Publisher Daedalic Entertainment has revealed the Early Access release date for developer Core Engage's debut title New Cycle. Now scheduled to? release on January 18, 2024, New Cycle tasks players with building a ?new bastion for humanity on a post-apocalyptic Earth ravaged by solar flares.

An old new world

Players take on the role of leading a small group of settlers seeking refuge after a catastrophic solar flare decimated Earth. In the dieselpunk-??inspired city-builder, players will start with a small basic settlement of a few hungry workers with many needs as they build up their outpost. Morale, disease outbreaks, power losses, and resource demands are the primary challenges players will have to navigate to keep their settlement going.

The Early Access version of New Cycle that launches in January will feature a campaign and and sandbox ?gameplay mode, three different biomes, 54 buildings, 47 producible resources, three classes of society and eight different stages of development.

New Cycle reminds me a lot of Frostpunk with perhaps a bit of Anno 1800 mixed in which I'm all for. In the ??trailer it looks like the city was built around a t?rain network which hopefully adds some interesting logistical challenges as well.

New Cycle launches into Early Access on Steam o???n January 18, 2024.

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A second Lord of the Rings project has also been canceled

Daedalic Entertainment is closing its Hamburg, Germany studio and shifting focus, following the reception to The Lord of the Rings: Gollum. The p?ublisher will now fully focus its efforts on its publishing business.

First reported by Games Wirtschaft, Daedalic confirms to Polygon as well that it's shifting focus. Daedalic is closing its internal Hamburg studio, which developed Gollum, and canceled a second project based on The Lord of the Rings IP.

Games Wirtschaft's report indicates 25 employees will be affected. In a statement to Polygon, Daedalic says it will support those former employees in "finding new opportunities" within its network. Additionally, Daedalic says it will continue to work on a patch for Gollum, which was released in May. The publisher confirms that the stealth-action game "did not live up to the expectations" it had for Gollum.

My precious

There's no hiding that The Lord of the Rings: Gollum was a massive flop. It sits at a rare 37 on OpenCritic, with only 4% of critics recommending it. As Will Cruz writes for our sister site, The Escapist: "The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is quite?? possibly the worst game I've played in 2023 so far."

Having played a demo of it a while back and walking away baffled, I'm not terribly surprised. Regardless of Gollum's quality, though, seeing developers fall on hard times is never a good thing. Hopefully, those?? affected can find a new path forward in the industry.

As for Lord of the Rings video games, well, this seems to have salted the earth on Gollum. It feels like it's been a bit since we saw the last great LOTR game. Return to Moria is currently set for ?a fall 2023 release date, so maybe that can rattle the dust off the series a ?bit.

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How incredibly precious

Having spent years in development, and having suffered numerous delays, publisher Nacon has finally announced a launch date for its Tolkien adaptation The Lord of the Rings: Gollum �The fantasy adventure title wi??ll crawl out of ?its cave on May 25 on PlayStation, PC, and Xbox platforms.

The third-person adventure will tell the tale of the notable Tolkien character Smeagol, better known among LOTR as "Gollum", after the strange guttural noises that emerge from his esophagus. Set between the events of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, the game will see Gollum embark upon?? his own odyssey across Middle-Earth, meeting tentative allies and bitter enemies in his pursuit of the core of his being... "The Precious".

You can check out a new, lengthy gameplay showcase video below.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOBqFV6EO80&ab??_channel=Nacon

Developed by Daedalic, this ambitious project has seen several setbacks since its initial reveal way back in the spring of 2019, but is finally on the road to fruition. Offering new LOTR lore, a very different perspective on Middle-Earth, and an intriguing "inner turmoil" mechanic, The Lord of the Rings: Gollum will be nothin??g if not interesting for Tolkien fans, who will get to experience their favorite universe from the perspective of one of its strangest, saddest, and most conflicted characters.

The Lord of The Rings: Gollum ?launches on PlayStation, PC, and Xbox on May 23. A Ni??ntendo Switch edition will follow at a later date.

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And we lived beneath the waves

After four years(!?) in Early Access, horrifying space-submarine simulator Barotrauma is finally getting its full release today. The 1.0 ver?sion comes with?? a number of additions and fixes to shore everything up and fill out the full package.

Barotrauma is the story of humanity trying to survive on Jupiter’s Moon, Europa. Because its surface is so badly irradiated, the only way to survive is ??beneath the waves in submarines. You’re tasked with building up your submarine and exploring the space-oceans. There are missions to run an?d alien ruins to delve into, all while enduring the terrors of the deep.

[embed]//youtu.be/pau93Z-46GQ[/embed]

This is also a primarily multi-player experience. There are bots available if you want to play by yourself, but the experience is tailored to dragging your friends beneath the waves. You can cram up to 16 people into a single water-coffin and go exploring Davey Jones�locker togeth?er.  There’s even a traitor option that randomly assigns a player to the role of saboteur, just in case you or any of your friends are feeling sus.

The final patch adjusts the faction and reputation system, and focuses on end-game campaign stuff. The patch notes can be found here.

At the time of writing, Barotrauma has en?joyed over 30,000 user reviews on Steam, with 93% of them being positive. While I haven’t personally delved the deep, I’ve heard a few indie devs speak highly of the title on social media.

Barotrauma is currently available on P??C??, with the full version coming sometime today.

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What would you prefer? Yellow spandex?

Daedalic Entertainment has announced it has teamed up with Spitfire Interactive to create Capes, a turn-based super-hero strategy game coming to consoles and PC sometime this year. Spitfire Interactive is a developer formed by members of Defiant Development, creators of Hand of Fate. Perhaps more notably, the team is being headed by Morgan Jaffit, who was a member of Irrational Games during the development of one of the turn-based super-hero genre’s earliest members, 2002’s Freedom Force.

Capes takes place in a world where evil has long since triumphed, and the development of super-powers is illegal. Keep that in mind next time you forget to take the tinfoil ?off a baked potato before microwaving it or peel the do-not-remove tag off a mattress. You might inadvertently give yourself illicit abilities. You take command of a squad of super-heroes who, contrary to what the name implies, do not wear capes. Your job is to recruit heroes to your cause and complete a series of main and side-missions to take down evil and free the city.

[embed]//youtu.be/3b1XfO9tf1I[/embed]

A trailer dropped today which demonstrates Capes�visual style and gameplay, which I’m hon??estly not digging. Not every super-hero game actually has to have underwear worn on the exterior of pants, but the characters look tired, and the environments appear drab. Also, if I play a super-hero game, I want to create my own, and nothing in the currently-available information even implies that it will be a possibility.

That said, even with Marvel’s own Midnight Suns out there on the market, there’s room for more tactical super-hero games. There’s definitely some solid pedigree behind it, so I’m thinking this trailer just might not be the best representation of what Capes has to offer.

You won’t have much time to squeeze into your spandex, as Capes will be super-punching PC, Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S sometime in 2023. If you're uncertain, you can try the demo for the PC version as part of the Steam Next Fest.

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The precious needs some extra time

Daedalic's new LOTR adventure is pushing its release date back a bit. Nacon and Daedalic Entertainment are pushing the launch of The Lord of the Rings: Gollum back a few months to an indeterminate date.

No more has been confirmed about Gollum's new date, except that it is "a few months" out from its original. The Lord of the Rings: Gollum was previously set to launc??h on September 1, 2022.

In a statement on the delay, Daedalic says it has been pushed in order to deliver the "best possible experience" for the Gollum game. An update more exact timing will arrive som?etime in the near future.

??//twitter.com/GollumGame/status/1551598260732792832

The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is slotted to launch on both generations of Xbox and PlayStation hardware, as well as PC and the Nintendo Switch. It's unclear if the launch date will affect the Nintendo Switch date in particular, as it had previously been pushed back from the other versions' September 1 date. We reached out to clarify, but were told Daedalic has no further ?comment a??t this time.

Waiting in the darkness

Gollum's very own video game is a bit different than the hack-and-slash or role-playing games you might be used to from the Lord of the Rings game.

Rather, it's a stealth affair, suited to Gollum's own talents of sneaking around and leaping onto people's backs. Plus, balancing the careful line between Smeagol and Gollum, and getting the narrative bits right. Although one section of this cinematic trailer where Gollum dumps la??va on some orcs looks pretty alright.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJn2AjYOIJA

While the Fellowship had their time in the spotlight, Lord of the Rings: Gollum will give the little hobbit who's down on his luck his due. It'll just take a little extra time for all the pi?eces to come together.

