It was also revealed that the Zanzibar multiplayer map will receive the anniversary treatment and be reworked to match the updated graphics of the main game. Zanzibar joins Ascension and Coagulation on the list of six maps announced to be remade with the next map to announced in August at Gamescom.
Halo 2 will be released as part of Halo: The Master Chief Collection which is set to be released on November 11 of this year. The collection will include the first four games in the Halo series along with beta access to Halo 5: Guardians.

 
The collection boasts many improvements over the original releases as well as the option to play either version of Halo 2 (i.e. the original or the anniversary remake). Online multiplayer support was also announced at E3 this year with the claims that games will run at 60 frames per second and at 1080p resolution. All maps combined, there will be more than a hundred arenas to pick from.

 
The Master Chief Collection will also include Halo: Nightfall, a live-action series produced by Ridley Scott. The series appears to center around a mysterious new element that selectively kills humans, according to a recently released trailer. Nightfall tells the origin story of Jameson Locke, a character who will appear in Halo 5. Not much is said in the trailer although it seems as though the series will lend “insight and understanding” into Locke’s character in the new game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtvk2KCmb9s

You are a ball that starts […]

While the debate on whether or not free-to-play is the best model is a healthy one, it’s important to remember that buying a game from the outset can often work to your advantage, even if it is a bit more of a risk. In this article, we’ll cover a few of the games that have come out over the past couple years that are worth your hard-earned cash.

 
Threes! — £1.49/$1.99

Threes!, a simple tile-sliding game, is a great example of how a simple concept can become extremely complex. In this game, you slide tiles around a board, matching up similar numbers (always multiples of three) and combining twos and ones together to make threes. Combining two threes will give you a six, combining two sixes will get you a twelve, and so on.

What makes this game worth investing in is that it feels like playing an old arcade game: it’s incredibly hard when you start out, but as you get better at it the level of satisfaction grows exponentially. Every time you “unlock” a tile you’ve never seen before all the anxiety of getting to that moment fades away.

The sound in this game is phenomenal as well, from the satisfying “swoosh” of sliding tiles around the board to the yawns and taunts when you take too long to move.

The excellent gameplay and satisfying audio feedback in Threes! are worth paying the meager price for, not to mention the complete lack of ads or in-app purchases.

 
Hitman Go — £2.99/$4.99

An unlikely addition to the Hitman series, Square Enix Montreal’s tabletop simulator still manages to deliver that feeling of sneaking and striking, all the while maintaining your calm assassin persona. The game allows you to move once per turn, followed by each enemy moving once. Your objective is either to reach the end of the board without being eliminated or to assassinate a target. Additional level goals include picking up a briefcase and not taking out any of the minions before reaching the goal.

Hitman Go’s tricky puzzle designs and smooth aesthetics really work to its advantage. Each level is devilishly clever, especially if you try to complete the additional goals. Not unlike a chess game, you’ll find yourself thinking out enemy moves ten turns in advance.

The game offers a lot of content for the price. You’re given four game “expansions” from the get-go, each one with multiple levels. You unlock each successive board by completing level objectives, although one bonus expansion can be bought with real money if you so choose. The game indicates that there are more expansions on the way.

 
868-Hack — £3.99/$5.99

To those who have never heard of 868-Hack, it might seem like it’s not worth the hefty price, especially considering its less-than-modern graphics and simple controls. Fortunately, this turn-based, roguelike puzzle game offers much more than the smiley-face avatar would suggest. Complex resource management systems and balanced AI makes this game one of the most challenging yet rewarding games to be released on iOS.

You are tasked with protecting a computer system by taking out various invaders such as viruses and glitches. Throughout the eight procedurally-generated levels, you have the option to pick up either points or powerups (and sometimes both). Each powerup is different and uses one of two different resources picked up off the map. Picking up either points or powerups will spawn enemies, though.

Enemy classes in 868-Hack are extremely well-defined and show their strengths immediately, which is good because you quickly need to learn how to defend against each one of their unique strengths. When you have ten enemies spawning all at once, you immediately have to start thinking ahead.

Rich gameplay and complex strategies are what make this game easily worth the price tag. Because the game is procedurally-generated, there is no end to how many times you can play with the game still feeling fresh every time.

 
Year Walk —£2.49/$3.99

Based on an old Swedish ritual and sold alongside a free, lore-exploring companion app, Year Walk by Simogo is a first-person puzzle game that doesn’t fall short when it comes to challenging puzzles and an immersive atmosphere. The horror game starts you off at the beginning of a year walk, a midnight excursion into a supernatural world filled with ominous creatures and strange omens.

