3. FablePeter Molyneux has become something of a joke to some gamers. He’s become infamous for promising incredible things in his Adventure games Strategy and failing to deliver on such a level that it’s spectacular. Nowhere was this more apparent than with Fable for the Xbox. Peter promised incredible things, like “trees that grow in real time”, “rival factions that go to war with you”, “characters that age over time” and so on. With all this and more going into one game, Fable had to be one of the best things ever, ri

In the last scene of the trailer, two other dinosaurs can be spotted. Vin Diesel delivers his “Lights Out” line and then it cuts to him and the child walking in the open again, this time alone. Right in front of them there are three winged dinosaurs that then take flight. This implies that they are non-hostile, and though they look similar to the first game’s Pterosaurs, there’s a distinctive butterfly like pattern on their wings that sets them apart. These could just be a unique design added to the dino or it could be an entirely new one altogether. Only time will t

Flourishes — charged up versions of each character’s basic attacks — and an AOE attack that sacrifices one heart piece, are also at the player’s disposal as they fight their way through the many enemy types that have pervaded the Fable universe. While the appearance of hollow men, hobbes, and balverines might suggest that this is a Fable game for fans to look forward to, the experience of playing it does

The most iconic dinosaur of all , it should come as no surprise that the T-Rex is making its return and had a big spotlight in the trailer. Called just “Rex” in the first game, the T-Rex in the trailer looks to be slightly larger and equally as clumsy. It also features some stylish furs on its neck and along its spine, perhaps in an effort to create a more realistic representation of the beast. That said, scientists still don’t know exactly what the king of dinosaurs would have looked like, so this is still just a best gu

Fable Heroes feels like a cash grab in the truest sense of the word — a game that has no business carrying the Fable moniker. While each entry in the franchise does fall short of some lofty expectations , they at least aspire to do something original. Fable Heroes , on the other hand, gets a few things right, but they’re not worth your t

After escaping the T-Rex and the enemy clan, Vin Diesel and his group find themselves in a ruin full of technology . Of note, the child in the trailer examines a rock with several carvings on it. Though this mural certainly doesn’t confirm any dinosaurs, it should be said that there are several on it that didn’t show up in the trailer. Aside from the T-Rex and Brontosaurus which already had spotlights, there are at least three other dinosaurs shown that aren’t yet accounted

On the bottom left, players will notice a Parasaur, a dinosaur commonly found in starting areas and on beaches of ARK maps. These herbivores make great pack mules and mounts, as they can carry a lot and still run relatively quickly. Above it there’s a human riding on a Triceratops , one of the best defensive mounts that players can get early on in the first game. Finally, in the top right there is what appears to be a drawing of a Stegosaur, a dinosaur that in the previous game provided great utility for harvesting a variety of different types of resour

Another cool feature is that of photograph locations throughout the map that when touched display a viewpoint from the original Xbox game. This is quite nifty as it allows you to match up with your television and see exactly what has been improved for the Anniversary edition. It’s also said that backgrounds for key players have been written and are viewable upon meeting them, but I was unable to find how to access these. A title update will be supposedly be released on launch day, so perhaps they will become easier to find then. The only real negative of the experience is that it doesn’t show the NPCs that can be interacted with on the map. Unfortunately, this makes it so you can’t rely solely on your tablet/smartphone, which is a bit of a bummer.

The final new feature in Fable Anniversary (besides achievements) is that of SmartGlass, something that is weighing heavier and heavier in overall experience these days. As admitted by Lead Designer Ted Timmins, it was basically implemented here as way to test the technology’s capabilities for future implementations. Thanks to that, there are actually a few interesting features that the app offers. Unsurprisingly, it’s basically an interactive map, but they’ve worked with Prima to also provide the locations of key items and characters (without going into too much detail). While this may seem a bit like cheating at first, it’s helpful enough only to ensure that you won’t get lost and makes it so you won’t result to using a full-blown strategy guide.

