Microsoft announced that the upcoming GoPro Channel application will "stream curated GoPro video content to your HDTV through your Xbox console, enabling users to browse and search a variety of categories including sports, athletes, and adventure, and watch individual videos or view back-to-back videos within a category." And members will be able to "purchase GoPro cameras and accessories directly through the app, fulfilled by the Microsoft online store," marking the first physical product available for purchase through the Xbox interface.
The caveat here is that you'll need an Xbox Live Gold account to access this new channel. Microsoft did not detail the process for uploading your own GoPro content through the channel or whether that will be possible. The service will be available on Xbox 360 this spring with the Xbox One version coming some time later this year.
Bethesda released a new cinematic trailer for The Elder Scrolls Online this week, but it's left our community as divided as Tamriel itself. Johnny steps in to try and settle things once and for all.
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UPDATE: From the same NeoGaf thread that revealed the white console, we also have tentative details on a few games. Take all of this with an "unconfirmed" grain of salt:
Halo 5 is coming in 2015
Halo 2 is getting the Anniversary edition treatment
One special edition "war" bundle will include ports of Halo 3 and 4 for Xbox One
beta access to Halo 5 bundled in
The game will be 1080p
Same dev and Halo Anniversary edition
Multiplayer included
Crackdown 3 is going to be announced at E3, releasing sometime in 2016
Forza Horizon is coming this fall -- 1080p and open-world
Quantum Break will be a holiday 2014 title
Sunset Overdrive is coming fall 2014
Fable Legends is slated for summer 2015
Fable Anniversary isn't coming to Xbox One
The next Gears of War won't be here for at least another 2.5 years.
Titanfall DLC coming 45 days then 120 days after release.
Along with the white Xbox One mentioned below, Microsoft is considering a $399 version without the optical drive.
Platinum Games has a title coming (codenamed Project Nagano) for March 2016
The original story appears below:
Microsoft is cooking up all sorts of new Xbox One models, according to a new report, including a white variant, a console with a 1TB hard drive, and even a machine without a Blu-ray drive.
The NeoGAF poster says Microsoft will launch the white Xbox One to coincide with the release of Sunset Overdrive. Could it be a limited-edition machine? The person leaking the information also released a picture of an upcoming Titanfall-themed Xbox One. If true, the machine will presumably launch alongside the game on March 11.
The poster also said Microsoft will release a firmware update for the Xbox One in March that will fix the machine's oft-criticised party chat system, and other social features. Microsoft pledged to improve these systems back in December.
GameSpot has contacted Microsoft to ask if it can comment on any of these rumours.
Longevity is tough for competitive shooters. Hardly a month goes by without new virtual arenas cropping up and enticing you into some fresh conflict, and only a few popular games manage to sustain active player bases even a year after their initial release. And then there's Team Fortress 2. Released in 2007, this class-based classic is still going strong well into its seventh year, thanks largely to its lively and creative community. Since GameSpot's original TF2 review, the game has benefited from numerous updates and made the jump to a free-to-play business model. So how well is Team Fortress 2 faring in 2014 among the current crop of competitors for your time and money?
The short answer is, it's holding up very well. The core action pits two teams of players against each other in a battle to capture points, move a cart, or steal a briefcase. The objective is always very straightforward; it's the interplay between the nine playable classes that makes things so varied and interesting. The speedy scout, the militant heavy, the diligent engineer, the conniving medic, the pesky sniper, the sneaky spy, the feisty pyro, the explosive soldier, and the even-more-explosive demoman all have unique weapons, attributes, and abilities that complement each other and clash in myriad ways. Encounters can vary widely depending on the match type and the makeup of each team, and this unpredictability is crucial to TF2's long-standing appeal.
When you come out of the gate as a heavy with a medic in tow, you're a formidable offensive force, but if a spy loops around to backstab the medic and you round the corner on a pyro, it can all come undone in a matter of seconds. Snipers can cover expected enemy paths, but rocket-jumping soldiers have a knack for finding alternative routes and raining explosive death from above. You may think you have a comparatively weak scout dead to rights, only to be stunned by a baseball and beaten to death. As you watch your giblets splatter on the ground and see a freeze-frame of your gleeful killer, it's hard not to chuckle at the sheer variety of ways you can meet an untimely demise. And the humorous quips, ridiculous outfits, and histrionic announcer help cultivate this lighthearted tone.
