Seems some big news for Hearthstone is due to be announced in just under a week’s time.

Blizzard have announced that there will be a big announcement related to the game coming on March 11th, just before the start of the Americas Winter Championship. It’ll be coming to the Hearthstone Twitch channel on the say, around 10am PST.

“Something inside the Tavern stirs…  what could it be? Don’t worry – you won’t be alone! Our very own Lead Designer Ben Brode and Senior Producer Yong Woo will kick off the weekend of the Americas Winter Championship with an announcement about what’s coming next for Hearthstone,” says the Battle.net post.

It’s not the first time Blizzard will have announced something new for the game just before a tournament, and if patterns hold true it’s likely that we’re about to get the announcement of a new single-player adventure expansion or maybe the next set of cards – along with some previews of upcoming new cards and new Keyword effects. With the new Standard coming into effect they do need to bolster it with some new cards after all.

As for the tournament itself, it’ll be taking place over three weekends in March with winners up for a chance to make it to this year’s Hearthstone World Championship at Blizzcon.

Cute, addictive and relatively challenging on the higher difficulties before you buy any upgrades, Tiny Troopers took a little getting used to for me but after investing an hour into it or so, I found playing it to be a pretty rewarding experience and well worth my time. It is obvious the game was originally made for the android market, but it works quite well as a simple arcade game played just to kill some spare time.

Loading the game up for the first time, my initial impression was that it was going to be quite low budget and simple ( not necessarily in a bad way ) with pretty basic controls. The controls, I found out, were simple enough – but were something I did not expect in the fact that the game uses the analogue sticks for basic firing, rather than the trigger buttons. After failing the tutorial first time round like an absolute noob ( I have had very little experience with games like this! ), I finally got the hang of the controls and dived into the Soldier campaign.

There are two campaigns, Soldier and Spec Ops and each level has 5 difficulty settings. I spent most of my time flying through each level on the third difficulty level and this seemed challenging and engaging enough for me – however once you upgrade your armour and basic troop level I’d recommend cranking up the difficulty to keep it engaging, as you soon become invincible otherwise. Each level has a different objective which ranges from destroying enemy buildings, saving civilians by eliminating all enemy troopers ( friendly fire to be avoided ) or securing locations. The interesting thing I found about the game was that you can control more than one character at once ( depending on the level ) – again this took some getting used to, and I couldn’t help but feel slightly guilty when I lost any of them. You do have the option to spend medals to revive fallen troops at the end of the level if you do lose any that are a decent rank allowing you to use them in the next level. Defeating enemies ( and getting a high combo ) as well as finding collectibles gives you in game currency called Command Points which you can then use to upgrade your weapons, armour and basic troop load outs, as well as purchase special characters with bonus special weapons. During a level you are also able to use your hard earned Command Points to buy special weapons ( such as grenades ) and health packs which are then air dropped to you instantly ( I couldn’t help but think of Worms at this point )

As well as the two main campaigns, there is also a zombie survival mode very reminiscent of the original Nazi Zombies from Call of Duty World at War. I found this to be the best part of the entire game, as the first zombie level I tried was so similar to Der Riese from World at War I couldn’t help but feel this must have been intentional. As you progress through the waves of zombies, you get extra weapons and unlock new areas which eventually allow you to assemble a full team of four troopers. Addictive and fun, the zombie mode is great.

All in all, I’d definitely recommend giving the game a go if you’re up for something simple and fun, but I feel it’s best to be enjoyed in small bursts so as to keep it from getting boring and repetitive. For its £7.99 price tag, you can’t really complain and it’s an easy 1000G for those of you who are achievement hunters too.

Good clean fun, but not ground breaking!
Check price and availability in your Xbox LIVE region

This week, Microsoft has touted a new initiative that they’ve said will unify platforms, making it easier to for developers to release games on both PC and Xbox One. But at least one major developer isn’t thrilled with Microsoft’s plans.

In an opinion piece published in The Guardian this morning, Epic Games co-founder Tim Sweeney absolutely railed against Microsoft, calling upon other developers to fight against the corporation for “moving against the entire PC industry.” Specifically, Sweeney criticized Microsoft’s new Universal Windows Platform, which allows developers to build games and apps that can run across all of Microsoft’s hardware including Windows 10, Xbox One, and any Windows-branded tablets and phones.

