‘Star Fox Zero’ will drive you crazy, but in a good way
Last E3, Shigeru Miyamoto, the famed Mario and Zelda creator, made it known that Nintendo was well underway with a new Star Fox game for the Wii U. So when the company kicked off its bizarro Muppets-themed E3 Nintendo Direct earlier this week with the reveal of Star Fox Zero, it wasn’t much of a surprise. The reimagined game, which adheres closely to the initial Wii U mantra that two screens are better than one, is quite simply overwhelming. To say this installment in the Star Fox series requires a steep learning curve would be to grossly understate the complexity of the control scheme. There’s just so much to absorb; so many different controls thrown at you at once.
For anyone that’s ever played any game in the franchise’s history, Star Fox Zero feels immediately familiar. The Arwing’s back and along with it is the anthropomorphic crew of galactic space animals led by Fox McCloud. Corneria, that war-torn planet from the original game, sets the stage for one of two missions Nintendo made available for play on the show floor. The other is an all-range boss battle dogfight that takes place in outer space. But before the rep on hand let me jump into battle, I was entered into a training simulation set within the cockpit of the Arwing.
Before I dive into a rundown of the gameplay, it’s important I start with the ideal “posture” Nintendo recommends for play. On the advice of a nearby rep, I loosely locked my elbows to my sides — just above my hips — and held the GamePad a short distance in front of me. I’ll admit I was initially confused as to what I was supposed to be doing and where I was supposed to be looking. The GamePad is pretty much your “turret” and moving it doesn’t translate into moving the Arwing onscreen; you control that with the left thumbstick. Acceleration and braking are handled by pressing up or down on the right thumbstick, respectively. Meanwhile, the ZR trigger fires off a stream of laser blasts and ZL can be used for a loose lock-on that merely shows you where your target is located.
As if that weren’t enough to juggle, simultaneously pressing down on the left thumbstick and up on the right one initiates a somersault that’ll place your Arwing behind an approaching enemy. Additionally, pressing down simultaneously on both thumbsticks will cause your ship to make a U-turn. Both of those actions are also mapped to the GamePad’s lettered buttons; in this case “X” and “Y.” But wait, there’s more: As you can imagine, your reticle will need (constant) recalibration, so a quick press-in of the left thumbstick will do the trick. As a result of this control scheme brain dump, I pretty much flubbed the training. It was just too much to take in while juggling between screens, tracking enemies and recalibrating my reticle. So the obvious next step for was to jump right into Corneria.
Here is where things started to slowly click into place. As this Corneria battle is set in a land-based, sandboxed area, I had more time to practice using the various control techniques and pick off enemies. With each kill, Star Fox Zero became less daunting and more enjoyable. Soon, I was out-maneuvering rogue ships and picking off enemies from a distance. But then the nearby rep threw another curveball my way: By pressing “A,” you can transform into a bird-like land vehicle with the ability to hover. I didn’t spend much time in this form, but it came in handy when taking out targets placed atop spider-like robots.
It wasn’t until the all-range space dogfight that I realized I was having a lot of fun. Sure, I’d been (politely) cursing non-stop while getting to grips with the controls before, but now I was littering the room with expletives from the intensity of the deep space combat. Free of any landlocked targets, Star Fox Zero makes the most sense. I was at liberty to accelerate and brake at will; to initiate constant U-turns, somersaults and lock-ons. And, most importantly, I felt comfortable shifting between the TV screen and GamePad to chase and successfully take out the Piggy boss.
Whether my sudden comfort with Star Fox Zero‘s controls was a result of my extended playtime (about 10 minutes), I can’t say for sure. Though, the on-hand rep seemed to think that was the case. What I can tell you with certainty is that Star Fox Zero will make you mad, and then it will make you wonder why it took so long for Nintendo to get this classic-in-the-making out on the Wii U.
[Images credit: Nintendo]
Check here for everything happening at E3 2015!
Xbox 360 game-streaming is coming to Windows 10
As if backwards compatibility on the Xbox One wasn’t enough, Microsoft’s also going to let you stream and play those older games on Windows 10 PCs. In a private demo of the recently announced Xbox One updates, the company confirmed to Engadget that users will have access to this functionality when the new features roll out during the holiday season. (If you’re a member of the Preview Program, though, you should have access to it already.) Microsoft also revealed that Xbox 360 titles relying on the original Kinect, or any other hardware accessories, won’t work with the Xbox One. A spokesperson said the Xbox team wanted to have backwards compatibility on Xbox One from launch day, but it turned out to be a difficult task because of the different system architecture. For your sake, at least it’s here now.
