Basis

Shadow Warrior is a wonderful ride through humor and gut wrenching fun where you play as the geeky lovable mercenary Lo Wang, working currently as one ofOrochi Zilla's right hand and reliable mercenaries' with his new side kick Hoji, a demon banished from his home world. Together combining both of Hoji's demon magic and Lo Wang's amazing katana mastery, they power their way through the demon hordes in this unlikely duo's journey for the Nobitsura Kage.

Game-play

Game-play in shadow warrior is quite fun. You can hack hack slash and shoot just about anything in the entire game and, yes the demons of course! you will obtain more weapons through out your adventure, such a the quad barrel shotgun. all of these attainable weapons all have upgrades to make these weapons even stronger than they already are but, be careful with your cash you will not be able to upgrade everything just like in previous games like Bioshock. When in combat your are scored for every move you make and how that move effects your enemy's body. So for example if you pull out your revolver and score a flawless head shot on a standard demon you shall be rewarded with more karma which is used to upgrade Wang's combat abilities (but not Hoji's demon attributes). Combat is broken down into;

• Small Encounters
• Large Encounters

  

• Boss Fights

1. Exploration
2. Scavenging
3. ADT (attention to detail)

Story

(This is where the very minor spoilers I mentioned are at)

Closing Statement

Overall, Shadow Warrior is a hell of a lot of fun and really deserves a lot more credit that what it has received over the course of all most two years since it's first release on PC. The game hits it all. Shadow Warrior plays with your emotions makes you laugh and could at times make you feel like an absolute badass and, I would STRONGLY recommend this game to any one who enjoys first person action with a deep and meaning full story with lovable and interesting characters. FINAL SCORE: 4.5/5

So you've got no money. Your Steam library is crying out , "Gimme a new game pleaaassee". Well, I've got a free to play shooter like no other. These guys took some simple parkour, great shooting and a fair model and have created what I think is one of the best free games you can play right now.

The game I'm talking about is Dirty Bomb. At the time of writing this Dirty Bomb is in Open Beta. Which means that everything I say may not be representative of the final product. I however find the game finished enough to get a good impression of it. Any drastic changes at this point would make no sense anyway.

Played from the first person perspective, Dirty Bomb is a fast paced objective based shooter. 

The game features different Merc classes which are pretty traditional as far as team shooters go. Characters like the Commando, Sniper and Medic should feel familiar. All with their own abilities each one can turn the tides of battle in different situations. For example Skyhammer has the ability to call down an air strike which can effectively wipe a team if placed correctly. He can also resupply allies with ammunition when need be by throwing down an ammo bag.

This is the main screen when you get into the game. It shows your progress along with daily quests as well as whatever is going on in the world of Dirty Bomb. At the time of reviewing the Phantom was the featured Merc and is sold for real money. This is probably a decent time to talk about the game's Business Model. Dirty Bomb is built around classes which are represented by different Mercs. To start there are a couple free Mercs to let you play and then one can either invest time to earn in game money or spend real world money to acquire other Mercs. Frankly quite a fair model considering the amount of content you get for no cost. Additionally you will not be at a significant disadvantage playing the game without paying money, the characters are quite well balanced.

Once you've bought your Mercs and played a few games you will come into contact with cases which contain random load-out cards. Sorry there are no customizable load-outs. This system however works well and motivates me to play even more. After playing a fair bit I feel the need to get golden load-outs and get better guns for my Mercs. Also the suspense of opening a case is a feeling I can't describe but thoroughly enjoy.

Combat is fast and bloody, shooting can be long distance or close up and accuracy is rewarded. A few successful headshots will take down enemies quickly while body shots will prove almost useless in a lot of cases. Additionally enemies are only put into a crawling mode after initially taken down, they need to be damaged more to be actually killed. This allows time for allies to bring them back into the fight or for the medic to use her instant revive ability. 

 Here I am playing the Fragger class, who brings a heavier weapon to battle along with 2 grenades. He is used mostly for defending objective as throwing a grenade into an enemy diffusing your bomb will probably help a bit. Ill be honest, haven't played a lot of the other classes, mostly because I haven't purchased them or they aren't on the free rotation but also due to the attraction to blowing stuff up. I've also unlocked a gold class for the Fragger, so it can be cool to show that off in lobbies.

Unfortunately, Dirty Bomb isn't always great, it's something they need to work on. 

Remember how I told you about the free rotation of Mercs? At the time of writing the least balanced class(the phantom) is only available via purchase.   Now while the paywall makes it so that the character isn't super common in matches the fact that you can be an invisible sword wielding maniac is kinda OP. Imagine combining the Demo Knight's damage and the Spy's invisibility. Yeah, it's crazy. On another note the menu can be randomly glitchy at times. Now remember this is still a Beta build, but sometimes while matchmaking I will get booted from the screen even though I'm queued to join a server. 

