Mortal Kombat X: Brutalities.

By Sam Coles:

Mortal Kombat has always been about the finishers known as Fatalities to humiliate your opponent, but the one finisher that we haven’t seen since Mortal Kombat Trilogy is the Brutality. The guys at Netherrealms studios have heard are cries and have announced that Brutalities are making a comeback in Mortal Kombat X. Similar to Killer Instinct’s Ultra Combos these are deadly combos that kill you in brutal ways and unlike Mortal Kombat Trilogy where they simply just explode, they can be sliced in half or have their head explode.

Mortal Kombat X releases on April 14^th on Xbox One, PS4, PS3, Xbox 360 and PC.

No More Re-masters Please!

By Sam Coles:

 

Since the new gen of consoles have emerged there has been a sudden and annoying trend of re-mastering or re-releasing everything in the past 5 years and a lot of people praise it and say that they never got a chance to play, me however do not praise it because I’ve got these new shiny pieces of hardware sitting on my work station and I’m reviewing games that I’ve already reviewed or played in the past. If I wanted to play Sleeping Dogs I can just grab it off my shelf and play it on my Xbox 360.

 

 

The argument that keeps cropping up is that they didn’t get to play said game in 7^th generation or they were stuck with the other console, such as the Last of Us on PS4 people gave the excuse of a lot of 360 players jumped ship to the PS4 and wanted to play the Last of Us and in my opinion tuff luck to you. Why should developers pander to you if you didn’t own a PS3? They shouldn’t have to. Also if you didn’t get a chance to play it on last gen and you weren’t a moron and threw you console out the window when the new gen started then you can still play those games and they’ll be cheap and they are same game. As of this editorial Borderlands “The Handsome Collection” has been announced and I saw some comments such as “Why the Pre-sequel released on last gen”? Which I respond with because not everyone has the money to make the jump to the 8^th gen yet and it wasn’t designed for the 8^th gen.

 

 

I have no problem with re-masters as a concept, but the games have to be at least 10 years old to be granted a re-master and not a year or two. People always say to me about the Halo Master Chief Collection about being a part of this group and I say no. Do you know why? It’s because the main focus of that collection was to celebrate ten years of Halo 2 and 343 thought let’s clear up Halo 1, 3 and 4 a bit and give our consumers those games as well. To celebrate an anniversary with a re-master is fine, but one year later does not count as a re-master because developers couldn’t have done anything substantial, people say TLOU and to be honest the only thing the improved is the frame rate which was awful on the PS3 in some places.

 

 

I expect that I’ll get the argument that it happened last console generation transition, but no it didn’t I can only think of one or two “Re-masters” such as Hitman Blood Money and Gun. It’s not like now where we have games that came out on the seventh generation consoles 4 years ago that warrant a re-master, games like Resident Evil is fine because that game is 12 years and you are bringing a game to a new generation of gamers and not gamers that have already played a game two years ago.

 

Overall after the release of Borderlands Handsome Collection I don’t want to see anymore “Re-masters” I want to see something new. It’s time to move on.

Adults Only Rating ESRB - America Needs to Grow Up.

By Sam Coles:

ESRB has been around for over 20 years now since Mortal Kombat and Night Trap came to the market and you now have ratings such as E for everyone up to Adults Only which is the equivalent of the UK’s BBFC’s and Pegi’s 18+. The reason why I bring this up is because the controversial game “Hatred” has been slapped with the AO rating which very few games have in the US, but the problem is when a game gets this rating it is more or less means it’s unsellable on consoles and most platforms.

The first question that I propose is that why should an age rating affect the sale of your game? If that was the case every game in UK wouldn’t be sellable in America because games like Call of Duty, Farcry 4, Grand Theft Auto, Watch Dogs etc. would be unsellable in the US because all these games are rated 18+. The US have still haven’t realised that video games are not just for kids anymore and they have been for adults for over two decades. This industry is a multi aged demographic and some need to grow up and grow a pair.

