Battletoads (2020) is a disappointing remake that needed more time and budget, and a little bit of that Rare charm.  After more than twenty five years since the last release of Battletoads game (for the SNES!) the long-awaited successor of one of Rare’s cult classics is back.

But it shouldn’t be.

Battletoads, out for Xbox and Microsoft Windows needs more time in the oven and more budget to make this feel like a cohesive whole.

You play as the eponymous Battletoads as they seek to reclaim their stardom, lost as they have been locked in a basement for 26 years. So off they travel throughout the universe on their way to glory, and perhaps fame. Basically it’s an excuse to walk left to right beating up anyone who gets in your way, though they do try at times to flesh out some of the characters. The writing is mixed, with some genuinely funny, tongue-in-cheek lines, while others felt a bit flat.

While I played mainly by myself, you can play with two or three players. However, two players are balanced for three players seemingly. With two players connected, the number of enemies goes way up, and besides the constant cheap-feeling shots thrown at you (more on that later), there is simply too much going on on one screen to be able to clearly read the room.

One player however can cycle through the three toads – when one toad is knocked out, they will be out for 15 seconds before coming back with half health. You can tag in the other two toads at any time. But with two people that backup is down to one, so it is much easier to “run out” of an available toad, leaving you at a game over screen.

A key frustration of mine playing Battletoads is that you cannot cancel a combo, but enemy attacks can knock you out of a combo. This means you can start a great combo against someone but halfway through they can decide to break it all with just a simple light attack, or a projectile shot from across the screen that didn’t exist before you committed to a combo. What this all adds up to is you not knowing the consequences of what you do. If I attack this guy over here, will I be hit in the back by a basically unstoppable projectile? If I go start moving towards some health, will I be hit in the back?

Speaking of, even on the normal difficulty this is an extremely hard game. Enemies routinely knock you for six, and the flies that rejuvenate your health only add a sliver back to your health bar.

The 2D.5 art style here doesn’t help sometimes as well. It was extremely difficult for me to tell where exactly projectiles (axes, ice cream, alien plasma guns) were in 3D space, and I would routinely run into them when I thought I had moved safely out of the way.

Crowd management therefore becomes the number one priority in any encounter, taking out projectile targets, pinning down others and grappling yourself to some of the more sneaky enemies. But this takes up too much of each encounter, and there’s often too many enemies on screen for you to really account for everyone.

This is compounded by the absurd amount of health each enemy has. Now I don’t expect each enemy to go down straight away, but it seemed each enemy my toads faced had about double the health than they should have (bosses excepted, who seemed more reasonable).

One saving grace is the music, which is solid throughout the experience. It is nice to hear classic Battletoads themes in full musical recordings, rather than sample-based approach of the SNES audio hardware. But it hardly approaches the excellent Streets of Rage 4 soundtrack, which set new levels and expectations upon its release earlier this year.

Speaking of, Battletoads does feature a nice art style reminiscent of Streets of Rage 4, with clean, flat lines and fairly distinctive enemy designs. The transformation moves, some of the most powerful attacks where your toad transforms into, say, a train look great, and have an air reminiscent of Cuphead.

But the voiceovers seem particularly unpolished, like someone used the placeholder lines in the final product. The voiceover artists sound tired, and bewildered by their lines just as much as I was watching them repeat them unenthusiastically.

For lack of a better phrase what this game most lacks is a sense of cohesion and connective tissue between each scene. Take, for example, this end of a level. You are doing the usual running left to right, before a short cutscene appears that snarks about the lack of budget for the game. It then immediately transitions to a boss battle, with no introduction or reason why I’m fighting this random character who the toads seem to know. It then immediately transitions to a bunch of terrible mini games with the aesthetic of ancient Greece. It is like each team of developers did their part but there was not enough attention paid by the producers and creative leads on how each section came together as a consistent package.

