Even more handsome in person.
Among the new releases for Xbox One and PS4, there have been notable remastered titles like The Last of Us Remastered and Halo: The Master Chief Collection. The newest member to this line of revamped re-releases exclusive to current-gen consoles is Borderlands: The Handsome Collection from Gearbox Software.
Borderlands is no stranger to premium bundles that consolidate the franchise's add-on content into one place, but this is definitely the most impressive one we've seen so far. You are basically getting the equivalent of two Game of the Year Editions in one package, and then some. Not only do you receive two whole games, Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel and Borderlands 2, you also get the add-on content previously available through online passes, all additional playable characters, and a long line of customizations and perks, as well as pending add-on content that has yet to be released.
One of the greatest selling points of Borderlands: The Handsome Collection is its local four-player mode. This is the first time the mode has ever been available in a Borderlands game, and anyone who has ever tried to get by playing solo knows how much easier it is to play with more than one person. If you happen to be playing and have more than one friend over, you can enlist up to three of them to help you out by simply picking up a controller. It is nice to not be limited to only one other co-op buddy in a situation like this because Borderlands really shines with more people.
I feared there would be too much going on during a typical Borderlands gunfight and that having only a quarter of the screen available to me would detract from the experience. When I got a chance to experience the local co-op myself, however, it was surprisingly easy to follow the action on my little corner of the world. Naturally, there are the few inevitable co-op hiccups, like when someone accidentally hits the pause button halting the action, but that’s easy to forgive.
Another great thing about Borderlands: The Handsome Collection is that it lets you transfer your saves from the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PS Vita, with the only caveat being that they will only transfer within their respective console family. Not having to rebuild your characters from scratch is a great benefit for returning players.
Borderlands: The Handsome Collection will be available on March 24 for $59.99. If you have an Xbox One or PS4 and you’re just getting into the Borderlands franchise or have held off on getting the add-on content, then this is the bundle you’ve been waiting for. It’s shaping up to be a great package, and getting to experience it with friends will make it even better.
GDC 2015
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Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward Preview
First revealed at the 2014 Fan Fest in Las Vegas, Heavensward (pronounced "Heavens-word") will increase the level cap from 50 to 60 and finally introduce Ishgard and Dravania as playable areas for the swathes of fans itching to visit the mysterious islands in the sky. Square Enix won't be stopping there either, creating three new jobs and adding the much-awaited flying mounts, but let's take our time with this information reveal.
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Inside My Radio Preview
Rhythm-based platformers have a decent niche in the indie space between the notoriously difficult, like the rage-tastic Geometry Dash and The Impossible Game, and the friendlier (but still difficult) Beatbuddy and bit.Trip Runner. Inside My Radio fits more in the latter category, showcased at the Xbox Lounge at GDC 2015 alongside other upcoming Xbox titles like Screamride. For added acclaim, Inside My Radio has received official selections at a host of indie festivals, so it's definitely earned its place.
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PlayStation Topping Xbox on Indie Front
Between PlayStation Network and Xbox Live, PlayStation has the upper hand when it comes to independent games, says Mike Rose of tinyBuild Games based on his microtalk at GDC 2015 entitled "The Turning Tide: Independent Game Sales in 2015."
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Valve Partnering With HTC for Steam VR Headset, Vive
HTC announced today that it will be partnering with Valve to create Vive, a virtual reality headset that is built with Valve's Steam platform in mind. The device comes equipped with two 1200 x 1080 displays, each with 90 FPS refresh rates. As one would expect, it supports full 360 degree viewing and tracks head position using gyro sensors and accelerometers. A pair of controllers will be included with the device as well.
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AER Preview
If I had to highlight the most exciting game I saw at GDC on the first day of the con, it would be Swedish game developer forgottenkey's AER, an exploratory game with stealth and puzzle elements built around the idea of flight. The gameplay I saw of AER was very early (it's targeting a 2016 release), and visually sits somewhere between El Shaddai and Okami, with broad gestural shapes and impressionistic visuals.
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Doing Cinematic Games Right
Weise's talk, titled, "Cinematic Games are Dead! Long Live Cinematic Games!" began with a deconstruction of the genre, starting with TRON and the Atari 2600 ET game, showing screenshots of each alongside the films themselves to talk about what he called the "Representational Gap." Specifically, he discussed how the disparity between movie visuals and game visuals had created an arms race, where games were constantly chasing that higher degree of realistic fidelity.
