343 is Finally Fixing Halo: Combat Evolved's Graphics After 18 Years
If you're ever played the Xbox and PC releases of Halo: Combat Evolved back to back, you know that the PC version, which was developed by Gearbox Software and released in 2003, featured a number of visual bugs that made it look worse than the original 2001 Xbox game. Unfortunately, those bugs were never fixed, and since the version of Halo: Combat Evolved in Halo: The Master Chief Collection is based on Gearbox's PC port, that means that these visual bugs have have endured.
Until now, that is. The latest Insider Flight for The Master Chief Collection came out last week, and in an email to Insider members detailing some of the under-the-hood improvements, 343 said that it was fixing "a series of bug fixes to improve the classic visuals in H1 to better mirror the original Xbox version" in both the campaign and multiplayer.
Some of the corrections include using the correct model of Captain Keyes seen in the Xbox version, fixing Jackal and plasma shields so they turn red when taking damage as in the original game, updating Covenant shield doors and the Spirit dropship's anti-gravity field to look like like they do in the original game, updating several textures, and fixing the teleporter in multiplayer. Fog effects, which were previously broken, now also work properly, and the game's bump maps, which famously lacked detail in the PC release, have also been updated.
This is just a flight, and it's worth noting that these changes aren't guaranteed to make it into the main game, though they likely will. Things aren't perfect as of this writing (there are several minor color errors that still need correcting), but it's nice to finally see 343 taking steps to address this issue long after many of us had given up hope of it ever being fixed.
You can see a video showing examples of some of the changes from veteran Halo YouTuber Mint Blitz below:
Rockstar Games Announces Record Label CircoLoco Records
Rockstar has a long history of licensing music for its games, most notably Grand Theft Auto, but apparently that's not enough for the storied developer. They want into the music industry, and now they have a record label to help them get there. Rockstar and iconic Ibiza dance and club culture promoter CircoLoco have announced that they are partnering to form CircoLoco Records. The company's first EP will release on June 4.
After the first EP releases, another will launch every week until June 9th, at which point Monday Dreamin', a compilation album, will release. The album is available for pre-order on iTunes and bandcamp now. A preview of the album is also available via Spotify. A vinyl version of the album will also release.
"Both CircoLoco and Rockstar have a real passion for music, so it felt very natural to come together and for Rockstar to take this step with us," CircoLoco's Nick Benedetti said. "This first release will represent 22 years history of CircoLoco as a longstanding brand in electronic music. But for the future, we want to create new collaborations and crossovers and scout for talent to give a platform and extend reach for new artists."
The album feature artists such as Luciano, Seth Troxler, Lost Souls of Saturn, and Tokimonsta, as well as several others, almost all of whom have worked with CircoLoco before. While both companies have long worked withe the music industry, this is the first time either has been a part of it.
You can watch a trailer introducing the record label below:
Fans, Industry Professionals, and Influencers Can Register for E3 Next Week
Media registration for E3 2021 is now live, but don't worry, if you're not a member of the media, you can still get in. Registration for influencers and industry professionals begins on May 31st. The Entertainment Software Association has confirmed that fans will be able to register for E3 starting June 3rd.
E3 will also be live broadcast on Twitch, YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook, and those who don't want to sign up can simply watch on their platform of choice. However, those who sign up for the free E3 portal and app witll get exclusive features, including virtual booths and leaderboards.
The ESA has said that the portal and app will serve as a hub for both fans a media throughout the experience, allowing them to access interactive experiences and "gamified show elements." The portal will open for a week on June 7th and offer early access to exhibitors. Public access begins on June 12th, the first day of E3. Several publishers have already confirmed that they will be at E3, including Microsoft, Nintendo, Warner Bros., Take-Two Interactive, Capcom, Koch Media, and Ubisoft.
