From the developers of the puzzle platformer, Never Alone, E-Line Media in collaboration with Endless Interactive has officially announced their next project titled The Endless Mission.
The Endless Mission – Use That Imagination
Along with the official announcement, we were also teased with a riveting trailer showcasing a bit of the distinctive gameplay found in The Endless Mission:
Here are a few takeaways from the recent announcement:
The sci-fi sandbox game allows players to create an experience using the full flexibility of the Unity engine, manipulating everything down to the code in the game.
It’s from the writing staff of big games like Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor, Rise of the Tomb Raider and The Crew.
I am not a religious man, but I also don’t like to call myself an atheist either; atheism is just another belief, just another label and just another divide between people. I may not be religious, but I have no problem with religion either – religion fascinates me. The incredible stories, stories that guide people into living a better life, stories that give people hope and stories that help people through tough times; what’s so bad about that?
El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron
Behold El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron, a hack and slash platformer developed and published by UTV Ignition Games. The game was released for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in 2011. Development was led by none other than Takeyasu Sawaki, the character designer for classics such as Okami, Devil May Cry and Fatal Frame. It featured voice acting from Jason Isaacs who played Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter Movies.
So, with this class A talent working on the project, why haven’t you, most likely, heard of this game? I’ll tell you why, because you were too busy playing some Western FPS game, (probably).
You really should have played this game, and here’s why reader.
El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron
El Shaddai, roughly translated ‘God Almighty’ takes its story inspiration from several religious texts but the main bulk of the story comes from ‘The Book of Enoch’; Enoch being the character the player inhabits.
Enoch is a scribe in the heavens and is the only mortal human to ever be granted access to heaven, lived for thousands of years and is the grandfather of Noah. Enoch is instructed by Lucifel, a guardian angel who acts as the voice of God (The Metatron), to return the Fallen Angels to Heaven.
The Fallen Angels have disobeyed God’s will and have corrupted human life by progressing human evolution, due to this, the humans now worship the Angels more than God. The Fallen Angels have also created Nephilims, half-angel and half-human hybrids that devour each other (and humans).
It’s your job as Enoch, with the help of Lucifel and the Archangels (Gabriel, Michael, Raphael and Uriel) to put a stop to the Fallen Angels’ antics – preventing the Great Flood.
On the surface, this may look like your typical third-person platformer hack and slash, but it is, in fact, more unique than you would think. With only three weapon types: Gail, a long ranged weapon that allows you to dash in mid-air but is weak in terms of damage, Arch, a mid-damage melee weapon that allows you to perform combos quickly, and the Vail, a slow weapon, but powerful. It can also act as a strong shield.
These weapons can only be acquired by stealing them from enemies, and you can only have one weapon at a time – giving the game a little bit of strategy. After prolonged use of a weapon, the weapon will get corrupted and you’ll need to purify it. However, you must choose the right time to purify your weapon as it takes a few seconds to accomplish the action.
It’s the fight mechanics where the game will either turn people on or off. Spamming the buttons quickly will act as a light attack, having a split-second break within the attacks will act as a medium attack, and holding down the buttons is obviously a charge attack. It’s when you realize this that the combat’s nuances really start to shine through.
Not only this, but the game doesn’t give you a health bar (well, not until you’ve completed it once), instead your armour will break piece by piece until you are a shirtless man in jeans (yes, jeans) and that’s when you die… Or do you?
As the screen fades, if you spam all of the buttons, you will get another attempt and carry on from where you left off – but each time gets harder and harder to revive yourself. If that wasn’t enough uniqueness for you, the game also changes from 3D to 2D sections and never feels off when it does.
El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron
Without a shadow of a doubt, El Shaddai is visually the most beautiful game ever made; I can say that with no struggle at all. See, this story is set before Christ and is even set before there was a Hell, so the game has an otherworldly feeling; it looks and feels divine, nothing is man-made here. Like a Roger Dean illustration.
It achieves this through striking colours and shapes, but there’s also mobile phones, disco-dancing and a motorbike section; it’s the mix of old, contemporary and the profound, it’s like everything you’ve seen and like nothing you’ve seen all at once. The game has a charm to it too, with the characters appearing in a cel-shaded manner. The Nephilim? Even these cannibalistic abominations look cute.
The sound design is very THX, it sounds like they have been treated with a circuit board and transmitted by an aerial; natural but perverted by technology.
Then we have the music and what a soundtrack it is. Just like the visuals, it mixes old with new; you’ll have classic pieces that sound like Steve Reich and Philip Glass B-sides, only for the next level to change to what sounds like Vangelis jamming on a Moog synthesizer; obviously it’s not these artists, but you get where I’m coming from: variety, classic and modern fused together.
