Hey, remember when Team YP got banned from competing in one of eSports’ major leagues? Well now it seems Capcom are also about to cause more headaches for the porn site sponsored-team – Capcom have banned sponsors of “adult content” in a recent rule change.

Players will not be allowed to participate in any tournament if they are sponsored by any sponsor that could be linked with adult content, which Team YP’s sponsorship with site Youporn certainly falls into. While many eSports events and ESL have been outlawing the adult content sponsors in their rules, this is the first time a publisher has followed suit.

The new rule, which also has an effect on sponsorships involving tobacco, alcohol and even e-cigarettes, has been attracting a little concern not only from Team YP although they’re probably the most obviously affected by this. Other teams in the Street Fighter V professional circuit have been adding their weight to the discussion too. Even commentator and long-time proponent of the fighting game community, James Chen has added his voice to the discussion:

“I definitely don’t think it’s fair for players like Filipino Man and Valmaster (two of Team YP’s players) to have this rule sprung on them like this. I do hope that a compromise can be achieved where these players are allowed to be supported by their team for travel/lodging and still play.”

Capcom have said that they are currently reviewing if any compromises can be made, such as allowing players to compete if they do not promote their banned sponsor.

“We understand everyone’s concern around the sponsorship rule in the [Capcom Pro Tour] ruleset. We will review and have an update soon. In the meantime, we won’t promote sponsors we deem inappropriate but all players are allowed to compete.”

It’s been around a year since the Kickstarter that did so well for Playtonic – Yooka-Laylee – finished and in that time there’s been snippets of news from the team. Mainly though they’ve been keeping quiet to work on the game, until earlier today when they released a massive update to backers of their campaign.

Firstly we were introduced to the central conflict of Yooka-Laylee’s world – namely that a hostile takeover of company Quack Corp by Diabolical Publishing Corporation has meant that the duo are currently venturing about the corporate building of Hivory Towers to recover Pagies and unlock the mysterious Grand Tomes. Diabolical seek to control all the world’s literature and make as much dollar from it as possible, lead by villain Capital B.

Joining the cast will be the previously announced Trowzer, a snake salesman who will sell you the unlocks for certain moves which you can unlock in any order you wish; Dr. Quack who was the former head of Quack Corp and is now inventing all sorts of inventions to keep the Diabolical shareholders happy; Dr. Puzz who was Quack’s former protege, now turned helper for Yooka and Laylee and will be responsible for transformations yet to be detailed and many more yet to be talked about.

Obviously there’s still a lot more to be revealed yet, but the play style will be very reminiscent of Yooka-Laylee’s forefather game, Banjo-Kazooie. More details will be coming in the next few months, with a feature in Edge Magazine on May 26th, reports on various gaming online channels and a showing at the Electronic Entertainment Expo. Also, for those who backed the game to a certain level (and I’m one of those people), Playtonic have said that the sandbox of the game will be releasing to them in July. The sandbox is intended to be a spoiler-free way for players to get used to the platforming style that will be Yooka-Laylee’s bread and butter.

As someone who loved Banjo-Kazooie as a child and can count herself among some of the first backers of the Kickstarter, I can’t wait to see Yooka-Laylee’s full release. Even if right now Playtonic have said they’re not ready to set a date in stone yet.

The town of Lawrston was once a peaceful place to live. Until the summoning tore it apart. Risen from the depths of the utmost evil the ancient celestial monster, Bob, has possessed the town. Using his new army, Bob, plans to turn all of humanity into his evil servants. All that stands between Bob and his plans is one man, cranky from a double shift and with no evening plans. That man is Ernie, the sales manager for Meat N’ Things.

As you can probably tell by the games intro, this is another in the long line of zombie games on the market, so what makes this different… Well, lets take a lookie shall we?

Ernie Vs. Evil is, at it’s core, a shooter defense game, in some ways similar to something like Plant’s Vs. Zombies (seeing a theme here), but in many important ways, VERY different!

Goodnight Games (‘ello chaps, do you ever sleep?) have gone with simplisity in Ernie Vs Evil, that makes it the perfect game for a quick blast, OR a prolonged bathroom mobile phone game session… c’mon, this is where we really play mobile phone games, anyone who says they don’t, reads encyclopedias and won’t be reading this review anyway.

What stands out straight away is the control system, or as I found, the lack of one, this game is as simple as clicking on the screen to shoot and at the level you want to shoot at. All the while, various enemies come at you from three levels and in waves of difficulty.