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September 1, 2022

The Lord of the Rings Gollum game release date has been revealed, and one platform w??ill be sitting things out for a bit.

So the beans have been spilled today: it's out on September 1 on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. Sadly, Switch users will have to wait for an indeterminate amount of time beyond that initial Gollum ga?me release date, as that version has been delayed until "later this year."

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJn2AjYOIJA

I'm still really interested in the tricksy nature of the creation of this game from a macro standpoint. Adapting a Tolkien work is always difficult given that the action-based motifs of most video games weren't glorified in the source material �but playing as a villain (a conflicted one at that) could allow? the development team to do some cool things with Gollum and the narrative.

That said, it'll be tough to balance the potential "stealth gameplay" (which is always hard to get right in the best of circumstances) and the aforementioned narrative elements; hopefully they're up to the task. The "partnership with Middle-earth Enterprises" (read: not the Tolkien Estate) could help with some oversight, though most of their input could be dictating what material the team does/doesn't have the rights for??.

//www.tiktok.com/@destructoi??d/video/7105122201661??132038

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One publisher to rule them all

In the latest in an ever-increasing litany of industry mergers and acquisitions, publisher Nacon has announced its intention to purchase studio Daedalic E?ntertainment.

The acquisition, reported to close for around â‚?3 million ($60 million USD), will see Nacon acquire the Hamburg-based studio and its catalog of adventure game IPs. The two companies are no stranger to one another, already currently working together on the upcoming release The Lord of the Rings: Gollum.

"We knew, through our current collaboration on Gollum, that Nacon and Daedalic share the same values and the same objectives to deliver unique experiences to gamers," remarks Nacon CEO Alain Falc in a press release. "Therefore, it seemed logical to go further together and we’re extr?emely happy of this acquisition. It represents a significant step in Nacon’s strategy."

"After eventful years in which we always came out on top, I feel proud looking back at the past 15 years and the development of the company," agrees Daedalic founder and CEO Carsten Fichtelmann. "Daedalic Entertainment has established itself as a publisher and developer of exceptional games across various genres and on all relevant platforms and has cemented that position globally. Together with Nacon, we are now taking the next step to further develop our catalogue of games created by our own team as w?ell as many incredible indie studios."

Daedalic Entertainment will continue to operate under its current management, with Nacon providing studio support in regards to the development, financing, marketing, and distribution of the studio's future titles. Nacon itself has been coming into its own as a confident player in the AA gaming space, and currently has multiple intriguing releases on the horizon, including robotic RPG Steelrising, monster masher Rogue Lords, and cinematic actioner RoboCop: Rogue City.

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Master likes gameplay, yes he does!

Ready for another Gollum trailer? Well, it's not going to clue us in when it comes to gameplay, but we do get a decent look at the thematic elements at play. The video is actually focused on the "split personality" of Go??llum/Sméagol, which he swaps between quickly in the clip.

There's a lot to unpack here, and I? definitely need to see the?? full version to make an educated assessment. One thing that really stood out to me as a positive is his gleaming eyes in the darkness (described in the source) near the beginning.

I'm actually re-reading the Lord of the Rings now (following another Silmarillion bash), and I just made it to the point where the boys meet Gollum/Sméagol. While Serkis did a fantastic job with Peter Jackson's ??version of the character, there's certainly room for other inte??rpretations, and a lot left to wring from the books.

Lord of the Rings media is a fascinating sandbox. I'd love nothing more than to see the esteemed Tom Shippey do a symposium on this game one day. For now, we wait until the neb??ulous "2022" date. And given that the Amazon show is set to debut in September of 2022, it would behoove them to springboard off that hype, even if Gollum isn't directly related to the Second Age framework and was born well into the Third Age (he lived to be nearly 600).

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVkIde_Qnok

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My precious?

We're a week away from the 2021 Game Awards, a night of celebration, recognition, and also a metric ton of trailers. The show has been teasing and announcing some of what will be seen and heard at the show, and it looks like The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is one of them.

The Game Awards tweeted today that "something's lurking in the shadows," tagging the social account and adding a teaser for The Lord of the Rings: Gollum. That account also made its own vague tweet about The Game Awards, saying to tune in.

//twitter.com/GollumG?ame/status/1466439563589607425

So it seems like everyone's favorite sneaky, moody, mildly possessive hobbit will be making an appearance at The Game Awards. In what form remains to be seen, though given Game Awards past, a trailer seems obvious. (I'm personally holding out for a duet with Sting, though.)

Gollum has had his own game in the works for a while now, focusing on the years that Smeagol owned the ring and the adventures he got up to. From the gameplay we've seen it looks like Gollum will be doing a lot o??f sneaking around and hiding. Plus, some internal i??n-fighting between his dueling personalities of Gollum and Smeagol. No word yet on a finger-biting finisher.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qv2YBl9LL3s

The Game Awards 2021 is set to be another show full of games, as Keighley has promised a load of games. Also he's said that they're not interested in "doing any NFT stuff," thank goodness. Check out the full list of nominees for the actual awards section here, and tune in for more of Gollum and ot??her upcoming games when The Game Awards airs on Dec. 9, 2021.

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Taking old-school Grand Theft Auto into the future

The cyberpunk setting has become pretty popular in games as of late, but a new one is mixing the neon-soaked aesthetic with some older mechanics. Glitchpunk, a top-down shooter in the vein of Grand Theft Auto 2, hit Early Access today.

From developer Dark Lord and published by Daedalic Entertainment, a new trailer today shows what the general setup of Glitchpunk is. In a dystopian, cyberpunk future, you play as a glitching android, taking on different jobs throughout the world. And ??once the bullets start flying, well, it looks like things get chaotic.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=rICCme1FI0o

Looks like there are also some factions to deal with, each with their own goals ?and ambitions. In Early Access, the first city—New Baltia—is currently available, with Outpost Texas (yeehaw) arriving in thr??ee to four weeks. Two more cities are planned after that for the Early Access period, Neo Tokyo and Moscow, each with their own gangs and characters.

With a hacking system, a bunch of gangs and the promise of multiple cities, a "mature story" that will have several different endings, and lots of firepower, Glitchpunk's Early Access seems worth kee?ping an eye on. Also, according to a press release we received, there are a bunch of methods for getting around the city, ranging from cars, trucks, and motorbikes to buses and trains, even tanks. Finally, I can hijack a future-tra??in.

You can find Glitchpunk over here on Steam, where its Early Access is live for $19.99 (with a 20% discount launch bonus). And if you're eager for even more games, check out the slew of them that arrived on the Nintendo Switch? eShop today. There is truly no shortage of games to play, but I'd like to find some time at some point to see what this mix of old and new is bringing to the table.

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Gambling with my army

There came a point in Warpips where I was going into battles that I knew I was underprepared for. This game is, at its most core level, about ?managing limited funds and capacity to field an army that can defeat your opponent's. And?? in its campaign mode, Warpips really? lets you ride the line between success and failure.

If you haven't played a tug-of-war game before, it's not too dissimilar from the "autobattler" craze that took hold for a little while in 2019. Unlike games like Teamfight Tactics, you're working on a single "lane," and using your incremental influxes of cash to purchase units t??hat will automatically run down the lane and fight the en?emy.

This game type was som?ewhat popu??lar in places like Flash game development and in Warcraft custom games, and Warpips does feel something like a? spiritual successor to those ideas. You can buy little soldiers and send them jogging down towards the enemy, and use a few static defenses like turrets, sandbags, and mines to hold off enemy advances and establish forward positions.

What Warpips does a little d??ifferent is in the strategy laye??r, through its campaign. The campaign mode asks you to slowly conquer an island, seizing adjacent territories and advancing your frontline to the enemy's home base. Every victory gets you some chips to spend, but more crucially, you can win new units.

Any units you deploy in a battle, win or lose, are "spent"?? on that battle. So if you want to deploy a heavy machine gunner, or possibly retain some air strike capability to thwart a potentially powerful wave of enemies, you'll have to dip into your stock of those resources. And once those are depleted, they're gone until you either win some more or spend some chips to buy units from the shop.

I really dug this, because it makes your army less of a static lineup and more like a collection of poker chips to bet at the table. I started out trying to min-max the system, finding the exact number of units I could use to barely eke out a win. This resulted in some pretty crushing losses??, as the enemy would simply steamroll my army of weak units, no matter how many I could field.

Eventually, I had to come to terms with using my big guns when needed. This might sou??nd fairly straightforward, but it was tough! I'm someone who will finish an RPG with 99 Mega-Potions in their pack. I prefer spending as little as possible, and maximizing my profit.

