Month: April 2018

Developer Platinum Games–the studio behind Bayonetta and Nier Automata–is known for its particular brand of action games that focus on kinetic hack and slash gameplay. With that particular style in mind, the developers are launching a new IP known as World of Demons–a Samurai action-RPG game that seeks to deliver the same style of intense gameplay to mobile phones.

Made in collaboration with DeNA Games–the mobile games publisher behind Final Fantasy Record Keeper and Fire Emblem Heroes–Platinum Games’ World of Demons focuses on bite-sized character-action gameplay, while also telling an involved story. Set in ancient Japan where creatures of myth and folklore are real, World of Demons puts you in the role of the wandering samurai Onimaru, who must vanquish a powerful demon king that has invaded the land. Over time, you’ll partner up with additional allies wielding their own unique weapons and take command of your own party of demons to lead into battle. As you clear through stages and take on massive bosses, you’ll gain new weapons and items, which you can use to upgrade your heroes.

In development for the last three years, World of Demons is largely in the same style of other Platinum Games, but designed around the touch interface of smartphones. The action-RPG takes place across a set of stages where you’ll battle against enemies that vary in difficulty and complexity. In combat, you’ll be able to control your character with full 360 degree movement via the touch screen, while also using a set of combo attacks and skills to summon monsters. You’ll also use skills that focus on particular elemental properties, which have to be managed effectively against enemies attuned to a specific damage types.

At launch, the game will start off with 3 playable characters and over 80 demons to recruit–and over time more content will be added as the game develops its community. The two primary gameplay modes in World of Demons is the Way of the Warrior story mode, where players tackle a number of missions and narrative beats as the Samurai and his party take on the demonic presence in the land, and the Way of the Demon mode which offers daily challenges and timed missions to gain new weapons and minions. There will be a competitive mode where players can compete on leaderboards and take on active challenges against others online.

The visuals in World of Demons feature some gorgeous graphics that emulate the ink-wash paintbrush aesthetic from classic Japanese art and a similar style found from Okami (made by some current Platinum Games staff). While the new platform might not be what many Platinum fans expected, World of Demons still channels much of what their past games have gotten down to a science.

Set for launch in summer 2018, World of Demons is certainly a departure for Platinum Games in the sense that it’s a new platform–but stylistically and mechanically, it feels very familiar with the studio’s pedigree of games. With pre-registration open, you’ll be sign up to receive access to the game once it goes live and dive into Platinum Games’ next action-RPG adventure.

It is the final day of April, and that means now is your very last chance to pick up some of the month’s free Games With Gold titles on Xbox One and Xbox 360.

Today is the final day to grab Braid creator Jonathan Blow’s intriguing and beautiful puzzle game The Witness for the low, low price of $0. On Xbox 360, this is your last chance to pay nothing for Dead Space 2, which plays on Xbox One through backwards compatibility.

Ubisoft’s stealthy stabby game Assassin’s Creed Syndicate will stay free on Xbox One through May 15, but you might as well grab it now so you don’t forget to.

Starting on May 1, a new set of Games With Gold freebies will become available, including Super Mega Baseball 2 for Xbox One and Streets of Rage on Xbox 360. What’s notable about Super Mega Baseball 2 is that May 1 is the game’s release date, so it’s launching for free. Additionally, Streets of Rage appears to already be free, and you can get it right here.

In other Xbox One news, 19 new backwards compatible titles from the OG Xbox were added to the catalog this week.

April 2018 Games With Gold

Xbox One

• The Witness (April 1-30)
• Assassin’s Creed Syndicate (April 16-May 15)

Xbox 360 (playable on Xbox One)

• Cars 2 (April 1-15)
• Dead Space 2 (April 16-30)

Westworld Season 2, Episode 2, “Reunion,” was a better episode than the Season 2 premiere. More importantly, we learned plenty of new tidbits about Westworld and the characters who run and inhabit it this week.

Did any of our Season 2 premiere theories pan out? Did this build on any of the things we learned last week? Keep reading to find out what was new in Westworld in Season 2, Episode 2.

Westworld Season 2, Episode 2, “Reunion,” left me with one overwhelming feeling: I wish this had been the Season 2 premiere. Episode 2 had the exact right mix of exposition, flashback, action, and mystery that made Westworld Season 1 impossible to turn away from, and which the Season 2 premiere’s 70 long minutes of weirdly paced setup lacked. At least we’re back in the saddle now.

The episode’s opening, with Dolores in the real world, is a perfect example. This scene showed us new sides of both Dolores and Arnold, revealing that Dolores has actually seen the world outside the park before. And now she remembers; “I’ve been there before,” she tells Teddy later in the ep. That’s clearly going to come up later.

There is one mystery here, depending how you read the scene: Is this really the outside world, or is it just another park? The exterior shots as Arnold leads Dolores across the street look uncanny, too clean, and filled with unnatural, robotic-looking people. The under-construction zone where Arnold is apparently building a house seems oddly placed in the middle of what’s apparently a city, and then there’s what Arnold says: “My wife says I live in the park. I’m moving my family here. I need to have my two worlds at least within reach of one another.”

