A new name has been cast in the 2018 Tomb Raider movie reboot starring Alicia Vikander as Lara Croft. Hannah John-Kamen has been cast as Lara’s best friend.
Deadline reports that Hannah John-Kamen is also starring in Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One. She has actually been a voice actress for the first two Dark Souls video games and has appeared in Game of Thrones and even Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
Not a lot has been said about her character in the new Tomb Raider movie. She just serves as a friend and flatmate to Lara Croft in the reboot.
The new film will be released on March 16, 2018. It is loosely based on the 2013 video game as it focuses on a younger Lara Croft. You can be sure that the movie will have some action and lots of beautiful scenery like in the video games.
Every time you take a Dragon down in Skyrim, it always drops the loot of a Dragon Scale and a Dragon Bone. Now, you wonder what’s the use of it?
If you seek to craft an almighty armor set for your character, then crafting an entire Dragonplate or Dragonscale armor will do the job. If you’ve been taking a lot of dragons recently in Skyrim, you should probably have a lot of Dragon Scales and Bones right now. If so, then you’re ready for the final step of crafting that Dragonplate armor.
Below are the key ingredients needed for making that Dragonplate Armor set.
Dragonplate Ingredients
Dragonplate Armor
Ingredients: 3 Leather Strips, 3 Dragon Scales, 2 Dragon Bone
Dragonplate Boots
Ingredients: 2 Leather Strips, 3 Dragon Scales, 1 Dragon Bone
Dragonplate Gaunlets
Ingredients: 2 Leather Strips, 2 Dragon Scales, 1 Dragon Bone
Dragonplate Helmet
Ingredients: 2 Leather Strips, 2 Dragon Scales, 1 Dragon Bone
Dragonplate Shield
Ingredients: 1 Leather Strip, 3 Dragon Scales, 1 Dragon Bone
Ubisoft is pleased to announce today that Ghost Recon Wildlands will introduce a free Ghost Recon Future Soldier – themed special mission featuring iconic characters Scott Mitchell and John Kozak as part of Special Operations 3.
In the third major update for the game’s year 2 content, players will be able to team up with Mitchell and Kozaka for this free two-part special crossover starting today, December 11, across all platorms.
Here’s an overview of the new content:
Exclusive Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon® Future Soldier–themed content will be introduced to the Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon® Wildlands main campaign and PvP mode, including two new Future Soldier–inspired Ghost War PvP classes and a PvE mission, Operation Silent Spade. In Operation Silent Spade, Ghost Leader Scott Mitchell calls on Nomad and his team to help rookie John Kozak investigate a plot that links the Santa Blanca Cartel to a nuclear threat. The special challenge is playable solo or with up to four players in co-op.
Upon completing Operation Silent Spade, players will be rewarded with the Optical Camo Backpack, perfect for a stealth approach. In addition to the rewards for completing the challenge, players can further customize and arm their Ghosts with the Silent Spade Pack, which include a weapon and new customization items.
Special Operation 3 will also bring two new Ghost War PvP classes, Vanguard and Sharpshooter, inspired by Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon® Future Soldier characters. Vanguard uses sensor grenades to uncover and highlight hidden enemies in the area of effect to his team, while Sharpshooter charges his shots by using his Long Range Specialist ability, which at a full charge enables him to negate the effects of sway and bullet drop. In addition to two new classes, this update will also contain two new PvP maps, Lithium Mine and Outskirts.
Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon® Wildlands Year 2 Pass offers seven-day early access to the two new Ghost War classes starting December 11, along with one exclusive customization pack. Non-owners of the Year 2 Pass will be able to access the new Ghost War classes starting December 18.
PC players wanting to share the experience with friends can gain Battle Crate rewards including Spec Ops and Ghost War Crates, via the PC Referral Program from December 11 – February 11, 2019. Invited friends who purchase the game will also receive Battle Crate rewards, including one Ghost War Crate and One Spec Ops Crate. The more friends players invite, the more rewards they will receive.
Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands Year 2 will continue to expand the Ghost Recon universe with free major Special Operation updates, each featuring a unique theme, updates to the PvE campaign with free special content and special challenges with exclusive rewards, community-requested features and updates for the Ghost War 4v4 PvP experience. The development team is committed to supporting the game with free new content and improvements to the core experience.
Check out the trailer below:
Ghost Recon: Wildlands is available now for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.
One thing that stands out about Nippon Ichi Software titles is they’re always more than meets the eye. Disgaea routinely took seemingly silly plots and made them, if nothing else, interesting. Similar things happen with The Witch and the Hundred Knight series. They start as fairly silly experiences that lead to a much deeper experience. Labyrinth of Refrain: Coven of Dusk has all the makings of a great Nippon Ichi Software title. Cute art, quirky characters, familiar mechanics and so much more. However, will they continue to find success or do they need a new approach?