It’s hard to express my disappointment in this release. What was teased as a nice little reboot of the franchise and homage to an earlier form of the Rare we grew up with is not much more than a distraction and small addition to Xbox Game Pass.

There was no need for this game to release now (why not make it a launch title for Xbox Series X?) and it would have been nice to see this spend a bit more time in the bunker in the oven before it made its way back out into the world.

The post Battletoads (Xbox/PC) Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Selena Gomez’s highly anticipated new album RARE is available now via Interscope Records.

“RARE represents a look into my journey of healing and growth,” says Gomez. “It’s by far the work I am most proud of to date.”

Gomez landed her first No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.  In addition, the song is Gomez’s fastest song to be certified platinum.  Gomez co-wrote “Lose You To Love Me” with Julia Michaels, Justin Tranter, Mattias Larsson and Robin Fredriksson. “Lose You To Love Me,” is currently #2 at Top 40 Radio with 760 million cumulative streams globally. The song closed out the year appearing on many “best songs of 2019” critics’ lists. The accompanying music video shot by the acclaimed Sophie Muller has received over 213 million views on YouTube.  Watch the video above.

“Lose You To Love Me” is Gomez’s 29th song on the Billboard Hot 100 with 14 of the songs going Top 20.

Gomez has had a total of eight Top 10 Hits on the Hot 100 and previously reached No.5 with “Same Old Love” and “Good For You.”   Selena’s “Bad Liar” was named No. 1 on Billboard’s “100 Best Songs of 2017.”  Earlier this year, Gomez was featured on “I Can’t Get Enough” with Benny Blanco, J Balvin and Tainy.

In 2018, she collaborated with DJ Snake, Ozuna and Cardi B on the global hit “Taki Taki,” which became one of the fastest videos to reach over 100 million views.   Her previous eighteen singles including “It Ain’t Me” with Kygo, “Bad Liar,” “Fetish,” “Wolves” x Marshmello and “Back to You” all have been certified by the RIAA.

As a solo artist Gomez has accumulated over 22.3 billion global streams.

The post SELENA GOMEZ RELEASES RARE appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Rare are super excited and humbled to share that Sea of Thieves has now been played by more than ten million players, reinforcing its status as the most successful new IP from Xbox this generation.

It’s mind-blowing to think of that many people setting sail on the Sea of Thieves, and it’s all been made possible by the support and passion of our fantastic community.

From everyone at Rare, the Sea of Thieves community represents the very best of what gaming can be. It’s home to players from more than eighty different countries, bringing together gamers on Xbox Game Pass, Xbox One and Windows 10 PC and creating countless stories and moments that people can treasure. Seeing these stories shared through social media or other community spaces is something that inspires the team every day. To every person who’s played Sea of Thieves, Rare thanks you.

The Rare community will be at the centre of the upcoming January update – ‘Legends of the Seas’ – which will be available to all players for free from Wednesday January 15th, 2019. Not only will this update celebrate the community and its stories, it will also feature two limited-edition gifts to mark our 10 million player milestone. Log-in to the game between January 15 and 22nd, 2019 and claim a free custom sail and a special new emote.

Once again, on behalf of everyone at Rare they’d like to say thank you to everyone who’s been on this journey with us so far. The best news is that they’re just getting started and have big plans for the coming year.

See you on the seas!

The post Sea of Thieves Passes 10 Million Players Since Launch appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Rare have had somewhat of a checkered past. While they excelled under Nintendo back in the N64 days with the likes of Golden Eye and Banjo Kazooie, their games under Microsoft haven’t been as well received among fans.

Shaking off their recent Kinect-orientated past, Rare have finally come back with a game that has many fans intrigued with Sea of Thieves.

Sea of Thieves is unlike any game I have played before. Rare themselves have taken to calling it a Shared World Adventure Game (SWAG) which is a reasonably apt description. The basic premise of the game is to sail the seas with a small group of pirates while going on adventures.