Overall, I really like Dirty Bomb.

This twitchy tactical FREE shooter is the kind of thing I'm into. The collectability of cards and the leveling system motivates me to play while the rewarding gun play keeps me amused in games. While Dirty Bomb definitely isn't perfect(due to a few glitches and the business model being close to the best ever in free games) but i can look past all it's flaws for the combat just feels too dang good. The free experience as well, just rocks. I have spent no real world money at this point in time and I honestly don't feel like there is anything to be sought after(except maybe playing the temporarily OP character).

So yes, I am suggesting Dirty Bomb. Go play it. It's free of course. Put a few matches in, see if you can get friends to play or at least randoms who communicate and the experience is amplified by a lot.

Just remember to play the objective and all will go well!

I love waves. Give me waves of anything and I will destroy it. Especially rats. The Vermin are here and I have been given badass medieval tools to slice dice or blow them apart?!

CAN YOU SAY GAME OF THE FREAKIN' YEAR?

Okay, I may be a little hyped for Warhammer: Verminitde. It's obviously not out yet but this game is shaping up to be a cross between Diablo 3, Left For Dead and Chivalry. And it is about goddamn time.

While Killing Floor 2 has done more than enough (and its still not done!) to satisfy my need for waves of enemies to blow apart, the Warhammer universe brings a new angle and even more craziness to experience whilst slaughtering Skaven.

With multiple classes and loads of weapons both melee and ranged this game takes what Killing Floor does so well and (hopefully) turns it up a notch.

Warhammer: The End Times - Vermintide comes out October 23rd.
Here's to hoping it doesn't suck.

please

After the unfortunate cancellation of Rainbow 6: Patriots, many fans worried if there would be complications with their beloved series. Between September 24th and October 4th, fans were able to play a closed beta of Rainbow Six: Siege and give feedback to developer and publisher Ubisoft. The version of the closed beta I got to play was on the Xbox One.

It's important to remember this was only the beta and most of everything shown is subject to change, but how much will exactly change by release has yet to be seen. With that being said, there's an issue with the graphics right off the bat.

Upon booting up the game and getting into a match it's clear that there was pretty noticeable graphical downgrade from the E3 footage. The graphics in the Siege beta weren't bad by any means, but it's still rather unfortunate that they weren't nowhere near as pretty as early footage from E3. Siege runs at 1080p on PS4 and 900p on Xbox One.

In my time with the beta, I never ran into any issues with the graphics and the frame rate remained consistent, for the most part. The graphics were passable but, like I said before, they aren't anything that will blow you away.

Without the support of dedicated servers, the beta for Siege suffers from frequent lag and difficulties joining games. I encountered more error messages and (what felt like) near infinite loading screens than actual game time. This is a serious issue that needs to be fixed by launch.

The gameplay in Siege is where I believe most people will have split opinions on. Hardened Rainbow Six fans that have been following the franchise for a while will probably the miss the more tactical team-based gameplay of previous entries, whereas, newcomers and fans open to innovation will probably be happier with Siege's faster paced action oriented gameplay.

The two multiplayer modes offered in the beta (other than Terrorist hunt) are both Offensive and Defensive modes that are essentially take over a bomb planted by the Defense. It was actually pretty fun playing on defense and barricading the area of the bomb in an effort to keep the Offensive team out.

The problem with this though is that, in most of my game time, players did not care about the bomb and simply only wanted to kill the entire enemy team before they were killed. This especially went with people who didn't use mics.

No matter the player you might be, it is absolutely essential to play with friends that have mics or random people with mics. There is no other way of communication and it's almost a death sentence to play without mics, at least for the offensive team. Defense doesn't necessarily need mics, but it's better with them.

There were actually only 2 times where my team and I distracted the enemy team, stealthily made our way to the bomb, and defused it. I would complain more about the lack of stealth and players wanting to kill everyone rather than going for the objective, but that may be more of a gameplay style for Ghost Recon.

The classes (or in this case, "Operators") were seriously disappointing. In previous Rainbow Six games you could customize your character's individual armor pieces and clothing, but in Siege you don't get to do any of that.

Instead, you choose your Operator (after unlocking them with points), choose which gun you are most likely to use the most (you can change it any time in the menus), and then you get to customize that; that's it. The reasoning behind the absence of character customization is beyond me, but it's still severely disappointing nonetheless.

