Windjammer 2 – Steve Miller Returns, Arcade Mode Revealed
Dotemu's Windjammers 2 may still be without a release date but its demo is currently available on Steam to try out until February 9th. In the meantime, the developer has confirmed that Steve Miller from the original game will be returning. Arcade Mode is also revealed – check out the trailer below.
Arcade Mode essentially sees players competing against AI foes in one match after another. Performing well grants more credits, which can be used to re-enter the tournament upon losing, and optional challenges are also available. As for Steve, he's seen as a more balanced character who's fast and good at reversals.
Dotemu previous confirmed that Windjammers 2 will support rollback netcode for its online play. This is currently available to try out in the demo and should ensure a smooth multiplayer experience at launch. Windjammers 2 is currently in development for Nintendo Switch, Stadia and PC – stay tuned for more details on its release date in the coming months.
Destiny 2 Xur Exotics – Telesto, Gwisin Vest, Severance Enclosure
Xur has returned in Destiny 2, touting some new Exotics. Though many of these have been sold before, they're still somewhat different from previous weeks' offerings. You can find Xur in the Winding Cove in the European Dead Zone, where he'll remain till the next weekly reset.
The Exotic weapon of this week is Telesto, an Energy fusion rifle whose bolts stick to foes and surfaces and explode after a short time. Scoring multi-kills with the weapon will reload Kinetic and Energy weapons from their reserves. It's not the best secondary weapon but still fun to use – pick it up for just 29 Legendary Shards. The Exotic gear includes Gwisin Vest (Hunter chest), Severance Enclosure (Titan chest) and Sunbracer (Warlock gloves), each for 23 Legendary Shards.
Severance Enclose causes melee final blows with Arc, Solar and Void to create an explosion. Final blows and finishers create larger and more powerful explosions. Sunbracers increase Solar Grenade duration with Solar melee kills providing unlimited Solar Grenade energy for a brief time – this makes it good for the Dawnblade class. Gwisin Vest is recommended for Spectral Blades users since going into stealth after kills with the Super will restore Super energy.
Hitman 3 Location Importing Planned for February End
Hitman 3 is out now on multiple platforms and has been a critical and commercial success for IO Interactive. However, prior to launch, the developer said that owners of Hitman 1 and 2 on Steam wouldn't need to re-purchase those games on Epic Games Store to import their locations into Hitman 3. On its official forum, the developer noted that the proposed importing solution is currently being tested.
"We've got that solution worked out and it's currently being tested and verified from all angles to make it as robust as possible. In terms of timing, it's definitely a case of sooner rather than later." It noted that "even with the longest estimates," players should look forward to the solution arriving by February end. The developer will keep players updated on the next steps to follow.
Prior to launch, IO Interactive came under fire for requiring players to re-purchase Hitman 2 on the Epic Games Store to import its locations into Hitman 3. It did offer Hitman 1 for free and discount the second game for Hitman 3's launch before later changing its stance. Stay tuned for more details on when the level importing solution will go live.
Hitman 3 is currently available for Xbox One, PS4, PC, Xbox Series X/S, PS5, Nintendo Switch and Google Stadia. There's plenty of post-launch content coming this month – check out the roadmap here.
BPM: Bullets Per Minute – Overdrive Update Adds New Characters, Weapons, and More
Awe Interactive's rhythmic first person shooter BPM: Bullets Per Minute has received a new, free update. It adds five new characters, each promising their unique play-styles; three new weapons; and one new chapter. There are also two new difficulties – Practice and Hellish – for new and grizzled players alike.
But that's only scratching the surface. The update also adds new abilities and enemies, more unique rooms and a new boss along with over 20 new items. There are Trials, which will modify a run and make it tougher, and new challenges to complete. You'll also encounter some new floor modifiers, in case the current ones weren't annoying enough.
Some quality of life changes include a per chapter hue slider to modify the filter's color and fixes for crashes. Lighting has also seen some changes while Ultrawide FOV support has been added in. Tweaks have also been made to some of the sounds.
