Despite the ghost of E3 looming over June, the Summer Games Fest, Day of the Devs and Devolver Direct all went live today.
I sorted through the avalanche of announcements and trailers to find the *coolest* stuff!
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Despite the ghost of E3 looming over June, the Summer Games Fest, Day of the Devs and Devolver Direct all went live today.
I sorted through the avalanche of announcements and trailers to find the *coolest* stuff!
Planet of Lana wears it influences on its sleeve, and while I don’t think it reaches the highest highs of Playground’s INSIDE, the fact that you can fairly compare the two is a huge compliment to Wishfully Studios – made even more impressive by the fact it’s their first game.
Planet of Lana is a genuinely polished experience – it’s well paced, beautifully art directed and staged, wonderfully scored. The story and acting are simple but very effective, with the gameplay journey propelling you towards an emotionally resonant conclusion via puzzles, traversal and cinematic moments.
Recommended: Luke Lohr’s interview with Creative Director, Adam Stjärnljus has some fantastic insight into the game’s development, including composer Takeshi Furukawa emailing him out of the blue to discuss scoring the game (Adam initially thought it was a hoax).
The New York Post is reporting that Microsoft intends to close it’s ABK acquisition, despite any ongoing roadblocks from the FTC in the United States. This report includes a spicy quote via a source that “they are going to cram this down the FTC’s throats”. 😳
It’s been widely reported that the CMA (UK) will approve the deal this week (Update: in a huge move this did not happen, the CMA blocked the deal!), and most observers anticipate the EU will follow in May.
Today’s reporting has been met with some optimism on Twitter that once that deal is “done” everyone will move on…
Whatever it takes so we can stop talking about it!!!
@NeoGameSpark
Ain’t no way.
Even if the close the deal in May/June, all of these topics will continue to play out loudly in social media spaces:
If you’re into the banter, you’re going to keep having a good time.
If you think it sucks, keep that block button ready.
Season 9 of Sea of Thieves introduced a big refresh for world events – both the frequency and tuning (nerfs, mostly).
While some die-hard players have responded negatively to some of the challenge being removed, I think the upside has been worth it. Events popping more frequently and finishing more quickly means more activity on the seas, which means more player encounters and more loot in play.
The player-base has responded strongly too. The last 30 days has the highest concurrent peak on Steam since July 2021, and highest average concurrency since July 2022, according to Steam Charts.
I’m a big fan of the lvl 100 legendary reward, the Legendary Bone Hunter Jacket (above), but I do think the last 20 levels of the seasonal progression were a little light on cosmetics to drive you through to the end.
🏴☠️
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The Legends reviews are in, and they’re… fine? Quite good? OK? Mixed? Decent actually?
Open Critic currently has Legends at 73 + 50% of critics “recommend” – which is, coincidentally, almost the exact score that Dungeons got – a game that I feel is still under-appreciated despite it having well over 15M players at this point.
I have two primary goals in this review:
Number one – to properly explain what Minecraft Legends is, and number two – to convince you to play it, because this is a really fantastic game that took some time to get into, but after it clicked I was like ‘Holy shit, where did this come from?’
Skillup
I don’t always agree with Skillup’s opinions for every game, but you can not deny that he shows his work. Legends seems interesting and fun, and despite the mid 70s score, I’ll be hitting it up on launch day.
Dungeons was a 74, and I played the hell out of that game. Legends might have the same appeal.
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I’ve played through the Wo Long demo a few times now, which means I like it a lot.
As someone who’s never played Nioh the systems set-up is new to me, but I’ve found the morale/spirit interplay to be intriguing and super engaging. Why can’t I stop thinking about this game?
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It makes me feel homesick to see all these locations highlighted in such a caring way. Time to reinstall.
Well, that didn’t take long, and I’m already nearly half way through a New Game+ replay already.
Hi-Fi RUSH is an absolute blast to play, and I feel like I’m finally mastering the rhythm based combat as I replay levels and continue to buy upgrades and new combos.