ASSASSIN'S CREED SYNDICATE - LONDON HORIZON TRAILER

ASSASSIN'S CREED SYNDICATE - LONDON HORIZON TRAILER 

LONDON HORIZON TRAILER

From Whitechapel to Westminster, immerse yourself in the most diverse playground of the franchise.
Discover the Assassin's Creed Syndicate massive living open-world in the London Horizon trailer. 

To watch video click image below

Metal Gear Solid V - Hideo Kojima, Kiefer Sutherland Interviews

Metal Gear Solid V - Hideo Kojima, Kiefer Sutherland Interviews

METAL GEAR SOLID V: THE PHANTOM PAIN BREAKS COVER TO INFILTRATE HOME FORMATS

                  

Konami Digital Entertainment B.V. has released the eagerly awaited METAL GEAR SOLID V: THE PHANTOM PAIN for PlayStation®4, PlayStation®3, XboxOne™, Xbox 360 and via Steam.

METAL GEAR SOLID V: THE PHANTOM PAIN is the series’ largest and most ambitious edition to date, expanding upon themes and content seen in its predecessor: METAL GEAR SOLID V: GROUND ZEROES. Set within huge open-world environments, METAL GEAR SOLID V: THE PHANTOM PAIN is brought to vivid life with realistic weather patterns and day/night cycles. Thus, players can adapt their tactics to match the changing environment, creating an intuitive and non-linear gameplay experience. Similarly, a host of acclaimed METAL GEAR SOLID features return in hugely advanced forms, including expanded CQC (Close-Quarter Combat) skills, vastly improved enemy AI, online elements that complement the single player campaign, and an all-new version of METAL GEAR ONLINE, a competitive multiplayer mode, included within the main game and which goes live on October 6^th.

KONAMI’s groundbreaking title sets a new standard in stealth-action, with the series’ famed sneaking elements greatly expanded within the sprawling play area. A host of new characters – both allies and enemies – tell a story driven by revenge, as franchise protagonist Big Boss enters a series of battlefields following the deaths of his colleagues. Central to the game is a hideously disfigured adversary known as Skull Face, while the ongoing conflict also introduces the new, iconic characters, such as the mysterious Quiet – a mute female sniper with incredible abilities.

Tactical elements are also added to the game via METAL GEAR SOLID V: THE PHANTOM PAIN’s new Mother Base system. Players begin with a small-scale off-shore rig that serves as a base for your recruits – the Diamond Dogs. The Mother Base can be customized and expanded using liberated items and personnel. Players use an enhanced version of the innovative Fulton system pioneered in METAL GEAR SOLID: PEACE WALKER to airlift guards, vehicles, weapons, raw materials and kit, to their base, where the staff will use these resources to develop the base to the user’s specifications. The game also includes a massively multi-player online mode - the Forward Operating Base (FOB) system. FOB’s act as an extension to your Mother Base and can increase profit, resources and manpower. However, constructing FOBs does come with certain risks. Since FOBs are built in remote locations away from your Mother Base they are susceptible to attack by other rival private forces. Other players online, may target and attempt to steal resources and manpower from your FOBs, and in turn, you’ll be able to invade theirs. To minimize those threats though players can implement various security measures to respond to intrusions. 

Additionally, METAL GEAR ONLINE - the game’s dedicated competitive multiplayer mode - will go live soon after the launch of METAL GEAR SOLID V: THE PHANTOM PAIN. The online element represents the third iteration of the popular multiplayer game, newly redesigned with the familiar gameplay and aesthetic styling of its companion single-player campaign. METAL GEAR ONLINE features a “class system” that more uniquely defines the strengths and abilities of player characters on the battlefield. Key characters from the series including Venom Snake and Ocelot will also make appearances in the anticipated multiplayer feature.

METAL GEAR SOLID V: THE PHANTOM PAIN, including METAL GEAR ONLINE - which will be available for download on October 6^th, will retail with a RRP of $109.95 for the PlayStation®4 and Xbox One, and $89.95 for the PlayStation®3 and Xbox 360. 