So when it came to conquering the Warpips island, I had to make some tough choices. Did I have the right units to deal with theirs? Could my mercenarie??s deal with vehicle assaults, or do I need to send in some regular s?oldiers instead? 

During the battles, you have to play a balancing act as well—destroying enemies in battle levels up your forces, allowing you to invest in their rank, increase the max amount of units you can field during the fight, or get a quick hit of cash. Maybe the units you brought in need some extra rank to really shine, or it might b?e better to get more units out first.

Warpips is still in Steam Early Access, so it's still building up a fair bit and balancing the combat. I've only made it to the second island as well, where Warpips starts introducing vehicles as another piece of its rock-paper-scissors system of strengths and weaknesses. Most likely that me?ans I'll be gambling a lot of infantry trying to take down a tank, just so I can field that same tank the next time around. But it's a pretty enjoyable gamble to make.

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It's still coming to PC and consoles, including Switch

I'm not sure how much I'm into the idea of a Gollum video game, particularly since the first pre-alpha shots came out, but my stance could change with time. The Lord of the Rings: Gollum isn't launching this year, after all – it's now aiming for 2022 and Nacon i?s co-publishing with Daedalic Entertainment.

The companies reiterated that the release plans include PC, PlayStation, Xbox??, and Nintendo Switch.

From what we've heard so far, Gollum is a blend of narrative decision making – a battle of wits between his dueling personalities – and slinking around in the shadows, striking only when the coast is clear. I can't say that sneaky climbing sounds all that riveting to me, but the more choice-based adv?enture gameplay could turn out well. As for the exaggerated art direction, we'll see. I'm just not sold yet.

It's been a wacky run for Lord of the Rings video games over the past decade, and I don't just mean Shadow of Mordor. Remember Guardians of Middle-earth? No wonder Chris sticks with the card game.

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Sneaky little Sméagolses

No real surprise here but Daedalic's Lord of the Rings: Gollum game isn't going to end with Sméagol ?sitting atop a pile of bodies. Video games often skew toward power fantasies, but Daedalic's being respectfu?l of Tolkien's lore. The feeble, frail Gollum isn't going to murder every orc in Middle-earth in pursuit of his precious.

IGN talked with Daedalic recently about exactly what kind of game Gollum aims to be. Lead designer Martin Wilkes says "The game mixes stealth with vertical climbing parkour." For a point of reference, Wilkes likened it to Prince of Persia but without? the combat. Gollum has the ability to stealthily dispose of enemies but it sounds like his underwhelming stature will come into play. Wilkes emphasi??zes that engaging any enemy will "always come with big risks."

As for the structure of Gollum, Daedalic has landed on something th?at's best described as a series of levels and hubs. Go??llum will arrive in a new area, and then it's up to the player to eventually open up all the locations within the new level. It's a lot of puzzle-solving and pathfinding, and sometimes there are multiple ways to accomplish the same goal.

That's half the game. The other half is narrative-focused and has the player making decisions between the oppo?sing Sméagol and Gollum personalities. The developer states the obvious by saying the two sides have conflicting goals, but was unwilling to talk about how choices affect what plays out.

Lord of the Rings: Gollum is scheduled to arrive on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X next year but we're y??et to see any gameplay. Although the revelation it's a vertical platformer with cinematic emphasis on Middle-earth's vistas has me more interested than? before.

The Lord of the Rings: Gollum Is a 'Prince of Per?sia-Like' Stealth Game Wi??th a Branching Narrative [IGN]

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Expect it two years from now

The One Ring to Rule Them All hasn't always been in the most capable of hands. Before Frodo got his mitts on it, Lord of the Rings' central plot device was living in a cave with a deformed, gurgling monster man who su??bsisted on a diet of raw fish. And now there's going to be a game about that.

German developer and publisher Daedalic Entertainment is working on Lord of the Rings: Gollum, which takes place during the years that Smeagol/Gollum possessed the ring. Daedalic mentions that everything that happens in the game occurs before the events of the Lord of the Rings ??;books??. It's billed as an action adventure title.

Daedalic is best known for point-and-click adventures that focus on story. Daedalic CEO Carsten Fichtelmann explains how the studio's experience will help with a Lord of the Rings game by saying "You already have that big conflict in the character, two voices talking to you continuously, which means there is a good reason there are decisions to make in the game:?? the Smeagol decisions or the Gollum decisions."

Gollum probably isn't Daedalic's one shot at nailing Tolkien's universe. Plans for more Lord of the Rings games are in the works. However, The Lord of the Rings: Gollum will launch f??irst -- sometime in 2021 on PC and "all r??elevant console platforms at that time."

'Lord of the Rings: Gollum' Video Game in the Works From German Stu??dio Daedalic [The Hollywood Reporter]

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Studio has its 'Most ambitious and diverse' year ahead

In the coming weeks, developer Daedalic Games plan to announce an ambitious six new titles, stating that 2019 will be the most exciting and ambitious year yet for the German video game developer. The games will cover a variety of genres, including RPGs, roguelikes and classic adventu?re experiences.

"2019 will be by far the most successful year in the? history of our studio", says Daedali?c CEO Carsten Fichtelmann in a press release. "We’ve never had a more diverse and substantial portfolio...  We have development teams in-house working on AAA projects on a scale that will astonish fans and media. With IPs like this, we aim to create a stir that goes beyond the gaming industry".

Daedalic's last release was the 2018 noir-cyberpunk adventure State of Mind, which had its? flaws but was a very stylish and intriguing myste?ry title. It's always heartening to see smaller studios ambitious, excited and confident in their wares, hopefully Daedalic can channel that energy and focus into some solid video game experiences this year.

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Stick the knee, stab the neck

Thinking about stealth, a common image the mind conjures is that of a lone wolf slinking through the shadows and takin??g out threats one by one. Solid Snake and Sam Fisher generally work alone. Players cont?rol one man using skill and cunning to take on an army.

Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun zooms out a bit. It follows a group of five warriors, each with his or her own strengths and weaknesses. Instead of stealth by way of action or a shooter, Shadow Tactics approaches it through a more real-time strategy lens. More accurate??ly, it's real-time tactics. I mean, it's right there in the title.

Oh, and it's excellent. There's that too.

Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun (Linux, Mac, PC [reviewed])
Developer: Mimimi Productions
Publisher: Daedalic Entertainment
Released: December 6, 2016
MSRP: $39.99
Rig: AMD Phenom II X2 555 @ 3.2 GHz, with 4GB of RAM, ATI Radeon HD 5700, Windows 7 64-bit

Blades of the Shogun's opening mission introduces three of the five main characters, each with his own archetype. Hayato is a shinobi; he plays like a typical stealth game hero. He can hookshot onto buildings, distract guards with thrown rocks,? and assassinate targets from behind. Mugen is a samurai; with his armor he can take more damage and execute an area-of-effect attack to neutralize multiple enemies at once. Takuma is a sniper, slower than most and unable to quietly assassinate in close range, but deadly when perched in a far off tower.

The two additiona??l characters are more like Hayato in terms of movement and combat capability, but they distinguish themselves by their special abilities. Yuki can lure enemies to her location with a whistle and can set up a trap to take them out when they step on it. Aiko can manipulate vision cones and change outfits to walk among foes und??etected.

It's the combination of abilities (and often the consideration of drawbacks) that makes Shadow Tactics interesting. There are often multiple solutions to a given problem, and by constantly mixing up which combination of? the five team members are available from mission to mission, ideas that have worked in the past m??ay not be as viable in the future.

For instance, a patrol of three guards moving closely together obviously calls for Mugen's area attack or Takuma's bomb. In a missi?on with only Haya?to, Yuki, and Aiko, the three have to work together in order to take out the targets undetected.

Toward that end, Shadow Tactics has a feature called Shadow Mode, which allows players to queue up one action for each character, then either execute them individually or simultaneously with a single keystroke. One of the coolest feelings was marking each of the three patrolling guards with a different character and pounce-assassinating them all at?? once from a bridge overhead.

Shadow Mode can be crucial for team actions that n??eed to be precisely timed. I can recall another instance in which I had Mugen drop his bottle of sake to act as a lure, had Hayato throw a shuriken when the ene??my was in an exact spot, then sent Yuki in to drag the body away to remain out of sight, all within a few seconds. If anything, I wish it were possible to have more than one action per character in the queue.

