I first discovered Need for Speed : Hot Pursuit around ten years ago.
It came in an unmarked padded bag and was a surprise review.
Knowing nothing about the game I went in blind, it was early in my ButtonmasherNZ days and I was keen.
Out of that came an overlong and excitable review, the game was good and had its turbo boosted hooks in me.
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Star Wars Squadrons, you say?
The close of 2020 is fast approaching, not to mention the end of the current generation of consoles. I for one did not expect this late in the piece to be blindsided by a wee budget priced title made by EA!? of all publishers, to come out of nowhere and insert itself squarely in my 2020 game of the year considerations.
Finally someone at EA has seen fit to make a game worthy of the juggernaut IP that is Star Wars. And to boot, they have drawn heavily from one of the all-time great video games of the past Star Wars: Rogue Squadron.
Back in 1998 it was THE flight/space combat game to play. It has baffled many a gamer pundit why it has been over 20 years since we could strap on an X-Wing at shoot stuff.
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Everyone knows the Need For Speed franchise. With well over twenty games to its name you would be hard pushed to find any gamer who hasn’t played a Need For Speed title at some point. So how does EA keep the franchise fresh?
Well to be honest, they don’t. Need For Speed is a known litmus test in the arcade racer genre so why mess with a good thing.
This time round Need For Speed Heat has taken a little bit of Forza Horizon and a splash of The Fast and the Furious and added it to the mixture.
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March 2017- Donald Trump, the freshly minted 45th American President, was banning US travel from various middle eastern countries, London was the subject of a brutal terrorist attack, the UK Prime Minister invoked Article 50 to trigger Brexit and to top it off, a man’s body was found inside a 7m long reticulated python in Indonesia. So, to put it bluntly, March 2017 was a bit shit.
Thankfully over the same period, the world of Video Games was fucken brilliant, with some of the best games of the generation being released, all to help gamers escape to worlds full of adventure and fun.
The title I wish to revisit from the month of March is a game which has become hugely important to gamers such as myself, Gamers who grew up playing Baldurs Gate, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Jade Empire, Dragon Age and the Mass Effect series…I of course speak of Mass Effect: Andromeda.
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Anthem, you will have heard of it no doubt. Anybody with the slightest toe dipped in to Gaming, Social Media or having seen the odd Bus drive past will be familiar. Being the latest title from Bioware the stakes were high and it has to be said, Bioware fans can be a fervent pack when they are poked with a stick. Let’s be straight up from the front.
The company has delivered a game that does not stick to their modus operandi, fair enough, but the fans didn’t know and they’re upset.
The company has tried to deliver a game du jour, moderately massively persistently online, bullet sponge enemies and heaps of customisation.
The company has actually delivered a flawed, but fun game that can be enjoyed on different levels if you forgive a few structural issues.
This is probably a good time to say, this isn’t a review in the traditional sense, there are various reasons for that, but the key ones will be the method of Anthem’s launch and popularisation, alongside the pack mentality and vocal rejection of the game by anybody with a phone and some data for Twitter.
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Anthem will be with us by the end of the month and what better way to celebrate it than give us a surprise Short Movie by sci-fi stalwart Neil Blomkamp (District 9 for example).
Given the design and nature of his movies, bringing the Anthem world and its Javelins to life must have been a no-brainer on both sides.
There is currently a teaser up on youtube.
The full short will be available on the 14th.
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Following the harrowing World War 1 shooter, Battlefield 1, is the sixteenth Battlefield release, Battlefield V. So the first release was ‘1942’, the third ‘2’, the fifteenth ’1’, and the sixteenth ‘V’… For those trying to work out the naming sequence going on here, please, let me know when you have it. Anyway its back to World War 2 we go and an even more multiplayer centric experience, along with a move away from historical accuracy in the name of fun.
Fair enough, at least we know where we stand and know not to pick holes in the detail.
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‘A Way Out’ is a unique title with a requirement to play the whole game Co-Op with another player, either via online or on the Couch. No bots here people to fill the void, its time to get social. Honestly though, it’s good fun and the puzzles are not to hard as to cause online salt or old fashion fisty-cuffs on the couch.
Here is a bit of gameplay footage from about 2 hours in to the campaign. As you will see, it was a slick operation with the co-operation levels set to ’11’!
(Yep, that’s a Spinal Tap reference)
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Well, take me down to Paradise City!
A small, but very nice surprise to know that it won’t be long before we get given the chance to race, jump and smash our way across Paradise City in the ultimate car prang adventure – again.
Personally, I will always be a bigger fan of Burnout 2, and then Burnout 3: Takedown, but Paradise City stacks up above the competition and that includes a good chunk of its EA stablemates in the NFS franchise.
Either way, March 16th is just around the corner and who wouldn’t want to cruise under those HD blue skies?
Press release after the break…
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Star Wars, you can’t pass it by, especially when you get the chance to live out those schoolyard fantasies in
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You wait years for some serious racers, then three come along at once. Only to get grit sprayed in their
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