Of course, this core dynamic has persisted for most of TF2's life span, so if you stopped playing it a few years ago and come back for a few matches, you'll find things are very familiar. Learning the ropes and getting the hang of your chosen role is still a gratifying experience, and mastering advanced techniques doesn't just make you deadlier; it gives you more options for how to approach combat. Keeping your options open is still valuable too, because being flexible with your choice of character can help you avoid ending up on a catastrophically imbalanced squad. It is Team Fortress, after all.
But though there is much that has remained constant about the core game, there have been some notable changes over the years, as well as regular infusions of new weapons and items. Of the hundreds of things available in the online store, some can be unlocked through play, while others must be purchased with actual money. From small doodads that cost less than a dollar to massive bundles that cost hundreds, there's a wide range of ways to customize your experience.
Many of the items offer nothing more than a playful twist on the game's already cheeky cartoon aesthetic. You can buy hats, shirts, shoes, and other cosmetic gear to dress up like a character from Adult Swim or don spooky seasonal garb that you can wear only during Halloween or a full moon. Even if you don't fancy shelling out for any of this stuff, it's fun to see some visual variety as you try to light your opponents on fire.
Other weapons have more of an impact, like the ones that give your character a new chargeable and expendable power. The scout can build hype, which turns his usual double jump into a triple, quadruple, or quintuple jump, and the soldier can build rage, which allows him to rally his nearby teammates to do extra damage. Skills like these have more of a meaningful impact on the action, bringing something new to the table that your enemies must contend with. And then there are the totally out-there loadouts, like the one that turns the grenade-launching demoman into an extra from the movie Braveheart.In addition to the cosmetic options, there are a lot of weapons and items that offer small buffs or subtle tweaks to your attributes. Depending on which healing gun the medic equips, for example, he can imbue himself and his targeted ally with extra damage resistance or enable himself to match the speed of his target. Differences like these don't do much to change the core action, but they do give experienced players substantial room for strategic variation.
These options broaden the field of viable strategies, which helps keep combat lively and varied. And fortunately, none of the purchasable weapons or items tip the scales unfairly towards those willing to pay. Buffs and bonuses usually come with caveats, and the weapons that bestow new abilities are usually unlocked for free. For this review, I spent some money on goofy hats and some of the stranger weaponry on offer, like the pyro's flamethrower that actually shoots bubbles and rainbows. It was fun to play with the new gear, but I still found myself switching my loadout between free and paid weapons regularly to adapt to the match situation.
Mow 'em down and get paid.
The biggest divergence from the game's origins comes in the cooperative mode, Mann vs. Machine. In it, you and a few other human players must prevent hordes of robotic incarnations of TF2's classes from delivering a bomb to your base. The money you earn from destroying robots can be spent on mid-match upgrades to your attributes and weaponry, which can be crucial to success. Even on the easiest level, the robot legions are fierce enough to test the mettle of an unorganized team. This is a mode where carefully planned weapon choices and defensive strategies can mean the difference between succeeding and having to try, try again. You can play this mode for free, but you won't be eligible to earn rare prizes or complete challenges unless you pay a dollar for a Tour of Duty ticket. Though it lacks the frenetic unpredictability of competitive play, the cooperative mode can still provide satisfaction for those dedicated enough to see it through.
But competition is the real draw, and the Team Fortress 2 community can certainly be competitive. On some servers, you might be berated for unwitting breaches of etiquette, while on others, you might be welcomed with helpful tips and ubercharges. You can even ask for help on certain servers and be paired up with another player who is willing to give you some tips through chat. The community around TF2 is an intriguing one, not just for their deep knowledge of and passion for the game, but for their creative efforts in designing new weapons, items, and maps that have since become part of the experience. It feels like a community of curators, without whom the game may well have dwindled away and passed into obsolescence years ago.
