Star Citizen Updates - $141 Million Raised, Lumberyard And Alpha 2.6

Posted By: GamerDating - January 09, 2017

Star Citizen recently released the Alpha 2.6 giving access to Star Marine, an FPS shooter module, enhanced PU and a refined Arena Commander, a ship dogfighting battles. Now Star Citizen revealed that in the Alpha 2.6 they snuck in the "Director Mode" allowing the community to create all sorts of screenshots and videos of the game. Cloud Imperium Games have now released a video, showcasing some of those screenshots and videos. Wh

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Games Done Quick Marathon Starts Sunday

Posted By: GamerDating - January 03, 2017

This Sunday, Awesome Games Done Quick (AGDQ) kicks off, a week-long marathon in which speedrunners showcase their talents to raise money for the Prevent Cancer Foundation (PCF), a charity devoted to raising public awareness of cancer and its early warning signs. For the past 3 years they've raised over 1 million dollars each year and this year aim to continue the trend. The marathon starts at 9:30 am eastern on January 8th, and run

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Frog Fractions 2 - Cult Game Found!

Posted By: GamerDating - December 29, 2016

In 2012, a browser game called Frog Fractions was released by developer Jim Crawford going by the name of Twinbeard.  The game features a frog sitting on a lilly pad and letting his tongue out to catch various mosquitoes and bugs in order to protect fruit positioned at the bottom of the screen. While it starts as your basic flash game it suddenly takes an unexpected twist, adding lazer lock on targeting, static aoe type attacks and flying

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Prison Architect Surprise Us With Update 11

Posted By: GamerDating - December 20, 2016

In the early morning of a frosty 20th December, Introversion, developers of Prison Architect released a surprise update for Prison Architect. Prison Architect is a private prison construction and management simulation, building the prison, catering to the needs of the prisoners, and managing funds and intake while you rehabilitate those prisoners. It has been received widely as a great success, regardless of the slightly controversial sub

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All For Honor DLC Maps And Modes For Free

Posted By: GamerDating - December 15, 2016

In For Honor three legendary warrior factions – The noble Knights of the Iron Legion, the deadly Samurai of the Dawn Empire, and ferocious Vikings of the Warborn clans – are under threat from a mysterious and bloodthirsty warlord named Apollyon. Storm castles, defeat invading armies, and win epic duels as you battle for the survival of your people. In For Honor you play a heroic character and carve a path of destruction through the

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Dota 2 Patch 7.00 Introduces Monkey King Hero, New HUD, Map, and Gameplay Changes

Posted By: GamerDating - December 12, 2016

Dota 2 version 7 has brought along some huge sweeping changes, changes so big, you'll be re-learning the game. So let us take a quick glance. Monkey King, a new hero with tree jumping, rune illusions, some crazy attack damage sets him up as a perfect melee ganker and carry role.  Monkey King is described as a Melee Cary Escape Disabler and his abilities definitely affirm his roles. You can read all about Monkey King here. Mo

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The Last of Us Part II - Announced

Posted By: GamerDating - December 06, 2016

The Last of Us Part 2 was announced at PSX over the weekend. Sequel to the PS4 hit Te Last of Us, Naughty Dog are back bringing us an announcement teaser trailer that tugs at the imagination and has set a frenzy with fans of the original. The Last of Us was released for the PlayStation 3 in June 2013 and hailed as one of the best action-adventure survival horrors earning over 200 awards. Again exclusive to PlayStation the Last of Us Part 2 is

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My Top 5 Co-op Games to Play with Your Partner

Posted By: Emily Toye - December 02, 2016

“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” – Helen Keller Whether you’re a console or PC gamer, playing a videogame with other people heightens enjoyment. You can share opinions about the combat system, encourage each other in defeating the final boss, and scream at the fact that their character is much stronger than yours and that’s why you lost that last round of Mortal Kombat. This article sugg

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Doom Available with 4 Month Subscription