The New Virtua Fighter Will Be Part of June's PS Plus Lineup – Rumor
This rumor comes to us via Areajugones (translated by VGChronicle) – the Spanish site which has accurately reported PS Plus leaks in the past – and claims the new Virtua Fighter, which has been referred to as both Virtua Fighter eSports and Virtua Fighter: Ultimate Showdown, will be released for free for PlayStation Plus subscribers in June. According to the leak, the other two PS Plus games will be Star War: Squadrons and PS5 spy adventure Operation Tango. If the leak is accurate, it would be a big way to bring the venerable fighting game franchise back from nearly 10 years of dormancy.
Banner art for the game was first released on PSN last month, where the game was listed as Virtua Fighter 5: Ultimate Showdown. Sega had previously revealed a teaser trailer for a "Virtua Fighter X eSports" project during their Tokyo Games Show livestream in September, but didn't actually announce what the project was. Sega recently officially announced the Virtua Fighter x eSports Project Official Announcement livestream on May 27th at 8:00 PM JST (4 AM PST). The livestream will take place on Sega's new Virtua Fighter YouTube channel, which currently shows a teaser for the livestream. Sega also launched a teaser website counting down to the livesteam.
The last game in the series was Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown, which released on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in 2012. It's reasonable to assume that Ultimate Showdown might be an updated version of that game. The brainchild of legendary OutRun and Shenmue designer Yu Suzuki, who recently suggested he might return to the series, Virtua Fighter was the first 3D fighting game. The series is renowned for its incredible technical depth and excellent design. Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown is widely considered one of the greatest fighting games ever made.
Sony Releases New Image from Uncharted Film, Admits Movies Are a "Risky Venture"
The New York Times was the first to post the image. According to the Times, Sony is spending $120 million dollars to make the film, which is naturally based on game franchise of the same name. That said, the Uncharted film does not follow the plot of the games. It's a prequel, following a young Nathan Drake (Tom Holland) as he learns from mentor Victor Sullivan (Mark Wahlberg).
Uncharted is the first feature film from PlayStation Productions. The studio was formed by Sony Interactive Entertainment to adapt its game properties for film and television and will partner with Sony Pictures. The film is being directed by Ruben Fleischer, who previously directed Venom and Zombieland.
PlayStation Productions is headed up by Asad Qizilbash. Qizilbash also serves as head of product for PlayStation Worldwide Studios. "We have three objectives," Qizilbash said. "Grow audience size for games. Bring product to Sony Pictures. Showcase collaboration." He did acknowledge that there is some risk in adapting the property, noting that if the movie does poorly, it could damage the game series. "It's risky," Qizilbash said. "But I think we can do it."
More than 10 TV shows and movies are in development at PlayStation Productions, including aLast of Us adaptation at HBO, and an adaptation of Twisted Metal. The Uncharted film is currently set to release on February 18th, 2022.
Star Ocean Developer tri-Ace Looks to Be Hiring for a PS5 RPG
tri-Ace, the studio behind Star Ocean, Valkyrie Profile, and Resonance of Fate, appears to be hiring for a new RPG for PlayStation 5. Specifically, tri-Ace seems to be hiring 3D VFX artists. The news comes from a Twitter posted translated by Gematsu.
"Why not work with us to create future action RPGs with the high-quality and exhilarating presentation of next-gen consoles?" the listing asks. "We don't wait for commercial engines to support new platforms like PS5, we develop [the engine] ourselves," it continues.
tri-Ace hasn't made an original AAA game in some time, opting largely to work on remasters and remakes of previous Star Ocean titles and a Resonance of Fate remaster in the last few years. The studio's most recent original title was Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness, which released to mix reception in 2016. Hopefully, whatever tri-Ace is hiring for, whether it's Star Ocean, a sequel to one of their other IPs, or something else entirely, will be good.
tri-Ace is hiring 3D VFX artists. "Why not work with us to create future action RPGs with the high-quality and exhilarating presentation of next-gen consoles?"
Also: "We don't wait for commercial engines to support new platforms like PS5, we develop [the engine] ourselves." https://t.co/eiCyyTRfqV
— Gematsu (@gematsucom) May 24, 2021
Rumoured Team Ninja Final Fantasy Game is Called "Final Fantasy Origin"; Set in the World of FF1
Out of nowhere, we've heard multiple reports from multiple credible sources over the last few days that Square Enix is going to announce a new PS5-exclusive Final Fantasy action RPG spinoff. Though allegedly not exactly as "high-end" as mainline numbered entries, this game definitely seems to have an interesting concept- it's inspired by the likes of Dark Souls and is being made by Koei Tecmo's internal studio, Team Ninja, who made Nioh.
Now, a report published on Fanbyte by Imran Khan corroborates all of those details, while also potentially revealing several new details on top of that. Most notable, of course, is the game's name- allegedly, it's going to be called Final Fantasy Origin. The game is apparently set in the world of the very first Final Fantasy game, and is being developed largely by the same Team Ninja team that worked on Final Fantasy fighting spinoff Dissidia NT- though Khan notes in his report that as a studio employing over 200 people, there's some flexibility there about who will and won't be working on it.
Meanwhile, Khan also adds that there will be a demo released for the game in the Summer (which has been mentioned in other leaks as well) to collect feedback from players, similar to what Team Ninja did for Nioh 2 as well. The demo will be called "Stranger in Paradise". The plan, apparently, is to announce Final Fantasy Origin at E3, so as always, things can always change, so don't be surprised if the game's reveal ends up getting shifted to some Sony-specific event down the road.
Interestingly enough, Khan has also mentioned on Twitter that though the game is Souls and Nioh-inspired, it'ss going to be "easier to get into". Considering the worldwide appeal of something like Final Fantasy, it makes sense that Square Enix will want something that's more accessible than Soulslike games usually are.
This is all unverified information right now, of course, but given how many leaks we've had corroborating the same information over the last few days, it seems like it's only a matter of time before we hear something official about this. Stay tuned for more updates.
except something easier to get into than Nioh, but that's the comparison point I keep hearing
— Imran Khan (@imranzomg) May 24, 2021
Wasteland 3: The Battle of Steeltown Trailer Provides Overview of New Content
A new expansion is on the horizon for inXile Entertainment's Wasteland 3 with The Battle of Steeltown. It concerns Steeltown in southwest Colorado which supplies the Patriarch with all kinds of machinery, from trucks and weapons to robots. But once trouble starts brewing, it's up to the Rangers to get things back on track.
A new trailer highlights some of the content that players will delve into. Along with new quests, there are robotic foes to deal with. New mechanics like elemental shields, non-lethal weapons, status effect stacking and more also provide more options for players. This is in addition to the new weapons and armor.
The best part is that players can tackle The Battle of Steeltown at their discretion since the quests will scale to one's level for an appropriate challenge. Of course, the gear will also be scaled so keep that in mind. Wasteland 3's The Battle of Steeltown is out on June 3rd for Xbox One, PS4 and PC with patch 1.4, which adds crafting and new weapons, arriving shortly before it.
Final Fantasy 14: Endwalker Has More Story and Cutscenes Than Shadowbringers
Square Enix's Final Fantasy 14: Endwalker received tons of new details at the recent Digital Fan Festival, from a release date to reveals of male Viera, new areas and the new Reaper job. The development team, led by producer/director Naoki Yoshida, has its work cut out for it especially given the positive reception to Shadowbringers. Speaking to PC Gamer, Yoshida offered a bit more information on what players could expect in terms of story.
When asked to compare the amount of story and cutscenes in Endwalker to Shadowbringers, Yoshida said, "In a simple comparison between the two. I would say the amount has increased by 1.3 times more." He also revealed that there were several times where he thought "it would be too big."
"It was too much, and it would become critical on our schedule. So I considered if we needed to shave off some of the plot that's being unraveled in there, but considering how we'd have to make more adjustments to shave off any parts of the story – that would mean even more work – I made the decision to push forward with what we have."
Though the amount of content is similar from the addition of new dungeons, two new jobs and a new race, the overall quality of the content should be improved. "Looking at the battle content and overall elements that are going into the expansion pack, the number of instance dungeons will not change – and we'll never decrease the number either. So the number of dungeons are the same as Shadowbringers, but the amount of work we put into it has increased for sure. From the background environment, mechanics, and some of the battle presentations, we've put more into the individual elements that go into this content. I feel like it's going to be, overall, a much more robust experience than previous installments."