It does certainly contain a sandbox element as it tries to provide the wide-open world of charted and uncharted islands strewn across an expanse of sea for players to explore at their leisure. The world provided, is quite a well-polished and beautiful one. It has many great aspects, from amazing water mechanics to gorgeous islands and some of the prettiest and dynamic skylines in a game.

These visually impressive elements however don’t quite make up for the small selection of engaging in game content.

There are of course things to do. Your adventures in the game are driven by undertaking missions for Trading Companies. There are currently three of these Trading Companies in the game: The Gold Hoarders, The Merchant Alliance and The Order of the Souls.

Each of these has players roaming the world, searching for either, chests, skeleton hordes or trade goods. The Gold Hoarder missions, as might imply, revolves around finding treasure. These can provide for a decent amount of fun as they can include figuring out riddles and searching for the right island and then figuring out the exact spot of X on the map. This mission set is the most rewarding, both in sense of fun and actual loot.

Facing skeleton hordes can provide some fun but I feel isn’t as rewarding as chest hunting. Destroying waves of skeletons takes time and then the end boss might not drop a very valuable skull but there are those that still quite enjoy this line of quests. The Merchant Alliance quests, however, are easily the worst. There is a lot of work and little reward. Going to random islands to capture a specific coloured pig, chicken or snake and then return to a specific Outpost, in a given time limit while trying to keep some animals alive isn’t by any means enjoyable.

The final event in game that provides opportunity to get the ever-sought-after loot is Skull Forts. These usually provide a good chance of PvP interaction. A giant skull will randomly appear over and active fort. These forts contain a fairly good haul of various treasures. To obtain the treasure however many waves of skeletons need to be defeated, the boss skeleton killed, a key retrieved and then open the locked treasure room.

The interesting part is, everyone on the map can see the beacon in the sky, meaning you will likely also need to fend off or work with other crews, who could be as sneaky and back stabbing as you plan to be. These events can provide a good spot of fun but can draw on as you fend off both waves of skeletons and players. The most recent update has seemingly helped fixed the respawn issues around this.

While these provided aspects can be entertaining the most fun in the game comes through the things that happen to you on your adventures through player interactions. Accidently beaching your ship, fending off other viscous pirates, or simply playfully trash talking crew mates is what makes the game truly enjoyable. Collecting a chicken, naming it Dobby and keeping it as the first mate to then having the crew continuously hide him around the ship and threaten to throw him overboard is the sort of mischief players can get up to that make a session memorable and terribly entertaining.

Though if you just join up with the next galleon setting sail and just plan to play the game, well it can become dull quickly. While loot is the be all end all, all it actually gains you is cosmetic changes. You can alter what you shovel looks like, get a fancier hat, a pretty sail, but all these things can be quite expensive and so the game does get quite grindy if you are serious about obtaining certain aesthetics like ship cosmetics.

Apart from other players and skull forts, players can randomly encounter the kraken. It’s sadly not as exciting as it sounds. It’s just giant tentacles poking out of the water that might impede your progress a bit and can almost be ignored. Even if you defeat one, there isn’t currently a reward for doing so.

The game is particularly lacking in AI controlled things that can kill you. The main enemy type is skeletons. These are the enemies you will be encountering wherever you go. There is some variation in types of skeletons but fundamentally they all just skeletons. Sharks can get an honorable mention as it does make exploring a sunken ship or collecting resources in floating barrels just a bit more intense.

The best thing I can say about the current state of Sea of Thieves is that it provides a great foundation to a game. Unfortunately, the state the game is currently in doesn’t build upon this foundation enough to provide what feels like a complete experience. The game feels like is has about 30% of the content it should for it to be considered a complete game.

The good news is that Rare has promised to continually build upon this game by adding free new content. The question is though whether the fanbase will stick by it long enough for this content to be released. In its current state I feel a large portion of the audience will be turned off the game.

Sea of Thieves was never going to be the sort of game that reviews particularly well. It relies on your interactions with others rather than pure interaction with the world. That said there is still plenty of fun to be had and friends to make sailing the high seas.