BPM: Bullets Per Minute is currently available for Xbox One, PS4 and PC. It seems there won't be any more updates. "We've loved making this game, and with this update finished, we're planning the future for games from Awe Interactive," noted the developer.
Resident Evil 7 Was a Masterclass in Survival Horror
With Resident Evil Village being on the minds of gamers all over the world right now, and rightfully so, it's all the more important to remember what led this classic, world-renowned survival horror series to where it is today. To be fair you could trace the original ideas for the game all the way back to the early days of video games themselves, but more directly, it is Resident Evil 7 that the upcoming newest chapter of the series owes the most to, as well as many other modern survival horror games.
Resident Evil 7 is a masterclass experience in survival horror that gracefully blends some ideas of other modern horror games in with the conceptual pillars of the genre that were forged many years ago, and mixed in a few of its own as well – all to great effect. With such a multifaceted survival horror experience that has so many great things going for it that speak to the interests of such a wide variety of gamers, it can be difficult to drill down on just a few things that really elevated it above so many of its contemporaries, but a game of this caliber definitely deserves to be acknowledged for what it is and remembered – so let's give it a shot.
Resident Evil 7 brought a lot of new ideas to the series at a time when the series needed new ideas the most. Never before in the lifespan of the Resident Evil series had fans of the original handful of games lost that much faith and interest in the franchise as a whole. With the first 3 games and Code Veronica being fairly strict with their survival horror format, and the move towards action getting kicked into high-gear with the Resident Evil 4, it was just a matter of time before those original fans who helped support the series for so long would start to drop off, and drop off they did. I know because I was one of them.
While Resident Evil 4 was a great action game, it was rarely scary. Despite how revolutionary it was for action games in a technical sense, there was a new trajectory for the series started by it that would advance further with 5, and even further with 6, which by that time had basically no resemblance to the concepts of the original games outside of its namesake and the characters that the games had in common. This was fine for the newer fans that RE4 had attracted and held onto with 5 and 6, but for whatever reason Capcom, at some point, definitely decided that they wanted those old fans back. So a proper analysis of what made the original few games so good and what fans of modern horror expected in 2017 was needed.
However that analysis was conducted, it's clear that Capcom decided to mix things up in a very sudden, deliberate way – unlike the slow creep of over-the-top action gameplay that started with the Outbreak games and Resident Evil 4 that slowly led the series to where it ended up with 6. 7 needed to be drastically different and really lean into its ideas. Limited inventory slots, a tense atmosphere, a spooky, mysterious setting, and iconic villains. With the success of horror games like Amnesia, surely Capcom must have seen what was hot at the time in horror, so they borrowed that basic framework and mixed in those classic concepts from the roots of the series.
The setting in particular was something that also had an elegant balance of new and old. The rural, disconnected mansion somewhere in the south of the US was perfect. While the appearance of the house and the insane family who inhabited it felt like an interesting throwback to the Texas Chainsaw Massacre movies, the inner workings of the house and the core gameplay mechanics resembled the original game more than any game since those original few. Secret doors, puzzles, hidden areas, inventory management, and tension that you could cut with a chainsaw.
The Baker family also brought a nice dose of new energy, as their insane, demonic demeanors made them all unpredictable and an absolute thrill-ride to deal with. Throughout the game, the protagonist, Ethan Winters, would interact with all of them in various ways. They all had their things that made them stand out, yet they were all very clearly in the same family. Jack, the patriarch of the household was of course the stand-out character as well as the recurring antagonist of the story, and he was a sight to behold as his bloodlust drove him into more of a post-human monster as the story moved on and his state of being continued to deteriorate.
Speaking of the story, Resident Evil 7's story is one of its stand-out elements. Just as the setting and gameplay took a lot of liberties with the Resident Evil lore in order to have a fresh slate, so did the story itself. Our new hero character, Ethan, is ultimately lead to an isolated – and reportedly haunted plantation house in the deep south in an effort to save his wife, Mia, who is struggling with a borderline-supernatural strain of issues herself. The story takes some twists and turns from there, but it generally revolves around finding Mia and getting the two of you out of there. Of course, things aren't nearly that simple, but that is the gist of it. Along the way, the Baker family is Ethan's main obstacle, with a few monsters thrown in for good measure.
