3D Clouds and Team 17 invite players to hit the high seas with the pirate ship combat / trading game King of Seas.

There’s something about unloading your cannons into the hull of an enemy ship.

Sid Meier’s Pirates! introduced me to ship-to-ship combat, a mechanic refined in the Assassin’s Creed games and defined by Rare’s Sea of Thieves. King of Seas takes a more retro top-down approach, but it is charming, nevertheless.

Players take on the role of Luky or Marylou, a freshly minted pirate who is also the rightful heir to the throne. Taken in by the pirates, players’ chosen character is taught the tricks of the trade and sent out to make their fortune, all the while trying to find out who was responsible for their father’s death.

The story progresses via conversations between your character and the denizens of the Kingdom of Seas. I did find a lot of these interactions, beyond the useful tutorial missions, to be rather superfluous and skippable.

King of Seas has a nice look that does seem to be a bit borrowed from Sea of Thieves. The cartoonish look does suit the story, though. Whilst you can zoom right in on the action, I found myself seldom doing so. Most of the time, you’ll want to be zoomed out to see what’s going on.

The game is mission-based, with the story progression via the main questline. These start as a series of tutorials before allowing players a free run of the game world. Some of the main missions can be a challenge and may require players to take on a few side quests to level up and gain the weaponry and armour required to progress.

The missions range from supplying a character at a certain port with a specific quantity of a cargo type or escorting other ships to destroying another vessel.

Players start with a basic sloop, a reasonable crew, and basic armaments. The ship and crew can be upgraded to increase its effectiveness.

New ships can be purchased that are more powerful and can carry more cargo.

The ship’s controls are very simple; unfurling the sails allows for half and speed, which is also affected by wind direction. Turn arcs depend on the ship’s speed, very important in combat when you want to line up your cannons for a broadside hit.

The combat is where King of Seas shines.

Ships have a number of port and starboard cannons, depending on ship type. These can fire cannonballs, to take out the hull, or shot, to take out the sails.

Some crew members have special abilities and you can also mount optional weaponry, i.e. a front-facing flame thrower.

The upgrade path and menus are a bit cumbersome. I found that the radial dial that you use to select item types to be very sensitive. It’s probably OK on PC with a mouse, but a nuisance with a controller. Progression is very slow, as fun as it is.

I felt that the game been artificially drawn out a bit.

The game gives players a huge procedurally generated map to play on. There’s a full day/night cycle and weather effects.

The map is dotted with islands and ports.

Other ships are sailing around ferrying cargo and treasure, ripe for plundering. There are also Royal Navy ships and pirate hunters itching for a fight. It’s a very dynamic world and it’s not unusual to come across two AI ships engaged in battle.

As well as enemy ships, hostile fortifications and sea creatures are also a threat.

At the start of the game, the map only shows the King’s Fortress and the pirate port of Eagle’s Den.

Weather stations dotted around the map have cartographers that, for a fee, will add local islands and ports to the map.

When docked at a port, players can visit several vendors and services. This is where players can purchase ship upgrades, do some trading and take on side quests. Docking at a port also saves the game.

The carpenter can repair your ship and supply upgraded parts and crew. Ship items surplus to requirements can also be sold.

Banks can be used to store items and cargo. Items deposited at one bank can be recovered at banks in other ports. The market allows players to buy and sell cargo. Ports will specialise in some items but require others. Buying low and selling high is a good way to make gold as you traverse the map.

The market also sells repair kits for fixing damage to the ship whilst at sea.

Taverns are where replacement crew members can be hired (assumedly to replace those killed during skirmishes) and side quests obtained. Players can take on up to ten side quests.

Apart from quests, the best way to gain experience and money is, of course, by being a pirate.

There’s a lot of fun to be had by exploring and carrying out acts of piracy on unsuspecting ships laden with goodies. Loot can also be found floating on the ocean as well as in treasure hoards on the various islands.

King of Seas is a fun distraction that overs a surprising amount of gameplay for what are very simple game mechanics. The menus and upgrades are a bit of a mess and the story is for the most part superfluous.

But it is still a good game, especially if you like pirate games!

The post King of Seas (Xbox One / Series X) Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Colourful indie planetary exploration game, Journey to the Savage Planet offers players a humorous adventure on an alien world.