Electronic Arts and DICE broke from the current first-person shooter trend and opted to send players back in time rather than into the future of warfare. Battlefield 1 has been a huge success for the publisher and developer, and continues to garner impressive player numbers across all platfo

Particularly troublesome are “crossover” attacks, in which the player needs to target an enemy on the left side of the screen with his or her right hand, or vice versa. The Journey actually warns players against crossing their arms over themselves, but it is often inescapably necessary. While it’s true that The Journey’s combat controls work much more reliably than its driving controls, that’s cold comfort when it’s all but impossible to accurately target a given enemy, and the player ends up dying as a result. Fortunately, The Journey isn’t particularly difficult, and ample checkpoints ensure that there is never too much of the game to rep

Scary moments in non-horror games can sometimes be even scarier than horror games themselves, as they are often unexpected or stand at odds with the tone of the rest of the game. As a result, these scary moments tend to linger with the player long after the game is over, even if the rest of the experience wasn’t sc

After traveling through the Bloodstone Demon Door, Fable 2 players are transported to a peaceful, snowy path in the woods. If they follow the path, which looks like something from a Christmas painting, they eventually come to a cozy lodge nestled deep among the trees. Upon entering the lodge, things take a turn for the weird. A piercing music note signals the lodge turning into a dilapidated version of itself, complete with a skeleton lying on the kitchen ta

After Star Wars Battlefront 2 got struck down, EA’s Star Wars Adventure Games strategy have become even more powerful than you could possibly imagine. While the discourse surrounding Star Wars is hitting an apex of toxicity following the release of The Rise of Skywalker , fans should still remember that the franchise received two great additions this year: The Mandalorian and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Ord

E3 is always one of the most exciting times of the year for gamers, and E3 2017 should be no exception. Kicking off this Saturday, June 10th with EA’s press conference, the show will run until June 15th, with plenty of high profile games sure to be given the spotlight over the course of the w

I was simply addicted to Tetris 99 earlier this year. I played it every day non-stop and had to actively draw myself away from playing it when I had other things to take care of. While battle royale and puzzle games don’t seem like they would mix, boy howdy they certainly do. While Fortnite remains the king and Apex Legends brought a lot of innovation to the genre, Tetris 99 proved that the mechanics of battle royale aren’t limited to just shoot

World of Warcraft is massive and full of secrets and easter eggs for fans to discover, some of which are rather creepy. One of the creepiest easter eggs in the entire game is the Children of Goldshire, who are creepy kids that stand in a pentagram formation. At 7:40 in the morning, players can find the children in the second floor of their house, where they are subjected to strange, otherworldly sounds, including threats from the evil entity C’T

Death Stranding hasn’t been confirmed for E3, but considering the close relationship between the new Kojima Productions and Sony, it seems likely that it will have an appearance at the show. If Death Stranding is shown at E3, hopefully fans get more answers about the game’s mysterious story, and if they’re lucky, the first look at gameplay. It would also be nice to learn definitively whether there was ever any truth to the Emma Stone casting rumors that cropped up a few months b

Tokyo Game Show 2019 is starting right now at Makuhari Messe in Tokyo, going from September 12 to 15. Most publishers revealed their definitive schedules these past few days, outlining the various streams and stage events happen

The scariest part of Big Boo’s Haunt is when players approach the seemingly normal piano on the first floor, only for it to spring to life and try eat Mario with its sharp fangs, resulting in one of the only jump scares in Super Mario series history. Now that a fan game lets fans play Super Mario 64 in co-op , though, perhaps Big Boo’s Haunt won’t seem quite as sc

Needless to say, spell casting becomes increasingly complex as more attack options are enabled. Fireballs must be primed by either shaking your right hand before attacking, or speaking the word “Fireball” out loud. Attacking with Shards, meanwhile, requires that the player holds his or her right hand over and behind their right shoulder, as if throwing a spear, or by saying “Magical Shard.” Generally, motions are recognized more quickly than speech. Each of these actions, on their own, are simple to perform reliably. The trouble is that in the heat of combat, players will need to perform multiple actions, often simultaneously, and Kinect gets confused by the commot

Moving forward, non-horror games will continue to slip in scary moments here and there to keep unsuspecting players on their toes. However, these moments will have to be especially clever and inventive if they want to best the scariest non-horror game moments gaming has seen so

