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Both intensely personal and widely relatable, Night in the Woods doesn’t just tell a story–it gracefully captures complex, often unpleasant feelings and experiences. From the quiet melancholy of doing nothing on a rainy day to the emotional vacuum of severe depression, I felt deeply, sometimes too deeply, while wandering through the cartoon-animal version of a small Midwestern town. Its witty writing and character development keep its crushing existential themes grounded, making Night in the Woods one of the most evocative games I’ve played in a long time.
Night in the Woods follows 20-year-old Mae Borowski–who happens to be a cat–after she drops out of college in the beginning of fall and returns to her tiny hometown of Possum Springs. She’s an angsty troublemaker with a bit of a rap sheet and a sharp tongue, and you spend her first few days back kicking around town and catching up with people, including her high school friends Bea and Gregg. A few people allude to something awful Mae did in the past, while others talk about a kid from her high school who has gone missing.
There’s enough small-town curiosity in those short, early interactions to be intriguing, but there are plenty of awkward moments that keep Mae’s homecoming feeling ordinary. You can talk to an old teacher (who likes Mae despite her awful behavior) and an elderly neighbor (who considers Mae a horrible nuisance), and it feels very real, like any small talk in your hometown–just with Mae’s distinct brand of snark. These interactions both offset and highlight the mysterious elements of Possum Springs, a balance Night in the Woods masterfully strikes throughout the entire story.
You’ll spend most of your time exploring Possum Springs through light platforming and optional interactions with the same few people you want to talk to, broken up by lighthearted, simple mini-games. For most of the game, you take things day by day, and that slow drip of information bolsters the development of Mae and her friends. This structure manages to feel aimless without being purposeless; every day is similar but not the same, and there’s always something new to learn about a neighbor or a dry remark from Mae to make the same few sights feel different each time. It’s understated worldbuilding that enhances the impact of the main story–especially through a better connection to Mae, her friends, and Possum Springs as a whole.
Many days end with a choice of activity, like going to the mall with one childhood friend or „doing crimes“ with another. This is when a lot of the bigger–and stranger–events take place. Sometimes things are lighthearted, like sneaking into an abandoned grocery store just for the fun of it, but there are also serious talks about past mistakes or what exactly Mae is doing with her life. Watching her struggle to articulate her problems and awkwardly dodge questions about college is hard–especially if you’ve ever been in a similar position. Combined with melancholic music, a lot of Night in the Woods evokes the feeling of lying in bed all day, despondent and paralyzed by indecision and uncertainty.
Initially, I had an incredibly hard time getting through more than a day without having to step away from the game for a bit. At 20 I was in a bad place with both school and depression, much like Mae, and playing felt more like looking in a very shameful mirror. But there’s enough going on in Possum Springs to distract from that early-20s, nearly drowning feeling, and instead of closing my game, I looked forward to the respite of mini-games and visiting friends at work, both for Mae’s sake and for mine.
I began checking every corner of town hoping to find the smallest or silliest of moments, and I often got them. I shoplifted pretzels (in a red-light, green-light style mini-game) for baby rats just to see what would happen if I fed them, and I listened to a neighbor’s dumb poetry every day because she could easily have been someone I know in real life. At the center of Night in the Woods is a story about a young adult who has gone numb, and those experiences on the periphery are what she–and anyone who’s lived through an emotional void–does to feel anything at all.
The unfortunate reality is that finicky controls, and even some scenes that feel forced, occasionally interrupt Night in the Woods’ evocative atmosphere. More than one scene requires you to complete simple platforming to proceed, for example; sometimes it’s unnecessarily hard to execute thanks to poorly placed platforms, and in general, having a hard objective is at odds with a game that is otherwise not really gamified.
At the center of Night in the Woods is a story about a young adult who has gone numb, and those experiences on the periphery are what she–and anyone who’s lived through an emotional void–does to feel anything at all.
Night in the Woods does have a game-within-a-game: a dungeon-crawler called Demontower that you can play on Mae’s computer. It’s another good distraction–I played it right before having Mae go to bed, much like I would in real life–and it’s a throwback to the kinds of games you might have put a lot of hours into in the mid-2000s. As a cute detail, you can pick up where Mae apparently left off a decade earlier (and if you don’t like Demontower, you can just go on the computer to IM your friends after a night out).
By the third and final act of the game, I had grown seriously attached to Mae and her crew of deeply flawed but charming weirdos. Their experiences in a struggling, dead-end town are relatable even if you’re nothing like them–and that’s what gives Night in the Woods its emotional impact.
From beginning to end to epilogue, Night in the Woods is ultimately open to individual interpretation. How you relate to it depends on your own experiences and choices, including Mae’s dialogue and who you decide to spend time with. Though its charming and angsty story works well on its own merits, it’s special because of how it prioritizes conveying emotion over telling a straight narrative.
Editor’s note: This review has been updated to reflect our time with the Nintendo Switch version of the game. — February 1, 2018
African-American History Month, more commonly known as Black History Month, began as an appreciation week founded by Carter G. Woodson and minister Jesse E. Moorland in 1926. Every American President since 1976 has signed a proclamation designating February as National African-American History Month.
This month in honor of African-American History Month, we’re showing love and appreciation to broadcasters of color and their communities all month! We’ll be highlighting a variety of broadcasters on the front page, and engaging with our community on social media.
Kicking off the month the SpawnOnMe podcast will take a look at how the contributions of African-Americans have shaped the conversation and culture of gaming. Digging through the past and looking forward to the future, they will tackle how their experiences continue to push the video game landscape to new places.
Share your experiences
Throughout the month, we encourage you to spend some time on your stream or in Premieres talking to your community about what Black History Month means to you. Plan your own show, event, or usual broadcast to celebrate your way, or, if you don’t know where to start, just fire up IRL and answer questions like:
What does African-American History Month mean to you?
Who is somebody in African-American history that you admire/look up too/wish you could meet? Why?
What kind of impact would you like to leave on the world and Twitch community?
Why do you care about diversity? How do we benefit when our community is diverse?
What message of encouragement and inclusion would you like to give viewers/streamers?
Fun fact:Mobalytics formed at the very first TwitchCon in 2015 when our founders met and started talking non-stop about analytics in competitive gaming. Since then, we’ve formed a team of scientists and former pro gamers to create an analytics platform for League of Legends players who want to up their game. The core of Mobalytics is the Gamer Performance Index (GPI), which evaluates a player’s capabilities. The GPI uses machine-learning to help Summoners understand their strengths and weaknesses and provides a suite of tools to aid them every step of the way during their ranked climbs. We’re currently in the midst of our Open Beta testing with over 500,000 users participating and pushing the limits of their personal performance.
Enhancing the Connection Between Streamer and Viewer
As soon as Twitch debuted Extensions, we became incredibly excited with the possibilities, and it was a no brainer for us to create one of our own. Our whole team watches LoL streamers daily, from Nightblue3 and Super Metroidlol to Pokimane and yes, even Tyler1. We’re there through the PogChamps and FeelsBadMans and just as much fans as the next League player.