Staying relevant even a year after release is rare for a competitive shooter, and yet, here's Team Fortress 2, still lively after seven years in the business. At times it feels like the same game you could have played back then, and at other times it feels like no one will ever quite nail class-based shooter competition the way TF2 does. The experience has evolved over the years without compromising what made it so great in the first place, so though your free-to-play options may have increased considerably in the past few years, there are few that do it as well as Team Fortress 2.
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Upcoming open-world action adventure game Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 will "keep players guessing right till the very end", producer Dave Cox has revealed in a recent interview with GameSpot.
The game continues the story established in previous games Lords of Shadow and Mirror of Fate, and will be the first title in the Castlevania series to place fans in the role of iconic character Dracula.
Speaking about Dracula's portrayal in Lords of Shadow 2, Cox described the character as "much darker than in the first game".
"We're taking a few risks with the character, the world and the universe. I think when people are playing [Lords of Shadow 2], there will be a lot of surprises there. We like surprising people. With this game, we tried to deliver something that I think will keep players guessing right till the very end." Cox said.
The producer highlighted a scene at the beginning of Lords of Shadow 2 which features Dracula preying upon an innocent family as an example where the developer felt the tone of the game could have been "a bit over the top."
"When we were developing the first game I think there was a certain fear in the team about pushing things too far. It was already quite a radical departure from the previous [Castlevania] games... but then it came out and did so well. I think for Lords of Shadow 2 we felt a bit more confident and didn't have that fear."
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 is the final game in the Lords of Shadow series and will conclude the saga's storyline. Developer MercurySteam has confirmed that the game will be its last contribution to the Castlevania franchise.
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 launches on February 25 for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC. For more information about the game, check out GameSpot's recent preview.
Bethesda releases an eight minute trailer for Elder Scrolls Online featuring a glimpse of Cyrodiil, From Software tells us how Dark Souls is getting harder, and why did Nintendo's CEO slash his salary in half?
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Join us over the next few days as we look at all of the leading games consoles and platforms out right now and try to convince you why you should spend your hard-earned cash. Today we're looking at the PS4, with Mark Walton telling you why it's the next-gen console of choice.
You've got three options when it comes to buying a next-generation (current generation?) console, but the PlayStation 4 is great one. It's sleek, powerful, and--most importantly--all about the games. It's even got an online service offers more than just access to online multiplayer, with Instant Game Collection giving you access to a host of great games as part of PlayStation Plus. And with sales already reaching 4.2 million units worldwide, you'll find plenty of friends to play online with too.
The Library
Having only been around a few months, the PS4's line-up of games might be a little sparse, but there's still plenty to keep you entertained. On the exclusive side there's Killzone: Shadow Fall, which--for all its faults--is an impressive showcase of the PS4's power, and offers up some mighty fine multiplayer gaming to boot. Then there's Knack... actually, the less said about that little doozie the better.
The brilliant Resogun is free to PS Plus subscribers.
More fun are the PS4's many indie titles, the best of which is Resogun, an old-school shoot-em-up dressed up in some very pretty voxels. It's got that "just one more go" arcade vibe about it that makes the hours fly by, and I've lost count of the time I've ploughed into it trying to land a perfect run and top the high scores on my friends list. Also worth checking out are the excellent Flower and Sound Shapes. They might be available on PS3 and Vita as well, but they're still wonderfully unique games that you can't get outside of a Sony platform.
There's all the usual cross-platform stuff to dig into too, with the likes of Assassin's Creed IV, FIFA 14, and Call Of Duty: Ghosts featuring noticeable graphical improvements over their last-generation versions. And let's not forget that the PS4 has been topping the Xbox One's visuals, most famously of all with COD: Ghosts, a game that runs natively at 1080p on Sony's machine and at an upscaled 720p on Microsoft's.
Upcoming Games
Let's face it though, if you fancied any of the launch games you'd have jumped on the next-gen bandwagon already. It's what's coming up that makes the PS4 a worthy buy, and there are some great-looking exclusives on the way. Sucker Punch's inFamous: Second Son is looking particularly tasty, with the series' trademark super powers and open-world action getting a crisp visual overhaul and some neat new power sets. Then there's the likes of Driveclub, Shadow Of The Beast, and The Order: 1886 on the way, not to mention whatever Naughty Dog has in store for Uncharted 4.
inFamous: Second Son leads a great lineup of upcoming games on PS4.
