Amazon is one of the many places you can go online if you wish to shop for video games, among other things. They’re huge and usually very reliable – they have a good reputation that keeps people coming back. So when people began to notice that some big-name games were being blocked from purchase unless you were an Amazon Prime member… well, it confused and annoyed a lot of people.

Games including FIFA 16, Far Cry Primal and Battlefield Hardline on both the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One were affected in the UK, and the label was applied to Grand Theft Auto V among others in the US store. This requirement was only in place if you wished to order from amazon themselves though, with third-party sellers still free to use. Either way it was baffling – Amazon seemed to be trying to incentivize their Prime service by removing the option to buy from them.

Moves like this don’t always have the best history. The biggest example of something similar I can think of is when Google tried to get more people to use G+ by making it a requirement for you to have an account in it to comment on Youtube. As someone who spends a lot of time on Youtube I know that the community were vocally against that from the beginning – I haven’t made a video comment in years because G+ just complicated the entire process and I didn’t want to deal with it. Trying to push a service on people by removing their access to things doesn’t always work and often just pisses people off.

Since this happened the block has been removed from listings in the UK store, which suggests either a mistake on their part or a u-turn upon witnessing the reaction from customers. I guess we’ll never really know, but if this is an option that Amazon has ready to bring into use I don’t see it going well for them…

Smite commentator and streamer Brandon “DM Brandon” Nance is resigning from hos position with Hi-Rez Studios. This comes after he reacted to a viewer’s donation message talking about his struggles with suicide. Since joining the studio as a tournament caster in March 2013, Nance has become well known in the Smite community. He has nearly 80,00 followers on Twitch and also co-hosted Hi-Rez’s caster search “So You Think You Can Cast” last year.

After receiving the donation, Brandon launched into a rant about suicide and depression. While he has long been known as being outspoken- even saying once “I have always been loud, abrasive, and I don’t know how to change it. I don’t know that I would.”- many felt that the rant was extremely inappropriate. While there is video of the incident, we have chosen not to include it. However, some excerpts follow.

“There are a lot of streamers out there who would appreciate that message, I’m just going to call you an asshole. It’s a selfish, stupid thing to do.  “Everyone has loved ones. Family. Parents. If you kill yourself with another person on the planet that cares about you, you’re being a selfish prick, plain and simple. If you don’t like my opinion about that you can find somewhere else to watch who’s going to tell you that killing yourself is okay. Go fuck yourself, kid.”

Nance then went on to talk about how he’s tired of “this constant, ridiculous self-pity bullshit like ‘I have depression I can’t do anything in life.’ Everyone has fucking depression and anxiousness. Everyone has a hard time fucking waking up, and still a lot of us do it without putting the burden on a lot of other people. There is therapy, there are friends and there are people to help you.”

Needless to say, this has not been received well. In a statement posted on Twitter, Nance stated that while he could deal with the hate caused by his comments, he didn’t think that Hi-Rez studios (his employer) should have to deal with it. In his resignation message, he stated that he will continue streaming and focus on his charity works. He also plans to move from Atlanta back to New Jersey.

Kotaku also reported on this story and  reached out to Hi-Rez Studios president Stew Chisam who gave them the following statement:

“At Hi-Rez, we care about our community deeply and we take topics like suicide, depression and mental illness not lightly. All our employees are free in their opinions, but when people don’t respect the values we stand for as a company, we treat it seriously.

“If any good comes from this episode, we hope it shines a light on mental illness issues, and the need for broader education, support and open conversation about how these devastating illnesses are perceived and discussed in our society. All of us have important people in our lives that have been touched by mental illness. How we talk about these diseases is important.”

Bethesda and id have brought back DOOM, one of the most revered and respected arena shooters from the beginnings of PC gaming. With the multiplayer beta weekend recently completed, we’re ready to give you our thoughts on the game.

DOOM’s multiplayer is developed by Certain Affinity who have previously worked on the multiplayer for Halo and Call of Duty. Many of these games have clearly had an influence on the new iteration of DOOM. The new game includes loadouts, unlockable weapons, customizable armor and in game perks that reward you for dying to much.

While the new DOOM engine has a certain shine to it, there are many problems with the multiplayer, both in terms of balance and in terms of the basic design of the game. We’ll show you the ins and outs of the loadout system, customize some hideously ugly armor for you and then jump into a team Deathmatch as well as the new roving capture point type Warpath. During the matches, we’ll discuss the problems with the game. So click that play button!