Another aspect that keeps Shadow Tactics interesting is the steady introduction of new mechanics to tackle. Once the basics of stealth and each character's abilities are out of the way, the maps themselves add new wrinkles. Snow on the ground causes characters to leave footprints, which are often a hazard to avoid but can also be a boon when used cleverly in order to lure guards from their posts. In night levels, the entire line of sight system is reworked to take into account distance from a light source. One mission brings the group to a rice paddy where cover is plentiful but sloshing through the water makes a lot of noise. Blades of the Shogun doesn't dwell too long on any one idea before trying something ne??w.

Further, each mission has a set of optional objectives, usually focused on completing the given task with style. It not only encourages replaying levels, but also pushes players toward trying out new ideas or taking different paths. You had ?Takuma snipe this high-level target from afar? Cool, next time try poisoning his tea with Yuki. Did that? See if you can infiltrate his heavily guarded compound and kill him with just your bare hands.

For somebody who is generally more inclined to turn-based strategy, Shadow Tactics can be difficult, but it's still doable. (Were it not for the generous quick save system, I'd almost certainly be sunk.) Aside from the sections where simultaneous actions via Shadow Mode is a must, it's ??generally possible to compartmentalize and control each character one at a time. However, that's pretty slow; I've taken three hours to finish a single mission. It's only a little discouraging to see from the optional objectives afterward tha??t it could be speedrun in 21 minutes.

Aesthetically, Blades of the Shogun works well, even if it's nothing to write home about. It has a sharp cel-shaded look that makes clear which parts of the environment can be interacted with and where enemies are posted. As a minor gripe, some of the voice acting is puzzling. While most of the main cast do a decent job with Japanese accents, a few supporting cha??racters sound almost British. It's as if they were told to sound for??eign and 16th Century English aristocracy was what came out.

The minor issues don't really detract from the enjoyment in Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun. The base gamepla??y is a solid stealth foundation, the different characters allow for lateral thinking to solve challenges, the changing mechanics from the environments require readjustments in strategy, and the overall difficulty keeps it ??from ever becoming a trivial puzzle game.

I've spent a few work nights staying up way too late playing, just to see what it would throw at me next. With the replayability bui??lt into each mission, I can imagine a few more of those nights on the horizon.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the pub??lisher.]}

The post Review: Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun appeared first on Destructoid.

Deus Ex: Sleep Aid

The best part of my State of Mind demo was talking to Martin Ganteföhr, the game's director. He single-handedly convinced me that State of Mind needed to exist -- not because the game was any good (it isn't). Rather, Ganteföhr has a lot of ideas about transhumanism tha??t he's itching to release like the Thirteen Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, and I'm excited to hear them whenever possible.

It's a shame those ideas seem to be confined to State of Mind, a game I almost fell asleep playing. During my demo, I was standing up, surrounded by the bustle of PAX's sixth floor, and I felt my eyelids getting heavy. I've been doing game previews on little-to-no sleep for three consecutive years, and I've never been in that position. I was receiving so little stimulation that my brain decided to shut off until something exciting happened. At this point, State of Mind is the very definition of the word tepid. I'm concerned players won't be able to stay conscious long enough to experience Ganteföhr?'s ideas for themselves. Or ??maybe they will, if sleepwalking extends to video games.

That sounds both harsh and contradictory -- if Ganteföhr is such an interesting guy, why is the game he directed so mind-numbing? Here's the thing: I don't think the two are mutually exclusive, and most of what Ganteföhr discussed was not reflected in the demo I played. State of Mind is an adventure game set in a Deus Ex-esque cyberpunk dystopian Berlin, where players control both Richard, a journalist covering the wild world of robots, and Adam, a part of Richard's consc??iousness uploaded to a utopian virtual reality.

My demo consisted of fumbling around Richard's apartment until I decided I was done fumbling around Richard's apartment. His family is missing, he's been in a terrible accident, and for some reason his voice doesn't work. That last one is not an in-game plot point -- State of Mind has not fully implemented voice acting. If the line delivery is perfect (we're talking Season One of Telltale's The Walking Dead-level), that might be the push State of Mind needs to get players through its tedious opening moments. Nobody seems to know where Richard's family went. I?? got that pretty early on. I didn't need con??versation after conversation hammering that point home.

According to Ganteföhr, the game will focus on Richard trying to convince Adam that Adam's world isn't real, and that he needs to get back in his head. Right away, my nose sniffed out a twist. "At the end, is Richard going to turn out to be t?he fake one?" I asked, throwing out any pretense.

"There is a twist, but it's not that," Ganteföhr said. "It's not an explicit twist in the story." Already, this is a positive. My all-time least favorite twist is one that reframe?s an entire story as "just a dream" or "in a?? coma" or "not real in any way." It's why I hate so many fan theories with a passion; it's the kind of twist that exists for the sole purpose of screwing over the audience.

Ganteföhr gave the impression of a man who? is working through his own thoughts about transhumanism through video games. "Tech can be dystopian and utopian. I don't necessarily agree with the pro-transhuman people that we don't need to have a discussion," he said.

According to Ganteföhr, State of Mind was inspired by the works of futurist Ray Kurzweil. For the unfamiliar, Kurzweil has written extensively about the concept of the singularity -- the idea that all of human consciousness and technology will one day meld together. He's basically playing the longest Deus Ex ARG that only he seems to be aw??are of. 

I'm simplifying things (partially because I'm no expert, even after ?literally taking a class on the subject), but you can see where Ganteföhr finds his inspiration, right? Over the course of my appointment, we spoke about immortality, and whether or not humanity even deserves to see the singularity. Ganteföhr was throwing out ideas faster than I could take notes. He's got some good points, too: are ??we supposed to die, or did we leave behind the concept of natural life the second Bill Gates flipped on his first PC?

My hope is that State of Mind will eventually get to exploring Kurzweil's ideas in a way that doesn't feel like it was directly cribbed from The Matrix. You can probably see how it would go. Richard: "Your world's not real, Adam! Get back in my cranium." Adam: "What's even real, man?" Even if State of Mind is boring and predictable the whole way through, it's hard to deny Ganteföhr's passion for this project. That's not even me speculating; that's more or less a direct quote. "I can only do stuff that actually interests me," he said. "It's the only way I can move forward." I can respect that; I'm always happy when a video game comes from a genui?ne place of inspiration. 

I want State of Mind to be good. Not just because somebody on this accursed website is going to have to review it, nor because I want all video games to be good. There's more to it than that -- for one, it's got a neat art style, one that even ties into multiple aspects of the game. Ri??chard is a man putting himself back together and players have to assemble the story from "shards," so of course the game looks like it was dropped and then glued back together. I want that kind of attention to detail to be rewarded. I want to be able to put my money where my mouth constantly is and enjoy a game that looks almost exclusively made of flavor text. I love flavor text! I just wish this flavor text was exciting, or the plot moved at a decent pace, or you didn't have to fumble around in a boring cyberpunk apartment.

Show floor demos are important. They are your very first impression; you're not just pulling someone off the floor, you're also selling them on a game that won't come out until early next year. If this is the selling point for State of Mind, the vertical slice that is designed to make me run back to my laptop and breathlessly praise the game I've already pre-ordered twice, we should be very worried about State of Mind. I can only hope the final? game is as compelling as its director, but I'm not sure my optimism is well-founded.

The post For a passion project??, State of Mind feels oddly lifeless appeared first on Destructoid.

PC and console-bound space exploration RPG

Now this is intriguing. Daedalic Entertainment West is trying its hand at space adventuring with The Long Journey Home, an upcoming game inspired by Starflight and Star Control II that has ?players fighting the odds to get back to Earth after a botched jump sends them deep into space.

This trailer centers on the action side -- gravitational ??slingshotting, hovering on planets in search of resources and artifacts, fleeing from a fo??reign ship -- but there's also a conversational element as well. You'll lead a crew and can work with or against different alien races, depending on how diplomatic you're feeling. The galaxy is procedurally generated, though to what extent, I'm not sure.

My hope is that the designers don't lean too hard into the roguelike aspects, but otherwise, this sounds promising. The Long Journey Home is coming to ?Windows, Mac, Linux, and "consoles" this fall.

The post The Lon?g Journey Home makes a good first impression appeared first on Destructoid.

Definitive Edition this summer

I'll admit: I found Blackguards to be more frustrating than fun. Maybe I've grown soft in my old age. There still must be an audience out there for extra difficult tactical role-playing games, and for those people, there is Blackguards. Soon enough, it'll be ??making the jump from PC to consoles with a scheduled summer release on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

Blackguards - Definitive Edition comes with the base campaign as well as the Untold Legends downloadable content, which usually goes for about six bucks on Steam. No pricing information for the Definitive Edition was given, nor do we have a release date more specif?ic than the summer window.

