Top Story
Fresh details and a brief gameplay trailer for Pokémon Masters
The new free-to-play mobile game Pokémon Masters from studio DeNA was announced just at the end of May. Now there’s finally a trailer offering a quick peek at some gameplay footage to keep us excited until it is released later this summer.
The trailer concentrates on hyping the new battle system. While the series has traditionally featured exploration and pokémon hunting, Pokémon Masters concentrates on 3-on-3 Pokémon battles.
Fight it out with your friends on Android and iOS
You will compose a team out of pokémon/trainers duos from a roster of series favorites – long-time fans of will recognise veterans like Brock and Misty – and try to unleash their ‘Unity’ attacks, which combines your team’s abilities.
You can change what pokémon to summon into battle using special trainer outfits named Sygna Suits. There is also support for co-op online play so you and two friends can team-up against the AI as you battle your way through the Pokémon Masters League across the all-new region Pasio.
Time For A Quick Daily Quiz?
Which of these popular characters are NOT in Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 at launch?
- The Fantastic Four
- The X-Men
- The Defenders
- The Inhumans
The answer will be revealed at the end of this issue!
News Bits
DC Universe Online swoops onto Switch this August
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s a free-to-play MMO from early 2011 that’s now coming to Nintendo Switch! According to news coming out of San Diego Comic-Con, DC Universe Online will grace the Switch with over 300 DC characters across 30 ‘content episodes’ on August 6th. You create your own hero or villain and shake things up in the DC universe – perhaps literally as the Shakester?
Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order review round-up
Team Ninja’s Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order is hitting the Nintendo Switch today! What are the critics saying?
- LevelUp (Score 83/100) – “Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order is an unexpected but welcomed sequel to a beloved franchised that hasn’t aged particularly well. So, is it worth playing? Thankfully yes. By taking the best of what made the series great in the first place, Team Ninja and Marvel Games made a solid action RPG that fans of the genre will have a lot of fun with. “
- Atomix (Score 80/100) – “Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order presents us with great combat in a dungeon crawler. The representations of the characters are unique in this post MCU world. It’s repetitive, but it’s really worth it.”
- TheSixthAxis (Score 80/100) – “A couple of stripped back features aside, Marvel Ultimate Alliance is a great series revival that should keep new and old fans busy for quite a while. With DLC coming later this year, it will only get better.”
- Nintendo Life (Score 80/100) – “Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order isn’t a groundbreaking, narrative-heavy reinterpretation of the comic characters you know and love, but then again neither were the first two games. In that regard, it’s a very faithful sequel that mines the vast roster of characters from the comics while including plenty of nods to the current state of the more modern Marvel Cinematic Universe.”
- IGN (Score 78/100) – “In yet another take on the Infinity Stone saga, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order is a fun and irreverent comic book story that pulls from an exceptionally wide pool of Marvel material. Its combat systems are fairly simple, but they were still surprisingly engaging as I excitedly experimented with different hero combinations while my roster of A, B, and C-list characters grew.”
- Game Informer (Score 70/100) – “My time with Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 was filled with peaks and valleys. It has great moments where everything is clicking, followed by lulls where it all falls apart. The story never really gets going, however, but is a fun exploration of all things Marvel. For that, it delivers a little bit of fun, but this experience is all about the character reveals and getting to test them out, even if the worlds they explore and challenges within them often lack excitement.”
- Destructoid (Score 70/100) – “With the Marvel IP less muddled and the simplicity of this deal between Marvel and Nintendo, I’d love to see another with enhancements in tow.”
Daily Fact
Assassin’s Creed was once Prince of Persia, only without the prince
The goliath that is the Assassin’s Creed franchise today began internally as a spin-off to the Prince of Persia series. It was called Prince of Persia: Assassins and would have had us play as a female assassin with magical powers sent to protect a prince in Jerusalem. Ubisoft dropped the idea eventually because it didn’t really focus on the prince enough.
The project shifted instead to the darker themed Assassin’s Creed series, where a world-wide conspiracy of Templar was trying to control the world through powerful artefacts. Thus began the Desmond Miles saga as we took up the hidden blade and hooded cloak of assassins Altair and Ezio. Nothing is true; everything is permitted.
Those Prince of Persia roots also explain why there’s a lot of free-running and wall-climbing in the series, which affords ridiculous amounts of freedom in-game today in Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey.
Under The Radar - Nightmare Reaper
From The Shadows
Do you like heavy metal and blasting things to smithereens? Well, Episode One of Nightmare Reaper just rolled into Early Access on Steam and promises to deliver exactly that. Created by Blazing Bit Games, Nightmare Reaper is a new horror FPS inspired by 90s shooters like DOOM, Wolfenstein 3D and Duke Nukem 3D. Contrasting its dark story and relentless violence against brightly colored enemies and environments, the game blows you away with its crazy explosions and over-the-top gore – a sort of ultraviolent Minecraft.
The first episode features thirty-two weapons – and Blazing Bit Games have the lofty goal of shipping over eighty in the final version of the game. The second and third episodes are expected to release over the next year, and will be free for customers who purchased the first episode.
The gameplay we’ve seen so far looks pretty chaotic with sharp focus on combat, but there are also hints of a mysterious story. The developer describes the game as featuring open-ended levels filled with secrets and surprises, so there should be some scope for a replayability. Power-ups and enchanted weapons will litter the environment as you progress, while character upgrades and abilities can be purchased with gold you collect in a minigame.
If you like developers who involve the community in their development, you’ll probably get along with Blazing Bit Games since they appear to respond quickly to feedback. Some players were bothered by random crashes during level transitions, and within two days the developers released a patch that dealt with the issue – as well as featuring more bug fixes and gameplay improvements.
If first impressions are anything to go by, Nightmare Reaper should see frequent updates and improvements during the Early Access period.
Nightmare Reaper is 15% off on Steam until July 23rd. so if you like what you’ve read about it so far, snap it up before the offer expires. If you can’t afford to pick it up right now, you’ll be happy to hear that the price should stay at £15 even after the upcoming episodes have been released – and you’re already enjoying the game, be sure to leave comments on the Steam Discussion boards and let the devs know what you think!
