Today marks the opening round of the Formula E 2018/19 championship, and with 91 days until lights out in Melbourne for the F1, I’m hoping it scratches my itch for motor racing.
I’m not totally sold on ‘Attack Mode’ and a few of the other gimmicks, but it’s nice to see the FIA exploring new ways of creating exciting racing. What are your thoughts on it, and who will you be supporting this year?
In the News This Week
- The Final Christmas Weekend Sale Is Now On The PlayStation Store
- Epic Games Launch A PC Games Store, As Steam Lowers Fees For Top Earners
- Epic To Offer Their Cross-Platform Infrastructure To Other Devs
- Steam Release Of Games Cancelled Or Delayed In Favour Of The Epic Games Store
- Stardew Valley’s Multiplayer Update Is Out Now For Switch
- The Release Date For Metro Exodus Has Been Moved Forward
- Monster Hunter World: Iceborne Expansion Coming Autumn 2019
- The Walking Dead: Final Season’s Third Episode Will Release In January
- Judge Eyes Will Be Heading West With Name Judgement In Summer 2019
- Street Fighter V Now Has In Game Adverts
- PS4 Firmware 6.20 Is Strong And Stable
Sunday Streaming Hour
Tomorrow’s Sunday Streaming Hour will be Realm Royale, join Tuffcub at 5pm GMT tomorrow for what’s described as “Fortnite meets Overwatch.”
Games in Review
Here’s what was reviewed this week, are any off them worthy Christmas presents?
- Earth Defense Force 5 – PS4 – 8/10
- Screencheat: Unplugged – Switch – 8/10
- GRIS – Switch, PC – 8/10
- Neverout – PS4, (PSVR), PC, (Oculus Rift, HTC Vive), Nintendo Switch, Pico – 7/10
- 8-Bit Armies – PS4, XBO, PC – 6/10
- Iris.Fall – PC – 6/10
- Gungrave VR – PSVR – 4/10
- PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds – PS4 – No Score
- The Last Remnant – PS4 – No Score
- The Council Episode Five: Checkmate – PS4, XBO, PC – No Score
- Thrustmaster T.Flight US Air Force Headset – Hardware – No Score
Reviewed platform in bold.
This Week’s Features
A lot of our ‘end of year’ features kicked off this week as we looked back over 2018, and also turned our attention to what we can look forward to in 2019. Let’s round up what we’ve covered so far:
Game of the Year 2018 Categories:
- Best Remake/Remaster – Yakuza Kiwami 2
- Best Original Soundtrack – Persona 3: Dancing Moon Night
- Best Visual Design – Tetris Effect
Ones to Watch 2018:
From the regular previews, Stefan took a look at Battlefield V’s The Last Tiger War Story, which takes place from the perspective of the German side of the war and see’s you taking control of a Tiger Tank. He also gave us a peak at the tactical shooter Insurgency: Sandstorm in his road to review, which as I found out during the Open Beta, can be a difficult but rewarding game with friends.
Elsewhere, he had a look at the surprise release of Shattered State. This is a VR thriller from Supermassive Games, the makers of Until Dawn, but it’s exclusive to Google Daydream VR.
Last up, What We Played featured Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, GRIS and AC Odyssey.
Trailer Park
A Trailer For The Kingdom Hearts 3 Opening Movie Has Appeared
Check Out This Bonkers Action Packed Trailer For Devil May Cry 5
Find A Way To Survive In The Latest Left Alive Trailer
Borderlands 2 VR Gets A Non-VR Launch Trailer To Celebrate Its Release
Your Achievements
Time to check out what TSA’ers have been playing this week!
- MrYd played plenty of ‘Horsey Horsey Bang Bang’ a.k.a RDR2, as well as finishing off Far Cry 5, Onrush and Bulletstorm.
- Andrewww is still trying his hardest to finish off the story in GTA V, but keeps getting distracted by the wonderful world of San Andreas.
- Also on GTA V is blast71, who’s aiming to hit lvl 100 this weekend!
- Another one hitting impressive milestones is aerobes, who hit lvl 50 in Rainbow Six Siege!
- ron_mcphatty can’t stop thinking about his horse, Rico, in RDR2
- And lastly JR. finished AC Odyssey and got the platinum in the process, congrats!
If you want to be included in this section, make sure to comment on What We Played of a Friday evening.
The Week Ahead
There’s not a lot of action this week unsurprisingly!
- Firewatch – Switch – 17/12
- Nippon Marathon – PS4, XBO, Switch, PC – 17/12
- Warhammer: Vermintide 2 – PS4 – 18/12
- Dragon Quest Builders 2 – PS4, Switch – 20/12
Enjoy the weekend and we’ll catch you next time!
JR.
Just started playing Just Cause 4 and it looks like an early PS3 game. Absolutely terrible. I think even Just Cause 3 looks better. This is on the Pro too, god knows how bad it looks on the standard PS4. I think this might actually be the worst looking game I’ve played this gen. How does that even happen this far into a generation?
JR.
Reading comments online and it seems the general consensus is that the game is a fugly, bug-ridden mess. So disappointing. I take back everything bad I said about AC Odyssey. That game was a masterpiece next to this.
MrYd
Does it run at a decent frame rate though? It seems like they realised that JC3 was an unplayable mess and added dynamic resolution stuff to at least try and make it playable. But a 720p resolution these days just isn’t acceptable.
How did they screw up 2 games in a row?? How did they even make a new one when the last one was such a broken mess? Oh, wait. It got decent enough reviews that seemed to overlook the fact that it was unplayable.
JR.
I don’t recall any major issues with JC3 other than it not being as entertaining as JC2. JC3 looked great and played well (for me at least). JC4 looks absolutely dreadful. It’s difficult to tell if the frame rate is better or not because the graphics are so distractingly bad. A mess of jagged edges and blurriness. Draw distances are the poorest I’ve seen in years. It’s as if a dense fog descended upon the map. Pop in is awful – seeing a blurry forest appear beneath you as you fly above in a chopper. The water effects are PS2 quality. I honestly don’t don’t how this game was passed in the state it’s currently in. But none of the major gaming sites are even talking about it.