June 19, 2016

E3 2016: Tekken 7 Xbox One Preview

Posted on June 19, 2016 by Rae Michelle Richards

As a fan of Bandai Namco’s Tekken series since the launch of the 3rd game back on the original PlayStation, I’ve followed the series through four numbered installments, several spin-offs, numerous guest characters and three console transitions. Somehow, against all odds, Namco has been able to maintain the series’ identity of wacky interconnected storylines, multiple unlockable endings, deep strategic fighting and of course the Mishima Zaibotsu.

Bandai Namco announced that Tekken 7 would be coming to home consoles on Microsoft’s Xbox One console along with another hidden surprise – the inclusion of Street Fighter‘s often secret combatant, Akuma! Behind closed doors at Namco’s small private booth at E3 the home console version of Tekken 7 was playable on the Xbox One and I got the chance to watch several matches.

Akuma as well as one of the PC/Console exclusive stages – Abandoned Temple – were on display in the build that the developers were showing off at E3. If you’ve played Akuma in other Street Fighter titles then some of his familiar strategies also apply to Tekken 7. Akuma’s tatsumaki forward whirlwind kick is featured as one of his standard moves in T7. He also has access to a focus meter, which works similar to the one found in Street Fighter IV, and builds over time allowing him to land a slowed down but devastating blow to his opponent. In the version of Tekken 7 on display the Focus Attack meter replaced the traditional Rage Meter when Akuma was selected. Another popular strategy that Akuma players relied on at E3 was one particular move combination that had him perform an upwards low kick before transitioning into a downward punch at the ark of a jump.

The Xbox One version of Tekken 7 is expected to include all of the additional content that is going to be found in the Tekken 7: Fated Retribution update which is due out in Japanese arcades next month. This arcade upgrade includes 28 characters (including bosses) – returning favorites like Jin, King and Steve Fox join newcomers like the Saudi Arabian born Shaheen and the Otaku-like cat girl Lucky Chloe. In terms of stages Fated Retribution (and presumably the console port) will include 10 stages at launch including Artic Snowfall, Devil’s Pit, Forgotten Realm, Mishima Dojo as well as the PC/Console exclusive Abandoned Temple and Mashima Building.

Tekken 7 is expected to be released for Xbox One and Windows 10 PCs sometime in the first quarter of 2017.

Bandai Namco E3 2016 E32016 Preview Tekken 7 Windows PC Xbox One

Microsoft Previews

Hands on with Agents of Mayhem | E3 2016

Posted on June 19, 2016 by Fionna Schweit

One of the things I absolutely could not miss this E3 was the new game from Volition and Deep Silver. makers of the Saints Row franchise. which I absolutely love. This new game is called Agents of Mayhem. Featuring a three character team – each with unique abilities from a team created to oppose the evil masterminds of the world. During the short presentation, we were given prior to the demo we were told to think of the playable hero’s more as rogues, your Han Solo or Dexter Morgan than a true good superhero. This really comes through in the game, as we started out by having a developer telling us that if we used out special ability it would “detonate” any pedestrians that we walked past. Ped-splosion it was called by him. He was not kidding, I activated the ability and purple lightning started emanating from me started a 3 second counter over anyone I walked near. When that timer reached 0, BOOM, no more pedestrians. They literally exploded into tiny little bits of meat all over the place. That single bit of gameplay from the demo would color my entire experience. The whole demo was just fun. Its really hard to describe fun, but imagine basically feeling like a superhero (a stated objective of the game) but one who doesn’t worry about damage to the local area of pedestrians.

that floating thing is dual pistol girls special move, its controlled by the AI and does MASSIVE damage

To get into the actual game itself, you play as a team of three “agents” which you can choose from a stable of 12. I chose three of the most basic, a large man with a shotgun and a harpoon (really? a harpoon, I swear it worked just fine) a tiny girl who had two fast shooting pistols that worked on a cooldown system, and a Hollywood reality star who fast-talked through his lines spent as much time talking as shooting. Each of these team members had a unique weapon and a unique ability called their agent ability. My favorite of these abilities I can only call crotch rocket, which was on the Hollywood reality star character. He sort of stops does a pelvic thrust and it just shoots out a missile in front of you. This is basically the whole game. It is all like this and it is amazing.

The shotgun guy is large.

Mechanics wise, each hero has a main weapon that is their primary damage, for Hollywood this was a rifle, for the smaller girl two pistols, and the the large man a shotgun, each also has a powerful melee attack which is great when things get in real trouble. The vast majority of the time I didn’t feel like I was in trouble, but there were a couple of moments when my shield did get low, and a large group of enemies was nearby so I resorted to the meele, and I must admit it felt a bit more powerful than it probably should have.

The game is going to rely heavily on building combos, and using different heroes- each with their own different roles. Each hero has a main weapon, an ability, a sort of super move, and a meele, and it mostly feels balanced. I didn’t feel like any one of the three I played were more powerful, more like each had its own set of abilities and strengths, some were good at AOE, some had a strong main attack weapon, and some were more balance. Each level will be generated in a procedural manner, so you will be able to play the man levels of the open game world again and again and again while never really getting bored.