Here is perhaps Resident Evil 7's weakest area. While the mold monsters most often found in the lower levels of the house do provide some good scares and are well-designed, that's about all there is in the game outside of the baker family, who are more like boss encounters than typical video game enemies. It's almost as if so much effort was put into the baker family, and perfecting all of their personality quirks and fine-tuning your encounters with them that there wasn't much time left to design more monsters. It doesn't get in the way of enjoying the game, and you could argue it's made up for with the Bakers being as awesome as they are, but it's worth mentioning as no game is perfect.
Resident Evil 7 was important for the series and the survival horror genre for so many reasons. It's ability to take ideas from what worked about Resident Evil for so long while filtering out what didn't, it's willingness to learn from what other modern horror games were getting right, and of course the addition of some fresh ideas with the Bakers and a new, more vulnerable main character who lacks the military experience of the S.T.A.R.S. team was a recipe for massive success. Many regard this game as one of – if not the – best horror game of all time and there's certainly an argument to be made for that. I wouldn't personally say it overtakes the true pillars of the genre like Silent Hill 2 or Clock Tower, but it certainly comes within striking distance in an era where so many great games are coming out all the time. Regardless of where you personally stand on that, it's hard to deny that Resident Evil 7 is one hell of a game.
Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Remake Has Been Delayed Again
Following its reveal in September last year, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Remake was scheduled to launch in January, but slightly over a month before its release, Ubisoft announced that they were delaying the game to March 18, citing requiring additional time to work on the game. Now, once again, with a little over a month to go for its launch, the remake has been delayed.
Ubisoft recently took to Twitter via the official Prince of Persia handle to share the news. No new release date is provided this time, with the developer simply saying that they're shifting the game's launch to "a later date."
When the remake was first revealed, it received criticism from fans for its dated visuals and technical aspects (something that the developers defended as an artistic choice). Ubisoft suggests in its message that the game's most recent delay has been in response to feedback for the game's reveal, suggesting that they might be taking additional time to work on its visuals.
"This extra development time will enable our teams to deliver a remake that feels fresh while remaining faithful to the original," Ubisoft writes.
Given the fact that we're still in the middle of a pandemic, it's not surprising to see essentially any game getting delayed. We've already had more than a few this year – including the likes of Hogwarts Legacy, Returnal, Outriders, The Lord of the Rings: Gollum, and Riders Republic – and we'll likely see a few more in the months ahead.
Whenever Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time launches, it will be available on PS4, Xbox One, and PC (and may or may not come to the Nintendo Switch), with forward compatibility for PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. You can get more details on the remake in our interview with the developers through here.
Another update from Prince of Persia: Sands of Time Remake dev team: pic.twitter.com/O6OOmYXhOD
— Prince of Persia (@princeofpersia) February 5, 2021
Destruction AllStars Review – Solid Foundation, Shaky Walls
I have loved my time with Destruction AllStars so far. There is a simplicity in its gleefully bombastic and accessible premise that sunk its claws into me the moment I started playing the game. It's kept me coming back for several hours of gameplay, and is likely to keep me coming back for several more. But putting my appreciation for the core mechanics and premise aside, it's undeniable that there are some serious issues here that cannot be ignored. A big part of me simply loves Destruction AllStars for what it is and what it lets me do. But another part of me is disappointed with all the caveats that go hand-in-hand with the game's biggest strengths.
Appropriately enough for a game that is all about driving fast and crashing into other vehicles, driving in Destruction AllStars is fantastic. There is an undeniable sense of speed and momentum here that is crucial in a game like this. The controls are tight and responsive, and your inputs on the controller are always met with great audio-visual feedback, including flashy graphical flourishes and loud noises of crashes and revving cars. Pulling the handbrake to turn around corners feels fantastic, and boosting your vehicle with a simple flick of the right stick to crash through an opponent at breakneck speed feels even better.