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A tangled web we weave

A few weeks ago, I called Blackguards 2 "deep, unfriendly, and buggy." I had put several hours into the tactical role-playing game, but hadn't seen enough of the story to comfortably put out? a review.

Fast forward to today, and my original assessment requires a bit of tweaking. Within the first two weeks of its release, Daedalic put out two huge patches, each aiming to fix the stability issues that plagued Blackguards 2 at launch. The pat??ches did introduce their own issues, but for? the most part I would describe it now as only deep and unfriendly. Two out of three ain't bad.

Blackguards 2 (Mac, PC [reviewed])
Developer: Daedalic Entertainment
Publisher: Daedalic Entertainment
Released: January 20, 2015
MSRP: $34.99
Rig: AMD Phenom II X2 555 @ 3.2 GHz, with 4GB of RAM, ATI Radeon HD 5700, Windows 7 64-bit

Blackguards 2 follows the story of Cassia, a noble woman who is cast out by her power-hungry husband, left to rot in a dungeon.?? After she escapes, she goes on a quest to oust her husband from the throne. Though it ??feels like revenge is her main motive, she recoils at the suggestion. It is up to the player to determine exactly what her motive is.

Although there is a clear beginning and end to Cassia's story, choice plays a big role in the path between, a?nd can have substantial effects on where everything ends up. In the beginning, I had intended to ??play as I normally do in choice-driven narratives: making snap decisions in the moment, but leaning more toward good than evil.

To my chagrin, as the story progressed and my band of mercenaries made its way ever closer to the capital city Mengbilla, public opinion of Cassia deteriorated from the righteous liberator who the people supported to the treacherous usurper who needed to be repelled. It felt reminiscent of the world of A Song of Ice and Fire, where politics and public opinion are just as important as character builds and tactical battlefield p??rowess.

It serves as a great example for explaining villainy in a way that is relatable to regular people, without obvious good vs. evil ideas. Not once during my campaig?n to take back the throne did I feel I did anything unjust, but only at the end when I found myself fighting against common folk in addition to royal guards and monstrous creatures did I realize that I had become that which I had been trying to rise against.

The kicker is it is entirely possible to go through without becoming a villain (I think). Depending on a few key choices, Cassia and her com??panions may be loved by the people, and perhaps even welcomed. It turns out that taking over a realm while remaining righteous is pretty difficult. By sparing the lives of enemy leaders and showing compassion to friends, not o?nly does the narrative reflect that, but the final battles become tougher.

The difficulty spike at the end is especially noticeable because most of the battles throughout are fairly easy for those who have a modicum of tactical sense. There are a few interesting boss battles that add light puzzle elements to contend with, but for the most part, difficulty stems from Blackguards 2's unwillingness ?to provide important information.

Often, this takes the form of interactive objects on the battlefield whose functions aren't always clear. (What happens when I use this thing? Oh, a chandelier falls on three of my units and immediately takes them out of the battle permanently.) While those instances are minor infractions that are easy to learn from, the worse offenders are the battl??es with "gotcha" moments. Too many battles start with certain conditions shown, then only reveal their true nature after the player has already planned and committed forces to certain areas. It's the kind of inelegant difficulty that can be impossible the first time through, but then negligible once the trick is known.

The general unfriendliness of the interface extends to what should be mundane aspects of a strategy game. Expected damage is not explicitly shown, so taking out a weak enemy may result i?n wasted actions if that enemy has armor or resis??tance, or wasted astral energy or stamina for an attack more powerful than was necessary. There is a line of sight predictor for ranged units, but it doesn't work for magic users carrying melee weapons. Sometimes the camera doesn't track the action well and the battle log disappears too quickly to easily discern what happened.

Underneath it all, there is a competent tactical combat engine. On a turn, a unit can move and then spend one more action (which can also be movement). One neat thing is the wait ability: units with higher initiative can choose to wait and take actions at the end of a round of combat. This can set up a few useful strategies, like forcing an enemy to take the first hit in a duel or allowing high initiative units essentially two turns in a r??????????????????????????ow.

Though it was a buggy mess at launch, Blackguards 2 is competent in its current state. When it released, it had freezing bugs that set back progress. One of the patches moved where save files are stored without mentioning it or moving the old files, making it look like everything was lost. Even after the recent patches that have fixed the major issues, I have seen some ability text show up in German, so Daedalic's efforts to fix everything don't inspire too much confidence. That said, most of the major stability issues have been addressed. Blackguards 2 as it exists today is much more tolerab??le than?? it was three weeks ago.

The aesthetic design is serviceable, but not outstanding. The world of Blackguards 2 is a standard medieval fantasy setting, with swords, dwarves, magic, and dragons. The soundtrack matches the setting: adequate at conveying the tenseness of combat but not especially memorable. Voice work can be a little ?cheesy, but is gener??ally well done.

Blackguards 2 scratches the tactical RPG itch just fine, though the battles do become tedious near the end. It certainly doesn't welcome new players wit?h open arms, but veterans will view its opacity as a minor issue to work around.

Its greatest strength is the surprisingly poignant narra?tive about the muddy area between good and evil. I almost want to play through again to see how different choices will affect the later battles and the story's conclusion, bu?t at 25-30 hours for one playthrough and combat that wears thin toward the end, it is just long enough for me to shy away from that idea.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

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Kawaiilence

Adventure game developer Daedalic's latest effort is getting all gussied up and 3D looking. Silence: The Whispered World 2, sequel to 2010's The Whispered World is coming to PC, Mac, and Linux early 2015 and was recently announced for PS4 as well.

The team achieves this look with a technique where you "plac?e 3D objects and 3D characters ?in 3D environments, but then project 2D art on everything." 

The invetory-free, puzzle-heavy adventure game has you switching between 16-year-old Noah and his 6-year-old sister Renie a??s you try to escape the world of Silence. 

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First impressions

Last year Patrick reviewed PC strategy role-playing game Blackguards, and he loved it. Blackguards 2 is out on Steam today. I ha??ve put about a dozen hours into the sequel, but I am not even close to the point?? where I can comfortably review it.

That said, I ha?ve played eno?ugh to get an impression for how it plays, and I have seen enough to say that players may want to be wary about making a purchase.

For strategy RPG fans, there is a lot to like with Blackguards 2. There is sufficient intrigue in the plot, tons of battles to fight, several different strategies to employ??, and plenty of hex grids to traverse. There is a lot of game here, and overall it's enjoyable.

One of the problems that Blackguards 2 presents stems from the fact that it is so deep. After the tutorial, the player is presented with a huge sum of adventure points to spend on customizing the protagonist Cassia with almost every skill available and no guidance on what makes the most sense. Later on it turns out that Cassia is one of the few units who can use magic, and I regrette??d putting so many points into her me?lee combat abilities.

A lot of maps have objects that can be interacted with, and those are marked clearly. However, the actual interaction is not always clear, leading to unfortunate trial-and-error gameplay. At one point I triggered falling rocks, assuming they would do something to a pursuer, but they had no effect?. Another time I tried to drop a chandelier on som??e enemies, but the area of effect was not delineated, and I smashed myself. Restarting battles because the game is stingy with its information is common.

Worse yet are battles that must be restarted due to bugs. I hit several bugs early on, but none were as bad as one that would let me play an entire battle, get to the victory?? screen, and then lock up. Characters were still animated, but the screen wouldn't fade to black as normal. I nearly quit after the third time it happened on a particularly long battle, but found a workaround where I exit to the main menu between each battle to prevent it. I have been playing the last nine or so hours in this manner, afraid that if I don't exit and restart I will waste more of my time.

The other bugs are more easily forgiven, but still betray a lack of polish. S??ometimes exiting from a shopping menu would exit the town entirely, forcing extra time spent on loading screens to re-enter. Sometimes spending skill points stops working before reloading the training screen. Sometimes the screen doesn't track the battle action properly and the player is left to read the battle log to see?? what happened.

For these reasons, I am a little surprised that Blackguards 2 has fared as well as it has from early reviews. It's possible that the technical issues I have experienced are isolated, but the design oversights are surely there. The underlying strategy gameplay is entertaining enough to merit purchase for some, b??ut I wouldn't call this a must-buy just yet. Stay tuned to Dest??ructoid for the official review within the next couple weeks.

