Farming Simulator, just as it sounds, allows players to garner some virtual experience down in the fields. While a game all about mimicking manual labor may sound niche, don’t be fooled. Farming Simulator 19 launched near the end of 2018 and sold a massive 1 million copies within just 10 days. Needless to say, the not so niche game about planting crops and driving tractors has a cult following unlike almost any other. Well, Farming Simulator developers Giants Software have since announced an Esports league in Europe that will feature a massive 250.000€ grand prize. Giants Software CEO Christian Ammann recently offered a few words to Gamasutra on the matter. “Competitive farming is something people enjoy for years now, but it hasn’t been done in eSports so far,” Ammann said. “We have lots of eSports enthusiasts in our company who can’t wait to show the world that farming can indeed be…
In the beginning, if you wanted to play video games with someone, you had to do so sitting next to each other. As technology has evolved, so has multiplayer — not only can you now play with others online rather than in-person, playing online is now the multiplayer standard. PC games were the early adopters of online play due to the convenience of being on a system that inherently connects to the Internet by design. Consoles, however, had online play come at a slower pace. Many people were still playing splitscreen multiplayer on consoles when PC users were playing online. The turning point for online play on game consoles was Xbox Live on the original Xbox, most notably with Halo 2 becoming an online phenomenon. As times progressed, game consoles have caught up and are now fully online-enabled with streamlined services (including streaming), eliminating the need for in-person multiplayer. You don’t…
So you’ve already beat your favorite game a few times. You have tried others, but you keep finding yourself back in that familiar world on that old console. You know every inch of that map, know exactly how the story unfolds, all of the secrets, and yet you cannot get enough. Then one day out of nowhere, you hear the news – they are re-releasing that game! But what must the re-release have to encourage you to spend that hard-earned money? For me, there are a handful of games that I would buy the re-release no matter what. That’s how special a few of the games I have played are to me. Mainly Zelda games, I would re-purchase Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask until the end of time (same with A Link to the Past, but A Link Between Worlds was mostly a remake). However, a key thing with re-makes that I expect is obviously the graphics. Graphics enhancement…
With 2019 underway, I was reflecting back on 2018 and some of my favorite video games of the year. One that immediately sticks out is Spider-Man. The gameplay mechanics were great, the story was wonderful and touching, but I can’t help but think it’s exactly like any Batman Arkham game, except you are controlling a more athletic, web-slinging Spider-Man instead of the Dark Knight. The Spider-Man combat relies heavily on combos, many of which you earn and unlock as you level up throughout the game. You can also rally these combos together into a multiplier where you can then knock out opponents with a single hit if you reach a certain point on the multiplier scale. If there is a big dude, you have to web him up, or stun them with a gadget, and then you can proceed to beat them to a pulp. If there’s a guy with…
Having released on December 7th of 2018, we have once more been blessed with another entry in the Smash Bros franchise. Bringing back the entire playable roster across the previous four entries, Super Smash Bros Ultimate boasts a hefty 74 playable character roster, with an addition to online features and new modes. Starting the game you are given a handful of characters instead of a huge array to blindly choose from; Mario, Donkey Kong, Link, Samus, Yoshi, Kirby, Fox, and Pikachu. In a nostalgic throwback to the N64 version, these eight fighters mirror the starting roster of the game that started this insanely popular series. If you choose the new World of Light mode, in which you start with only Kirby available, you will then have to rescue each of the other fighters. Saving those fighters will unlock them for all other modes. This method can be extremely tedious, especially…
With Christmas all wrapped up you would think the trauma of the yuletide flooding everything would be over and for some, you would be right; however, there are hundreds of children whose trauma is continuing into the new year thanks to Bethesda! My brother-in-law who is 14 really wanted Fallout 76 and it was the one thing he was looking forward to. He went absolutely ballistic with joy when he opened it just repeating “Thank You!” over and over again! That is until the trick came into play; Apparently, Bethesda thought Christmas was Halloween and opted for a trick instead of a treat. He could not play the amazing game he had just got because Bethesda in their wisdom decided to make Fallout 76 an online only game and require a separate subscription service. No adult should see a child suffer because the game they are most excited to play,…