So you may have noticed that The Edge now has a nice shiny new website. You might also have noticed that the weekly round-up was absent last week. This was because, amongst the hullabaloo, the website was taken down on the same evening the round-up normally goes live. So we thought a week’s rest wouldn’t be such a bad thing. What it means is we have a summary of all the games released last week, and The Crew which arrives this week, plus a limited selection of news from the past week, of course. So peruse at your please and get some games on your Christmas list.
Weekly news:
Ubisoft announce free content for players of Assassin’s Creed: Unity
The launch of Unity has been marred by technical problems, including weird bugs such as some characters not possessing a face and the PS4 version of the game having an unstable and low frame rate. Patch after patch has been produced since the release in order to try and rectify the problems. However, this week Ubisoft decided to issue an apology, by way of giving the first piece of DLC, ‘Dead Kings’, away for free to everyone who owns the game. They also announced that the season pass for the game has been removed from sale. Anyone who already bought the season pass will be entitled to a free game from a selection provided by Ubisoft. For more on the news, you can find the original article here.
Planned price increases for DayZ
The popular Early Access zombie survival game DayZ will be rising in price as the game nears full release over the next two years. Bohemia Interactive have stated the game will rise in price to $35 on December 2nd, $44 when the game enters beta in late 2015, and a final increase to $50 on full release. This could result in higher sales of the game influenced by those undecided on whether to purchase it, and it remains to be seen whether the new features planned for the game are enough to encourage people to buy at the higher price.
Future Perfect Announced
Unknown Worlds Entertainment, makers of Natural Selection 2, have unveiled Future Perfect. Not so much a game as a game design platform, the ideology of Future Perfect is to create a completely moddable game environment, and with the aid of in-built editors help you create a game and share it with others. As well as the in-game features, support will exist for custom art and scripts, allowing players to create any number of their own games. It is unclear currently exactly what kind of game features will be included on release, but they are expected to at least include first person shooter mechanics, and with such a focus on customisation anything missing will likely be added by the community.
Star Citizen will have pets
Star Citizen’s most recent funding goal at $64 million promises the inclusion of personal pets at some point in the final game and we can, “expect traditional terrestrial options, plus anything exotic we can dream up in the Star Citizen universe!” Unsurprisingly, the gap between 63 and 64 million dollars was closed within a few hours of this announcement, and funding has already surpassed $65 million dollars as well, probably due to the hint that this stretch goal would include material related to modular starships. No news has been released yet on further stretch goals, but they probably won’t be as good as pets.
Last Week’s Releases (24/11/14):
LittleBigPlanet 3: 28/11/14
One of the most beloved Playstation exclusives, LittleBigPlanet 3 introduces three new and unique playable characters and a wide array of new features into a vibrant new world. With 16 depth layers instead of three, and the removal of capped level complexity, player-made levels have more potential than ever. Levels from previous games have not been left out though, as the game will be backwards compatible with all levels made in LittleBigPlanet and LittleBigPlanet 2. And yes, Stephen Fry will be narrating.
Super Smash Bros for Wii U: 28/11/14
Super Smash Bros Nintendo 3DS was released back in October and was the first in the series to be released on a handheld console. The extremely popular brawler has now finally made its way to Nintendo’s non-portable gaming system, the Wii U. An extremely fun game to play with friends, this, along with Mario Kart 8, is a potential system seller for the struggling console.
Pokemon Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire: 28/11/14
The extremely popular Pokemon franchise is now in its sixth generation, with the release of Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire. Both are remakes of the now seemingly ancient Ruby and Sapphire which were first released on the GameBoy Advance System. The gameplay, which has in recent years seen a fairly major overhaul in terms of graphics and animations, will likely be very similar to the Pokemon X and Y games which were released last year. Still, the emphasis is on catching all the Pokemon in the game and it is sure to be extremely addictive. A huge amount of time is required to ‘complete’ this game so beware if you have any work deadlines coming up!
Games released this week:
The Crew: 02/12/14
Considering the bad press that the developer Ubisoft has been getting recently, what with their disastrous release of Assassin’s Creed: Unity on PC, PS4 and XBOX One, which turned out to be extremely buggy upon launch, it might come as a surprise that Ubisoft haven’t sat in a corner crying and pulled the launch of The Crew in a huff. However, the developer seems quietly confident about the open-world racing/driving game which promises to be full of action. The fact that an open beta of The Crew was available last week perhaps shows that Ubisoft might still be trying to iron out some last minute problems, but at least this time gamers have had the opportunity to try before they buy. Still, the launch can’t be any worse than that experienced by Driveclub, can it?