While watching, we realized that streamers are often asked questions like, “What runes are you using?”, “What items should I build?”, and, “What rank are you currently?” Questions that, if the streamer isn’t able to answer, the viewer must leave to another site in order to find out. This is where the Mobalytics Extension comes in.
Our Extension improves the experience of both the streamer and viewer by making the exchange of information and analysis easier and more fun! The viewers have seamless access to insights for every player in the streamer’s match in the form of awesome illustrative graphs and breakdowns.
Streamers can focus on answering more situational, complex questions while we answer these common questions for them. In the long run, this will save time and energy and give streamers more flexibility in guiding conversations with their audience.
It will also help preserve the gaze and attention of their viewers since they will no longer have to leave the stream to look at another to find what they’re looking for on another site. Lastly, the overall design stresses simplicity that makes the content easy to understand and unobtrusive so it doesn’t block the action.
Mobalytics Summoner Overview with champion details
What’s Inside
The Mobalytics Extension focuses on presenting information in three core ways:
1. Summoner analysis
Many LoL viewers watch their favorite streamer because they aspire to be like them. This feature makes it easier to emulate their play. The Summoner analysis reveals the win rate, runes, previous build and skill order, and a play style analysis of the individual streamer. Here, the viewers can also view details about the champion the streamer is playing such as stats and how their abilities work.
2. Matchup analysis
Part of the fun of watching a LoL stream is seeing how your favorite streamer compares against their enemy counterpart. Are they against a very aggressive player? Are they the underdog? Should they dominate? The Matchup analysis helps viewers understand these implications.
3. Team analysis
Finally, our Team analysis goes beyond a streamers 1-on-1 and shows viewers how the full 5-on-5 of a game is stacking up, showing similar information as your Matchup Analysis.
Want to see our Extension in action? You can find streamers who are using it now, here.
Mobalytics Matchup Analysis
How We Built the Extension
As soon as we finalized the idea and design, we started the development process. First, we audited the available developers documentation and the dev blog so we could have a better idea about the Twitch infrastructure and features which are available for the developers. We used this to build the application workflow and start the actual development.
We only needed to design two workflows in order for this Extension to work but this doesn’t count that our platform already has the functionality which collects and process the League of Legends data.
Streamer config save and get procedures.
Get live match data procedure.
As you can imagine, the Extension needed to deal with streamers and viewers so we developed different user interfaces to satisfy these needs.
Streamer Config Save and Get Procedures
The streamer part was relatively simple since we only ask for the summoner’s name and region. As soon as the streamer submits the setup form, the frontend initiates a “config set” procedure which basically stores/updates a streamer’s profile and Twitch ID in Mobalytics database for cases when the Summoner check tests passed, otherwise, the error returned. Yes, people can make mistakes!
The “streamer get” procedure is used to return the stored information from our database based on Twitch ID if any exists. Additionally, the main Extension microservice subscribes to the webhooks provided by Twitch in order to track when the streams with Extension go up and down. This allows us to optimize the workflow as the Extension stops tracking the streamer when he/she goes offline.
Get Live Match Data Procedure
This is the core procedure for the viewer’s side of the Extension. Whenever a viewer opens the channel with the activated Mobalytics Extension, the browser loads the set of viewers assets (HTML/CSS/Javascripts).
The viewer client sends the request “get live match data” with the supplementary Twitch metadata like channel ID, client ID. This request delivered to the main microservice via Mobalytics API GW. Next, the API GW validates the request and forwards it to the main Extension microservice.
The main purpose of the API GW is to act as a single point of entrance for external requests from Mobalytics clients. The API GW provides functionality such as request routing and API composer, multiple transport support (HTTP, gRPC, etc), request authorization and validity check.
The main Extension microservice acts as the orchestrator which communicates with the Mobalytics backend services in order to get the content and returns the response over the Twitch PubSub system which opens a websocket connection with the client. For this purpose, the main service identifies the streamer’s account ID in League of Legends based on the metadata received with the request. Then, the account ID is used to find the live game data by querying Riot APIs.
The information received from Riot is used by the Mobalytics backend to identify player roles, calculate the GPI, find the last item build on current champions, etc. The process of data collection and processing takes time. Meanwhile, the main microservice sends status update messages to the client via the Twitch API and PubSub system. Currently, the Mobalytics Extension supports a few different system messages which are self explanatory: “Loading game info…”, “Loaded”, “No active game found”, “Game is over”, “Streamer did not setup the Extension”, etc. As you can see these messages support different possible scenarios, provides transparency on the Extension workflow, and assures positive viewers experience.
Our Future Plans and a Word for Potential Extension Devs
The Mobalytics Extension has only very recently been released, but our team is just getting started and can’t wait to keep upgrading it. LoL streamers that have been using it thus far have been great in giving us feedback and criticism. For the overwhelming majority, the Extension has brought a positive response from their viewers.
Ultimately, we want to make this the de facto League Extension for streamers, especially those who care about educating their viewers. For anyone watching, whether they’re a newbie, a stat head, or even a parent watching her kid play, we want to provide value in helping them understand what’s going on. Eventually, we plan on adding more features to tinker and interact with the game players are watching, but we want to preserve that core experience of discovery while watching a streamer that makes Twitch so special.
To developers out there that are considering building an Extension — do it. This is a brand new dimension for the Twitch realm that is ready for discovery; it only needs explorers to lead the way. Our team had a ton of fun conceptualizing, building, and releasing the Extension. We learned a lesson or two (or three), along the way and the Twitch team was incredibly helpful throughout the process. So what do you have to lose? If you have an idea to contribute to this awesome space, give it life!
With an extensive roster of quirky characters and a world that’s as colorful as it is joyful, the OK K.O.! universe is the perfect playground for a video game adaptation. But while OK K.O.! Let’s Play Heroes perfectly captures the show’s tone and aesthetic in its own way, it is, unfortunately, let down by repetitive quests and shallow mechanics.
You play as a young boy named K.O. who aspires to be the world’s greatest hero. He is aided in his journey by his delightful group of friends (such as the cool-as-ice Enid, the slacker Radicles, and the tough-as-nails Mr. Gar) who all hang out and work with him at the Lakewood Strip Mall. But when the evil Lord Boxman from across the street threatens to take down Lakewood by resetting every hero’s POW card (which depicts their „hero levels“) to zero, it’s up to K.O. to help restore everyone’s levels by beating up an endless factory line of robots. Let’s Play Heroes is primarily a beat-‚em-up with some simple RPG elements, such as a basic leveling system and side-quests, sprinkled in. While this helps keep the game from getting too mundane, it only partially succeeds in alleviating the tedium.
The game’s beat-‚em-up combat is simple but has enough variety to keep things engaging. Attacks and dodges are performed with single button presses, and advanced moves involve a few more directional changes but nothing too tricky to master. Like most beat-‚em-up games, there are also a large number of super techniques, called Powie Zowies, available to unlock. As you complete each stage, you earn experience points that go towards leveling up your Strength, Agility, or Cool stats. With three attributes, there might have been potential to shape K.O. to your desired playstyle, but disappointingly, the stats only serve as a way to keep advanced moves locked until you reach certain levels.
