Lara Croft Go: Shard of the life DLC

Lara Croft Go: Shard of the life DLC 

LARA CROFT GO GETS A WHOLE NEW ADVENTURE, “THE SHARD OF LIFE” IN FREE EXPANSION RELEASING TODAY

Twitch Plays Lara Croft GO Event and 40 Percent Discount to Celebrate New Content Update

SYDNEY, 26^TH November 2015 – Square Enix Montréal today announced that Lara Croft GO™, the 2015 Best Mobile/Handheld Game of the Year nominee from The Game Awards and follow-up to the award-winning Hitman GO®, will receive a free expansion titled “The Shard of Life” on Nov. 26. The new content tasks Lara Croft® with solving the mystery of the Shard of Life, and will be available on all supported iOS and Android devices. In celebration of the release, Square Enix Montréal recently launched a week-long Twitch® Plays event, in which fans are invited to join in and collectively work to complete each original stage of Lara Croft GO in order to unveil the new content!

In the new expansion, Lara Croft charts a path into the depths of the Cave of Fire in search of the fabled Shard of Life. With 26 new puzzles to solve, numerous new cursed monsters to battle, two new costumes to earn, artifacts and gemstones to collect, the free new content will provide hours of additional gameplay for this unique turn-based experience.

To mark the occasion, Square Enix Montreal is hosting a limited-time flash sale of 40 percent off, and hosting a Twitch Plays LCGO event that will end with the discovery of the new content. The entire Twitch community is invited to come together surrounding Thanksgiving to aid in solving the harder-than-ever puzzles. Those wishing to participate can do so by logging into Square Enix Montréal’s official Twitch page located at: http://www.twitch.tv/squareenixmtl.

Lara Croft GO is now available as a premium download on the App Store, Google Play. and Windows Marketplace.

About Lara Croft GO

The turn-based puzzle adventure casts players as the iconic Lara Croft as she explores the ancient ruins of a long forgotten civilization. Over the span of six chapters, players must help Lara fight menacing enemies, overcome dangerous obstacles and traps, and ultimately, uncover the myth of the Queen of Venom. Along the way, players can collect ancient relics hidden throughout the game world to earn extra Lara Croft features and costumes for the most nostalgic fans. 

Fallout 4: PS4 Review

Fallout 4: PS4 Review

Platform: PS4
Released by Bethesda

They say size isn't everything.

Well, in Fallout 4, that simply ain't true.

Because this open world game is quite possibly one of the largest worlds you've ever seen. Starting with a world under the threat of nuclear annihilation, Fallout4 takes place in Boston and allows you to play either a man or a woman (it's your choice) ahead of the bombs dropping.

With fear in the air, you and your clan are guided to the bomb shelter and given the chance to survive. However, that's not all that is on offer (to reveal more is to spoil) and soon you wake up a couple of hundred years later with a rather personal quest to fulfill. That's if you don't decide to simply wander the Wastelands of Boston trying to survive.

Fallout 4 is incredibly large and Bethesda has done all it can to ensure that no corner has gone left un-turned or disturbed.

Whether you want to follow the epic storyline or deviate from it is entirely upto you and to be honest, a bit of both is recommended. Hours into the game, and there's no end in sight, which is an incredible thing really when you think about it.

From bugs that are radioactive and killer to various survivors willing to pick you off, Fallout 4 has its own world that has its own life. Exploration and scavenging are the name of the game, with buildings yielding plenty of loot and bits and bobs to help you melt down and reconfigure for weapons. From ashtrays to lights, there's enough to keep you looted up and to give you enough to trade or use.

It's the personalisation in this game that works too - from setting up your character to interacting with Dogmeat, your faithful Alsatian pal, the game has a way of hooking into your world and hooking you back into it as well. The engagement is impressive and the depth is deeply immersive and that alone will keep you working for hours.

There are plenty of side quests to get through as well - and before leaving the vault, time had been blown away by my character interacting with a computer terminal that fired up a Fallout variant of Donkey Kong. It's these moments alone that Fallout 4 excels in - everything within the world has been created to keep you in.

Sure, there are a few bugs here and there; occasionally, raiders have been stuck in buildings making it easy for me to pick off but these moments are few and far between, and really would be one of the side effects of such a massive open-world gaming experience.

And it is an experience; from crafting new weapons, playing with your wrist's Pip Boy to interacting with Dogmeat and Mr Codsworth your robot butler, this is a game that gives more out from the more you put in. Granted, that may come at the expense of exploring NZ this summer, but Fallout 4 is a storytelling and experience masterpiece, well worth diving into.