Check here for everything happening at E3 2015!
[Image credit: Thomas Hawk/Flickr]
Filed under: Gaming, Home Entertainment, HD, Microsoft
Easily record your game play with Samsung’s Game Recorder+
There are a bevy of different ways to record your intense gaming sessions on your PC or console, however, there really isn’t an easy way to record your gaming sessions on your phone. Sure you could set up a tripod and point the camera at your device while you’re playing, but that could screw things up while you’re in the game.
Samsung has released an app that allows owners of the Galaxy S6, S6 Edge, Note 4, Galaxy S5, Note 3, Galaxy S4, and Note 2
The games are recorded in 1080p, and Game Recorder+ allows users to easily edit and upload their gameplay to YouTube directly from the app. If you are an owner of the Samsung Galaxy S6 or S6 Edge, Game Recorder+ allows users to record in-game audio directly from the game, without the necessity of any other headphones and with no backgroung. You can even be one of the cool kids on YouTube and set up the face-cam to record at the same time, so that you can catch those uh oh moments during your game play.
Available on the Play Store for free, this is definitely something worth trying out if you meet the per-requisites, and are wanting to get into more mobile gaming, while still being able to share the game play with the world.
The post Easily record your game play with Samsung’s Game Recorder+ appeared first on AndroidGuys.
All the news you need to know from Day One of E3 2015
So many games. So much Mario. So much to cram into just three official days of E3 2015. We’ve already seen Sony and Microsoft’s opening salvos from Day Zero, but today Nintendo and big-hitting game makers like Square Enix joined the fray. What do you need to know? All this. We’ll be recapping each day, short and sweet… so we can play even more games. All things E3 can found right here. Don’t worry, Slippy’s here.
E3 Streams: ‘Divinity: Original Sin’ and ‘Cosmic Star Heroine’
We’re at the halway point of E3 2015 and the hits keep coming. We’ve got an awesome interview with Sony’s Shuhei Yoshida covering everything from Morpheus to Shenmue 3. We even chatted with Keiji Inafune about ReCore, his new Xbox One exclusive. That’s cool and all, but wouldn’t you like the chance to talk to the creators at E3? JXE Streams has your back. Join us starting at at 2:30PM ET on Twitch.tv/Joystiq for a chance to chat with the developers behind Divinity: Original Sin and Cosmic Star Heroine.
Where can you watch these streams? Right here in this post! Want to chat with us? Go to Twitch.tv/Joystiq.
If you want to follow along with our E3 streams, here is our complete schedule for Wednesday, June 17th:
2:30PM ET/11:30AM PT: Divinity: Original Sin with Larian Studios. Larian’s RPG was a cult hit on PC in 2014. It’s making its way to PS4 and Xbox One this year.
3PM ET/12PM PT: Cosmic Star Heroine with Zeboyd Games. Zeboyd’s been making classically styled RPGs for years, but Cosmic Star Heroine looks like its most ambitious work yet.
[We’re playing all games in 720p via OBS.]
‘Kingdom Hearts 3’ promises bigger, almost seamless, worlds
Blending different fictional universes together is kind of a thing now in gaming. However, Kingdom Hearts was fusing together the Final Fantasy and Disney universes back in 2002. Before chewing director Tetsuo Nomura’s ear off about a Final Fantasy VII remake, we got some insight into the still in-development Kingdom Hearts 3. With a PS4 (as well as Xbox One) powering Sora, Goofy and Donald’s cartoonish battles, it’s already looking damn gorgeous. But aside from grander scale, Disney ride-based attacks, and a likely head-spinning storyline, what else can Nomura tell us? And is there a stage where we can hum along to “Let it Go“?
The game’s been teased for two years, so what’s happening now with Kingdom Hearts 3?
Tetsuo Nomura: Compared to the initial first look at the game, in the trailer we’re showing now, the visual aspects have evolved a lot. Not only the particle effects within the battles, but also the sheer scale of it. While the world may not be comparable to massively open-world titles, it’s far bigger than previous Kingdom Hearts titles. There’s a huge decrease in load times too. In previous games, you’d run to the end of an area and it would go dark before transitioning to the next stage — now it’s become seamless, as you can see in the trailer when Sora jumps off the mountain you’ve just battled up. The environments themselves, in KH3, things will be affected by real-time actions, a tornado spell will swirl the blades of grass surrounding it.