This game is definitely not one you want to play in the dark. Right from the start, Year Walk creeps you out with labyrinthine paths through the forest and eery puzzles involving wind up dolls whose bloody heads spin around. Definitely not for the faint of heart.

What makes this game worth the purchase is its stimulating, often abstract puzzles as well as how well it accomplishes game immersion. The game’s soundtrack, gameplay, and lighting does a great job of making you feel like you really are creeping through a supernatural landscape.

 
Monument Valley — £2.49/$3.99

This puzzle game from developers ustwo is more than just a pretty face. While the game looks amazing, decked out with bright colors, smooth animations, and striking level design, it’s the puzzles that really shine.

The game’s premise is fairly simple: reach the top/end of a monument by navigating through its numerous puzzles. Here’s the twist: the world moves in an M.C. Escher-esque way, connecting pathways that make no sense according to traditional laws of the physical universe. Ultimately, it isn’t a game that can be described through words but instead has to be played to really “get it”.

Monument Valley is challenging, visually striking, and asks for nothing in return after your initial purchase. While there are only ten levels in the main game, they are definitely worth the money.

 
Conclusion
It’s hard to choose when deciding on whether or not to make a financial investment in a game that you know nothing about. With a little research, a little money, and a lot of faith, you could be in for a much better experience with a purchased game instead of downloading the latest free-to-play game, many of which don’t stay free for long.

Remember that, in the end, devleopers still need to make their money back. While the free-to-play model works for some, it has its disadvantages as well. If and when you start getting discouraged by the barrage of free games out there, don’t forget that there are some iOS games worth buying before downloading and not two hours in.

The goal of Intercept is simple: defend your Hacking Uplinks long enough to transmit data back to HQ. Your team, Intelligence Squad Alpha, is tasked with establishing and defending these links from enemies.

Your Team Score is based on how much progress you make in establishing your Uplinks as well as an aggregate of Personal Scores. Personal Scores are based on getting kills, using abililities, and capturing enemy bases. Raising your score does give you some tactical advantages as well. Earned bonuses include artillery strikes and the use of jetpacks.

However, Team Score decreases when you respawn after a death or lose an Uplink to the Helghast. When there isn’t enough Team Score left to respawn any more members of your team, you lose the match.

The DLC will include four new classes available for multiplayer combat. New classes such as Assault and Marksman are fairly straightforward: Assault is a shotgun-wielding, up-close-and-personal warrior class whereas Marksman is a long- and mid-range warrior whose sniper rifle totes explosive rounds.

The support roles are where the emphasis on tactical gameplay becomes more apparent. Medics can heal, revive, and drop supply boxes for teammates to use. Equipped with a submachine gun, the Medic isn’t much of a force to be reckoned with, however. The Tactician class plays a similar supporting role, defending the team using three deployable turrets and a shield.

The AI in Intercept have their own set of classes and goals. They will also make sure to change strategies after the successful capture of an Uplink, keeping players on their toes. Enemies can also call on champions, warriors based on Shadow Fall characters, to help them in battle.

Killzone Shadow Fall Intercept DLC will be available for download in June and will be free for Season Pass holders. A standalone version will be made available later this year. For updates and details on Intercept, visit Killzone.com.

Now is the […]

While many games like Guitar Hero garnered almost instant commercial success, some less mainstream concepts slipped under the radar. These games, often ignored by the majority due to their eccentricity, have offered us some of the best musical game systems on the market, even by today’s standards. My list is one of conceptual successes, not just financial ones.
#5: Patapon Series – 2008 to 2011

These quirky rhythm games involve far more than simply inputting a four-button sequence to a beat as black, cartoon creatures danced around the screen. No, the side-scrolling Patapon series, three games released all for the PSP, present you with a much more complex system than “Attack, Walk, Attack, Walk”, despite that being the central conceit of the game.

The Patapon series offers an in-depth, customizable leveling systems with a variety of Patapons to pick your army from. In order to upgrade each individual Patapon, you have to first collect specific consumable items from various levels. Each branch in the upgrade tree has its own advantages, such as immunity to fire with an ice weakness or maybe a reduction in knockback in exchange for speed. The level of customizability is high, leading to a more satisfying experience, even outside of the main game.

Add the gameplay and the depth of RPG elements in Patapon and you have a game that you can not only play more than once but for hours on end, all the while unknowingly humming “pata-pata-pata-PON!”
#4: Ouendan Series – 2005 to 2007

“Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan”, the first of three games of its kind, feature a rather serious cheerleading team following your rhythmic DS touch commands. By tapping, sliding, and swirling your stylus at breakneck speed, you can cheer for random people as they tackle difficult tasks like trying to ignore their family as they do homework or finding inspiration for their next pottery masterpiece.