Who needs real life friends anyway?

(Note - a further Fallout 4 review add on will be coming soon)

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5 To 7: Film Review

5 To 7: Film Review   

Cast: Anton Yelchin, Berenice Marlohe, Olivia Thirlby
Director: Victor Levin

There's plenty of wish-fulfillment in 5 To 7 for you to lose yourself in.

Anton Yelchin plays aspiring novelist Brian, a New York inhabitant whose writing career is stalled. All around him is inspiration - mainly as director Victor Levin shows us from written plaques scattered around the city.

But Brian finds his muse one day when he sees beautiful French lady Arielle (a sultry Marlohe) smoking outside and decides on a whim, to talk to her. The pair find a common ground and begin a relationship that's predicated on one thing - Brian can only see Arielle between the hours of 5 and 7pm...

Subverting some of the norms of the rom com genre and injecting them more with elements of drama and Woody Allen-esque two hander scenes, 5 To 7 is all about the glamour than the grit.

Yelchin's youthful outlook and his desperation to dive completely in stands in opposite to Marlohe's more European ways; and Levin's direction and the story certainly subvert your ideas of where the drama of this film could come from.

Traditionally a film like this would make great fist of the fact Arielle's married and build a drama around discovery but 5 To 7 is not your typical film. It's swathed in the contrasts between European and American views to love and relationships, but smart enough to use them as a prop rather than a crutch.

It's certainly exquisitely shot; the camera adores Marlohe and the more romantic elements of New York, with shots of people around the city and silhouetted sexy shadows as the pair consummate their desires to a brassy jazzy French beat.

Equally, Brian's parents (played to perfection by Glenn Close and Frank Langella) add a touch of humour and truth as the proceedings start to feel a little drawn out. Certainly, the dinner with all of them captures the frisson of tension and the keenness of learning as new relationships blossom and all parties meet.

But there's an occasional aloofness to both Brian and Arielle as well as the whole situation of the husband and the weirdness of the children simply accepting Brian as a boyfriend of their mother that some may find a little unusual. It's certainly a fact that being open-minded yields more pleasures from 5 To 7 but given there's little conflict between the duo, parts of the drama feels manufactured and as a result, a little more inconsequential.

5 to 7's lead duo ensure the film stays on the right side of the audience and while the film's sumptuously shot and precisely acted, its straying from traditional narrative alleyways help it along as well as hinder it.

Articulate and meticulously assembled, 5 To 7 is an indie that's full of love and its sentiments but in its final romantic / culture clash it curiously fails to hit the heart-strings in the way that you'd perhaps expect.

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Life is Strange: PS4 Review

Life is Strange: PS4 Review

Platform: PS4
Released by Dontnod Entertainment

Dontnod Entertainment is responsible for one of the most over-looked games of the past few years - Remember Me.

A clever mesh of thriller and time-twisting, Remember Me was a stylish game that never garnered the wider success it deserved. But it's served the execution of Life Is Strange in ways that perhaps couldn't have been seen.

With the news the Life Is Strange five episodic series is getting a physical release, it seems a good time to go back over the release.

Set in the world of Arcadia Bay, it's the story of photography student Maxine Caulfield who discovers that she has the ability to wind back time and thwart moments of the Butterfly effect. But as ever, with those kind of choices, there are still natural consequences to the actions.

The game opens with an apocalyptic vision of a lighthouse being destroyed by a tornado and follows it up with the murder of a friend in a bathroom. Rewinding time obviously prevents the death, but Maxine then goes all Veronica Mars and tries to solve the murders while protecting her friend and inextricably heading towards her own destiny.

Using the interactive world we've come to expect from the likes of the Telltale Games series, Life Is Strange follows a similar path, but weaves in deeper darker threads that are a lot stronger than you'd perhaps expect. With decisions having deeper emotional consequences further down the line, it takes a while for the ramifications of the Butterfly effect to really play out. But when they do, they really hit.

Maxine is a realistic protagonist, from her vulnerability to her awkwardness, the universal feeling she evokes is one many will have experienced at school or in college.  While you're confined to the areas around Arcadia Bay, the fact you revisit them time and time again makes you feel more connected to the narrative and the world within.

