It’s time for yet another podcast and, after Sony unveiled a deep dive into the PlayStation 5 hardware, that’s going to be at the centre of our latest episode. Not only does TheXboxHub Official Podcast Episode 52 contain thoughts on that, but also the disappointing fact that some big games won’t be transferring all of your current progress to the next-gen upgrades, with FIFA 21 being a prime example. So please, sit back and enjoy our musings on all of that… and more!
This week, the team tackling the current goings on consists of Gareth, James and William. It’s a rather wild opening segment for this episode, with The Walking Dead season finale and the McDonald’s Monopoly scheme getting attention alongside a frank discussion regarding the future of the cinema industry. Do we believe cinemas can bounce back after the pandemic is over?
Then we move on to the thorough breakdown of the PlayStation 5, including the process for upgrading storage capacity and how much effort it’ll take to be able to lay the console down on its side during use. Sticking with the next-gen theme, there’s an NBA 2K21 gameplay video that caught our eye, showcasing the realism on Xbox Series X|S and PS5. Those looking forward to Watch Dogs: Legion may be interested to hear about the story trailer and post-launch plans.
The disappointing announcement that progress within certain areas of FIFA 21 won’t carry over to the next-gen upgrades leads us to consider the possible reasoning behind this, as well as a selection of other games in the same predicament. And speaking of FIFA 21, that’s one of the games we’ve played this week, hence we discuss our first impressions. There’s also time to chat about Star Wars Squadrons and the original Prey, so tune in for the lowdown on those! As always, full show notes are available over at https://www.thexboxhub.com/podcast
If you’ve never heard of this podcast, then let us change that for you. What you need to know is that the TheXboxHub Official Podcast is a weekly podcast in which the team behind the written word get together to chat about all things Xbox, gaming, and life in general.
You can find this latest episode of our podcast on all the usual podcasting apps and options. That means it is available by searching for TheXboxHub on…
Slimes. Goo. Blobs. Since the dawn of video game time, these balls of pudding, or whatever you may call them, have been public enemy number one in almost any RPG that you can name. What happens, however, when these snotty spheres turn on each other? What happens when you and your friends take control of these creatures and duke it out in arena combat? The Blobs Fight knows what happens, and it is nothing interesting, really.
Developed and published by SkyPyre Studios, this multiplayer arena party game is made for one to eight players. Your path to victory in each game mode primarily consists of smacking bits of goo out of your opponents. You must then use your own blob to absorb that goo. The more you have, the larger you become and the closer you are to winning. However, keep in mind that larger blobs move much slower.
In order to knock the flesh(?) from your friends, you have two options: dash into them, or ground pound them. In many cases, party games should not be too complicated. They should be accessible for players of all skill levels. Even so, the range of motion and moves you can perform as a blob feels incredibly limited. To make matters far worse, however, is the fact that the blobs do not control well.
If I were given the choice between maneuvering a rickety old grocery cart with wonky wheels down a steep, bumpy road, or maneuvering a blob in The Blobs Fight, I would undoubtedly take the former. Blobs are free thinkers. They cannot be expected to follow the inputs of some player who thinks they know what they want. To a blob, the tilting of a control stick is more of a suggestion. Attempting to tell the blob where to move results in the blob slowly turning in the general desired direction and at an irritating pace. The animation feels partly to blame for the lackluster feeling, as blobs lazily glide across the ground with little visual pizzazz. Even the act of slamming into opponents fails to carry any weight or emphasis.
In fact, slamming into friends is awkwardly difficult. Perhaps that is a design choice. It may be funnier to watch a bunch of blobby spheres hurl themselves at one another with little success. However, for me and the group of friends I gathered to play the game, it felt incredibly frustrating. Timed matches would end with hardly anyone succeeding in attacking, and matches with more time on the clock or none at all went on for way too long.
With four different game modes for competing with friends, one would hope that there could be plenty of variety to keep the game fresh. One would have to keep hoping, since you must either gather the most blob bits, make people lose the most blob bits, gather the most blob bits while standing in a certain spot, or gather the most blob bits for the longest amount of time. To put it much more briefly, you are always gathering blob bits. This extends to the adjustable rules which also fail to offer enough options for bolstering variety.
The greatest part of the game are the maps. There are nine in total, and they each feel distinct from one another. Some have light hazards to keep you on your toes, but nothing that felt too challenging or too inconsequential. The roughest part of the maps, however, is that they are hard to look at. Though that’s more of an issue with the game’s visuals.
It feels as though there is no sense of direction in The Blobs Fight’s color scheme. There are plenty of colors, to be sure, but they rarely feel like they go together well. On several maps, it also feels that those colors were poorly implemented as they made my eyes feel strained. These poor visuals apply to the blobs as well. Blobs can be equipped with cutesy little outfits to give them some individuality, but they do not distract from the fact that the blobs look like they were created in a flash game from 2006.
Going back to the game modes, there is a mode that can be done solo or cooperatively with friends. This game mode only works with three of the nine maps, for some reason, and sees you repelling an army of hopping robots. Even on the harder difficulty, these robots posed no threat. The most difficult part of this game mode is, like the others, simply getting your blob to do what you want it to do. Repelling the robots is so laughably easy that the addition of a single friend makes it practically impossible to lose.
The Blobs Fight on Xbox One is supposed to be a party game. Yet, because of its wonky, imaginative controls, and a huge lack of content, it falls extremely short. True, it has some distinctive map designs, but these are ultimately dragged down by the poor color choice and visuals. If you are looking for a great party game to entertain friends and family, unfortunately this game is snot for you.
With the kind of punctuality that a Swiss railway could only dream of, yet another KEMCO title has heaved into view over the gaming horizon. As you’d probably expect by now, the game in question isn’t a first-person shooter, or even a cute kart-based racer, but a retro-styled JRPG. Taking inspiration this time around from properly retro games, like the seminal Final Fantasy 6, the graphics on display here are blocky piles of pixels, yet all seem to have personality; as we’ve come to expect from KEMCO. So, come with me to an 8-bit world of peril, dragons, and jobs.
The story of Dragon Lapis is a corker. 1000 years ago, two dragons – one Gold, one Silver – fought and fought until the world was a ruin. A hero, Alaric, arose to take the fight to the dragons, and by sealing away their power inside jewels known as Dragon Lapis, he was able to imprison the beasties and a new dawn of peace and prosperity came over the land. However, this peace was to be short-lived, lasting only 1000 years before someone decided it was about time to revive the dragons. We play as a bloke called Lucas, who, as luck would have it, is a descendant of the fabled Alaric. We meet a girl called Iria, who is the Golden Dragon in human form, and when the two meet, the seals that kept them from tapping their true powers begins to break, and the story is set in motion. Of course, the Silver Dragon, Ishtar, isn’t sitting around twiddling her thumbs; she has found a descendant of Alaric to help her. Can Lucas, Iria, and the two other heroes they meet along the way, Melvin and Elodie, save the world again?
The game is pretty much business as usual – a large world map with multiple dungeons and towns to visit, with exploration bringing its own reward, as the merchants in the towns you visit have stronger and stronger gear to buy as you go through the game. You’ll need it too, as every five steps, seemingly, the game will trigger a battle, and the view will shift from the side as a turn-based battle, instantly familiar to anyone who has ever played a JRPG before, unfolds.
Choosing to attack, use items or skills, guard or even running away are all actions that are available, but every fight just degenerates into a slug-fest to see who falls over first. Thankfully, it’s rarely your characters. As you battle, you gain EXP points, leveling up, and becoming stronger. However, there is a twist in this leveling up mechanic in the shape of growth plates. Now, what growth plates do is allow your character to learn a job, and then level that job up. For instance, Lucas starts off as a warrior, and as you gain and complete warrior-type job plates, every fifth level, the job changes. He can become a Berserker, and then five levels later a Chevalier. Once you reach level 15 (in effect), the rank of the job won’t rise any more, but the benefits of completing a plate will still accrue – for example, completing a warrior plate gives you 20 more base HP.
To finish these plates a different type of point is used, that of EP. Now, there are only three ways to gain EP and make yourself stronger: one is to use various items that bestow EP upon the party or a single member, the next is to defeat metal monsters that appear in certain areas in the game, and the last is by completing missions that appear before a random fight. These can vary from “Use an item to restore HP” right up to “Do 1000 damage in a single attack” and award differing amounts of EP for each one.
These jobs are great, and there is a good variety of them to go at, but to be honest for the most part I have maxed out my four character’s starting jobs and just left it at that; I haven’t felt the need to change. If you do change, for instance switching Iria from a Sage to a Neo-Dragonite, they do get a cool different look in the battle screens, and the equipment that they can use also changes. So bear in mind that if you only have low level gear for a particular job, if you change to said job you could well make the team less efficient.
This shouldn’t be too much of an issue however, as the difficulty level in Dragon Lapis is best described as “dumbed down”. I have, without a word of a lie, gone through 95% of this game, including boss fights, by pressing the “auto battle” button and leaving them to it. I have never died, I haven’t lost a fight, and it all seems very straightforward, disappointingly so. What is also disappointing is the return of the traditional KEMCO control issues, where a mobile gaming experience has been mapped, very badly, to an analogue stick. Walking diagonally is completely impossible, and trying to line up for a small gap is an exercise in frustration. It is more noticeable this time around, for some reason, and you can never quite forget it’s there.