Each enemy robot has its own unique skillset, and some battle stages have item crates containing useful weapons. These factors encourage some strategic thinking, but the limited number of enemy types and the simplistic AI means that you can win almost every battle in the same manner with the same attacks. These robot fights only become remotely challenging during boss battles, but these are few and far between.
When you are not battling robots, the rest of Let’s Play Heroes involves exploring Lakewood Strip Mall and talking to the various side characters to unlock their Powie Zowies via simple side-quests. Unfortunately, most of your options are either long-winded fetch quests or battles against robots, quickly turning these tasks into a grind. The game falls into a tedious pattern of talk, fetch item and/or fight, and talk again. There are a few mini-games available, but they are generally nothing more than reskinned or tweaked versions of the game’s many robot battles.
The repetitiveness also does nothing to help the game’s poor pacing. Despite the high-stakes story (for the OK K.O.! universe), Let’s Play Heroes plays out like a series of meandering vignettes that mostly ignore the overarching storyline, not unlike the narrative structure of the show. While that approach may work in TV, the result is a game with too much padding and little in the way of forward momentum.
What Let’s Play Heroes lacks in narrative urgency and mechanical depth, it almost makes up for in its presentation. Rather than imitate the show’s simple presentation, like what The Fractured But Whole did with South Park, OK K.O.! Let’s Play Heroes features its own colorful interpretation of the characters and universe. In contrast to the show’s static look, the game’s art style is dynamic and rich in detail yet simple enough to capture the tone of the source material.
Complementing the eye-pleasing visuals is the excellent audio design, notably the soundtrack and voice acting. Each background track feels entirely in tune with the show’s whimsical tone, right down to K.O.’s adorable beatboxing. The voice cast from the show lends their talent to the game, giving Let’s Play Heroes a wonderful sense of familiarity and comfort. Writing and characterization are also top notch, and perfectly capture the quirky nature of the show. Witty one-liners, layered jokes, and meta gags are generously sprinkled throughout the game, though these sadly start to run out towards the final act. All the characters in Let’s Play Heroes are well-realized, with nearly every hero and villain given enough time to shine in their interactions with K.O., all while staying faithful to their TV counterparts. It goes a long way in not only pleasing long-time fans, but also establishing character relationships and dynamics for those unfamiliar.
There is also an additional payoff for those who watch the show religiously, though it’s something may frustrate newcomers: The game features a special vending machine that allows you to input secret hidden codes found within episodes of the show in exchange for POW cards that are otherwise unobtainable. While this kind of locked content is disconcerting, Let’s Play Heroes’ simplistic fighting system renders this almost unnecessary. The fact that you can easily finish the game without unlocking these hidden POW cards means the mechanic ultimately doesn’t have a significant effect on the overall experience, though it may frustrate those who want to collect every POW card in the game.
As far as adaptations go, OK K.O.! Let’s Play Heroes looks and sounds fantastic in a way that is distinct yet faithful to the source material. But the shallow mechanics, the repetitiveness of the gameplay loop, and narrative pacing issues prevent the game from being a rousing knockout.
Despite the countless Dragon Ball games that have appeared since the manga debuted in the mid-’80s, the series has never needed them to sustain its popularity. Most are forgettable, some are good, and even fewer are truly great. Thanks to developer Arc System Works‘ particular talents, Dragon Ball FighterZ is one of the great ones, if not the best yet. Even if you think Dragon Ball is old hat, and even if you’re intimidated by fighting games, there’s a good chance you’ll be drawn into the explosive action and personalities that expertly evoke the anime’s infectious spirit.
Arc’s prowess for making 3D assets look like 2D cel animation is as strong as ever, and its artists display a clear understanding of Dragon Ball’s characteristic details. The screen is constantly filled with saturated colors and special effects, and super attacks are framed in a way that pull you out of the fight and into a momentary state of awe. Whether still or in motion, FighterZ’s art looks like Dragon Ball at its very best, adhering closely to the standards set by the series creator, Akira Toriyama. And no matter how you may have watched the show, the option to choose between Japanese and English voice acting makes it easy to feel connected to the events on-screen.
Within the convincing Dragon Ball shell lives a fast-paced 3v3 tag-team fighting game that will feel familiar to Marvel vs. Capcom 3 veterans. But despite a few familiar parallels, FighterZ is distinctly Dragon Ball. Characters can jet through the air in a flash at any time, toss energy blasts like it’s nothing, and unleash a flurry of smaller punches and kicks to stagger a hesitant opponent. Every fighter emphatically shouts at the top of their lungs (in a good way) every few seconds while attacking, and you understand why: these super beings are incredibly powerful, and FighterZ translates that energy to the screen perfectly. It also makes it easy for anyone to tap into that power, with relatively short special attack lists and one-button or two-button activations for universal mechanics. Not that it’s recommended, but you can theoretically play with one hand and capably close the distance to your opponent to kick their ass in style regardless of the character you choose–all without any directional inputs.
Like any great fighting game, FighterZ doesn’t lose depth just because it’s accessible. Super attacks and teleports are easy to pull off, but they come with timing and combo conditions that allow for expert-level analysis and strategic play. It’s also important to properly manage the lone meter that fuels most of your special abilities, a setup that makes a fighter’s next move more unpredictable than usual, compared to some games with multiple, ability-specific meters. With seven levels of charge that feed into both offensive and defensive moves, it’s never exactly clear what someone will do next, but you know a full meter means trouble, and a potentially chaotic back and forth between two crack fighters.
It also means fun is just seconds away. Being that it’s so simple to cover ground, participate in mechanical mind games, and look impressive while doing it, there’s practically no barrier to enjoyment provided you are fighting with opponents of a similar skill level. When the balance of skill in your opponent’s favor, with no means of escaping a combo once you’re trapped, there are times when you have to accept fate and wait for them to finish their onslaught–or until your current character dies–again, not unlike MvC3. Thankfully, online matchmaking is set up to auto-match you with players of similar experience, and lopsided fights are (so far, based on the open beta) few and far between.
You also don’t need to be an aspiring online competitor to enjoy FighterZ, as it includes a significant story mode that can last a dozen hours or more if you seek out every possible cutscene. While a bit drawn out in places and relatively easy until the conclusion, it’s still a treat for Dragon Ball fans with plenty of new vignettes staring classic characters. Though the plot is split into three arcs, you are technically seeing one arc from different perspectives, with a few alternate events to keep things interesting.
The gist is that a bunch of clones of the planet’s strongest fighters are running amok, Dragon Ball heroes and villains (some who have been resurrected from death) must work together to stop them, and a new character, Android 21, is somehow at the center of it all. Because there’s practically zero time spent introducing you to characters or their world, it’s difficult to imagine how a newcomer to Dragon Ball would understand things like the Ginyu Force’s proclivity to pose dramatically or the reason why Krillin doesn’t have a nose, let alone the broad concepts of Super Saiyans and Dragon Balls. Then again, the mix of oddball antics and hyper-serious face-offs is inherently appealing for the confident cartoon expression on display.
