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Ubisoft’s Zelda Lookalike Leaked, 5 mins of Paper Mario

TODAY: Desperados III confidently revives the real-time tactical genre — Google accidentally leaks an early build of Ubisoft’s Gods & Monsters — The first batch of The Last Of Us Part II reviews have appeared

Top Story

The big PlayStation 5 reveal is here

Sony finally revealed PlayStation 5 in earnest yesterday, alongside a bunch of games including some tantalizing exclusives.

First-party PS5 titles

Third-party PS5 titles

Remedy has also confirmed a PlayStation 5 version of Control. Oh, and in case you wonder whether the PlayStation 5 has a horizontal orientation: Yes it does.

Time For A Quick Daily Quiz?

Which Resident Evil movie brought Nemesis to the big screen?

  • Resident Evil
  • Resident Evil: Apocalypse
  • Resident Evil: Extinction
  • Resident Evil: Afterlife

The answer will be revealed at the bottom of today’s issue. Join up with our community on Twitter and Facebook to discuss what the answer could be.

Daily Fact

Nice mask, would be a shame if someone filed a lawsuit over it

The North American port of Namco’s 1989 arcade classic Splatterhouse went through quite a few asset revisions on its way to other platforms. One of the biggest changes was the color of Rick’s mask from white to red. Why? Well, he looked a lot like that Jason Voorhees fella.

All religious symbols were also removed, so the game’s church ended up looking more like a long corridor – although they kept the distinctly liturgical-sounding music. Sound effects were made less disturbing, gore was made less gross, bosses were changed. Not even the ending survived, despite not featuring any obviously disagreeable content.

Join up with our community on Twitter and Facebook to discuss today’s fact.

Desperados III Review

The real-time tactical revival has begun

Developer: Mimimi Games

Version tested: PC

The Desperados series isn’t the most obvious candidate for a surprise revival, but Desperados III just launched – 13 years after the previous game in the series. And it’s a great comeback to, a great introduction to both the series and the genre.

It’s a prequel, following John Cooper’s quest for revenge against an aging gunman and the slave-trading Dewitt company. It’s a classic Western story told confidently, and if you have a soft spot for pulpy cowboy fiction then you’ll have fun with Desperados III.

Like stablemates Commandos and Shadow Tactics, Desperados III is a real-time tactics game where you need to finish complicated missions with a small team of specialists. Stealth is the name of the game, and although it’s not instantly game over if you get spotted, being spotted typically has disastrous consequences. It’s a slow-paced game with a strong tendency towards execution-heavy puzzle-solving, with a surprisingly broad scope for improvisation.

Your party is typically between one and five members strong, and each character has their unique abilities that can be combined in novel ways to reach your goals. There’s also a Showdown mode that allows you to use every character from the game at once, which enables practically limitless possibilities. There’s really nothing else like it.

There is definitely an element of trial and error, and you are expected to quicksave and quickload frequently. Levels take quite a while to complete, typically over half an hour, and the freedom of choice can be a bit overwhelming for newcomers to the genre. Novice players will typically go for slow and safe approaches, while veterans who know the systems can move more confidently and execute spectacular maneuvers.

Desperados III is not an instantly gratifying game, and requires you to invest in learning both the systems and the clockwork levels. It rewards you for taking your time and observing your environments and wants you to take your time and think carefully about your choices.

If you enjoyed Mimimi’s Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun, then you’ll love what they have done with Desperados III. It’s gripping, intricate and hugely replayable, a game that truly rewards you for investing in it and taking it as seriously as it deserves.

Thumbs Up

  • Satisfying strategy
  • Varied Level Design
  • Full of Western charm

Thumbs Down

  • Levels can drag on at times

8/10

Gods & Monsters Leaked

Google leaks Gods & Monsters build

An early playable build of Ubisoft’s Gods & Monsters leaked onto Google’s streaming platform Stadia.

The game was available for about half an hour under its codename Orpheus, and some who played it say it resembles The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Ubisoft’s own Assassin’s Creed. Some brief snippets of gameplay have emerged, showing off elements like climbing, exploration and dialogue.

Year-old build: The build is from E3 last year, and there are lots of placeholders and stand-ins from Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, including UI and environment art.“Much has changed since then in terms of features, tone, art and character design, and even the name of the game,” said Ubisoft. The game will be revealed properly later this summer.

Apologetic Google: “Regretfully, on Thursday morning, we mistakenly made an E3 2019 demo version of Gods & Monsters from Ubisoft available on the Stadia store that was not intended for the public to play,” said Stadia. “A few hundred gamers were able to play it for less than 30 minutes.”

Paper Mario: The Origami King

Enjoy over 5 minutes of footage from Paper Mario: The Origami King

Nintendo is lifting the veil on Paper Mario: The Origami King and showcasing what’s going on in the papercraft-themed RPG.

Highlight reel: More of the cast is revealed along with some puzzle mechanics and mini-games. The most striking revelation is the villainous Legion of Stationary, which is exactly what it sounds like: A box of crayons, a rubber band and a tape dispenser.

Out mid- July: “The kingdom has been ravaged by an origami menace! Join Mario and his new partner, Olivia, as they team up with unlikely allies like Bowser and the Toads to battle evil Folded Soldiers,” says the official website. Paper Mario: The Origami King is out for Switch on July 17th.

What Else Happened Today?

VR Bits

Fan-made mod unlocks the true immersive potential of No Man’s Sky

It’s been about a year since Hello Games added VR support to No Man’s Sky, but the implementation left a bit to be desired. For example, there was no room-scale support – so you can not physically navigate the game space – and the HUD could not be disabled, limiting the scope for immersion.

Fortunately, the Clean HUD and Roomscale VR mod by Reddit user hilightnotes does exactly what it says on the tin. If you want to see how immersive No Man’s Sky can really be, you should make your way to Nexus Mods and find out more.

Paper Beast coming to PC this summer

Pixel Reef’s previously PSVR exclusive Paper Beast is coming to Steam, VivePort and Oculus this year. Paper Beast was developed by the new studio headed by Another World creator Eric Chahi, and is about discovering creatures living in the depths of cyberspace.

Aided by these beasts, you can reveal the dark forces disrupting the world’s balance, and restore peace. In addition to higher refresh rates and crisper graphics, Paper Beast’s creative mode will be expanded. You can try out a demo on Steam between June 16th and 22nd.

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Quiz Answer - Did You Get It Right?

Which Resident Evil movie brought Nemesis to the big screen?

Answer: Resident Evil: Apocalypse!

The Resident Evil movies are surprisingly successful for being so remarkably divisive.

You can see them as a fun take on the games’ premise, or a total betrayal of everything those games stand for – and Resident Evil: Apocalypse is a great example of how both perspectives have merit. Apocalypse is essentially an action movie, but also introduces a lot of elements from the games, like for example their own take on Nemesis.

His design is straight out of the game, but his role is completely different: He’s actually one of the heroes from the first movie, but horribly mutated and disfigured. On one hand, that adds a bit of emotional investment but on the other hand it strips away a lot of the mystery. In any case, you gotta give the costume and make-up departments props for nailing the look!

Today’s issue of DailyBits was written by Gavin Herman, Erlend Grefsrud, Christian Vaz, Simon Priest, and Jamie Davey.