The game looks good though, with characterful sprites expressing emotions through the medium of almost emoji-like symbols that appear above their heads, and the music is stirring and fits the game perfectly. The only issue I have with the audio is the tune that accompanies a decision to stay at an inn – something you’ll need to do as health isn’t recovered between fights. The tunes in these types of games are generally soothing, implying a restful night; except here it is jarring and discordant, and sounds to me like the shower scene in Psycho. It just doesn’t fit.
So, a conclusion is required, and here we go. Dragon Lapis on Xbox One is easy, but fun. The story is pretty good, however the controls are annoying and the whole thing does seem a little bloated, forcing us to go to places that we really don’t need to. Aside from that though, all in all it’s a pretty good little playthrough. If you like a retro JRPG, but aren’t very good at them, this could well be the game for you!
What a great time it is to be a fan of Ben 10; not only is the franchise celebrating its 15th anniversary with a film on Ben 10 Day, titled Ben 10 Versus the Universe: The Movie, but there’s also a brand new game out right now. So whack on your Omnitrix today and jump into Ben 10: Power Trip on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch and PC.
Ben 10: Power Trip is a fresh new action-packed, open-world adventure based on Cartoon Network’s iconic series. Young Ben Tennyson is all geared up for a chilled-out European vacation with Gwen and Grandpa Max, when the master magician Hex puts a spanner in the works. The devious Hex has awakened four mysterious crystals and summoned a host of monstrous delights from the Void. It’s going to be Ben’s job to save the day using his fancy Omnitrix powers, and maybe a little help from a rival…
As the adventure can be played in two-player local co-op, long time rival Kevin Levin is drafted in to offer assistance. Together, or alone, you must defeat the deadliest enemies Ben has ever faced by engaging in exciting combat. This requires you to transform into the alien beings, such as Four Arms, Heatblast, Rath and more. There will be some fun puzzles to solve too, using your skills to help the local folk as you explore various cities, forests and mountains across Europe.
With the arrival of Ben 10: Power Trip, it’s clearly hero time, so if you wish to foil Hex’s evil plans, simply make your way to the Xbox Store and pay £34.99 – it’s also available on PS Store, Nintendo eShop and Steam. If you’re unsure about spending that much money, keep an eye out for our full review, which is already underway!
Game Description:
Ben Tennyson and his family are all set for a relaxing European vacation – until evil Hex awakens four mysterious crystals and summons monstrous visitors from the Void. Now it’s up to you to help Ben stop the master magician’s Hex-tremely fiendish plans! So put on the Omnitrix and transform into Ben 10’s incredible aliens, as you adventure and battle through an action-packed 3D world. Take on some of the deadliest enemies Ben has ever faced in thrilling combat. Solve fun puzzles, use your skills to help out the townspeople you meet, and collect power-ups to upgrade your aliens. And explore the cities, forests and mountains of Europe on your way to the final showdown against villainous Hex. With Gwen and Grandpa Max on your side, all the humor and rivalry from the Cartoon Network show is here. And since four arms are better than two, Kevin Levin is along for the adventure in local split-screen co-op. This is one Power Trip you’ll want to take again and again. It’s hero time!
It’s hard not to make comparisons in the case of Smart Moves. Watch the trailer and you’ll spot the influences: Crypt of the Necrodancer (and Cadence of Hyrule) and Fairune are definitely in there. This is a fantasy game where every step triggers enemies to move, and it takes on the aspect of a puzzle game as you evade enemies while clearing chests. Smart Moves makes a calculated boogie onto Xbox One today.
Already having slid onto PC, rather than the Zelda-like worlds of the games we mentioned, Smart Moves goes for more of a traditional puzzler approach. Level by level, you’ll be working through escalating difficulties and a broader range of enemies. It’ll be interesting to see how much gets lost – or gained – by dragging the world out of this fantasy game. Find out soon in our review.
Looking at trailers and screenies, there’s a fair amount of variety in the levels. It’s not just killing and chest-raiding that gets you through. A helpful hint is scrawled across the top of the level to give you that guiding hand, in case the objective eludes you.
“Smart Moves” is a puzzle with a strong roguelike feel. Different worlds with levels of increasing difficulty, sneaky monsters, unexpected obstacles and great treasures await you. Smart moves are the key to survival! “Smart moves” is a combination of puzzle and turn-based roguelike mechanics. Destroy monsters, open chests! The hero can attack monsters when both are standing on neighboring squares. Avoid being the first at a distance of impact! The hero can’t skip turns, but can use level objects – or other monsters – to “skip” the turn. Every game level is a puzzle with its own logical solution. You have to discover and learn how objects interact with each other in the game world. You get a new playing experience where game mechanics are of maximum importance. Original art style included.
Where do you start when describing Dark Grim Mariupolis? It’s a point-and-click, which is the easy bit. Then there’s the wireframe vector graphics and smudged screen, which makes it look like an arcade cabinet from about 1986. It’s set in a dystopian future full of robots, and they’ve all deteriorated to the degree that most of their conversations make zero sense. Like what you’re hearing? Dark Grim Mariupolis is out today on Xbox One.
Where were we? There’s more. You play a detective named Thor, which is a hint of how broad the influences are on the storytelling. There’s a lot of Norse, Ionic and Doric myth here, which seems highbrow until the developers stir in some drug and beer jokes. It’s surrealist too, with your actions not always making sense, and events often taking Lynchean turns. It’s a Russian-developed game, so there’s also some quirky translations and deep, dark introspection.
Still with us? There’s some Layton-sequel puzzles here too, requiring you to get your Mensa on. Having played through it ourselves (the review is incoming), we can reveal that they are some of the most demonic puzzles you’ll come across.
Reply in appropriate manner in dialogs to achieve your goals.
Sometimes you’ll have to make a moral choice.
Deceive and hide your true intensions.
Complain about life, work and social order.
One thing is for sure: you won’t have played anything like Dark Grim Mariupolis on Xbox One. It’s out today for a mere £4.19. To put the click into this point-and-click, you can play it on PC where it’s been available on Steam for a little while already.
Game Description:
Introducing “Dark Grim Mariupolis”, a point’n’click adventure game set in a world, combining noir, Greek mythology, magic, mysticism, hopeless entourage of Greco-Roman Age of Decadence and stifling everyday routine. Encourage yourself and step into darkness… Enter Mariupolis, a dark place accompanied with confusing, strange music of no visible source. You are some sort of a detective, and therefore you need to investigate, but why? That’s the thing you’re going to find out… or, maybe not. Everything depends on you and sudden whims of Pentaculus, a grim god stretching its hands out over the whole city. Investigate and solve puzzles, while resisting dark and obscure grasp of Mariupolis, where the only things guarding you from its baneful influence are sarcasm and arrogance. And be aware – your hero might actually die.
Team17’s busy year continues with The Survivalists, the next in their burgeoning ‘-ists’ franchise. This one looks a little bit special, not only because Team17 have been knocking it out of the park recently, and not only because The-Escapists-goes-Castaway sounds like an intriguing mix. We’re liking the look of this one because no one has ever really brought the ‘shipwrecked on a desert island’ fantasy to a decent video game.
The Survivalists launches today on Xbox One, PS4, Switch and PC via Steam.
In typical form, The Survivalists doesn’t do everything you’d expect from its premise. Sure, you will trekking into the jungle from your shipwreck to find resources and build a base. That much is expected. But you probably didn’t expect to employ monkeys as your labour force, programming them through mimicry to build while you’re away.
Then there’s the island, which has enough vaults and beasties to put Lost to shame. These don’t look like they are shallow endeavours: it seems that Team17 are taking a leaf out of Zelda’s book and plunging you into reasonably intricate dungeons. As is absolutely vital to any modern game, you can also unlock a wide range of hats to showcase your survival skills.
Features include:
A World of Adventure and Possibilities – The island is alive! Your newfound home will change with day/night cycles as you explore and uncover its secrets. Hunt (or be hunted by!) animals for food and an array of mythical enemies, who aren’t necessarily pleased to see you. Get quests from a Mysterious Stranger or find them washed up on the shore. Prepare to trek into a procedurally generated wilderness, with a variety of biomes, for an adventure that’s unique to every player.
Build Together, Survive Together – Finding the perils of island life too much or just looking to share your building expertise with friends? The Survivalists has you covered! Complete joint adventures, gain loot, trade and ultimately survive together and as you and up to three fellow castaways explore an island paradise.
Monkey See, Monkey Do! – If you’re in need of a builder, a lumberjack or even a soldier, the monkeys on the island can be tamed and trained to help you with everyday tasks or back you up on raids to a fanatic camp! The Mimic System means a wide variety of functions can be performed by your banana loving friends, with monkey management becoming key to surviving the island’s challenges.
Get Crafty – The secret to survival is to make the most of the resources around you. Whether that’s piecing together a primitive axe to chop wood or mixing up a refreshing fruit smoothie to keep the hunger at bay, you can discover recipes and expand your options across food, item or structure crafting trees.
Run the Gauntlet – Looking for an epic sword to hang on your hut wall or want to lay waste to encroaching hostiles? What you seek could be in one of the many labyrinths scattered around the island. However, getting your hands on the loot won’t be easy so any would-be raiders will need to prepare for their treasure hunting crusade.
Emma Bates, Producer, Team17, said: “Ever since the success of The Escapists, we’ve been excited to create a new, different game in the same universe, and so The Survivalists was born. We can’t wait for players to shipwreck themselves on their very own island, as they start their new life surrounded by their monkey pals, uncovering all of the secrets, and danger, their island has to offer!”