It just makes me think if you are going to ban the game anyway what’s the point of having the adult’s only rating? Don’t let an age rating judge a game for you let you the gamer judge the game, if Hatred is an abysmal game with mechanics etc fine but don’t down talk a product when you haven’t played or know nothing about it. You are judging a game on one trailer.  

I would love if gaming companies such as Sony and Microsoft would embrace games with AO ratings because it would show that we can have games for adults who are in their mid twenties onwards. I know what some of you are going to say “this will open it up for disgusting games” which I would say no because we have 18+ games in UK and Europe and you don’t see vulgar games do you? To be honest I’ve seen worst compared to Hatred such as Manhunt, the original Postal even the forgotten FPS Kingpin life of crime which was where you would play as an objectively bad person.

What I want to see from the US with the ESRB is to let games like this to be sold and not censored if it’s going to be unsellable with the AO rating then don’t bother having said rating because you might as well ban it. A piece of media’s sales should not be based upon what age rating it’s at, but what the content within said media, US is the only country that I can think of when it comes to this practise even with the NC-17 rated films they become almost unsellable. If that was the case in the UK then most of the triple A releases would be unsellable because games like COD, GTA, Battlefield and so on are 18+ because they are only for adults only. So let’s try and keep an open mind no matter the age ratings and not let them judge the sales and let’s grow up America.

 

Xbox 360 and PS3 it's time to say good bye.

By Sam Coles:

The Xbox 360 and PS3 have had a long life span in the way of a console generation and that is very odd when it comes to games consoles because they only last for five years at best, the last time I can think about this happening was the Atari 2600. People are suddenly disheartened when they see comparison videos of multi-gen consoles and the graphics are blurry with constant pop in. People keep saying that these systems can do graphics on par with the new gen systems which I would say that you are deluded.

What people have to realise is that the Xbox 360 first can out at the end of 2005 which was 10 years ago this year and the hardware is very dated and the PS3 came out late 2006 which was nine years ago. I don’t understand why people seem to think that the Xbox 360 and PS3 were going last forever, it was a very strange generation because it was the transition from standard definition to high definition and it changed everything.

Image source: IGN.

These consoles are slowly bleeding out and are struggling to keep up and are about to collapse on this battlefield in this console war. I get people can’t afford these systems, but think about it what games are coming out on the last gen systems in the future? There aren’t many are there? The only major game I can think of that is coming to the last gen systems in the next few months is Battlefield Hardline and if memory serves me well Battlefield 4 which runs on the same engine had horrendous pop in and blurry textures, so you’ll be getting a sub-par version of the latest Battlefield, but besides that there isn’t really anything major coming to those consoles because all the big titles are coming to the PS4 and Xbox One. Game developers have already voiced their concerns about having their games on two generations of technology and Techland with their latest zombie game Dying Light cut off the development of the game on the Xbox 360 and PS3 because it simply couldn’t happen.

This is normal when a console generation transition happens although when a game comes out on multiple systems you generally didn’t get the same game they were watered down versions of the game such as Call of Duty 2 big red one on Xbox, PS2 and Gamecube. This time however we’re getting the same experience on all systems except graphically such as Wolfenstein the new order, Watch Dogs, Thief etc. however you can clearly see that these systems are struggling to keep up with the amount that is going on in these games with the environments and player count in the multiplayer.

By the end of 2015 I have a feeling that all triple A games will only be released on the 8^th gen consoles and there will be mostly shovelware on the last gen systems. Xbox 360 and PS3 you are great consoles but it’s time to step aside and let the new guys in. I still have my 360 and PS3 and I don’t plan on getting rid of them, but I also own both the One and PS4 and I can acknowledge that it’s time to let it go. We all knew that the Xbox 360 and PS3 were not going to last for ever.

Mortal Kombat X: PC Specs.