Elite Beat Agents, released in North America, Europe, and Australia, featured secret government agents dedicated to helping those in need as opposed to the Japanese cheerleading team. The game is essentially identical to the first Ouendan, save for its American setting: rather than struggling with common Japanese cultural conundrums, the story follows stories like helping a Hollywood director make a career-saving movie.

The game’s frantic pace and use of touch technology makes it stand out against a backdrop of similar “tap-to- the-beat” rhythm games. Not only do you have to make sure you’re tapping available button on the beat, you need to make sure your slides are timed perfectly and your screen-killing swirls are extracting the most from the game.
#3: Audiosurf – 2008

Audiosurf, a game for Windows only, features a floating vehicle on a futuristic track moving forward to the beat of the song you load into it, any song you want. The game designs a course specific to the chosen song, inserting bumps on the beat and increasing the speed of your vehicle as the song increases in feel.

I say “feel” because, even though the tempo of most songs doesn’t actually change throughout, the game still manages to interpret frenetic sections of music as an increase in vehicle speed. This mechanic alone is enough to make you try the game out, but it’s about a lot more than just cruising along a Tron-esque track.

The “game” element of Audiosurf involves the collection of blocks that litter the terrain in a manner similar to Guitar Hero in that they all fall on a beat or significant part of the arrangement. The blocks collect in a shadow grid beneath your vehicle and only clear when they form a series of three or more.

In a manner not unlike Tetris, you have to figure out the best way to clear the most amount of blocks at once. What’s more, there are different colors of blocks, each with their own point values.

The quest for a high score is ongoing with new scores being posted every day along with what song was played. With a community that enduring, it’s no surprise a second Audiosurf is already available on Steam via Early Access.
#4: Everyday Shooter – 2007

Everyday Shooter may seem like a lo-res predecessor to Geometry Wars, but with a little context and a few frustrating hours logged into this PC and PSN game, you’ll come to realize its complexity.

First off, the music was recorded entirely by the game’s programmer and graphic designer, Jonathon Mark. The music, comprised almost entirely of electric guitar sounds, is rich and textured. In the same vein, each piece of audio feedback (and there is a lot) is matched perfectly with the level.

The game itself is much like Asteroids in that you control a small “ship” on a fixed screen as objects fly in from off-screen. Where it differs is that, in each of the eight levels, the way in which you progress is different. I won’t spoil the surprise, as part of the challenge is discovering what it is you need to do to get the biggest combos.

This game, despite being decried as frustrating, is as rewarding as it is challenging. Slipping through spaces between enemies, chaining massive bombs together to create huge combos, jamming to the beat as you hammer a particularly tough baddy: all of these things come together to transform a simple mechanic into a wholly-realized concept.
#1: Sound Shapes – 2012 – Einfo Games Review 10 / 10

Sound Shapes interacts with music on a level I have yet to see in other games. The PSN platformer asks you to collect floating “notes” as you navigate levels in order to complete the pre-written score. What makes the music feel so textured in this game is that notes collected more than three panels from your current location no longer get played, resulting in a more organic sound.

The game uses sounds composed by popular artists such as Beck and Deadmau5 but also allows you to take control in the level editor. Level editors are typically quite clunky, especially when played on portable systems like the PS Vita, but the Sound Shapes editor is the exception to the rule. Simple commands, good use of all the available buttons and touch screen make creating levels a breeze on any system (I will say that the use of the Vita’s rear touchscreen is, as always, a bit frustrating but can be substituted with other buttons).

The result of such a streamlined editor is a fertile community of user-made content. User-made levels with designs beyond anything available in the admittedly short campaign mode are available to play or download for free.

What makes this the best music game of the past decade? Simplicity. Despite being pregnant with possibility, the UI and game mechanics in this game are so simple that anyone can pick it up and enjoy a home-made jam while hopping from platform to platform, picking up notes left and right and hearing the magic that follows.
Conclusion
Even with such a rich history in just the last ten years, music-based video games continue to evolve, spawning new and interesting games like the recently released puzzle platformer FRACT OSC. There seems to be no end to what developers can come up with in terms of creatively integrating music with gameplay.

With new technologies like virtual reality and augmented reality now coming to fruition, I can only imagine what sort of advances musical experiences will garner. I’m looking forward to playing an air guitar that can actually produce sound, finally.