Like a high noon shootout, I’ve had my eye silently affixed onWest of Deadfor a few months. Combing two of my favorite genres, the twin-stick and tactical shooter, while taking place in the dying days of the wild west in Wyoming,West of Deadlooks to tick a lot of my personal boxes and look slick as hell while doing it. Boasting a leading voice role from industry veteran Ron Perlman as a dead man coming back to punish the sinners, the game has been quietly working through a public beta since the beginning of the year with no concrete release date named....

Newly established developer Space Goblin Studio has revealed its first game,Astrobotanica. It’s an open-world survival game in which players must gather and farm strange plants on planet Earth 300,000 years in our past, the Pleistocene epoch when primal humans and other strange creatures roamed. Astrobotanica‘s gameplay focuses on helping protagonist Xel find plants that could thrive on their home planet. This requires you to explore the world, scan and collect plants, then grow them on farms while trying to work out what could and couldn’t survive in a hostile alien environment....

Listen to the very Sonic Adventure theme song for it now WhileTeam Sonic Racingdisappointingly isn’t going to be the “all-star” cross-generational Sega mascot racer that its predecessor was, I’m still willing to give it a shot. I mean Sumo Digital is returning after all and based on new reveals, the tracks are going to be just as memorable (though could we get anotherSkies of Arcadiamap as DLC please?) Sega has revealed a new Seaside Hill remix on top of a new track — Whale Lagoon....

Gotta Pokemon GO Fast Speed is one of the most important stats in the mainlinePokemongames. For casualPokemonplayers, speed is practically a nonissue. After all, it’s easy to level a slow Pokemon and outspeed enemies regardless of its innate speed. Once you get into the competitive scene, speed is literally the difference between victory and defeat. Attacking first is enormously important, especially for Pokemon hoping to sweep the enemy team. Also consider that offensive Pokemon typically load their EVs into their offensive stats, so a strong attack from a faster offensive Pokemon can easily one-hit KO its enemy into the ground....

Also, Tour de France The latest update toDayZ, a game about surviving the zombie apocalypse, is sans zombies. Rather, developer Bohemia Interactive opted to focus on adding animals to this new version of the game — some that may prove to be even more deadly than the undead. Wolves are being added toDayZas part of the predators update. They’re sort of like zombies, but smarter, more agile, and they roam in packs....

15 picks from the virtual festival The PC demo scene has really been snowballing in recent years, including — but not limited to — Steam Next Fest, which gave us a chance to check out cool upcoming games likeUnsightedandTerra Nil. It’s not time for the next Fest yet (that’s arriving inOctober), but there is another batch of Steam demos to sift through this week because ofDreamHack Beyond, an at-home take on the long-running LAN-party-turned-expo....

Two Worlds IIgenerated its share of positive buzz among the media who saw it during PAX East. A lot of it came in the form of pleasant surprise. The follow-up doesn’t look as downrightwretchedas its predecessor, which suffered from a plague of issues ranging from performance and technical problems to awful VO and bad story-telling. You’ll have to judge yourself for now — not too many were given early glances. But there are plenty of images available for your viewing pleasure....

The village, the castle, or the island? Once againtheResident Evil 4remakeis split into three distinct areas: the village, the castle, and the island. Even before the remake came around and remixed some of the game’s most iconic sections, pretty much everyone had a favorite in mind. With the remake under your belt, what wins out this time around? Or if you haven’t played the remake, just sound off anyway! The castle is one of the best action locales ever made Even the precipice of the castle sets the tone right away....

Those eyes cut through my soul In a great win for inclusiveness in gaming, Xbox has let tell that wheelchairs are being introduced for theRare createdXbox avatars. In aTwitter conversation, Head of Xbox Phil Spencer was told “depending on how skeletons are done on avatars, wheelchairs might be relatively simple and the #rightthing” to which someone suggested starting a petition. Spencer quickly chimed in stating that there is “No petition needed, we hear you....

I’ve heard all sorts of excuses from kiddie fiddlers over the years, but the classic “I was joking” has to be the best one of all. That’s the reason given by Ryan Edwin Donker, 33, who is currentlyfacing chargesfor soliciting a 13-year-old and trying to obtain naked pictures of him over Xbox Live. With a name like Donker, I suppose the “joke” defensecouldstand up in court. Not that we need to see any Donkers standing up....

Judgment on PC being considered Last year,Sega announcedthat it would be remastering the PS3Yakuzaentries for release on PS4. The idea was to have each game playable on a single console and series producer Toshihiro Nagoshi even commented they were being done for “new overseas fans.“ At E3 this year, I had a chance to speak withRyu Ga GotokuStudio’s Kazuki Hosokawa — director ofYakuza 5and0 —and I asked whether or not the west would receive the recent PS4 ports ofYakuza 3,4and5....

‘We humbly request your patience in this process.’ It’s been a rough few days for fans and staff in theYsuniverse. Yesterday saw NIS America President Takuro Yamashita apologise for the disappointing localisation of new releaseYs VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana, and today brings us the news that the PC release of said title is still delayed, pushed back to sometime in mid-December. Yesterday’s statement was released in response to criticism that the latest title in the decades-long RPG series featured poor translation, grammatical errors and some generally bad scriptwriting....

When fighting against the anti-democratic tyranny from Terminids and Automatons, it’s important to know how difficulties work inHelldivers 2. The early missions ease you into the game as you learn how to face your foes. But things can get hairy the higher you go. There are ten difficulties inHelldivers 2. You begin at Difficulty 1 – Trivial when you graduate the tutorial with your first cape. Trivial missions are often straightforward, teaching you the basics and pitting you against only small groups of foes....