Given that the game is coming to PS4 and Xbox One, how are you tackling online?
TN: Online is certainly part of my wish list – we’re want gamers to play for a while and an online component helps this. While ee may be focusing on the main campaign at the moment, but it’s not as if we’re going to tack on an online function at the end. In fact, we’ve already got plenty of ideas brewing at the moment. However, we’re still not at the point where we can test these ideas inside the main game.
Why didn’t we see many Disney characters in the new game?
TN: Well, Donald and Goofy were there – and we’ve announced that we’re collaborating with Tangled, something we touched upon in our E3 presentation. Compared to previous titles that we folded into Kingdom Hearts, we have a lot of creators still alive. The process of gaining approvals then is pretty different. Because the animation studios are actively involved, we want to polish up anything we meet to the standards we demand, before taking it to Disney to approval. The hair of [Tangled‘s] Rapunzel is so unique – we want to make sure we can realize the vision before we show it.
So how about Frozen?
TN: We’re saying anything on titles not yet announced.
Can we expect far more worlds in Kingdom Hearts 3?
TN: With every Kingdom Hearts title, we plan to deliver more worlds than actually appear in game – so we have something in our pockets to work with. Then as we begin to hone these worlds and stages, and some do get cut. [At this point], we have prepared more worlds, in that respect, than Kingdom Hearts 2.
Any worlds that weren’t realized in KH2?
TN: Man, KH2 was quite a while ago… Typically, worlds that we weren’t able to put into a game are usually picked up again for work in the sequel. We prepare each stage, planning to include it in a game — and we love the worlds we come up with.
Is anything going to change with how you play the game?
TN: Nothing’s set in stone, although naturally, the PS4’s controller has that touchpanel, and that’s something we’re going to have to consider within the control scheme. Coming from Kingdom Hearts 2, there won’t be a huge difference in battle controls — we’re not going to change how you jump or anyhting — it’ll be more of an evolution. Depending on how we utilize the touchpanel, we may not need other forms of control [for certain actions].
Control preferences are different from person to person. Especially with cameras. We took an internal survey at Square Enix about this: and the results was an almost precise split, 50:50.
TN: Having said that, control preferences are different from person to person. Especially with cameras. We took an internal survey at Square Enix about this: and the results was an almost precise split, 50:50. We’re going to have look into this pretty carefully.
Filed under: Gaming
I got Holo-briefed on ‘Halo 5’
Typically E3’s vision of the future is pretty shortsighted. But this year when I stepped into a war room for a Halo 5: Guardians mission briefing, that’s when I knew that the gaming trade show’s look at what’s ahead extended beyond just games that are months or sometimes years off.
The space’s middle was dominated by a hexagonal table roughly four feet across, and floating a scant few inches above its surface was a slowly rotating, azure hologram of a massive starship. It was familiar and I’d seen it somewhere before, but it took a moment for me to identify: It was the UNSC Infinity from the Halo universe, courtesy of Microsoft’s HoloLens augmented reality headset sitting atop my skull. With the few moments I had alone in the room, I circled the dais. The hologram remained on its deliberate arc while I peered from every angle, looking for flaws that’d break the 3D illusion. Those came later, but not where I expected them.
“This is ridiculous,” another attendee said as I returned to my spot at the table. He was right.
But let’s back up a bit. Before this, I’d been waiting in line outside of Microsoft’s booth at the Los Angeles Convention Center. A bespectacled man in a white United Nations Space Command lab coat approached, measured my pupillary distance with a pupilometer (for headset-tuning purposes) and scurried off. A bit later, I was sitting on a bench inside a room decorated like one of the series’ Pelican dropships, and was fitted with an AR headset not unlike what was onstage during Redmond’s media briefing on Monday.
This HoloLens prototype was much different from the development kit with exposed circuit boards we’d tried before. It didn’t require a computer hanging from my neck, either — the headset was light and seemed pretty refined in terms of fit and finish. A lab coat-clad attendant helped with putting the device on, but then I was left alone.
I walked down a short corridor toward a familiar sight, blue light filtering through the metal grating beneath my feet. Several meters ahead was a cerulean waypoint beckoning me forward, its distance value decreasing as I approached — just like in a Halo game. Once I reached it, another beckoned me to turn left and peer through a window at a hangar where a Pelican resided. I leaned left and got a view beyond the window’s borders. Same thing happened when I peered to the right. Cool. Fact of the matter is that there wasn’t a window at all, nor was it an LCD screen tucked behind glass. It was another hologram and for a moment, I was genuinely tricked.