The variety of guns is about standard in what you'll find in most shooters. You have assault rifles, sub machine guns, shotguns, and handguns. Nothing really stood out to me, besides the shields. The shields can either be your best friend or worst nightmare.

Only a few classes on the Offensive team can use a shield, but all that team needs is one player in a shield class to tip the odds unfairly in their favor. The only way to kill a player using a shield is to shoot them from the side or the back. This makes it easy for them to rush into a room and kill everyone with their handgun and their teammates following behind.

Many walls, windows, floors, and ceilings in the environment are destructible. Creating your own door ways and flanking the enemy is a welcome addition to Rainbow Six; just don't expect the same destructibility of the Battlefield series.

The unique cover system that was found in Rainbow Six Vegas 2 is gone, and now has simplified it to a lean feature. While aiming down the sights, players can click in either left or right stick and lean left or right. It was an interesting feature, but I rarely found myself using it.

As a long time Rainbow Six fan, I have to say that I'm intrigued to see Siege in action at launch. Nothing in the beta really worried me about the overall quality of the game, but there were features in the beta that saddened me by being absent.

If Ubisoft listens to players and fixes the aforementioned problems with Siege, then Siege will have the capability to rival the current FPS giants that have, arguably saturated the market. I wish Ubisoft a good luck in the endeavors.

Stay tuned with us here at novoGamer for future Rainbow Six news.

But, is this game, with no campaign and only one game mode, online multiplayer, worth allocating a part of your gaming budget?

Unequivocally, yes.

Yes you should buy this game, regardless of what you own, Xbox 1, PlayStation 4, PC, Genesis, whatever. Concerns over being a poorly ported game are unfounded, the controls are friendly to both controller and k/m (unlike Team Fortress 2, have you ever tried using a controller in the game? Spy is no longer a viable option).

Overwatch answers the age old question of who is better, a skilled archer, or a skilled sniper in ever single game. Overwatch appeals to the FPS gamers, the Sci-Fi lovers, those who love to beat down people with fisticuffs, the ranged lovers, tanks are actually tanky instead of easily exploited like in games past. With a decent amount of playable characters, Overwatch has pulled off what many have thought to be a lost art, a character line up with each one being unique in their play style and abilities.

The quick games and loot boxes awarded upon every level add to the 'one more game' addiction that already plagues the majority of gamers and helps gamers quickly forget poor results as most games take less than 10 minutes but seem surprisingly longer in-game.

Blizzard has been doing everything right so far, listening to fans and dealing with detractors correctly, i.e, Tracer pose. Game director Jeff Kaphlan even announced that all new heroes and maps will NOT incur an additional charge. "We just know that when we patch a new hero into the game, we want it to be free and not as DLC."

Well done Blizzard. Stay true to the game, the gamer base and continue to do what's best for Overwatch.

GG Yes Re

Game Director Jeff Kaplan replied to a post on the Overwatch Battle Net forums about highlights and had this to say: "The game will temporarily archive 5 highlights from your last play session. Playing only one game will only result in one highlight. Highlights are not currently saved if you close the game and come back. Our hope (and what we're working toward) is to allow players to save highlights or export them to a video format someday."

And this one on D.Va : "Yes she gets taken down quickly if she is fighting multiple targets, unlike Winston/Reinhardt because of their barriers. When I say she is difficult to kill its speaking from a smaller skirmish standpoint, which she can usually set up due to her Flight ability. There was a time, when she was first implemented, where she had more damage than she does now. The way that played out is that she would fly into someone's face, destroy them, and fly away. There was little that person could do because her mobility. As I said I think she can use some help in other areas, but I don't have anything concrete yet. The goal is that she should be a viable aggressive initiation tank, much like Winston can be right now, rather than some sort of beefy flying assassin. So any changes will likely be helping her in that direction."

Principal Designer Geoff Goodman replied to a post as well asking McCree to nerfed : "I've been watching McCree carefully since we've released. McCree's flashbang plays an important role in being a strong option against very fast/agile teams (tracers/genjis/etc)....That said, its probably a bit too good at dealing damage to higher health targets such as Tanks and barriers. I don't have any concrete changes yet, but I'm going to be testing some things internally to see how he plays....Right. I think I wasn't clear enough. By saying 'its probably a bit too good at dealing damage to higher health targets' I mean his flash/fan combo, not the flash itself. Fan is more likely to see changes than flash at this point."

All of these were from yesterday, May 31st. Overwatch's Principal Designer and the Game Director himself are already working with gamers to make their experience better. All at no extra cost to the consumer. What really makes my controller vibrate though, is this sentence from Mr. Goodman right here: "I've been watching McCree carefully since we've released."