Sony's active courting of indie developers has landed it some great-looking timed exclusives too, with the stunning-looking adventure Rime and the wonderfully cheesy Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number both making their console debut on PS4. I'm particularly excited for The Witness, a Myst-like take on the puzzle game created by Jonathan Blow, the man behind the brilliant Braid.
We don't yet know for certain if cross-platform games like Watch Dogs, Tom Clancy's The Division, Mad Max, and Destiny are going to look their best on PS4, although the furore over the likes of COD: Ghosts and Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition certainly suggest that's going to be the case. Plus, there's a six-month timed exclusive on Watch Dogs DLC to look forward to too.
The Hardware
The PS4 has a sleek monolithic vibe about it that just screams cool. It's small and quiet, even with its handy integrated power supply, and its unassuming exterior makes it look right at home in an AV rack. As far as cost goes, it might not be as cheap as a Wii U, but the PS4 is certainly cheaper than an Xbox One, even when you factor a game into the cost.
The PS4 is a great-looking console and the controller is vast improvement over the Dual Shock 3.
Even if you weren't a fan of Sony's Dual Shock 3 controller, it's worth checking out the Dual Shock 4: it's a wonderful thing. The improvements to its grips, analogue sticks, and size make it a far better to use than its predecessor, and there's the potential to do great things with the DS4's touch pad too, even if they haven't quite materialised in the current crop of games.
If you're holding out for a price drop or a hardware revision, don't expect to see either in 2014. With its already small size, it'll be a while before the chips can be scaled down enough to make a smaller box, and with sales going so well at the moment, a price drop is unlikely. Basically, if you jump on board now, an immanent price drop won't be burning you in the near future.
Other Stuff
Want to access services like Netflix or BBC iPlayer? PS4 gives you access to their respective apps for free without having to subscribe to PlayStation Plus on top your existing media subscriptions. You still need to pay for PS Plus to play online, but it's great value thanks to free games that Sony puts up every month as part of Instant Game Collection. The likes of Resogun, Contrast, and Outlast (in the UK) are already part of the deal on PS4, and if you own a PS3 or Vita, you can use the same subscription there to net you even more games. They're big games too, with the likes of Bioshock Infinite and Borderlands 2 up for grabs.
Vita owners can also make use of Remote Play, which lets you play PS4 games on your Vita provided both devices are on the same network. Unlike with the PS3, Remote Play is being built into almost every game on the PS4 (the exception being those that use the PS4 camera), so you can continue playing, even if the living room TV is suddenly needed for a Breaking Bad marathon.
The PS4's UI is swift, clear, and a joy to use.
When it comes to day to day use, the PS4 is a great experience. The user interface is swift and clear, with everything just where you'd expect it to be. Then there's the excellent home screen that instantly gives you updates on what your friends are up to, letting you jump onto their online sessions, or see their latest high scores at a glance. Plus, you can stream straight to Twitch and UStream on PS4 with just the push of a button.
The PS4 is well-built machine, with a thoughtful UI and a lineup of great games. But it's what's coming up that makes it so enticing, with everything from exciting big budget blockbusters to unique indie experiences hitting the console soon. If you've been sitting on the fence waiting for something more than the launch lineup, 2014 is the time to make the jump to PS4.
There's a lot to be said for fan service and its role in entertainment. Providing material that speaks directly to an audience with a specific love and appreciation of a given source provides a palpable sense of private-club-like inclusion, allowing fans to feel connected through their shared interest whether they're in the same room or on the other side of the world. Rather than feel isolated and frustrated by an undying love for a given movie, character, comic, or novel, the existence of indulgence-orientated products makes us feel part of something bigger--there are people out there who like this stuff as much as I do. The Ultimate Ninja series has always taken this idea to heart, concentrating its focus to a laser point that other franchises would never dare to attempt for fear of alienating all but the most dedicated of followers. If you're part of the club, then such single-mindedness is great. If you're not, then don't let the door hit you on the way out.
Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 Full Burst is perhaps the most extreme example yet of Namco Bandai's attempt to appeal to the converted and only to the converted. Here's a game not simply for any old Naruto fan, but for Naruto fans who are completely up to date with the story and characters as they currently exist in the anime/manga episodes and are seeking a new way of experiencing previously explored plotlines. If you're not up to date, then not only are you going to struggle enormously with the story as depicted in the game's early stages, but you're going to ruin what you've not yet seen of the TV series. Unfortunately, due to gameplay that is as unwieldy and bloated as its title, Full Burst is not an acceptable way to get yourself up to date with this franchise.
With so many characters, the story is all but impossible to follow without intimate knowledge of prior events.
This may be a beat-'em-up, but the primary Ultimate Adventure mode features so little gameplay in comparison to cutscenes and dialogue-heavy exposition that you'd be forgiven for thinking you're sitting through a barely interactive (albeit combat-heavy) soap opera. It feels as though developer CyberConnect2's plan was to create a condensed edition of the anime in which fight scenes are playable, rather than create a game in its own right. This leads to an experience that features such haphazard and irregular pacing that your principal cause for intrigue rests in trying to work out just how long it's going to be before the game asks you to pick up the controller again--and even when you do, the core combat is a shallow, button mashing affair that requires little in the way of skill. While there's definite and worthwhile value in repackaging the events of a beloved series in a new format, there's also value in a game giving you something to do.
There may be a lack of interaction in story mode, but that doesn't hold true for the package as a whole. Including all of the downloadable content released for the original Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja 3 release, the volume of content on offer is gargantuan. Chief among the additions is the extra Ultimate Adventure chapter, which sees Sasuke and Itachi Uchiha take on the nefarious Sage Kabuto, a segment that is so phenomenally difficult in comparison to the rest of the game that all previously learned tactics become essentially redundant. The same Sage Kabuto is unlockable as a playable character if you have the patience to jump through the numerous hoops to unlock him, and there are also some new costumes to swoon over.
Sage Kabuto is a new and unlockable character, but less interesting to control than he looks.
The biggest, but certainly not most interesting, piece of extra content comes in the form of supplementary challenge missions. One hundred of these have you beating an opponent in a fight while handicapped in some way--removing your ability to jump, for example, or setting a limit on the number of attacks at your disposal. While these missions do add some welcome variety to the combat, they primarily serve to highlight just how shallow the core mechanics are. Without these externally shoehorned twists on battle, fighting suffers from an overwhelming shallowness that sees you engage autopilot once the basics become second nature. Only during set-piece boss battles are you asked to do something out of the ordinary.
To compound matters, the most members of the enormous character roster plays in the same way. You swap between characters regularly during Ultimate Adventure, but this is done predominantly to facilitate the narrative rather than to spice up gameplay through variety and diversity. Granted, significant and impressive visual flair is achieved by switching often between characters with attacks that are literally out of this world, but that aesthetic quality doesn't remain interesting long enough for the combat inadequacies to be forgiven. Clearly, this is not a game with the remotest desire to cement its place in the bastion of hardcore fighting game legacy, but that doesn't excuse the fact that there's so little meat to the gameplay that you're essentially feasting on elaborately painted bones.
Similar problems exist with Ultimate Adventure's role-playing-game-lite elements, which allow you to roam around a number of different environments with a view to collecting and buying items to use in combat (health potions, strength buffs, and so on) and optionally talking to loitering non-player characters. At times, these moments provide a welcome break from the cutscene/fight/cutscene pattern, but more often than not, they feel designed to artificially lengthen the game and trick you into thinking you're playing something with genuine genre-blending aspirations.
The Sasuke/Itachi vs. Sage Kabuto battle is the most difficult in the game.
The closest comparison to this format is Asura's Wrath, another of CyberConnect2's offerings. However, where Asura's Wrath succeeds in this style of storytelling thanks to its short length and ferocious pace, Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 suffers from attempting to cover far too much ground for the core mechanics to handle. If you do classify yourself as a Naruto aficionado, then simply having another medium through which to consume the narrative is potentially going to be enough to satisfy you. Without a doubt, everyone else should look elsewhere.