Unfortunately, a lot of what Fable Heroes brings to the table, aside from that, is dull and uninteresting. Combat devolves into mashing the same button over and over again, and earning coins, while competitive, doesn’t carry quite the joy that it should. Lionhead does infuse a few of its signature Fable flairs, like branching paths and good vs. evil choices, into the game but both are either too few and far between, or just a different way to prolong the experience. It’s only the board game leveling system, and the title’s brief mini-games — like mine-cart racing — that provide brief respites from an otherwise uninspired experie

Fable Heroes feels like a cash grab in the truest sense of the word — a game that has no business carrying the Fable moniker. While each entry in the franchise does fall short of some lofty expectations , they at least aspire to do something original. Fable Heroes , on the other hand, gets a few things right, but they’re not worth your t

One way Nintendo has been bolstering the Nintendo Switch’s library of games is by slowly porting popular Wii U titles to the system and throwing the word “deluxe” at the end. While some Nintendo faithful may be annoyed by this approach, it’s worth noting that roughly 12 million people bought a Wii U, meaning that the vast majority of gamers missed out on the Wii U’s biggest games, including titles like Super Smash Bros. for Wii

With prosthetic limbs becoming ever more advanced, the world of cyberpunk shooter series Deus Ex is starting to seem like a realistic vision of the future. As human beings start to use technology to evolve their own biology, the player is faced with some hard choices regarding what the future of the human race should look like, and how it should be governed. The original Deus Ex is still the pinnacle of the series, but Deus Ex: Human Revolution was the title that really demonstrated just how great a movie adaptation could l

The very first shot in the ARK 2 reveal trailer shows an exotic looking flower only to reveal that it is fact some kind of dinosaur. Its long nose looks like a flower just before it blooms, and it is apparently capable of opening its snout to camouflage with other nearby flowers. After it closes the flower on its nose, viewers can see more of the creature’s face, revealing chameleon like eyes and a lizard like body. Its tail and back spines are also made to look like leaves, ensuring that nothing can recognize it as an ani

The stakes don’t get much higher than trying to prevent a race of synthetic beings from wiping out every last trace of intelligent life in the galaxy. That’s the task that falls to Commander Shepherd in Bioware’s Mass Effect trilogy, which is set a long way into the future after humanity has managed to tentatively establish itself in the hierarchy of the Milky Way’s alien races. This beautiful and expansive science fiction epic captured the hearts of gamers, and with the right director on board could capture the hearts of moviegoers as w

I don’t really have any problems with Astral Chain and it’s super innovative, which is why I gave it a 10 earlier this year. Astral Chain features the tight and rewarding action PlatinumGames is known for but is quite accessible at the same time. Its detective case-solving portions feel like better versions of similar segments in the Batman: Arkham games. Astral Chain is one of the best-looking games on Nintendo Switch. And finally, the Legion is the most innovative thing to happen to action games since Bayonetta’s Witch Time. Creating a unique weapon-user relationship I’ve never seen in a game before, Astral Chain remains fun and manageable while still tasking players with controlling two things at o

Flourishes — charged up versions of each character’s basic attacks — and an AOE attack that sacrifices one heart piece, are also at the player’s disposal as they fight their way through the many enemy types that have pervaded the Fable universe. While the appearance of hollow men, hobbes, and balverines might suggest that this is a Fable game for fans to look forward to, the experience of playing it does

Like Death Stranding , Halo 6 was another game we were told wouldn’t be at E3. However, with Microsoft debuting the Xbox One X at the show, there was still the possibility that the company was just trying to lead fans astray to later surprise them at E3 with a reveal of Master Chief’s next adventure games Cheats running on the new system. Sadly for Halo fans, Microsoft kept its word and Halo 6 wasn’t revealed at E3, but the timing is right for the game to make a big splash at next year’s s

But earning those power-ups isn’t as simple as spending one’s earned coins, it’s actually facilitated via the game’s coolest feature. After each level players accumulate a certain number of dice rolls, which determine the improvements they have access to. Rather than being able to increase your damage percentage outright, players have to hope they roll the appropriate number and land on that space. It’s quite an ingenious little addition, and helps keep that carrot-on-a-stick always out of re