Destruction AllStars also makes excellent use the PS5's hardware to ensure that its frenetic action feels even smoother and more impactful. The game sports sharp and vibrant visuals, and runs at 60 frames-per-second, with hardly any frame rate drops to speak of. Meanwhile, the DualSense's adaptive triggers and haptic feedback are also leveraged excellently, from rickety vibrations when your car is seconds away from exploding in a glorious blaze to the resistance you feel in the trigger as you try and accelerate right after coming out of a drift.
"A big part of me simply loves Destruction AllStars for what it is and what it lets me do. But another part of me is disappointed with all the caveats that go hand-in-hand with the game's biggest strengths."
But unlike most other car combat games, Destruction AllStars is about more than just driving. You also spend a fair amount of time outside of your vehicles, on-foot. Vehicles here are disposable, and their health bars deplete pretty quickly, which means you're regularly jumping out of old cars and hopping into new ones. On one hand, this means matches remain fast-moving and exciting at all times, and things never get stale. On the other hand, the downtime when you're between vehicles is a drag.
Appropriately enough, any time you're on-foot, you're extremely vulnerable, but having to frantically run around and look for a new vehicle while cars explode around you is no fun. All characters have their own unique abilities called Breakers even when they're outside of their vehicles, but they hardly ever come in handy. Frankly, in all the time that I've spent playing the game so far, I've only found activating Breakers useful because they let me double jump and move faster, allowing me to get to a new vehicle more quickly.
It doesn't help that on-foot movement and platforming in general feel a little wonky, with jumping in particular being floaty and inaccurate a lot of the times. Weird hit detection when you're on-foot also means that the game will often register hits on you even when there were no enemy cars around. Once you're back behind a wheel though, Destruction AllStars flourishes, so it's a good thing that the vast majority of the core loop is focused on vehicular action.
"Appropriately enough for a game that is all about driving fast and crashing into other vehicles, driving in Destruction AllStars is fantastic."
Though vehicles are disposable and easily found scattered about the arenas, each character in Destruction AllStars also has their own signature Hero Vehicle, which can be summoned every once in a while once your hero meter fills up. Hero Vehicles are incredible, and getting your hands on one is pretty much a guarantee of a wonderfully chaotic couple of minutes. Not only do these vehicles feel even better to drive than ordinary cars and sport excellent visual designs, each of them also has their own Breaker.
These Breakers recharge on cooldowns, and boast excellent variety across the roster of characters, from massive sawblades attached to the front of Blue Fang's "Shredder", to plumes of fire bursting out of Fuego's "Cerberus", to blasting supersonic damage-dealing waves of sound from large speakers on top of Harmony's "CRASHendo." When used at the right time, these Breakers can provide cathartic releases of maximum carnage, injecting healthy doses of chaos in an already chaotic game. Variety, sense of personality, and strong aesthetics are things that Destruction AllStars exhibits in everything from its characters to its vehicles to the arenas you drive in, and that stands true for Hero Vehicles and their Breakers as well.
Most of the fun I've had with the game, however, has come from a single mode, which is Mayhem, the free-for-all mode that gives you points for damaging and wrecking enemies, with the player with the highest tally of points at the end of the match being crowned the winner. Unfortunately, on the whole, Destruction AllStars doesn't have a lot of well-designed modes.
"Variety, sense of personality, and strong aesthetics are things that Destruction AllStars exhibits in everything from its characters to its vehicles to the arenas you drive in."
Out of the four modes available at launch, only Mayhem is great- though Carnado is decent enough as well. It's an 8v8 affair in which you get gears for damaging opponents, and have to bank those gears into a massive tornado in the middle of the arena before your vehicle gets destroyed and you lose all of your gears. The team that has banked more gears at the end of the match wins. Carnado has a solid grasp on the destruction-focused nature of Destruction AllStars, and makes great use of the whole "disposable cars" schtick, and it's certainly the better of the two team-based modes. It wastes some of its potential in how teamwork hardly ever feels like a necessity, but at least it's still fun.