Posted By: GamerDating - November 29, 2016

Doom reboot developed by Id software hit the ground running. The studio that pioneered the first-person shooter genre and created multiplayer Deathmatch, DOOM returned as a brutally fun and challenging modern-day shooter experience. Relentless demons, impossibly destructive guns, and fast, fluid movement provide the foundation for intense, first-person combat – whether you’re obliterating demon hordes through the depths of Hell i

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No Mans Sky Announce Foundation Patch

Posted By: GamerDating - November 25, 2016

After months of silence, Hello Games developers of No Man's Sky have broken their silence in a PR update to announce base-building update. The No Man's Sky "Foundation Update" will cover building the foundations of future content and patches as well as the base-building introduction. We’re calling it The Foundation Update, because we have added the foundations of base building Hello Games briefly touched upon

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Crowfall MMO - Offer Crowdfunding For Equity.

Posted By: GamerDating - November 22, 2016

Crowfall is ArtCraft’s flagship title. It is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) and is offering a unique approach as a “Throne War Simulator,” offering gamers a very different in-game experience compared to traditional MMO titles. Crowfall essentially gives your character the option to enter a world, play out the campaign which has an end date or objective, and then returns you back for another campaign. I

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Total War: Warhammer - Realm of The Wood Elves!

Posted By: GamerDating - November 17, 2016

Total War: Warhammer steps aside from the rest of the Total War Series, for the first game set in a fantasy world, and offering such a diverse play-style per race. Instead of different global locations and differing units which other Total War Games may bring, the Warhammer variant changes your play-style entirely. The Total War: Warhammer reveals their latest DLC - The Realm of the Wood Elves. The Wood Elves will be added to the grand camp

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Total War: Arena Transfers To Wargaming Alliance

Posted By: GamerDating - November 14, 2016

Total War: Arena was created The Creative Assembly, announced in 2013 as a free-to-play multiplayer-focused arena fighter. Sega has now announced a partnership with World of Tanks developer Wargaming, under new title the Wargaming Alliance.  While a long time away from release, the Total War: Arena installment was heading in a direction of pay2win accusations but building a very loyal fanbase. The new partnership with Wargaming veterans o

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EVE Online: Introduce F2P And Huge Update

Posted By: GamerDating - November 08, 2016

EVE Online have been teasing us for a few weeks and today released a new video highlighting some of the changes in the upcoming update on November 15th, the expansion "Acension" will be introducing: Clone States (Free 2 Play Option) More player built structures Revised new player experience Command bursts (think aoe buff bombs) Balance changes Fitting simulator New visuals and explosions New Character Sheet UI More

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Warhammer: End Times - Vermintide Free Weekend!

Posted By: GamerDating - November 04, 2016

From now until 10:30 pacific time on Sunday (18:30 CET) Warhammer: End Times - Vermintide is running a free weekend on Steam, available to simply download, unlocked to all. There has been no better time to jump in with Quests & Contracts now available for free for all players, killing rats and getting awesome loot has never been easier (Quests unlock once all original levels have been cleared once).   Y

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THQ Nordic Acquire Novalogic - Delta Force, Comance, Joint Operations and more

Posted By: GamerDating - November 01, 2016

THQ Nordic announced that an asset purchase agreement with NovaLogic Inc. containing all games and/or projects owned by NovaLogic Inc has been closed. In essence, that means that they’re back at it again with the acquisition of partly forgotten, but classic game IPs and this time is all about first-person military themed game franchises like groundbreaking and genre defining Delta Force, Comanche or Joint Ops. “After 30 years of

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No Man's Sky Tweet "Game was a Mistake"

Posted By: GamerDating - October 28, 2016

After an awful launch, No Man's Sky failed to deliver on many of its claims and selling points. Rage and hate filled the internet and Hello Games remained silent. Months of utter silence and no comments, responses or tweets and that all changed this morning. Hello Games tweeted this morning that No Man's Sky was a mistake. The tweet was later deleted and the account set to private, while Polygon and Forbes confirm that the Tweet was no

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Blizzard Respond - Classic Server Update

Posted By: GamerDating - October 25, 2016

Private servers for World of Warcraft have been around a while, the popularity of them drawing in old players who seek that nostalgic experience, or new World of Warcraft players who missed out and came to WoW too late.  Nostalrius Begins was a Vanilla Server, running an instance of World of Warcraft original, the volunteers re-created the "Blizz-like" experience and 800,000 players signed up, with 150,00 active player