Labyrinth of Refrain: Coven of Dusk tells a seemingly simple story. Refrains acting governor wants to explore the mysterious labyrinth and calls in the infamous witch Baba Yaga to do it. Armed with the Tactatus de Monstrum, a legendary book written by the only person to ever make it out of the labyrinth alive, and a variety of puppets, Baba Yaga hopes to uncover what secrets the labyrinth holds and come out ahead. Even if there isn’t much on the surface, it quickly becomes a more complicated adventure, complete with dark twists and unexpected turns.
Beyond the overarching story, character beats and relationships should be familiar to fans of Nippon Ichi Software’s other titles. Baba Yaga, otherwise known as Dronya, manages to be the ever lovable quirky main. She is full of herself, flirtatious, dislikes children, despite her foil and sidekick being a child, and at times, quite charming. Her assistant Luca is a young child filled with optimism, cute mannerism and ever so easy to tease. They make for a cute pair and help drive the story during the slow bits, as does exploration.
The labyrinth acts as a fairly familiar dungeon system. Players start by creating puppets to do their bidding. Knights are good at damage, Fortress units are tanks, Maze does magic and the other classes fulfill other specific roles. Players can then alter their gender, appearance (at least skin tone/color), affinity (how well they work with a given item), bonus skill (innate bonus ability) and more. It offers just enough to make it feel good, without it being too complicated for the casual observer. From there these characters are placed in a group, followed by formation and these will be your fighters.
Upon entering the labyrinth players will find it plays like your average dungeon crawler. Everything is in first person, maps need to be explored, some paths exist for shortcuts and plenty of treasure to find. What stands out in Labyrinth of Refrain: Coven of Dusk is a hostile indicator. By playing it just right players can avoid battles, though it will hurt you in the long run, or ignore it and face as many foes as you happen to run across.
Battles are pretty straightforward. Whatever foe you’ve come across will appear on the screen and you need to overcome it. This can be done through magic, attacking in a specific order, figuring out its weakness and more. If you have enough power and/or items and don’t mind monitoring health, a lot of battles can be done on auto pilot. This will make it harder to capitalize on chain bonuses and other things, which give you additional power to overcome difficult challenges, though these are only so useful against sub-boss tier characters.
Defeating an enemy will give you experience and mana to further your team. These will increase stats, give new abilities and other things to aid your adventure. Mana can be used to pass petitions to alter the game, similar with the aforementioned Nippon Ichi Software titles. So if you want it easier, buy that and the game will be easier with progressing being harder. Likewise, you can increase the difficulty at the cost of things being easier to do. There are other things to pass, such as the ability to find more items, making it an important resource.
Said items can also be found, bought or obtained to boost a character’s stats. They’re important to monitor, as every little bit goes a long way. Especially since there are plenty of things players will be punished for doing.
Unlike most games, holding a certain amount of mana, losing and other things have stiff punishments. Not only do they make things harder, it adds a deeper level of tactical play. Now you have to do something or deal with the negative, with the most important thing being limbs. Puppets with a reduced number of limbs are less effective on the battlefield and will be a hindrance unless fixed or replaced. It makes for an interesting failure penalty, since it’s a more overt way to punish that taking cash or outright progress.
Verdict
Labyrinth of Refrain: Coven of Dusk isn’t perfect but it manages to stand out in its own way. With Baba Yaga/Dronya and Luca being a charming couple, it helps the story from dragging, ultimately leading down an interesting path. While gameplay isn’t perfect and at times very paint by numbers, it’s fun enough for this not to be a problem. So, if you’re a big fan of Nippon Ichi Software or enjoy dungeon crawlers, give Labyrinth of Refrain: Coven of Dusk a go.
[Editor’s Note: Labyrinth of Refrain: Coven of Dusk was reviewed on PS4 platform. The game was provided to us by the publisher for review purposes.]
A fear with any numbered release is the possibility of it containing information that requires the previous releases. Sometimes it’s a conceptual sequel, like Disgaea, Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest do, and other times they’re inner connected in different ways. Nippon Ichi Software certainly found some luck with Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure, leading to La Pucelle: Tactics and ultimately their runaway hit, Disgaea: Hour of Darkness. While all these series would eventually become connected in some way, many of them are stuck in the past, with the most notable being Makai Kingdom: Chronicles of the Sacred Tome where we learn about Overlord Zetta. Still, these characters keep returning without a great understanding of who they are or why anyone should care. This is unfortunate, which lead to Nippon Ichi Software making Prinny Presents NIS Classics Volume 1: Phantom Brave / Soul Nomad. This, ideally series, focuses more on bringing these forgotten titles forward but are they really worth revisiting?