Max Everingham, Head of Publishing, Team17, said: “The Survivalists is a very special title to everyone here at Team17, the fact it was developed in-house means we are extra proud of the next entry in The Escapists universe. We hope players enjoy their shipwrecked island life, and that with a little help from their monkey friends, they manage to not just survive, but thrive in the unchartered world of The Survivalists.”
We’ve been in the market for a decent survival sim since Don’t Starve, and while The Survivalists takes the definition of ‘sim’ to its furthest extension, it certainly has plenty to excite us. You can check out our verdict on this one now,if you fancy.
The Survivalists is out now on Xbox One and will cost you £21.99, whilst the Deluxe Edition comes in at a couple of quid more at £23.99. That includes the Monkey Business DLC pack, which in turn costs £2.79 but delivers a host of lovely hats for both you as the player, and your monkey army to wear. It’s also out on PS4, Switch and PC via Steam.
Game Description:
A living world full of surprises, secrets and danger awaits in The Survivalists, an adventure-filled survival sandbox set in The Escapists universe. Explore, build, craft and even train monkeys with up to three friends in a desperate bid to survive. Have you got what it takes to be a Survivalist?
Ratalaika Games are well known in gaming circles for providing a multitude of cheap gaming options, with the vast majority of their weekly releases throwing out easy to grab Gamerscore and achievements for good measure. Today they see their catalogue expand once more with the launch of the puzzling Reflection of Mine on Xbox One, PS4 and Nintendo Switch.
Created by a talented solo indie developer from Russia – Redblack Spade a.k.a. Slava – before being picked up and published on console by the Ratalaika Games team, Reflection of Mine sees you joining the wicked world of one Lilly Witchgan; a girl who as a bit of an identity disorder.
Priced at £7.99, Reflection of Mine will see you taking on the role of Lilly as you attempt to help her navigate through the two sides of her personality, with each delivering totally unique puzzles. With a dark, rather mysterious plot holding things together, you’ll be found controlling two different characters at the exact same time. Nothing new there then as we’ve seen that mechanic take hold numerous times over the years, but with more than 10 hours of gametime, 55 different puzzles, and 10 different personalities to get to grips with, for a Ratalaika release, there seems to be a ton of content.
The launch trailer for Reflection of Mine will lend further insight into how things play out. Give it a little watch and then head to your favoured digital store – Xbox Store, PlayStation Store, Nintendo eShop – and grab a download.
If you’d prefer to know even more about Reflection of Mine before you go splashing the cash, our full review of the Xbox One edition of the game will be coming along real soon.
Game Description:
Help Lilly Witchgan, a young girl who has dissociative identity disorder. Discover which personality is the real one and uncover a dark plot as Lilly navigates her mindscape. Control two different characters at the same time as you attempt to get to the exit by navigating both personalities through a multitude of traps. Each side of the stage is different for each of the personalities, so be cautious! Can you solve the broken puzzle that is Lilly Witchgan’s mind?
When you get together the developers of Gears of War: Judgment and Bulletstorm, and mix them with those behind Sleeping Dogs and Just Cause, it’s safe to say there is a lot of hype. That is the case with Square Enix’s next blockbuster – OUTRIDERS – as the release date is confirmed alongside details of cross-play and the next-gen upgrades.
First things first and what will you be doing come February 2nd 2021? Chances are that’ll you be spending it playing OUTRIDERS on Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PS4, PS5, or PC, as that is exactly when it’ll be releasing. Unfortunately, if you prefer to utilise the power of Google Stadia, you’ll need to wait just a little longer.
And when it does hit home, it’ll feature full cross-play compatibility across all formats, meaning no matter what platform you and your friends are playing on, you’ll be able to join them for a bit of action.
Further to that though, and as is now pretty standard, if you wish to make the move from Xbox One to Xbox Series X|S, Smart Delivery will come into play, letting you upgrade for free. The same is true for those making the switch from PS4 up to PS5 too – you’ll be able to move over with no fuss, and no bother.
“We’re very happy to announce that we can offer full cross-play support and a free next-gen upgrade plan for OUTRIDERS players. The great thing about this system is that even if you’re not picking up your PS5 or XSX quite yet, we’ve got you covered and there’s no need to wait. If you buy the current-gen version of OUTRIDERS, we’ll give you the next-gen version for free“, said Jon Brooke, Co-Head of Studio at Square Enix External Studios.
“We’re taking a little bit longer to ensure players have the best possible experience with OUTRIDERS, we’re also including new features like Cross-Play which will make our game much more accessible on all platforms.” added Lee Singleton, Co-Head of Studio at Square Enix External Studios.
OUTRIDERS will release on Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PS4, PS5 and PC on Feb 2nd 2021, with a Google Stadia launch occuring later. You can pre-order the Standard Edition from the Xbox Store if you so wish.
If you want to know more, the release date announcement trailer is below.
It’s been over a year since Warner Bros and NetherRealm Studios carried the fight onwards with release of Mortal Kombat 11. But that doesn’t mean they are done yet and as we fast move into the next generation of gaming, Mortal Kombat will continue to be relevant with not just free upgrades taking place for those heading to Xbox Series X|S and PS5, but a whole new Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate coming along for the ride.
Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate is scheduled to launch on Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PS5, PS4, Nintendo Switch, PC and Google Stadia – pretty much everything then – come November 17th 2020, with those who decide to join the continue their fight into the next-gen discovering that they’ll be able to move across from current to next gen for free. Do so and 4K dynamic resolution, enhanced visuals, improved loading times and more will become available.
So what does Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate bring? Well, it’s an expanded version of the critically acclaimed videogame that ill be found adding in Kombat Pack 2 featuring new playable fighters – Mileena, Rain and Rambo. Sold as the definitive MK11 experience, it’ll also include the standard Mortal Kombat 11 base game, Kombat Pack 1 and the Aftermath Expansion.
Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate pre-orders will become available beginning October 15th, providing immediate access to Mortal Kombat 11, Kombat Pack 1 and the Mortal Kombat 11: Aftermath Expansion upon purchase. Players who already own Mortal Kombat 11 can upgrade their experience by pre-ordering Kombat Pack 2.
Alternatively, Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate Kollector’s Edition is also available for pre-order, which includes Mortal Kombat 11, Kombat Pack 1, Kombat Pack 2 , Mortal Kombat 11: Aftermath Expansion, Sub Zero mask bust, exclusive steel case, commemorative magnet coin, authenticity plate and exclusive DLC. Tasty stuff, eh!
Further, Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate, Kollector’s Edition and Kombat Pack 2 pre-orders will receive the Time Warriors Skin Pack at launch featuring three new character skin variants, including “Dark Web” Noob Saibot, “HCF” (Halt and Catch Fire) Liu Kang and “Blood Moon” Skarlet.
Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate includes the following content and enhancements *deep breath*:
Definitive Mortal Kombat 11 Experience – Two critically acclaimed story campaigns taking players on a time-bending adventure that continues the epic Mortal Kombat saga, along with the full roster of 37 playable characters.
Kombat Pack 2 – Newly added fighters Mileena, the hybrid Edenian and Tarkatan clone of Kitana; Rain, the royal Edenian demigod; and Rambo, the iconic Special Forces soldier featuring the voice and likeness of actor Sylvester Stallone.
Mortal Kombat 11: Aftermath Expansion – Franchise-first story expansion, three playable characters (Fujin, Sheeva, RoboCop) and 10 additional character skins.
Kombat Pack 1 – Six playable characters (Shang Tsung, Nightwolf, Sindel, The Joker, Terminator T-800, Spawn) and 25 additional character skins.
Mortal Kombat 11 – Packed to the brim with multiple features and modes for all players including Story, Custom Character Variation System, Stage Fatalities, Friendships, Online, Towers of Time, Tutorial, Krypt, Kombat League and the signature roster of returning and franchise-first fighters, all equipped with unique Fatalities that display devastatingly brutal cinematic visuals.
PS5 Upgrade Available – Delivering 4K dynamic resolution, enhanced visuals, improved loading times and cross-generation console compatibility for select modes. Mortal Kombat 11 and Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate owners and new buyers on PS4 and PS4 Pro can also access a free upgrade to the PS5 version of their game, available in conjunction with the Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate launch.
Xbox Series X|S Smart Delivery Enabled – Providing 4K dynamic resolution, enhanced visuals, improved loading times and cross-generation console compatibility for select modes. Additionally, Mortal Kombat 11 owners and new buyers on Xbox One consoles will have access to free updates on Xbox Series X|S, available in conjunction with the Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate launch.
Krossplay Support – Allowing PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One players to fight against other players on opposite platforms in select modes.
We’ll be sure to remind you when that November 17th release date rolls into view, but for now check out the trailer below and get acquainted with the Kombat Pack 2 Official Reveal Trailer. We think you’ll like what you are seeing.
Back in the early 00’s, Neighbours from Hell ensured that revenge would be sweet, releasing on the original Xbox, PC and Gamecube. It then went on to launch on Nintendo DS and mobile devices to ensure that the pranks just kept coming. Now though it’s time to see a fully remastered package drop onto Xbox One, PS4, Nintendo Switch and PC with Neighbours back from Hell.
Everybody needs good neighbours – apparently – but that’s not going to be the case here. Coming from HandyGames and FarbWorks, Neighbours back from Hell will let you drive your neighbour up the wall as you go about pranking your way through a couple of seasons of a highly fictitious TV show.
