In this article, I’ll attempt to suggest cars and tunes for you try out, all as you look to complete the Forza Horizon 5 Festival Playlist Weekly Challenges for Series 33 Autumn, in the hope of getting our hands on some exclusive cars.
One of the latest to go down the Game Preview and Game Pass route is that of Lightyear Frontier, a game that takes farming sim elements but puts it into space.
At its launch, Naughty Bear was seemingly overshadowed by E3 a couple of weeks prior. Major releases like Fallout: New Vegas and StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty grabbed gamers’ attention months prior, whereas Naughty Bear, comparable to its terrible stealth mechanics, released on a whimper. The overwhelming influx of poor reviews didn’t help its case either. Yet, a decade later and here I am - writing about a game that continues to serve as a stress reliever or a rainy day substitute. That has to count for something, as I can’t say the same for most triple-A releases.
Session has released through the Xbox Game Preview initiative and is leading the charge, somewhat, of a skateboarding renaissance on consoles, with Skater XL, the seminal Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2 and recently announced new instalment in the Skate series reboot following in the near future. Unlike the Birdman’s emphasis on putting together outlandish combos and finding hidden videotapes, Session is a much more grounded skating experience.
Marketed around the globe as Street Power Football in most parts of the world - aside from in the North American region where the exact same game will be sold as Street Power Soccer - we recently got invited to a hands-off gameplay presentation of Street Power Football by the teams behind it. And after spending a decent amount of time taking in everything that is promised, we're pretty certain that the premise and ideas behind it will be hugely anticipated by many.
There are already a good few fishing games available on console and PC, however the vast majority of the very best come from those at Dovetail Games. After previously having gathered huge interest from the angling fraternity with the release of Dovetail Games' Euro Fishing, and then rocking up with the nearly as good Fishing Sim World, hopes are extremely high for their next title - The Catch: Carp & Coarse on Xbox One, PS4 and PC. We have recently been given the opportunity to check out the game in a hands-off presentation, and so we took that time to quiz the brand manager at Dovetail - Darren Nokes - in order to find out more.
It’s been a surprisingly hectic week in gaming, but the reveals and announcements are relatively overshadowed by the news regarding the shutdown of Mixer. TheXboxHub team are ready to dive into the finer details of what’s going on and what the future holds for streamers. So, sit back and have a listen of TheXboxHub Official Podcast Episode 36, which also covers some exciting new information about Cyberpunk 2077, Crash 4, and much more.
Ion Storm was a developer with a very strange list of games in their repertoire. To think that one studio could put out both Daikatana and Deus Ex in the same year, mere months apart is strange, to say the least. Daikatana was plain terrible. Deus Ex meanwhile was a revolutionary game that’s not only culturally significant but downright excellent. And best of all? It’s still a blast to play to this day.
The video game industry is growing exponentially, which is why I wanted to take a moment to analyze a rather trivial topic within this broader spectrum. Explosions. They’re cool, they’re grandiose, they’re spontaneous, yet often scripted, and give insight on the graphical capabilities of a particular console generation. From the genre-defining Grand Theft Auto III to the upcoming Destroy All Humans! Remake, explosions have evolved to something greater than poor SFX and pixelated images. Explosions now, well, look like explosions.
When we were given the opportunity to take in more of DIRT 5, via a developer presentation by the team at Codemasters Cheshire - those behind the rather brilliant but hugely underrated ONRUSH - we just couldn’t say no. And come the end of the session, we left safe in the knowledge that what Codies are promising with the next chapter in the franchise has promise to be the best DIRT experience yet.
over the past few years, Rare has been seeing something of a renaissance - or Rarenaissance - and the future of the studio is looking the brightest it has been this century. But what exactly can be done with their old IP? Will we ever get a Banjo game again?
Conker: Live & Reloaded is a parent’s worst nightmare. A potty-mouthed, borderline-alcoholic squirrel tries to find his way back home after a disastrous night out at the local tavern with friends before they depart for “some war” - as Conker so innocently puts it. Back when this game was released exclusively for the original Xbox in June of 2005, I remember the big label at the bottom that read, “WARNING: This game is not made for anyone under age 17”. It’s as if the M for mature label and the war-ridden squirrel with a cigar hanging out of his mouth on top of a tank weren’t enough of an indicator already.
Will we ever experience Valorant on consoles? As someone who has dumped well over 50 hours into the beta and the 1.0 release, it’s tough to predict how successfully the game will translate.
We've seen Xbox make the first moves with Xbox Series X before Sony followed up with PS5 goodies, but slap-bang in the middle of silly season EA have stepped up to the plate with their EA Play Live 2020 showing. But did they manage to excite gamers with reveals and announcements of their upcoming games? TheXboxHub team get back together for TheXboxHub Official Podcast Episode 35 to chat about how things played out.
Obviously, at E3, something around a million games get announced, so I am going to have to apply some filtering to this piece, if only to save you reading forever more. So, I present to you my five favourite things that came out of E3 2015 - and some that flopped as well. Buckle up, it may be a bumpy ride!
Overall, the Maya and Gran Colombia Pack is a strong showing. Both civs are fun to play and bring something unique to the table. And despite my misgivings, the Apocalypse Mode shakes up Civilization VI’s gameplay.
Toy Story 3 was a game that both big and little kids could enjoy. The story mode didn’t take longer than six hours to complete, but the real meat of the game - and most fun - was in Toy Box mode. It is a game that will stick with me throughout the rest of my gaming career.