The problem, Sweeney wrote, is that with UWP, Microsoft has created a closed ecosystem where developers must use the Windows Store and go through Microsoft’s certification processes to release games on that platform. Sweeney said he sees this as contrary to the spirit of PC development—a huge blow for Microsoft, as Epic is one of the biggest companies in the space. Epic is best known not just for their developer toolset, the Unreal Engine, but for creating the popular Xbox franchise Gears of War, which Microsoft purchased in 2014.

“They’re curtailing users’ freedom to install full-featured PC software, and subverting the rights of developers and publishers to maintain a direct relationship with their customers,” Sweeney wrote.

Microsoft disagrees with this assessment. Windows vice president Kevin Gallo told The Guardian in a response to Sweeney’s op-ed that Microsoft is not, in fact, building a closed platform. “The Universal Windows Platform is a fully open ecosystem, available to every developer, that can be supported by any store,” he said. “We continue to make improvements for developers; for example, in the Windows 10 November Update, we enabled people to easily side-load apps by default, with no UX required.”

Sweeney had criticized Microsoft for making it difficult and confusing to install UWP-developed apps outside of the Windows Store, pointing out that any user who wants to do so would have to dig through a series of convoluted menus and options. “It’s true that if you dig far enough into Microsoft’s settings-burying UI, you can find a way to install these apps by enabling ‘side-loading,’” Sweeney wrote. “But in turning this off by default, Microsoft is unfairly disadvantaging the competition. Bigger-picture, this is a feature Microsoft can revoke at any time using Windows 10’s forced-update process.”

The whole op-ed is brutal and worth reading, encouraging developers and customers to fight against Microsoft’s new initiative.

“As the founder of a major Windows game developer and technology supplier, this is an op-ed I hoped I would never feel compelled to write,” Sweeney wrote. “But Epic has prided itself on providing software directly to customers ever since I started mailing floppy disks in 1991. We wouldn’t let Microsoft close down the PC platform overnight without a fight, and therefore we won’t sit silently by while Microsoft embarks on a series of sneaky manoeuvre aimed at achieving this over a period of several years.”

Of course, all of Epic Games otehr games, the new Unreal Tournament, Paragon, etc are ONLY available through Epic’s own launcher, which also make you wonder if this is a case of pot and kettle…

What do you think?

Nintendo just wrapped up their latest Nintendo Direct, and as usual there was a lot of information included in the 40 minute presentation. One of the main themes of this Nintendo Direct was Amiibo, but we’ll talk about that as we hit each individual highlight. Ready? Lets go!

Right out of the gate Shigeru Miyamoto brought us some new information about Star Fox Zero. The title is ready to go, and is going to be very similar to Star Fox 64. It will have branching paths both in levels and across the system map. Teleporters were indicated to be a big part of both the story and the branching paths. The game looks nice visually, but the most interesting ideas were in the way that the Arwing can transform and how that allows you to access the multiple paths. It was also indicated that when you beat the game, it will open up even more paths. Star Wolf returns, and there will be special tactics employed to battle his team throughout the game.

Two player mode was also shown off, allowing one player to move and another to shoot.

Of course, Nintendo loves Amiibos, and the Smash Bros. Star Fox Amiibo will unlock the classic SNES Arwing, as well as “some other bonuses.” After that, Project Guard was revealed to now be complete and is actually Star Fox Guard. Players will take the roll of Slippy’s uncle Grippy (ughh) and set up cameras to protect their mining site from enemy robots. Its a tower defense games from what was shown, but with a unique asymetrical twist. You can edit the placement of enemies in levels and them upload them for players around the world to take on.

Star Fox Zero and Star Fox Guard will come as a bundle, or can be purchased seperately on the eShop (or at the bundle price digitally). The games will release on April 22, 2016.

• Next up was Splatoon. They are making changes to matchmaking and weapons. The theme here was to get items and abilities that aren’t currently used into a more frequent rotation. There will be weapons picked by Sheldon, and  Nintendo seems to be hoping to shake up the multiplayer of Splatoon. Given the game’s success, trying to shake up the meta can only be a good thing.

• Nintendo also showed off Mario and Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games. MOVING ON.