The planning table inside the adjacent room looked like the one I’d seen countless times during cutscenes from Halo 4‘s campaign, except now it was right in front of me. More than with any game I’ve played in the series, here I truly felt like Master Chief, like I was actually in his world.
At 6 feet 3 inches, I’m tall, but I’d still have a hard time measuring up to Spartan 117’s 7-plus-foot frame. Even though I stand in his shadow, though, once the hologram switched to a 3D overview of the map where I’d play Halo 5‘s new multiplayer mode, Warzone, HoloLens’ magic shattered a bit.
Between the wall behind me and the planning table there was about six feet; the recommended standing distance was somewhere in the middle. For me to see the entire map, with its central tower jutting into the air, I had to have my back against the wall. From there the view was fine and getting mission objectives and mission-critical locations pointed out to me was really slick. But if I leaned too close to see a highlighted spot on the map, I couldn’t see everything at once given HoloLens’ relatively narrow field of view.
Unlike the provided video below, the quality of the visuals wasn’t flawless either. There were some jagged edges in a few spots and it all looked a bit grainy. The thing is, those imperfections sold me on the tech being “real” and attainable. If it’d been impeccable, I’d have immediately thought I was being sold a bill of goods or that this was all many years from actually becoming reality. And honestly, the grain felt appropriate for a dirty war zone setting. Sort of like director Steven Spielberg’s use of hand-held shaky cameras for Saving Private Ryan‘s infamous D-Day opening scene to convey mayhem.
HoloLens’ audio sort of emanates from the headset rather than coming at you from attached headphones like Oculus Rift, and that spatial separation sold the illusion even more. It didn’t feel like the voice-over was pumping directly into my ears. The war room was an extremely controlled (read: very quiet) environment and the audio seemed like it was softly coming out of a helmet — again, it sold the illusion of being the Chief incredibly well. The experience lasted an all-too-brief 15 minutes before I had to remove the HoloLens and go back to the “regular” reality around the corner of actually playing new, competitive Halo.
The truth of the matter is that hardly anyone is going to set their living room up to look like a battle-planning station. I still feel like this could be pretty effective on a coffee table, though. Was it intrinsic to be better at Halo 5 multiplayer? Oh hell no. My negative kill:death ratio is enough evidence for that. Did it feel like I was looking into the future? That’s an easier answer: Absolutely.
Check here for everything happening at E3 2015!
Filed under: Gaming, Home Entertainment, HD, Microsoft
Robot dinos, archery and mystery in ‘Horizon: Zero Dawn’
Horizon: Zero Dawn was a bright spot of Sony’s E3 press conference, largely because it was so unexpected. It broke through the monotony of sequel and remake reveals, and it was surprising to see a new IP from Guerrilla Games, a studio that’s been dedicated to the Killzone franchise since 2004. Horizon is a post-apocalyptic action, survival and crafting game starring Aloy, a huntress and expert archer who lives in a world where nature has overrun everything man ever built — except for the robot dinosaurs. The violent, hulking, terrifying robot dinosaurs. During the game’s reveal at Sony’s conference, Aloy crouched through the brush, shot arrows through the metallic hearts of sleek silver beasts and absolutely dominated a gigantic, robotic monster. Turns out, that was only the half of it.
Aloy is special. She’s a master craftswoman and an agile hunter. She understands things about this strange, post-apocalyptic world that no one in her tribe does, and she understands physics in a way that no one else can. This means there’s an emphasis on crafting in her world, Guerrilla Games explains during Horizon‘s first-ever live, public gameplay demo.
When Aloy kills a robotic beast — whether by setting traps and tripwires, shooting it with arrows or taking it down hand-to-hand, silently — she can loot its remains for parts. She doesn’t love slaughtering these animals, even though they’re composed of metal and electricity that she needs to survive. During the live demo, Aloy creeps up on a beast called a “Watcher” and takes it down stealthily; as it dies she says, “Sorry little one.” She cares for these robots as if they were alive, and they very well might be. Aloy resides in a tribal society that knows nothing of the skyscrapers, vehicles and technological feats of humankind’s past, and these beasts are, by all appearances, sentient. In Aloy’s mind, she just slaughtered something akin to a gazelle or a deer.