As in combat, Arc’s capable design skills make the 3D models and environments in cutscenes look stunningly close to actual 2D animation. There are moments when it feels like you’re watching a new episode of Dragon Ball Z. But there’s a catch: you’re forced to press a button to advance dialogue, rather than allowed to kick back and watch the show. When FighterZ gets achingly close to recreating the look of the anime, the forced interaction feels like a step in the wrong direction, albeit a minor one in the grand scheme of things. Generally speaking, story sequences often elicit a smile or a laugh, only occasionally feeling like filler made to advance the story. One of the most strange yet likable qualities is the way the game contextualizes you, the player: a spirit that has randomly inhabited Goku (or another character depending on the arc in question) and can be passed to other fighters. It’s unexpected and weird, but you have to give Arc System Works credit for pulling you into the room as opposed to simply breaking the fourth wall.
FighterZ is complex and distinct enough to be enjoyed by fighting game competitors, but there’s no question that it’s been designed to tap into the hearts of Dragon Ball’s most dedicated fans…
Story mode’s only real downfall is how repetitive it becomes–you fight clones of only a portion of the game’s overall roster ad nauseam. Each chapter is presented like a map with locations connected by a branching path. In order to get to the chapter boss, you have to navigate the board and pick and choose your fights along the way. Given that there are optional pathways in each chapter and that you can concoct your own team, it’s not surprising to learn that there are optional cutscenes to unlock depending on these conditions. Despite the rewards being largely enjoyable, after a handful of hours fighting lackluster opponents, the idea of replaying story chapters to see a quirky character interaction is unfortunately one that’s easy to sideline.
Similarly, the game’s basic, small overworld feels unnecessary even though it attempts to add value. Modes are divided among spokes around a circular hub, and you can run around as small versions of the game’s characters, sometimes in alternate outfits. While cute at first, you soon learn to just hit the quick menu button and avoid running around at all as there’s no benefit other than visualizing visiting a different venue for each mode.
The game tries to incentivize you through unlockable avatars for the overworld, but even if this sounds good, you can only earn them through randomized loot boxes. You earn money as you fight and complete story mode milestones and these can be cashed in for a capsule which turns into a random cosmetic item, be it graphics for your fighter profile, the aforementioned avatars, or alternate color palettes for in-combat outfits. The premium currency in the game can be earned when you open a capsule to find a duplicate item. Spending premium currency will simply net you an item that you don’t already own–not one of your choosing. Rather than harm the game, the system feels a bit unnecessary as none of the rewards are critical to enjoying what matters most: participating in explosive battles and enjoying interactions between Dragon Ball’s lovably bizarre characters.
Though merely a small piece of the overall puzzle, the rare Dramatic Finishes are perhaps the most respectable and impressive nod to fans in FighterZ. Anyone who’s spent years watching Dragon Ball Z unfold over nearly 300 episodes will gasp the first time they trigger one, which will only happen with certain matchups under particular conditions. They have nothing to do with FighterZ’s story, but they have everything to do with the revered history of the series at large.
FighterZ is complex and distinct enough to be enjoyed by fighting game competitors, but there’s no question that it’s been designed to tap into the hearts of Dragon Ball’s most dedicated fans, and no doubt those same qualities will win people over who’ve never given the series a chance. Where past games attempted to get there through huge character rosters and deliberately predictable trips down memory lane, FighterZ has bottled the essence of what makes the series‘ characters, animation, and sense of humor so beloved and reconfigured it into something new: a Dragon Ball fighting game that can go toe-to-toe with the best of the genre.
Editor’s note (Jan. 30, 12:38 PM PST): Shortly after release, Bandai Namco’s servers were inundated with eager players, to the point that it was at times difficult to get into a lobby at all. This no longer seems to be an issue, though even when servers behave as they should, the hub world at the center of it all proves to make matching up with friends a more complicated process than it ought to be. Rather than simply inviting a friend into a match, you have to coordinate to make sure you both log into the same server, and the same lobby, before finding each other’s avatars and creating a private match locked with a password. It doesn’t take long to get used to, but it’s also another sign that the hub world is an unnecessary complication.
2005’s Shadow of the Colossus was a revelation, a game whose gorgeous aesthetic and reserved tone were, at the time, undeniably distinct. Together with its unique take on boss encounters and a stirring soundtrack, those aspects made the game a defining title of the PlayStation 2 era. But it was also a game infamous for its technical issues: most notably, the ambitious design of the titular colossi meant the game would often suffer from a choppy, aggravating framerate.
A 2011 HD remaster for the PlayStation 3 alleviated these problems, but now, with 2018’s Shadow of the Colossus for PlayStation 4, Bluepoint Games has completely rebuilt every aspect of the game’s world while leaving the underlying structure and mechanics intact, a move which not only rejuvenates the game visually but uncategorically intensifies the utter majesty of this extraordinary experience.
Shadow of the Colossus takes place in an ancient world, where young warrior Wander and his horse Agro transport a deceased loved one to a forbidden, sealed land. With a mythical sword and an ordinary bow, Wander hopes to take advantage of a fable that suggests something in this isolated province has the means to bring back the dead. There, he encounters an omnipresent entity who compels him to destroy sixteen colossi scattered throughout the territory in order to enable his wish.
If you’ve already played a previous version of Shadow of the Colossus, you’ll find that Bluepoint’s rendition feels much the same, barring some minor differences in controller mapping, some subtle quality-of-life tweaks, and a new Easter egg. The locations of each colossus and the methods of defeating them remain the same, as do the locations of every white-tailed lizard and fruit collectible. The weight and movement physics of Wander and Agro feel unchanged, and New Game+ rewards are identical.
But the impact of the completely rebuilt world is transcendent. This is a world that is geographically as you remember, but one that still astounds you as if seeing it for the first time. Highly detailed environment modeling in tandem with impressive light and shadow simulation bring amazing life to the game’s breathtaking biomes. Forests are densely packed with majestic tall trees and twisting foliage, dappled beautifully with soft rays of sunlight. Vast, arid deserts feel hauntingly desolate as you try and sight somber ruins through a wispy sandstorm. Even the simple sight of mountainous crags and cliff faces is impressive, with shadows acutely defining their rocky surfaces, making them pop ominously. Every time you crest a hill, emerge from a crevice, or change your perspective, the landscape will be a sight worthy of pause.
The increased fidelity of the reconstructed colossi is just as spectacular, and the mere sight of one in this version of the game is even more awe-inspiring than it is in your memory. Each foe–some small and nimble, the rest impossibly titanic and overbearing–is a terrifying beast of stone, fur, and leather. That fur is now noticeably more dense and luscious, and hanging onto it for dear life as your enemy tries to violently shake you off feels even more intense. These moments are enhanced by the detail of the distant environment that lies far beneath you when on top of a colossus, combined with motion effects that amplify the sense of danger at these dizzying heights. The first time I mounted a flying colossus in this version of the game, I could feel my chest wrench as I squeezed my controller to hold onto its wing for dear life while it soared, flapping wildly through the air. It was exhilarating.
Playing on a PS4 Pro offers you the ability to further enhance visual fidelity via high dynamic range color, as well as the choice between two different graphical options with different priorities. Cinematic mode enables 4K resolutions, as well as allowing for impressive downsampling (that is, scaling down a higher-resolution image) for 1080p displays at a targeted 30fps. Performance mode provides less impressive graphical quality but maintains a smoother frame rate targeting 60fps. In my experience, I preferred the crisper image offered in Cinematic mode–once you realise you can recognise the definition between each individual blade of grass, it’s hard to let that go. However, the visual quality offered by both modes still enhances the experience of the game in ways previously mentioned, especially for those whose last memory of it was suffering through sub-30fps framerate issues on the original PS2 release.