It also is a game that will hopefully continually improve and evolve over time to further enhance the pirating experience.

The post Sea of Thieves (Xbox One) Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

NOW CLOSED – The open seas are your playground to battle and plunder in Xbox’s Sea of Thieves.

Exclusive to Xbox One / Xbox One X this shared-world adventure game immerses players in a rich, fantastical world filled with pirates, danger and discovery. Within this world, players can unleash their inner pirate, set their own goals and decide how they want to approach a life of freedom and self-expression.

You can journey solo, but Sea of Thieves has co-op gameplay at its heart. As part of a crew you’ll scour the map in search of your next destination, weigh anchor and set sail in search of rival pirates, buried treasure or fearsome creatures – the choice is yours.

Every voyage is packed with peril: raging storms can transform calm waters into a treacherous ocean battleground, hordes of skeletons roam the land in search of unwary victims, and who knows what lurks beneath the waves? In a world that’s always shared, every sail on the horizon means a ship crewed by real players – but will they be friend or foe, and how will you respond?

Pirates thrive on their reputation, and whether you decide to be a noble explorer or cunning criminal, your character will show the telltale marks of a life at sea. Scars earned during battle, tattoos from distant ports and a unique ensemble of clothing and accessories will make your customized pirate truly unique.

Keeping your competitive edge on the wild waters is essential, and the most successful seafarers will make a point of outfitting their ship, and themselves, with top of the line equipment, whether it’s to rain cannonballs down from afar or to get up close and personal with your trusty blunderbuss.

You are the star of this rich, immersive world, surrounded by a supporting cast of merchants, mermaids, Pirate Lords and supernatural terrors. The adventures you and your crew have as you sail together may just become the stuff of legend, but don’t let your guard down – there’s always something new beyond the horizon…

And thanks to our mates at Xbox New Zealand, STG has one digital code for Sea of Thieves up for grabs.

To Enter our Sea of Thieves Xbox One Giveaway, you must answer this Question Correctly:

Sea of Thieves, exclusive to Xbox, consists of pirates, plundering and deep open ended exploration. What is the name of a famous real world pirate who hundreds of years ago sailed around the West Indies and the eastern coast of Britain’s North American colonies?

A: Peg-leg Pete

B: Captain Sparrow

C: Black Beard

You can give us your Answer by placing a Comment below, hitting us up on Facebook, Tweet to us, or Email Us.

* Winner(s) will be randomly selected from those that Comment below / Facebook Comment / Email in accordance to the above Question. One winner(s) will receive a digital code, redeemable via the Microsoft store, for Sea of Thieves for Xbox One / Xbox One X. Competition ends on the 5th of April 2018. Sea of Thieves is rated PG in New Zealand. New Zealand based entries only will be accepted. **Sea of Thieves requires an active Xbox Live Membership, not included in this promotion.

The post Enter to Win Sea of Thieves! appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Microsoft began their E3 2015 briefing with their biggest gun, Halo. While we have already been given some details of the campaign and have had an opportunity to play the multiplayer beta previously, this was the first time we have seen the campaign in action.

The predominate focus of the trailer was on the squad based combat where you can give orders to your team. The two playable Spartans in the game, Locke & Master Chief, each have their own squad that tags along with them.

Other parts of Halo 5: Guardians highlighted included the drop-in drop-out co-op and a new multiplayer mode called Warzone. What they showed of the game looked great and it has gotten me super excited for the release on the 27th of October, 2015.

Dark Souls III was announced for release early 2016 but the trailer didn’t contain all too much and no gameplay was shown either but it looks like a very tell-tale Dark Souls game.

Following on from Halo was the new exclusive Xbox One game from the makers of Metroid Prime; Recore. While no gameplay was actually shown during the trailer, the concepts displayed look really interesting. The game takes place in some sort of futuristic world with some pretty awesome looking robots.

