Star Wars Battlefront 2 adds co-op and PvE in latest update

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Star Wars Battlefront 2 adds co-op and PvE in latest update

 

2 years after release, Star Wars Battlefront 2 is receiving its largest update which will include a new map, new modes, new skins, and the Clone Commando. On September 25th, the Cooperation Update will bring a litany of new features to EA’s Star Wars based FPS. DICE’s main focus with this update will be toward PVE experiences bringing friends together to fight in the Clone Wars era.

First and foremost, the new modes being added to this game are absolutely going to make a huge impact. Instant Action mode makes its triumphant return; a mode where the player is dropped into an offline large scale combat against AI opponents to take control points on the map. The new Co-op mode allows you to form a squad of 3 other players to fight an AI team for control over map objectives. Both modes will be deployed onto Clone Wars maps with heroes and troopers to match.

These PVE scenarios and modes give more gameplay options to fans of Star Wars that may not enjoy highly competitive multiplayer. These modes will allow a fan to explore the maps and see one of the more graphically impressive videogame representations of the Star Wars franchise. All of this while not having to worry about a seasoned enemy player blowing them away in a hailstorm of blaster fire.

General Kenobi!

Also coming to Star Wars Battlefront 2 is the map Felucia. More keen eyed observers will notice this planet as the site where Aayla Secura’s troops Order 66’d her in Revenge of the Sith. Felucia had also made an appearance during Anakin and Ahsoka’s adventures in the Clone Wars tv show. It’s more of a deep cut for a map, but the site offers plenty of tactical options such as enter-able huts, exploding poisonous fungi, and even a Sarlaac pit of all things.

Key art from the new map shows the vibrant, swampy terrain

The Clone Commando enters the fray in this upcoming update. The Clone Commando was, of course, a clone of the legendary bounty hunter Jango Fett. The Clones in Battlefront 2 come equipped with a repeating blaster, a wrist mounted repulser for shockwave attacks, and a battle boost that restores health as damage is dealt to enemies. Basically the Clone Commando is the perfect fighting machine and it’s up to the player to erase the legacy of Clone/Storm Trooper bad accuracy and go blast some fools.

Star Wars Battlefront 2’s new Cooperation Update is live on September 25th with promises for even more content later on this year to tie in to the release of The Rise of Skywalker. The new movie paired with these massive content updates, as well as the upcoming Jedi: Fallen Order, are proving that 2019 is an exciting time to be a Star Wars fan. More details about the Cooperation Update can be found at the Battlefront official website here.

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Song of Horror manifests this Halloween

That VideoGame Blog
Song of Horror manifests this Halloween

 

As I’m sure I’ve made abundently clear in the past, horror games are not my thing. I don’t like jump scares and I quite like not needing to have several pairs of clean underwear at the ready when I go into a new game. I can, however, see the appeal this genre has to many other people and therefore have no issues telling you lovely lot when something new and creepy is due to hit our screens. In this case we’re talking about Song of Horror, and we’ll be seeing its first two episodes this Halloween.

Song of Horror is a game that’s been five years in the making. The project came to life when the game’s creators left college and were trying to figure out what to do next. Five years is a long time and the concept first fathomed back then has evolved into something truly terrifying.

The first thing to note is the characters, each of whom has a unique set of attributes to make them stand out from each other. You won’t find any copy/paste PCs in this game. Equally if not more importantly The Presence, the game’s antagonist, has not only grown more frightening over time but also smarter. It learns and adapts to each player’s behavior, scaring and threatening them through various unique events.

Fear is something that’s been lovingly nurtured and crafted in Song of Horror. There are various ways this has been executed. One of the more simple sounding of these (though certainly not simple to execute) comes down to the camera. Camera angles have been very carefully thought out with cameras being set across the five scenarios players will face to maximize atmosphere and therefore breed terror.

This game plays with two very important factors. As I’ve mentioned, you have a smart AI which recognizes the pace and rhythm of the player’s movements. This isn’t a game of pre-loaded scares or well crafted cut-scenes. Something unpleasant could happen to you anywhere on the map at any time. With events being real-time, the fear they cause will be real-time, too.

