Something For The Weekend – 28/01/17

January seems to have flown by, hasn’t it? And yet at the same time, so much as happened over the past few weeks that Christmas feels like it was months ago. 

Anyway, you’re here to have a look back over the past seven days on TSA, so let’s get started!

In the News This Week

• Dirt 4 Announced For Release On 9th June
  The successor to DiRT Rally will be more akin to DiRT 2 and 3, which has definitely got fans excited!
• Square Enix And Marvel Form Multi-Game Partnership, Starting With The Avengers
• Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown Is No Longer A PlayStation Exclusive
  “Glad to see Namco Bandai is offering them up to a wider audience” says Jim.
• Jessica Curry To Host New Video Game Music Show On Classic FM
  You may know her as the composer of the soundtracks for Dear Esther and Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture, and you can tune in on Saturday 22nd April at 9PM!
• Here’s How Windows 10 Game Mode Will Work
  Windows 10 will be able to better prioritise your game over background apps, meaning improved frame rates, along with a few other handy features.
• There’s Now An Official Stand For Your PlayStation VR
• Death Stranding Will Be “Totally Different”
  “It’s something they haven’t played before; we want to give them something totally different.”
• Overwatch Marks Its 25 Millionth Player
  Tony Cawley is pleased, saying “Outstanding achievement, well done to Blizzard. The fact that they’re still supporting the game with regular events, new skins etc is remarkable, all free. Lessons to be learned for other developers maybe?”
• February’s Games With Gold Include Project CARS And Monkey Island
  “Great line up, PCars is brilliant” says Avenger.

Games in Review

It might be January, but there were some pretty big games reviewed this week. Resident Evil 7 is the biggest game of the year so far, but there’s plenty for fans of Japanese games to enjoy at the moment.

• Resident Evil 7: Biohazard– PS4, XBO, PC, PSVR, – 8/10
• Tales of Berseria – PS4, PC – 8/10
• Fruit Ninja VR – PSVR, VIVE, Rift – 7/10
• Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue – PS4 – 7/10
• Blackmagic Intensity Pro 4K –Hardware – No Score
  
  

This Week’s Features

The most exciting and surprising news of the week was the announcement of DiRT 4, which will arrive later in June. Tef went hands on with the game, and wrote about how Codemasters are back on track (if you’ll pardon the pun). He also spoke to Chief Game Designer Paul Coleman about car fetishes and the game, obviously.

From the previews, Tef also found the time to play Torment: Tides of Numenera. Described as the thematic successor to Planescape: Torment, this isometric, narrative-led RPG looks different to anything else we’ve seen in recent years. You can also take a look at his video preview, or perhaps you’d rather read Dom’s take on why Halo Wars 2’s Blitz Mode is breathing new life into the RTS genre?

We’ve looked at Playstation and Microsoft previously, and now it’s Nintendo’s turn to be under the microscope as we examine what the company needs to do to succeed in 2017. To be honest, it looks like they already know what they need to do, and ARMS demonstrates just that – it looks great fun!

Elsewhere, Jim provided us with a Resident Evil 7 Boss Guide (spoiler alert, obviously!) as Stefan chatted with Ragnar Svensson, Lead Engine Developer at King about how giving away the Defold Engine for free is helping 2D indie developers everywhere create their games.

Finally, What We Played this week featured Overwatch, Nioh and Kingdom Hearts.

Trailer Park

A New Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm 4: Road to Boruto Trailer Is Here

The Surge Gets A New Cinematic Trailer

Check Out Two New Mass Effect Andromeda Story Trailers

Your Achievements

Kicking off the achievements, Eldave0 completed  Letter Quest, while Crazy_Del has completed Resident Evil 7 VR 5 times now! It seems lots of you have been busy with Resi 5 too, with Pixel_nme, and JR. also getting stuck in.

Lastly, DividSmythe platinum’ed Orc Slayer, The Little Acre and Nuke Dukem 30th Anniversary Edition all in one week!

The Week Ahead

It’s a pretty quiet week ahead of us, but I’m sure we’ve all got plenty of games in our backlog to be getting through!

• Disgaea 2 – PC – 30/01
• Hitman: The Complete First Season (Physical Release) -PS4, XBO, PC – 31/01
• Dynasty Warriors: Godseekers – PS4, Vita – 01/02

That’s all for this week. Enjoy your weekend and I’ll be back again soon!