Now I've never been a part of a game development team but since when has a Principal Designer ever only focused on one character? Which means you can reasonably assume that he has been closely monitoring all 21 heroes. What else are they thinking about updating and patching?

Blizzard is saying all the right things, hopefully we will see their ideas blossom with Overwatch for years to come.

Which hero do you think should get the nerf hammer?

Where do I begin? Lawbreakers is an arena shooter that really brings downright fun to the table. It is slightly reminiscent of old school shooters of its genre like Quake or Unreal Tournament, with a modern shooter twist to it. Lawbreakers can be summed up in a couple of words: dazzling, but lacks a bit of luster (hopefully these things will be fixed by the time of the full release). But where does it fail? Where does it succeed? Well first off, Lawbreakers fails at a couple of things that I noticed right away.

CONS:

For one, the classes seem to be really unbalanced as of now. I started off playing as the assassin and being completely new started cleaning house without even knowing how to effectively use my specials. The reason being is that the two daggers you have seem to have a ton more reach then they should. All the other classes are okay and have problems but they work to how you would expect.

Another is the game mode they offered for the often beta, which was great except for one detail. For all of you that don't know, this game mode is charging a battery that both teams need to fight over and who ever charges this battery first will win. This is where the problem lies. In this game mode the battery cannot lose charge. So say red team has the battery charged at 98%, but the blue team comes in with three of the Titans, come busting down your door and all activate their special and shock the shit out of everyone, steal the battery bring it back to their base and by the time everyone has spawned they've already won. Might seem unlikely but it happens!

PROS:

Now for the positives! One thing I would like to say is to say how thankful I am to Boss Key Productions for really working with the Alpha community and listening to the problems we have had and actually fixing them to our satisfaction. Sure there is a ton more that still really needs to be fixed, but just seeing the forum and seeing them to respond to almost every single one of the pleas is fucking amazing. You guys should really pat yourselves on the back.

Another thing, the game's atmosphere is goddamn gorgeous. The visuals are amazing, everything is animated very well, you name it and it looks great! The only thing I would say that is wrong with the visuals is the more photo-realistic art direction than one more cartoon-like which would have made the game a lot more timeless. It would have fit the game a lot more in my personal opinion.

The game-play is great. Shooting at your foes, finding a way to sling behind them with your grappling hook and go for the kill is so much fun. I have to admit here that over time I really start getting angry with PvP games. This one however really didn't do that. I was very shocked at myself that I wasn't getting mad at the game; everything really seemed like it was all out of good fun! Honestly I really like that about this game because when you die, you can only really blame yourself for what happened because there are so many ways to avoid death. There are heath stations on the map where you can stand in and get healed to get back into the fight. There are also so many different ways to escape combat that you know you cannot handle alone. Zero-G is where the game gets fucking crazy now. There are these anti-gravity zones that seem to randomly appear through out the arena and really change up the way combat works. Almost all the classes have one special dedicated to how you move. This really comes into play as you are drifting about in zero-g, you really have to rely on that to keep you moving and dance your way around your foes before you run out of juice. When the cool-down starts you feel hopeless. Just trying to defend yourself in any way you can 'til you can get the hell out of there.

Verdict:

Overall, while I enjoyed my experience with the alpha, there are a lot of minor adjustments that do NEED to be fixed. I would really recommend this game to be tried as of now. Boss Key said there will be more Alpha tests down the road! So while you can, I would try to squeeze your way into that Alpha before it's to late! Expect a better review when it's released!

Military shooters are no stranger to World War II, Vietnam, modern day terrorist insurgency, and even the far off future, but what about World War I? Well Verdun has come to consoles to show that you don't need gimmicky gadgets and killstreaks to make a great shooter, but will the transition from PC to console affect the quality of the game?

Being that Verdun is multiplayer only, you would think that there is no story. That isn't necessarily true. The story of Verdun is WWI itself. Now that may sound like a cop out for writing an actual story, and it is and it isn't. During loading screens, there will be a short paragraph either stating little known facts about WWI or quickly summarizing the battle that was fought in real life on each map you are loading into.

Although I am already fairly well versed in the history of the first world war, I still found these loading screens to be incredibly interesting and overall helped bring the maps to life. If you aren't too familiar with the actual history of WWI, then Verdun is a great starting point to get you interested as well as being nearly 100% accurate. Who would have thought that a gritty first person shooter could be considered an educational game?