 

By Sam Coles:

 

Netherrealms studios have released the PC specs for their upcoming gore fest Mortal Kombat X here are the specs can your PC run it:

Minimum:

• OS: 64-bit: Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8
• Processor: Intel Core i5-750, 2.67 GHz | AMD Phenom X4 965, 3.4 GHz
• Memory: 3 GB RAM
• Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 | AMD Radeon HD 5850
• DirectX: Version 11
• Network: Broadband Internet connection
• Hard Drive: 25 GB available space

Recommended:

• OS: 64-bit: Windows 7, Windows 8
• Processor: Intel Core i7-3770, 3.4 GHz | AMD FX-8350, 4.0 GHz
• Memory: 8 GB RAM
• Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 | AMD Radeon HD 7950
• DirectX: Version 11
• Network: Broadband Internet connection
• Hard Drive: 40 GB available space

 

Mortal Kombat X will be available April 14th on Xbox One, PS4, Xbox 360, PS3 and PC.

 

 

Battlefield Hardline Beta Impressions.

 

 

By Sam Coles:

Battlefield Hardline got a bit git because it was seen as a glorified mod for Battlefield 4 where they charge full price for it. Now that Visceral and EA have now released the open beta for the game I can tell that it’s not like Battlefield 4 at all.

 

 

When I was playing it I realised one thing, I was having fun and I haven’t had that feeling since Battlefield Bad Company 2 and the reason for this is that the multiplayer is over the top and does not take itself seriously. The gameplay is faster than any of the Battlefield games that I’ve played and it fits the fast paced nature when you’re raiding a bank in the heist mode with your 12 gauge of buck shot as you cut down police or criminals. The maps are more concise compared to other games, but that is not necessarily a bad thing because it fits the confined spaces such as the heist mode and the hotwire mode.

 

 

The game modes that I sampled in this beta are Heist where you either play as the cops and you have to stop the criminals from extracting the packages of money from the vault, or you play as the criminals where you have to break into the vault and steal the money and this is great because there are multiple ways of entry, such as setting a breaching charge on the roof of the vault and coming in from above. Hotwire is an interesting take on the conquest mode from the series past where instead of flags you capture cars and have to hold them as long as you can, but you can’t stay stationary you have to go certain speed to accumulate points while you have people chasing you down and shooting you it’s very intense.

Classes that you have access to:

Operator: These are the medics of the world of Hardline and their weapon of choice are assault rifles they can also bring themselves back to life, but only when they’re hit by cars.

Mechanic: They play a similar role as the engineer from Battlefield 4 where they repair vehicles, but they no longer have RPG’s because they are now weapon drops on the map which keeps the car chases balanced.

Enforcer: These guys are your muscle and love their close quarters battles and you’ll want these guys when you’re in the vault during the heist mode because their weapon of choice are shotguns and no longer LMG’s because like the RPG’s they’re now weapon drops on the map.

Professional: They’ll be giving over watch when you’re on the job as they specialise with sniper rifles and DMR’s and have many ways of keeping their sniper nest defended with gadgets such as trip mines.

The negative points that I have of this beta is in Hotwire mode I found that most players could easily exploit the game by driving around the outside of the map, I managed to rack up a combined score of 7,000 plus and that was for the entire game without taking damage. Another nit-pick was every time I loaded a match I would get a news bulletin about the heist or car theft which was a novel concept to begin with, but then turned into irritation, I hope this is something that is cut from the main game because when you’ve played hours of the game you could probably recite the news report word for word, maybe have an option to turn it off.

Battlefield Hardline is an interesting take on the Battlefield series and this beta has me invested in the full product, besides the few problems it was a fun experience and that is the key word for game fun. The game feels fast like a mix of the mobility of Halo and the tight controls of Call of Duty with a cops and criminal spin. I so glad that shooters have now pulled their heads out of the cloud of “Modern Military Shooter” and doing more unique settings. Battlefield Hardline will be released March 17^th in North America and March 20^th in Europe on Xbox One, PS4, Xbox 360, PS3 and PC.