMe drive is an empty slot for a second SSD, and there's even space for another SATA drive.

Here's something you don't hear often these days: the announcement of a port for the Wii and the Wii U. But that's exactly what Vblank Entertainment has done.

Open-world action game Shakedown: Hawaii, which launched in May 2019, will soon come out on the 14-year-old Wii and the eight-year-old Wii U - both on disc. Both versions include all of the currently released content and feature updates, designer Brian Provinciano said in a blog post, as well as the ability to play in 4:3 on your old CRT televisions.

The Wii version supports both 50hz and 60hz, and both NTSC and PAL output, and, brilliantly, supports the Wii Remote (with shake), Wii Classic Controller, Wii Classic Controller Pro, and GameCube Controller.

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Twitch has banned Dr Disrespect from its platform - reportedly permanent.

Dr Disrespect, aka Guy Beahm, was one of the most popular streamers on Twitch with more than four million followers, and had an exclusive deal with the company.

Esports reported Rod Breslau took to Twitter to say Dr Disrespect's ban was permanent. A reason is not yet known, but Breslau said it had nothing to do with a recent wave of bans relating to DMCA takedowns.

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“It’ll be easy,” I thought to myself, when it was suggested someone do a nice, timely little post on the new-ish Steam Points system, and the various new goodies on offer through it. “Sure, no problem,” I said, when Matt refused to write it because he thought Steam Points were “pointless”, and I was the only other writer on the call with Graham. Matt was being negative, I figured, and I’d show him the error of his ways with my happy-go-lucky, anything-goes, good times attitude. I’d breeze onto the Steam store, have a browse of what points-purchasable things were on offer, and do a quickie piece highlighting some of the most chuckleworthy.

Well, turns out Matt was right, and I was not.

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It's an interesting choice for THQ Nordic to pick the remastered treatment for SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom rather than a full remake. A remake would give the developers the chance to smooth out the experience.

Most licensed 3D platformers of the era were rough around the edges with poor puzzle concepts, boring levels, and other design issues the genre has more or less corrected over time. But with a remaster, or at least with this remaster, there isn't the opportunity to fix what didn't work or rethink the concept. With this remaster, it's simply the old game freshened up with a new coat of paint.

But oh, what a coat of paint it is.

A little under a month after hitting Early Access, Torchlight 3 is already preparing to wrap up its story campaign. The early access diablike’s first major update adds Mount Echonok, the third and final piece of Torchlight’s story map, closing out the campaign with steam-powered robots, cyborg scavengers, and cleans up the game’s more egregious bugs this coming Monday.

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Bandai Namco has released the trailer for the next character that's coming stomping into RPG brawler One Piece: Pirate Warriors 4. As revealed back in April, Charlotte Smoothie has finally arrived to beat armies of hapless foes into pulp, pun fully intended.

As a commander of the LongLeg Tribe, Charlotte stands tall over all of her enemies, using her intimidating size, incredible reach and killer instinct to lay waste to the enemy. If being the height of a building wasn't enough, Charlotte's huge rapier ensures that her opponents are cut down before they can even get within range of the stunning warrior, demonstrated in the video below.

In a week which has seen hundreds of people accuse various streamers of sexual harrassment, abuse, and predatory behaviour, Twitch are investigating allegations and seem to have started bans. “Those who have come forward have shown incredible strength, vulnerability, and bravery,” Twitch said. Many of the alleged incidents took place off Twitch and it sounds like they’re planning to police not just their own service but the community they helped create.

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A new trailer has been released for Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2, revealing a July 10 release date, and the return of Miriam and more.

The post Slay Demons in Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2 on July 10, 2020 appeared first on Siliconera.

Ubisoft have conceded they “must do better” to create an “inclusive and safe environment for our teams, players, and communities”, following multiple allegations of sexual abuse, workplace harrassment and violence, and more against numerous employees. The company claim they will investigate accusations, and discipline people as necessary. Amongst this, the creative director of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla has stepped down following an allegation about his personal life.

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Pack your mozzie spray and put on your hardiest boots, traveller. Minecraft Dungeons is preparing to take us into the undergrowth with its first DLC pack, Jungle Awakens. Arriving next Wednesday, the expansion is bringing some lush new levels, weapons, abilities and story missions to the block-busting dungeon crawler – along with a new dungeon, gear and balance changes in a free update that same day.

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Azure Striker Gunvolt 3 was revealed at Bitsummit Gaiden today, and a new sword-wielding girl named Kirin will be playable alongside Gunvolt.

The post Azure Striker Gunvolt 3 Features Gunvolt and New Character Kirin as Playable Characters appeared first on Siliconera.

Pokémon Sword & Shield are still of the two most divisive games to release over the past year. A lot of what it did right it did very right, such as new Pokémon designs and the scale of the adventure players were sent on. But everything it did wrong still hasn't improved, even with multiple updates and paid DLC.

