Seems that Electronic Arts is going through a rebrand of their Origin accounts program. Some users of the service are reporting that they’ve received e-mails about an account branding change.

The e-mail says that “in the coming weeks your Origin Account will be renamed to an EA Account” but otherwise nothing else is expected to be changed – just the branding and the design. Account owners are reassured that “Your Account identity, preferences, and order history will remain unchanged.
You will continue to use this account and the same login credentials to access all EA games, web sites, and services, including Origin.”

No reasons have been given for the change of account naming, but it’s possible that EA are seeking to try and brand things under one umbrella to improve association between all the parts of their business. The changes will happen automatically without any users needing to do anything, and EA hope that the transition will go smoothly.

I saw this game when it was recommended to me by Steam, probably based off my recent playtime in Starbound having rediscovered why I once enjoyed it so much during our last charity livestreams. In ways it is a very similar game, having the 2D mine-n-craft thing made so popular by Terraria originally (another game I own and should rediscover at some point!).

Dig or Die was released into Early Access in March of this year and is currently approaching version 0.1. Because of this it does lack some variety in the amount of enemies (they only come in 4 types that I’ve seen, although some also come in different coloured ‘harder’ versions) and the world itself isn’t too big. Also if you fall into the DEEP cavern and the procedurally-generated world hasn’t generated any rock or dirt column low enough you might as well restart. Say this though, Dig or Die hasn’t given me one thing I usually expect from an early access game and that’s any noticeable bugs. There’s some graphical issues with water physics but that is not something I consider a problem by any stretch.

If you approach the game with its early accessness in mind though, this is so far a decent little game that looks like a solid foundation to be built upon. You are equipped with a plasma rifle to shoot monsters, an AutoBuilder machine which is like a futuristic crafting bench that you can later make better versions of (that oddly can’t craft things the lower level ones can) and a ‘Miniaturizor’ which you can use to mine dirt and wood at first although it too will need an upgrade to dig harder surfaces, and believe me – you’ll need to. Your end aim is to eventually build yourself a new rocket to get off the planet with.

Generally you will start off by cutting some trees down (which respawn and grow on their own currently) and digging yourself a little base. Get this done before nightfall because when night comes you will have to survive a wave of monsters all after your blood. But if you dig down be careful of your base flooding during one of the planet’s frequent rainstorms. Soil will slowly let water drain through it, but rock doesn’t. And yes, you can drown. And fish if they spawn are also hostile and are not currently edible. This planet you’ve crashed on is beautiful but everything basically wants you dead. Standard really.

Speaking of water, rainfall brings a LOT of it and even when you’re underground you can tell when its raining because slopes will suddenly become waterfalls. Fortunately you can most often swim and jump up them still, but the water plays an awfully big part in this world and you will learn how to make your bases so they don’t get flooded too badly or often. It’s just a shame that monsters are able to swim and don’t seem to yet have a drowning function programmed into them. Not that it’d stop them all the time, monsters can use their attacks to ‘dig’ blocks in their way whether they be dirt or stone.

Later in this game you can build power systems to power machines to make your life more survivable as you craft your way up to the rocket. Also, you will be using iron frames and other things to make sure your bridges and towers don’t collapse under their own weight. If you’re able to build them without being murdered by monsters, which is difficult sometimes if you don’t have good armour or enough health potions.

I will take a long time to get to the end of this game, but for now it’s a challenge I want to meet because this game is satisfying despite being difficult. Also, the game cost only £2 on Steam. For that cost, I’d say this is certainly a game you’d want to try if you’re already a fan of Terraria or Starbound!

8.5/10 – Not perfect, but set to get better and brilliant value for money!

While the idea of breaking the fourth wall in games in nothing new, The Magic Circle does it in a refreshing way that marries narrative voiceover with gameplay that all take a sledgehammer to the 4th, 5th and 6th walls. As the hero of a game stuck in development hell, its up to you to take control of the very tools of creation and attempt to escape your ghostly purgatory…by shipping a game from inside a game.

The Magic Circle starts off slowly, with you as the hero awakening in a burning village. You quickly gain a sword, which is then quickly snatched away from you as two of the developers swoop down out of the sky and begin arguing over the mechanics and inclusion of the combat system. This sets the overall tone of the game very quickly, as you will often be addressed by the floating eyes that represent the developers, or will find yourself overhearing conversations, arguments and a few bouts of outright insanity from them as they go about trying to complete their game.

