Wot I Think: Epistory – Typing Chronicles

Typing games are not a new idea, obviously, but they remain a rare pleasure. Clearly the greatest of them all is Typing Of The Dead (okay, it’s not actually that great, but the concept is), and 2011’s Z-Type was a nice spin on a shoot-em-up. But Epistory [official site] is, I think, the best execution of typing-as-game I’ve seen – a really sweet, superbly atmospheric action RPG where all the controls are on your keyboard. Here’s wot I think:

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The Division: How To Level Up Quickly

We are enjoying The Division [official site] and some of us are not even sure why. But it looks like half the world is doing the same. If you have yet to begin your tour of duty in New York’s unfolding Armageddon or if you are currently taking your first steps, we have some tips and advice to get you started. Here, we tell you how to get yourself leveled as quickly as you can.

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Hitman Hits Sapienza In Episode Two On April 26th

Hitman? I don’t know, man. Are you a hit, man, or a miss, man? Tell me if you can, man. Are you a beat or a beater, a sneaker or stabber, episodic or early access, treasure or stress like a shirt of hess – ian – scratch at my neck, man

may be it’s that
we don’t know yet
we might have a clue
after Ep Two

So all hands on deck, pack your trunks in your trunk your needle-o in your Speedo your ballers in your swingball set ready go daddy-o (look out below!) to hit the hacienda in Sapienza on April 26th, hepcats.

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Hands On: Gonner Is A Superb, Stylish Action Game

They had to drag me away from Gonner [official site] in the end. Well, truth be told, they were far too polite to drag me away but they came close to turning out the lights.

‘They’ are two members of Art in Heart, creators of the game, and half of Raw Fury, a new publisher made up of industry veterans. I was playing the game in a rented loft near the heart of GDC in San Francisco and I thought then – and maintain now – that it was the best pure action game I saw at the show.

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Corpse Campaign: Total Warhammer Vampire Counts

Total War: Warhammer [official site] is creeping closer to release like a stealth Nosferatu. May 24th is launch day and today we’ve got latest in a series of campaign videos that show how the different factions will approach the game’s strategic layer. This time up, it’s the Vampire Counts and their undead minions. I’ve dabbled in vampiric arithmetic leadership myself and now you can see how an official dev commentary walkthrough compares to my write-up.

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I Am The God Of Hellfire, And I Bring You A Tribes Map

Hi-Rez Studios stopped updating Tribes: Ascend [official site] in 2013 as they shifted focus to their MOBA Smite, but they have recently returned to the free-to-play jetpacking FPS. Following December’s ‘Out of the Blue’ update and another patch in January, last night Hi-Rez released version 1.3. This latest update has brought more balance tweaks and a new map named Hellfire.

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Big Pharma Expansion Adds Malpractice & Manipulation

When Big Pharma [official site] appeared last year, Alec approved but pointed out it perhaps went a little easy on a severely dodgy target. Today’s announced expansion, Marketing And Malpractice, looks like it might add a few more teeth to the management satire. With your drug developed, you now need to ensure doctors think it’s the right one for their patients. “Take them to dinner, buy them some drinks, maybe a new set of golf clubs? It’s no biggie! Everyone does it.”

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Seraph Is A Platformer That Does The Shooting For You

As a rule, I’ve always focused on acrobatics over aiming. It’s why I’ve somersaulted into quite so many lampposts. Applying my philosophy to gaming, yet another Guildford based team (when I grew up there it was just Colgate and Bullfrog) Dreadbit (Ironcast) have announced Seraph [official site] – a game in which the aiming is done for you, so you can focus on your angelic flips and spins.

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University Of California Announces Esports Scholarships

Well this is interesting – the University of California, Irvine is launching a dedicated esports initiative. What that means is they’re working with Riot Games to build an arena with a staging area and webcasting studio. The university add that “as many as 10 academic scholarships will be offered to students on the team”.

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Sword Coast Legends Developers n-Space Close Shop

Sad news – development team n-Space has closed after 21 years. Most recently known for Sword Coast Legends, but previously better know as Nintendo developers behind the likes of Heroes Of Ruin and Geist, a few waves of lay-offs were not enough to keep the moneywolves from their doors, and now they are no more.

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Impressions: Hyper Light Drifter

I’m so furious. I’ve ranted about boss fights SO many times, and argh, it’s happened again. A game I was absolutely adoring is now a game I can’t play at all, because of a wildly difficult boss fight. Hyper Light Drifter [official site] is absolutely wonderful. Ridiculously lovely pixel graphics that are constantly breathtaking, a clever world that evokes classic 8- and 16-bit classics, elements of Zelda, but with a hefty focus on Nuclear Throne-like combat. And it’s tough. The fighting is surprisingly tricky, waves of enemies in small locations, early on when your arsenal is limited and your skills unhoned. Exploration is key, discovery is splendid, and it’s all a really rather superb time. I’ve been playing since yesterday, having such a brilliant time – then the first boss fight happened, and now it seems I’ll never get to play most of the game.

… [visit site to read more]

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Prehistoric Permadeath: Far Cry Primal Adding Survival Mode

Hot on the heels of Fallout 4’s Survival Mode, which brings exhaustion and dehydration back to the world of post-apocalyptic entertainment, Ubisoft have announced that Far Cry Primal [official site] will be getting the survivalist treatment.

The keystone of that survival mode is the change in the exploration, crafting, and difficulty of the game to make it even more realistic. After that, there are options the player can activate to go further.

Survival mode will arrive as part of a free patch on April 12th. We called this earlier in the month, of course, when we made Robert Zak play the game wearing nowt but a loincloth. More details below.

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You Wouldn’t Steal a Skyranger: X-Piratez is an Outstanding Total Conversion of UFO/X-COM

In my intro to Silent Storm, I mentioned both modding scenes and UFO (used to distinguish the 1994 original X-COM from the 2012 Firaxis one, and not only out of increasingly sad Eurocentric obstinance) without tying the two together. That, it turns out, was stupid, because X-Piratez, a UFO mod in active development by Dioxine, is the best total conversion for any game I’ve ever played.

Based on OpenXcom Extended, a long-running open source clone of UFO, it takes the story and gameplay structure of the original, and a huge stock of resourcefulness, and turns them into something that’s simultaneously very similar and completely new. The result is a dangerously addictive compound of comfortable old UFO with constant surprise, discovery, and content.

… [visit site to read more]

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