Priced at £12.99 from the Xbox Store, Neighbours back from Hell will see you take on the role of Woody, the vengeful star who goes traveling around the globe, all in order to cause chaos to others. Thankfully – at least for Woody – whatever you decide to do, your trusty camera crew will be right there, keeping a beady eye on all the action. It is here where you can let your crooked creativity flow freely, watching your neighbour rage in desperation. Just don’t be caught though – because then the show will be taken off air.
Succeed in your mischief though and create constant chaos in your neighbour’s life, and you’ll find that ratings will increase, and you could be in line to win some rather prestigious awards. And winning is the whole point of life.
Features of Neighbours back from Hell include:
Neighbours From Hell 1 & 2 Remastered in one package: 25 episodes set in the neighbor’s home, on a cruise liner, and in several different holiday locations around the world
All graphics newly rendered in Full HD
Framerate of all animations doubled for a smoother experience
Use stealth, skill and style to perform the perfect ambush
Easy to use interface and controls
Superb cartoon-style graphics
Big band soundtrack
If you’re up for some early 2000s trash TV inspired slapstick extravaganza then get over to your favoured digital store now. You’ll find the game on Xbox One, PS4, Nintendo Switch and PC.
Game Description:
Did you know, the Germans have a word for laughing about other people’s failures, called “Schadenfreude”? And this is what Neighbours back From Hell is all about: Making people laugh about the misfortune of others. In this HD Remaster of the beloved childhood gems Neighbours From Hell 1 and 2, you play the star of a cheeky TV Show who is constantly pranking his nasty neighbour in the most creative and hilarious ways. You want to replace a candle with a firework? What about replacing the shaving cream with the whipped cream? Go for it!
Remember how Youtubers Life: OMG Edition rolled out onto Xbox One and PS4 back in 2018? Well, U-Play Online and Raiser Games are back, with the spin-off Esports Life Tycoon set to hit Xbox One, PS4 and Nintendo Switch real soon.
Esports Life Tycoon promises to allow players to get closer to their real-life counterparts than ever before, simulating the professional careers of esports managers with scary accuracy. Coming to Xbox One and PS4 on November 12th 2020, with a Nintendo Switch release occurring slightly earlier on October 29th, it’ll see you becoming the CEO of a pro esports team – moving forward with all the stress and stardom that comes with it.
Turning a low-tier noob team into the champions of the world is the main aim of Esports Life Tycoon, a fun, casual MOBA manager/sim that reveals the inner workings of the competitive gaming scene. As the CEO you will have to take care of your team by training the squad, counselling them, analyzing their opponents, dealing with unexpected emergencies, expanding the gaming house, participating in MOBA simulated matches and more. Why? Well, in order to complete the ultimate goal of becoming the best team in the world by defeating legendary names like G2 Esports, Fnatic, TSM, PSG, or Heretics.
“Bringing Esports Life Tycoon to consoles means more players can enjoy the everyday life of their favorite esports teams”, says Sergio de Benito, Marketing Director at Raiser Games. “This launch also comes at the perfect time: the end of the League of Legends World Championship. We are sure many fans will enjoy unwinding from such an exciting tournament by reliving the best moments of the season… or creating their own.”
Finding success in Esports Life Tycoon won’t be easy though – you’ll have to take into account consequential aspects like group moral, rival knowledge, and team tactics to succeed in their seasons. Other day-to-day moments involve hyping fans, trading players with other teams, or developing individual skills, among other cornerstone activities.
The key features of Esports Life Tycoon include:
Create your own esports team and customize everything, from the crest to the players’ kits
Hire the greatest stars to achieve your goals: if a player doesn’t suit your needs, you know there’s only one option for him
Train your players and take care of their well-being thanks to team bonding, scouting, and a healthy lifestyle!
Grow your team in the most amazing gaming houses and hire coaches, psychologists, and marketing managers to improve your players’ everyday lives.
Compete in the arena to become a legend: decide either to witness the matches or guiding your squad to glory
Face challenging quests in 7 unique scenarios where only the best managers can succeed
Esports Life Tycoon features official esports teams: G2 Esports, Fnatic, Heretics, PSG, and TSM!
So what do you think? Did you like Youtubers Life and are already sold on this one? Will you be attempting to become an esports tycoon for the very first time? Let us know in the comments. And if you can’t wait, Esports Life Tycoon is also available on the App Store, Google Play, and Steam.
Team17 have been on a bit of a hot streak in regards to great, easy to play/hard to master indie titles as of late. Going from the rage-inducing Overcooked! to the complex Main Assembly and now The Survivalists, they have proven their ability to totally knock it out of the park. If you find yourself trudging through that addictive yet often underwhelming mix of “Survival”, “Open World”, and “Crafting” looking for something great, The Survivalists should have you covered.
The Survivalists starts out much like most survival crafting games; you are in an unknown world without resources and are sort of just expected to survive. It struggles a slight bit with its own identity at the start, feeling somewhere between the gameplay of Don’t Starve and the atmosphere of Stardew Valley. Luckily, a quick press of the left trigger will make you aware of one of its biggest selling points, monkeys. You see, The Survivalists loves monkeys. Maybe it’s best to save that strange point for later. You can’t interact with the monkeys until you’ve really figured out how to play The Survivalists, after all.
The beginning section has you stranded on an island foraging for berries, wood, stone and whatever else you can get your hands on. You can use stone to build a hand axe, cut trees to make a slightly better axe and so forth. This leaves a constant sense of progression as you work for better gear. This progression is inherent in almost all of The Survivalists’ design.
There are two types of crafting available: general crafting and build mode. General crafting is done in your hand and the end result ends up in your, fairly limited, inventory space. Build mode, on the other hand, sets up blueprints that you work on over time. In this sense, the general crafting is instantaneous whereas building gives you something to work towards. You can, essentially, work out a preamble of your home before building a single piece of it. Further to this, different pieces of furniture you can build offer their own crafting menus, like food from the campfire, better tools from the workbench and the best items from the furnace. As you start crafting the recipes available to you, adjacent recipes will be unlocked. This means that sometimes crafting hay will lead to a bow; sometimes crafting a chair leads to a much cooler and bigger chair.
After you are kitted out and start exploring the island, you’ll finally start to pay attention to the monkeys all around you. They are initially distrusting of you but freeing them or feeding them the right item will have them follow you. From here, you can teach them to perform basic actions, ranging from cutting down resources, building items or slaughtering your foes. One of those is significantly more interesting than the others, and left me with a dozen axe-holding simians on my trail. And this is where the world of The Survivalists finally starts to open up. On your very first island, you should find hostile villages, tombs and caves to explore. These give you small but noticeable upgrades to gear, resources and more.
Oftentimes, open-world games are very fond of one big reveal. They tend to cramp you into small spaces then open up the map, exposing you to the true scope of the title in front of you. The Survivalists does this a handful of times. You wake on a beach only to spot the depth of terrain around you. You explore outwards to discover you are on a large enclosed island. You build a boat to realise the huge potential around you. This leads you into the heart of a bug-infested swamp, at the foot of a boiling hot mountain and at the whims of a snow-covered island. There are a few distinct moments throughout The Survivalists where you feel more or less done with it, only for it to peel back one more piece of lore and send you somewhere else. You start the journey looking to get off the mountain but eventually all you’ll want to do is go back.
This is only made better by its multiplayer focus. The multiplayer aspect of The Survivalists fundamentally feels part of its fabric. It doesn’t have to strip back ideas or limit anything – you and three other buddies can survive together, build together, or die together. At times, you might be a well-oiled machine making your way to the endgame at breakneck speed, at others four monkeys casually stroll along a beach, stealing each others items. This feels like the best way to play The Survivalists.
Of course, The Survivalists isn’t without its issues. Whilst there is generally plenty to look forward to, the recipes become rather limiting and you can build the majority of them within a few hours. Working your way up to the great items is fun but most can be acquired randomly and not through the harder parts of the game. This means completing The Survivalists’ most difficult moments won’t reward you with loot that’s much better than the easiest tombs, and this in turn leads to a less rewarding endgame. After a certain point (mostly with a dozen monkeys and some cool defences) the game’s challenge just sort of disappears. Even the hardest dungeons become rather trivial with a dozen spear-wielding primates going in after you. Resources become easy to find and progression just stops, for the most part.
Despite these issues, The Survivalists on Xbox One is a very enjoyable experience. Its gameplay feels a bit like Don’t Starve, and its monkey system a bit like Factorio. But above all else, its charm and general aesthetic is all its own.
The holiday season is approaching and with that will be the arrival of the next generation of console, with Xbox Series X|S and PS5 leading the charge. snakebyte are looking to capitalise on that with the drop of numerous gaming accessories that will be compatible with Xbox, PlayStation and Nintendo Switch consoles. But they are also throwing in a new gaming chair for good measure.
The new snakebyte GAMING:CHAIR EVO promises to be the ideal option for your gaming cave, ensuring that you’ll discover maximum comfort no matter how long your sessions. Running with three new designs that will ensure optimal seating position, the GAMING:CHAIR EVO will come with extra wide wings on the side to support the shoulders, a special lower back cushion and a ton of movement in the back rest adjustment.
The GAMING:CHAIR EVO will provide seating space for anyone up to 139kg, with a seat surface of 50x50cm and a rocking function that twists 20 degrees. Certified to BIFMA standards for both security and sustainability, and complete with a 24 month warranty, if you’re looking for a new gaming chair, snakebyte have you covered.
And the choice of three different designs – each of which rock a high-quality vegan leather – will see you being able to kit your room out in either blue, green or sleek black versions; the latter of which comes with contrasting white seams.
snakebyte cable
snakebyte white dual charger
snakebyte black dual charger
head:set
cable
kit
That’s not all snakebyte are here for though, and they are throwing out accessories galore in the build up to the launch of Xbox Series X|S and PS5.