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Rockstar Games Are Teasing Us - Red Dead

Posted By: GamerDating - October 17, 2016

Rockstar Games started a tease of the year yesterday by changing their Facebook, Twitter and other social media icons to their logo coloured red. pic.twitter.com/iuwxwyL2cX— Rockstar Games (@RockstarGames) October 17, 2016 The day after, with tonnes of speculation, Rockstar Games released day 2. pic.twitter.com/BklXMlZ0UQ— Rockstar Games (@RockstarGames) October 16, 2016 People on Reddit have speculated that this c

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Rocket League Re-calibrate Their Competitive Rank Tiers

Posted By: GamerDating - October 12, 2016

Rocket League is a futuristic Sports-Action game, in which players are equipped with booster-rigged vehicles for a high-octane re-imagining of football. It's a crazy version of football and it is hilarious. Luckily you can get Rocket League with a subscription of 4 months of GamerDating. Rocket League developers have just released a new hotfix re-calibrating the competitive skill tiers to introduce a more forgiving spread of ranks and

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>Observer_ Review

Posted By: Ryan - March 21, 2019

Game

>observer_ is a cyberpunk marvel built on the little stories of its all too human cast. Told through the eyes of KPD officer Daniel Lazarski (voiced by none other than Rutger Hauer himself), >observer_ is a short horror game drenched in the atmosphere one would expect from the minds behind Layers of Fear.

The 8 or so hours it took me to complete the main story (as well as some side cases) raised many questions concerning the nature of humanity, the lengths to which people will go to be happy in their own skin and the effects that our choices have on others.

As with Bloober Team’s well-known Layers of Fear, >observer_ is told entirely through first person exploration gameplay. Gone are the wood panelled halls haunted by memories of a family now lost, in their place are grime drenched, neon lit corridors. Holes are torn into the walls to make doorways, cables snake along the floor, powering the video intercoms attached to each door and the many advertisements hanging from the walls.

This is definitely a game to play docked. Whilst the handheld mode holds up, Unreal Engine 4 makes mincemeat of the Switch’s battery life (around 2 and a half hours) and many of the prompts presented in the near invisible UI are very difficult to see on the tiny screen. Docked, however, dust motes hang in the air of every cramped, concrete hallway illuminated by the bright teal glow that serves as the main accent for most of the game. Playing in docked mode also gives your screen the real estate to properly display the lavish visual effects, strobing and digital artefacting (the latter a sign that Daniel’s medication is running low) that are deployed to keep you on the edge of your seat.

 

Enjoy the view, you won’t be seeing it much


 On top of the visual treat, heavily inspired by films such as Blade Runner, a stellar soundtrack accompanies Daniel’s investigation into a series of murders perpetrated in a single apartment block in the late 21st century. Footsteps echo from the cracked concrete, or splash through the thick mud of the basement. NPCs, with the exception of a few characters, are spoken to through the doors of their sealed apartments and are a joy to talk with via >observer_’s simple dialogue trees. Even though no NPC (with the exception of two) is spoken to more than once, the handful of minutes the game devotes to each is more than enough to convey a compelling narrative. Many times, I found myself wanting to find out more about each character (especially the self-aware sexbot), only to get caught up in the next mini-drama played out in dialogue only.

Now, it’s probably worth stating that this isn’t a game for everybody. If you aren’t overly enamoured with “walking simulators” or games which use environmental hints to contribute to the narrative, this probably isn’t for you. As previously mentioned, Daniel’s solo jaunt through the building is broken only by the occasional conversation through a door (or face to face in a handful of cases), or a handful of stealth segments, leaving the main bulk of the story to be told through protracted memory sequences, Daniel’s inner monologue, or items scattered throughout the environment.

Exploration for said items is rewarded with extra objectives, interactions with NPCs who would otherwise brush you off or one of the sixty-nine collectibles to be found (on one memorable occasion, my exploration yielded a code to a locked door which I opened to reveal a P.T. easter egg complete with bleeding walls, looping hallway and freaky posters). That’s not to say the entire game is a permanent treasure hunt (although there are a handful of crime scenes you are encouraged to investigate to their fullest).