The visual reconstruction doesn’t detract from what makes Shadow of the Colossus great, and the game’s holistic and understated direction still comes through strongly: its muted colors, cinematic camera angles, and stark absence of music while exploring the world still evoke a poignant tone of desolation and solitude. The world’s large forsaken landscape doesn’t feel bereft of things to do, because simply riding through it and enjoying at the majesty of the land, accompanied only by the sound of Agro’s hooves scraping against the earth, is a meditative experience.
Fighting a colossus is still a grand, solemn, and tense challenge that is exhilarating to overcome. The impassioned orchestral soundtrack heightens the pressure of every maneuver: Deciphering a method of mounting your impossibly enormous enemy, clambering to reach their vulnerabilities as they try to fling you off, and driving your sword into their flesh. Every moment of a colossus battle is thrilling to execute and witness, whether you’re doing it for the first time, or the fifteenth time in a post-game time trial.
While the passing of twelve years hasn’t affected the overall quality of Shadow of the Colossus, there are two technical annoyances that persist and remind you of a bygone era. The third-person camera system does not clip through world objects, so it becomes erratic and troublesome to adjust when moving Wander through enclosed spaces, or near a solid object. Additionally, the game’s unforgiving climbing system, which asks you to jump with the X button and grasp onto a ledge or surface with the R2 trigger, is occasionally temperamental in certain situations; there may be times when contact with a ledge may not correctly register even though you may have been holding R2 well in advance and correctly estimated the distance needed for your jump. However, both of these issues affect only a small amount of your time with the game and should not be considered a significant strike against the whole. In the case of the climbing system, it’s a quirk that’s easy to come to peace with because of how absolutely essential the mechanic is to creating the rousing pressure and suspense of colossus encounters.
Shadow of the Colossus is a tremendous journey, and one well worth taking and retaking. The visual overhaul is stunning, thoroughly enhancing every facet of Wander and Agro’s excellent adventure. Galloping through the tranquil world is always breathtaking; felling a monumental colossus is always humbling. Shadow of the Colossus is a beautiful reconstruction of an already exceptional title. It continues to be a modern classic and is an extraordinary game that everyone must experience.
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Decades after Jaws cemented our cultural fear of the deep ocean, Subnautica emerges from Steam Early Access to fuel a new breed of underwater nightmares. This first-person survival epic by Unknown Worlds Entertainment dumps you into the water with not a great white shark to watch out for, but an entire alien world full of monstrosities ready and able to swallow you whole. Subnautica expands into an intense and challenging game that maintains considerable beauty and mystique across its massive environments. It’s so magical and otherworldly that it practically pains you to stop playing, even when you’re filled with dread.
Despite its scale and demanding ecosystem, Subnautica is one of the most approachable open-world survival games around. Where most of this sort have a steep difficulty curve to climb, this underwater alien world is easy to get into. The solo-only campaign begins when your ship crashes onto a flooded planet. You awaken, floating in your pod with only the fiery ruin of your former starship to break up the monotony of the ocean that rolls on endlessly to all points of the horizon.
From here, your goal is a simple one–survive, discover what else is on this world, and do your best to find a way off of it. Thankfully, you come from a Star Trek-style federation. Your lifepod is tricked out with a fabricator, a nifty wall-mounted device that can make pretty much anything, provided you feed it the necessary raw materials. Bladderfish are needed right away to provide potable water, while smaller finned creatures are best for fast frying and eating.
Compared to other survival games, gathering up items is easy. Want to see what mineral is hiding in that rock? Punch it or whack it once or twice with whatever you have in your hand. Need to cut plants or coral? Right-click to slash with your knife. Considering other survival games force you to do things like bash your fists bloody against trees to collect wood, you get by pretty easy here, and the entire game is better for it.
Because the crash has corrupted a lot of your databank, you also have to find and scan fragments and crack open data boxes scattered across the ocean floor before you can build bits of technology. You can even fabricate additional fabricators that make components for vehicles like the zippy Seaglide or Seamoth mini-sub, and even seabases straight out of Octopussy. These are not only cool to look at, but useful in the long run, with ’70s-style observation bubbles, solar panels, and high-tech hardware to refine and manage your supplies.
Of course, there are still some significant challenges here. While you start off in the appropriately named Safe Shallows, home to mostly friendly fish and readily available materials required to craft basic items like swim fins and oxygen tanks, you soon need to venture farther afield. The world consists of many biomes, distinct geographical regions with their own flora and fauna. Most of the better goodies in the game come from more extreme and far away places, which forces you to steadily upgrade your equipment to handle greater depths and highly aggressive sea life that look more like monsters of myth than fish at your local aquarium.
…there is a real push-pull dynamic at large that makes you feel like you’re constantly achieving one new goal after another.
Aggressive creatures are a continual presence. You have to respect them and keep your distance, knowing what they can do. With that said, creatures are not unduly punishing. Running into something aggressive doesn’t result in instant death. You’ll likely die far more often as the result of drowning during an exploration dive, or starving to death because you took too long during an expedition.
Diving into wrecks makes for the most intense moments in the game, especially when you’re at significant depths. Bigger wrecks almost always seem to be in the neighborhood of the nastiest monsters on the planet, which means you need to sneak in and out. Caves are almost as nerve-wracking and contain an even stronger likelihood of drowning due to their labyrinthine nature. Further investigation rewards you with rarer natural resources like diamonds, nickel ore, and Blood Oil. Caves aren’t as enjoyable to explore as wrecks, though, because the sheer danger makes them too risky to have much fun in. At least the game eventually allows you to craft things like a compass and the pathfinder tool that lets you lay down a trail of electronic breadcrumbs.
While routine scavenger hunts for more basic survival needs can grow routine (though you can turn off the need to eat and drink at the start of a game–or go in the other direction and turn on a hardcore permadeath mode), there is a real push-pull dynamic at large that makes you feel like you’re constantly achieving one new goal after another. Even something as simple as grabbing a dozen or so bladderfish and peepers and turning them into bottles of water and salted fish snacks can be rewarding, because you know those supplies are essential for extended exploration missions.
Your development as a scavenger is nudged along by a story that loosely guides your exploration. Getting the lifepod radio repaired reveals a number of distress calls from other lifepods that went down along with you, along with coordinates of their current or approximate locations. This even opens up a possible rescue attempt, which leads to another interesting part of the planet. Venturing to these locales uncovers an unexpectedly deep story, but it also moves you to various locations where you find vital resources at just the right time. Progress moves quickly if you follow the story, though this is still a huge game that requires a lot of time, patience, and exploration.
Some patience is also required when you bump into the game’s rare technical issues. Loading save files takes a very long time, there are regular sound glitches where audio vanishes while leaving the water, and crashes can occur when loading your save. Given that you’re only allowed a single save slot per campaign, these moments are stressful, though thankfully no saves were lost during our time with the game.