The other team-based mode is Stockpile, another 8v8 affair in which you grab gears off of wrecked vehicles, and then store them in one of three banks in the arena, with banks being under the ownership of whichever team currently has more gears in them, and the team with more banks under its belt when the timer runs out winning the match. The problem with Stockpile is that it forces you outside of your vehicle all too frequently- you can only collect gears when you're on-foot, and you can only bank them when you're on-foot. On-foot gameplay in Destruction AllStars is not very good, as I've mentioned, which means Stockpile ends up being a bit of a chore.
Then there's Gridfall, which is easily the worst mode of the bunch. Pieces of the arena slowly crumble away in this free-for-all battle royale-style mode, and players have to try and stay on solid ground, with the last car standing winning the game. Gridfall tries to incentivize destruction by letting you respawn more if you wreck more vehicles, but it instead becomes a ridiculous affair where almost everyone is simply driving around slowly and trying not to fall into the ever-growing chasms throughout the arena. Matches also end too quickly, which means you're often waiting in lobbies for 2-3 minutes for a match that might not even last a minute. Gridfall is as uneventful as it is quick and boring.
"Challenge Series are fun, if not excellent, and are a decent aside to the multiplayer. Sadly, they're also crippled by shockingly bad monetization decisions."
Though PvP is very much the meat and potatoes of this meal, Destruction AllStars has some single player content on offer as well. This comes in the form of Challenge Series, with each Series being dedicated to specific characters and their rivalries with others in the game's cast, offering little bits of story and focusing on these heroes as personalities. Each Series has a number of challenges on offer, ranging from variations of the multiplayer modes to new (but rather generic) ideas of their own (such as time trials).
Challenge Series are fun, if not excellent, and are a decent aside to the multiplayer. Sadly, they're also crippled by shockingly bad monetization decisions. While you get your first Challenge Series for free, every other Series has to be unlocked with Destruction Points, which is a paid currency. Locking actual gameplay content behind microtransactions is simply baffling to me. Destruction AllStars is currently available for free on PlayStation Plus, and will be at least until the end of March. But this is a game that you can buy right now, and, once it's off PS Plus, future players will have to buy if they want to play it. Single player content being locked behind a paywall is bad enough in a free-to-play game, but in a full-priced premium game, it's beyond ridiculous. It's also worth mentioning that "full-price" here means $70 instead of the usual $60, thanks to Sony's increased retail prices.
Progression in Destruction AllStars is problematic as well. You get AllStar Coins every time you level up, and though you level up at a pretty rapid pace, you don't get nearly enough points to be able to keep buying things at regular intervals. Boring purchases like banners and avatars for your profile are cheap enough, but skins are exorbitantly priced, with the cheapest ones being around 8,000 coins apiece. And the worst part? None of the skins are very good. They're all boring paint variations of the same design, and the few that are somewhat mildly interesting are – you guessed it – locked behind microtransactions.
"Boring purchases like banners and avatars for your profile are cheap enough, but skins are exorbitantly priced, with the cheapest ones being around 8,000 coins apiece. And the worst part? None of the skins are very good. They're all boring paint variations of the same design, and the few that are somewhat mildly interesting are – you guessed it – locked behind microtransactions."
In light of all of this, thinking back to the beginning of this review – where I said I've loved my time with Destruction AllStars – might seem strange. But here's the thing- I really have. I realize that for many players, the boring cosmetics and unrewarding progression might mean that there isn't enough incentive to keep playing, but in my experience so far, the core gameplay here is so ridiculously fun that. even in spite of the issues, I've been more than happy to keep coming back. I realize that the selection of modes isn't the best, and locking single player content behind microtransactions is, simply put, deplorable, but I've been having bucketloads of fun in Mayhem, and occasionally Carnado.
Destruction AllStars has an excellent foundation in place- but Sony and Lucid Games need to ensure that they keep supporting it. The game has a solid skeleton, but right now, there's a lot of flaky, smelly flesh on that skeleton. The developers need to add more (and better) modes, add more interesting cosmetics, fix the progression, and for the love of all that is good, rethink the monetization model. If they do all that, we'll have a real gem on our hands. Right now, Destruction AllStars is not a gem. Right now, it's a diamond in the rough.