El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron
The game does have some faults, like the fixed camera in the third-person sections, making the 3D platforming sections rather irritating as you try to judge the platforms. Another is that the gameplay doesn’t really change throughout, with little variety (except the motorbike section), but with its reasonable short length it’s not too much of an issue.
El Shaddai takes what we know from the past – religious text, 2D platforming, a single attack button, classical music, and then puts its modern spin on everything. We get religious characters wearing jeans and using mobile phones, a rhythmic combat system and electronic music that creates an original and unique gaming experience you’ll get nowhere else.
King of Peasants? Just announced, it’s a modern, story-driven adventure game, set in the dark ages during the inquisition. The developer wants it to be fast-paced, snappy and with streamlined interaction. A sort of mobile first approach.
King of Peasants – A Watercolour World
The graphics in the game are handmade with a mix of watercolours and pencils – the visual style is defined as a “living painting”, as you can see below in the first screenshots:
King of PeasantsKing of Peasants
As for platforms, King of Peasants will be available in 2019 on Steam (PC and Mac), and mobile (Android and iOS). It’s designed for mature audiences who have ‘limited’ spare time to play games. Which is pretty much everyone I know in the current world.
Developer Tripwire Interactive has announced the release date for virtual reality horror title, Killing Floor: Incursion.
When? May 1st. So, not long. It’s going to be playable in the Sony booth at PAX East this weekend and available for pre-order later this month on the PlayStation Store.
Killing Floor: Incursion – Feel The Rage
Killing Floor: Incursion for PS VR will also come with a timed exclusive Holdout Mode map, ‘The Crucible’, which finds players defending locations against increasingly deadly hordes of enemies in a frenetic, arcade-like action experience.
In addition to that, players can expect the PS VR version to include all post-launch content updates released for HTC VIVE and Oculus Rift platforms, including the ‘Hardcore’ difficulty mode, Katana weapon, and leaderboards.
Killing Floor: Incursion charges players with taking on the role of an elite Horzine Security Forces soldier. You can team up with allies to fend off the horrific Zed hordes with a wide array of guns and blades:
You’ll be able to play it for $29.99, €29.99 or around £22 in the UK.
Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead hit the ground running with its first and still strong comic series. Since its initial release, this comic series has spawned a massively popular TV series (even now) that loosely follows the story set in the source material, as well as a series of best-selling novels.
But the video game adaption of the beloved series was something different.
The Walking Dead: The Game
Most will think that the first game is a spin-off of the TV show due to its popularity, however, that’s not the case here. The Walking Dead game is based on the comics.
What does this mean for the casual fan of the TV series? Well, not much since the show follows the comic fairly well, however, the game’s characters are based on the comic representations rather than the show, and we don’t follow the beloved protagonist Rick Grimes – like the comic and TV series do.
Instead, we follow this series of games with a brand new character to the canon named Lee. It takes place during the first few days of the zombie outbreak, which is when Rick Grimes is still in a coma from his horrific shooting. This was a fresher take on the series since most of what people have seen in the show or comics is set in the aftermath of the zombie apocalypse.
Without giving away too much of the story, if you’ve yet to play it, I’ll just say the basics. Lee was your normal run-of-the-mill college professor who happened to be arrested for a crime he may or may not have committed, and on your way to the famous prison (set in the series), all hell breaks loose. The car crashes, and you find a girl named Clementine, whose parents are missing in this worldwide catastrophe. You and Clem set out to, well, survive.
The game hinges on the most important thing: surviving and choices. I was pleasantly surprised to find timed responses as well as how these choices affected all of your group’s perception of you, and what repercussions will come with all the decisions I’ve made.
The one thing that newcomers to the series will probably not like is the gameplay. The more casual gamer will probably buy this game solely thinking that it’s a shooter much like Valve’s Left 4 Dead. That’s not the case here though. The Walking Dead game, and its series, are different; they are point and click adventure games with more dialogue (and less killing of the undead). I actually found this to be a fantastic approach, and I still play the game today.
The gameplay was smooth and kept me on the edge of my seat the entire way. One of the most interesting aspects that I discovered in the game was the use of silence which created so much tension; I was actually nervous when I first entered Clementine’s house.
This isn’t, and wasn’t, a perfect game though.
There are some hiccups with the rendering between cutscenes and gameplay for example. Not a huge problem, but it was noticeable enough. My other complaint was the voice acting. At times it was great, but at other times I found myself laughing with the way Lee, as well as others, talked in certain situations. With moods drastically changing from being OK to suddenly furious in the conversations after critical decisions were made.