In terms of the Xbox stuff – and that’s what we are most interested in for obviously reasons – and there will be a new TWIN:CHARGE SX double charging cradle with additional 800 mAh batteries in place. Designed to complement Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S, this comes in either black or white and will ensure you have two controllers always ready for action.
Alongside that and the BATTERY:KIT SX comes in similar colourways, with a USB-C Y-cable and two 800 mAh batteries guaranteeing a gaming time of up to four hours, before being charged with the cable.
Further comes a HEAD:SET X (yep, we really dig the naming snakebyte are running and our review of the HEAD:SET X PRO is here). This will come complete with 40mm drivers, a removable mic and an elegant black and green design. A wired headset, it’ll attach to any controller with hosts a 3.5mm jack, whilst comfortable ear pads will ensure you can wear it for a decent length of time.
But that’s not all and still snakebyte have got more Xbox products lined up and whilst cables aren’t the most sexy of products, they come in super handy. Included in this line-up will be the 2m long CHARGE&DATA:CABLE SX which can be used not just for charging your controllers, but also capable of handling data exchange and transfer of games and DLC packs from external HDDs to the console’s internal SSD with up to 10 Gbps. There’s also a longer 3m in length CHARGE:CABLE SX and even lengthier 5m CHARGE:CABLE SX PRO for those who need power but also need to sit back from their screen.
Finally in terms of Xbox products and we have a 2m long HDMI 2.1 cable, the HDMI:CABLE SX PRO 4K/8K. Again coming in black and green this provides 8K transmission at 120 hz and comes with low latency through ALLM (Auto Low Latency Mode), improves the frame rate through VRR (Variable Refresh Rate) and optimized data transmission through FRL. The cable is compatible with 1080p / 3D / 4K / 8K UHD devices and has black anodized connectors. Gamers who want to use the full power spectrum of the NextGen console cannot get around this cable, no matter if a 4K or 8K TV is used! For users who don’t care about the 8K compatibility and the features of the HDMI:CABLE SX PRO, there is the HDMI 2.0 cable HDMI:CABLE SXTM 4K in 3m length, compatible with 1080p/3D/4K UHD devices.
Just for completion’s sake, if you’re going to be a PS5 player, snakebyte will cover you with their TWIN:CHARGE 5, GAMES:TOWER 5, HEAD:SET 5, and similar cables to the Xbox branded versions. And then those on Nintendo Switch will be able to grab the DUAL CHARGE:BASE S and ARROW:CHARGE S too.
So, snakebyte have got you covered in the lead up to the next generation of gaming and beyond. But which of the new products are you most interested in? Let us know in the comments below.
2K and Hanger 13 have gone all out with the Definitive Edition launches of Mafia, Mafia II and Mafia III over recent months, with the superb Mafia: Trilogy holding these all together. It is however with the first game where the real accomplishments have taken place, providing players with a stunning remake. Now though it’s time for things to get even more atmospheric with the first post-launch update for the game bringing a host of new features – including that of a Noir Mode.
Seeing Mafia: Definitive Edition hit with a film-noir inspired visual filter ensures that things get even more immersive than before as the gameplay and cinematics get painted with a vintage black and white look, complete with moody film grain effects that further accentuate the game’s Prohibition Era aesthetic.
But whilst that is the main push with this update, it’s not the only thing. Also included is a new heads-up display (HUD) that allows players to switch the in-world main objective marker on and off; switch mini-map enemy markers on and off in all difficulty settings; enable or disable navigation features like turn-by-turn instructions and mini-map GPS; and enable a new minimal HUD mode that hides HUD elements like the mini-map, speedometer, and objective text.
With the game built from the ground up, remaking the original Mafia massively, it was already an experience that was verging on the border of must-play. And with this update, it’s got better still.
If you haven’t yet picked up Mafia: Definitive Edition then you’ll find it – and the other two games along with the Trilogy bundle for £49.99 – over on the Xbox One, PS4, Steam and Epic Games Store stores. Let us know in the comments if the introduction of the new Noir mode sells it even more.
Monster summoning roguelike action is coming our way soon, with developers JanduSoft S.L (Indiecalypse) and Grimorio of Games announcing the official release date for Sword of the Necromancer on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch and PC. They’ve also released a Sword of the Necromancer Steam demo for your immediate perusal!
The developers have now made it official by revealing that Sword of the Necromancer is releasing across the aforementioned platforms on 28th January, 2021. Sword of the Necromancer is a top-down, action roguelike that possesses a unique twist: you can resurrect any enemy you kill as an undead minion which will fight alongside you. Additionally, there’s a fluid combat system in play with a wide range of weapons and gear available to choose from.
As you descend into this procedurally-generated dungeon, you’ll have to weigh up the benefits and consequences of what armaments to equip as you amass your army of the undead. Should you fall in battle though, you’ll lose all your gear and half of your level, so you best be careful. And if you’re feeling really adventurous, you can even clone yourself, allowing a friend to jump in for a spot of two-player local co-op action.
Furthermore, Sword of the Necromancer has been selected as part of the Steam Game Festival: Autumn Edition. To celebrate such a momentous occasion, there will be a 24/7 live stream of the game and a playable demo made available during the festival, which is currently underway and due to end on 13th October. Feel free to venture over to its Steam page to access the first level of the game, with two levels becoming available afterwards on 14th October for selected streamers too!
That all-important release date however is 28th January, 2021, when Sword of the Necromancer arrives on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch and PC. It is also expected to launch for Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5, but the confirmed date is yet to be announced.
*Update* Article has been amended to reflect the new release date!
If you’ve always fancied yourself as a wannabe wizard, you may wish to enroll in the magical school that’s opening its doors in Ikenfell. It’s a new turn-based RPG and it’s available on Xbox One via Xbox Game Pass, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch and PC.
Centred on a group of rather troublesome youths who attend a school specialising in magic, Ikenfell prepares to deliver a heartwarming tale that’s going to be full of twists. There’s a focus on friendship, trust, love, and loss throughout the adventure as well. It’ll see you traverse a vast array of magical and mysterious locations, including the alchemy labs, twilight yard, the dorms, and a dozen or so others.
In regards to the gameplay though, Ikenfell is a tactical, turn-based RPG in which the students will battle tons of different enemies, such as spirits, monsters and even teachers. Each of the six students possesses unique powers and strengths, but only three of the party can fight at once. Forget about MP (Mana Points) here because instead you must use timing mechanics to power your spells, blast enemies and block attacks.
Ultimately, the idea is to explore the twisted halls of the magic school, fight challenging monsters and bosses, while also trying to find tons of hidden treasure, and uncover dark secrets that were never meant to be found. So if that sounds like something you would be interested in, head on over to the Xbox Store and pay £16.74 – discounted by 10% to £15.06 for a week post-launch – or download Ikenfell at no extra cost if you’re an Xbox Game Pass subscriber. It’s available from the digital stores of the other aforementioned platforms too.
Enroll today and then come back to share your thoughts about Ikenfell by leaving a comment below!
Game Description:
A turn based-tactical RPG about a group of troublesome magic students. Use timing mechanics to power your spells and block attacks, explore the twisted halls of a vast magic school, fight challenging monsters and bosses, find tons of hidden treasure, and uncover dark secrets never meant to be found. Features: – A heartwarming and twist-filled story about friendship, trust, love and loss – 3 students in battle, from a total of 6, each with unique powers and strengths – 48 unique spells: blast your enemies, knock them back, poison them, or heal and buff your allies. There is no “MP”… spells are about skill and strategy! Each with its own timing to master – 100+ enemies to battle: spirits, myths, monsters… even students and teachers! Learn their tricks and traps, and master the timing of their attacks to overcome them – 22 challenging bosses who will push your strategy and timing to the limit – Hundreds of items to discover: wands, hats, cloaks, rings, and magical artifacts. Secret treasure is hidden everywhere, and every item you find helps you fight against the powers threatening you. – Explore a vast school of magic: the dorms, alchemy labs, astronomy tower, twilight yard, and a dozen more mysterious and magical locations – Beautiful soundtrack from the composers behind Steven Universe – Cats. Everywhere.
Drift games appear to follow the well-known saying about buses, where there are none for ages and then two come along at once. Following hot on the heels of the impressive CarX: Drift Racing Onlinecomes the second bus, Inertial Drift. Now, this is a much more arcadey offering than the aforementioned game, and it appears that the developers, Level 91 Entertainment, have taken the ‘90s as an inspiration, with a lovely neon, almost Tron-like glow about the game.
First off, the way that Inertial Drift looks is absolutely beautiful, with a real retro look to the visuals. Do you remember back in the late ‘90s/early ‘00s where every game seemingly had to be cel-shaded? Games like XIII or Auto Modellista? Well, it appears that the devs remember those days well as Inertial Drift has a cool collection of almost cartoon quality cars to unlock and master, along with a whole roster of rivals to challenge and beat. There is a massively big tick for the way the game looks.
The cars are all imaginary, so don’t have to correspond to anything on this planet, and as such look futuristic, tinged with a lovely retro style. Another plus point is in regards to the speed and presentation of the racing itself, with Inertial Drift absolutely tearing along, with nary a hint of slowdown. To be fair, there are only ever a maximum of two cars on the track at once, and they can’t collide with each other due to some nonsense about “phase shifting technology” in the vehicles, but the upshot of this is that things fast turn into a battle between you and the track, as you learn the twists and shave seconds off by drifting harder and sooner.