The Fifth Wave trailer drops

The Fifth Wave trailer drops

In the new film The 5th Wave, four waves of increasingly deadly attacks have left most of Earth decimated. 

Against a backdrop of fear and distrust, Cassie (Chloë Grace Moretz) is on the run, desperately trying to save her younger brother. 

As she prepares for the inevitable and lethal 5th wave, Cassie teams up with a young man who may become her final hope - if she can only trust him.

The Fifth Wave hits cinemas January 14th.

Zombi: PS4 Review

Zombi: PS4 Review

Platform: PS4
Released by Ubisoft

The shuffling continues again with the return of the zombies in Zombi, a title that was previously on the Wii U.

Armed with but a cricket bat, and a torch, it's up to you to survive the hordes and escape to the safe house. From then on, it's nothing safe at all as you're given a heap of tasks to do and all while facing various perils from the undead masses. Get cornered on any of those tasks and it's all over, rover for you.

Except when it is over, it's a clever way of respawning. You die but you come back as someone else; it's re-incarnation game style in a way that's inventive and unusual - and certainly each time you head back, you get a different set of skills as well. (In theory, though it's just the usual kicking, stomping and smashing and bashing to get your persona home and safe).

Zombi is incredibly dark - a lot of time is spent clambering around in the murk of the world, in dark tunnels and awaiting the next attack. Graphically, the PS4 brings a sharper feel to it, which is welcome given how black most of the game actually is. It doesn't stop the jump scares or the moments when you lose your lunch as a chomper appears behind you.

Strategy is essential too - and avoiding being cornered is also a necessity if you're to survive. You stand little to no chance if you're trapped and the hordes are advancing. Much like many zombie games on show, there's little here that's original or new, but a lower price point and simple execution means that Zombi is as disposable and enjoyable as the likes of Dead Rising and many others that we've seen before.

The developers have gone for atmosphere and a large dose of pulpy sensibilities meaning that it's fairly easy to pick up and get into it, but long term, spending hours wiling away the game is not particularly a real possibility. But Zombi is to be commended for its execution and its relative ease of playability. It's just a shame that it has nothing outside of the genre to really give it a USP.

Rating:

Everybody's Gone To The Rapture: PS4 Review

Everybody's Gone To The Rapture: PS4 Review

Developer: The Chinese Room
Platform: PS4

There's something inherently sinister about abandoned villages in the UK.

Just take a moment to reflect on the sleepy English countryside, stripped of all but ambient noise, the wind whistling through the trees and not a soul in sight.

It's this creepiness that The Chinese Room's played on for Everybody's Gone To The Rapture, a first person story led piece that sees you supplanted in the middle of a sleepy village and left to your own devices to try and work out what exactly has happened.

As you start out you are near an observatory in a place called Yaughton Valley,a  typical rural idyll where the English countryside is rife and no doubt, the house prices are through the roof. But normally, this place would be bustling, a hub of community life and nosy neighbours.

Except it's not.

It's deserted and it's just you facing off against nothing, no signs of life and merely the signs that wouldn't be out of place on the Marie Celeste. From an empty bike in a bike rack to a van with gates half unpacked, there's a sense of eeriness and unease from the beginning with Everybody's Gone To The Rapture.

As you walk around the village, you get to see orange lights zipping around the streets with no warning. Walking to near these will trigger memories and give you snapshots into conversations - with no idea of timelines, you have no idea what's fully going on - but gradually, these build into core memories and a picture of what's happened in Yaughton Valley.

Gradually, you get to pull together the puzzle strands of the game and it's quite hauntingly done. The best bit of it though, like Journey, is that the unspoiled will get the most out of this game.

From near perfect attention to detail to an atmosphere that's both welcoming and unsettling, Everybody's Gone To The Rapture has a kind of gaming ethos that's like something from a 1960s horror story. Why would people abandon a village? Why is the area quarantined? Why is a lone voice broadcasting through the radio?

Occasionally though, there are some problems with the world that's been created.

