Kotaku Saturday, October 26, 2024 12:15 PM  This week saw the arrival of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 and with it, the return of a classic Zombies experience. It's terrific, and took our writer right back to the nights he spent happily playing the mode with friends back in the days of Black Ops 3. Meanwhile, the arrival ofDestiny 2's latest content update, and… |
Kotaku Saturday, October 26, 2024 9:00 AM  This week, YouTuber Rosanna Pansino found moldy cheese in Lunchlys, the Lunchables competitor that counts MrBeast and Logan Paul among its creators. Also, developer Fntastic, which made waves last year when its game The Day Before, once one of the most wishlisted games on Steam, was released and found to be nothing… |
PCGamesN Saturday, October 26, 2024 1:05 PM  Diablo 4 Vessel of Hatred has been a fantastic revitalization for Blizzard's dominant RPG. Yet we're now reaching that quieter post-DLC period where the hype dies down and players look for something else to do as they wonder what the midseason patch will bring. Landing at just the perfect moment is Torchlight Infinite Season 6, the Frozen Canvas. Introducing a new playable character and a wealth of changes, the free Steam game's latest update has catapulted it to its highest player count since January 2023. MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Torchlight Infinite codes, Best free PC games, Best RPGs |
PCGamesN Saturday, October 26, 2024 12:03 PM  As good as its story is, my favorite moments of Red Dead Redemption 2 are the quiet ones. Spending time in camp, wandering the wilds of the Old West, hunting for food, taking care of my horse, or running a moonshine shack in the online mode. Cattle Country, then, is a game that holds a lot of appeal to me. It takes the tried and tested farming sim formula popularized by Stardew Valley and transports it to a world of cowboys and bandits, even sprinkling in a little Terraria-style mining for good measure. Interested? You can try it now for free, thanks to a new open beta on Steam. MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Best farming games, Best life games, Best indie games |
PCGamesN Saturday, October 26, 2024 11:51 AM  Delta Force is already doing extremely well. The tactical FPS had the biggest demo at the latest Steam Next Fest, and players are already gearing up for the impending global open beta in December. With modes reminiscent of Battlefield and Escape From Tarkov, and a remake of the Black Hawk Down campaign, it certainly looks like Delta Force will have a bit of everything. Since tests started running earlier this year, though, players have been divided on bots. While the future of the computer-controlled opponents remains uncertain, developer Team Jade says it's been having "intense discussions" on the topic internally. MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Best FPS games, Best old games, Best war games |
PCGamesN Saturday, October 26, 2024 10:52 AM  October 26, 2024: We added several new King Legacy codes to our list. Looking for new King Legacy codes? The Roblox gacha game is one of the most popular on the platform right now. The developer, Venture Lagoons, is great at handing out new codes with a new update, and they even hide the occasional secret code in the world. We've sailed the oceans for the latest codes and listed them below to make the search easier on yourself. King Legacy codes can give you anything from in-game currency and gems to a full stat refund, so you can respec your character from scratch if you wish to do so. And if these aren't enough Roblox freebies for you, take a look at our Roblox promo codes guide, or maybe discover some of the other best Roblox games right now. Blade Ball codes come to mind. Continue reading King Legacy codes October 2024 MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Best Roblox games, Roblox promo codes, Roblox music codes |
PCGamesN Saturday, October 26, 2024 10:51 AM  October 26, 2024: We've checked for the latest Monopoly Go dice links for free dice rolls. How can I get Monopoly Go free dice links? The household favorite board game has been reimagined as a free-to-play app on smartphones, allowing everyone to experience the thrills of Monopoly on practically any device. Everything that makes the board game special is here in Monopoly Go, so you'll be collecting properties and building hotels as you go around the board, and there are a variety of multiplayer minigames to get through along the way. You're going to need to get your hands on Monopoly dice rolls, but they are difficult to come by no matter how far you are into the board game. There are ways to earn additional dice rolls, including logging into the game every day to collect daily bonuses, progressing further in the game, and inviting friends to try Monopoly Go. While you can also spend real money to unlock more dice rolls, you may want to give our list of Monopoly Go dice links a try instead, especially if you're waiting for the next Monopoly Go Golden Blitz event. Take a look at all the currently active Monopoly Go free dice links for today. Continue reading Free Monopoly Go dice links October 2024 MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Best board games, Monopoly Go events, Monopoly Go dice |
PCGamesN Saturday, October 26, 2024 11:00 AM  As a new RTS game very much following in the footsteps of titans, Stormgate has a strong list of names at its back. It boasts several former Blizzard developers from the production of StarCraft, Warcraft, and Diablo, as well as designers who worked on the Command and Conquer series. While the free Steam game has a lot to praise mechanically, the main criticism from players has been around its unpolished visual state, which is currently a far cry from the flash of StarCraft 2. In order to help rectify this, developer Frost Giant Studios is bringing in another Blizzard veteran with a powerful résumé. MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Best RTS games on PC, Best strategy games on PC, Best free PC games |
PCGamesN Saturday, October 26, 2024 10:20 AM  Sometimes it's easy to forget just how popular some Steam games are. Concurrent players don't paint the whole picture, and user reviews are often a small portion of the full playerbase. Brotato is one of these games. With almost 80,000 Steam reviews sitting at 97% positive, it's a blend of Vampire Survivors' chaos and The Binding of Isaac's artstyle. Not only that, but it's also just had a huge new DLC and free co-op update. Oh, and you can grab the full thing for $6 right now. MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Best roguelike games, Free Steam games, Best co-op games |
PCGamesN Saturday, October 26, 2024 9:09 AM  Futuristic sci-fi survival game The Forever Winter might appear like an extraction looter shooter at first, but its terrifying, war-torn world makes it a much more tense and demanding experience than likes of Once Human or Escape From Tarkov. Attempting to eke out existence in the shadow of rival factions clashing with their titanic battle machines, even firing a single shot is a risk, and it's all you and your friends can do to stay alive. In a new developer blog, Fun Dog Studios covers some of the community's biggest questions as it looks to what's coming next. MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Best horror games, Best co-op games, Best survival games |
Siliconera Saturday, October 26, 2024 3:00 PM
"Cozy" games and life sims seem to pair well together, giving people a chance to go through day-to-day experiences in a relaxed way, and it feels like Impossible Home's Whimel Academy is counting on that. It tasks players with going through six years of school life at the Whimel Magic Academy. However, the current state of it, while fine, also feels like perhaps there could be some higher stakes and more bug-catching to make the experience feel more solid.