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Building Better Educational Games
While one might assume the best talks at GDC would be those by AAA developers getting into the nitty-gritty of designing their choice aspect of a game, the best talks I attend are usually ones I stumble into to fill gaps in my schedule. This was certainly true of Anne DeMarle's talk, "Breakaway: A Narrative Game's Success at Addressing Gender-Based Violence." DeMarle and her team of student developers at Champlain created a game called Breakaway with funding from the United Nations Population Fund to target the global issue of boys bullying girls, with the goal of reducing gender-based violence. rn rnRead more... -
Project Morpheus Release Window Revealed
Project Morpheus, Sony's virtual reality headset built specifically for PlayStation 4, will release in the first half of 2016, the company revealed at Game Developers Conference 2015.
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Source 2 Engine Announced
During GDC 2015 Valve revealed its new development engine, Source 2, which will be available to developers for free. Like the name implies, Source 2 is the follow-up to Valve's original Source engine, which has been used to power games like Counter-Strike and Half-Life 2.
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Valve Unveils Game-Streaming Box Steam Link
During GDC 2015, Valve announced a new piece of hardware. Dubbed Steam Link, this nifty little set-top box will allow gamers to stream content from their PC, Mac, Steam Machine, etc., so long as it's on the same home network.
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Nvidia Announces New Gaming Console
During its GDC 2015 conference, Nvidia announced a new gaming console it will be adding to its lineup of Shield devices. It's an Android-based machine capable of 4K playback and capture, and packs a Tegra X1 processor with a 256-bit Maxwell GPU and 3GB of memory.
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Magic Duels: Origins Preview
In short, they've listened. Magic 2015: Duels of the Planeswalker was not what fans wanted, with starter deck issues, DLC collection packs, a small selection of cards, loss of many side modes, and a cumbersome user interface. Given a 2.5-star rating by yours truly, it tarnished what was a fairly successful video game adaptation of the reputable card-based game by Wizard of the Coast. But Magic Duels: Origins, the new entry in the series, will undo much of the damage, or so the developers swear.
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Sword Coast Legends Preview
From Dragon Age: Origins to Divinity: Original Sin, the d20-based RPG has been a mainstay in gaming whose flame will hopefully never extinguish. Sword Coast Legends, the upcoming RPG from n-Space and Digital Extremes with a partnership with Wizards of the Coast, plans to continue the tradition of the genre and modernize it by adding a Dungeon Master mode, a mode where one player can guide and challenge a team of players in real-time. It reminds me of a time when I would take out my aggression on poor fools by spawning ogres and cutting their character's feet off for rolling critical failures. Such fun! rn rnRead more... -
Swords & Soldiers II Preview
Ronimo Games is back with the newest game in the Swords & Soldiers series which originally launched in 2009 on WiiWare and later released on PSN, PC, Mac, and iOS. Swords & Soldiers II is a real-time 2D side-scroller strategy game with great artwork and a huge fun factor. Although it shares an art style and general gameplay mechanics with its predecessor, there have been numerous game mechanic tweaks implemented that vastly improve the battle experience as well as two completely brand new factions to play as.
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Amplitude Preview
Playing the upcoming Kickstarted reboot for Amplitude was like visiting an old friend. As I wrote in my Developer Spotlight on Harmonix, I cleared every song on every difficulty for the original 2003 release of Amplitude on PS2, and it's one of the reasons I became smitten with the rhythm genre. So after seeing the Amplitude reboot in the corner of my eye available as a demo at PlayStation's booth at GDC 2015, I knew I couldn't miss out. After all, blasting capsules while flipping between tracks has become one of my best (albeit most useless) skills.
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Fable Legends Preview
It's easier not to think of Fable Legends as having much to do with the Fable series at all apart from the name and the plot. That will make this free-to-play fantasy cooperative asymmetrical multiplayer title (that's a mouthful!) far more understandable, or else you may attempt to make comparisons to main Fable games and tumble into a pit of confusion. Available for demo at GDC 2015 between five players, with one cast as the dungeon-master villain and the other four as party characters, Fable Legends showed that it's well on its way for a polished release. rn rnRead more...