No Mans Sky, that was my first thought as Journey to the Savage Planet started up; there are definitely artistic similarities between Hello Games’ space survival game. Then, as I started exploring, trying to repair my ship, I thought Outer World; both games share the same sort of humour.

In truth, though, Typhoon Studio’s Journey to the Savage Planet doesn’t play like either of those other space exploration games.

For starters, the game is designed to be played co-op. Well, actually, it caters for co-op. Solo play is not a problem, either, but the extra help from a friend is appreciated.

As an employee of Kindred Aerospace, the fourth best interstellar exploration company, you are sent to Planet AY-Y 26 to survey and document the planet. You are briefed my the rather insane company CEO via live action videos. When landing on the planet your spaceship is damaged. If you are to get home the ship needs to be repaired and fuel needs to be found.

It’s an adventure game that has it’s tongue firmly in its cheek. From the sarcastic ship’s computer to the wacky videos on the ship’s screens and on to the planet itself, bursting with colour and diversity there’s a certain whimsy to it all. The designers have had a lot of fun with the planet’s flora and fauna. From psychedelic plants to bug-eyed, farting animals this savage planet is most definitely weird.

Who can resist a bit of a guilty titter, slapping a local chicken-thing that looks like an escapee from Angry Birds. That titter turned into a guffaw when I discovered I could also give the innocent, doe-eyed local poultry a good kick into the air, as well. Kicking a fluffy rotund bird into a conveniently-placed mincer also proved a bit too hard to resist. PETA approved, Journey to the Savage Planet is not.

Your ship’s AI directs cartographer drones around the planet to find items required to upgrade your equipment via the ship’s onboard 3D printer. This is a neat way of pacing the game as better equipment such as a jetpack and grapple unlock areas previously unreachable. The environment is dotted with teleports to enable fast travel.

The levels are ingeniously designed with a heavy emphasis on vertical gameplay. There’s combat as well, but overall, it’s all about exploring and finding the items required to complete missions. It’s a fairly mellow game, but it’s not, however, afraid to punish players.

Expect to die regularly with a new clone reappearing back on your ship.

Shooting stuff allows you to collect the raw materials needed to construct your unlocked equipment blueprints. If you die, you need to go collect it.Not only do you have to listen to the ship AI’s sarcasm each time you die, you also have to collect your loot near were you died. Players are free to explore the planet as they see fit, collecting resources and depositing them back in the ship.

Following the main quest line is necessary to unlock blueprints for equipment that need resources to build. Equipment upgrades are required to progress. This can be an upgraded weapon, jetpack etc. All the while, players can scan the various flora and fauna and complete side missions and challenges.

There are boss battles, which can be frustrating until you work out how to defeat them. I’m not a fan of boss battles, myself, but these are nowhere near the punishing war of attrition that I’ve been subjected to in the past by Japanese games.

Although the game feels open world, it is a fairly linear affair and thus, whilst I had fun, it’s not a game that I can see myself returning to. It is a novel take, merging resource collection with platforming and a narrative adventure. It’s light on all those things, but still enjoyable.

The game world looks superb, with a very distinct visual style and the creatures roaming the varied landscapes are fascinating to look at. It’s hard not to stop and take in the beautiful vista’s that the game provides.

Overall, Journey to the Savage Planet is a great game. The exploration and constant reveal of new areas will hook you in, making it a difficult game to put down. It’s not a taxing game, but it’s a lot of fun. There are loads of things to do, be it missions or challenges. The game is relatively short, but offers just enough to sate your appetite without being bloated.

If you are after a colourful, funny, quirky, survival / puzzle / exploration game you’ll not go wrong with Journey to the Savage Planet.

The post Journey to the Savage Planet (PC / Xbox One) Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Is there anything that the Nintendo hybrid portable cartridge based console can’t play?

Time and time over I am amazed at the gaming prowess of the Switch as we see more and more epic titles being squished down on to the smaller platform. Recently BandaiNamco and CD Projeckt RED have ported The Witcher 3 over to Switch.

