Arkane Studio's Prey is a sci-fi masterpiece. It's an open-ended game that encourages player expression through intricate systems supported by countless little details that create a sense of life aboard a floating space station. Throughout Prey's main campaign, there's no shortage of exciting gameplay to experience and memorable sights worth seeing.
Of course, you could just blow through the game in under seven minutes like speedrunner seekerTV.
So for the second year in a row, local fish turned cyborg private investigator Blondbass turned everyone onto the idea of crafting report cards for E3. Unlike last year's round up, this year we're here to share our complete E3 thoughts, from what we wished was going to happen, what we expected, and how we felt about what actually went down.
This year the community team hit a snafu in making sure we wrangled as many report cards as we could because of how busy we were. But we still managed to get a few and expect to see plenty of thoughts and discourse alone from just gathering together in the post-E3 glow of "Can you believe Samus is officially returning?"
For the "I'll wait until it gets cheaper" gaming crowd, guess what? ...You've won. The tidal wave of PC gaming discounts known as the Steam Summer Sale, and other summer sales, has now arrived as of Thursday. Thousands of games are on sale in all genres but for snobby deal hunters like ourselves, we'll be pointing you to the actual good deals.
We've waded through the stacks of discounts from all retailers and come up with the best of the best from each sale. Beyond the big Steam sale, there's notable offers from WinGameStore, GameStop, GamersGate, and Bundle Stars.
If you were holding out on Dark Souls III your best bet is at WinGameStore. There the base game, for the first time ever, is below $24 - now priced at $18.98 after coupon. For Dark Souls III Deluxe Edition, the best is at GamersGate's sale where it is below the 50% off mark for the first time ever. Both deals beat Steam's price by a good chunk.
GameStop is offering a good variety of discounts, especially on EA Origin titles along with Bethesda's newly released The Elder Scrolls Online: Morrowind expansion. In fact, GameStop has gone significantly aggressive on Morrowind prices because they're all hitting new lows with the upgrade being 25% off and the base game + Morrowind upgrade versions 33% off.
The Steam Sale hasn't always been the same since daily deals are a bygone product, but this year's Summer Sale we're faced with some actual good deals, with the lowest price on oldies such as Portal 2, along with new titles such as Dishonored 2, Prey, NieR: Automata, and ARMA 3.
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Steam's Summer Sale ends on July 5 at 10 AM Pacific, while all other sales mentioned will also end at around the same time (plus or minus a day). If you think we missed a vital deal on our list, let us know in the comments below and we'll add 'em when we're not busy adding things to our backlog.
Game deals from Dealzon. Sales help support Destructoid.
433 of you, the Destructoid Community, slaved over a hot keyboard in order to vote in our Best of E3 poll. And your winner is...
When last folks heard about God Wars: Future Past, its subtitle was God Wars: Beyond Time. Whatever the real motivation for the change, I think the new, current subtitle is a bit more appropriate.
Playing God Wars feels like stepping into a portal to the past, in more ways than one. In some ways, God Wars is by turns a trip to a bygone era of game design, a look at a much earlier period of history, and even a reminder of sorts that old things aren't necessarily bad things.
PlayStation 4 and Xbox One owners can leap into Poi next week. According to developer PolyKid, the 3D platformer will release digitally on both consoles Wednesday, June 28.
It's starting to get difficult to keep track of every iteration in the Nintendo 3DS console line up.
First, there was the original 3DS console from 2011. Then came the 3DS XL in 2012, which simply provided users with a larger variant of Nintendo's portable machine. In 2013, Nintendo took many by surprise and released the 2DS, which utilised the same internals as the original 3DS, but without the 3D display, the clamshell design, or the stereo speakers.
Things started to get a little confusing when, in 2014 (or 2015 in the U.S. and Europe), the console manufacturer launched the New 3DS and the New 3DS XL. Both of these models featured updated components and were somewhat more powerful than their predecessors, allowing for better performance or visual fidelity in titles that were designed with these handhelds in mind.
Now, here we are with the New Nintendo 2DS XL -- the sixth variant of Nintendo's eighth-generation portable. Given that the 3DS has now been succeeded by the Nintendo Switch, this may very well be the final one. If that truly is the case, then it's safe to say that the 3DS line is (mostly) going out with a bang.