After a wait, a trailer for the sequel to Titanfall has finally landed, bringing with it some glimpses of robotic legs and what appears to be a giant sword. It’s also announced June 12th as being the date for more big reveals about the game.

Of course, we don’t know the actual details of the weapon, but it could mean that titans could actually be fighting melee-style this time. If so, let’s hope it’s elegant and functional and not clunky as hell. That’d be a bit of a letdown.

Check out the trailer below and see what you make of it.

It’s been a couple of weeks since the Fallout 4 Automatron DLc dropped on all platforms and I’ve been feverishly adding automatrons to all my settlements since then.

“The mysterious Mechanist has unleashed a horde of evil robots into the Commonwealth, including the devious Robobrain. Hunt them down and harvest their parts to build and mod your own custom robot companions. Choose from hundreds of mods; mixing limbs, armor, abilities, and weapons like the all-new lightning chain gun. Even customize their paint schemes and choose their voices!”

Automatron is a four mission DLC that kicks off at level 15 for the sole survivor. Now only four missions seems rather small and I thought so too, until I played it on stream the night it released and realised I had been playing for over 7 hours and the sun was coming up. You can see my live stream below, and no worries, I didn’t finish the final fight on stream, not only for spoilers, but also cos I was half asleep at the time.

What I will say about the ending though is that it gives a really interesting moral decision, one that I’m glad I chose the decision I went with and has not only left me with a fun set of armour for my companions, but also a new settlement and a new set of random radio quests for that added experience and looting opportunity.

One thing I would reccomend to anyone just starting Automatron though, if you don’t have the robotics perk, max it out! The Hack ability for robots works on ALL enemy automatrons in the DLC and adds for some hilarious outcomes when attacked by the new raider gang that use the robots!

Speaking of them, this new raider group is called the Rust Devils. They use robot parts to make weapons and armour, and the armour is comparable with good tier Synth armour, only being out done by Legendary Synth pieces later on, so unless you have a full set of heavy combat armour like I did when i started the DLC, it’s a great way to get some extra protection from the bots you have to face.

Of course, everyone knows by now what the biggest draw of Automatron is and thats the ability to build and upgrade your own automatrons and put them to work in your settlements! You kick off getting this workstation when you finish the first mission of the DLC and also gain Ada as a companion. you can use the workstation to upgrade Ada with any of the items available to you based on your perks, Science, Armoury, etc just like other workbenches, but you can also find parts from dead automatrons you find in random encounters. The other fun thing is that you can also upgrade Codsworth and Curie if she’s still in her Miss Nanny body (not her synth body, oh sorry, SPOILERS!)

The new settlement, without giving away spoiles, is both amusing, but also a pain in the ass to use properly, of course, this weeks new DLC, Wastelander (out Tuesday 12th April) will cure some of those annoyances with the new settlement build options, but right now, it is pretty useless beyond giving some minuteman style radio quests. It does however make a good hiding spot for the sole survivor, especially when the new survival update comes along aswell.

I have utterly love playing Fallout 4 since the beginning (surprising, since I never got into Fallout 4 and I was never a fan of Skyrim), but something about it has just grabbed me and won’t let go and Automatron has just added tot he experience in spades. I love updating my provisioners to using sentrybots instead of humans (they are far more valuable than being pack Brahman anyway)

One gripe I would give though is the other new settlement item you can use, the Eyebot Pod, which, in functionality sounds really useful, however, is pretty useless. It works by giving the eyebot the command to search for crafting materials or ammo, however, especially when it comes tot he junk for crafting, the amount you find fromt eh two part mission it gives you are miniscule compared to the power (6) that the pod needs. Of course, some will say that it’s also useful for getting you back to places you previously cleared out for other loot aswell, plus it can be useful for finding rare ammo like Railway Spikes and Cannonballs. But even those really aren’t worth it to be honest, so frankly, after testing, I scrapped the one I built.

All in all this is a great DLC, certainly worth the season price cost (I’ve played full price games with shorter storylines than this…) but even after the DLC price increase,
looking at the other DLC’s and free updates that are on the way? totally worth it! A Solid 9 out of 10!

~Lone