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Lego Dimensions is the real Lego Movie game

June 2, 2015 By In Gaming

We’ll never forget how awesome it was seeing Batman and Gandalf in the same room during the Lego Movie. Ever since then, we’ve been waiting for the opportunity to truly explore that concept in a video game. Travellers Tales has just delivered.

Lego Dimensions is like Skylanders: you buy figurines, use an attachment to put them into the game, and do whatever you want. The best part is that you can mash up any series you want.

Lego Dimensions plays just like the Lego games before it: break blocks to build new structures, with some cartoon-y action peppered in. The game features an open world that you are free to explore, but the difference comes in the way you can do that. With so many characters, you have options. You can roam the skies as Superman, tear down the streets as Marty McFly in the Delorean, or even drive the Simpsons family sedan.

The story is simple, but it’s not the point of the game. The villain Lord Vortek, has mashed up the various Lego worlds and that’s pretty much it. It’s up to Gandalf, Batman and Wildstyle to stop him. While we imagine there will be more going on in the game, it’s all Travellers Tales has announced so far, so it proves the point that story is playing second fiddle to game play.

The pro of having all these characters comes at a cost though, and just like with Skylanders, you’ll have to fork out extra cash for different characters. The starter pack that comes with Batman, Gandalf and Wildstyle will set you back about R1 200, while if you wanted to buy everything on offer at launch, you’ll have to spend about R4000. It’s a lot of cash, but you obviously don’t have to buy everything, so if you just want some Scooby Doo characters, you’ll only be set back about R280.

Lego Dimensions is set to launch on September 27th. The packs announced so far include DC, Lord of the Rings, Lego Ninjago and more.

AskSteve.co.za’s FRIDAY NEWS ROUNDUP

May 29, 2015 By In Gaming, Motoring, Technology

It’s been a bit of a slow week for us techies. The biggest thing this week was the New Android Announcement, but some smaller things have seemed to fly under the radar. Thankfully, we picked them up and put them together in one place for you to read:

Lenovo’s new phone can beam a touch screen onto any surface

Remember that joke video that went around a few years back about the iPhone with the projector keyboard? Well now it’s a reality. Dubbed “Smart Cast”, the phone can project anything onto a flat surface, and use the projection for input. It’s just a demo, but we hope Lenovo announced more in the future about when we can get our hands on this.

Fifa 16 to include women

It’s been a long time coming. Fifa 16 will finally let you play in womens teams. EA claim to have built the models from scratch, instead of just putting a women’s face on the male models. Only 12 team are playable, the international USA, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, England, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Spain and Sweden teams. It’s a small step, but it’s only the first.

Journalist crashes unreleased Chevy Camaro

This makes us feel bad for laughing, but a journalist in the U.S. was given the opportunity to test drive the unreleased Chevrolet Camaro, he obliged and then proceeded to crash it into a wall. There’s not much else to say about this one. Just watch the video.

Man gets fined for using his Apple Watch while driving

It was only a matter of time, a man has been fined for using his watch to skip a song on his phone while driving. Jeffrey Macesin was pulled over by cops who gave him a $120 dollar fine and four points on his license. He was skipping a song on his phone that was connected to the stereo. “It’s not so much handheld. It’s a watch,” argues Macesin, who is contesting the fine. As if the watch wasn’t expensive enough.

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare Review

November 11, 2014 By In Uncategorized

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare is the breath of fresh air that Call of Duty needed. After the somewhat disappointing Ghosts last year, Advanced Warfare feels like a true next-gen entry in the franchise, and it’s the best Call of Duty since Black Ops 2.

Advanced Warfare may be developer Sledgehammer Games’ first full foray into the franchise, but they have changed Call of Duty drastically and after playing through the game, it’s hard to go back. Every aspect of Call of Duty has been changed, and for the better, the leap into the future has allowed us to play with some cool guns and gadgets, and these are what keeps Advanced Warfare a cut above its counterparts.

If you’ve been following Advanced Warfare even a little bit up to its launch, you’ll have no doubt seen Kevin Spacey’s face plastered all over the marketing. Yes, Frank Underwood himself graces Call of Duty with his presence, and to my surprise, he’s actually well used and is one of the best villains the series has boasted for a long while.

While the story is far better than the series has had to offer in the past, it isn’t perfect. Spacey’s character Jonathan Irons goes from idealistic CEO to dictatorial villain a little too quickly, and ridiculous set-pieces still litter the campaign. But it feels like a new take on the formula, and that’s enough to get excited for. The biggest and best new feature in the game is the Exo-Suits, basically they’re robotic exo-skeletons that allow you to take more damage, double jump, dodge in the air and so many more features that I won’t spoil here.

