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David Braben and members of Frontier Developments took to the EGX stage today to talk about the future of Elite. They started off by showing the Horizons trailer and talking in detail about everything coming to the game.
For starters, Horizons will allow players to land on planets, with rocky planets being sized at up to seven times the size of Earth. Players will be able to enter an orbital cruise mode to allow them to move around the planet quickly, and from there will be able to drop down into the atmosphere and cruise about. Once they decide to land, they will be able to deploy an armed exploration rover. Mining and exploring human settlements are just a few of the things Frontier hinted at as activities once on a planet. In addition, they also confirmed that Season 2 of Elite will finally bring us multicrew ships and fighter bays for the larger vessels. This means that you can deploy a small parasite fighter from a larger ship and use it to escort a fellow crew member as they explore in their rover. Or, you could leave your ship on autopilot and deploy in a fast, powerful fighter to take on those nasty pirates sneaking up on your flank.
They also discussed the inclusion of looting and crafting. Mining and looting from wrecks and other sources will allow players to craft unique weapons and items for their ships. This could range from changing the color of your lasers to creating a weapon that causes system malfunctions on an enemy ship. They then revealed….BOBBLEHEADS. Thats right, bobbleheads are coming back. Those of us who played the original beta grew quite fond of our bobbleheads, and I for one am glad to see them making a comeback. For a limited time, a David Braben bobblehead is available in the Frontier Store.
The final bit of information worth touching on is the inclusion of the Cobra Mk 4 and the Viper Mk 4. The new Cobra was revealed in the Horizons trailer, while the new Viper was just revealed today. It trades some speed and manueverability for better internals, making the ship much tougher.
Elite Horizons and Season 2 are due out this Holiday season.
That’s about standard for one of Steam’s free weekends, but Sega has used the occasion to add some new content to both games.
The original Dawn of War is receiving a new, official multiplayer map, while its sequel is offering up some extra gear. Here’s a rundown from Sega of what’s included:
“The Temple of Cyrene is a brand new, official multiplayer map we’re adding into the Dawn of War I rotation. This map will be playable in DoW I, as well as the Dark Crusade and Soulstorm expansions. The Temple of Cyrene sits on the blasted landscape of a world scoured clean by the Exterminatus of the Imperial Inquisition. Homeworld of Gabriel Angelos, Cyrene is now a ghost-world of ruined cities and ashen fields. Fight for supremacy amidst the remains of Cyrene’s once-mighty temples. Claim the three critical locations at the heart of the ruins or drive into enemy bases and deliver annihilation.”
Dawn of War II is getting some love aswell:
“In Dawn of War II, we’re giving away four free sets of Wargear; The Vanguard, Sniper, Sternguard, and Destroyer, to equip in the main campaign that were previously only available as pre-order DLC, or as rare loot drops. Now everyone will be able to equip items like the Veteran’s Grenades, Blade of Ulyus, Armor of the Destroyer, and many more to complete your sets!”
Day 1 of EGX 2015 kicked off yesterday and while sat this morning with my aches and pains (I’m getting too old for this, I’m sending Cyborg next year), I was sorting through what games I saw there that I wanted to write about first and there was a stand out winner in that regard
Tears of Avia is a turn based tactical RPG with a core focus on build crafting. We want to make a game where the party composition, skills, items and strategy that you design are just as fundamental to the game play as the battle itself. We are coupling this with a dynamic story system that delivers a unique experience each time you play.
It’s Kickstarter started a couple of days ago and, as of writing right now, has 26 days left on it. BUT, it has already been Greenlit on STEAM, so thats a great sign of the games popularity already.
Now, I love a good JRPG, I’m a long term Final Fantasy fan (7, 8, 9 and 10 especially), and Tears of Avia gives me a FF7 vibe off the bat, but it changes things up with a slick RPG combat system, a fresh take on skills and beautiful graphics and effects
The game looks stunning, even the prototype build the team from CooCooSqueaky, the system was slick and it was beautiful to watch other people play the game and get excited about what they were doing.
So, whats the game about? Well, lets head over to the kickstarter page and get the info:
Over 200 years ago a war was waged against the floating city of Avalon lead by the demonic overlord Vylenkine. A powerful mage stood up against his evil forces and cast a spell that would seal the portals to the demonic realms forever. Except… there was a problem. The city froze and crashed along with the love of his life, Avia. For hundreds of years he has been seeking a way to free Avia with little success. That is until you came…
The trailer is gorgeous and tells the story in suitable anime way and the character models and enemies look like they were dragged smoothly from some of the best animes to come out of Japan
In fact, if this story isn’t picked up by Manga, they are missing a trick
Tears of Avia is set for a Jun 2017 release so far, with kickstarter backers at certain levels getting beta access (£30 or more pledge) and lots of other perks
When you talk about operating systems right now, mostly you’re talking about Windows 10 and the upsides and downsides of Microsoft’s latest offering. However that doesn’t mean that others aren’t doing well in their own ways and right now Linux is looking good with the number of games on Steam that support it at 1,500 which is an all-time high.
Of course, that’s nowhere near the ones that are only-compatible with Windows (13,621), but it is a step in the right direction with Steam offering the ability to narrow down game selection by operating system. With Kickstarter and Greenlight both going strongly and the indie game scene going from strength to strength the number of games that work for the penguin logoed OS are only set to increase in future, which can only be a good thing. The fact the Steam Machines that will be releasing soon work on a Debian-based SteamOS GNU/Linux operating system won’t hurt that number increase either.
XCOM 2 has been subject to a delay, but the pre-orders are live already and it seems that of all the places getting the game, Australia is once again subject to prices that are much higher than elsewhere.
The pre-order comes with a bonus in the form of the Resistance Warrior Pack that contains a number of soldier customisation options as well as a survivor of the previous game’s war turning up in the barracks as a recruit. The Steam US store has this priced at $59.99 and the UK one at £39.99. Australians however are seeing a price of $127.45 – which is the equivalent of 89.95 US dollars or £58.27. Ouch.
While this is quite the price hike, this isn’t the first time that Australia has seen much higher prices for digital games even before the introduction of a new tax on ‘intangible’ digital imports in the country’s 2015 budget pushed them even higher.