While most players associate Nippon Ichi Software with Disgaea and things of the like, Phantom Brave is an extremely impactful tactical RPG. It was one of their first games to feature a more serious plot that has a more serious tone. Even though it doesn’t reach the same narrative heights of, say, Labyrinth of Refrain, it’s a powerful story all the same.
Phantom Brave begins with a group of heroes in a dire situation. With monsters coming at them from every direction, death seems assured. The scene ends with one of the heroes calling on their power for help, followed coldly by a time skip where you meet Marona and her protector Ash.
While that scene depicts Ash and Marona’s parents final moments, ultimately setting up Ash as her guardian, it plays out in a unique way. Instead of having Marona crushed by both her loss and being alienated for her unique ability to see and interact with phantoms, she is an energetic girl defined by her compassion for others. Most of the weight actually falls on Ash, who fears her naïve attitude will bring heartache and his ongoing efforts to protect her from the hateful nature of people. Both characters grow and evolve, leading to a climatic showdown at the end.
As for Soul Nomad, it’s much closer to what you’d expect from Disgaea. This adventure opens with a retelling of the worlds history. Essentially, there was peace, someone challenged that with these unstoppable creatures known as World Eaters. Various people elect to ally with the unstoppable force for fear of being crushed by them in the future. However, said force is defeated and the aforementioned World Eaters go to sleep.
A couple centuries later, the player character is given a sword for completing their training that contains Gig, the unstoppable force from the past. He attempts to take over your body, though unresolved problems make his attempt unsuccessful. Instead, you form an alliance with the arrogant Master of Death, ultimately working together to bring an end to the World Eaters.
Unlike other adventures, there is an alternate path that allows Gig to go on a rampage. This one allows different characters, has a cameo by Laharl and other neat things to explore.
Since both games are tactical RPGs, they play in a similar way, though their execution is completely different. In Phantom Brave, players are allowed to move over a 3D grid and attack foes within range. It allows for a more personalized experience, even if it plays out the same general way. Soul Nomad uses the standard grid, though implements the briefly popular side-by-side animation some older games feature. This means you’ll see both parties, focus will shift to one side and then the other. It can make things interesting, though it doesn’t change much in terms of execution.
Despite both games having untold hours of fun, grinding and a great look at how Laharl, Asagi, Baal and other more mainstay characters were in the past, it’s important to know Soul Nomad is a straight port.
Unlike Phantom Brave, which has seen multiple releases, enhancements and rereleases over the years, Soul Nomad is extremely dated. It’s still in 4:3, meaning you will see black bars on the sides and it’s missing a lot of refinement. It feels like a massive step back if played after Phantom Brave, due to it featuring later improvements and can simply be rough. It’s absolutely worth giving a try, but it is something to strongly consider.
For the money, Prinny Presents NIS Classics Volume 1: Phantom Brave / Soul Nomad is a great deal. Phantom Brave is one of their best tactical RPGs and Soul Nomad has enough to justify the experience. It’s a shame the latter is a port over a remake but the gameplay itself is still decent by today’s standards and including Phantom Brave makes it easier to overlook.
[Editor’s Note:Prinny Presents NIS Classics Volume 1: Phantom Brave / Soul Nomad was reviewed on Nintendo Switch and a copy was provided to us for review purposes.]
EA Sports has revealed the system requirements you need in order to play FIFA 17 on your PC.
The game utilizes the new game engine so players will need to beef up their computers in order to play it. You need at least 8GB of RAM and 50GB of hard drive space.
Minimum Specifications
OS: Windows 7/8.1/10 – 64-Bit
CPU: Intel Core i3-2100 @ 3.1GHz or AMD Phenom II X4 965 @ 3.4 GHz
RAM: 8GB
Hard Drive Space Required: 50.0 GB
Minimum Supported Video Cards: NVIDIA GTX 460 or AMD Radeon R7 260
DirectX: 11.0
Recommended Specifications
OS: Windows 7/8.1/10 – 64-Bit
CPU: Intel i5-3550K @ 3.40GHz or AMD FX 8150 @ 3.6GHz
RAM: 8GB
Hard Drive Space Required: 50.0 GB
Minimum Supported Video Cards: NVIDIA GTX 660 or AMD Radeon R9 270
DirectX: 11.0
FIFA 17 will be out on multiple platforms from September 27th.
Capcom has revealed at TGS 2018 a brand new trailer for the Resident Evil 2 Remake that will be out early next year. This new trailer gives us our first look at the remake’s version of the character of Ada Wong and other additional gameplay footage.
Capcom revealed more information about the new Resident Evil 2 Remake via a press release that was issued out today. You can read the details posted below.