That's just one of the topics of conversation on tap in this episode of Podtoid. CJ, Dan, Charlotte, Chris, and Occams sound off on Pokémon, point-and-click adventure games, kangaroo people, SpongeBob SquarePants, bad demos, and more. All that, plus sex dolls in soap operas, on Podtoid Episode 448.

The first blast of notE3 arguaaaaabblllly ends this weekend? A few big blasts from Ubisoft and Microsoft will follow in July but I think we have a few quiet weeks coming. After BitSummit Gaiden wraps up on Sunday. See our E3 2020 tag for the stuff.

What are you playing this weekend? Here’s what we’re clicking on!

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Inti Creates has announced that its recently revealed retro sequel Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2 will launch on Nintendo Switch as soon as July 10. Budding castle adventurers can pre-order the title over on the Nintendo eShop, priced at just under $15.

Today ThinkingStars livestreamed an extensive look at the gameplay of its upcoming cyberpunk PS4 game ANNO: Mutationem. 

This is pretty much the most extensive look we get at ANNO: Mutationem since its original reveal, so we can fully enjoy its charming mix between 2D art style and 3D graphics. 

The gameplay showcases both action and RPG elements on top of some really interesting boss battles. 

We also see how there are missions including infiltration and investigation.

One thing is for sure. ANNO: Mutationem looked really good in the smaller bits of gameplay we have seen so far, but now we can definitely see its potential even better.

You can check it out for yourself below.

Hello! All this week we've been celebrating Pride and the power of positive representations in games. Every day we've been bringing you stories and insights from different parts of the LGBT+ community, and if you've missed any of our previous Pride Week features, you'll find a full list below. You can also help support Pride with Eurogamer's newly redesigned t-shirt - all profits from which will be going to charity.

I've dedicated half a decade to diversity and inclusion in games. I am the managing director of Queerly Represent Me (a charity focused on improving representation in games and the industry), I'm co-chair of the IGDA LGBTQ+ SIG, I'm an ambassador for inclusion initiatives as part of my role at Sledgehammer Games, and I have written more articles and given more talks on this topic than I can even count anymore.

I have studied many forms of marginalisation because to work in diversity requires us to think intersectionally, but I started out looking at representations of queerness. Because of this (as well as my own bisexuality), Pride Month holds a special place in my heart.

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Hello, Destructoid. It's Saturday once again and I hope that this week has been a good one for you. The world continues to spin on an awkward axle right now, but I hope you and yours are all doing all well as can be. Please stay safe and take comfort in the small joys wherever you may find them. You have already proven that you've got this.

My small joys? Well, being a beautiful socialite in 17th century France is definitely up there. And as such I took advantage of the Steam Summer Festival to check out the demo for Ambition: A Minuet of Power, which is a title I wrote about many moons ago and have been waiting on patiently ever since. In this visual novel, players step into the shoes of Yvette Decraux, a small-town woman with avaricious desires to be planted firmly on top of the food chain.

Today is the first day of Bitsummit Gaiden and Inti Creates had a couple of rather powerful announcements to make during its part of the event.

First of all, we heard directly from Producer Koji Igarashi that who introduced a brand new trailer of Bloodstained: Curse of The Moon 2.

The trailer reveals Miriam, Alfred, and Gebel as playable characters and a July 10 release date for PC, Xbox One, PS4, and Nintendo Switch.

We also get to take a look at the two-player co-op included in the game, which will cost $14.99.

Then things heated up even further with the announcement of Azure Striker Gunvolt 3. 

We get to see a brand new character named Kirin introduced by Keiji Inafune who will return to work on the game as action supervisor together with series director Yoshihisa Tsuda. 

If the number in the title wasn’t clear enough an indication, this is defined as a “true sequel” to the Azure Striker Gunvolt series.

The game is in development for Nintendo Switch. No other platforms have been announced for now.

Below you can check out the trailers showcased during the show.

The film was originally scheduled to hit theaters last March

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Let me say up front that I’m in no way saying that no special forces commando has ever stealthily infiltrated an enemy stronghold exclusively via kayak without ever setting foot on land. I mean, if such a soldier exists, they must be such a badass that no one has ever seen them and lived. But for the sake of argument, let’s say it’s a goofy premise for a VR stealth game, and Phantom: Covert Ops leans into it hard enough that it sort of works.

Where Phantom does stand out is in how you sneak around. Propelling yourself through the water is pretty fun once you get over how ridiculous waving a virtual kayak paddle looks to anybody watching – picture someone doggy-paddling through the air. I ended up getting into it, though, even putting my feet up on a footstool to simulate sitting in a kayak (though this sometimes made it difficult to reach items in my lap). It’s cool to build up some speed, then hold the A button on the right controller and dip a paddle to make tight turns, though it’s a little inconsistent about when you can just hold the paddle and when you have to push repeatedly.

The deals are available to PowerUp Pro members

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