The reason Call of Duty is so popular is its multiplayer, and Advanced Warfare brings the best to the table. The aforementioned Exo-Suits give combat a “verticality” that was unheard of in the series’ past, and every moment where I wasn’t dashing around the battlefield felt like a wasted opportunity. With that said, it still feels like Call of Duty at its core; levelling up will still unlock new weapons, perks and scorestreaks, and the pick 10 system from Black Ops 2 makes a return, where you can pick a certain amount of weapons and gear to take into battle, although you get 13 choices this time around.

The maps are all designed superbly, mixing up long rooftops for the Exo-Suits with sprawling corridors for series veterans. Unlike past CoD games, there are no maps that feel bad or that aren’t up to par. I never let out a groan when I found out where I would be playing next, although I still wish that there was a variety in the size of the maps. They range from large to medium, with no maps being designed for close quarters combat only; think: Rust from Modern Warfare 2 or Nuketown from Black Ops. I realise the Exo-Suits make close quarters boring, but it would be nice to have a more intimate battleground if I wanted to load a game up with just a friend or two.

The final big addition to the multiplayer is customisation. Playing for a certain amount of time or completing challenges will grant you Supply Drops, open these up after the match and you can unlock modded guns, different aesthetic gear, or even double XP for a certain time. This gave multiplayer more of an identity for me, as I felt like I had a character, not just a class. While there are far less guns to unlock, the fact that each gun has different versions with different stats and appearances actually gives Advanced Warfare more variety than before.

In place of zombies, this year we got Exo-survival. Basically waves and waves of enemies will spawn until you die. While the Exo-Suits make the mode a touch more fun, it’s mostly forgettable, even when playing with friends.

Advanced Warfare feels like an evolution for Call of Duty. Not only is it a step up from its predecessors, but it also gives a good roadmap of where the series is going to go this console generation. If you’re a fan, you’ve probably picked it up already, if you feel burnt out on the series, I would recommend giving Advanced Warfare a fair chance, because it certainly deserves your time and money.

Mortal Kombat X PREVIEW….FIGHT! by @Lubeness

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November 10, 2014 By steve In Gaming

Mortal Kombat X had the best presentation at rAge by far. A roughly 10 meter long stand with over 10 screens to play, it was the most noticeable and the most recognizable. Especially with Scorpion covering half of the exterior and the best part; a Mortal Kombat logo right in the middle that emitted smoke periodically.

Luckily, the game itself matched the cool factor of the stand. Combat Kombat will be a breeze to sink back into for those who played the previous game in the series, and enough additions have been implemented to make the series feel fresh, such as a run button and being able to play characters in three different styles.

The only returning characters in the demo were series mainstays Scorpion and Sub-Zero, with four newcomers being D’vorah(a completely new character), Kotal Kahn (son of main villain Shao Kahn), Kassie Cage (Daughter of Sonia Blade and Johnny Cage) and Ferra/Tor( a pair-up of two new characters). As mentioned before, all six characters can be played in three different ways, for example, Scorpion can be played in the “Ninjutsu” style, where he uses his dual blades, in the “Inferno” style, where he can summon hellspawn demons to help him in the fight, or the “Hellfire” style, where he uses fire based attacks primarily. This means that the game has the most variety in the entirety of the series.

Fighting felt great. While the combos are new, the same system has been carried over to next gen with some new features such as being able to interact with your environment or being able to run full speed across the screen using the aforementioned run button. I quickly fell into my old groove, juggling my friends around the screen with ease, and we can’t talk about Mortal Kombat if we don’t talk about X-ray moves and Fatalities.

If any parts of the game have benefited from the jump to next gen, its bone breaking X-rays and the cringe-inducing fatalities. Be warned, the following is not for the weak of heart! Scorpion’s fatality involves him kicking his opponent in the air and piercing his skull, before pulling him headfirst into the ground, snapping his neck. Sub Zero finishes his opponents off by punching their stomach out, snapping their spine, and splitting them in half. These are easily the most gruesome moves we’ve seen in the series and I can’t wait to see the rest.

Mortal Kombat X is shaping up to be one of the best games of the year when it launches in April next year. The gameplay alone made me more excited to play the full game than any other game at the expo, never mind the great presentation Warner Brothers showed with their stand. Oh, and did I mention that the awesome song from the first trailer was blasting throughout the stand?

GTA V re-release coming 18 November with 1st person shooter option. Gulp. It’s awesome. Watch it here.

November 5, 2014 By steve In Gaming

Come the 18th November 2014, a re-release of GTA V will be unleashed on the world and it’ll have in it a FPS option. Once you watch the video below, we think you’ll be asking the same question as we are…WHY THE HELL DIDN’T THEY JUST DO THIS FROM THE START? IT’S BRILLIANT!