Fans of the series, like me, were delighted just to see a few of their favourite characters, such as Hershel Greene, Glenn, Lilly and others make appearances. But the game was more than that. It was better than anyone thought it would be. Much better.
Telltale Games crafted a five-part series that left many, many happy fans. And you know what? I still don’t think they’ve beaten it to this day.
Indie dev Evocat Games has revealed that Nemesis Realms, the sequel to Nemesis Perspective, is stepping out from Steam Early Access into a full launch for PC and VR.
Nemesis Realms – Forget Being Isolated in VR
Nemesis Realms aims to reinvent the local multiplayer experience by pitting a team of heroes, playing on PC, against a boss, controlled by a player in VR on Oculus Rift, HTC Vive or Windows Mixed Reality. Sounds pretty cool, right?
“It brings out the multiplayer party side of the seemingly isolated VR experience,” said Leevi Pääkkönen, CEO of Evocat Games.
“Coming out of Early Access the game is more optimized and polished, and gives players an additional action-packed stage. Based on community feedback during Early Access, we’ve also added in a pool of custom variables and power-ups so players can scale the scope and length of their battles the way they want.”
Nemesis Realms takes players through different environments, with different gameplay mechanics, where they can use custom variables and power-ups to strategically swing the battle in their favour:
The first environment, for example, transports players to a fantasy mountaintop with a lake and waterfalls. Using straightforward VR mechanics, the boss must punch and smack the heroes swarming around from every angle, while they hack and slash back at it.
You can pick up Nemesis Realms on Steam right now for £7.19.
From renowned game designer Yasuhiro Wada (Bokujo Monogatari, or the better-known titles outside of Japan, Harvest Moon and Story of Seasons) comes his latest potential masterpiece: Little Dragons Café.
Little Dragons Café – Harvest Moon Returns?
The story opens with a twin brother and sister learning to cook and manage a small café under their mother’s tutelage.
You see, all was peaceful and routine until one morning when the twins discover that their mother has fallen into a deep sleep and won’t wake up. Suddenly, a strange old man appears to inform them that they must raise a dragon in order to save her:
Working together with three quirky café employees, the two siblings must work out how to a wrangle a dragon and manage the family business while finding a way to save their mother. The gameplay you would expect from Wada appears to be present too, with harvesting, cooking, exploring the world, and erm, flying dragons around. Ok, that last one is different.
The exciting new title hits the PS4 and Switch this summer. One to watch.
Never-ending darkness. The only safety is from a small ray of light coming from your tiny flashlight. A creaking sound comes from behind you. You turn around, but of course, there’s nothing there. Your heart skips a few beats as you hear a child laughing in the distance. They’re watching you. Then, you start to hear small steps. Slow. But then the pause between each step becomes shorter. Someone’s coming…
The last and final episode of the Little Nightmares’ DLC is out, at last, and is titled The Residence. As the world of Six and The Runaway Kid has unfolded, we have eventually gotten more horrifying insight into what might exist in the Maw. However, there is one character left that has yet to tell her story; the Geisha.
Some say that a person’s home describes a lot about their personality. We get to explore the residence of the Geisha, who surrounds herself with creepy-looking dolls and plenty of books. What exactly this says about her we never fully know, but I am sure that there are several possible theories to why she’s so interested in literature and porcelain figures. All I can do is make an educated guess and say that there must be a quite uncomfortable and scary story behind her character.
Hello?… Hi. Nice place you got here.
The episode starts out eerily silent, but it doesn’t take long before you hear a song coming from a small music box. The song fades away as we explore further into the house, and the player eventually encounters a new enemy: small, dark apparitions with small masks. What makes them even more creepy is the fact that they have the look and laugh that resembles children. The only way to attack them is to shine at them with your flashlight, so hold on to that thing, because it is going to save your life. With that said, the mechanic instantly reminded me of Alan Wake, where you have to focus your flashlight on the ghosts to weaken them.
In contrast to the previous episodes in the DLC, The Residence gives you a greater illusion of a more open-world. We are much more free to explore, as there is not necessarily a given way to go. The puzzles don’t have to be solved in a certain order, and they feel more intricate and detailed. Roughly, The Kid has to find dolls that are scattered around the Geisha’s residence and put them in their proper place.
While this might seem simple at first, the complexity of finding each doll easily swallows the time. There is also a stronger action element, which is interesting and refreshing compared to the previous episodes in this DLC. As if my stress levels weren’t high enough playing this game!
