It makes a lot of sense that Star Wars Zero Company is the result of a collaboration between developers of XCOM 2 (now at Bitreactor) and Star Wars Jedi: Survivor (at Respawn). Those two excellent games couldn't be much more different from each other, but their strengths come together here to create a great-looking, clever tactics game that also tells one of the better Star Wars stories we've seen since Rogue One. Excellent characters, writing, music, and cinematic flair give context and weight to a campaign that centers around a diverse group of mercenaries, with Force powers and lightsabers refreshingly taking a back seat to blasters and thermal detonators. And while its turn-based gameplay is instantly familiar to XCOM veterans like me, its more aggressive playstyle and flexible characters make it far more than a simple Star Wars reskin.
(Image credit: Respawn Entertainment (left) / Future (right))
Apex Legends seems to be having trouble working with the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT right now. As relayed by the Apex Legends account ApexCommunityJP on X (machine translated), "We have confirmed an issue causing crashes for players using the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT GPU, and we are currently investigating the cause."
My earliest video game memories are tied to the Blue Bomber. Barely four years old and playing through Mega Man 2 and 3 on the NES, I somehow made my way through their challenging levels. I won’t say that at that age I could comprehend the precision engineering behind their action-platforming, but I always knew there was something about those games that just felt fantastic. Fast forward 30 years, and I found myself sitting in Capcom’s offices feeling the same sensation. Mega Man: Dual Override understands that it's part of a series built firmly on its tight gameplay foundations, and from my brief time going hands-on with it, it’s looking like a worthy return for Dr Light’s most loyal creation.
Ridley Scott's The Dog Stars is a post-apocalyptic odyssey like no other
Image: 20th Century Studios
Hig pilots his small, vintage plane up into the Colorado mountains, cuts the engine, and glides. Surrounded by endless sky and soft green forest, there’s a look of uneasy peace on the young man’s face. Serenity, grief, and a glimmer of a death wish swirl together against the canvas of Jacob Elordi’s perpetual 5 o'clock shadow as he soars silently through the air, waiting until the last possible minute to restart the engine and fly back home.
Humankind 2 was announced today at Gamescom's Opening Night Live showcase, and I have to admit that I was among those who raised an eyebrow at the announcement trailer and wondered: Is this AI generated? A number of commenters speculated that it was.
Mark Rosewater wishes that Magic had always been different in one fundamental way
Image: Wizards of the Coast
At a glance, the core mechanics of Magic: The Gathering are fairly simple. You can play one land per turn, generating the magical energy called mana that you need to summon creatures. Attack your opponents with those creatures, reduce their life totals to zero, and you win. Instants and sorceries represent magic cast in the moment, while other cards remain on the battlefield as “permanents.” But once you examine how Magic classifies those permanents — and why artifacts and enchantments are considered fundamentally different things — it all becomes much more convoluted.
1998 was a vintage year for PC gaming: Half-Life, Unreal, StarCraft, Thief and Baldur's Gate all released in lavish oversize retail boxes, and it was just as busy in console land: Ocarina of Time and Banjo-Kazooie released on Nintendo 64, while the original PlayStation enjoyed Metal Gear Solid and Resident Evil 2.
Image: 20th Century Studios
Image: Everett Collection
Image: Wizards of the Coast