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Daedelic's upcoming adventure game will take place in the infamous prison

Alcatraz -- has there been a more infamous prison? Immortalized in movies from the likes of Point Break to The Rock, the Bay Area's notorious penitentiary hasn't featured in too many games, so it's exciting to see screenshots of Daedalic Entertainment's new adventure game 1954: Alcatraz.

The studio behind 2012's Yesterday has me immediately interested due to my love of the noir-ish setting and the tantalizing idea of breaking out of Alcatraz. The game stars Joe, who is eager to escape the harsh confines of the Rock after being sentenced to 40 years in prison after a successful armed rob??bery.

Joe's plan relies on his wife Christine but she's being threatened by Joe's partner in crime Mickey, who ??want's to know where Joe stashed the loot. It sounds like a great idea; busting ou?t of Alcatraz has been the stuff of myths and urban legends and the setup sounds like there's the opportunity to have multiple character's working in tandem. We'll see if Joe makes it out in late 2014. 

The post Here’s some new screenshots for 1954: Alcatraz appeared first on Destructoid.

An hour of Daedalic's new RPG

If you've ever wanted to tear across a fantasy realm with a roving band of criminal misfits, you might be able to live out your dream in Daedalic's tactical role-playing game, Blackguards. You might recall that I wasn't particularly sold on what Daedalic considers villainous, as the first few character profiles the developer released seemed pretty tame.

After sitting through a hands-off demonstration in London earlier this month, I'm more convinced, seeing quite a bit of lechery, greed, drug abuse, and being promised a whole lot more. Daedalic assures me that you can do far worse, and it's not about choosing to be good or bad, but rather ?deciding quite how terrible you'll be. 

Most of what I saw during my hour with the game was combat. It combines traditional role-playing systems and turn-based combat amid a field of hexes with environments riddled with interactive potential. Each conflict I viewed exploited the battlefield differently, reminding me more of tabletop role-playing games than traditional tactics games like Heroes of Might and Magic.

Blackguards (PC)
Developer: Daedalic Entertainment
Publisher: Daedalic Entertainment
Release: January 2014

Outside of Germany, many won't be familiar with the Dark Eye setting that Blackguards exists in. It's a popular tabletop franchise in its homeland, but most of my knowledge of it comes from the adventure games Chains of Satinav and Memoria. With Blackguards, Daedalic is crafting a game more representative of the source material, with a fully-fledged role-playing system?? a?nd party-based combat.

At first glance, I assumed that I'd be seeing battles reminiscent of the likes of Heroes of Might and Magic or Kings Bounty, but such comparisons ?are superficial at best. In fact, beyond the he??x grid, they are entirely different beasts.

Ea??ch conflict, the result of a story quest or one of the many side quests dotted around the vast map, gives players co??ntrol over their party of anti-heroes, each with their own class and unique abilities. The lecherous mage can cast all manner of elemental attacks, the unfriendly dwarf likes to wade into the thick of battle, and what the protagonist does is really dependent on the class you chose at the start.

Character actions a?re selected via a radial menu, but abilities and items can also be tied to a specific hotkey. Strategies are easier to plan out thanks to the turn order that's clearly listed on the screen, so you know who's going next and can act accordingly.

The maps are elaborate creations, bringing back fond memories of the criminally forgotten Temple of Elemental Evil, rather than straightforwa?rd arenas. They run the gamut from bleak tombs filled with the restless dead to lush, tropical coasts infested with rum-drinking pirates, ?and none of the scenarios I sat through was like another. 

Environments are both weapons and obstacles, and experimentation is needed to reveal how they can be manipulated or what dangers they hold. Deep underground in a twisting, winding c?avern, the party finds themselves beset by hideous giant insects; they are many, while the adventurers are few. Above the scuffle are huge, sharp stalactites, initially appearing to be mere window dressing. The fight begins as one would expect, with the anti-heroes and insects trading blows.

A powerful attack causes one of the creepy crawlies to emit a high-pitched shriek, and the c?avern trembles, freeing a stalactite from the ceiling. It crashes to the ground, damaging insect and adventurer alike. With the knowledge that high-pitched noises can bring down the ceiling, players would be able to use that informati?on to make the battle easier -- as long as they manage to properly position their party members out of the way.

Enemies are just as capable of exploiting objects and terrain. The party finds itself at the site of an execution. The scenario?? is an optional quest, where a woman is about to be hanged by some rather horrible chaps. The lecherous mage has a soft spot for the prisoner, and has requested that his chums assist him in freeing her. It's a timed battle, and should the anti-heroes fail, they must live with that. So it's not only optional, it's possibl??e to screw up and carry on playing.

The guards spot the heavily armed party, and quickly topple some crates at the entrance to the execution si??te. Though a fairly minor obstacle, the crates do cost the party one turn as they find themselves unable to move forward, and the guards get the upper hand. One of the crates gets set on fire, destroying it, and the fire spreads to the rest, even damaging one of the guards. The tables turn once more.

Other sc??enarios have traps, puzzles and objectives that require players to do more than simply kill all the enemies on the map. In another side quest, a woman requests the party's assistance in finding her lost monkey. It can be brought back dead or alive -- which seemed odd, until the monkey is revealed to be a giant killer gorilla. It's a challenging battle, should an attempt be made on its life, but even more difficult is bringing it back alive. A huge cage must be positioned over the beast and then dropped at the ri?ght time, requiring multiple party members to interact with levers, leaving the other adventurers as vulnerable bait.

The vices of certain party members can even b??ecome o??bstacles. In the last series of battles I was shown -- several arena fights, with each one getting harder than the last -- the drug-addicted half-elf poacher has a relapse in her cell. When the fight begins, she's high as a kite and is of no use whatsoever to her allies.

While I was thoro??ughly impressed with the fights, other elements left me a bit disappointed. Towns and settlements, for example, are restricted to one screen and don't appear to offer any room for exploration -- they are merely quest hubs -- and the small amount of story and dialogue that was shown off made me wish that we were back in a fight. It seemed a tad trite and poorly voice-acted. 

It's worth noting, however, that I only saw an hour of the game, and we jumped around between various acts, so nothing I viewed was really representative off the finished product beyond the combat. I wasn't able to get to know any of the characters, and most of the s??tory remains a mystery. 

Blackguards is expected to be about 40 hours long, with hundreds of quests, huge maps to explore??, a mountain of loot and gear to discover, and a continent to c?hart -- but even more post-launch content is being planned in the form of a map editor. So you can try to make even more devious battles and then upload them for others to die in, over and over again.

Though it was initially planned for a November release, Blackguards has been postponed until January. It seems like a smart move, considering that November wil??l be an insanely busy month with the launch of two new consoles, ??stealing some of the thunder from any new PC releases. 

The post Learning to be bad with Blackguards appeared first on Destructoid.

And they all sound lovely

Daedalic's evil RPG Blackguards sounds like a bit of all right, with tactical combat and less than nice protagonists. Now the German developer is finally ready to spill the beans on exactly what'?s up with thes??e unpleasant folk. 

There's Takate, one time slave and gladiator, honed into the ultimate weapon. He's cold?? and merciless, and has a bee in his bonnet in regards to the upper classes. Then there's Niam, a drug addict and poacher. She's a?? half-elf on the run from the law, but she's not all bad, as she helped raise her sister.

Finally, there's Master Urias, a heroic nobleman searching for his daughter's killer. He sounds terrible. Daedalic's describing these folk as sinister, but I don't really see it. An ex-slave, poacher and a hero -- how evil. The player character is just described as a murder "suspect," which doesn't really say very much. Hopefully there will be a more expansive cast with some right bastards, since this troupe seems a tad tame. ? 

The post The blackguards are revealed appeared first on Destructoid.

Riddle me this

Daedalic Entertainment, prolific crafter of many a point-and-click adventure, has returned to the world of Aventuria, continuing the yarn spun in last year's Chains of Satinav, a gorgeous, but slightly uneven game with that didn't quite live up to its potential.? 

So we're in sequel territory, but don't fret if you've not played Chains of Satinav as this second outing, Memoria, can stand on its own, and when it references its predecessor it does so without demanding much prior knowledge. Frankly,? thi??s is the best place to jump in, because it's bloody magical.

Not just a superior sequel, Memoria is the best adventure that Daedal?ic has ever crafted. It's a shame, then, that some spotty voice acting and moments where the translation from German to English leaves a lot to be desired crop up, as they mar what is an otherwise excellent fantasy romp. 