Subnautica’s story, scares, and beautifully rendered underwater setting make it one of the most fascinating survival games around. You will always have to grind away to a certain extent to gather necessary resources, but the overall experience is both accessible and refined. Subnautica may not make you eager to get back to the beach this summer, but right now there is no better virtual way to experience the beauty, and the terror, of the deep blue sea.
Lost Sphear, like its predecessor I Am Setsuna, wants to remind you of the 16-bit RPGs that were so beloved in the ’90s. Developer Tokyo RPG Factory has succeeded in terms of the basic look and mechanics, but after two games, it’s starting to feel like the studio’s name is intended more literally than we initially realised. Lost Sphear isn’t a bad game by any stretch; it does some genuinely interesting things with its combat system, but everything surrounding that often feels like something that came off a factory assembly line.
Lost Sphear follows Kanata, a young man who sets out on an adventure with his two childhood friends, Lumina and Locke–along with Van, a stranger that the team adopts with very little vetting or discussion–after a calamity strikes their hometown. It soon becomes clear that Kanata is the key to solving a worldwide epidemic of people and places becoming „lost,“ meaning that they’ve disappeared, leaving behind a sparkly white silhouette. He and he alone can restore the lost thanks to his special, mysterious ability to compile and restore memories, and as whole chunks of the world disappear Kanata learns more about the disaster and why he alone can turn it around. This likely sounds familiar, because it’s hitting on the same broad tropes that many RPGs have in the past. This is a standard „chosen one“ story, albeit one that gets fairly bogged down in game-specific terminology. You and your slowly-expanding crew of fighters travel around an overworld map straight out of the SNES days, discovering new towns and smacking down a variety of monsters. Structurally, there’s nothing here you haven’t seen before if you’re even a casual fan of RPGs.
Lost Sphear’s battle system–despite being very directly based on Chrono Trigger’s Active Time Battle system–has a stronger sense of craft to it than the story does. Each member of your team has access to unique weapons and moves, with no overlap, and by visiting the magic consortiums and blacksmiths in each town you can equip them with all sorts of abilities. Over time, you can play around with the „momentum“ system–which lets you add buffs and bonuses to certain abilities that can be triggered during battles–and „sublimation,“ which lets you build up passive effects on these abilities over time. Each attack has its own area of effect, and each character also has access to a „vulcosuit,“ which lets them suit up in a mech during battle to access more powerful attacks. Figuring out strong attack combinations, and which attacks to assign which momentum bonuses, is satisfying, and while the game throws a lot of terminology at you as more combat abilities unlock, it never feels overwhelming.
You also have full control of your movement when each character’s turn rolls around, meaning that you can choose where to place them. You might position someone who attacks from ranged distances in a safe spot behind the rest of the party, or spend ages trying to find a pixel-perfect position that will let one character’s attack hit two enemies instead of one. This means that you have a lot of control over your placement on the battlefield and by playing strategically you have the potential to execute attacks that will let you deal a lot of damage at once. The strategic depth imbued into these systems means that even the most basic battles, the ones you can’t possibly lose, remain enjoyable. Over time you can build up a huge number of passive buffs by restoring lost parts of the overworld map with Katana’s powers, meaning that diligent players will have the opportunity to really boost their effectiveness in combat.
Some abilities are fundamentally much more useful than others, but harsh cooldown times and resource penalties mean that, in a long battle, you can’t spam your strongest attacks over and over. But while the system behind combat is great, most enemies will go down quickly if you just throw your biggest attacks at them without worrying too much about being strategic. I only died once outside of a boss fight, but when the bosses arrived, I never knew what to expect. Playing on normal, some were a cakewalk, while others were a brutal slog that the game had in no way prepared me for. Bosses will throw out incredibly cheap tricks, often right at the very beginning of the fight–instant-death attacks, sleep powders that put your entire team out of action for a long time, punishing area-of-effect attacks that trigger upon the boss‘ death, you name it. Thankfully, you can change the difficulty at any time if you get frustrated and don’t want to take a long trek back to the nearest town to buy new abilities and fortify your weapons in the hope of becoming strong enough to endure their attacks. And Lost Sphear not only allows you to quick save, but it signposts boss fights with save points–modern concessions that you’ll likely be thankful for.
Outside of combat, working through Lost Sphear’s campaign can often feel like busywork. It gets bogged down in glorified fetch quests for long periods of time, sending you pinging between different points on the map to take in unexciting dialogue exchanges. There are very few formal side quests with dialogue and objectives, and while there’s quite a bit you could do on the map there’s not much incentive to strive for 100% unless you’re committed to finishing it on Hard.
For a while Lost Sphear feels aimless and flabby–it takes a while for an identifiable villain to emerge, and many early plot threads drop by the wayside as new, less interesting conflicts and dramas pop up. There’s a lot of exposition, and the plot justifications for what you must do next often feel flimsy or forced. But lore is built up over time, and the plot pulls a neat trick on the player later on, subverting expectations and eventually connecting various dangling threads across the final act. It builds to a satisfying conclusion, albeit one weakened by uninteresting characters.
Lost Sphear also has an odd aesthetic to it. It has the look of an older portable title that has received an HD remake, with some pleasant scenes and locations offset somewhat by numerous repeated assets, bland textures, and dull interiors. Every now and then there will be a moment of beauty–a lovely vista, a quaint village–but other sections of feel like placeholders, too empty and boring to feel like real places. The character designs are indistinct, and the lack of close-ups or FMV cutscenes mean that it’s hard to get a sense of personality from them. Tomoki Miyoshi’s score is a solid fit for the events that unfold, but is lacking in earworms and unique boss themes.
It feels like the main purpose of Lost Sphear is to remind you of your favourites of the genre, rather than to join their company. Its enjoyable combat system and late-game revelations are satisfying, but it’s hard to pin down its identity or to point towards anything that really makes it stand out beyond its ability to provoke nostalgia. For some players, that may be enough, but for others, the best thing about Lost Sphear might be that it inspires you to replay Chrono Trigger or Final Fantasy VI.
Lost Sphear, like its predecessor I Am Setsuna, wants to remind you of the 16-bit RPGs that were so beloved in the ’90s. Developer Tokyo RPG Factory has succeeded in terms of the basic look and mechanics, but after two games, it’s starting to feel like the studio’s name is intended more literally than we initially realised. Lost Sphear isn’t a bad game by any stretch; it does some genuinely interesting things with its combat system, but everything surrounding that often feels like something that came off a factory assembly line.
Lost Sphear follows Kanata, a young man who sets out on an adventure with his two childhood friends, Lumina and Locke–along with Van, a stranger that the team adopts with very little vetting or discussion–after a calamity strikes their hometown. It soon becomes clear that Kanata is the key to solving a worldwide epidemic of people and places becoming „lost,“ meaning that they’ve disappeared, leaving behind a sparkly white silhouette. He and he alone can restore the lost thanks to his special, mysterious ability to compile and restore memories, and as whole chunks of the world disappear Kanata learns more about the disaster and why he alone can turn it around. This likely sounds familiar, because it’s hitting on the same broad tropes that many RPGs have in the past. This is a standard „chosen one“ story, albeit one that gets fairly bogged down in game-specific terminology. You and your slowly-expanding crew of fighters travel around an overworld map straight out of the SNES days, discovering new towns and smacking down a variety of monsters. Structurally, there’s nothing here you haven’t seen before if you’re even a casual fan of RPGs.