One of the interesting touchs though is the weapon upgrade system, there are more upgrades than i thought there would be and you can get some really cool things going on during the frantic gameplay, plus being able to selct different load outs changes up how the game plays a little, not much, but as you can see in the pic below, it can get crazy.

The game looks gorgeous, as you can see in the trailer and screenshots, and the number of enemy types is incredibly good.  From cute little bats, to evil zombie cheer leaders that take far too many shots to kill (maybe the goodnight team had cheer leader issues in school, I hear thats a thing)

The levels are quick and can get very frantic, but you do feel like you are defending your base as they happen.

We had to borrow an iPhone to get this review done (tech issues and the Dragon was loathe to let me use hers), but we are still loving the game here at geek towers and would highly reccomend it!

A gnawingly good 8 out of 10! Would bite again!

Ernie Vs. Evil is available on iTunes and Google Play right now!

Recently a lot of companies have been getting stricter with players found cheating in their online multiplayer games. For example, after some well-publicized exploits within the new game The Division Ubisoft not only implemented some new detection methods but upped their ‘first offense’ penalty while keeping the ‘second offense’ the same as it had always been – perma-ban.

Now Blizzard have come out saying that anyone found cheating in their new game Overwatch will get a permanent ban as well. Difference is, Blizzard aren’t messing around and have said they will do this upon a player’s first offense.

To be totally clear the quote from the post about cheating on the Overwatch forums says that Blizzard will slap this ban upon any player “found to be cheating—or using hacks, bots, or third-party software that provides any sort of unfair advantage”. It then goes on to inform players about how they can report cheating as well as the guidelines for doing so.

Blizzard have a small history of this, having tackled cheaters in Diablo the same way back in 2012 and also banned botters in Hearthstone during 2014; although that occasion saw the bans only being temporary ones.

Check out the topic here for the full details. And make sure you behave in game when Overwatch releases on May 24th. Wouldn’t want to see any of you banned for not playing fair. 😉

Battleborn is an interesting collection of ideas. Taking Gearbox’s trademark humor, first person shooting, hero abilities and throwing them into a blender with a cooperative campaign and three multiplayer modes, it gets most things right but leaves some room for improvement. This is arguably an entry into the emerging Hero Shooter genre, similar to Paladins and Overwatch. Gearbox has put it’s own spin on things however, and the combat in the game is unique and feels surprisingly good. But more on that in a minute. First off, let’s break down the modes.

Single Player

Battleborn comes with an 8 mission campaign, with more missions to be added later in the year. This campaign can be experienced either solo, cooperatively, or with strangers via the public queue in game. Up to 5 players jump into scripted missions with minimal story. The story is told through radio chatter and dialogue between various NPCs. Most of this dialogue is going to consist of “Oh no, bad guy A is going to destroy thing B. We must top it!” It’s not ground breaking, but neither is it bad. The voice acting in the game is well delivered and gives each character a sense of personality and purpose. Its just that the story seems like so much fluff for some rather generic objectives.

Most missions will see you either escorting an NPC through the level, guarding a base of some sort, or doing both. This can quickly get tedious as failing to defend a base, or letting your NPC companion die means a complete restart. Seeing as how missions can take upwards of 40 minutes to complete on the higher difficulty levels, this can be extremely frustrating and punishing.  On a positive note, the game is well balanced, the levels are easy to traverse and in true Gearbox style, whenever you complete one you are showered with loot. Similarly, the hordes of enemies that you face are distinctive, fun to fight and can provide quite the challenge on higher difficulty levels. Although with a well handled team of five, none of the encounters I’ve played are what I would call Dark Souls level hard.

As a note, there are elements of the single player that are shared with the multiplayer and I will go into them in more detail in that section – things like collecting shards to activate gear or build emplacements to combat the NPC enemies, and the levelling system. In addition, due to the way the single player campaign works outside of co-op (you vote on which maps to play, and people tend to choose the maps that offer characters as rewards rather than going through in order) I have been unable to finish 3 of the 8 missions due to lack of co-operative partners to play with. We plan to rectify this and will amend the review, but that’s dependent on Lonesamurai.

Multiplayer

The real meat of Battleborn lies in the multiplayer. The game is broken up into three distinct modes: Capture, Meltdown and Incursion. Capture is the simplest, consisting of three capture points that you and the enemy team fight over control of. The more points you control, the faster you accumulate points. The first team to 1,000 points wins.