In terms of gameplay hints, the only things I could get out of the trailer was that the life of the robots are based around orbs, you have a companion and you can change the body of your companion by inserting his orb into a different body. Despite only giving us a short glimpse of the game, I’m really excited to see more of this game before it releases in the first half on 2016.

Some of the biggest and most exciting announcements out of the briefing was actually related to the console rather than any specific games. The biggest of which is backwards compatibility being available on the Xbox One.

Launching today for Xbox Preview members and later this year for everyone else, people will now be able to play their old Xbox 360 games on the Xbox One. This is an opt-in feature however so it is only applicable to the games that publishers allow.

Some of the benefits of this was showcased later in the conference with Fallout 4 on Xbox One including a free copy of Fallout 3 and Rainbow Six: Siege shipping with Rainbow Six: Vegas and Rainbow Six: Vegas 2.

A new Xbox One Elite Wireless Controller was also announced for release later this year. The controller features a few unique and generally awesome ideas. It seems aimed at the hard-core gamer as it includes customisation of analogue sticks and the D-pad for a more accurate experience.

Another big announcement for the Xbox One was the Xbox Game Preview which allows early access games on Xbox One. While Steam’s Early Access program is something I loathe, Microsoft’s implementation sounds on paper a lot better.

Players will be given to opportunity to play the early access games for free prior to buying it enabling them to see where the game is aimed for themselves.

Community made Fallout 4 PC mods was also announced to be available for Xbox One owners for free.

EA made a brief contribution to the show with the announcement of Plants v Zombies 2, which I personally am quite excited as I sunk many hours into the first one and the trailers showed all manner of new whacky and wild characters to use.

Microsoft also used this opportunity to showcase their new hardware, the Hololense.

This AR headset was played on stage using Minecraft in a live demo.

The demo actually managed to make me somewhat excited for the Hololens. Some of the cool features shown off was the ability to turn a blank wall into a TV screen to play the game, the ability to display your world on a table and cool new ways you can interact with that world.

One of the coolest upcoming games shown off by Microsoft was Gigantic.

This cartoony MOBA reminded me a lot of Team Fortress 2, a game I absolutely love, which is a great thing. It has an interesting selection of characters and a fun art style. I do hope to be seeing a bit more then what was shown on the show floor.

Microsoft’s holiday 2015 exclusive Rise of the Tomb Raider which also received its first ever gameplay trailer. While I’m very much excited for this games launch in November this year, the trailer didn’t showcase too much.

They displayed very linear section of the game featuring a few set pieces. With the game launching in a few months, I was hoping for more of a glimpse into the combat and some of the more interesting parts of the game.

Rare had some amazing announcements. Rare Replay is a game celebrating Rare’s many accomplishments and includes 30 of some the most iconic Rare games. From Conker’s Bad Fur Day to Battle Toads and Perfect Dark. Any fan will be having some serious nostalgia with this one.

Rare also announced a whole new IP. Sea of Thieves looks to be a pirate like MMO that plays with some of the great ship elements of Black Flag. The art style was great and all in all I am quite excited to see where exactly this new title is headed.

There were two announcements for the Gears of War series. Gears Ultimate Editions was announced and solely includes the original game with some bonus content but we weren’t shown too much actual footage.

The other announcement was Gears of War 4. A decent amount of gameplay footage was shown and it looks much darker, to my delight, than recent instalments. Some recognisable weapons were in there, the Lancer and the Gnasher, to name two.

Gears of War 4 is due for release 2016 and is one title we are quite keen for.

Microsoft managed to give us a good show with decent line up of both games and new tech to keep Microsoft fans happy for some time to come. There were a few unsure moments, but I feel this year’s Xbox E3 Conference was a success and I look forward to getting some hands on time with some of the mentioned titles later this week.

The post Xbox E3 2015 Announcements incl. Backwards Compatibility! appeared first on Shane the Gamer.