Memoria (PC)
Developer: Daedalic Entertainment
Publisher: Daedalic Entertainment
Release: August 29, 2013
MSRP: $19.99
Rig: Intel i5-3570K @3.40 GHz, 8 GB of RAM, GeForce GTX 670, and Windows 7 64-bit

Memoria tells two tales, inextricably linked, but separated by almost 500 years. There's the continuation of Geron's story, the unknow?n and sardonic hero of Andergast, as he attempts to find a way to turn his fairy chum back into her original form after being transformed into a raven. His quest for a cure leads him to a traveling merchant who claims to know a spell that will make Nuri herself again, but there's a price: Geron must answer a riddle.

While riddles and adventure games make excellent bed fellows, this is not one that can be solved quickly. Discovering both its meaning and the answer leads Geron to explore the ancient history of his world through dreams, journals and stories. You see, the solution to the riddle is found in the journey of Memoria's second pro??tagonist: the deposed Princess Sadja.

Centuries before Geron was even born, Sadja travelled from her land?, across swamps, forests and mountains to reach the site of an upcoming battle between holy orders and a demonic horde. Her goal? To become a legend. Unfortunately, she?? failed to be remembered by but a few individuals and her story was unfinished, waiting to be completed by a simple bird-catcher turned unwitting hero hundreds of years later.

Splitting the game between Geron and Sadja allows Memoria to spin multiple, equally interesting but extremely different yarns. Geron's plight is more immediate and smaller in scale, while Sadja's adventure is a world-spanning epic, a tale of gods, elemental forces, and the potential end of the world. Memoria jumps between t??hem, and?? they transition seamlessly as Geron discovers more about Sadja's life.

Though Sadja is under player control for her portions of the game, Memoria manages t?o retain the feeling that we are learning about her second-hand. It is in one of the later acts where this used to the greatest effect. Geron is reading a diary written by an elemental mage who met Sadja, and because of this, the player is unable to hear certain conversations or witness everything that she does, because the author was similarly limited. 

While both protagonists are well written, it is Sadja who steals the show. Where Geron is slightly bumbling and mopey, Sadja is strong-willed, competent, and adventurous. Both characters, like everyone in Memoria, are ??flawed, but if you needed to choose a companion to join you on a dangerous adventure, you'd be hard-pressed to find a better ally than the Princess. Geron also perpetually sounds like he's waking up from a very deep sleep, which grates on the nerves within five minutes.

The voice acting, in general, is pretty uneven (occasionally not even reflecting the text, or being in German in one instance), though it falls somewhere in the middle when compared to Daedalic's other adventures. Better than the abysmal A New Beginning, but not nearly as proficient as The Night of the Rabbit. Again, it is Sadja who stands above the rest, as her voice actor puts in the best performance, closely followed by her sarcastic, talking magical staff. Though Bryda, the novice wizard and ally of Geron, is also well-performed and well-written, helping to ma??ke her a significantly more interesting character than? her bird-catching pal. 

Adventure games have a history of creating likable, compelling female characters, and Memoria certainly continues this. Even Nuri, wh??????????????????????????o spends most of the game a victim, is more competently crafted and fleshed out than the lassies found in so many other titles. Not only does she help to make Geron a more sympathetic character, as we look more favorably on him for spending the entire adventure trying to help her, her internal struggle to retain her fairy-self in the face of her new raven identity drives players to root for her.

It's Memoria's phenomenal puzzles that really make Daedalic's latest title stand out from the crowd, however. I'll be the first t??o admit that 20 years of devouring adventure games has made me a bugger to please, setting my expectations high and rarely being satisfied. But barring a couple of obtuse or pointless puzzles, most notably a forest maze that can actually be skipped, Daedalic has struck a balance between taxing even?? veteran adventure gamers' brains and keeping solutions logical.

Fiddly inventory management is nowhere to be seen, as only a few items will grace your inventory at any one time, and when the?y need to be combined, it makes perfect sense and there are usually some sort of dialogue hints, and the focus is, instead, on creativity and experimentation.

Magic plays a large role in solving puzzles, with both Geron and Sadja employing several spells. The most inventive is probably Sadja's "send vision" ability, where she is able to place images of items in?? the scene into the mind of another character, subtly bending them to her will. The diversity of their magical repertoire means that no one spell outstays its welcome, and they are often used in unexpected ways.

Memoria's greatest achievement when it comes to its puzzles is that the??re's both a constant sense of progression and a pay-off for almost every interaction. A good puzzle shouldn't just have players scratching their noggins, it should leave them with a sense of accomplishment.

Using a gargantuan stone statue to rip out a door, allowing Sadja to escape from a stone tomb; reading th??e thoughts of petrified villagers to create the final part of an arcane ritual; getting revenge on a murderous, cruel one-time-ally with a new spell -- these were all tricky puzzles requiring clever use of the game's tools, and there was a visual and emotional pay-off.

More than just striking a balance between difficulty and rewarding success, Memoria also throws some surpris??ingly modern, helpful features into the mix that ease some of the frustration inherent in the genre. Pressing the spacebar, for example, reveals every single point of interaction on the screen. Equally convenient is the feature that assists adventurers during the occasional item combination puzzle, making it easier to discern which items can be combined. 

Don't let all of this trick you into believing that this makes the adventure leisurely, however. I found myself thoroughl??y stumped on more than one occasion, leaving the game for a while so I could go and clear my thoughts, hoping that putting distance between myself and the game would inspire the solution that eluded me. 

And joy of joys, I had to take notes. If you've had the misfortune to read many of m??y other adventure game reviews, you'll know that I'm a big fan of slumming it with pen and paper. When a game inspires me to doodle arcane symbols in a notepad, I know I'm in heav?en.  

You'll undoubtedly be spending quite a bit of time staring at the same screens, so it's a good thing that Memoria is sumptuous. The exquisitely detailed backgrounds are jaw-droppingly beautiful -- genuine works of art, really -- and the art style is taken full advantage of with the fantastical locales the game sends its adventurers too. Lush, wild forests, thick with mist; towering arcane cities, floating abov??e vast mountain ranges; dirty, vibrant settlements, full of life -- it's a simply stunning game. 

The only point where I found myself less than enamored with the art w?as in the, admittedly, few instances where scenes would switch to focus on a character's ??face. Terrible lip-syncing and the dissonance between how characters appear from a distance compared to how they are painted close up were unwelcome, but these scenes happen so infrequently that it never becomes a serious problem.

The well-realized fantasy world, high-stakes adventure, empathetic characters, and remarkably well designed puzzles combine to make Memoria an extremely memorable game. This is Daedalic finally perfecting its formula, producing a title with imagination and ambition backed up by solid mechanics and a ?captivating, cohesive s?tory. 

Even though Sadja's tale is wrapped up by the end of the journey, there's plenty of room left for more adventures in the Dark Eye setting. I can only hope that Daedalic's next installment continues ?to build on what they've managed to achieve here. 

The post Review: The Dark Eye: Memoria appeared first on Destructoid.

Save the world by being a bastard

With Daedalic's peculiar turn-based RPG Blackguards getting closer to release, the developer is opening the doors to beta testers interested in fighting evil with evil. Set in the same universe as Memoria (which I'm already in the process of reviewing and just came out today), Blackguards puts players in the shoes of a? band of outcasts and criminals as they attempt to save the world from?? an even greater evil.

The beta will run from September 4 to October 2, and if you want to p??articipate just shoot an email to betatest@daedalic.de, mentioning why you want to check it out and what your gaming experience is. As a fan of Daedalic's output and RPGs that don?'t demand that players take on the guise of a noble hero, I'm rather looking forward to this one.

Blackguards will be out this November on PC

The post Evil RPG Blackguards’ closed beta starts next week appeared first on Destructoid.

Memoria mia

Memoria looks beautiful so it makes sense it comes from Daedalic Entertainment. Its recently released point-click adventure The Night of the Rabbit was absolutely beautiful and, according to our resident adventure game aficionado Fraser Brown, it was good to boot.

Here's hoping Memoria follows suit. The game's page offers some more story details. Seems like the forgotten past of a princess,?? Sadja, is framed by the present struggles of Geron, a young bird catcher tasked with revealing princess Sadja's true fate. 

I'm down. The art style is sumptuous and the "mind-bending twist [that] asks you to reconsider what we mean by history, by fame and even by memory" sounds intrig??uing, however overblown. If you're down, too, the game will be available this August on Steam and G??OG.

The post Trailer for mythic adven????ture game Memoria looks gorgeous appeared first on Destructoid.

