Albion Online Launching This Week

Posted By: GamerDating - July 18, 2017

Albion Online is a sandbox MMORPG set in a medieval fantasy world, in which you get to write your own story instead of just following a laid-out path. Explore Albion's vast open world, consisting of five different and unique biomes, with a focus on using gear, rather than innate skills. Spells, Movesets and abilities all rely upon gear allowing you switch out to play anything you fancy. We at GamerDating checked out Albion Online back in 2

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40,000 Steam User Banned!

Posted By: GamerDating - July 11, 2017

At the end of the 2017 Steam Summer Sale the Valve Anti-Cheat banhammer was swung. BOOM, the day after 40,000 steam users were banned, and what a beautiful day to ban them. Sweet, sweet, tears rain down in the hacking world as 40,000 kids cried out in pain after literally paying for a sweet tasty ban. As you can tell from the writing, we hate hackers, and do not see merit in gamers who choose to hack for whatever reason. Still, ov

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Evil Genius 2 Officially Announced Now In Development At Rebellion

Posted By: GamerDating - July 06, 2017

As a nice surprise to the start of this month, Rebellion snuck in an announcement in an E3 video. Evil Genius 2 is coming! 13 years ago, Evil Genius released a game where you would build your base and try and stop heroes sneaking in and ruining your plans. Very similar to the Dungeon Keeper games, and widely loved. Everybody wants to rule the world! Achieve global power with EVIL GENIUS, the one and only complete world domination sim

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PUBG Has Banned 25,000 Cheaters and SURPRISE Given Us Destructible Shacks

Posted By: GamerDating - June 28, 2017

Player Unknown's Battlegrounds has grown since launch to 4million copies sold, a staggering 257,335 all-time peak players at one time and taking the top spot on Twitch in viewers. PUBG continues to take the gaming world by storm offering the best of all games in this battle royale. It is a game tagged as Survival, Multiplayer, Open World, FPS, complete with the Early Access tag, but for once.. the Early Access tag is not an excuse for shod

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Steam Sale Incoming!

Posted By: GamerDating - June 21, 2017

The Steam Sale is predicted to launch this week and if it's anything like the weather so far, it's gonna be a hot one. A few pieces of evidence has predicted the Steam Sale will launch June 22, based on Steam already awarding Summer Sale cards (in games and sales) and if we look at the history we can see that Steam sales return every year in a relatively stable frequency. Based on data from the last few years, the upcoming sale da

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Take-Two shuts down GTA's OpenIV Mod

Posted By: GamerDating - June 16, 2017

This week it was reported that GTA OpenIV, a modding tool and community that has supported GTA for from back when GTA III kicked off, nearly 10 years ago, has been issued with a cease and desist from Take-Two. Since GTA III, people have created lots of different mods: from simple texture replacements to impressive full conversions. And the modding always was a “gray zone” — a battlefield between lawyers and PR… Fo

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E3 2017 Round Up

Posted By: GamerDating - June 12, 2017

Over the weekend we saw the kick-off of E3 and there is more to come! We have already seen EA, Microsoft and Bethesda reveal their E3 goodies, next to come is the PC Gaming Show, Ubisoft, Sony and Nintendo. On Saturday we saw: Madden 18 Need for Speed Payback A Way Out Anthem FIFA 18 Star Wars: Battlefront 2 Battlefield 1: In the name of the Tsar NBA Live 18 On Sunday we saw: XBox One X Forza Motorsport 7

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Rocket League 2nd Anniversary Update

Posted By: GamerDating - June 05, 2017

Rocket League are rolling out a mega update for its 2nd anniversary with a new season, a free new pitch, new cars, large amount of effects as new rewards and more battle cars. The new arena the "Champions Field" has taken a traditional sports look, giving it a stadium feel to fit with the theme of Rocket Leagues 2nd birthday.  In addition, the new crate brings you various rewards and cars: The new Overdrive Crate is all

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Battlefield 1 May Update + Giveaway