The game is very colorfull

Squad choice is going to be important, but the developers also told us that each player will be able to play to their style, even if maybe it’s not the best strategy. What stood out the most about the demo was how much it felt like a game that was designed to be fun. Every little piece just seemed to be about having a good time. The Saints row style of dialog, the lack of respect for basically everything on the screen, it just feels good. The demo had a very arcadey carefree feel that took me back to the end of Saints Row 4 when you had max everything powers wise, or perhaps even Crackdown where you could just bounce around and destroy anything you wanted to. It’s clear that story will be important, each of the Heroes has their own unique stories and they will all fight against the evil organization that is legion (no not the 4chan people that’s what the enemy organization is called). I am looking forward to seeing what sort of unique power-ups and upgrades each hero can get. Sadly during our short play-through there was not enough time to see the whole upgrade tree, but we did get to see a little bit and I can confirm that there are a lot of upgrades that can upgrade damage, health, shields, and other things.

Even though I only had about 20 minutes with the game, I feel like its going to be one of those games that I get lost in for days at a time just like the other games that take place in the same Saints Row universe.

Agents of Mayhem Deep Silver E3 E3 2016 Volitioj

Previews

Space Marines arrive in Battlefleet Gothic Armada

Posted on June 19, 2016 by Fionna Schweit

Battle Fleet Gothic is near and dear to our hearts here at Brokenjoysticks. I have about 40 hours in the game our number one streamer Rob has a ton more even than that, so you know we love the game. Right now your coming up on the end of the early adopter period where you can get Battlefleet Gothic: Armada. Getting it now means you get a couple of DLC races for free: the Space Marines and the Tau. Those Space Marines are due to arrive on June 21, which also is the last date to buy the game as an “early adopter”. So if you want Space Marines in your big mad space cathedral RTS, and you don’t want to pay for the,, consider picking the game up on Steam like right now.

Here’s a quick trailer introducing the grim Space Marines. Hope to see you out there in the galaxy killing some Xenos.

Battlefleet Gothic PC

News PC

First time VR experience from a total newb featuring War Thunder VR and the HTC Vive

Posted on June 19, 2016 by Fionna Schweit

So while attending E3 this year I had the chance to check out the amazing War Thunder from from Gaijen entertainment in vivid amazing VR, with the help of and HTC Vive and the amazing Warthog Hotas from Thrustmaster. I had never experienced VR before, having missed the whole wave of VR. Both because of price, and because of generally not liking to adopt things before they get to their full and ripe potential. (remember Windows Vista? I was day on on that you would stop early adopting too).

So this was really a cold entry in to the VR sphere for me. I sat down and put headset fully expecting to be immersed in to an amazing world of flying airplanes and scenery and other random crap that flew up to me and made me want to throw myself back like in all those cool first time VR videos. I did not have that type of reaction at all, but I still appreciated it. Two things really prevented it from being that amazing moment for one, the first of which was partly my fault. I didnt have my glasses on when we started, making a lot of the games menus blurry and unreadable. The second issue was that I was not wearing a headset. Lack of sound really takes away from the experience of being in VR.

That good looking man is not me, however this is exactly how the set up looked right down the razer keyboard.

Its worth mentioning that I know my way around a HOTAS (Hands On Throttle-And-Stick) from years of playing MS flight sims and a genuine interest in aviation. Which meant that going in I was already probably better prepared for this than most would have been. I found my hands quite easily rested on the stick and throttle combination that the Warthog offered, and I quickly found all of the major flight surface controls even with the headset on. Initial problems were solved easily (it feels odd to know more about flying than the developer of the game). I was able to set all of the flight control surfaces to neutral on the HOTAS and get flying with any major difficulties.

After starting a few missions and getting a good feel for the game, I really felt like VR was a huge boon for the game. Instead of looking left and right by hitting the 4 way hat on the top of joystick which is the most common way of doing so in most sims, I was able to just look up. This was pretty amazing, and I found fairly few issues with the game itself in VR beyond some of the text not being readable to start off with. The blurriness issue was fixed when another member of the games dev team told me to put my glasses back on. Finally able to see the text in menus I felt a lot better about being able to actually see the instruments that are needed for flying (you know like the altimeter?) and got my self out there in the sky to do some flying.

Flying felt pretty good, the controls quite responsive, and although there is no one to one mapping with the Warthog, the screen did sort of reflect the changes in the sticks location. Since they aren’t mapped 1 to 1 like some other flight games are I did have some issues with the disconnect between my mind and body, and at one point the game did crash leaving me in darkness, and I opted to not have the headset on for sound since I was working in tandem with Rae and needed to hear her directions for filming and what not.

low res textures really take away from the VR aspect of the game

War Thunder is a huge game, with a ton of planes that recently passed 100 use able vehicles, so I only got to see a tiny tiny slice of it, but the missions that I did get to see looked fantastic, and I only had a few small problems with the Vive itself. I was often able to see the swirls of the lenses in the vive, which sort of threw me out of feeling like I was there in the plane, and at a few spot the whole thing crashed leaving me in a disconcerting darkness. Other than that the headset fit my rather large head quite well, and I had no issues with fit or comfort.

Over all I was fairly impressed with my first time in VR. Head tracking is almost flawless, and since this was a full production Vive unit it also came with the two small sensors which are placed on walls around the pc in use to give you mostly flawless head tracking and the ability to stand up and sit down or move around as you want to. This ability to move is not very useful when you are in a small single seat airplane, so again I really felt like maybe this wasn’t the best first VR experience for me. This had very little to do with War Thunder and very much to do with the fact that it just isnt the best use of VR out there. Even so it was still great fun, and if you are a flying simulator enthusiast I recommend taking a look at this set up.

E3 2016 E32016 VR War Thunder

PC Previews Steam