One of the better summer jobs

I hated and loved in equal measure the end of the summer holidays as a child. My impending return to gloomy classrooms, smudged jotters, and unc?omfortable uniforms only made me take advantage of my final days of freedom all the more. I lamented the moments of my holiday that I'd wasted, while I tried to come up with new and ??exciting things to do before school began again.

As I grew older, drinking and being a layabout would overtake the fun shenanigans of my younger years, and ??of course, now the concept of a summer holiday is laughable. There's no such thing as that much free time anymore. Piffle.

But thanks to Daedalic's point-and-click adventure The Night of the Rabbit, I've been able to reclaim some of the whimsy and excitement of that bygone time. I've also called a rabbit a bast?ard, hurt my foot when I kicked a wall, and rage quit at least ten times.  

The Night of the Rabbit (Mac, PC [Reviewed])
Developer: Daedalic Entertainment
Publisher: Daedalic Entertainment 
Released: May 29, 2013 (US / EU)
MSRP: $19.99
Rig: Intel i5-3570K @3.40 GHz, 8 GB of RAM, GeForce GTX 670, and Windows 7 64-bit  

The adorably named Jerry Hazelnut, amateur magician and adventurer, has only two days before his summer holidays end and he's thrust back into the grey world of chalk and nagging teachers. Luckily, he's?? whisked away from his simple life by a magical talking rabbit who would probably be right at home in a Tardis, and he soon becomes a magician's apprentice in a realm populated by curious wood-dwelling critters.

If this all sounds like the synopsis of a children's book, then you've probably read at least one. It does manage to avoid being too cloyingly sentimental or twee, however, and like all good children's stories --  like The Hobbit or Watership Down -- there's some darkness in the mix involving a foul plan to put an end? to ma?gical jaunts, and some rather unfriendly crows.

Jerry is a welcome change from the often sarcastic kleptomaniacs that always seem to find thems??elve??s the protagonists of adventure games. He's a sincere, somewhat naive, good-natured little fellow, and his voice actor does such a sterling job that I find myself hating child actors just a little bit less.

In fact, the voice acting in The Night of the Rabbit is, across the board, absolutely wonderful. Daedalic's games are normally a mix?ed bag in this regard, but I have no complaints this time around. It's not just the professional quality, either; the dialogue is simply fun to listen to. The delivery is well thought out and properly directed, for a change, and frequently elevates the script and the occasional gag that doesn't really work.

There's plenty of time to enjoy the voice acting, as The Night of the Rabbit is a hefty adventure. Not only is it Daedalic's biggest game, it's large by any standard, filled to the brim with oodles of wit and charm, and has no dearth ?of incredibly detailed, picturesque areas. And most importantly, it's chock-full of all manner of puzzles, from physical conundrums requiring environmental manipulation to tricky riddles, from classic inventory fiddling to the creation of potions. Unfortunately, many of these puzzles are rendered frustrating by the arbitrary order in which they must be performed.

Exploring Mousewood and the other, smaller wo?rlds connected to it by portal trees is a delight. But when you're wandering around aimlessly, trying to figure out why you can't finish a puzzle you've clearly figured out the solution to, the gorgeous, verdant forest becomes an uncaring prison, and its comically animated, charismatic denizens becom??e mocking jailers.

I'm a big supporter of challenging puzzles and brain teasers that go beyond simply combining a couple of random items in one's inventory, but The Night of the Rabbit adds too many layers of obfuscation by throwing puzzle after puzzle at the player, not once hinting that there's a particular order to them. Thank goodness there's at least ?a journal to keep tra?ck of them all.

Frequently, I'd find myself completely stumped by what s??eemed like a fairly simple problem, having exhausted all logical solutions. I'd wander around randomly clicking on things in hopes that I'd suddenly be struck by inspiration or just have a bout of luck. But then, after completely giving up, I'd find a key item or new area by sol?ving an entirely unrelated puzzle, and suddenly I'd be able to solve the previous one.

So the game often devolves into starting and stopping puzzles because there's an order most of them need to be completed in, but it's rarely a logical order. It doesn't help matters when the hint system is a gigantic waste of time. Jerry can summon an image of his mentor, the aforem??entioned Whovian rabbit, the Marquis de Hoto, to guide him on his adventure, but all the old bugger does is repeat the task he'd sent Jerry on. And this, my friends, is why I ended up shouting obscenities at a fictional rabbit.

Better hints are provided subtly in conversations, though sometimes they prove too subtle. One such instance pits J??erry against an intolerable, spoiled little mouse who refuses to let the magician's apprentice go down the river without paying a toll, and Jerry notes that the mouse needs a hobby other than collecting tolls, or something to that effect. Now, for a player who hasn't been paying attention, this is a throwaway piece of dialogue. But if they'd noted a particular advertisement and were in possession of a specific ob?ject, then the solution actually becomes extremely clear.

Some of the puzzles are downright inventive. It's magic -- appropriately -- that saves the day. As Jerry travels through Mousewood and its connected worlds, he learns new puzzle-solving spells. With the?m, previously mundane objects become solutions, new areas open up, and new ways to interact with the environment appear. Counter-intuitively, the magical solutions are often far more logical -- at least in regards to the strange internal logic of Mousewood -- than the more down-to-earth ones.

The first spell Jerry learns is the one most frequent?ly used, though not necessarily to solve puzzles. The stone whisperer spell allows Jerry to listen in on the thoughts of stones and, predominantly, statues. More often than not, this amounts to a line of dialogue that doesn't help the top hat-wearing scamp at all. This is far from a complaint, however; these whispering stones add flavor to the world, being sometimes humorous or occasionally informative, and a few times uttering some quite ominous lines of dialogue.

And that's what The Night of the Rabbit does best. There's a strong sense of place, as if the game was based on a piece of fiction full of history. In a sense, it is. Amid the many random extras, such as stickers and a rather uninspired card game that can be played at any time, is a collection of audio books written by Matt Kempke, the brain behind The Night of the Rabbit. T?hese tales from Mousewood are what, in part, inspired the game.

Many of The Night of the Rabbit's missteps are problems t??hat the genre has always had, as far back as the LucasArts and Sierra days -- which we gloss over thanks to nostalgia. So, almost forgivable then. But there is one recurring flaw that threatens to mar an experience that I found otherwise -- despite the invisible puzzle order -- rather wonderful. It sometimes steals the sense of satisfaction one derives from solving a puzzle. Criminal!

The reward for wracking one's brain for sometimes hours on end is the progression of the game. Usually this takes the form of a new area opening up or moving to a new scene. All too often, The Night of the Rabbit fails to deliver this expected reward. I can almost hear the Marquis de Hoto's voice in my head: "Well done for figuring that on??e out, Fraser, but wait, the puzzle has suddenly grown into another puzzle. Hadn't you be?tter do something about that?" Bugger off, rabbit. 

I reached my lowest point at 2 o'clock in the morning, after spending a good half hour utterly baffled by a particularly obtuse puzzle. Chain smoking cigarettes due to stress had given me a slight cough, and really all I wanted to do was go to bed. But I needed to finish the damn puzzle first. Then lo and behold, I discovered an object with a hidden item inside. Would this be the solution I was looking for? I certainly hoped so, as I embarked on yet another puzzle so I could solve a different one. What was my reward for using my smarts? A bloody playing card, an item that has no ??real use at all, unless you want to play a mini-game.

At this point, I buried my face in a pillow and screamed a ?long list of colorful curses, includ?ing a few that I made up on the spot.

Such moments of ??unbridled rage did not occur frequently, but they did come close to souring the overall experience. Even exceptionally clever puzzles need a proper payoff, and when that's seriously lacking, the impetus to continue starts to disappear.

What got me through those instances was the menagerie of woodland critters (and an Alan Moore-inspired forest guardian), the sumptuous art, and the mystery that is slowly teased, but ultimately unravels in a quickly wrapped-up, anti-climactic ending that I could definitely have done without. Yet for all its flaws, The Night of the Rabbit may still be Daedalic's best adventure game. The issues ??are numerous, but the significant size of the game also offers up a lot of opportunities for it to redeem itself, which it does manage.

The Night of the Rabbit still contains all of those classic "ah ha!" moments when you, at long last, cease to be dumbfounded, and the novelty of the magic spells surprisingly doesn't wear off, continuing to be implemented cleverly throughout the long experience. With a lot of patience, you could find yourself having a bloody good time. 

The post Review: The Night of the Rabbit appeared first on Destructoid.