Posted By: GamerDating - May 31, 2017

Battlefield 1 continues to deliver that cinematic fps experience and it is great to see constant updates with DICE rolling out fixes and amendments. The May Update has hit and while it has brought along a few UI bugs (Hanks!) it has been widely received as a welcome patch. The monthly update has hit rolling out updates to the Operations mode, allowing operations to loop back to start again instead of exiting. With this change, a c

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Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle Leak

Posted By: GamerDating - May 24, 2017

The first image was leaked on twitter of a rabbid doing a selfie, some weird creature with a phone. It created a stir but led to further leaks from NintendoWorld. It is rumoured that Ubisoft and Nintendo are merging a Mario and Rabbid game, to run on the Nintendo Switch due out later this year. The announcement was supposed to be a surprise at E3. The leaks share multiple images of a presentation which reveals the game as an RPG w

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Overwatch Anniversary - Free Weekend 26th-29th May

Posted By: GamerDating - May 18, 2017

Blizzard has been super excited to share their Overwatch Anniversary video which shares some of the highlights and favourite moments and its finally here, with one happy announcement to those players who have yet to try Overwatch. Starting May 23rd will be kicking off the Overwatch Anniversary celebration leading to a free weekend from 26th-29th. For this free weekend, Overwatch's full roster of 24 heroes and 14 maps will be available f

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Crusader Kings II Adds Tibet and Himalayas!

Posted By: GamerDating - May 16, 2017

Paradox Interactives, Crusader Kings 2 has been continually updated and patched, adding more and more DLC, and free content. The game released back in 2012 is now 17 patches in, with 13 expansion packs. Some people see the updates as new versions of Crusader Kings.  One thing we can say about the developers is that they just keep giving. They have announced that they are updating the latest grey ugly wastelands of the Himalayas and the

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STRAFE - Hilarious Trailer, Simple Game

Posted By: GamerDating - May 10, 2017

STRAFE blasted into our attention with the release of the hilarious and simply brilliant 80's style game. The trailer features some VHS film style all about STRAFE. Similar to Kung Fury the video has 80's graphics with cheesy lines and awful props. All intentionally. All brilliant. While the game, cited to be from 1997 was released this week and appeals to the early generation of gaming. It has met with criticism how the gameplay, atte

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Steam Updates its Gifting <3

Posted By: GamerDating - May 04, 2017

Steam, today has announced changes to the gifting system on Steam.  The change has removed the old Gift to E-mail and Gift to Inventory options for the better, allowing a direct gift sending, refunding and schedules: Scheduling Gifts Is Even More Straightforward Go ahead and buy a gift months in advance and have it delivered to a friend on time, every time.   Declined Gifts Resolve The Way They Should In the old system

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Diablo II Remake Interview with David Brevik

Posted By: GamerDating - April 27, 2017

Since the announcement of official StarCraft remastering the community has asked "Will Diablo 2 get an official remaster?". Top fansite (I'm sure you guys will remember) Diabloii.net's Xanth interviewed David Brevik and talked about Diablo 2 and the challenges of making a remastered Diablo 2. The pair discuss my favourite mode Hardcore mode and how it was originally designed to be the default mode in Diablo, but decided to

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Get Civilization VI with GamerDating 4 Months Subscription Today!

Posted By: GamerDating - April 24, 2017

The latest spring update for Civilization VI is now available for PC, Mac and Linux players bringing one of the best Civilization games that extra polish we all expect. Included in this huge patch is the harbor balance change, new Persia and Macedon scenario pack, a huge amount of gameplay and balance changes, much needed AI tweaks and research trees amended for an easier gameplay. You can check out the Spring Update details here. If you

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StarCraft and Brood War Patch 1.18 makes it Completely Free!

