Month: August 2020

If you’re a fighting game fan of a certain age, you might remember the PS1 fighting game Bushido Blade, where clashes were determined by a single decisive blow from a razor-sharp katana or rapier. If you’re looking for a more modern take on that concept, the upcoming Die By The Blade might be just what you’re looking for.

As shown in a recent gameplay presentation, Die By The Blade is a 3D fighting game where every hit has the potential to end the fight. Players circle endlessly around one another, waiting for the perfect moment to strike, and it looks quite impressive, especially considering it’s under development from a very small team. The game is currently scheduled for a 2021 release, with a Kickstarter that will launch in October No word yet if it will include an unlockable character with a gun, as Bushido Blade did.

While Die By The Blade looks especially promising, there are other games that have attempted to take the Bushido Blade concept to the next level. One Strike (and its upcoming sequel, Two Strikes) both offer similar samurai showdowns, albeit in a 2D environment. The truly depraved among us may recall Deadliest Warrior or its sequel Deadliest Warrior: Legends, which pitted Genghis Khan against Sun Tzu in the dumbest way imaginable.

ScourgeBringer will be leaving Steam Early Access and officially launching on October 21. At the same time, the game will be released on Nintendo Switch and Xbox One. ScourgeBringer will be available through Xbox Game Pass for PC on day one as well.

A new trailer teased the different areas and diverse enemy types that will be available in ScourgeBringer on day one. Embedded below, the trailer showcases The Entangled Ingress, The Still Bastion, The Wasted Pit, The Living Walls, The Old World, and two secret, possibly optional areas. The first is called The Beyond while the latter remains unnamed–we’ll likely have to discover it for ourselves when ScourgeBringer officially launches.

Developed by Flying Oak Games and published by Dear Villagers, ScourgeBringer is a fast-paced action platformer with a roguelike gameplay loop. You play as Kyhra, the latest person to enter a mysterious monolith in order to stop the end of the world, only to discover a constantly changing dungeon full of monsters and alien-looking machines.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

EA Play (formerly known as EA Access) is now live on Steam, so if you’ve been looking to hop into any EA titles using PC’s most popular storefront, now’s the time.

Subscribers can get in on EA Play for $5 USD a month, or $30 USD for a full year. Your subscription will give you access to members-only benefits like in-game challenges, members-only events, other exclusive content, and a 10% discount on EA digital purchases through Steam. This discount will work on full games, new releases, pre-orders, expansions, game packs, and points.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

While we all patiently wait for The Haunting of Bly Manor to come to Netflix, it’s important to remember that every single week new content arrives to the streaming service. This week is no exception as there is a fine mix of classic movies and brand-new Netflix original content.

Last week, Bill & Ted Face The Music arrived in theaters and digitally, and why not celebrate your love of ’80s time travel movies by rewatching the Back to the Future trilogy? Hitting the service on Tuesday this week, you can relive the adventures of young Marty McFly, who is friends with a cooky old scientist, and McFly borrows his time machine to go back in time and court his mother when she was a teen. Then, McFly goes to the future, then goes to the past. He’s a very busy teenager.

If you’re in the mood for a little bit of espionage, you’re in luck as two James Bond movies arrive this week. On August 31, Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace land on Netflix. The first two movies in Daniel Craig’s run as 007 will hopefully hold you over until No Time To Die lands in theaters. After multiple delays, it’s now debuting on November 20.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

At long last, the third installment in the Bill & Ted franchise is out in the world. Bill & Ted Face the Music is showing now in select theaters and available digitally, giving fans what is likely the final chapter of Bill and Ted’s saga. What many fans already know is that it took over a decade to get to this point. How different is the finished product from the initial idea, though?

Warning: The following contains spoilers for Bill & Ted Face the Music. If you haven’t seen the movie yet, just drop whatever you’re doing and check it out now. Look no further than GameSpot’s review of the film to explain why.