Apple Is a Step
Closer to Making
Its Own TV Shows
David Sims,
The Atlantic
While the company's television aspirations remain largely a mystery, Apple hired two big names this week to help build its slate of original shows. Jamie Erlicht and Zack Van Amburg, presidents of Sony Pictures Television, will make the move to Cupertino this summer with experience making hits like Damages, Breaking Bad, Justified and other series. The Atlantic offers a look at what this means for Apple and what we can expect from Eddy Cue & Co. in the months to come.
The saga of Take-Two fighting against modders of their mega popular Grand Theft Auto series has just received another chapter and this one is a bit of a doozy. While no one has outright confirmed that mods will be returning to GTA V, Rockstar seems all for the development of them and the popular modding tool, OpenIV, has gotten a new update for bug fixes and some stability. That sure doesn't sound like the death of fan created content.
Yesterday, Rockstar issued a statement to PC Gamer stating they were in talks with the developers behind OpenIV. Along with that, they also posted this long message on their forums under the topic of "Are Single-player mods Allowed?":
How many of you are holding farts down in your chairs twenty times a day? Sure, you indulge yourself like a Chinatown trash compactor, but have you ever considered that you might be lactose intolerant? Studies indicate that 75% of gamers who are 100% people aren't 25% lactoblasters, got that? If you're suffering from passive milk-related farts please try switching to almond milk, stay more hydrated in general, and don't drink so much goddamn coffee. These free flatulence management tips have been a public service announcement from a person that goes to gaming conventions with you.
As for more solid games journalism, here's Link squeezing his titties.
The creator of this video, Lyle McDouchebag, is set to make an appearance on Destructoid's soon-to-be-rebooted Youtube Channel. If you've never heard of him I also recommend his Nihilist's Guide to E3, it's totally worth your nine minutes. Pull up a refreshing bowl of cold turtle blood and check out his channel, it's fiiiiiiire. FIIIIIRE!
While hunting for the now totally sold out Gamestop exclusive Twilight Princess Link amiibo on Friday, I got to chatting with the store manager about Nintendo and their tendency to make things that people can't buy. He was surprisingly passionate about the topic. He even went as far as to call the company "Fuck-tendo" at one point.
One thing led to another, and he eventually let loose with a story about how Nintendo had told him and other store managers at a "behind closed doors event" that a SNES Classic plug-and-play system was in the works. He specifically said that there was no release date for it, but that his guess was that it would "drop this holiday" and "would be made in short supply just to piss people like me off ha ha ha!"
I appreciated his candor, but I needed more before I could warrant posting this information on Destructoid dot com, my favorite video game web log. First I'd need to get at least two more sources. Then, I'd have to draw crude caricatures of these sources in order to give our readers something to look at, as the sources wanted to remain anonymous in both name and appearance.
So that's exactly what I did.
All online games eventually die. But the difference between the original version of World of Warcraft and, say, Call of Duty: Ghosts is that WoW was more of a service on an open system (PC). Players were able to gradually migrate to its annual expansions, while remaining a part of the overall population.
Comparatively, CoD is a franchise with annual sequels on several different pieces of hardware, each with cordoned off players who jump from one game to the next. But sometimes you don't want to stop playing a game just because seemingly everyone has moved on after 14 months. Rocket League developer Psyonix's Jeremy Dunham has an idea for how to fix these fractured player bases: opening up cross-platform multiplayer.
Here we go again.
In 2011, Microsoft was the indie king. The industry was just blossoming thanks to services like Steam and Xbox Live Arcade, which introduced independent games to huge, hungry audiences. Indie Game: The Movie was about to debut, giving fans a deep, behind-the-scenes look at the perils and triumphs of small-scale development. The Xbox 360 served as the foundational platform for the film's major projects, Super Meat Boy, Fez and Braid.
And then, the pendulum swung -- in 2012, Journey landed exclusively on the PS3. It served as a lightning rod for discussions about emotion and art in video games, and it gave Sony the momentum to transform its indie ecosystem. By July 2013, Sony had opened up its processes, allowing indie developers to self-publish their games on the company's next console, the PlayStation 4. Even Microsoft still required indies to partner with established publishers, at this point.
Microsoft attempted to regain its indie dominance with the ID@Xbox program, though that turned out to be more complicated than most developers would have liked. The launch of the Xbox One was a low-key disaster, while Sony continually dropped the mic, showcasing indie games at E3 to widespread acclaim while Microsoft played catch-up. As recently as E3 2015, Sony's head hung heavy with indie jewels.
Hey, good morning! You look fabulous.
Welcome to the weekend. We have Galaxy Note 8 rumors, and information about an Amazon beehive -- we'll explain.