This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 5.
Factorio Sales Cross 2.5 Million, Expansion Pack Planned
Wube Software recently released update 1.1 for Factorio, its highly-rated factory builder on PC, and it's served to add a number of quality of life features. This includes a revamped GUI for trains, allowing Spidertrons to follow each other and the frequently-requested Blueprint Flip. What's next for the studio though?
In a new blog post, it noted that the 1.1 release was the final update for the base game. "It will be maintained, so bugfixes, simple modding interface additions, or minor tweaks can happen, but that's about it."
In discussing various ways that Factorio could be extended, it eventually settled on an expansion pack. Currently, it's "too early to show any of the plans, and since we want to keep the iterative process of expanding things that prove to be the most fun, the plan is quite loose anyway." In terms of when it can be expected to release, Wube Software says it won't take "less than a year to develop."
Finally, the developer announced that Factorio has sold over 2.5 million copies till date. From its crowd-funding campaign in 2013 to launching for early access in 2016, it's been a long journey for the title. Version 1.0 launched last year and included a number of major new additions, including the aforementioned Spidertrons. As for what the expansion will entail, stay tuned for more details in the coming days.
Nintendo Will Announce Further Switch Games for 2021 "At the Appropriate Time"
Based on the information we have so far, the Nintendo Switch doesn't have a lot of major exclusives coming out this year. Bravely Default 2, Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury, Monster Hunter Rise, and New Pokemon Snap are all releasing in the next few months, while No More Heroes 3 is scheduled for 2021 as well, but outside of those, there's a distinct lack of major releases confirmed to be coming to the Switch in 2021.
According to Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa, however, announcements for games coming to the Switch in the next fiscal year (from April 2021 to March 2022) will be made "at the appropriate time". Speaking to investors during Nintendo's recent earnings call, Furukawa gave assurances that Nintendo is "preparing a variety of software titles" for the coming months.
"Our software lineup for next fiscal year is a topic we will discuss at the appropriate time," Furukawa said. "We have already announced our plans to release Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury in February, followed by Monster Hunter Rise in March, and New Pokémon Snap in April. As always, we are preparing a variety of software titles for consumers in the coming
fiscal year."
Nintendo has shifted its approach to announcing games in recent weeks and months, and major blowouts in general Direct presentations seem to have become a thing of the past, with first party announcements now being made with surprise trailer drops shortly before the games release.
What other games the Switch could be getting this year remains to be seen. Major titles like Metroid Prime 4, Bayonetta 3, and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild's sequel are all in development, but it seems unlikely that any of them will be out any time soon (the former two especially). This year also sees the 35th anniversary of Zelda, so maybe we'll see some remasters and new games releasing in celebration, similar to Super Mario's 35th anniversary last year.
Cyberpunk 2077 – Hotfix 1.12 Fixes Vulnerability Issues
With the release of official modding tools for PC, CD Projekt RED's Cyberpunk 2077 mods seemed primed for success. The modding community has already released a number of useful add-ons, from improved vehicle handling to third person mode. Unfortunately, the developer issued a warning earlier this week about vulnerabilities in external DLL files.
With hotfix 1.12 going live on PC, the vulnerability has been fixed (and even extends to custom saves). Other fixes include one for a buffer overrun issue and removing/replacing non-ASLR DLLS. Installing mods should be safe but as always, exercise caution.
Cyberpunk 2077 is currently available for Xbox One, PS4, PC and Google Stadia. Following its troubled launch, CD Projekt RED released its first major update in January which fixed memory leak and performance issues. The next big update is currently planned for this month so stay tuned for more details. The developer is also currently working on free DLC and proper Xbox Series X/S and PS5 versions which are coming later this year.
Hotfix 1.12 is now available on PC!
This update addresses the vulnerability that could be used as part of remote code execution (including save files):
– Fixed a buffer overrun issue.
– Removed/replaced non-ASLR DLLs. pic.twitter.com/LAkBfVpnXf— Cyberpunk 2077 (@CyberpunkGame) February 5, 2021