Guys! GUYS! GUUUUUUUUUUUUUYS! A new Devil May Cry is coming! Glorious day! Fantabulous! Splendifferictacular! I can’t wait to play a new Devil May Cry…
…HD Collection.
DAMMIT I GOT ALL HYPED UP FOR NOTHING. Apologies to all three of my nipples, we’ll have to save the excitement-rubbing for later. Back to the meat of the story then: Devil May Cry, a franchise that redefined action on various consoles, is coming back with a vengeance. Next year March 13 according to VG247, the original trilogy of Demons with tear ducts will hit PC, PS4 and Xbox One.
That means that players will get to play 2001’s Devil May Cry originale and it’s superb super-awesome 2006 demon-slaying sequel Devil May Cry 3, which introduced Dante’s blood brother Vergil and the meme that launched a thousand ships. That also means that players will have a chance to play Devil May Cry 2, a game which usually elicits howls of anguish from fans.
I’ve personally never played the middle game in the first trilogy, although most fans regard it as a middling bastard child that almost killed one of Capcom’s best franchises thanks to its sheer awfulness. Hold my root beer while I get my gimp suit, because I need to experience this pain for myself so that I can understand what y’all have gone through.
It’s not the first time that Devil May Cry popped it original trilogy onto a newer console, as the first HD Collection hit PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 way back in the dark ages of 2012. A more innocent time, before loot boxes and one wherein the only true problem in in the industry was EA’s propensity to make online portions of its game locked to a console thanks to a special code that came with each new purchase of a hot game.
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Ah, the good ol’ days. Anyway, March 13 then for anyone who has an interest in achieving S-rank scores in bludgeoning demonic beasties. That’ll set you back an RRP of $29.99. I’ll update with local pricing as soon as I get it.
Minecraft, the cleverly named blocky game that’s about both mining and crafting is still unfathomably popular. Millions of people play the game regularly, including my own children who’ve made it so that I’ve bought the game half a dozen times on a number of platforms.
That was meant to become moot with the new Minecraft Bedrock Edition, which was supposed to unify the games across platforms. Ditching the series convoluted naming scheme, and known plainly and simply as Minecraft, the new version was supposed to make everything better, allowing people from different platforms to play together. It’s done that, but it’s also split the community on Xbox One.
On that platform, the game is available in two flavours: The original now deprecated Minecraft: Xbox One Edition, and the newer Minecraft based on the Bedrock Edition. Only it seems that people vastly prefer the older version. One of the biggest problems for most is that the new Bedrock version appears to be a straight port of the Windows 10 version of the game, without the console-specific control tweaks that made the game manageable on the Xbox One.
“The UI is atrocious. Commands have been added, but are limited. Some items aren’t in the creative inventory. The big servers are laggy. You get no starting coins for microtransactions. Sprint flying is much slower. I lost all my skins, textures, and mash-up packs. EXTREMELY buggy. All wooden tools and crafting tables require oak wood. IT’S JUST PE MINECRAFT ON XBOX!!!! IT IS SUPER BUGGY!!! I CAN’T CONNECT WITH FRIENDS!!! Over all, it feels like an unfinished game. Mojang should have just updated the first Xbone edition to have new textures, servers, realms, infinite world size, and microtransactions with earnable or starting coins. Big downgrade in many areas.”
And another:
“I played this version in beta and it was NOT ready for a public release. There are numerous problems that went unaddressed or were flat out ignored. To list a few: -Frame rate is extremely unstable and drops considerably -This version is not optimized for redstone and more complicated devices produce massive amounts of lag. I also want to point out that redstone in general received a HUGE downgrade in this version compared to the previoua console version with the engine seemingly unable to handle lots of redstone activating at once, odd timing bugs, and various other removed features. -The new crafting interface is unoptimized for a controller and cumbersome to move through because you have to go through each square individually. -Movement and block placement are somewhat laggy and nowhere near the standard that the original console version set. Overall, this version is a rushed and massive downgrade from the previous console.”
And another:
“i had a survival world that ive spent atleast 400 hours in, and the transfer changed the terrain and the whole entire world itself and i lost all progress and it wont let me change it back…… and because i transfered it to this new version, i dont have that save anymore and im literaly thinking of just uninstalling this outrages game…..
the game itself is glitchy and has so many bugs that i cant even play the game…… it laggs and has at times delayed my screen….. unlike the xbox one edition that is smooth and not glitchy or laggy”
Reddit is equally awash with threads calling the game as it stands a mess. 4J Studios was responsible for the older versions of games, taking platform strengths and weaknesses into account when tailoring the game to each platform. It appears they are no longer involved in the process, and the Minecraft team is attempting to a one-size-fits-all approach.
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At least Xbox players are able to play the older version of the game. The Nintendo Switch version is set to transition to the Bedrock version next year, allowing Switch, Xbox One and PC players to play together – but if it’s in the state it’s currently in, players may not want that update.
Free DLC awaits players who log into Minecraft during an upcoming holiday event. Don't miss out!
Microsoft has announced that it plans to team up with Minecraft community creators, bringing 12 brand new pieces of holiday-themed DLC to players as a gift for the holidays.