As for the story, Yoshida says that the team has put "a lot more into the story too. We want people to get that experience and they're playing through the game, and there's moments that I hope will hit very emotionally as well. We've taken on a lot of new challenges in the system, the battles have new mechanics incorporated into them as an element of surprise, so I'm hoping players will try it out and see it with their own eyes. It's really difficult for us to not hold back, so every time the development team is putting in their all, we want to hit you with the latest and greatest. We're just really passionate about what we're delivering."
Final Fantasy 14: Endwalker is currently slated to release on November 23rd for PS4, PS5 and PC. It will serve as the conclusion to the decade-long story that's been unfolding since A Realm Reborn. Players will venture to areas like Labyrinthos, Mare Lamentorum on the moon and Old Sharlayan in their quest to save the world. Stay tuned for more details in the coming months.
Biomutant Review – Attack of the Mutants
At first glance, Biomutant looks like a game that's not quite like anything else out there. You play as a mutated nondescript mammal in a vibrantly colorful world filled with other hostile mutated creatures. But playing Biomutant feels like quite the opposite. It's not so much something totally unique as it is cobbled together from ideas taken from dozens of other games without doing anything particularly special or remarkably well. There are countless systems at play that spice up gameplay and keep it somewhat fresh, but if you take out the façade of the radioactive mutant world, it all too often feels like there are too many things going on that nothing is able to flourish. Biomutant's many different ways to play give it an undoubtedly varied gameplay structure, but with no standout qualities, it begs the question of what its strengths are and, moreover, why you should play it over any of the games it takes influence from but ultimately doesn't surpass.
Biomutant has a quick and effective hook from the outset. The world as we know it has been destroyed and taken over by leagues of mutant creatures. In the center of the world is the Tree, and at the end of each of its four major roots is a Worldeater, each of which you need to kill to save the world from complete extinction. These four Worldeaters are the overarching enemies that you have to defeat, but naturally it's not that easy. Early on you're also tasked with choosing an alliance to a tribe, which predates an almost literally black and white morality system. Both tribes want to reunite everyone under one roof, though one is more overtly violent than the other. Despite technically having a choice, though, the game strongly pressures you into picking the peaceful tribe, which is really only peaceful in the way that they keep saying they wish they didn't have to kill to unite the tribes and then killing anyway. The morality system is split into light and dark, representing good and evil, but whichever way you pick doesn't change much aside from how people react when you make decisions.
"Biomutant's many different ways to play give it an undoubtedly varied gameplay structure, but with no standout qualities, it begs the question of what its strengths are and, moreover, why you should play it over any of the games it takes influence from but ultimately doesn't surpass."
These are the foremost of a big chunk of the game's systems that seem like they're there solely because the game feels like they should be, rather than because they have any real impact on gameplay or the overall experience. The game thinks there needs to be a morality system or an aspect of player choice and branching narrative but then doesn't do much with it. There are other tribes you encounter around the world, but at one point if you have enough light, the game literally gives you an option to forgo any requirement of defeating the remaining tribes, which is on paper a reward for the nonviolent ways but is really just shortening the amount of gameplay and making the effort put in feel almost pointless.
In a lot of ways, the game feels like its own systems are competing with each other, which shows most clearly in its conflicting tone. The story tries to cover deeper, more serious subjects, ranging from nonviolence to the inherent goodness in life, including multiple sequences where you meet the main character's mother in flashbacks, but the rest of its presentation gives off a jarringly opposite lighthearted and carefree attitude. This is a game where a character will preach about how it's immoral to kill anyone unless all other options are exhausted because everyone is inherently family on this planet and then immediately send you to talk to someone named Whiz Tinkertonker. Either of these tones would have been manageable alone, but together they feel more like two separate games crunched into one. It's emphasized in the dialogue, which is spoken in a made-up language and translated almost inexplicably by a cricket voiced by David Shaw Parker. Again, this feels like it was originally a good idea, but it doesn't add much to the experience besides a middle man.