The second thing I have to mention is the unique control method that has been introduced here. The driving controls are as you’d expect – RT to go faster, LT to slow down, left stick to steer. So far, so boring right? Well, that all changes with the introduction of the “Drift Stick”, otherwise known as the right stick on your controller. This allows you to drift, even in a straight line, and by using it in conjunction with the left stick, a drift can be made sharper or you back off the angle a bit by countersteering. It’s actually really hard to put into words how this system works, but it is so intuitive that within just a few minutes I was drifting pretty much the entire first circuit of Inertial Drift, with hardly any braking and a series of beautifully executed transitions.
You see, braking is only done in a real emergency, and often just lifting off the throttle will see you around all but the tightest hairpins. There’s nothing like seeing a long sweeper in front, executing the perfect drift through it, then firing out the other side faster than you went into it. Getting a series of bends just right, overtaking your rival and winning on the last corner is a genuine punch the air moment.
Of course, without cars Inertial Drift would be pretty flat; luckily it has many. As you work through story mode with each of the playable characters, you are given a series of missions to accomplish, which culminate in a race against the adversary of the level you are on. Should you be able to beat your rival, you will then unlock the ability to try and win the car for use yourself. Usually this involves taking the car in question out for a spin and trying to beat a certain lap time, and with each car handling very differently these can be quite challenging. One that sticks in the mind is when trying to win the Katana, a car that accelerates fast but doesn’t corner very well. I had to take it around a snowy course complete with snow drifts on the corners. It didn’t end well. Finding a car that suits your style is a big part of this game though, and with many to choose from there is sure to be one that will no doubt fit the bill.
Racing in Inertial Drift basically breaks down into several basic types. There is time attack, which is basically you against the track, trying to beat a certain lap time. Style has you trying to score as many points as you can, while Endurance is the closest thing to a proper arcade-styled race, where you have to cover a certain distance by getting to checkpoints in time. Duel sees you trying to stay ahead of your opponent, as whoever is in front gradually gets points accumulated. This is the one I find hardest, in all honesty, as the AI generally speeds off into the distance, and catching them can be a real pain. Ghost battle and Race do exactly what they say on the tin, whilst last but not least, in terms of the game modes, is that of practice – we all know what that makes, right?
There are a good quantity of modes to go at too, with your car of choice. Standard career mode sees you take control of a character, and attempt to get them ready for the big race through a series of scenarios. With four different characters to choose from, each of whom not only have a different backstory, but crucially a different car to drive, there are effectively four careers to play, and this a good way of honing your skills. Arcade mode lets you take any car out for a spin on any track, in any of the disciplines that the game has to offer, whilst Grand Prix sees you trying to complete a series of five objectives in one sitting, as quitting out before it’s complete will require you to start the whole process again. There is even a split-screen mode for couch based shenanigans and Inertial Drift works very well here, with no slowdown and some ridiculously close battles coming out.
There is also an online multiplayer mode included for when you are ready to unleash your skills upon an unsuspecting world, but it isn’t quite as comprehensive as you might have hoped. There doesn’t seem to be any modes available online other than a straight up race, so, for example, there are no style events to partake in. Also, as there is a lack of a lobby system, if you want to play with a friend, its a case of setting the class and region to be the same, and then crossing your fingers that you get matched with your opponent of choice. It does seem like a bit of a missed opportunity to be honest, as can you imagine how much fun a proper tournament setup could be, drifting around the world?
So, we’ve seen that Inertial Drift looks great and plays beautifully, but is there anything to grumble about other than the omission of specific game modes in the online multiplayer? Well, a couple of minor things, but that is all really. One is that there’s no way to change the camera, so if you don’t enjoy looking at the back of your car, you’re out of luck. There’s also no mini map to show you what corners are coming up, which I feel in a game as fast and furious (sorry) as this one would be a great help. Another niggle is that if you do hit a barrier, they do seem to be a little magnetic, as getting off them can be quite hard. Other than those oddities though, the rest of the game has been a pleasure to play.
In conclusion, if you like an arcade racer, if you like drifting, and especially if you like drifting in arcade racers, Inertial Drift on Xbox One is the game for you. Even if you usually like the more serious end of the racing spectrum, I defy anyone not to be gripped by the sheer exuberance of the game world and the outrageous handling that is on display.
When I was asked to review RIDE 4, my immediate worry was that I would have missed out on all the story from the first few games, and I wouldn’t know who anyone was. Luckily, it turns out that none of the RIDE games are linked in any chronological fashion, so I was free to get on with the task of trying to tame the various two-wheeled beasties that Milestone Studios have included in the game.
I have to hold my hands up here, and say that I haven’t properly played a motorbike racing game since Super Hang On in the arcades, or maybe Road Rash on the Sega Megadrive. I’m much more at home on four wheels, both in real life and in my virtual racing career, as I like my machines to still be where I left them when I return, preferably the right way up!
So, on with the game. Looking back at past iterations, the visuals found in the RIDE titles that have come before this one have always been a strong point, and the fourth entry in the series is no different. The bikes are shiny and beautiful, faithfully represented in the virtual dealership, each with their own little foibles to get used to. The tracks look photo-realistic too, and if you’ve ever spent time learning the layouts of circuits in any other racing game, you’ll know exactly how these play out. Interestingly, you do have to approach the tracks differently on a bike, as I discovered on the Nurburgring Grand Prix circuit. In a car, the kink halfway down the back straight can be taken flat out, with nary a touch of the brake. On a bike, it seems almost like a 90 degree bend, with much braking required to avoid being fired out the other side of the bend on your face.
It does appear that our avatar is pretty much the Terminator though, as some of the crashes made me wince, and yet up he bounces, straight back on the bike, ready to carry on. My best crash, if you’re asking, involved hitting a roundabout on the NorthWest 200 in Northern Ireland at about 200 km/h. The bike must have 50 feet straight up in the air. And yet all was fine. Thankfully.
Now, we’ve seen that RIDE 4 looks utterly great, and the roars of each bike all seem to be present and correct, ranging from the “bee in a tin can” of the smaller bikes to the roar of the full-on racing machines.
Alongside all this comes a host of modes to partake in. The standard mode, and the place I’ve spent most of my time, is Career mode, as you’d expect. You know the routine by now: you are a rookie driver trying to break into the big time, and have to prove your prowess via a series of competitions taking you from nothing right up to the World Championships. The leagues you race in, like the European League, require you to fulfil a certain number of criteria, whether that be by winning races, beating Time Attack lap records, or even going through gates at a certain speed to clear them. They are all challenging – and that is putting it mildly.
There are also options to just go and race; pick a bike and a track and this mode does what it says on the tin. Multiplayer is all present and correct as well, and with the possibility to either join lobbies of others, or create your own with your own bespoke set of rules, the online component of the game works very well. And for beginners like me, the ability to turn off collisions is a godsend, as the last thing I want is a gang of angry bikers on the other end of the headset. Endurance mode is another feature this time around and features a new category of bike, and the longest of races, forcing you to think tactically about managing your tyres and fuel load, making pitting an essential part of the process. Oh, and there’s also a dealership and bike customisation menus, where you can spend your hard-earned pennies on either a whole new bike, or where you can choose to upgrade and pretty up an existing one.
There’s a lot of content to go at in RIDE 4 and everything looks rosy. But how does the game play, I hear you cry? Well, in a word, brutally. My first clue that this was going to be a challenge was in the very first Time Trial, when I was given a bike and sent out to see what it could do. Well, all was going swimmingly, until in an attempt to line up for the next bend, I allowed half of my rear tyre to go over the edge of the track. “FAIL!” said the game, and I may have uttered an expletive or two. Yes, in Time Attack mode, you cannot leave the track by even a single millimetre of tyre, and this causes some issues. I like to explore the limits in a driving game, push the envelope, see what I can get away with, and the answer in RIDE 4 is that you can get away with nowt. Learning to drive within the limits of the track is obviously what the game is trying to teach, but having a whole lap thrown away because of a bit of a wobble on a corner is pretty galling.
Luckily, in race mode, the track limits don’t matter anywhere near as much, but driving over kerbs and into gravel is a sure fire way to get a one way ticket to Crashville. Collisions with other drivers also have a habit of ruining your day, and more than once I wished I’d a length of chain or a club tucked into my trouser pocket; I guess that brutality was left back in 1991. Again, the game has definite ideas about where it wants you to drive, and any kind of free-form thinking is quickly punished. To be fair, I imagine that racing in real life is pretty tricky, so this is only a true and accurate representation of what goes on in real life.
So, are there any bad points to RIDE 4 on Xbox One? Well, for me, what these bikes need is another couple of wheels, maybe a comfy seat and a roof, to make them much more drivable. But seriously, other than that, as a representation of the speed and danger of bike racing, RIDE 4 is pretty bang on. The races are hard, the Time Attack is brutally unforgiving, and the online component holds its end up, with no difference in the way the game plays. For fans of two-wheeled death machines, there is a lot to like here and Milestone have, once more, made a good fist of the various difficulties of bike racing. With preset levels of realism to play around with, even veteran bike game racers will be able to find a challenge here.
If you have read some of my reviews in times gone by, you may well have noticed me refer to certain games as ‘experiences’, as opposed to your traditional release. What I mean by this is that the game itself provides something different to your run of the mill title; this is usually unexpected and gives space to relax and reflect. Feather is the strongest example of this I have played in a long time, potentially ever.