Pulling from the idea of a Harry Potter-esque fantasy, all Whimel Academy players find themselves attending the school after being invited to train to become a witch or wizard. Like titles where scheduling is key, your goal is to build up stats in order to find a path for yourself outside of university. In addition, there are fellow students you can get to know, ideally eventually building something deeper with them.
Day-to-day life is simple. You select classes and activities. These increase your stats in the Physical, Emotional, Mental, and Magical categories. That, in turn, influences your interactions with other characters and the ways you can respond to them. You can also customize your room, interact with a cat, and collect and use items like books, food, and potions to help reach your goals. As there are no minigames and this is a straightforward stat-builder like Princess Maker, you basically select your actions and then find out results.
For some, that might feel a bit tedious. The real "excitement" here I feel comes from the interactions with others. There aren't milestone activities really yet in the same way as ones in Princess Maker or Tokimeki Memorial, where you're shooting for certain events, worrying about major tests and milestones, or stressing about time. In fact, the six-year deadline almost felt too effortless for me. It's lacking the sense of drive I felt in other life sims at this point, thought that could be due to it being in early access and more elements on the way that could assist more goal-driven players.
But really, my biggest concern now comes down to what could be either a mixture of bugs or unfinished content. It tried to send me through the tutorial by repeating that prompt a few times in the first year. I had a conversation with Theo repeat three times after I was four years into it. I couldn't tell if ensuing relationship events weren't ready, or it was a bug that kept it triggering. The ending I earned was incredibly short and didn't mention any other characters or details about my "life." Not to mention in general that the script definitely needs some work. I spotted some issues with the sentence structure and awkward dialogue.
But, again, given this is a game that just launched in early access and won't be out for a year, there's hope. These could be normal consequences of growing pains.
I get what Impossible Home is attempting to accomplish with Whimel Academy. Life simulations like Princess Maker or Tokimeki Memorial can get stressful when you start thinking about stats and deadlines. The current build almost makes things feel a little too low-pressure though, especially with bugs getting in the way to hamper the experience and result in endings not being what you might expect after your time passes. Given there's still about a year from its full release, I'm curious to see if there'll be more added to make school life feel a bit more compelling.
Whimel Academy is available in Early Access for PCs via Steam.
The post Preview: Whimel Academy Is Clearly a Work in Progress appeared first on Siliconera. |
Siliconera Saturday, October 26, 2024 12:00 PM
Lycoris Recoil and its concept concerning teenage girls acting as assassins isn't exactly new in manga and anime, as we've seen the idea brought up in series like Gunslinger Girl and Tista. While perhaps not as immediately, dark, dramatic, or heartbreaking as its contemporaries, it comes across as something special due to the blend of drama, humor, and insight into people's abilities and motives. While we've already had plenty of opportunities to see as much from the anime adaptation, Yen Press picking up the manga allows us a way to appreciate even more of its nuances.
Editor's note: There will be some mild spoilers for the first volume of Lycoris Recoil manga below.
In the case of Lycoris Recoil, we're introduced to some Direct Attack Lycoris agents in the midst of an incredibly dangerous situation. A group of them are in a stand-off with a criminal organization that captured one of the members. We see a lone Lycoris called in to assist and defuse. Before that can happen, communications are cut and Takina Inoue uses her gun to kill all of the enemy agents. Erika is saved, but the group is dead, her fellow agents are mad at her, and she finds herself being assigned to work alongside another lone agent named Chisato Nishikigi at the LycoReco cafe.