Ultimately, there are moments within Life Is Strange that stand out and others that slightly fall short, it's good to see another developer take some chances within the genre. It's worth taking the risk, because much like Remember Me, one suspects that Life Is Strange will come to be regarded as a title that shaped a different way of episodic gaming.

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Tales from the Borderlands: PS4 Review

Tales from the Borderlands: PS4 Review

Platform: PS4
Released by Telltale Games

The Tales from the Borderlands series is being touted as a contender for Game of the year by many.

It's an interesting idea that 2K's world could have been made into an episodic story and dished out over 5 parts - something that you suspect Handsome Jack would have scoffed at.

But if anyone could make it work, it was always going to be Telltale Games, whose Walking Dead, Wolf Among Us and Game of Thrones series showed there's plenty in these worlds to explore.

Pulling together a ragtaggle bunch of misfits and setting them after Borderlands 2, Tales from the Borderlands retains the quirk of the original game, while bringing some more depth to the protagonists. Set between two leads, Rhys and conwoman Fiona, the story's shared and is a similar tale of a deal gone wrong and a quest to get back what's thought to be rightfully theirs.

Embellishments, exaggerations and explosive revelations form the majority of this series - and it's a blast to play through all of those potential scenarios. IT's also helped by supporting characters who add edges to the story and nuances to the characters, while maintaining the world that 2K has constructed.

Comedic edges blur the story and are welcome, but the choices still figure highly in this series; while the cartoony execution of the world within is perfectly in keeping with the tone of the game.

As ever, a bit of familiarity with the Borderlands world will be welcomed and perhaps in this title, that's what feels the most lost to newcomers, but it's made up for by story and by character.

Ultimately, Tales from the Borderlands is another fine series from Telltale Games. It balances light with dark and with liberal dashings of comedy, it ensures that a new genre has been created. And bloody successfully too.

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Over 30 million now own PS4

Over 30 million now own PS4

Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. (SCE) today announced that the PlayStation®4 (PS4™) computer entertainment system has cumulatively sold through  ore than 30.2 million units*1 worldwide as of November 22.  PS4 continues to demonstrate the fastest and strongest growth in PlayStation® hardware history.

PS4 is a uniform system on which gamers everywhere can enjoy the same high-quality digital entertainment experiences.  The rapid expansion of the PS4 platform further reinforces the foundation of delivering compelling entertainment experiences.  Customers can choose from multiple offerings available on this most favored platform that ranges from games on discs or through digital download to a variety of services available on PlayStation™Network, including PlayStation®Plus membership service, apps for streaming video, music and TV content.  The 30.2 million PS4 owners around the world are spending more time playing games and enjoying entertainment content as the company further enriches content and services.
 
“We are sincerely grateful that gamers across the globe have continued to choose PS4 as the best place to play since launch two years ago,” said Andrew House, President and Global CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. “We are committed to bringing engaging games and entertainment services to users worldwide. Thanks to the support of our partners, PS4 continues to be the premier platform for game and interactive entertainment innovation.”

The PS4 system’s games portfolio will continue to broaden this holiday season and beyond with highly anticipated titles such as DRAGON QUEST BUILDERS (SQUARE ENIX CO., LTD.), Ryu Ga Gotoku KIWAMI (SEGA Games Co., Ltd.), Bloodborne The Old Hunters Edition, Gravity Rush Remastered, and Uncharted 4: A Thief's End (SCE Worldwide Studios).  The independent development community will also continue to deliver innovative new titles for PS4 including GALAK-Z (17-BIT) and Super Time Force Ultra (Capybara Games).*2

SCE will continue to expand the world of PS4 to deliver entertainment experiences that are only possible on PlayStation. The PS4 system is currently available in 124 countries and regions*3 worldwide.

New Running Back Adversary Mode in GTA Online Today

New Running Back Adversary Mode in GTA Online Today

Hi all,

Today, we've got a brand-new addition to the permanent roster of GTA Online Adversary Modes for PS4, Xbox One and PC. 

In the spirit and tradition of American Football this Thanksgiving week, we present a new mode entitled “Running Back”.

Two teams (a total of 4-8 players) square off from opposing sides of a roadway. The elusive Runner, behind the wheel of a Benefactor Panto, must go the distance and get across the end zone line at the far end of the highway with the help of their offensive teammates in BF Biftas. Meanwhile, their defensive-minded opponents (also in Biftas) must ruthlessly block, crash and pummel their way to try to stop them. 

This new mode is available at three different locations: Raton Canyon Bridge, La Mesa Bridge and Zancudo Tunnel.