Obviously this is much more awesome than the previosly release fan-made mods that give a bit of a FPS vibe. As you saw in the footage, this is a complete overhaul of the game and meant new animation had to be drawn up for pretty much everything.

Other FPS bonuses to expect include a new view including recoil on weapons, view-restricting goggles and helmets when piloting certain vehicles, and a cell phone menu that your character now actually holds in front of his face.

rAge 2014 – Assassin’s Creed Unity EXCLUSIVE PREVIEW – A lofty climb ahead via @Lubeness

October 27, 2014 By In Gaming

Assassin’s Creed Unity was a bit of a jumble during the hands-on time I had with the game over the weekend. As a huge fan of the series, I hoped that Unity would be a leap forward over last year’s spectacular Black Flag, but when I put the controller down, I was left quite worried as to how the final product would turn out. The game had performance issues, the gameplay was tweaked in ways that moved it away from the core series and the environment felt all too familiar to earlier games in the series.

The game is set in the midst of the French Revolution in the late 1700s. While this is a new era for the series to explore, running across rooftops and cathedrals gave me a strong sense of déjà vu, harkening me back to two previous Assassin’s Creed games that were set in Italy. It felt like if you had told me that I was playing Assassin’s Creed 2 with better graphics, I would’ve believed you without question. Black Flag showed that a different setting and environment is just what the series needed as a breath of life, but it feels like Ubisoft is regressing right back to its comfort zone.

The same rooftops with the same stacked boxes to climb on littered the city and nothing was able to distinguish Unity as its own game.
With that said, being able to go inside buildings and huge halls certainly felt new, previous games have had indoor sections, but not nearly to the same extent as Unity.

The gameplay obviously had to be tweaked in order to accommodate this new element; and that’s where a cover system comes into play. Being able to hide behind any object is a great idea that accommodates the small spaces, but it changes the way Assassin’s Creed is normally played. Running across rooftops and assassinating unwitting guards has been an AC staple for literally 7 years now, and it’s instantly familiar, but taking cover and dashing between statues felt out of place and a bit jarring for me, as the series has always been about having many options and routes to take in a large area.

One element that did impress me was the improved parkour mechanic. Instead of holding one button to climb, you press one button to run, and another to direct the main character Arno up or down buildings. This changes the series in a good way, as manoeuvring down from a building was always a tedious task. Just hold run and down, and Arno will immediately leap towards the nearest hand-hold under him, and make his way down from there. The best part about this is watching the new animations, which have been completely redone. Watching Arno leap down the side of a building was the highlight of the session, and I can’t imagine I’ll tire of it quickly.

While the segment I played didn’t do much to impress me, I have hopes that I’ll enjoy Unity when I get to boot it up on November 13th.

HERE’S A PROPER TEASER

Mortal Kombat X Gameplay released at E3

June 10, 2014 By steve In Gaming

We’ve been teased by a very short trailer, but now they’ve released what the gameplay in this highly anticipated new release is going to look like.

One word: brutal!

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 Review

March 2, 2014 By In Gaming

By Aaron Luboff
Review done on PS3

Blood. Sucks.

There’s nothing worse than a disappointing game. Most of the time, by looking at trailers and previews, it’s relatively easy to know when a game will come out and just be awful. That’s what makes Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 so frustrating to play. The first game in the series, was a pleasant surprise for Castlevania fans and action game fans in general, thus setting expectations pretty high up for its sequel; a bar that Lords of Shadow 2 fails to reach sadly. But is there anything worse in life than letting the younger sibling be compared to his stronger, better looking, more intelligent older brother? No. So we’ll give it a fair go.

Lords of Shadow 2 again stars protagonist Gabriel Belmont, who now has taken the identity of Dracula and must prevent Satan from returning in modern times so that he can be freed of his immortality. There are 2 problems with this premise; firstly, it means that the designers had to design a modern day city and castle sections for when Dracula has to travel back in time. The former completely lacking in comparison to the latter. While the modern city comes across as mundane and square, the castles design is beautiful and intricate.

Second problem, if Dracula is immortal, why can he be killed by any what’s-his-face with a sword? Bit of a big one this one, so suspend reality, I guess.

Lords of Shadow 2 may have some disappointing gameplay, but it does feature a new engine that is quite pretty; even though the designs are not always intricate, they are always a pleasure to look at. As stated before, the castle sections are absolutely gorgeous and truly unique.

The game’s soundtrack is also spectacular, setting a dark atmosphere right from the get-go. Unfortunately, the game suffers from some dodgy voice acting and corny dialogue, a standard in games these days. Have you found that too? Comments…

Lords of Shadow 2 isn’t the best game I’ve played in a while. If you’re in to the series already, you’ll probably give it a go and enjoy it. If you’re not, you won’t kick yourself for missing it.