As it turns out, a lot of the movie you see on screen dates back to the first meeting between stars Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter, and writers Ed Solomon and Chris Matheson back in 2008. “The starting point was always the same,” Matheson told GameSpot. “It hasn’t worked out, it didn’t go the way they were told it was going to go when they were 17 or 18 years old. That [much] we knew. It had to be that way.”

Continue Reading at GameSpot

Let’s face it: nobody likes cheaters. PUBG Corp certainly doesn’t. According to a recent tweet, the free downloadable game PUBG Mobile banned a staggering 2 million accounts from August 20 to 27, along with nearly 1.5 million devices. As the breakdown image attached to the tweet reveals, 32% of players were banned for using x-ray vision, 27% used auto-aim, 12% used speed hacks, and 22% were banned for unspecified reasons.

PUBG Mobile recently announced its 1.0 update, along with a $2 million esports tournament. That update will bring up to a 36% improvement in frame rate and a 76% reduction in lag, according to a press release from Tencent. According to Sensor Tower’s estimates, the game “has doubled its lifetime revenue in just over seven months to more than $3 billion globally.” The Chinese version of the game, titled Game For Peace, is responsible for the majority of the revenue, with the United States coming in second. PUBG Mobile will also add New Erangel to the game in the coming weeks.

Recently, in a somewhat confusing move, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney promoted PUBG Mobile in a tweet. This is the latest move in the ongoing legal battle between Epic and Fortnite over Fortnite’s removal from the App Store.

Will Smith and his The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air co-stars will be reuniting in mid-September to record an unscripted look back at the cultural impact the series has had since its debut. The special is set to tape on September 10, which would place the upcoming production as taking place literally 30 years after Fresh Prince first premiered on NBC in 1990.

The reunion special will air on HBO Max, and according to a release, will debut “around Thanksgiving.” Returning cast members include Will Smith, Tatyana Ali, Karyn Parsons, Joseph Marcell, Daphne Maxwell Reid, DJ Jazzy Jeff, and Alfonso Riberio. Noticeably absent from the list is James Avery–who played family patriarch Philip Banks–who died in 2013. HBO Max is reportedly teasing additional “special surprise guests.”

Marcus Raboy (music videos for Ice Cube, Naughty By Nature, and countless artists since 1991) is attached to direct the special, with showrunner Rikki Hughes executive producing alongside Miguel Melendez, Lukas Kaiser, and Brad Haugen for Westbrook Media.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

Project Cars 3 really stretches the definition of a sequel. It bears no resemblance to previous Project Cars games, tossing aside the franchise’s traditional tough-as-nails racing for a more approachable formula that a wider range of players can enjoy. The result is a racing game that leans heavily into territory that should be familiar to Forza players, meaning you can enjoy its racing without extensive knowledge of the inner workings of each car you drive. But it’s also a racing game that struggles to bring together all of its new elements cohesively.

Core to Project Cars 3’s transformation is its overhauled handling system. You’ll have more than enough downforce in the front to bend around each corner with the right amount of car, only briefly having to counter-steer to prevent the back from whipping out from underneath you. It makes racing faster and more action-packed, and it’s exhilarating when you’re chaining together one perfect corner after the other.

The suite of assists lets you cater the experience to your needs in a granular way. There are standard difficulties to choose from, but each option–including stability assists, traction control, and ABS brakes–can be tweaked independently to deliver the right amount of challenge. Having more options to tune Project Cars 3 to your preferred playstyle is a welcome addition to the series, opening it up to more players than before. There’s still just a hint of simulation constantly present that reminds you to still take care of how you approach each turn, which is aided by markers on the racing line pointing out each braking zone and apex. Having markers instead of a dynamic racing line keeps some of the thrill intact when tackling a track for the first time, challenging you to come to grips with its best lines and limits. It’s exhilarating to perfect a track after mastering each corner, even if Project Cars 3 sometimes rewards some messy sectors when it shouldn’t.

Continue Reading at GameSpot