All in all, I never felt like the story did anything with its intriguing setup. The moral choice aspect seemed like it was going somewhere but ultimately doesn't wrap up in any critical way, nor does it have any real impact on gameplay. There seems to be a lot of good ideas on paper, but nothing ever comes of it, and I felt by the end like I didn't know why any of this was happening or what purpose any of the major selling points provided.
"I never felt like the story did anything with its intriguing setup. The moral choice aspect seemed like it was going somewhere but ultimately doesn't wrap up in any critical way, nor does it have any real impact on gameplay. There seems to be a lot of good ideas on paper, but nothing ever comes of it, and I felt by the end like I didn't know why any of this was happening or what purpose any of the major selling points provided."
A similar problem arises in Biomutant's gameplay, which has its moments but ultimately struggles from having too many systems for any single thing to shine. At its core, it balances close-ranged and long-ranged combat and allows you to play it either as a shooter or as a beat-em-up or somewhere in between. There are a limited number of weapons to find around the world, and while you can switch between them at will, odds are you'll pick one gun and one melee weapon and stick with them for the duration. There are dozens of combos to unlock that allow you to pull off slick moves and deal stronger damage, and this is one area where having so many different approaches serves the experience well. While some enemies can feel a little spongey, I always felt like I was prepared to fight whatever came my way however I wanted to, and despite my tendency to button mash, I got used to utilizing parries and combos.
The boss fights, especially the four Worldeaters, are easily the highlights of gameplay, as they bring a massive scale to the same sorts of gameplay. It feels like the game was trying to go for a Dark Souls-esque boss structure, as each has multiple stages with new moves every time, but I never took more than a couple tries to emerge victorious. What I really liked about these bosses is how they feel like the culmination of your stage of gameplay. There are so many systems at play, but each boss requires one or two different ones to kill it. One has to be fought on horseback, for example, while another is fought underwater. They're almost refreshing despite feeling familiar within gameplay, and I only wish there were more of them.
Having so many systems at play is a double-edged sword, though, and the positives mostly end at the boss fights. Within moment-to-moment gameplay, and as you progress throughout the story, almost nothing has any time to breathe or evolve because new elements are introduced so commonly. An early sequence has you piloting a mech to traverse an oxygen-free zone, but despite the game's efforts to inform you that the mech can be spawned at will, I can count on one hand the number of times I was allowed to spawn it. It wasn't until the latter third of the story that a horse is introduced and allows you to run faster around the open world. Those oxygen-free zones are one of a few biohazard zones, too, but the rest of them, like the radioactive or freezing cold zones, are mostly completely avoidable except for a handful of side quests. These are just a few of the mechanics that feel like they're there specifically because the game thinks they should be, alongside an entirely skippable crafting mechanic and insultingly easy puzzles. Even the open world as a whole, though there are diverse and colorful environments that are fun to explore and mostly interesting to look at, feels like it exists not because an open world adds to the experience but because an open world is the obligation.
"Within moment-to-moment gameplay, and as you progress throughout the story, almost nothing has any time to breathe or evolve because new elements are introduced so commonly."
What the gameplay truly seems to suffer from is a lack of anything truly special. For almost every single mechanic, you can ask yourself which game the mechanic was inspired by and, in most cases, which game does that specific mechanic better. While I appreciate that it tries so many things, most mechanics don't build on each other, but instead are constantly tripping over each other for screen time.
While I don't dislike many of the things Biomutant tries to do, it takes so much inspiration from so many other games that it forgets to do anything unique. So many of its elements, from its morality system to its open world structure, feel ripped straight from other, usually better games. Combine this with a severe tonal conflict and you have a strongly mixed experience. The hook is strong, and the gameplay can be great, especially in those monumental boss fights, but when it comes down to it, I look at Biomutant and I see way too many watered-down components that leave it drowning in its own ambition.
The Xbox One version of this game was reviewed on Xbox Series X via backward compatibility.