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The Xbox One has a strong library of titles, exclusives, Kinect 2.0, and an enhanced TV watching experience. Maxwell makes the argument for buying an Xbox One in 2014.
Silent Hill 3 running at 1080p via PCSX2. Is this what PS2 emulation on PS4 could look like? Image credit: Alex Townshend on the Silent Hill Community forums.
A new report on Digital Foundry has said that the PlayStation 4 will gain the ability to locally emulate PS1 and PS2 titles.
The anonymous source, reported to be working on Sony's PlayStation Now streaming technology, says that the cloud streaming tech is only currently scheduled to support PlayStation 3 titles for now.
Sony's internal emulator is already used on the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita, but the incarnation in the works for PlayStation 4 is said to be aiming for the ability to run the games in native HD resolutions. This would offer a distinct visual advantage over the current PS1/PS2 upscaling, and open up visual options seen in emulators like PCSX2. Running classic PlayStation games locally on your PS4 would also mean that any of the potential downsides of streaming--such as input lag--would be non-existent.
PlayStation Now is expected to launch in the US this summer, and was announced at the start of 2014. So far the service has been only been shown running PlayStation 3 titles, predominantly Naughty Dog's excellent The Last of Us.
Broadcasting live from Infinity Ward, GameSpot will team up with Call of Duty developers to help you get prepared for the upcoming Double XP weekend. We'll start off by playing through some multiplayer then we'll wrap up by showing off the first in a four-part episodic narrative for the DLC, Episode 1: Nightfall.
Stay tuned to the GameSpot Twitter and our Facebook page and use the hashtag #onslaught to learn how you can get involved!
Examining ancient relics is just one small aspect of an archeologist's job. Sure, in-depth knowledge of deceased civilizations is important, but much less so than mastery of a deadly bow or a knack for a quick recovery after a bloody fight. Excitement defines the actions of an adventurous archeologist, no matter how reluctant you might be to bear arms, and you see this chaotic lifestyle through the eyes of perpetual survivor Lara Croft. Her life is one of bloodshed and misery, strength peppered with pain, and as she overcomes every crushing setback, she learns what kind of person she truly is. Such endeavors are so fantastical that her story of emotional growth is often overshadowed by the wildly unrealistic events, but the overwhelming beauty of the island is so gripping, and the exploration so expertly designed, that you become invested in Lara Croft's incredible journey.
The Definitive Edition of Tomb Raider is a lot like Lara Croft's excellent adventure from last year, only with enhanced visuals and extra features. Just about all of the downloadable content from the 2013 release is now located right on the disc. There are a host of new multiplayer maps to gun down your friends (or enemies) in, weapons pulled straight from Hitman: Absolution, and a handful of new characters to play as. Single player hasn't been ignored, either. One new tomb lets you flex your puzzle-solving muscle, and a variety of outfits give you more stylistic flexibility. Have you ever wanted Lara to dress like a 1930s explorer? Now's your chance! None of these additions are all that interesting, so if you've already played through Tomb Raider on an older console, there's little incentive to jump in again. Unless, that is, you love voice communication. Both the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 versions support commands, so just saying "map" or "pistol" immediately does what you'd expect. It's not the most novel functionality, but at least it works.
Lara Croft is a junior member of a small crew searching for the remains of a lost kingdom that mysteriously vanished. Her companions encompass typical archetypes that are at once recognizable and forgettable. There's the scientifically minded man who wears glasses and shirts with geeky puns, the muscled fisherman who defies his impressive physique by repeatedly showing just how sensitive he is, and a stoic mercenary who's also a long-term mentor to Lara. Their names don't matter, because with such little development of their personalities, you quickly forget who they were as soon as they're offscreen. This tired cast is thrust into a story filled with equally tired tropes, so you rarely care about the overarching events.