Lost Sphear’s battle system–despite being very directly based on Chrono Trigger’s Active Time Battle system–has a stronger sense of craft to it than the story does. Each member of your team has access to unique weapons and moves, with no overlap, and by visiting the magic consortiums and blacksmiths in each town you can equip them with all sorts of abilities. Over time, you can play around with the „momentum“ system–which lets you add buffs and bonuses to certain abilities that can be triggered during battles–and „sublimation,“ which lets you build up passive effects on these abilities over time. Each attack has its own area of effect, and each character also has access to a „vulcosuit,“ which lets them suit up in a mech during battle to access more powerful attacks. Figuring out strong attack combinations, and which attacks to assign which momentum bonuses, is satisfying, and while the game throws a lot of terminology at you as more combat abilities unlock, it never feels overwhelming.
You also have full control of your movement when each character’s turn rolls around, meaning that you can choose where to place them. You might position someone who attacks from ranged distances in a safe spot behind the rest of the party, or spend ages trying to find a pixel-perfect position that will let one character’s attack hit two enemies instead of one. This means that you have a lot of control over your placement on the battlefield and by playing strategically you have the potential to execute attacks that will let you deal a lot of damage at once. The strategic depth imbued into these systems means that even the most basic battles, the ones you can’t possibly lose, remain enjoyable. Over time you can build up a huge number of passive buffs by restoring lost parts of the overworld map with Katana’s powers, meaning that diligent players will have the opportunity to really boost their effectiveness in combat.
Some abilities are fundamentally much more useful than others, but harsh cooldown times and resource penalties mean that, in a long battle, you can’t spam your strongest attacks over and over. But while the system behind combat is great, most enemies will go down quickly if you just throw your biggest attacks at them without worrying too much about being strategic. I only died once outside of a boss fight, but when the bosses arrived, I never knew what to expect. Playing on normal, some were a cakewalk, while others were a brutal slog that the game had in no way prepared me for. Bosses will throw out incredibly cheap tricks, often right at the very beginning of the fight–instant-death attacks, sleep powders that put your entire team out of action for a long time, punishing area-of-effect attacks that trigger upon the boss‘ death, you name it. Thankfully, you can change the difficulty at any time if you get frustrated and don’t want to take a long trek back to the nearest town to buy new abilities and fortify your weapons in the hope of becoming strong enough to endure their attacks. And Lost Sphear not only allows you to quick save, but it signposts boss fights with save points–modern concessions that you’ll likely be thankful for.
Outside of combat, working through Lost Sphear’s campaign can often feel like busywork. It gets bogged down in glorified fetch quests for long periods of time, sending you pinging between different points on the map to take in unexciting dialogue exchanges. There are very few formal side quests with dialogue and objectives, and while there’s quite a bit you could do on the map there’s not much incentive to strive for 100% unless you’re committed to finishing it on Hard.
For a while Lost Sphear feels aimless and flabby–it takes a while for an identifiable villain to emerge, and many early plot threads drop by the wayside as new, less interesting conflicts and dramas pop up. There’s a lot of exposition, and the plot justifications for what you must do next often feel flimsy or forced. But lore is built up over time, and the plot pulls a neat trick on the player later on, subverting expectations and eventually connecting various dangling threads across the final act. It builds to a satisfying conclusion, albeit one weakened by uninteresting characters.
Lost Sphear also has an odd aesthetic to it. It has the look of an older portable title that has received an HD remake, with some pleasant scenes and locations offset somewhat by numerous repeated assets, bland textures, and dull interiors. Every now and then there will be a moment of beauty–a lovely vista, a quaint village–but other sections of feel like placeholders, too empty and boring to feel like real places. The character designs are indistinct, and the lack of close-ups or FMV cutscenes mean that it’s hard to get a sense of personality from them. Tomoki Miyoshi’s score is a solid fit for the events that unfold, but is lacking in earworms and unique boss themes.
It feels like the main purpose of Lost Sphear is to remind you of your favourites of the genre, rather than to join their company. Its enjoyable combat system and late-game revelations are satisfying, but it’s hard to pin down its identity or to point towards anything that really makes it stand out beyond its ability to provoke nostalgia. For some players, that may be enough, but for others, the best thing about Lost Sphear might be that it inspires you to replay Chrono Trigger or Final Fantasy VI.
EA Sports UFC 3 begins with a slick video package charting the meteoric rise to stardom of cover athlete Conor McGregor. The Notorious Irishman is the ideal poster boy for UFC 3’s new G.O.A.T. Career Mode, as it focuses not just on your performances inside the octagon, but on your propensity for drumming up hype and promoting fights outside of it–something the high-powered southpaw has arguably mastered. McGregor’s world class striking also serves as a perfect introduction to UFC 3’s wince-inducing action, as you’re thrust into a tutorialized fantasy matchup against interim lightweight champion Tony Ferguson.
UFC 3 hits the ground running with this match-that-could’ve-been, hastily showcasing a plethora of improvements to its stand-up game, from an impressive suite of fluid new animations to an intuitive new control scheme that emphasises maneuverability. Much like previous entries in the series, developer EA Canada continues to excel at stand and bang slugfests–as fists fly, skin lacerates, and the canvas adopts a crimson hue–but falters when the action is dragged down to the ground.
Click image to view in full screen
UFC 3’s grappling remains unchanged from its predecessor–utilizing the right stick for transitioning into and out of various positions–and is too cumbersome and binary to ever be particularly enjoyable. Submissions fall into the same category, too. The default four-quadrant mini game feels disconnected from what’s happening on screen, while a simplified alternative that consists of mindless button mashing also fails to capture the intricacies of these bone-breaking holds. Not to mention how overpowered each arm bar and gogoplata is in the hands of the AI.
Fortunately, the stand-up game’s redefined excellence does an admirable job of distracting from these flaws. Almost every aspect of UFC 3’s striking has been completely redesigned, placing much more significance on movement, spacing, and momentum. With both fighters standing toe-to-toe, there’s a palpable sense of weight to the way you move around the octagon, and a responsiveness to each blow and crucial head bob that allows you to act just as fast as you can think–reaction times notwithstanding.
The new control scheme does still require a certain degree of finger gymnastics in order to perform particular techniques, but by moving each offensive move to the face and shoulder buttons, the right stick is freed up to be used exclusively for ducking and weaving, while the left stick is dedicated entirely to movement, allowing you to throw strikes and move at the same time. This sounds like a simple change on the surface, but it’s a crucial deviation that opens up myriad possibilities, and substantially increases the kinetic dynamism of each fight. Suddenly you can barrel forward like a freight train to apply pressure; retreat out of danger with defensive jabs to keep your opponent at bay; and laterally weave to a fighter’s weak side while simultaneously throwing a dangerous uppercut to their unsuspecting jaw. It’s a game changer, and beautifully complements UFC 3’s newfound focus on momentum and the risk versus reward at play with each strike.
