Tom Clancy games come with a certain set of expectations- fluid tactical combat, third person perspective- and often gamers associate this franchise with innovations in stealth and third person combat. It seems like the newest entry in the legacy of Tom Clancy will deliver. The Division, an online only third person shooter /RPG ,is a stunning game set in beautiful urban vistas with a dark undertone which comes with the theme. The game is set in pandemic New York where you play as an agent trained to deal with said pandemic.

The talk at EGX this year was about their attempts to make The Division an immersive game and so far all the signs are positive. They have gone to what appear to be huge lengths to make the game responsive, engaging and visceral. The new Snowdrop engine which has been developed for the new generation and specifically The Division is based on creating ‘living worlds’ that feel real and almost like they’re breathing around you.

The Division’s main focus seems to of been seamlessly blending responsive and futuristic tactical views with a lavishly reimagined New York where the environment changes and breaks around you. A small detail that was mentioned as an example is when it is snowing in the game snow gathers on the players shoulders and slowly melts when the players go indoors- this is just an example of the attention to detail the development team is boasting about and to me it sounds like they’ve given this everything to make it immersive and to make it feel strong, real.

The talk also focused on how they wanted to avoid the use of cutscenes, instead using a futuristic UI to feed you interactive information and even removing the conventional map and instead having what they call the mega map which is like a hologram that displays around the player model and allows you to interact with what appears to be a 3D model of New York to set markers, plan routes and prepare yourself for the challenges of a pandemic torn New York.

Another point that was made in the talk today is that the Division apparently has a phenomenal destruction engine within the game which sounds promising and like the team behind the Division really want you to be able to break up the world around you to suit your needs.

Do you think developer Massive is onto a winner? Let us know in the comments below!

Fans of Hearthstone take note, thanks to a group of Asian bootleggers, it’s now entirely possible to own a physical copy of the card game Hearthstone. And by that, I mean an actual card game, not a boxed copy of the Hearthstone game.

The game costs about 300RMB or $49 and is based off the game pre-Curse of Naxxramas. It comes with two sets of every class’ cards, four of every normal and legendary ‘neutral’ card and some extra cards for those cards that can summon creatures, such as a Release the Hounds. Effects such as Taunt and Deathrattle are shown via tokens while wheels indicate health and attack, more special tokens to indicate increased special damage and even mechanic for the drawing of random cards to make it truly random.

While I think it’s impressive as a feat, and that the recreators have obviously put a lot of thought about how to translate Hearthstone’s mechanics to a different medium I must say that unfortunately it wouldn’t be something I would play myself.

The beauty of Hearthstone is in the fighting of random opponents from across the globe whom you’ve never met before and will probably never meet again, all without being able to do more than spam the same 6 emotes (or ‘squelch’ those who do actually spam them). The battlecries of minions as you place them on the field, the illustration of effects as they activate, the fluidity of a turn, the satisfying explosion of an opponent’s hero as you beat them, the customs of politeness and fair play that seems to have come about through playing the game (greeting your faceless opponent, apologising for moves that put them on the back foot, saying ‘well played’ for a good move from your opponent or before you end a battle) and the fact that Hearthstone is perfectly tuned to work as a virtual card game.

And as much as I dislike having to say this about such a wonderful creation that had such effort put into it, unfortunately with all the counters and wheels and other things needed to make the unofficial recreation work, it just loses that tightness that makes the game so much fun for me.

Fasten your seat belts – Bill and Ted are going on another ride.

In an interview with Yahoo, Alex Winter finally gave an update on the long journey to a third feature film in the Bill & Ted franchise. A 23-year journey, to be exact. Winter played Bill S. Preston Esq. in the original 1989 science fiction comedy Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure and the sequel Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey two years later in 1991 opposite Keanu Reeves as Ted “Theodore” Logan. Now, everyone’s favorite time traveling slackers have gotten a little older.

“[Bill & Ted] will be 40-something and it’s all about Bill and Ted grown up, or not grown up,” Winter said. “It’s really sweet and really f—ing funny. But it’s a Bill & Ted movie, that’s what it is. It’s for the fans of Bill & Ted. It fits very neatly in the [series]. It’s not going to feel like a reboot. The conceit is really funny: What if you’re middle-aged, haven’t really grown up and you’re supposed to have saved the world and maybe, just maybe, you kinda haven’t?” In addition to the two films, the Bill & Ted franchise includes two television adaptations both titled Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventures, one animated and one live action. Both Winter and Reeves haven’t reprised their respective roles since proving the voice for their cartoon characters in one season of the series in 1990, right before the first sequel was made.