Including all current DLC including Wild Hunt, The Witcher 3 takes place within a giant open world and, outside a smaller opening tutorial area, you are free to travel where you may. The developers have stated there is over 200 hours of content in the game, and that’s absolutely believable.

That said after many many many hours, days and months you are likely to only have ever scratched the surafce of this massive world of magic and missions.

Gameplay is derived from varying tasks that you are likely to pick up alongside the main objective(s).

It chronologically follows the events of the previous two games (which themselves are set after the events in The Witcher novels), though fortunately main protagonist; Geralt has regained his memory and the tired amnesia trope has been put to rest.

The Nilfgaardian Empire continues its plans to engulf the Northern Kingdoms, now united under the Redanian King Radovid. This is a land at war, where the geopolitical stakes are at an all-time high, and Geralt’s mission is to find Ciri, his one-time ward amidst this strife. The Witcher’s world is full of believable characters, from kings to peasants, each with their own biases, and (often quite vocal) attitudes. Saved peasants don’t necessarily greet Geralt with automatic praise, perhaps instead reacting to the mutant with revile.

The thoughtful and mature approach to NPCs is just one way the game demonstrates a willingness to go beyond stereotypical fantasy tales.

On horse back or on foot there is so much to explore and an almost endless stream of NPCs to talk with. you can also partake in a card game that is signature to the Witcher games, known as Gwent. These play out similar to a mini-game and are usually encountered at more character or task specific intervals.

The Witcher 3 is a clear winner in the open world RPG genre – and it has been since its 2015 release on PC and consoles.

Now those that played on those platforms can take Geralt and his adventures on the go, whereas newcvomers that own a switch can discover the magical journey that is The Witcher 3.

The post THE WITCHER 3: Complete Edition (Switch) REVIEW appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Private Division and Panache Digital Games have announced that Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey will launch for PC via the Epic Games Store on August 27th, 2019, and digitally on PlayStation 4, and Xbox One in December of 2019. 

Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey is the debut title from Panache Digital Games, the independent development studio co-founded in 2014 by Patrice Désilets, the original creative director of the Assassin’s Creed franchise.

In Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey, players are challenged to survive and evolve in the harsh yet beautiful land of Africa spanning from ten million to two million years ago. As humankind’s primate predecessors, players explore Neogene Africa, expand their territory, and evolve to advance their clan from one generation to the next in order to survive in this innovative take on the open world survival genre. The game and its mechanics rely on evolution, discovery, and survival as players traverse a variety of terrain and environments, encounter various predators, and learn new abilities to pass along to the next generation of their clan.

“Our goal for Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey is to provide an experience no player has ever lived before,” said Patrice Désilets, Co-Founder and Creative Director of Panache Digital Games. “Our small team is creating an ambitious and immersive game with a unique setting that will captivate gamers of all types, and we look forward to players exploring our world later this year.”

“Private Division and Panache Digital Games share a passion for providing the best possible experience to all our players,” said Kari Toyama, Senior Producer at Private Division. “As partners, we support Panache in taking the time to ensure all versions of Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey deliver the standard of polish upon release that the team has set for themselves. As a developer-focused publisher, this is an important approach we take in working with smaller independent teams.”

Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey is available on PC exclusively through the Epic Games Store for the first year, at which point it will come to additional digital PC retailers.

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Today, Electronic Arts and visionary German studio Jo-Mei Games announced that the story-driven adventure game Sea of Solitude.

Sea of Solitude is an emotional experience that takes players on a personal journey to overcome a young woman’s inner loneliness. Players must help Kay see below the surface and beyond, guiding her through a flooded city landscape in a deeply touching tale of darkness and light. As waters rise and fall to reflect her own state of mind, Kay will meet fantastical creatures and monsters, learn their stories and solve challenges to rid the world of tainted memories.

“Sea of Solitude centers on the essence of loneliness and tugs on the heartstrings of its players by mirroring their own reality. It’s by far the most artistic and personal project I’ve ever created, written during a very emotional time in my life,” said Cornelia Geppert, CEO of Jo-Mei Games. “Designing characters based on emotions was a deeply personal achievement for our team and we’re so excited for players to soon experience Kay’s powerful story of self-discovery and healing.”