It's unfortunate how poor so much of the exposition is, because Lara herself is well defined. She starts out as a strong-headed recent graduate determined to scout unexplored lands in search of this lost civilization, but quickly realizes the terrible predicament she's in when things go awry. You understand her unwillingness to believe the terrible events that have transpired, and feel as squeamish as she does when she's forced to kill an attacker. Killing eventually becomes commonplace for Lara, and though it's hard to accept how quickly she adjusts to this bloody lifestyle, her anxious cries during battle and exhausted collapses afterward make you see the scared person hiding beneath the surface. And when she finally cracks halfway through the adventure, shifting from someone fighting to defend herself to a person clearly on the offensive, you understand that, too, because everyone has a breaking point.
Her shift from wide-eyed adventurer to full-fledged killer makes sense, and that's precisely why it's so uncomfortable. We're forced to put ourselves in her shoes, question how we would respond to attacks on our lives, and wonder if we'd be able to fight when it would be so much easier to surrender. Smart pacing ensures that there is plenty of time to examine what transpired in that last deadly fight. With only a half dozen or so attackers, most battles are over before you get lulled into a rhythm that demands you turn off your moral leanings. So you scavenge for a while, explore the environments, and then face five minutes of chaos and screaming before you're once again left by yourself. Such deliberate and rare steps into bloodshed make every fight so much more effective and emotionally taxing. As smartly as Tomb Raider handles its rare forays into combat, it does a poor job of showing death. Lara is tortured in such sensational ways that it's downright gratuitous, as if the game is reveling in her torment.
The overwhelming beauty of the island is so gripping, and the exploration so expertly designed, that you become invested in Lara Croft's incredible journey.
Lara has no fear of being dangerously close to flames in very cramped places.
Thankfully, you can avoid such glorification if you want. Just don't die! Though that's often easier said than done. The early moments of Tomb Raider, and many other sections sprinkled throughout the adventure, are composed of quick-time events in which one mistimed button press leads to an immediate end. Often, these brief sequences are a welcome change of pace. When you're ambushed on a narrow bridge, or are running away from an avalanche, your heart races, and these sequences end quickly enough so that you don't get weighed down by your lack of input. However, by cramming so many QTEs in the first 10 minutes, the game makes you wade through tedious encounters before everything opens up. It's a shame that the early sections are so dry, because the rest of Lara's trip is full of excitement, but it's a small price to pay for the graphical brilliance these sections carry with them.
From the opening moments, Tomb Raider showcases its gorgeous visual design. Yes, the Definitive Edition sports better textures, lighting, and a variety of other technical effects than its PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 counterparts, but it's the art style that makes you want to venture deeper into this haunted island. As Lara picks her way through a claustrophobic cave, or hunts deer in a forest bursting with life, you feel as if you're a part of this world. Summit a mountain and then look toward the horizon; the delicate light streaming through the clouds creates a sense of romantic wonder that would please any couple on their honeymoon. This is a stunning game that shows how technical expertise can enhance artistic brilliance, and vice versa, as just about every element draws you ever more into Lara's world. The odd hiccups, such as flames that defy reality, stand out amid the well-realized look that seeps into just about every other element.
And you have plenty of time to admire the view. Lara travels through many different sections of the expansive map, and almost every one is a small-scale open environment. Hidden goodies are sprinkled throughout; some add details to the backstory, and others let you examine ancient treasures. Though none of them have much of a tangible impact, the sheer joy of uncovering their hiding places is endlessly satisfying. Tools that you gain throughout the adventure open up more pieces of the environment, letting you pull down structures with a rope arrow, blast through doors with a shotgun, and overcome other roadblocks as well. This encourages you to revisit sections to ferret out every lost doodad, and I spent hours just trampling through the environment in search of condor nests and flags.
Come on, Lara, stop and smell the trees and worry about surviving later.
There are optional tombs to plunder as well. It's strange that a game titled Tomb Raider places so little emphasis on, well, raiding, but the bite-size side quests certainly add a nice puzzle-solving element. Tombs hide elaborate mechanical structures that need to be appropriately manipulated in order to make your way through them. You may have to balance a platform with weighted barrels or use the power of wind just right, and there's a thrilling rush when you figure out what needs to be done. Granted, many of these areas contain only one or two puzzles, so you may spend only five or so minutes in one before you find the treasure at the end. But even though they're brief, they provide a nice detour that urges you to use your cunning along with your various abilities to discover every secret.