You can't fully go wandering through the fields and have to stick to the route that's been laid out. From time to time, you can't enter places for no explicable reason and these are minor stumbling blocks which frustrate the experience and don't give you a feeling of a fully open world. But it has to be said, following these set down routes pays off and gives you the weirdest gaming experience you'll have all year - it's a deceptively simple premise, a beautifully haunting and extrapolated game but Everybody's Gone To The Rapture is also the living proof that smaller games have an ethos and a credibility that some developers forget these days.

For a game that has nary a human in it, there's more humanity and exploration of what it means to be human than you could ever imagine.

Rating:

Gears of War: Ultimate Edition Collection: XBox One Review

Gears of War: Ultimate Edition Collection: XBox One Review

Platform: XBox One
Released by Microsoft / The Coalition

The shooter is a fine art.

When done perfectly and when everything is firing (pun intended), it can be a beautiful thing as it all comes together in both fluidity, story and blasting the hell out of everything.

When the first installment of Gears was released back in 2006, the gaming industry was still moving at a pace. Today, with the next gen consoles, it seems that everything old is new again, particularly if the word remaster has been thrown in. But also, for many, there is a new generation taking the games on - and these remasters really are a window to some of the finest material around, which has been dusted off, given a once over for the powerful consoles and let loose.

However, it's still all about the gameplay and Gears delivers, purely and simply.

Featuring every multiplayer mode and map from the original game, plus new content such as Team Deathmatch and King of the Hill modes, five campaign chapters never released on Xbox and more, there's more than enough for the seasoned player of Gears to reacquaint themselves with the game.

With a cinematic opening telling of the Emergence Day, the game kicks in pretty quickly, thrusting you into the position of Marcus Fenix, a COG soldier and giving you a chance to fight back against the Locusts which have invaded.

It's quick-paced, requires a degree of quick reaction and nerves of steel as you play this third person shooter. But it's also incredibly sharp too, from the enhanced graphics that give the game the sheen it needs too, to the reaction time which kicks in quicker than expected. Gameplay is seamless and fluid, and it's easy to get sucked into the various campaigns as well as the online mode.

All in all, Gears of War: Ultimate Edition makes a fine curtain raiser to the fourth installment later next year - and it makes a compelling argument for a remaster when they're done properly and lovingly, rather than a swift cash in that aims to grab the money and run. Complete with a smooth multiplayer and clever reaction, if you're serious about shooters, you can't afford to be without this.

Rating:

Mega Man Legacy collection: PS4 Review

Mega Man Legacy collection: PS4 Review

Platform: PS4
Released by Capcom

There's something utterly fiendish about the wave of nostalgia riding through the gaming industry at the moment.

What with Rare Replay proffering up 30 games to dive into, it's currently en vogue to be surfing the wave - and Mega Man Legacy Collection gives you yet another chance to do exactly that.

The Blue Bomber's become synonymous with 8-bit gaming and this collection pulls together the 6 original 8-bit games to pit you into the agony of side-scrolling action once again. Bringing back iconic villain Dr Willy and his minions make things worse as Mega Man powers from one side of the screen to the other to try and fight through to the end.

Mega Man's collection is fiendishly hard - at times, there were echoes of Ghosts'n'Goblins level of difficulty as you try to fend off creatures, jump and shoot at the same time. It's incredibly hard in places, and thanks to the ethos of the 1980s gaming, there's no chance to pick up where you left off and dust yourself down when you're killed.

Even the critters you've despatched on the previous screen will be back if you inadvertently land back on a level area you've already cleared. It's a nice touch, and perhaps we've all got softer these days with gaming, but it has to be said, after a while there's a fair degree of frustration if it happens to you.

Also included in the game are a series of mode - Museum mode gives you a chance to look at concept sketches; challenge mode gives you the chance to encounter the game if you're new or just looking for something different. And the music is so incredibly retro and vaguely annoying that you'll either be singing along or slinging the mute button into action.

The thing with the Mega Man collection is that the authenticity rings through the six games - graphically the 8 bit recreation works well on the next gen console, and there's hardly any lag or glitches throughout

Unforgiving and unrelenting, Mega Man is 8 bit gaming heaven - just be aware that it's so incredibly difficult in places and you may find your blood pressure rising the moment you fire it up.

Rating: