The folks over at HiRez Studios are always hard at work adding new Gods and tweaks to their 3rd person MOBA. Today, they’ve dropped a new trailer on YouTube for Scylla the Horror of The Deep.

The trailer below details the new God’s lore, moves and some different fighting scenarios.

Check it out, and don’t forget to tune in this week as our DJs will be telling you how you can win a code to unlock either Agni or Nu Wa as a playable character as well as an alternate skin.

Have you ever wondered what would happen if your typical student Dungeons and Dragons player got thrown into a castle straight out of one of the games he plays? Have you ever wanted to play a game as that typical student player? Well, you’re in luck. Such a game exists.

Unepic is the story of Daniel, your typical young male student who somehow during a bathroom break during a game session winds up in a castle occupied by a Dark Lord and his many monster minions. Not that your character realises that this is all for real, believing instead that his fellow players drugged his drink and therefore the adventure is all in his head.

The game itself is a 2D side-scrolling Metroidvania-type game, with an awful lot of castle to explore as you explore, smash, fight and in some cases trick your way through towards your ultimate goal. Inside the castle there are many items to be found and also equipped as well as upgradeable skills such as the various weapon types, magicks and constitution that can have some of the 5 skill points you gain on level up assigned to them, in the manner of how your typical tabletop RPG handles a character’s skill increases. Each type of weapon has strengths and weaknesses and certain monsters will take more damage from a certain type of weapon, but it will take trial, error and a few deaths before you can be sure of what works best as a weapon for each foe you encounter.

As with most games with a role-play element included, you have an inventory of items, which can hold a limited amount of items within it (and can be sorted with the k key, helpfully displayed in the Inventory screen). Fortunately throughout the levels you can find shops that will let you both sell and buy items. I recommend selling your extra items to the shopkeepers and vendors you encounter whenever you can, because even if the monsters you squish and barrels you smash drop coins or an item only about 50% of the time, it does eventually add up. Also, upgrade your armour as soon as you can, taking less damage helps a lot on those screens with multiple opponents if you’re a lot like me and prefer melee combat over ranged. Also special unique items and coins can be earned by taking on and completing quests for the odd non-hostile resident of the castle, and if you complete special quests you can gain access to certain branches of magic too.

Combat itself is fairly simple, with a key-bind system allowing you to switch quickly between weapons and heal up within seconds if need be. Melee involves hitting the space key to swing/swipe in front of you, which is enough to deal with most enemies. Sometimes it is better to use your bow though and Unepic has a targeting system that allows the nearest enemy within sight to be aimed at using the Tab button and Space again is the attack button although it does require you to be standing still so watch enemy projectiles while shooting!

Control-wise the game works beautifully, which is a relief during those moments when you need to turn tail and get to safety to heal up before finishing off a tricky group of opponents and that requires a dash across a room and a leap up onto a high ledge. The way that the controls are set up too is also well-done, fairly easy to figure out with a minute or two of experimentation (and the first bit of the game teaches you how to do things such as pick up loot and aim your bow’s arrows). The only minor niggle I have about it is that up is the jump key but as space is attack and enter is used to interact with items and pick up loot it does make sense. It just takes a little getting used to at first.

I would certainly recommend picking up this game if you enjoy RPGs, DnD or platformers, as this is a wonderful little game. It has a great sense of humour, an interesting story and is full of little nods to other games and shows, some that come out of nowhere. Currently in Early Access on Steam, the single-player is said to be fully complete and there is a multiplayer option too for when you want to play with a friend. And what’s more, it comes with ten different language options and will soon be available on the WiiU as well.

I give Unepic an 8/10 and look forward to getting past the second boss fight soon.

Unepic website is here.

Buy Unepic on Steam here.

Smashdate! #4 is bringing you honey roasted hell, this contenders Legume Ladened Lethality is joining the fight. And this week’s stages are out of this galaxy.

[*ALARM*]

A Challenger Approaches

Diddy Kong

Kart Racer, Jungle Japer and Sidekick extraordinaire returns for his second round battle. Diddy Kong is a small and fast character with some ok ranged attacks. His strength lies in his speed and various barrel themed gadgets, not only does his barrel jetpack pack a punch but it makes for a precise recovery allowing skilled players to avoid edge guarders with ease. Diddy is seen still packing his peanut guns and again these are no ordinary blasters, you will have to charge for distance and damage but be warned over charging will mean that it’s not just the nut that gets roasted.
Diddy Kong although a lovable childhood mascot is not one for those new to smash as his move set can be pretty risky at times. But with practice you’ll be popping peanuts all over the battlefield.

The Stage Is Set

 
Super Mario Galaxy

Although there’s not a great deal to decipher from this stages screenshots on thing is certain that backdrop looks awesome with majestic celestial bodies twinkling as you attempt to re-enact that scene from gravity on your friends (you know the one … the one that makes you never want to go to space). It appears that this stage will be mostly flatland with a few floating platforms making for a pretty basic stage. What I’d like for this stage to be is a spherical base with Galaxy-esc gravity so combatants stick to all sides making for some crazy upside-down battles.

Pikmin

The Pikmin stage takes heavily from its environmentalist source material, with watery swamps, rocky crevasses and giant flying onions. The exact layout is unclear from the screen shots but if it’s anything like the Pikmin stages we’ve seen in the past it’ll provide a tough challenge with dynamic landscapes that will keep you on your toes.

So one of our childhood greats is back for his second round, donning his vest and sweet Nintendo cap, this chimp is one that’ll warm your hearts then pound your face. But still I’m left with a tear in my eye (unfortunately not from the stench) that my main is still hiding in the slightly smelly shadows. Where are you WAAAARIOOOO???

“Internal experiment” may pave the way to free, Chromebook-inspired Windows rethink.

Microsoft is at a crisis point. With calls to ditch their home-grown Surface line of tablets due to lack of sales; new installs of Windows 8 selling at a slower pace to its still-popular predecessor Windows 7 – to the extent that some PC makers now offer Windows 7 on their PCs instead and 8 as an optional upgrade; and a lack of smartphones being launched by third parties running Windows Phone 8, the company is forced to look at new strategies to drum up sales.

At the hands of new CEO Satya Nadella, it appears Microsoft are already on the works on this new strategy; and it may involve lowering licensing costs and setting less restrictions on using its systems in order to make them cheaper and easier to get onto more devices; thus expanding reach by targeting more markets including the lesser-tapped low-end market. Already we’ve seen Microsoft working on a new low-cost smartphone range with the Nokia X Phones; and rumours suggest Microsoft may even consider lowering the licensing cost for Windows Phone itself by as much as 70%, to make it more affordable for phone manufacturers to put on their models. Now, it sounds as if Windows 8 itself might get the same treatment.

According to reports by The Verge, Microsoft is experimenting with a new version of Windows 8 known as “Windows 8.1 with Bing”. This experimental rethink of Windows 8.1 is said to put Cloud services first, even more than Windows 8.1 does already with its SkyDrive OneDrive integration, emphasising services such as Office Online and Bing Maps, etc; in order to drive monetization through use of those, rather than through up-front software costs. In fact, the use of the Bing trademark in its name – which is also the name of Microsoft’s home-grown search engine and services linked around it like News, Maps, Social and so on – suggests Windows 8.1 with Bing could be geared mainly towards a browser-based environment and use of the Cloud as a platform, so what we could end up with might look a lot like Chromebooks, which seems to be Microsoft’s main competition of late.

The intention of Windows 8.1 with Bing could be to offer those still sticking with Windows 7 a free or low-cost upgrade to encourage them to consider upgrading to the latest OS; while allowing them to recoup the loss of licensing revenue through subscriptions to Microsoft’s online services. But other rumours suggest Microsoft is also pitching it to device manufacturers as a cheaper alternative for those devices where the cost of licensing traditional Windows would severely eat into profit margins due to low retail prices. Microsoft may reduce or even eliminate the licensing cost for devices priced below $249 if they run Windows 8.1 with Bing instead of a full-fat variety; this claim fits nicely with a previous rumour from The Gadget Show that Microsoft were looking at reducing Windows licenses to $15 on such products.

With the system said to be experimental, however – and with Microsoft yet to confirm, deny or even comment on the rumours – there is no guarantee as of yet that Windows 8.1 with Bing could ever become an actual product or is being considered for such. But with Google Chromebooks, Android and Mac OS X all eating into Windows’ market share due to the lack of any licensing costs – though only on older versions, in Mac OS X’s case – it makes sense that Microsoft may be considering such a move to remain relevant in 2014 and beyond. Only time will tell what becomes of these as-yet unconfirmed rumours.

While WhatsApp might be the most popular Mobile Messenger app in most of the world, in Japan there’s another name that’s making waves in the local market. Called Line, it works in a very similar way to WhatsApp; and given its success in its native Japan, the company is now gunning for global growth.

Line’s mission may have just had help in its goal thanks to this week’s occurrences to WhatsApp itself. After selling to Facebook for a proposed $19 billion in combined cash, stock and incentives, WhatsApp’s servers suffered a 210-minute outage that prevented people using the service, which many wrongly interpreted as Facebook either closing or doing behind-the-scenes work on the app following the purchase (more likely it was simply server overload). Following the deal and subsequent outage, Line saw its registered user account increase by over two million users over the next 24 hours, which Line claim is five times its usual user acquisition rate outside its home region of Asia, and specifically in North America, South America and Europe.

Following the news, the CEO of LINE Euro-Americas, Jeanie Han, issued a statement about the increased growth which makes a number of jabs at WhatsApp’s outage:

“Our growth strategy has always included providing a strong network that can handle unplanned and unexpected increases in network traffic … We pride ourselves on providing a safe, secure platform that will always work when our users need it the most.”

But Line isn’t alone in benefitting from WhatsApp’s woes. A third Mobile messaging app, Telegram, saw its user acquisition rate spike 3x after WhatsApp’s Facebook acquisition was announced – propelling it to the top of the App Store rankings and bringing it some 8 million new users in a handful of days. Many other similar apps also saw smaller growth levels, so it seems Mark Zuckerberg’s big spending may once again bite both Facebook and their new acquisition in the ass – at least for now.