 

The Lost Woods this isn’t, but there are clues for those who seek to leave the maze


Daniel is a special member of the Krakow Police Department known as an Observer. He is equipped with an augmentation (the usual cyberpunk questions surrounding what is humanity, are augmentations a boon or a bane etc. are definitely being explored by the game) which allows him to plug into the neural jacks of the victims he encounters. Without wishing to delve too deeply into each one, suffice it to say Layers of Fear’s influence is felt strongly during these sequences, played out to a riot of disturbing visual effects, discordant ambience and pulse-pounding soundtrack. The game shows a warning about photo-sensitive seizures every time it is started and it’s warranted. A couple of times I found the visual effects to be too much for me to make any conscious progress and stumbled into the correct level triggers more through intuition and luck than by correctly interpreting the clues seeded throughout the environment (although the developers deserve much credit for the inventiveness of the clues they provide).

 

Everyone needs a Journal

 

This speaks to a lot of the problems I found during my playthrough. Solid ideas were implemented largely successfully, but with just enough niggles to be a problem. Messy visuals, somewhat unclear stealth segments (aided massively by a generous checkpoint system) and a tiny prompt when able to interact with an object caused my progress to stumble a few times (this is all in addition to a minor bug where I couldn’t select a certain object and a few periods of noticeable frame rate loss followed by the game crashing). In the vast majority of cases, I resolved the problem by exploring the same room over and over for a few minutes before finally looking directly at the right spot, or moving through rooms I could barely distinguish through the textures being used to amp up the tension, or, on one memorable occasion, realising I had just completed a stealth section without first noticing it was a stealth section. I largely enjoyed my time with the game, but it meant that when a problem like this came up, I really noticed it.


It’s a shame too, because the stuff Bloober Team experimented with worked really well. As I’ve mentioned, Daniel is reliant on medication to continue functioning and without it his vision starts distorting in a distinctly unhelpful manner (although there doesn’t appear to be any downside, apart from this and an irritating audio prompt, to not taking the meds), which helps build the illusion of a man whose body is fighting against the augmentations which allow him to do his job. Similarly, when his medication is running out, or in times of stress, the Joy-Con’s HD rumble is used to great effect, beating in time with his heart, grounding what in other games would be merely a sound effect, with a tactile, visceral sensation. As the game progresses, this small touch becomes very important, serving as a prominent tool during the stealth sections as a sort of proximity alarm.


I’ve mentioned augmentations a few times now and that’s with good cause. Possibly my favourite feature of the game (aside from the titular observations) are Daniel’s forensic vision modes. Using a combination EM-vision to find electronic clues, Bio-vision to find biological clues and good old-fashioned night-vision (because boy howdy does the game get dark in places), Daniel is perhaps at his best when searching crime scenes for evidence. Few games go into this level of detail and I found myself wishing more would. A clever combination of colour palette changing and the ability to swap with the press of a button really helped nail the feeling of a cybernetic detective doing their job.

 

He’s dead, Jim

 

At £26.99/$29.99, you’re getting a decent amount game for the price.

Sure, it might be short, but I was invested in every minute of playtime, caught up in the atmosphere of a place so similar to our own, yet so alien. The game does boast two endings, and sixty-nine collectibles (of which I found about a quarter), but with no real way to reload the last checkpoint, you’re looking at around 15 hours (or less if you focus on the main story) to see both endings, plus however long it takes to find all the collectibles.

Whilst I feel like the endings will only have slight differences, the branching dialogue trees hold more of my interest and I’m curious to see if several of the conversations I had could have ended differently.

Whilst narrative driven games like this are subjective, I wholeheartedly recommend it. The sub-text ever present in the cyberpunk genre is present (along with no small amount of body horror) and I’m a sucker for any game that has an atmosphere crafted with so much care and attention.

It’s not perfect, but it’s an excellent way to spend a few hours and you might learn something about the human condition along the way.

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