Any Minecraft player that wants to take advantage of this opportunity can do so by logging into Minecraft every 24 hours and heading to the Minecraft Marketplace to download free content. This event begins at midnight on December 21, 2017 and new DLC items will drop every subsequent 24 hours. The event will conclude on the night of January 1, 2018 at 11:59 PM. You'll need to own the base Minecraft game in order to download the free content.
Though few details were shared on the majority of the DLC items, Microsoft provided a sneak peek for the first drop, which appears to be a special map built for snow sledding. Judging by the images provided in its announcement article, it looks like you'll be able to race down a winding course against your friends. The author of the article, “Marsh Davies,” hinted that more news would be coming soon about other types of upcoming Marketplace content too.
Are you excited to see what Minecraft will bring its players during the event? Let us know what you think in the comments.
Minecraft is available now on Xbox One and Windows 10 for $19.99.
Tonight at the 2017 Game Awards, From Software offered up a very, very brief teaser of its next title. The teaser shows something bloody—an arm that's also a weapon?—being tightly wound, with the tagline of “Shadows Die Twice”.
Whatever it is, the game is definitely not a new Armored Core. It could be another Souls game, but this brief showing feels like it would fit right at home in the universe of Bloodborne. Maybe we'll see more at the 2017 PlayStation Experience keynote
Ubisoft recently released notes for Assassin's Creed: Origins‘ December update. The update will add a brand-new quest that looks to offer up a Chocobo-inspired horse for Bayek to ride around Egypt.
The update adds the third of the Trials of the Gods, pitting Bayek against three Egyptian deities. Anubis and Sobek were in November, and the final fight is against Sekhmet, the warrior goddess. Players who missed the first two fights will also get the chance to take them down.
This patch also brings with it a new Nightmare difficulty mode, an enemy level-scaling option for the entire game, and a brand-new, gladiator-based Horde Mode.
“The event quest, Here Comes a New Challenger, will introduce you to Horde mode to satisfy your warrior longings. You can prove yourself in the Cyrene arena against unlimited waves of foes. We recommend Level 32 or higher,” says Ubisoft.
The Gladiator Items Pack comes on December 12 with some gladiator-theme gear for Bayek, while the Wacky Items Pack will fit right in with the game's bath towel costume.
There is currently no set date for the December update to drop on any platform. Assassin's Creed: Origins is currently available on PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4.
Back in September, Microsoft and Mojang launched the Better Together update for Minecraft on Windows 10, Xbox One, iOS, and Android. This update allowed players on those devices to play together and access the Marketplace on any of those platforms.
The new Better Together versions of Minecraft are known collectively as the Bedrock Edition. The Bedrock games avoid the “___ Edition” naming scheme on their respective platforms, being just “Minecraft” instead of “Minecraft: Pocket Edition” or “Minecraft: Windows 10 Edition”. This is the new foundation and codebase Mojang wants to build upon, hence the name.
In the case of Minecraft on Xbox One, if you purchase the game now on the Xbox Store, it's the Bedrock Edition, called “Minecraft”. If you had the previous Minecraft: Xbox One Edition, you get the new version for free, but the old one remains installed on your console. This allows players to switch back and forth between both versions and players are finding they prefer the old Xbox One Edition.
If you go to the Microsoft Store page for Minecraft: Xbox One Edition, the game is rated at 4.5 stars out of 5 with 111,000 reviews. In contrast, the new Minecraft entry is rated at 2.5 stars out of 5, with 5,634 reviews as of this writing.
“The Xbox One Edition was designed for Xbox, this version is literally a port from PC. The creative inventory is a disarray and difficult to navigate, placing blocks is much slower as being precise is terribly difficult. The graphics are a disgrace, the game crashes every 30 mins, everything is laggy,” said one review. (Edited for spelling and formatting.)
“The new crafting and inventory menus are quite cumbersome and seem rushed. It now takes easily twice as long to perform trivial tasks like swapping items in these menus in creative mode. The previous setup was much more streamlined and easier to use,” added another review.
“I played this version in beta and it was not ready for a public release. There are numerous problems that went unaddressed or were flat out ignored. To list a few: Frame rate is extremely unstable and drops considerable. This version is not optimized for redstone and more complicated devices produce massive amounts of lag,” said one review from last month.
The previous Minecraft editions were customized for their specific platforms by 4J Studios, who no longer seem to be involved in the new versions. They took into account the technology behind each console or device, and tailored the releases to those platforms.
Players are saying that the Bedrock Edition represents a step back. There are lost features like large biomes, some players dislike the new UI and Creative mode controls, there are reported frame rate issues, lag, and crashes that didn't occur in previous editions, and some players can't even convert their worlds over to the new version. One of the top requests on the Minecraft support site is for a console UI for the Bedrock Editions on Xbox One.
Players on Xbox One have gone around the problem by simply playing the old Xbox One Edition, but Mojang isn't updating that version anymore. If players want new features, they'll need to upgrade eventually. Currently, the Nintendo Switch version is supposed to join the Better Together party at a later date, but some Switch players are hoping that update can be pushed down the line until the Bedrock codebase has seen some fixes. Hopefully, Mojang and Microsoft keep plugging away at the new unified Minecraft, because players aren't happy.