Looking at the episode from the puzzle side of things, The Residence was definitely one of the more challenging ones. It is also the shortest, where I used up approximately 2 hours at a relatively slow pace. However, in those two short hours, we discover the terrible fate of all those who have suffered the wrath of the Geisha – with a pretty huge twist at the end… well, of course, I’m not going to reveal this now… play it for yourself and find out!
The eye sees everything.
What Little Nightmares masters is the continuous suspense of not knowing what is in the next room. It gets really intense at times, and I love it: I had to remember to stop once in a while and take a breather. However, this universe’s definite greatest strength is its take on the concept of fear. As we have seen before in various shapes and forms, The Residence wants to see our reaction to darkness, masks, and creepy inanimate objects such as mannequins.
The Little Nightmares universe will always hold a special place for me. I followed the game when the working title was “Hunger,” and I remember going to a lecture where the narrative writer of the game told the audience how the game would play on people’s nightmares, and I thought, “There’s no way that I’m going to miss out on this game!” The borderline between horror, thriller, and uncanny valley is unique, and I have yet to see games that use these elements the same way that Little Nightmares do.
At the end of the episode, I got an achievement that said: “we’ll meet again.” And I cannot help but wonder; is this a suggestion that it might not be the last of Little Nightmares? Are we truly finished? There might not be anything special behind it, but it certainly peaked my curiosity. Even with all these questions, I don’t know if we will ever receive an answer.
The Runaway Kid’s story has come to an end. With beautiful scenery and masterful storytelling, this has been a memorable experience. What the Little Nightmares universe is so good at doing, is to tell my brain to be ready to hit the emergency panic button, and then cranking my anxiety up to the maximum. It starts out in uncomfortable silence before increasing to a horrifying crescendo.
Set in the Planet of the Apes universe, specifically in-between the excellent Rise of the Planet of the Apes and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes films, Crisis on the Planet of the Apes (continuing the trend of clunky titles) is a first-person adventure game from FoxNext VR Studios.
The better news is that it’s out now – released yesterday – on PlayStation VR, Oculus Rift, and HTC Vive.
Crisis on the Planet of the Apes VR
The title sees you control an ape with advanced intelligence, captured and held prisoner in a heavily guarded scientific facility as mankind desperately searches for a cure to the Simian Flu – which has wiped out most of humanity:
You must climb, jump, arm yourself, and fight your way through the chaos of an apocalyptical world to escape with your fellow apes and return home, all, of course, in virtual reality.
Brendan Handler from FoxNext VR Studio had this to say:
“There’s power in being able to feel both the physical aspects and emotional conscience of an Ape with advanced intelligence. Players will move like an ape while experiencing first-hand, the discrimination and reprehensible treatment of the Apes in this universe.”
You can grab Crisis on the Planet of the Apes VR on PlayStation VR for £11.99, Oculus Rift for £10.99, and HTC Vive for the strange price of £11.39.
As we all know: games sourced from movies, not to mention in vice versa, are generally a cause for concern. It would be nice for this one to finally break that detrimental trend then, wouldn’t it?
The first person rogue-lite adventure game – City of Brass – combines the exhilarating nature of becoming a swift thief with the action of first-hand combat involving whips and swords.
You make your way through the turbulent ruins filled with valuable riches and treasures in the next release out of Uppercut Games. Backing up the release date announcement, the developers have also released a slick new trailer for us:
Takeaways – City of Brass
A few takeaways from what we know about the whip-lashing, treasure thieving rogue-lite are:
City of Brass is a first-person adventure game giving players the unique combination of handling a bullwhip and a blade to strike down, disarm or trip-up enemies, as well as using the whip to swing to safety or grab out of reach items.
The fast-paced hack and slash gameplay will have players fighting their way through damned souls of the ancient ruined city in hopes of discovering the hidden treasure all packed into an Arabian Nights-style setting.
The rogue-lite style of gameplay allows every playthrough to play differently from the last with shifting streets and the ability to use knowledge from previous playthroughs to push further into the city.
Unique Blessings and Burdens system allows players of all skill levels to adjust various optional modifiers in the game to tailor the experience to the players liking.
Players may also use Microsoft’s streaming service, Mixer, to see themselves involved in live-streamer’s gameplay by either spawning additional enemies or helping out by giving gold or other useful items.
City of Brass has officially been announced for release on May 4th, not long, and it’s coming to the PS4, Xbox One and PC.
The ex-Bioshock developers at Uppercut Games have City of Brass in an Early Access stage for anyone eager for a jumpstart in the quick-thieving action.
