Continuing the train of AAA releases, Rock Band 4 hits this week, as well as a new Transformers game and the usual barrage of remasterings.
Rock Band 4 is the biggest new release of the week. It’s been a full five years since the last edition in the series, meaning that this is not only Rock Band’s first game in a long time, but it is also its next-gen debut. New to the game are several instrument specific features, such as the ability for guitarists to do freestyle solos, or for drummers to count down to starting the song. As well as this, the game promises an in-depth career mode, said to be reminiscent of a role-playing experience. This mode will offer players numerous choices, like what types of gigs they want their band to play. These decisions will then come to influence various factors, for instance how many fans the group attains per geographic region; what future gigs they will have available; and how much in-game money they earn. Rock Band 4 is released on 6th October for Xbox One and PS4.
Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection is the first of this weeks remasterings. The collection pools together the first three Uncharted games in anticipation of Uncharted 4: A Theif’s End, which is released in March. All three games are already modern classics, and revolutionized the way that third-person action games worked, effectively forcing Tomb Raider to reinvent itself in the process. The original games all look pretty good even by today’s standards, so this isn’t entirely necessary, but if you never played them, or are just a really big fan, then you could do much, much worse than to pick this up. The collection is released on 9th October for the PS4.
When hearing about the release of Darksiders 2: Deathinitive edition, two things will likely run through your mind. Firstly, ‘Have we really reached the point of desperation, where Darksiders 2 is getting an ultimate edition?’ and secondly, ‘is that really the title you’re going with?’ Darksiders 2 is a role-playing hack and slash type thing in the vein of God of War, in which players take control of Death, one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and go around hitting things. The original game received mostly positive reviews, so this next-gen port might be worth picking up if this sounds like your sort of thing.
Rising Tide is an expansion for Sid Meyer’s Civilization: Beyond Earth. The turn based strategy game made a radical departure from tradition with Beyond Earth back in 2014, which saw the series abandon historical scenarios in favour of a sci-fi setting. The new expansion will introduce aquatic gameplay additions as well as an overhauled diplomacy system. This will in turn greatly increase the world map, and add various new alien creatures and building types. The expansion will be available as of 9th October.
Transformers Devastation meanwhile is a new Transformers game. Wait don’t leave! Truth be told, this one doesn’t look as horrible as you might think. For one thing the fluid combat system, which seamlessly mixes a transforming mechanic with attack combos, is fairly innovative, and the visual style which apes the original cartoons does demonstrate that a certain degree of care has gone into this licensed product. It might only really grab you if you’re a die-hard fan of the source, but if you are, then this game looks like it will do justice to the material. The game is released on 9th October for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One.