There are specific types of robot animals: Watchers guard the herd and send out a screech if they see a threat, while Grazers travel in groups and carry glowing green canisters on their backs (these cans are hugely important to Aloy’s society and, in the demo, she is on a mission to collect them). Each of these creatures is roughly the size of a velociraptor, and they’re mostly harmless. Most of the Grazers, for example, will simply run away from a threat, though a few will stay behind to defend the herd. Aloy takes two down by diving away when they charge and shooting them from afar.
And then there’s the Thundermaw. Guerrilla Games breaks down some numbers for this gigantic, angry animal: It’s 80 feet long by 30 feet tall (roughly the size of an adult blue whale); it has 93 destructive elements along its body, all of which Aloy can shoot to reveal weak points; and it has 12 attacks, including a tail swipe and long-range projectiles.
The Thundermaw is huge, but Aloy is faster and she’s able to shoot arrows directly into some of its weak points. She also has electrical ammo that stuns the beast, plus trip wires that can hold it in place for a while. Aloy can also pick up weapons that fall off of the Thundermaw as she fights it. It’s a big, fierce battle. When Aloy wins, it’s truly triumphant.
There’s much more mystery in Horizon. Guerrilla has crafted an expansive, fully explorable world — Aloy can travel to every point she sees, including to the tops of distant mountains, the studio says. By the time Horizon launches in 2016 for PlayStation 4, we’ll probably have more answers about Aloy’s role in her society, the world in which she resides and the robot dinosaurs that she’s fighting — but we probably still won’t know the half of it.
Microsoft watched gamers at home to design the new Xbox Elite controller
By now, if you’re an Xbox One gamer, you know that Microsoft has a pretty badass controller on the horizon. But what’s truly interesting about the new Elite controller, announced at the company’s major E3 press event this week, is that it’s the product of several in-home research sessions. According to Xbox Hardware Project Manager David Prien, the company realized that today’s gamers are all about “customization and personalization.” And so Prien’s team enlisted pro-gamers picked from leaderboards on the company’s own Xbox titles to help mold this new modular controller design.
But if you thought that the Elite controller was just for gaming’s cream of the crop players, you’d be mistaken. Prien assured us that it’s “not just for the pro-gamer. The idea here is that everyone can benefit from this.” He also said that the hardware team had a “laundry list of over 100 feature sets,” though, understandably, not all of that made it into the final design. We had an opportunity to get some close-up time with the new Elite controller here on the showfloor, so be sure to watch our interview with Prien below.
‘Pro Evolution Soccer 2016’ is actually worth playing over ‘FIFA’
I grew up with Winning Eleven, the franchise that Konami morphed into what we now know as Pro Evolution Soccer in North America. These days, I find myself playing EA Sports’ FIFA, a choice I suspect is echoed by millions of football fans worldwide. During the PlayStation and PlayStation 2 era, though, Konami’s title was hands-down the far superior product, thanks to better game mechanics and, in general, being more fun. Unfortunately, Pro Evolution Soccer couldn’t keep up with EA’s perpetual resources, starting with the exclusive licensing deals for major leagues from across the world. But while Pro Evolution Soccer 2016, out September 15th in North America, still won’t let me play as Chelsea (it’s called London FC), the refined gameplay and improved graphics could be enough to make me pick it over FIFA — and I haven’t felt that way in years.
I played it for the first time at E3 2015 and came away feeling it exceeded expectations. Namely, I was impressed by the smoother gameplay and better-looking, crisper graphics in comparison to PES 2015. Konami emphasizes that the main focus for this year’s release was on soccer, not licenses. “It’s always about the gameplay,” a company spokesperson says about the upcoming release. There’s more freedom for creativity when controlling your team, for example, making it easier for you to accomplish more dribbles with players who have that as a skill set — like cover boy Neymar. Celebrations have been enhanced too, so you can expect to celebrate in fashion when you score; Francesco Totti’s signature “selfie” is now a possibility.
Even though Pro Evolution Soccer 2016 is powered by the same Fox Engine as its predecessor, you can notice both visual and under-the-hood upgrades right as you kick off. Players’ movements feel less stiff than they did before; cleats also deteriorate as the match goes on, another detail that makes the experience that much more enjoyable. And since Konami extended its partnership with UEFA, that means you’ll still have access to the official Champions League mode. There’s no doubt FIFA continues to be the best series for football buffs, but Pro Evolution Soccer 2016 definitely narrows the gap between the two.
Check here for everything happening at E3 2015!
Filed under: Gaming, Home Entertainment, HD
Source: Konami
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