Designed with a striking visual style, Sea of Solitude is an intimate adventure across a beautiful and evolving world where nothing is quite as it seems. Kay’s journey unfolds around dynamic environments as atmospheric in-game weather help visualise the characters’ emotions. Players unlock new areas to explore by overcoming emotional challenges and progressively revealing light and color into the dark and stormy world. Through unique encounters with a variety of beautiful and terrifying monsters, Kay will discover why her loneliness has turned her into a monster and what it will take to change back to a human.

Sea of Solitude is an innovative EA Originals game developed by the talented team at Jo-Mei Games in Berlin, Germany. EA Originals helps shine a light on some of the most passionate, independent and talented game studios across the globe. These games come from highly creative game makers who love to enchant and inspire players. Sea of Solitude’s empowering narrative makes it an unforgettable gaming experience and another exciting addition to the EA Originals program.

Sea of Solitude is rated T for Teen by the ESRB and will be launching worldwide on July 5th, 2019 on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC via Origin.

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Independent developer Blue Isle Studios, the team behind Slender: The Arrival and Citadel: Forged With Fire, announced today that its beloved first-person adventure game Valley is coming to the Nintendo Switch.

Valley is a first-person adventure unlike any other. Players find themselves hidden deep within a remote region of the Rocky Mountains within a secluded valley.

With the power of a recently discovered L.E.A.F. suit (Leap Effortlessly through Air Functionality), run and jump your way through beautiful forests, dangerous ruins and vast environments; all the while utilizing the power to control life and death to uncover the startling secrets of the mysterious valley. Beware of your new-found abilities as they come with daunting consequences: the more you experience death within the valley, the more the valley will die off around you.

Valley will be releasing on March the 7th, 2019 digitally.

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Curiosity settles in as your character wakes up alone, in need of sustenance and looking for a way out.

Playable on PC via Steam, Memories of Mars is set 100 years in the future on, you guessed it, Mars. A big mystery is shrouded on the big red planet though – where did everyone go? Once a thriving planet, players wake up to chaos. The ambiance sets in and the space setting makes the anticipation real.

Despite being an open world, survival game, effort was made to create a story that gave players layers to the nameless characters. It also gave you the seeds to start your own story and take it however your imagination desired.

There’s a lot of travelling in these types of games and although I understand the importance of realism and atmosphere, it sometimes felt rather long and the process frustrating at times. The interface and instructions were of a similar thing and I found myself at odds, unable to know what to do at times.

Initially the main menu was not easy to navigate and as I clicked around, I hoped I was going in the right direction. I’m very conflicted though because if my screen was covered in unnecessary words, instructions, a mini map or quests, then it can quickly take away the illusion of freedom and choice away and ruin the experience.

The goal to this Martian survival game is survival. The best way to survive? Have the best base, the best tools and of course the best outfits. Crafting dominates the player motivation and like most survival games with a cluster of other players around, there’s always the pressure to know whether that friendly neighbour will turn unfriendly in an instant.

The graphics held up nicely as you explored the deserted wasteland, littered with buildings in among the red landscape.

The colour palette also helped set the tone in various locations, especially in the introduction Level, giving players a taste of what’s at stake as soon as you leave the base. I’m glad the introduction level was created as it added a lot to the game for narrative purposes and set the scene. Just because you’re creating an online survival game, doesn’t mean to say you can’t allow things to have more of an emotional impact.

This futuristic survival game found that a balance of complex, yet simple guidance for the player can have a huge impact on gamer experience. Saying this, Memories of Mars can easily fall into the generic survival game category with little to offer except for an exciting location.

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One of my favourite YouTube channels is 98DEMAKE. He takes modern games and reimagines them as PlayStation 1 or other vintage system titles. High texture detail is smeared into bland textures, lighting is drastically reduced, antialiasing removed and resolution dramatically lowered. These are fun jokes, what if scenarios about a past that never happened. How recognisable would each game be and how would the experience of playing these games change with only dramatically reduced hardware to support them?