Was Arnold planning to move his family into the park itself? Or is this simply a mainland city within reach of the island on which Westworld and the other parks lie? Maybe we’ll find out later, or maybe I’m reading too much into this scene.

When the episode returns to the party later, it’s to catch up with William and Logan as we first met them: Logan, a cocky, brash businessman, and William, his emasculated soon-to-be brother-in-law. This is before the transformation both characters undergo throughout Westworld’s first season, which, as we learned this week, will apparently lead to Logan’s eventual descent into addiction. That probably answers the question of where Logan is in the present, at least, though not in the way you might have hoped; Logan is a dick, sure, but it’s still sad.

“Reunion” also introduced us to Logan’s father (and William’s father-in-law), Jim Delos, who at some point before the present day, but after these episodes, is going to salvage Westworld with a huge influx of cash thanks to William’s shrewd influence. It can be deliberately tough to track the timelines on Westworld, but in this episode it’s clear that the initial party–at which the hosts put on quite a display for Logan–takes place before William and Logan’s adventure in Season 1, while William’s later scenes take place afterward. William clearly took the lessons he learned in the park to heart, and he’s acting much more like the Man in Black–his future self, Bill–here than the William we got to know in most of Westworld Season 1 (although William very intently checking out the host Angela as they pass at the party is definitely a hint of things to come for him).

These flashback scenes are great, not just for revealing new sides of these characters–Jimmi Simpson’s young William acting more like Ed Harris’s version of the character, and Logan spiraling after Season 1’s events–but for the other new tidbits they provided in Westworld’s never-ending trail of blood-soaked bread crumbs. We see William’s wife (Logan’s sister) for the first time, for example–we learned last season that she kills herself at some point, but we hadn’t met her before. And we met his daughter, Emily. What happened to her in the present day? And is the briefly mentioned “Argos Initiative” simply a code name for Westworld, or will we find out more about that later? (The word has many roots in ancient mythology.)

The biggest surprise of this episode, however, was definitely the appearance of Breaking Bad’s Giancarlo Esposito, who in the present day is playing the character Bill’s friend Lawrence used to play in the past: El Lazo. And the situation in Pariah has not improved; as Bill puts it, “This is what happens when you let a story play all the way out.”

What’s really unclear is why Bill needs Lawrence at all in this new game. Clearly Ford anticipated Bill’s moves, setting up safeguards like the mass suicide in Pariah to ensure Bill wouldn’t have too much help. At least the Man in Black elucidated his goal for us this week: to burn this whole enterprise to the ground.

Dolores and Teddy’s recruitment drive made up the other half of “Reunion.” With one of the park’s engineers in tow, she’s forged herself into a literal Jesus figure for the hosts who still remain un-woke. The dinner she interrupted was a none-too-subtle Last Supper pastiche, and the imagery of her raising her enemies from the dead to add them to the ranks of her followers wasn’t lost on anyone.

Are Dolores and Bill heading for the same destination? William clearly is not a good guy anymore–or maybe he never was. “This is the only place in the world where you get to see people for who they really are,” he tells his father-in-law. As far as he’s concerned, his transformation into a villain was a revelation of his true nature. His heart broken when Dolores forgot him in Season 1, he’s come to see her as nothing more than an object. But whatever William is digging in the park in the past–presumably the location of “his greatest mistake,” as Bill says in the present–must be something he truly came to regret creating.

Where this all will lead is anyone’s guess; the really intriguing tidbit from Dolores this week was her allusion to “the real purpose of this place.” She says Westworld “is not a place; it’s a weapon.” And she’s going to use it to destroy her former masters, and reach the glory of the Valley Beyond. Can’t wait.

Deadpool has taken notice of the incredible success of Avengers: Infinity War–and he’s responded in a way befitting of his character. Actor Ryan Reynolds, who plays the foul-mouthed, fourth wall-breaking character, posted a silly rejection letter from his application to the join the Avengers.

The letter signed by Tony Stark says, “No. Absolutely not. Go bother Prof. X. No.” Reynolds also congratulated Disney on the success of Infinity War. He said, “From a guy who never knows when to quit, I’m glad you guys never did. Congrats Avengers.”

Deadpool exists within the Marvel universe, but the character doesn’t show up in the MCU movies because Fox owns the rights to Deadpool the character. There may be some hope, however, as Disney is buying a large part of Fox, so Deadpool in an official MCU movie could happen down the track.

As for the Deadpool franchise, the David Leitch-directed sequel hits theatres in May. Among the new characters is Cable, who is played by Josh Brolin. Brolin played the antagonist Thanos from Infinity War.

Infinity War opened last week and has already made more than $600 million worldwide. With $250 million in the US and Canada alone, it surpassed Star Wars: The Force Awakens for the highest first-weekend ever in the history of movies.