Posted By: GamerDating - April 19, 2017

Blizzard has hit us with a surprise Patch, Patch 1.18. The new patch has made Starcraft and Brood War now completely free complete with some compatibility fixes for Windows 8, 10, and full screen modes. Last year, Blizzard released a sneaky patch via named 1.17 which would have been the first released patch since 2009, but it never went live, nor public. Instead now, patch 1.18 has come out, the first in 8 years which makes the entire game fre

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DropZone Now Free to Play on Steam

Posted By: GamerDating - April 13, 2017

Dropzone is an action strategy game where you control up to 3 customised giant robots in 15 minute matches. Equip your robots (we call them Rigs) with different weapons, body types, and specialised gear that determine what abilities you bring into a match. The goal of the game is to fight against your opponents in a race to destroy neutral AI-controlled aliens called the Kavash, and deposit the resources they drop into a capture point at the c

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Frostpunk - New City Management Game from This War Is Mine Devs

Posted By: GamerDating - April 11, 2017

Frostpunk is the next heart wrenching game by 11 bit studios, creators of This War of Mine. In Frostpunk you govern the cold last city on earth against the cold frost. A city builder where you use the only resource around, ice, to turn into steam to power your city. Typically of the devs, the gameplay is more about the choices, hardships and horrors you'll have to face in order to ensure humanity survives. Just as This War of Mine teste

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Mount and Blade II: Bannerlord PC Gamer Article Online

Posted By: GamerDating - April 07, 2017

Mount and Blade Warbands is one of the best games available out there, still today. The founders of GamerDating give Warbands the big stamp of approval. We have both sunk endless hours into Mount and Blade: Warbands and we have been super excited for Bannerlords, the eagerly awaited sequel. We saw it last year at GamesCom and it looked amazing, I still walk about with the freebie canvas shoulder bag!  When PC Gamer went over to mee

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Ori and the Will of the Wisps Review

Posted By: Ryan - March 20, 2020

Game

It has beauty, it has grace, it will punch you in the face.

 

Ori and the Will of the Wisps is a charming, if mildly unforgiving, follow-up to Ori and the Blind Forest. I never played the first game much, metroidvanias aren’t usually my thing, but I continued to be intrigued by the art style and that intrigue led me to try out the sequel at launch on the Xbox One X, here is our Ori and the Will of the Wisps review.

Vibrant colours and a clearly defined palette help to distinguish all of the game's many areas from each other, as well as distinguishing a unique art style. The almost complete lack of spot colouring (specifically white) meant that it was a rare occasion indeed when I lost track of Ori among everything else on screen. Speaking of such, there were instances where foreground elements obscured my view of what was going on for few moments and only a handful where all of the on-screen particle effects taxed my ability to keep up with what was going on, although I do admit to having a problem with being easily overstimulated visually.

The UI, such as it is, is a minimalist wonder. Health and energy are displayed at the bottom of the screen in an easy to read manner, the abilities assigned to shortcuts are displayed between the two, and your money-equivalent flashes up when you collect it but fades from view when not needed, allowing you to fully lose yourself in the aforementioned painting-like backgrounds. All of this is set to a wonderful, extremely emotive score. Seriously, this is a game where the OST is better than the moment-to-moment gameplay and you owe it to yourself to check out the music if nothing else.

 

I kept getting lost in the background art. Hopefully, you can see why.

 

Obviously, graphics and audio aren’t everything when it comes to gaming and no review is complete without actually mentioning the gameplay itself. As I opened with, Ori and the Will of the Wisps is a metroidvania-style game with all that that entails: platforming, backtracking, puzzle-solving and combat. The map itself felt big without being too big and easily the standout feature for me was the ease of movement. I’m a sucker for games which just feel good to move around in and, even from the start, Ori was fluid and responsive to control.

I should re-iterate I was playing with a controller but there is enough care put into the rest of the game that I imagine keyboard controls to feel equally as fluid.