Such deliberate and rare steps into bloodshed make every fight so much more effective and emotionally taxing.
Eventually, you have to pull your attention from burial masks to the armed men attacking you. Lara has a vulnerability that leads to a quick end if you get hit more than a couple of times, so combat is built on smart movement and steely precision in the face of danger. By standing near chest-high barriers, Lara automatically crouches safely out of harm's way, though don't expect to stand your ground as your killers swarm toward you. With Molotov cocktails and well-positioned shots, attackers make you pay for standing still, so you must be as fast on your feet as you are with your trigger finger. Roll from one pillar to the next, or climb up to higher ground to relish a brief moment of respite. Enemies pursue you, leaving themselves exposed as they try to mimic your motions, and it's satisfying to loose an arrow or pick them off with a pistol as they stumble clumsily behind you. There are some silly moments, such as when you merely wait for a dumb guy to stick his head out from cover, but combat is so fast and exciting that such missteps are easy to overlook.
Part of the reason the combat enthralls from beginning to end is how brief fights are. With only a few enemies present in most fights, you can eliminate threats within a few minutes, so you're back exploring the impressive locales in no time. That makes you appreciate each encounter all the more, and there is enough variety so that every fight feels different. You may approach a camp in the dead of night and have the choice to pick enemies off stealthily or take your chances with a full-out rush, or, in another scenario, you're hanging upside down in a snare while enemies rush toward you. Other times you're rolling around in a room with destructible pillars, or plunging through a burning building, and every fight requires a slightly different approach. This variety helps keep the fights exciting. Plus, even though you have a standard assortment of guns, the bow proves to be both more satisfying to use and more challenging. Taking out someone with the bow with one perfectly logged headshot feels so empowering that I deliberately fought without guns so that every fight could be as exciting as possible.
A gun? How gouche.
Unfortunately, while the single-player exploits are both inventive and exciting, when you venture into multiplayer, things lose that glow. Everything here feels fine. Sticking an arrow right through someone's head is just as satisfying here as it is against an AI opponent, and there are even traps to stop unsuspecting players in their tracks. But it's all so expected. Whereas the solo quest veered from the norms in interesting ways, such as by offering fully explorable environments and putting such a small emphasis on combat, the multiplayer just recycles much of what has become the standard in competitive arenas. Sure, there isn't anything inherently wrong with such uninspired battles, but it's a shame there aren't more interesting elements to wrestle away your attention from other games out there.
What's most remarkable about Tomb Raider is how its many elements so perfectly complement each other, so that no matter which activity you're currently engaged in, you're fully invested. Even the straightforward platforming, in which Lara's sticky hands ensure there's little chance of failure, is thrilling thanks to brief quick-time events that keep your mind focused on even your smallest actions. There are two things that hit me when I first played Tomb Raider last year, and then resurfaced when I played through the Definitive Edition, that cement this as one of my recent favorites. Lara herself is so well crafted that I grew attached to her exploits and was sad to say goodbye when the credits rolled. And the exquisite visual design is so breathtaking that I continually found myself staring at the scenery instead of pushing onward. Tomb Raider is a great reinvention of this enduring franchise that made me eager to see where Lara goes in her future.
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New documents supplied by former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden to The New York Times show that the the NSA and its British counterpart have the ability to collect data stemming from "leaky" mobile apps like Angry Birds.
The agencies do this not by targeting the apps themselves, but rather by intercepting third-party advertising profiles, mining them for information, and then comparing against their own list of intelligence targets, the documents show. The government agencies have the capability to snoop in this manner, and have for years, but it's not clear how prevalent the practice might be or if any terrorist plots have been thwarted as a result.
In the case of Angry Birds, a 20-page British report dated 2012 specifies the computer code necessary for vacuuming up user profiles that appear when Android users play Angry Birds. It's no surprise the NSA has targeted Angry Birds, as the game has been downloaded 2 billion times and is played by 200 million people on a monthly basis.
Rovio's own Privacy Policy posted on its website explains that the company may collect personal user data, but not for children under the age of 13. A Rovio spokesperson told The New York Times that the company has no knowledge of the American and British intelligence efforts, "nor do we have any involvement with the organizations."
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