Meltdown on the other hand is an interesting mashup of FPS sensibilities and MOBA elements. Each side starts in opposing bases. In between are two lanes running in between, each of which contains an insane talking furnace named MINREC. Teams must escort their minions down the lane and into the maw of the furnace as he screams about environmental responsibility, spouts statistics and gleefully shouts at the minions to be reborn as various new objects such as a replica sword or a shopping cart with a wobbly wheel. Once a team reaches 250 points, their furnaces will move further back, forcing them to protect their minions longer. Scattered about the map are emplacements that you can spend shards on. These shards are awarded for completing objectives, killing enemy Battleborn or minions and for shattering large and small shard crystals found around the map. Emplacements vary from damaging turrets, accelerators that will provide a speed boost and spawners that will place giant special minions onto the field.

Conversely, those shards can be used to activate gear that has been brought into battle. This gear is generally awarded through completing campaign missions, levelling characters up to a certain point or they can be acquired via loot packs purchasable with in game currency.  Up to three pieces of gear can be equipped at in any given loadout, and depending on the rarity of the gear costs a larger amount of shards to activate. This system applies to all three game modes and creates a surprising element of strategy within each match. You can choose to play the map and level up emplacements, earning XP as you do so. Or you can choose to save your shards and activate your gear to gain passive power and defensive attributes. Smartly, Gearbox has crafted this system in such a way that both playstyles are not only rewarded but can make a significant impact on the outcome of a match.

 
Incursion, the final mode, is a break the base mode that involves a central area with tons of minions and Battleborn clashing in a constant explosion of violence. Each base is guarded by two sentry robots. There are also multiple NPC camps about the level. You can attack these minions and upon their defeat, they will join you in battle as powerful pushers. Its important to have minion backup when taking on the sentries, as they will make quick work of a single player character.  Speaking of characters….

Presentation

Complimenting these game modes is a wide cast of characters. Battleborn features 25 characters, with more planned later. All characters and maps will be free, however Season Pass holders will get codes to unlock the new characters immediately. Players without the season pass will likely have to complete a challenge to gain access to the new characters. Unlike some other hero shooters, Battleborn has a both ranged and melee characters. There is a lot of balance on display here, and all the characters have their own unique moves and personalities. Theres Rath, the dual sword wielding space sith who is totally not a vampire; Kelvin the living crystal monster who likes shiny things and Orendi the four eyed magic wielder just to name a few. Most characters are unlocked via mission or challenge completion.

In game, each character has a primary attack, some type of secondary such as a shield or sidearm or blade and three abilities. Two abilities will be unlocked from the start of a match and the third Ultimate ability will become available once level 5 is reached. At the start of every match, all players start at level 1 and gain levels via map actions, completing objectives or killing enemy Battleborn. Each time you level up, you can access the Helix, which looks rather like a DNA helix. Each level of the Helix contains two choices that will modify your abilities in some way. The bow wielding Thorn for example, can have her scattershot of arrows changed to fire in a wider arc for more AOE damage, or tightened up to three more precise bolts for a concentrated punch. These levelling choices provide depth to each match by allowing you to react to the battlefield and choose abilities that will let you counteract the enemy team.

In terms of graphics, Battleborn is gorgeous in motion. It shares a similar art style with Borderlands in that it seems cellshaded in a way, but also has fully 3d models and some reasonably high resolution textures. It’s bright and cartoony, splashing the screen with brilliant color at every opportunity. However, this is a double edged sword. Battleborn in the middle of a giant 5v5 fight is a mess of chaos and particle effects. After a few matches, I found myself able to sort through the chaos, but I still had situations where I didn’t know quite where I was once a battle cleared up.

Characters are distinct, voice lines are well delivered and; on the PC at least; the game runs silky smooth. It’s important to note that the console versions are locked at 30 FPS, which may be a major negative for some players. All in all though, Battleborn is gorgeous and plays extremely well.

Verdict

Battleborn is a great game. It can be chaotic at times, and it suffers from a lack of map variety. Each mode only has two maps available making for a total of 6 multiplayer maps. The characters and voice acting are great, but they single player campaign suffers from some repetitive design and frustrating failure states. All in all however, Gearbox has crafted a lively and vibrant shooter with some truly unique game modes and playstyles.

Battleborn: 7.5/10