So, why the delay? “The thing we had going against us is that word got out,” Winter says. “That was kind of a bummer. It just takes a long time to put a movie together. Now we’re having to build this thing in public, which is fine. I just feel bad [the fans] have to get dragged through this long, boring, protracted process.”

Original screenwriters Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon have written the script for the film based on an idea formed with Reeves and Winter, and the team has secured a director in Galaxy Quest‘s Dean Parisot. “We’ve been working on drafts for the last couple of years,” Winter said. “The script’s been finished for a while, but comedy is so specific. We’re in that world where producers are on, financiers are on and we’re just working and reworking the script.”

Well, don’t work too much on it. Unlike Bill & Ted, we don’t have all the time in the world to wait!

Where has the Sun gone? The people on Earth pray for the end of night. It is up to me to find the Sun.

This week I decided to try out the recently released platformer 6180 the moon, a game created by South Korean Indie Game Studios, Turtle Cream and PokPoong Games. I came across this game from watching Totalbiscuit play the first 15 minutes of it on his channel. It really caught my attention and I decided to take a closer look into it to see what it offers further on in the game. I wasn’t disappointed.

In 6180 the moon you play as the Moon who is in search of the Sun which seems to have disappeared. As the people on Earth cry out for the end of night, the Moon sets out on a journey stopping at Earth, Venus, and Mercury as you seek out the Sun.

This game is a platformer that has an interesting mechanic. In most platformers if you fall off an edge into a void you die. In this game, the top and the bottom of the screen are connected, so you can jump and come up from the bottom of the screen, or you can fall and come out the top of the screen. You must use this to your advantage; sometimes having to fall off an edge to get to a higher point or jumping so you can bounce off a lower point. But be careful, if you make the slightest of wrong moves you can find yourself shattered on a spike, so you need to be quite aware where you will end up if you jump. When you start the game it takes a little while to get used to get used to this but as you progress you learn to think of the bottom half of the screen as more of the top of the screen.

As you travel from planet to planet to find the Sun, more obstacles and mechanics are introduced in the game. You start out with simple platforms and spikes, and then later the game introduces bounce blocks, disappearing/reappearing blocks, moving platforms, and also falling spike stars. Midway through the game you are also introduced to drops of light which were apparently dropped by the Sun. When you activate them, you are able to pause mid jump allowing you to get though some long dangerous paths as well as save yourself from hitting a spike. You are limited on how many are in a level and they can only be used once. So choose carefully.

As you progress you get more and more used to the wrap around screen, some of the later levels don’t seem as challenging as they could be. But right when you think you mastered it, they change it up on you. When you finish the main story, you unlock a new mode for the game which has you going back though all the levels backwards. And if you think that is no big deal, they also change up the “gravity” as you may say. So instead of resting on top of the platforms, you now rest on the bottom of the platforms. If you jump you go down and if you go off an edge, you fall up. This of course takes a while to get used to because you got so used to the old way it was. Also it messes with you at first because you don’t expect to fall up. I think this is a nice challenge they added to the game.

6180 the moon is a simple, fun platformer with a short, but charming story. The use of the top to bottom wrap around screen makes the game unique and fun to play and just when you think you mastered it they flip it around and challenge you with the harder mode after the main story. And while the art style is simple it works for the game and the music adds a lovely and calming atmosphere to the game that goes well with the story.

All in all this game is a fun take on a platformer and well worth the low price. Definitely a pickup for any platformer fan out there.

You can get it for PC or Mac on Steam

The last of the games shown in the first day of EGX’s dev sessions was a game called Never Alone, a collaboration between E-Line Media and Alaskan natives in an attempt to showcase the stories and culture of the indigenous peoples of the Alaskan area.

The talk mainly focused on how the project came to be, an investment and a partnership to boost the prominence of the cultures of the people and an attempt to use modern technology to tell stories passed down through many generations of families, especially to the younger generation interested in video games. The project involved visits to the settlements to get to know the people better and gain their permission for their stories to be told through the game itself. They hope that Never Alone might be the start of the rise of indigenous peoples’ involvement in the video game movement.

In the game itself, there are two characters, a girl and a fox and the game can be played in a 2-player co-op or with just a single player switching between characters but both are needed to solve puzzles and clear the way forward as they journey through a never ending blizzard. This isn’t a game about man verses the elements though; it’s taken from a tale in which the character learns more about the world around them and about how everything is in balance, how all must work together in interdependence.