Being mindful of spacing becomes a key attribute as you look to get in and out of your opponent’s striking range without sustaining damage. Stamina management also plays a crucial role, as repeated strikes lose power as your stamina fades to discourage aggressive players from their worst tendencies. You have to be smarter and more precise with each blow; reading your opponent’s movement, using feints to throw off their timing, and slipping into counterattacks to punish any misguided swings. All of this results in a game that adopts a more measured pace than its predecessors, and should suit those who approach each fight with nuance and tactical astuteness.
Almost every aspect of UFC 3’s striking has been completely redesigned, placing much more significance on movement, spacing, and momentum
Once you’re comfortable in the octagon, the aforementioned G.O.A.T. Career Mode is on-hand to test you against the world’s greatest fighters. With a few fights on the regional circuit under your belt, it doesn’t take long until you impress Dana White enough to earn a UFC contract and can begin climbing up the ranks for a shot at a championship. It’s a familiar setup, but one that differentiates from its contemporaries by embracing the promotional aspect of the sport and focusing on time management above all else. You start the run up to each fight by signing up to a gym that specialises in a specific fighting discipline, and can then choose to train and improve your attributes, learn new moves and perks, spar with a training partner who’s emulating your upcoming opponent, or promote your next fight to drum up hype and attract more fans to your brand.
This balance between performance and promotion is an interesting concept, and it strips away a lot of the monotony these career modes often suffer from. Improving your attributes simply boils down to selecting which areas you want to develop, with each activity eating into that weeks designated time allotment. Promotion works much the same way as you’re given the option to generate hype for your next fight by, say, predicting the finish on social media, attending autograph signings, or even taking a page out of Demetrious Johnson’s book by streaming some video games. There are no tedious mini-games revolving around punching bags and speed balls, and those that are included are incredibly brief with immediate rewards in the shape of new moves and perks. The whole thing is so streamlined it’s almost negligible, ensuring you spend less time staring at menus between each fight, which is a good thing.
Click image to view in full screen
Elsewhere, Ultimate Team returns and continues to be a curious addition to the world of mixed martial arts. With one-on-one fights on the agenda, UFC 3’s particular flavour of Ultimate Team lacks the appeal of concocting your own unstoppable dream team. Instead, card packs are bundled with not just fighters, but tiered moves, perks, and bonuses as well, essentially painting each fighter as blank canvases for you to outfit with whatever moves you choose. It’s a fascinating idea, and there are a number of single and multiplayer modes for you to unleash your Frankenstein’s monster on. Microtransactions are still a factor, letting you spend real-world money on premium card packs, but there’s enough in-game money to be earned from various fights and challenges that paying real money never seems necessary. Time will tell whether this changes once you fancy testing your mettle at high-level Ultimate Team play.
Of course, a lot of UFC 3’s success will depend on the quality of servers that aren’t currently populated enough to deliver a final verdict on. As it stands, EA Sports UFC 3 is a tense, exciting, and dynamic recreation of the stand and bang aspect of mixed martial arts. There’s a fluidity to the way it moves, and a satisfying feel and unpredictability to the way fights can unfold that demands your engagement. The grappling still needs plenty of work, and one would hope this is something EA Canada addresses in the next iteration; yet these shortcomings become easier to overlook because of the accomplishment of its redefined striking. When it comes to the art of combat, few sports titles do it better.
Editor’s note: Our review of UFC 3 will remain a review in progress until we’ve had adequate time to test multiplayer servers after the game’s release on Feb. 2, 2018.
Thinking about building a Twitch Extension? Check out a few of these helpful design and implementation tips the Twitch community has shared with us, and let us know if you have any of your own in the forums!
When building an Extension, you need to think about two customers: both the creator who will leverage your Extension on their channel and the viewer who will ultimately engage with your Extension. Below we lay out some UI/UX best practices when thinking about the viewer experience, as well as discovery and management best practices when thinking about the creator experience.
Extensions product manager Ryan Lubinksi shares Extensions design and implementation best practices.
Here’s a summary of our Extensions product manager’s (@Ryan_Lubinksi) talk above:
Optimizing Extension design for viewers
Be aware of the Twitch UI. Think through how your Extension will display in different video player modes. For example, theater and full screen mode have a header with stream info on the top of the video player, while standard mode does not.
Provide visibility options. Enable viewers to consume and interact with content in their own way. For example, consider showing the Extension upon mouseover, make it easy to dismiss or hide, or provide viewers the ability to customize its location and/or presentation.
Showcase what you’ve created (carefully). Assume that not everyone knows how to interact with your Extension. Subtly nudge discovery of your interactive content to increase engagement.
Fail gracefully. When operating at scale, sometimes things can go wrong. Build a smart failure handling into your system. For example, for video overlays, you can hide all Extension content if failure is detected, and for panels, you can display an actionable error message.
Optimizing Extension discovery and management for creators
Provide descriptive detail pages. This is where you make your first impression with creators! Add screenshots of your Extension to the details page and be crystal clear about how the Extension will improve the stream for the creator’s audience.
Make setup of your Extension easy. Tell the creator exactly what they need to do to if your Extension requires configuration. It’s worth investing the time to make this process as simple as possible to minimize drop-off.
Use Twitch tools to improve the creator experience. The process of installing and managing Extensions is still new for many users. Leverage the tools we’ve created to guide your customers in the right direction and minimize user confusion or error. For example, did you know you can set a required configuration string to make sure your Extension can’t be activated on a channel page until configuration is complete?
Take feedback well. The community will often give you both positive and constructive feedback on your Extension. Take this opportunity to engage with your customers and understand their needs!
For more information on Extensions, check out the documentation. If you have any questions, please reach out to us in the forums or talk to other Twitch developers in the chat server — we’re here to help!
In celebrating wrestling on Twitch, we had a hard time deciding how many days it should last. Then we remembered that a wrestler can be counted out at 10. That’s right — Ten! Ten! Ten days of slams, dives, and global wrestling action start today, January 26.
Entering the ring first — AAA and House of Hardcore both air major live events tonight that can only be found on Twitch. At 9PM PT, put your masks on and get ready for quality Lucha Libre that only AAA can provide with Guerra de Titanes 2018 (Clash of the Titans). But first, at 5PM PT, Tommy Dreamer’s House of Hardcore returns to the infamous 2300 Arena in Philadelphia, PA for the opening round of the Twitch TV Championship Tournament.
Get your slam on during the rest of the week with a bevy of content from all over the wrestling world. Watch old school stars like “Macho Man” Randy Savage, Bruiser Brody, and the women of GLOW during Shout Factory TV’s classic wrestling marathon. Watch a different side of wrestling with Hoodslam. Finally, watch the hottest stars of today on IMPACT Wrestling’s 24/7 channel.
Experience all the fun of pro wrestling without the risk of someone diving on to you in the first row. Check out the 10-day schedule of live and exclusive wrestling events here. Don’t make us have to get the tables — RSVP now!
DRAGON BALL FighterZ is born from what makes the DRAGON BALL series so loved and famous: endless spectacular fights with its all-powerful fighters. Partnering with Arc System Works, DRAGON BALL FighterZ maximizes high end Anime graphics and brings easy to learn but difficult to master fighting gameplay.
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