That’s what I’m reminded of playing Ark: Survival Evolved for the Switch. There have been plenty of miracle ports for the Switch, from Fortnite, to DOOM to Warframe. These ports have blown away expectations of what can run on Nintendo’s hybrid console, with results far above what was previously considered possible. Specialised teams such as Panic Button have been able to wring out every last bit of performance whether docked or in portable mode. The common factor between those ports though, as far as I can tell, is that they were performant before they came to Switch, running easily on older hardware at higher frame rates. The same could not be said of Ark, which doesn’t have that luxury and still has difficulty running smoothly on the other current-gen consoles and even powerful gaming PCs. So it was always going to be a task that required a bit of divine intervention to bring Ark to Switch in a state that would justify the energy and money poured into the experience.

Unfortunately, there are no miracles here. To put it simply, Ark runs atrociously on Nintendo’s console. In Digital Foundry’s testing, John Linneman runs down the various ways that the developers have tried to cram a complicated open-world game onto the Switch’s downclocked Tegra X1 hardware. Draw distances are cut, textures lowered, shadow quality reduced, anti-aliasing changed, level of detail pop-in brought to right in front of the player and more. But most extraordinarily, resolution has been lowered in both docked and portable modes to, at times, levels not seen since the 16-bit era of consoles in the mid 1990’s. It looks incredibly bad in practice, with levels of detail of trees, rocks, the ground and animals shifting in front of your eyes. Not to mention the bugs that abound everywhere I looked.

At this resolution and with these cuts to the game, it’s almost impossible to tell what’s going on at any one time in the game. Ark simply wasn’t designed to operate at these low resolutions and detail levels, and a more bespoke edition of the game tailored to the strengths and weaknesses of the Switch could have given us better results – see what’s possible with FIFA or Farming Simulator: Nintendo Switch Edition – Ark even has a version for mobile that may have been a better fit.

So sure, technically Ark is on the Switch and technically it runs. In one sense I have to tip my hat to the developers for getting it to work at all. But it shouldn’t have been a port that saw the light of day. For $79 AUD it’s a blurry, low resolution, low detail game that unfortunately doesn’t show what Ark can be and can do given more powerful hardware.

Post-launch, we have seen a number of these miracle ports given resolution bumps and better performance as the developers become more familiar with the Switch’s capabilities – such as Rocket League, which has improved its docked and undocked resolution over time. Ark for Switch is in desperate need of these boosts for it to be more than curiosity or punch-line.

Ark for Switch: Survival Devolved?

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Stranger Things may have happened, but THQ Nordic are happy to announce that they have signed a worldwide physical distribution deal with Avalanche Studios for Generation Zero, the studio’s explosive cat and mouse open world action game set in an alternate 1980s Sweden.

“We developed a good, and successful, relationship through the distribution of the Hunter Call of the Wild, so we’re happy to partner up with THQ again with our brand-new IP, Generation Zero. With a strong partner like THQ we can put our full focus on what we’re best at: making fantastic game experiences,” says Pim Holfve, CEO, Avalanche Studios.

“Having been fans of the Weird Science our fellow Nordic friends have been doing for years, we are very excited to Do the Right Thing, as well as providing gamers with the first opportunity to play Generation Zero for themselves on the THQ Nordic booth at Gamescom,” says Jan Binsmaier, Publishing Director, THQ Nordic.

Experience an explosive game of cat and mouse set in a vast open world. In this reimagining of 1980s Sweden, hostile machines have invaded the serene countryside, and you need to fight back while unravelling the mystery of what is really going on. By utilizing battle tested guerrilla tactics, you’ll be able to lure, cripple, or destroy enemies in intense, creative sandbox skirmishes.

Go it alone, or team-up with up to three of your friends in seamless co-op multiplayer. Collaborate and combine your unique skills to take down enemies, support downed friends by reviving them, and share the loot after an enemy is defeated.

All enemies are persistently simulated in the world and roam the landscape with intent and purpose. When you manage to destroy a specific enemy component, be it armour, weapons or sensory equipment, the damage is permanent. Enemies will bear those scars until you face them again, whether that is minutes, hours or weeks later.

Explore a vast open world, rendered with the award-winning Apex engine, featuring a full day/night cycle with unpredictable weather, complex AI behaviour, simulated ballistics, highly realistic acoustics and a dynamic 1980’s soundtrack. In Generation Zero, living is winning.

Generation Zero is in development for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, and will be released worldwide during 2019.

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