The first part of what makes Lycoris Recoil work so well, immediately from the outset, is the contrasting personalities. Both Chisato and Takina, as members of the Lycoris division, are orphans trained as agents and assassins. Their age is designed to hide the fact that they're capable individuals able to handle and defuse the most drastic and dangerous situations. Takina is incredibly serious about her job, but we quickly see that she acted to protect her ally and friend even if it broke rules. Chisato is referred to as a prodigy and someone Takina should learn from, but she seems more like an ordinary, extremely congenial and bubbly young woman. Her outreach involves not only working at the cafe — their cover — but also doing work to assist in the community in addition to the government-ordered missions.
But the biggest contrast is their methods. Chisato believes that all lives matter. Even those of the threats she addresses. So once Takina, and by extension the reader, sees her in action for the first time, her rumored status becomes far more believable. Even in the initial volume, we get opportunities to see how here mind is working and there's more to her. In so doing, we even get an idea that Takina might start to be intrigued by her and her methods.
Because this is a manga adaptation of Lycoris Recoil, we can better appreciate the subtleties of these sorts of moments. When we first see Chisato properly in action in her first mission with Takina, the art captures her incredible dodging methods. We can more clearly see the things they do in the photo that drew the attention of a criminal group. It makes it easier for us to notice and catch what these agents do. In fact, I think it also helped make it clearer to see what sort of person Yoshimatsu was upon his first appearance.
It's just great to see Spider Lily's story told in another format. Retellings of stories give us chances to perhaps focus on and appreciate things we might have missed before. The manga adaptation of Lycoris Recoil seems like it could be an opportunity to better appreciate the characterizations, as well as understanding what these agents pick up on and how talented they are.
The first volume of the Lycoris Recoil manga will be available in English via Yen Press on October 29, 2024, and the second volume will debut on February 18, 2025. The anime is streaming on Crunchyroll. Yen Press will release the Lycoris Recoil: Ordinary Days light novel on January 21, 2025.
The post Lycoris Recoil Manga Captures the Series' Nuances appeared first on Siliconera. |
Siliconera Saturday, October 26, 2024 9:00 AM
Back when I read the Final Fantasy XIV Eorzea Academy manga, I was enchanted by its story and direction. I wished there'd been more of it, rather than the sole volume that exists. It was only after reading it that I discovered I'd been missing out on Final Fantasy Lost Stranger all along. Yet another series tied to the Square Enix series in a more general way and released in English by Yen Press, it is interesting in that it calls back to familiar sorts of hallmarks and elements of entries FFXIV, while also offering its own take on isekai manga stories. And, since it has been running since 2017, there are 10 volumes to catch up on.
Editor's Note: There will be some spoilers for early volumes in the Final Fantasy Lost Stranger manga series below.
Like many isekai stories, the Final Fantasy Lost Stranger manga begins with a destined encounter with truck-kun. Shogo Sasaki and his sister Yuko both work at Square Enix. Instead of painting it as some ideal job, it's far more realistic! Hazuki Minase acknowledges that even if you get what seems like a "dream" job, it might not be exactly what you expect. Plus, work is work. So Shogo hoped to work on Final Fantasy, as did Yuko, but things didn't work out as planned. However, after an instance with the aforementioned truck, both siblings wake up in what is basically a fantasy world based on all Final Fantasy games.
Right away, this isekai manga feels like someone might expect from FFXI or FFXIV. Though the series is infused with references to mascot characters, spells, and mechanics from the games, Final Fantasy Lost Stranger kicks off with Shogo and Yuko joining a guild and trying to find jobs. This… gets Yuko killed. Which means that while it is based on Final Fantasy, it isn't exact. Because there's no "Raise" spell or means of reviving his fallen sister.
This kicks off the rest of the adventure, as Shogo is determined to find Raise to restore her. As a result, we get to see how well elements of Final Fantasy translate when implemented in an isekai manga. Shogo and Yuko's first allies are a black mage, white mage, and warrior. After Yuko is killed, they take part in a raid to defeat the dragon that killed her. Raise might not be present, but Toad certainly is. The existence of that spell and status effect ends up being a part of a whole plotline. Familiar locations, like the Gold Saucer, show up as well.
This even extends to familiar characters. Or, as is common in Final Fantasy, variants or folks who happen to share their names. There's a Cid here, and he eventually ends up becoming one of Shogo's allies. The Magus Sisters appear, and we meet a Princess Sara too. So in addition to the familiar archetypes, we're seeing these other recurring staples to make us feel at home and see how they'll behave this time. Especially when compared to the ones we remember.
Sometimes, I feel like the number of isekai manga series out there can get overwhelming, but the influx of Final Fantasy elements made it really easy to absolutely devour Final Fantasy Lost Stranger once I started reading the manga. I really appreciate the story and the way it incorporates elements and themes from multiple installments. Seeing nods to familiar character concepts and gameplay elements really kept me involved. Not to mention that, given Shogo's age and situation, he felt like a very identifiable protagonist. It all comes together very well.
Volumes 1-10 of the Final Fantasy Lost Stranger manga are available now, and Yen Press will release volume 11 on December 10, 2024.
The post Final Fantasy Lost Stranger Manga Deserves More Attention appeared first on Siliconera. |
