Top Story
No Man’s Sky: Beyond launches August 14 – ‘multiplayer and VR’
Hello Games have crammed three major features into one big update: No Man’s Sky: Beyond. It offers a “mix of features we’ve been dreaming of for a while,” and that finally includes more online features. It only took ’em three years to really get there.
An “expanded Online experience will bring a radical new social and multiplayer experience” to No Man’s Sky, according to the blurb, and that means we get to meet and play together wherever in the universe. For those who followed the game before release, this was one of those initial and now infamous promises that never materialised in game at launch.
Multiplayer – but for realsies this time
Virtual reality will let you grab a joystick and blast off, as well as wave and high five your VR buddies. You can play with non-VR explorers too but they aren’t in the cool kids club. “Reach into your backpack to grab your multitool, touch it to switch to terrain manipulation, and carve out intricate shapes with unprecedented control.”
Hello Games will be releasing more information in the coming weeks Beyond draws closer, calling it the studio’s most “ambitious chapter so far, and something we’ve been working ridiculously hard on.” A release date trailer has been posted but it doesn’t exactly answer all our questions. No Man’s Sky was released back in August 2016 for PC and PlayStation 4, and eventually for Xbox One in July 2018.
Time For A Quick Daily Quiz?
How many live-action Resident Evil movies have there been?
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
The answer will be revealed at the end of this issue!
News Bits
Fans complete translation of Dragon Quest’s Rocket Slime 3DS
The great work has been completed. Fans have translated Slime Mori Mori Dragon Quest 3: Daikaizoku to Shippo Dan for Nintendo 3DS into English from its native Japanese. It was released back in November 2011 and involves a bunch of “Rainbow Orbs” getting pinched from the Slime Kingdom and scattered around the world. All text, images and menus have been converted. The translation is available from Fan Translators International.
Capcom are recruiting “Biohazard Ambassadors” for game testing
Biohazard is the Japanese name for Resident Evil and developer Capcom is looking for “ambassadors” to help them test a new RE title currently in the works. Whatever the new project might be, the test is scheduled to commence September 8th and 9th. Capcom held a Resident Evil Ambassador shindig in Tokyo this past June. What fresh horrors do they have in mind for us? More remakes or remasters?
Daily Fact
Marketing gimmicks can be real stinkers
In this digital age of download codes and streaming services you sometimes miss out on the physical feel of a disc. Back in 2001 you could even smell them. As part of a silly gimmick for EA Sports’ FIFA 2001 for PlayStation, you could actually “smell the pitch” if you “scratch and sniff” the game disc in Europe. Yes, this was actually a thing. It didn’t really catch on which was probably for the best.
It didnít stop Polyphony Digitalís Gran Turismo 2 a year later from getting in on the smelly action as they also offered a scratch and sniff disc for PlayStation in Europe. Wouldnít you love to get a whiff of pit-stop before hitting the virtual tracks? That was the last of the aroma-based gimmicks for PlayStation in the early 2000s. Marketing however continues to stink to this day.
Under The Radar - G.R.E.E.N. The Life Algorithm
What if plants ruled the world?
(Estacion Pi – PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch)
Release: September 2019
2D action/adventure game G.R.E.E.N. The Life Algorithm presents a vision of a world overrun by genetically modified vegetation. This Metroidvania-inspired adventure explores the beautiful and slightly terrifying outcomes of messing too much with Mother Nature.
G.R.E.E.N.’s story follows a group of scientists who dream of ending world hunger, and create “The Life Algorithm” — a process that vastly accelerates vegetation growth. However, rather than simply create fast-growing plants, the genetically modified vegetation evolves into sentient monsters who quickly cause the collapse of human civilisation.
Only a few people escape the catastrophe, but a small group known as A.W.S. (Advanced Withering System) manage to create an artificial desert providing a safe haven against the marauding greenery. The player’s journey begins seventeen years later, when the A.W.S. starts showing signs of failure, putting the remaining survivors in grave danger.
Despite all the undeniably hostile plant life, G.R.E.E.N. is not about killing weeds. Instead, the player is meant to focus on using the environment to their advantage to overcome its challenges, giving you useful abilities to accomplish this.
Your character will be able to petrify enemies and jump on them to reach higher, as well as fire projectiles that transform them into temporary platforms, and these interactions make out the puzzles you’ll need to solve to advance and explore the game’s diverse ecosystems.
Experience the dark side of nature
G.R.E.E.N. is the first project from fresh indie studio Estacion Pi, and has been in development since 2017. They launched a Kickstarter at the end of May 2019, but only managed to receive 112 backers who contributed £1,600, well shy of the £12,900 goal – yet still expect to release in September this year. According to G.R.E.E.N.’s Steam page, it’s “the first videogame in Latin America to implement Tensorflow and ML-Agents of Unity tools for enemy intelligence.”
Simply put, this suggests that enemy encounters should be made unpredictable by the combination of machine learning and behaviour trees implemented in the game. In theory, this should keep the game feeling fresh and interesting – and keep players getting complacent when faced with familiar challenges.
If you’re a fan of 2D Metroidvania titles and also happen to enjoy punchy synthwave, you’re gonna want to keep an eye on G.R.E.E.N. for the next couple of months.
Estacion Pi are determined to launch on Steam, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and the Nintendo Switch this Autumn, so stay tuned for further announcements via their Facebook, Instagram and YouTube channels. We’re intrigued by what the developer has shown of G.R.E.E.N. so far and are interested to see how comprehensive the game’s reactive intelligence really is.