For this entry into the series, Ori is no longer alone. A large cast of supporting characters have been added, each one lovingly designed and animated. Whilst most belong to a cat-like species called the Moki, there is enough variety that remembering who wants which item for a side-quest doesn’t become a problem. There are a decent amount of side-quests, from rebuilding a village to a game-long trade-quest, each of which brings a different part of the world to life in the two or three text boxes that scroll through the start and the end of the quest. At their core though, all of these quests boil down to ‘ go and find something for me’, albeit pointing you in shadowed corners of the gorgeous map.

 

They aren’t asking for much, are they?

 

On top of the amazing movement, the game boasts an impressive amount of customisation in the form of many upgradable ‘shards’ which can be equipped through one of the game’s three (gorgeous) menus. You start out being able to equip only three, but can increase this capacity through optional combat arenas, and each modifies your playstyle in some way: for example, one offers reduced damage whilst another (which feels almost mandatory) offers a triple jump. At no point did I feel like I was forced into a certain loadout though.

 

This brings me onto combat and puzzle-solving. I played through on Easy for the first time. I’m not familiar with the genre and I wanted to complete the entire game without getting frustrated, but I did go back and play the opening hours on Normal and I’ll tell you now, after the halfway point Easy is VERY easy. If you’ve found many of the health and energy upgrades you’ll be able to tank boss fights (all of which are pleasantly varied) easily and the only real dangers will be instant-kill areas (although the game does tell you when your timer is running out and it is about to kill you). Normal is a nice challenge requiring some thought about in-combat movement and attack choices (sword, hammer, bow etc.) and is how I will play the game for any future playthroughs.

 

A beautiful game for this Ori sequel

 

The puzzles themselves were… okay. At no point did I feel like I couldn’t complete one, but several times it seemed possible to solve a puzzle in a variety of ways only to realise that I had been overthinking it because the game hadn’t taught me, or wasn’t even hinting at, the actual solution. Several times the breakable wall textures changed, or I was called upon to use one specific ability to interact with objects with no real clue as to which ability it was short of trying everything.

It was during some of the platforming puzzles where I got most frustrated as the fluid controls proved themselves to be too loose and led to me having to complete the lengthy puzzle set-up over and over again. Also, be warned that the latter half of the game has many, MANY spike pits that it is VERY difficult to leave if you happen to end up in them.

 

Some of the early game puzzles, like this one, are classics. Later ones are not.



These two things, long reset times for puzzles and inescapable spike pits, are my main niggles. Sure, I encountered some bugs and glitches, but what game launches without them these days? Nothing I encountered was game breaking, mostly confined to visual problems with animations and, on one occasion, an extended hitbox on a climbable object, with the most annoying thing being the lag when opening the map after I’d filled in a lot of it. Nothing here is problematic though and those things I did find were mild annoyances at worst and nothing really to complain about.

You can even get a plushie now

What I did like, in terms of polish, was the option to leave the escape sequences that Ori and the Blind Forest was famous for. These are prolonged chase segments of tight platforming that, if you slow down too much, will kill you and send you back to the start. I never felt the need to abandon the challenge, but I appreciated the option to back out and return later after exploring the map a bit more.

That’s really the nub of the problem here for me. I think the game is pretty well priced at £24.99 on Windows and Xbox One, and there is enough content to bring me back for more (mostly to try out different shard combinations) but I would dearly hope that by the time I come back to it those minor annoyances are ironed out because taken as a whole they did detract from the game.

 

You can also grab this beautiful art on Xbox Pass if you are that way inclined.

 

This is a game where the art style, soundtrack and (largely) well-written narrative set-up an atmosphere of wistful melancholy but where the puzzles/environmental design, challenging combat (on Normal and with nothing at the start of the game, at least) and brutal escape sequences yank you out of that and replace it with a teeth-grinding frustration.

If you want a largely enjoyable, 10–15-hour game that is both a visual and auditory treat, I would say check this out; but be wary of the obscure/missing environmental clues and tedious puzzle design.

Ori and the Will of the Wisps release date was 11 March 2020, so you can get playing now on Switch, Steam or Xbox.

 

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