Having moved back out recently, I have been re-acquainted with my games room. No longer do I have to keep my life cooped up in one bedroom, I have a full house to spread it all out over. Before you think you’ve accidentally stumbled across a lifestyle or home improvement blog, you’re definitely here at Nitchigamer so please bear with me, this is definitely gaming related.
Having my games room is great, everything I need is in there; GameCube, Xbox, PS2, PS4, Xbox One and the Switch. With the slow start to the year coming to an end, you’d think things were starting to ramp up and the newer games taking their place on the respective consoles. Well, not quite. You see, moving out reminded me of all the games I had that have been stored away and having all my retro consoles set up ready to go has made it even easier to look back for inspiration.
If I want to jump on Halo on the Xbox or Grand Theft Auto on the PS2, they’re set up ready to go. But there’s one game, in particular, that has had me engrossed since moving out and that is Fallout 4.
Gaming Safety Blankets
Ever since Fallout 3 came out, I have been hooked on this series and have loved each game that has arrived since (yes that includes New Vegas, it was a good game!). The stories, the world and the characters have always captured my imagination. What if life was actually like this, should the worst happen? Minus the mutated creatures and lasers, of course, but a lot of the game could be real should we ever be faced with this situation of survival of the fittest. This is what keeps me coming back for more and, since moving out, I haven’t played anything since.
My safety blanket – Fallout 4
Have I wanted to? Not really. Have I had the opportunity or availability to play anything else? Sure. But nothing has grabbed me or made me want to play it. Granted, I rent most of my games these days so I don’t just go out and buy my games anymore, but even when I have had other things to play, I’ve not wanted to. I’ve stuck with my scavenged guns and my Fallout 4 safety blanket has well and truly been keeping me covered during my exploits.
Much like my recent article where I discussed the merits of taking a break from gaming, I feel returning to an old favourite can do us the world of good too. But just what is it that makes doing this worthwhile? Well, I’ve explained my love for the Fallout series, but it goes beyond this. Having completed the game on more than one occasion, I now know what to expect from it. I can jump in, aimlessly wander around the Commonwealth for a few hours and discover a few new locations, then put the controller down. Inevitably, there’ll be something I’ve missed somewhere along the line so even then it can still provide me with something new so that keeps me hunting for more.
It’s an example of a game done right. It knows what it wants to do and what it wants to achieve and executes it to near perfection. Where most open-world games lose their appeal when they’re either too barren or filled with repetitive quests, Fallout keeps you on your toes and throws a variety of missions and quests at you. From raiders racing domesticated robots, to outing a doctor, who has started experimenting on his patients, you will discover plenty of secrets and tales waiting to be told. It’s this that makes me come back for more; even in the remotest of caves, you’ll find a secret, a holotape with a diary recorded on it or a note left to be read when the writer has long-since passed.
But even when a game has something new to give you after such a long time, it’s nice to be lost in a feeling of familiarity. You don’t have to learn a new control scheme, any new mechanics or features, you can just pick up your controller and off you go. Of course, I’ll play the new stuff sometime soon, but until then I’m happily continuing my trip down memory lane and who knows where it’ll take me? With a selection of older consoles, I could end up anywhere. That, to me, is the reason why my safety blanket is equally as exciting as any new game that comes our way in 2018.
Are there any games which you find yourself going back to time again? If so, let us know in the comments below…
Yes, everyone, this may come as a shock to you all, but there actually are other football franchises out there besides Madden.
I know, Madden hasn’t had a real competitor since the 2K series was still making football games (the last one released all the way back in 2008.)
Axis Football 18
Well, while Madden has been dominating the market, a new indie studio “Axis Games” have been quietly developing their own football title in “Axis Football” since 2015.
It looks like we are getting another one this year in Axis Football 18. Let’s get you guys caught up:
Axis Football 18 was officially announced through popular sports gaming YouTube personality Ryan Moody.
This announcement came with the surprising news that for the first time ever, Axis Football will be releasing on Xbox One and PS4 alongside the usual PC version.
Axis Games have been hyping up this year’s version. They’re stating that there will be massive strides in player movement and animations. Also, there has been an emphasis on making improvements in ‘Franchise’ mode, and the amount of playbooks you can choose from.
Additionally, Axis Games is known for listening to community feedback. They consistently update the game and the community on what will be implemented. They post all of these updates and announcements through their YouTube channel and official website.
Axis Football 18 will launch in the summer of this year. No price point has been announced yet, but the previous versions have retailed for $20.
So, what do you guys think of Axis Football 18? Are you guys planning on giving it a shot? Let me know in the comments below.