The best way I can liken what Feather brings to the gaming party is comparing it to a little known Nintendo Wii release called Endless Ocean (multi-platform gamers may well know it). This was an underwater exploration game with the main emphasis on the gameplay, simply travelling around in your scuba equipment and interacting with marine life. Feather is pretty similar, albeit taking place in the skies above a beautiful, tranquil island.
The game’s location is uninhabited, the only other life present are some feathered friends (see what I did there?) of yours. Despite the small size of the island, each part plays host to several different terrains and climates. You will be soaring across snow-capped mountain tops one minute, before swooping down to skim across the top of a fast flowing river the next.
In terms of “experience”, another way to help define what I mean is thinking about what you do as a gamer. In many games you’re a problem solver, which is realised in numerous ways depending on which game you play. In Feather, you’ll go in thinking like a gamer, but there really is no need.
Your goal is simply to explore. Even the achievements are secret so as to give no clues, no direction. The game does not want to lead you at all, instead allowing you to discover what it has to offer in your own way.
There are certain “gates” dotted about the island which are triangular and circular in shape. When you pass through the first type of gate you will change the sort of bird you play as, and when you fly through the latter the music will change to a completely different track.
At this point, I have to say the game looks and sounds fantastic. It’s utterly calming and relaxing to spend half an hour or so flying around the beautifully realised island taking in the sights and the sounds. The cel-shaded visuals run incredibly smooth on the whole, only occasionally dipping in frame rate when you perform some aerial maneuvers such as rolls and turns.
Your bird can speed up its flight, roll left or right and perform a 180 degree turn where needed. In addition to all of this, you can squawk as often as you like, by hitting the X button. It’s quite charming receiving a reply from the other birds, making you feel as if you’re having a conversation. It’s at this point it becomes clear that the squawk button is essential, and nearly as addictive as honking in Untitled Goose Game.
If you ever forget how to control your bird, you can initiate the tutorial from the pause menu at any time. This leads me to another factor that differentiates Feather as an ‘experience’. There is no difficulty. This is because there are no enemies, and if you ‘crash’, the game simply rewinds you so you can take corrective action. This helps things flow smoothly and doesn’t detract from the overall relaxed vibe of the game.
If you wish, you can also invite up to seven friends along for the ride online. There’s nothing fundamentally different here: instead it becomes a shared experience instead of a solo one.
The only issue with Feather is, inevitably, it’s longevity. I say this because as an ‘experience’, as opposed to a traditional video game, there’s no sense of progression. The idea is that you dive in, play for a short while and then hopefully come away happier and more relaxed, having taken in what the game has to offer. It really depends on what type of player you are, and what you are looking for from your games, to whether there is replay value here that can pull you back in for more.
Feather on Xbox One is a great example of just how varied video games can be. It’s totally non-typical and provides an experience quite like no other; one that everyone should take a look at, unless you are expecting an epic 15 hour campaign mode of course.
Little Big Workshop is a factory tycoon management sim that puts you at the helm of your very own tabletop factory, in the most literal sense. As the camera pans down upon loading in, you are greeted with a large table covered in all manner of things. Little trees, pencils, coffee cups, and more, and in one small section lies your little workshop. And it is from these humble beginnings that your rise to business mogul will start.
Your first foray into the business world starts with a tutorial that walks through the basics of how to accept orders for items, buy and place workstations and storage areas, and then build and deliver the goods. This tutorial boots up at the beginning of every new factory you make, but can be skipped once you no longer need it. That being said, Little Big Workshop goes a little more in-depth with the item creation process than most games do, and optimizing that process is key to success.
Each item you build will be broken down into its individual parts, so when building something like a chair, it’s not just one workstation building it. One can work on the legs, another on the seat, one on the backrest, and then a final one that has to put it all together. Each different material will need its own workstation and all of them are operated by little figurine people that drop out of the sky to help you.
This is where planning and strategizing comes in. Workstations can only be worked by one person at a time and stations are again limited to specific materials. There are woodworking stations and metalworking stations that will allow you to work on anything wood and metal – big surprise. But there are also forges, sewing stations, injection presses, and more that allow you to actually make the metal, sew together fabrics, and make plastics. Later into the game, you can start purchasing machinery that works a lot faster but is also much more limited.
Each machine and workstation has its role to play, and figuring out when to buy one and start incorporating it into your projects is only half the battle.
The other half is making sure your factory is organized enough so all of the machines fit, there is enough space for materials, and workers can get where they need to be without tripping or passing out from exhaustion. The workstations and machinery also need to be periodically repaired or they explode in a ball of fire, leaving the poor worker who is assigned to it to run around screaming until it subsides.
Workers will also need to take regular breaks or they risk collapsing on the floor, and you will have to wait a considerable amount of time for them to feel energized enough to get back to the daily grind. I guess sleeping on concrete floors in the middle of a busy factory isn’t the most relaxing thing. But all of these elements come together to form an experience that is crafted around making things run as smoothly as possible.
For fans of management sims, Little Big Workshop is probably the perfect game… when it works.
Unfortunately I encountered a rather annoying issue when I was playing which made it nearly impossible to make any real progress. During my playthrough, my workers would suddenly refuse to do any work. I was confused because they were rested, the factory was wide open, and I was almost done with my table-making job. Only a few were left and the resources were right next to the machine. So I decided to zoom in and see what was going on.
It turns out the wood planks my workers needed were floating above the designated storage space. At some point there must’ve been a glitch where the workers either put the items in the air or they had accidentally pulled from the bottom of the stack instead of the top. Since there is no way to order additional resources for the project I tried canceling it and having the items thrown out. That didn’t work either; all I did was irritate the company I was selling the tables to. So not only did I lose the money and time from that, my reputation was hit and I was stuck with floating planks in the middle of my factory.
With no other options left and only being an hour in I decided to restart and see if it was a one-off thing. Well, another hour or so into a different factory and the same issue came up. Then I tried it a third time and, lo and behold, it happened again.
This was the only real bug I was running into but it is such a critical issue that it immediately sucked any enthusiasm I had. The mechanics of Little Big Workshop are fun; managing the factory and climbing up the corporate ladder while investing in new machines and acquiring skills that would’ve let me build and expand my factory all sound great. But I’ve been left unable to make it any farther than a couple of hours into a playthrough because every time this bug would come up, leaving me with nothing to do. This sucks because without that Little Big Workshop could have easily been a must-buy for management sim fans.
The lovely art style, the easy to learn but hard to master building system, the ability to expand and fully customize your very own factory, all of these things are great, and they work well. But you can’t make any progress if all of your seed money vanishes because the resources you need become inaccessible.
I did have one situation where the game glitched like this, but I backed out and booted back up and the resources managed to reset themselves and I was able to continue. But at that point I had lost so much money while trying to figure out what went wrong that I would’ve had to sell my workstations to start another job, handicapped from that point on.
Little Big Workshop on Xbox One is fun, first and foremost, and if a patch is released that fixes the issues in place I would definitely recommend picking it up. But until then, if you are unfortunate enough to encounter progress-halting bugs then you will most likely be forced to restart. And it doesn’t matter who you are, losing all of your progress to glitches isn’t fun.
My heart sank a little when Mafia: Definitive Edition was announced. It’s a fatigue thing: yet another old game coughed up like a furball, then dried off and daubed with paint. You get to thinking about the new IPs, the new game experiences that could sit in its place. The choice of game, too – don’t get me wrong, Mafia was good for its time, but so were crispy pancakes and instant mash. We’ve moved on. Fuhgeddaboudit.
After twelve hours of returning to the streets of Lost Heaven, it feels good to say I was wrong.
It’s the city that first grabs you. PS2-era Mafia was a hellish, never-ending blockscape, with virtually nothing that pointed to the ‘30s setting. Mafia: Definitive Edition, in turn, creates a sprawling, detailed, varied city that just drips with period detail. It’s one of the most immediately arresting cities to be found in video games, and it’s completely to Hangar 13’s credit. If anything, it and the various vehicles that drive around it are almost too pristine. Everything gleams and reflects like it’s been driven from a showroom, which isn’t my mental image of America in the Great Depression. It’s a thought that becomes easy to shake when everything looks so damn spangly.
As you play, you realise how much of a luxury and how much of a folly it is to bring this much detail to the fictional city. If you remember the original Mafia, this isn’t an open-world game in the vein of GTA: you bounce from mission to mission, often against the clock. Exploring the city isn’t really a thing: sure, there are collectibles to find and cars to jack, but the city is effectively a rotating background, and that makes the art expenditure crazy. To think that someone slaved over that hot dog stand and – poof! – it’s gone. You’ll never see it again. We feel like sending the environment modellers a letter to say don’t worry, we noticed.
It’s not only the city that looks great. Respect to the costume work, which is an aspect of gaming that you don’t tend to focus on. Zoom into a trenchcoat or leather jacket and just marvel at the love that has gone into it (just don’t look too closely when it rains). The characters, too, have had an LA Noire-ish makeover, giving them natural mannerisms, tremendous motion-capture and stellar voice-acting. Paulie Lombardo, one of your goon chums, is more wild-eyed and froggish than I remember, and it works to make the likable hedonist even more likable – an absolute stand-out. Sarah, your lover, visibly warms to you, and the actor brings more steel to the role than the original did (even if she still gets too little screen-time, with women barely make a showing in the game at all). The whole experience sounds fantastic, as two radio stations play on loop, delivering a mixture of fictional and non-fictional broadcasts alongside period music.