Did you know that over 6.2 million courses have been created? Nintendo does, and they’re expanding the game again. Now you can shake Thwomps and they will turn into skewers. Shake a p-switch and it will turn into a key. Similarly, shaking a door will turn it into a key door. This means that creators can now expand their devious creations even more. You can place special coins that will summon a key when all are found, forcing exploration.

As if all of that wasn’t sadistic enough in the hands of the collective internet, Nintendo is launching a new 100 Mario Challenge Super Expert Mode, giving you 6 fiendishly hard levels to beat. Beating the mode will add new Mystery Mushroom costumes. The update will be available on March 9th.

• Next up was Shin Megami Tensei X Fire Emblem, now known as Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE. We didn’t get to hear much about this game other than it is a super stylish JRPG.
• Lost Reavers, Namco Bandai’s free to play online shooter is still coming, and its look pretty good. Team up with players, kill bosses and loot things. I’m in if it’s not pay to win. Open beta comes April 14.

Paper Mario is getting some more love this year with Paper Mario Color Splash. Mario and co will set off to restore color to a tropical island paradise with his paint hammer. You can splash Toads to revive them, or splash a whole house to free a ton of them. Combat will see you painting and using cards in keeping with the theme of the game. The game is currently set for 2016 release.

• Pokken Tournament is still coming out on Wii U. It looks gorgeous and the showed off Machamp getting a 900 hit combo. The fighting looks fast, fluid and fun. Pokken Tournament comes out on March 18, 2016.
• March also sees the introduction of the new rewards program, My Nintendo. Little information was given, but it starts this month.
• Mini Mario & Friends Amiibo Challenge was shown off. Its basically March of the Minis with Amiibo and is a free game for Wii U and  3DS, with the catch being that levels are locked to specific Amiibo.
• The NEW Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console is getting some serious love in the form of SNES games. A special mode will be available called perfect Pixel, which displays the games in their original resolution. Games are available starting today, including Pilotwings and more.
• Game Freak has made a horse racing solitaire game called Pocket Card Jockey. Thats a thing. Coming in May.
• Azure Striker Gunvolt 2 is coming, with new features and new playable characters. From March 2nd- June 1st, the original will be offered at a discount, with the sequel coming out this summer.
• Fire Emblem Fates Revelations comes out on March 10th, and Nintendo is ramping up the DLC releases with new maps coming regularly.

Hyrule Warriors is coming out on 3DS, and the new game sees a plethora of new characters, including Linkle. Hyrule Warriors Legends will have new content available as well, including a season pass that includes 4 DLCS and a bonus costume for Ganondorf. On launch day, anyone who gets a physical copy of the game will get a download code for a free Hyrule Warriors 3DS theme. Plus, you can transfer Hyrule Warriors Legends characters into the Wii U version. Also revealed was Medli. The harp wielder from Wind Waker is a free download available when the first DLC releases.

• Disney is making an art game called Disney Art Academy. It will teach players how to draw in a variety of styles.
• Bravely Second was show briefly, including the new caster variations that allow you to combine spells. There will be a demo available for the game that includes an exclusive side story that will allow you to carry rewards into the main game. Oh, and theres a Catmancer. A Cat…mancer. The demo will be available on March 10th with the game launching on April 15th.

Dragon Quest 7 is coming to the 3DS in America. Regarded by many as a classic, the game has been totally remastered, giving characters updated looks and bringing the world into 3D. The story has also been completely retranslated. Nintendo promises it will feel like a new game. The game comes out later this year.

• Monster Hunter X is coming to the west as Monster Hunter Generations in Summer 2016. If you play on a system with Monster Hunter 4 save data present, you will get special bonus content. There will also be a special collaboration that lets you dress your hunter as Marth from Fire Emblem.
• Metroid Prime: Federation Force was shown off. Nintendo tried very very hard to convince us that it belongs in the Metroid universe. We here at the station were NOT convinced.
• Rhythm Heaven MegaMix is coming to 3DS. It offers 100 games from the series past and 30 new ones.