The other thing Song of Horror plays with is permadeath. This isn’t a game of lives. You can’t just die, jump back to the nearest save point, and try not to get eaten again. Dead is dead. With this being said, if you lose your character, you lose them for good, making your actions all the more important.

I think it best to let some of this come from the horse’s mouth. “We wanted the player to feel defenceless and we wanted to play with permadeath,” says Protocol Games. Players won’t have weapons in Song of Horror and will have to defend themselves from The Presence using nothing but their wits. As for the permadeath, the idea was to “tell a story with a main character and a bunch of supporting characters that could shape that story. We love the idea of having characters instead of lives so, when a character dies you lose him or her forever.“

Interestingly, when you die you won’t go back to the start. Your next character will pick up from where their fallen comrade left off. This means that the world is being shaped not only by your actions on your current play but also those of your previous ones.

We haven’t mentioned anything really about the game itself. You’ll take the role of one of thirteen unique characters. You’ll then explore uniquely frightening locations in an attempt to find clues and solve fiendish puzzles as you investigate a series of unexplained disappearances.

This looks like really compelling stuff. If you want to find new ways of experiencing horror this might well be a brilliant way to go. Nothing here is canned and the fear will be real. The question is can you survive? You can find out on Halloween when episodes 1 and 2 hit Steam. If you’re enjoying yourselves enough to see all five planned episodes, the other three will appear in December, January, and March, respectively.

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REVIEW / Agent A: A Puzzle in Disguise (PS4)

That VideoGame Blog
REVIEW / Agent A: A Puzzle in Disguise (PS4)

 

Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to infiltrate an enemy spy’s secret hideout to catch her and put her to justice. This is the premise of Agent A: A Puzzle in Disguise, a game by Yak & Co that originally came out a few years ago as a mobile game. It won several awards including Apple’s Best of 2015 and the 2016 Australian Game Developer Awards Game of the Year. With such accomplishments, it’s a no-brainer why Yak & Co would port the game over to the major consoles as well as Steam.

 

 

Originally released as a five-episode game when it came out for mobiles, Agent A is an escape-room type of puzzle game where you play as Agent A himself tasked by his boss to track down an enemy spy named Ruby La Rouge. While doing reconnaissance, he witnesses Ruby take down his boss by causing an explosion on the cruise ship his boss is on. Bent on revenge, he follows her to her house with a postmodern architecture design. What he doesn’t realize is that this is actually Ruby’s lair filled with traps and secrets.

Essentially, in Agent A, you will be progressing through the game by going into each room, revealing things to unlock (or break) by finding the right type of item or puzzles to complete. The puzzles aren’t too terribly hard (and to be candid, for a three-year-old game, there are comprehensive walkthroughs online if you’re struggling). Some do involve paying attention to details, but the game prompts you to do so with Agent A’s dialogue (e.g., “This is an unusual pattern yada yada yada.”) when you interact with them.

 

 

The craziness of Agent A is navigating through the rooms. In the first chapter, you probably will encounter around 15 rooms/scenes. All of those rooms will always have something that you have to do in order to progress the story, and that usually involves obtaining something from another room. Traversing through 15 or so areas isn’t too bad; I guess it’s a staple of these type of escape-room puzzle games. I just felt like I had to backtrack a lot when I obtained something and trying to figure out where this something belongs in these rooms. Expect this is in all five chapters, by the way.

Agent A is a short game. You can complete the game in about five hours (two to three if you’re following a guide and trying for that gold trophy and platinum). Sadly, the game’s replayability value isn’t too great. Starting a new game changing some puzzles a little bit (e.g., a different code or a different pattern to remember), and that’s basically it.

 

 

In all, Agent A is a solid puzzle game. Especially if you’re into escape room types of puzzle. However, with its really low replayability value and being essentially a three-year-old game, I would definitely wait for the game to go on sale for the PS4 before going out to buy it. If you can’t wait, just buy it for your phone or tablet; that’s probably the price I would wait for it to go on sale before I would buy it for the console version.

 

 

 

This review is based on a retail copy of the game provided by the publisher.

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