Once you move past the opening section, the world of The Magic Circle abruptly opens up. You are given a set of simple yet powerful tools. Your hand allows you to siphon energy from cracks in the world. This energy doubles as your health and also allows you to manipulate the creatures in the game. This powerful tool is the lynchpin of The Magic Circle’s gameplay, and it is a fascinating one. As you move through the black and white world of the game, you will encounter creatures going about their pre-programmed routines. Easily identifiable by the wash of color that follows them (and the player), once in range you can open a circle and trap them. After trapping a monster, you can then edit it, diving into it’s code and modifying every aspect of it.

You can make a mushroom come alive, hopping along after you. You can then give it drooling fangs by granting it the ability to attack with melee. Want it to hate everything but you, The Hero? Go for it! This system expands even further once you happen upon creatures or objects that have special abilities. Rocks, for example, are fireproof. So if you need to cross a lava river, you simply find a rock and take it’s fireproof ability. Then you can edit one of the turtle like creatures that inhabit the world, give it the fireproof ability and ride it across the lava. Adding to the satisfaction of commanding your own horde of custom edited creatures is the ability to set waypoints, which the AI does a very serviceable job of following. At one point, I found myself riding atop a flying, fireproof, railgun equipped turtle creature as I scoured the landscape below clean of enemies. The tools you are given to manipulate the world and its inhabitants are flexible, powerful, novel and a joy to use.

Once you begin to venture deeper into the world of The Magic Circle, you will quickly realize that not everything is as it seems. Buried underneath the fantasy game you are traversing is a hidden, completed and cancelled sci-fi game that is very reminiscent of Doom. It is here that the  voice of your in game ally lives. Without spoiling to much of the story, these segments play an important part in the overall arc of the story and provided a fascinating dissonance as the graphics and sounds of the modern game collide with the old. I can’t speak more to the plot without spoiling the end of the game, but suffice it to say that it’s an interesting, if sometimes sanctimonious and preachy jab at the games industry. I found it to be entertaining and by the time the game came to an end, rather satisfying in its own way.

Of course, there are a few nitpicks I have with the game. The art style of the unfinished, black and white world won’t be for everyone. I find that it fits the setting of an unfinished game. The voice acting is good, but there are a few areas where it seems the writers were determined to hammer a point home, with the result that the narration seems to drag on a bit to long. The game is very undirected, which is again refreshing, but it has the potential to leave players frustrated as they explore every corner of the world in an attempt to figure out what to do next. Still, these minor foibles don’t detract form what is an enjoyable and novel experience. My final bit of cuation however would be that The Magic Circle is rather short. My own playthrough clocked in at just over two and a half hours. While I’m always a fan of quality over quantity, the asking price of $19.99 USD may be a bit steep for some given the length of the game.

If you are looking for a short, delightfully irreverent and novel gameplay experience, don’t mind the price tag, and are ready to have your perception of game developers warped and twisted, then by all means give The magic Circle a shot.

SCORE: 8/10

I wrote about FNAF4’s change of release date yesterday, mentioning the trailer that was coming. Did I say it was coming next week though? Well, seems that we were misinformed.

Scott has done it again, surprising us with an early trailer for the forth FNAF game that went live a few hours ago. Check it out below if you dare.

Impressions are… mixed from me. I love this series, the lore is one of its strongest points and while the new setting is a surprise I can and will get used to it. Also the Nightmare animatronics (not sure if that’s the official name for them yet) look amazing, just as they did in their teasers. Good lord Bonnie, you got scary!

However like a lot of people I’ve noticed that it doesn’t seem as polished as the previous trailers for the games. The trailer for the first game also wasn’t much to shout about but FNAF2 and FNAF3 had some amazing trailers and some of the textures for certain parts felt unfinished (example: Plushtrap’s looks a bit flat still). So maybe for once Cawthon’s desire to show his new game to us has led to his jumping the gun a bit.

Either way, people are excited and I am too. Just hoping that by the time of release everything looks a little more like the FNAF I’ve come to expect visually.

GTA V is a few years old by this point, but Rockstar are still putting out free updates for it. The latest one was the second part of the GTA Ill-Gotten Gains update, which added a bunch of new cars, boats, clothes and other expensive, luxury items to buy. The problem is that it also came with a noticeable framerate problem.

Players have noticed that lower frame rates had become more regular since the update last week, and Rockstar have already said that they’re “looking into” the causes on a support page. Users on the /r/Games Reddit have been speculating that the new anti-modding and hacking measures for GTA Online could be the cause, but issues have effected all players regardless of whether they play the game straight or flavoured with a mod or two.

Rockstar should have a patch out soon once the root cause has been nailed down.