The final big announcement was Kirby: Planet Robobot.  In this new adventure, Kirby still copies abilities like always. But he also has a robobot armor that can destroy pieces of the environment as well as copy abilities of it’s own. There is also a new four player co-operative quest mode that has you and friends fighting bosses. Along the way, you can collect pieces of tablets to unleash a massive team attack. And you can level up your Kirby’s and become stronger and take on tougher bosses. The game is also Amiibo compatible. Certain Amiibos will give Kirby character specific abilites, such as Mario giving Kirby the UFO ability. The game will also launch a new line of Kirby Amiibo when it comes out on June 10th. These Amiibos will grant Kirby a copy ability and a costume. And the new Kirby grants an exclusive UFO power.

With The Division coming out soon, Digmbot and  Artemiss join up to offer their opinions on what they’ve experienced so far with the game.

Digmbot

Tom Clancy’s Division is coming out in just a few days, and I’m remembering my own time spent with the beta. There was one extremely frustrating stream, and about 4 hours of off stream play. Perhaps the one thing I could say about The Division is that the shooting mechanics aren’t awful. They aren’t particularly good either, but they aren’t terrible. The game is competent. It aims to put you into an open world New York rife with waist high cover for you to crouch behind while you shoot at enemies and then loot them, and it does so. It aims to include RPG elements, and it does so.

The glaring issue I have with this is that it is not fun. The game controls fine. It isn’t particularly satisfying feeling to slowly dodge roll into cover, or clamber precariously over a car hood, but it does it when I press the button. It just feels chunky and slow. The cover mechanics such as switching between cover or vaulting over are as tried and true as the come. So is blind firing from behind cover. New York is certainly nice to look at, though not on the level they promised us in the original trailer. But all graphical complaints aside, The Division is uninspired. It takes all of the checklist boxes of an open world game, a cover based shooter, and a loot based game and doggedly ticks them off. The setting, which is admittedly intriguing can’t – for me- save gameplay that is utterly dull as dishwater. Even the loot is uninspired. In most loot based games (Diablo and Borderlands come to mind), there is an immediacy to the loot. Shiny new toys! That do crazy things! Destiny pulls this off especially well from a visual standpoint. Guns look awesome in Destiny. And in Borderlands they do insane things like shoot lightning. In The Division the guns…make slightly larger numbers pop up above enemies head’s when you shoot them. They might reduce recoil slightly. They might up your ammo count by 5 rounds in a magazine.This isn’t compelling loot. When I play Borderlands, as soon as I grab a new gun I immediately open my menu to stare at it and see if I should equip it. When I was playing The Division, I usually remembered I had new loot after 20 minutes or so when I opened the inventory for some reason and saw the little tag. It’s just not compelling, which to me is a huge problem in a loot based game.

Let’s move on to the other thing that I find most egregious about Tom Clancy’s: The Division- bullet sponge enemies. Over the years Tom Clancy games have conditioned us to expect realism. Rainbow Six, Splinter Cell and the like have made it clear that these are games grounded in reality. If you shoot someone in the head with an AK-47 in Splinter Cell or Rainbow Six, they will die. In The Division, they will continue walking straight towards you as if nothing happened. Common thugs wearing nothing but hoodies can take 10 to 15 rounds to the face. This is a subjective thing, I get that. But the name Tom Clancy and bullet sponge enemies do not belong in the same game. And even beyond the idea that this is  Tom Clancy game, video games in general have conditioned me to the idea that if I shoot a baddie in the head with a real gun, he’s going to go down. If I shoot him with a hyper powered badger gun in Borderlands, ok he might not go down. Because he has shields and is a mutated psycho on the moon of a distant world. But not an AK-47 in a real looking game. Get the idea? It’s a dissonance that I can’t reconcile and it ruins a core mechanic of the game for me.

The last thing to touch on is The Dark Zone. This is the PvP area of the game, and is probably the only bit of credit I would give the game in terms of new ideas or originality. Once in the Dark Zone you and other players can team up or duke it out over loot that you can scavenge from NPCs and objectives in the zone. All of this loot is contaminated though and must be airlifted out via helicopter. Once this is done, it will be decontaminated and you can then equip it. This is a cool idea that is utterly ruined by the asinine restriction that you can only place four packs on the helicopter’s line at a time. Of course, it drives emergent stories by having players turn on one another in order to make sure their loot get out at all costs. But the other thing it does is punish you for someone else being an asshole, which is not good game design. Of course killing too many other players will mark you on the zone map and incentivize other players to take you down, something very similar to DayZ’s bandit system. I find the idea of these emergent stories to be probably the most interesting part of The Division, and especially of the Dark Zone.