The story is simple, echoing the Robert De Niro bits of both The Godfather Part II and The Irishman, as you play a taxi driver who gets mixed up in a getaway, before catching the eye of a local mob boss called Salieri. After some menial tasks as a form of initiation, you’re fast-tracked up the ranks and into gang-wars, assassinations and union-busting. It’s a rise and fall story and, sure, it’s harder to find gangster movies that don’t follow that pattern than do. That sounds like a criticism, but it’s not: while it’s familiar, Mafia does better than most at putting you at the centre of that plot. As Tommy feels over his head, so do you. As the house of cards falls, it feels like it’s collapsing with you at the centre. The finely acted ‘Intermezzo’ sections, with an older Tommy talking to a policeman about ratting on Salieri, only serve to amplify that impending doom.
Mafia: Definitive Edition doesn’t quite keep this feeling going to the end. As the stakes get higher, Tommy and his gang feel more like untouchables, superheroes almost, and the explosions and speedboats make the story less grounded. It’s an odd thing to wish, but I wanted the game to stay more low-key. It’s not as if Mafia ends up in Saints Row territory, but the pyrotechnics and body count slightly erode the good work.
My favourite moments were the quiet ones. Mafia: Definitive Edition does a fantastic line in sedate driving with an entertaining partner in tow. I could happily drive a drunk Paulie all day. It takes restraint and trust in the player to put in so many of these moments, and they almost always work, from a flirtatious first date to a pep-talk from your boss. In the original Mafia, I remember a frustrating sequence that put you at the wheel of a near undrivable vehicle: here, it’s a joyride.
Through it all, the dialogue is sharp and authentic. It would have been all too easy to throw in some offcuts from Goodfellas; some half-remembered gangsterisms. But the script is snappy throughout. It’s not quite Scorsese, but it’s close.
But has the gameplay been given the same old spit and shine? The missions break down into driving (both fast and slow), melee combat, and shooting. The original was patchy on all three, while Mafia: Definitive Edition is definitely better, but not as polished or stunning as the visuals and storytelling.
Driving feels the best of the bunch. The cars are slowish and a little heavy in the handling, but that’s the period for you. You will soon get to grips with pumping the brakes as you swing round a corner. It’s the traffic, though, that makes driving a completely different beast from the original, and a touch more challenging. In the original the traffic was sparse, and here it’s near gridlock, with trams, trucks and cars swinging around corners with nary a glance at their mirrors. Honestly, everyone in Lost Heaven has a deathwish, and you’ll be eyeing everyone with more suspicion than in a hazard perception driving test. It stops short of being frustrating, but you will be restarting at some point because a lemming in a station wagon jumped a red light.
In comparison, the melee combat pops up rarely, which is a good thing. You have one button to attack, while enemies will retaliate with a ‘Y’ above their heads. Time the button press well enough and you’ll dodge. If you don’t, they’ll attack again and again with that very same Y flashing. It’s almost patronising, as you can mash Y after the first failure. It’s boring and simplistic, but at least it’s uncommon.
Not so uncommon is the shooting, which swings wildly from very good to grinding your gears. This is a third-person cover shooter at its heart, and the core is good. Guns feel hefty and the level design is great. It feels satisfying to light people up with a tommy gun or crunch some shotgun shells into them at close quarters. There are even swathes of explosive barrels, as if the game was openly winking at the player. At its best, there are moments where you feel like Tony Montana.
The gunplay has got a fair number of problems, though. There’s a surprisingly limited diversity of guns, and they’re almost all designed for short range. Yet, the latter levels are determined to position snipers in bottlenecks, making combat a tiresome game of waiting for the click of a reload, poking the head out, and taking a potshot with a pistol. At least the AI helps you out, as enemies are willing to jut their head out in the same way. They’re also remarkably fine with you flanking them, looking the other way even after firing volleys to get their attention.
Dense battlegrounds cause issues with the cover system, as the game struggles to work out whether you’re moving out of cover, to closer cover or diving away. And don’t get me started on the enemy’s Molotov cocktails. If you neglect to hear the audio trigger among the noise, you’ll be insta-barbecued. The cover-locking issues, combining with a Molotov cocktail, can cause an explosion of rage. On earlier levels, where there’s few obstacles, enemies and Molotovs it’s fine – on the later missions, it becomes disproportionally problematic.
There are some real zingers in those missions, though. A sequence at a racetrack pushes at the edges of believability, but it’s too fun for you to really care. Another takes you to a derelict farm and pulls on horror movie tropes, which in turn jangles your nerves. I don’t remember either being so successful in the original, so the quality of the story is in the retelling. Fewer of the killer moments come in the second half of the game, as the objectives become more generic and the shooting more relentless. It’s a slight late-game dip, but the highs are so lofty that it’s forgivable.
It’s a good time to mention bugs, which do creep in. A couple of chases ended with the antagonist jiggling on scaffolds, and could only be overcome by reloading the checkpoint. Bodies occasionally did the Bethesda-like shuffle. It’s enough to get a mention in the review, but not enough to dink the score.
On the sliding scale of remastery, Mafia: Definitive Edition on Xbox One skews towards ‘Resident Evil 2: The Remake’, with everything rebuilt effectively from the ground up, new surprises added, and most of the archaic elements tied to a brick and thrown into a river. Sure, there are pain points in the shooting and fighting, as well as in the overall polish, but it’s altogether a good time.
I will admit that I was wary of 2K choosing Mafia to remaster, as the game was old and middle of the pack, but in hindsight it was a masterstroke: the story and structural core of the original was exceptional, but everything else had room to improve. 2K has thrown the sink at Mafia: Definitive Edition to make sure those improvements make an impact, and it’s barely possible to recognise the original under the lacquer.
As a fan of escape rooms, it’s been befuddling that they haven’t surfaced in video games more. The joy’s in the detail with an escape room – you’re searching with a fine toothcomb to get every last clue, then manipulating them all to get out of Dodge. That can be done in a video game, right? Area 86 is an escape room (wahoo!), but not in the way you might think. Rather than the graphic adventure-style we’ve just mentioned, Area 86 is a physics-based puzzler and it launches today on Xbox One.
How’s that work? You take control of a robot escaping a futuristic space station, and you’ll be using your speed and heft to get out of there. Parkour-like, you will be jumping off platforms to break glass, which reveals consoles that open doors, for example – it’s this pattern of platforming and puzzling that work in concert to find you a way out.
Perhaps most interestingly, there is no one single way of escaping the room. Rather than offer a strict path through the game, you are instead given various physics-based tools and are encouraged to find out what they can do in combination. This might mean that we see some emergent, innovative ways of completing the game, and we’re all for it.
Area 86 is admittedly not a looker, and it’s the first game from newbie outfit SimDevs. While not auspicious, great games have come from more modest beginnings. We’re big enough sci-fi and escape room fans to give it the benefit of the doubt, and you can expect a review from us very soon.
Area 86 is out now on Xbox One and will cost you £8.39. It’s also available on PC via Steam. Go go roboto!
Game Description:
Welcome to Area 86, a physics-based escape room puzzle game. The secret space station AI has gone rogue, and it’s your task to stop it! You are a fast-moving robot that can also do some stylish parkour tricks. Use the laws of physics to literally push your way through the station! Pick up items, activate switches, destroy the environment around you to escape. If you are looking for an extra challenge – you can also find secret items and clues to what happened. But there is more! The space station AI has trapped other robots. Save them and form an all-powerful robot squad! Together you are powerful! Each level has multiple ways to complete it, and it’s up to your imagination on how to escape. Don’t worry if you get stuck – you can always request a hint, just like in any escape room! Have fun escaping and defeating the rogue AI!
With FIFA 21 launching this week onXbox One, PS4 and PC, it’s no surprise to see the return of the Team of the Week (TOTW) once more. EA have picked the best players from those that have been performing to a high standard in the real world over the last seven days. Take a look at the official FIFA 21 Team of the Week #2, featuring Aston Villa’s Ollie Watkins after he played a crucial role in tearing Liverpool apart. These are available in Ultimate Team packs for one week on FIFA 21 from 7th October at 6pm. Is there anyone here you’d fancy adding to your team?
Starting XI
GK: Thibaut Courtois – Real Madrid
CB: Marcel Halstenberg – RB Leipzig
LB: Ben Chilwell – Chelsea
LB: Theo Hernandez – Milan
RM: Joaquin – Real Betis Balompie
CM: Renato Sanches – LOSC Lille
LM: Allan Saint-Maximin – Newcastle United
LM: Jack Grealish – Aston Villa
ST: Erling Haaland – Borussia Dortmund
ST: Robert Lewandowski – Bayern München
ST: Harry Kane – Tottenham
Substitutes & Reserves
GK: Rafał Gikiewicz – FC Augsburg
CB: José Palomino – Atalanta
CM: Alexander Ring – New York City FC
CAM: Marcus Harness – Portsmouth
LM: Sercan Sararer – Türkgücü München
LM: Danny Grant – Bohemians
LM: Mislav Oršić – Dinamo Zagreb
LM: Davidson – Alanyaspor
RW: James Rodríguez – Everton
ST: Ibrahima Niane – FC Metz
ST: Angel– Getafe CF
ST: Ollie Watkins – Aston Villa
So, what are your thoughts on the FIFA 21 Team of the Week #2? Will the likes of Kane, Lewandowski and Grealish be a high priority for your squad in these early stages? Be sure to get in touch via all of the usual means and let us know!
If you haven’t bought FIFA 21 yet, it’s available right now for Xbox One via the Xbox Store as well as other digital stores.