“Today at Tokyo Game Show, Capcom unveiled a new trailer for its hotly anticipated game Resident Evil 2, which offers gamers a completely fresh take on the classic survival horror masterpiece. Delve deeper into the gripping events taking over Raccoon City, and follow the journey of rookie police officer Leon S. Kennedy and college student Claire Redfield as they begin to uncover what’s behind the terrifying zombie outbreak. As both Leon and Claire embark on their own campaigns independently, their collective experiences piece together a comprehensive story uncovering the malicious motives behind the nightmare engulfing the city, the truth behind the nefarious Umbrella Corporation, and the Birkin family’s role in the tragedy. The trailer also introduces some of the evil foes and potential allies that players can expect to encounter including the iconic series femme fatale Ada Wong, mysterious Annette Birkin and Chief Officer Brian Irons.”
Resident Evil 2 Remake will be released worldwide on January 25th, 2019 for the PC, PS4 and Xbox One. Another small synopsis for the game can be seen below along with the brand new trailer.
Twenty years later, the new Resident Evil 2 sees the nightmare return, now with unprecedented levels of immersion as seen in last year’s acclaimed Resident Evil® 7 biohazard. With Capcom’s proprietary RE Engine powering a new photorealistic style, the characters themselves appear sharper than ever and the grotesque hordes of zombies are brought to life with a horrifyingly realistic wet gore effect. Zombies now react in real time as they take instant visible damage, making every bullet from the player count. Stunning lighting brings the familiar rooms and corridors of Raccoon City Police Department to new life. Players will feel they’re in the shoes of heroes Leon and Claire, terrified to step out of the light for fear of what flesh-eating nightmares might await them in the darkness.
As mentioned in another article on the site, it was announced today that the upcoming Nintendo release Pokemon X and Pokemon Y games will be available with a download code card that will be sold in stores in Japan, in addition to its cartridge and eShop release. This is not a huge surprise, as it has been done with many other Nintendo releases for both Wii U and the 3DS. However, the big news from this is that the download cards have unveiled how big these games will be. Both Pokemon X and Y will be 1.7 GB each, or about 14,000 blocks, a large increase from any previous games in the series.
According to a post on the gaming messageboard NeoGAF, the previous largest cartridge size for a Pokemon game was the 512 MB Pokemon Black and White 2. The game itself was likely even smaller than that, with that just being the basic cartridge size used for the game. Prior to that, Black and White were 256 MB, Platinum, Heart Gold, and Soul Silver were 128 MB, and Diamond and Pearl were 64 MB.
With the Pokemon series making the jump to 3D models and locations, there was an expected jump in size, but this was larger than I personally expected. We won’t know if it’s just the 3D models that have increased the size, or if there is more content than past Pokemon games. This will be answered when Pokemon X and Y are released worldwide, for the first time in the series history, on October 12 for the Nintendo 3DS.
Square Enix has revealed the full launch roster for Dissidia Final Fantasy NT on the PS4. There is a generous number of 28 fighters that will be included in the base game.
Many fan favorites are included in the launch roster that spans the franchise’s rich 30 year history. You can see the full list of fighters below.
Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy)
Garland (Final Fantasy)
Firion (Final Fantasy II)
The Emperor (Final Fantasy II)
Onion Knight (Final Fantasy III)
Cloud of Darkness (Final Fantasy III)
Cecil (Final Fantasy IV)
Kain (Final Fantasy IV)
Golbez (Final Fantasy IV)
Bartz (Final Fantasy V)
Exdeath (Final Fantasy V)
Terra (Final Fantasy VI)
Kefka (Final Fantasy VI)
Cloud (Final Fantasy VII)
Sephiroth (Final Fantasy VII)
Squall (Final Fantasy VIII)
Ultimecia (Final Fantasy VIII)
Zidane (Final Fantasy IX)
Kuja (Final Fantasy IX)
Tidus (Final Fantasy X)
Jecht (Final Fantasy X)
Shantotto (Final Fantasy XI)
Vaan (Final Fantasy XII)
Lightning (Final Fantasy XIII)
Y’Shtola (Final Fantasy XIV)
Noctis (Final Fantasy XV)
Ace (Final Fantasy Type-0)
Ramza (Final Fantasy Tactics)
A new trailer has also been posted down below for you to get a closer look at all of the fighters in the game. I’m a bit sad that Yuna and Rikku from Final Fantasy X-2 are not in it, but hopefully Square Enix releases them as extra DLC.
Dissidia Final Fantasy NT will be released on January 30th, 2018. The game is a PS4 exclusive so don’t expect to see it out on other platforms.
The China-exclusive Monster Hunter Online for PC will be getting an English patch on May 30.
If you are among those Monster Hunter fans who would like to play Monster Hunter Online, you now have an opportunity to do so as an English patch will be made available soon (I’m pretty excited!). Yes, the game is free-to-play and is currently running on Cry Engine 3.
Those who are interested can look up at this guide where there are instructions on how to download the game and the upcoming patch is detailed.