I’m sure there are plenty of elements of The Division that will be discovered after launch that I didn’t get to experience yet. The problem is that what I did experience was bland enough, dull enough, cookie cutter enough and just plain not fun enough that I don’t care to experience those other moments. For me, The Division is a generic military third person shooter with some RPG elements shoehorned in that doesn’t really do anything new. I’ll pass. Maybe one day they’ll put Destiny on PC. At least it has Star Wars style speeder bikes..

ArtemissBow (aka Ranger)

Admit it, everyone saw the recent open beta for The Division, and at least considered downloading it. I was the one refreshing the page awaiting the open access. When I first saw the announcement trailers and teasers for the game, I nearly jumped out of my skin with excitement. Having interactable objects in the world you don’t just glitch around, even some of the mobile aspects had be interested. I’m sure I was one of many who were mostly disappointed after seeing a much more recent E3 example of the game and gameplay, sporting a not-so-beautiful looking New York landscape and strange shooter mechanics.

My experience with the beta refreshed my view significantly. I was able to quickly forgive any graphical broken promises when I was immersed in the semi-apocalyptic Manhattan landscape. There was nothing glaringly terrible about the game graphically, and despite the fact the game presented was in beta, I encountered very few glitches. Granted, usually games that are released on console as a ‘beta’ are mostly finished so it was pretty unlikely that I would have seen too many.

The gameplay is solid, as long as you like 3rd person, cover based shooters. I do think that the game was rather standard as far as the in-game play, but I was thrilled with how the RPG elements were incorporated. It was a little disappointing to see, while my character was low level, enemies eat half a clip of damage from my assault rifle. That feeling was short-lived though, as progression was fast and I started to feel up to pace after only an hour or so of play. I am excited to see what they do with the game as far as the story is concerned, as the setup that we were exposed to, my inner science nerd is drooling. The story we were exposed to did also hint at some base building and crafting elements. These are things I was not expecting, but was happy to see! I had friends that hated the fact games like Fallout 4 had base building, and I have to believe that if you are one of those people, you might not like this aspect of The Division as well.

Another major element definitely worth mentioning is the Dark Zone. I will need to address the Dark Zone separately as the meta develops after the game releases, but aside from the dissertation I could write of speculation regarding the mechanics, I’ll use a single word: potential. The Dark Zone is absolutely brimming over with potential. Let me preface this by saying, I am generally NOT a PvP player. I have several hours into games like Destiny, DayZ, Elder Scrolls Online, and Guild Wars 2; but it is a rare occurrence that I venture/engage in the PvP zones of these games. I am just the type of player that enjoys PvE elements more. I have never been so happy to be wrong. I love that the zone is persistent, you do not end the PvP experience until you decide to walk back out of the door. Gamers that are sick of games like Destiny where the load screens between matches is a huge time sink for your gaming hours will love this. All you do is walk in the door, and it’s all PvP all the time.

That being said, there is little to NO motivation for aggressive players to camp the doors. When you have sweet DZ loot, you get the fashionable, gigantic yellow butt-pack that indicates you have gear that might be worth stealing. People who just walked in the door have no butt-pack and so aggressive players have no motivation just to kill you, as they won’t get anything from it other than being tagged as ‘Rogue’ which is not necessarily favorable as the whole server can then see your exact position on the map. Speaking of being announced to the server, I even liked the extraction setup for the DZ loot. It’s exciting and thrilling to try and get your precious loot out when the extraction location and time is announced to the whole server. Extraction is where you will be finding the aggressive players, so it’s treacherous. Extraction is why I really want to wait for a full impression until the meta develops, as I saw something incredible while I was playing the beta. There were high ranked/level/DPS players….actually protecting the extraction zones from aggressive players so that normal scrubs like me could get my sweet loot out of the DZ.
Long story short, The Division is an absolute yes from me. I don’t know if it will be able to replace the more flashy titles like Destiny, but it’s going to be a real contender. I will absolutely be playing this one on release.

So there you have it. What do you think about The Division so far?