A game touting itself with a realistic setting and story needs equally realistic gameplay. Thankfully, Verdun delivers precisely that. In an industry where firearms have the penetration power of an airsoft gun on Viagra, it's so refreshing to play a first person shooter where guns behave how they're supposed to. Your enemies will go down in only one or two shots depending on the gun, and so will you. The amount of recoil each weapon gives off seems to be accurate to their real life counterparts, and they just seem like they have a certain weight to them while moving around.

You will have 3 game modes to choose from: Attrition, Rifle Deathmatch, and Squad Defense. Attrition is similar to team deathmatch in that whichever team gets the most kills wins, but in Verdun, each team has a set amount of "tickets." Whenever a player is killed, a ticket is deducted. The team with tickets remaining wins. Rifle Deathmatch is the standard free for all where there are no teams and everyone must kill everyone. Squad Defense is similar to any horde mode in other games. You and 3 other players must defend various positions on a map from waves of the enemy AI. This is the only mode that can be played solo. Attrition quickly became my favorite since it's the closest to an actual battle in WW1. Squad Defense was my least favorite due to the enemy artificial intelligence lacking any intelligence.

It may not seem like it, but Verdun is actually a tactics based game. Each team and subsequent squad have to work together to win. The team that has players running around trying to shoot everything that moves is very noticeable and will quickly lose to a well coordinated team. Your best option would be to use a headset as the leader of a squad to issue orders to other players, but you can also issue orders in game. Not everyone listens though, so you could be the only one working hard for victory whilst everyone else on your squad is running around looking for enemies.

Picking your squad, class, and weapons can be a bit of a pain. To do so, you must first pick which squad you want to join, choose which squadmate you want to play as, choose your weapon for said squadmate, then you can play. Problems arise when you want to play as a certain squad member or use a certain weapon, and another player is already using them. You can ask them in game if you can play as that character, but you will more than likely be ignored. It's not a horrible system, but perhaps being original isn't the best option in this sense. Creating a loadout for whichever team you're on has proven to be tried and true.

Artillery and phosgene gas mix things up in the heat of battle. As soon as you either hear or see the tell tale signs of artillery coming down, it's time to run, usually into the longing arms of your enemy. Same goes for running into phosgene gas, but you has a gas mask to help in that situation. The only drawback is that the mask significantly obstructs your view. I'd say that's better than destroying your lungs and dying painfully though. The frame rate does suffer a bit due to both of these. Whenever artillery rains down or you find yourself in a yellow cloud, there will be noticeable dips. Nothing too severe, but something worth noting and looking out for.

Verdun actually looks fantastic for an indie game. Weapons, clothing, and items look incredibly realistic, the firearms especially. The amount of "little details" is a work of beauty as well. Whenever you reload, you can actually see your character press the magazine release, watch the magazine release slide into the gun, and pull the magazine out. I've never seen that level of detail in a first person shooter before. I was actually so impressed that I had to constantly reload to take the best possible screenshot. See for yourself. Being able to turn off the HUD entirely to either take screenshots or to add to the realism is a welcome touch that more developers should consider implementing.

Sadly, environments don't get the same level of detail though. Dirt, grass, and foliage look alright, nothing special, but you can't inflict any damage to them. And I'm not talking about there not being destructible environments, which there aren't. I'm talking about just cosmetic details. Shooting anything in the environment won't yield a little cosmetic bullet hole. It may only be me, but that's something that really stuck out to me in an otherwise gorgeous game. An exception also comes in the form of the fire effects for the flame thrower. The fire looks so bad that it actually affects gameplay because it's often too hard to tell where your flames are going and how close you need to be to your enemies. Explosion, screen, smoke, and gas effects all look great as well. The blemishes the graphics have aren't enough to poison the well though. Verdun can be just pure eye candy at times.

Now just how authentic is this realistic WWI first person shooter? In a word: very. All weapons and armors are all period accurate and associate with the right military and nationality.

You won't find an American soldier with a German weapon here. Each nationality speaks the correct language and you can even shout orders to your teammates in that language.

Every map is based off a real battle fought in The Great War. The trenches give off claustrophobic feelings that triggers a sense of paranoia that an enemy could be right behind you at any moment. Given how authentic Verdun is, there is no flashy over the top action. Almost every battle will be in a trench whilst attacking or defending a part of the map. This will no doubt be a turnoff to those looking for cheap thrills, but those of you that can take the time to appreciate the authenticity of Verdun are in for a great and original time.

Verdun was already a fantastic game on PC, so it's a pleasure to see it translated near perfectly to consoles. Verdun doesn't need lensflare, dubstep, or cartoonishly over the top action to be a great game set in World War I. As cliche as it sounds, Verdun has a heart and soul that will be nearly impossible to recreate by another game. Simply put, Verdun is well worth your time.